(NEWZIMBABWE) Tsvangirai’s state of the nation address
24/01/2014 00:00:00
by Morgan Tsvangirai
COMMENT - Not acknowledging the outcome of a democratic elections shows you have no democratic credentials. - MrK
BELOW is the full address on the state of the country’s economy delivered by MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai in Harare on Friday, January 24, 2014
Introduction
Six months after the July 31 event, the national economy is bleeding as Zimbabweans come to terms with the reality of yet another stolen election. Our erstwhile colleagues in government have violated the national faith and trust in the human spirit. Even after we took a bold decision to rescue the people from the brink in 2008, they repaid us by subverting the will of the people and heading for the precipice with the whole nation’s fate on their back.
The true results of that election are the difficulties we face today, not the fudged figures announced in August 2013.
The current parlous state of the economy is the true result of that stolen election and nobody in government appears to care a hoot about the direction the country is taking and the hardships ordinary Zimbabweans are experiencing every day. In fact, the strategy is to impoverish the people so that there is no accountability for the corruption that has taken place.
The year 2014 is likely to be a tough year as evidenced by the economic paralysis. What is saddening is that even in this crisis of monumental proportions, some have sought to prioritize personal circumstances and family issues. Given the problems we are facing as a nation, the personal circumstances of individuals, whatever their status in society, pale into insignificance compared with the hardships facing Zimbabweans in the villages, on the farms, on the mines and in the urban areas.
Personal circumstances cannot overshadow the national crisis and the daily tribulations of ordinary Zimbabweans in Tsholotsho, Muzarabani, Binga and Chipinge. The national picture is saddening. Our industry is quiet and there is no production taking place there, the recently announced budget proved to be a major non-event as there is not even a pledge to fund the productive sector while the Zanu PF government is struggling even to raise civil servants’ salaries with no single cent left to do anything else.
Despite the pledge to award our hard-working civil servants PDL-aligned salaries, we saw paltry increments far much less than the PDL being announced early this week. In a normal society, given the current state of the economy and the hardships facing the people, one would have expected government to be in a panic mode and starting to take measures to reassure a restive nation that they are in control. But Cabinet is yet to meet this year, even in the middle of this huge crisis. The President even has the luxury to go on leave. At some other occasion, this would have been laughable, were it not so tragic.
State of the economy
The country’s productive sector is virtually dead and there has been zero financial commitment to revive economic production. It is difficult to conceive how government could project a growth rate of 6.1 percent given the comatose state of local industry and the productive sector. Statistics show that some 300 companies have closed since the gigantic flawed election of July 31, 149 companies have applied for liquidation while reports indicate that some 300 people are being retrenched every week. And all this is happening against Zanu PF’s election promises of creating over two million jobs in the next five years.
The liquidity crunch has meant that there is no difference between a millionaire and one with a mere $100 in their bank account because both cannot access their money.
The Budget
The budget belatedly presented in December was a huge fallacy, with no meaningful resources committed to fund it. Last week, I made observations to MDC MPs that we have three different sets of documents prepared by the same party in government but with different priorities. The documents are simply not speaking to each other.
ZimAsset, the Zanu PF election manifesto and the budget all have different priorities but are supposed to be implemented by the same party in government. The budget has wrong assumptions and celebrates the informal sector to which this clueless government has committed $100 million at the expense of the formal sector. The economy has been informalized and we do not dispute that the majority of the people are in the informal sector, but no economy in the world has been driven or spearheaded by the informal sector.
Where Zimbabweans expected leadership and boldness from government, the budget was testimony to the mediocrity and bankruptcy of ideas in Zanu PF.
Humanitarian crisis
There is a serious humanitarian crisis in the country, with hunger affecting all the provinces. The disturbing aspect is the partisan distribution of food where other Zimbabweans are being denied food aid and farming inputs because of their political affiliation. I have travelled in the provinces, meeting ordinary Zimbabweans who have expressed concern over the biased distribution of food aid by government.
Proposals on the way forward
In light of the problems facing the nation, we hereby propose the following eight steps to legitimacy, beginning with political dialogue that must discuss and agree on political, economic and social reforms that will ensure a free and fair election that should usher in a legitimate government that will then deal with the crisis we face.
The political solution
National Dialogue/ Political settlement
It is important to appreciate that the underlying cause of our current predicament is the disputed election. The solution is unconditional dialogue. But that dialogue must be cognizant of the inherent mistrust created by Zanu PF in the days of the inclusive government.
Of concern is, even if an agreement is arrived at, who is going to guarantee its implementation? But there is no doubt that our situation demands sincere dialogue by a broad section of stakeholders, from political parties to the church, labour, industry, students and civic society, among others. Some of us have been involved in dialogue before in order to save this country and we appreciate the importance of dialogue.
While the MDC and I have done our national duty of forming a coalition government to save the people and got betrayed in the process, it is my sincere belief that the political dialogue will assist in developing national consensus on how to move the country forward.
Faced with a similar crisis in 2008, we engaged in dialogue and we carved out a home-grown solution to the problems bedeviling our country. There is no substitute for dialogue. As MDC, we believe that meeting of stakeholders from different backgrounds would be a positive start.
Political Reforms
There is need to institute comprehensive institutional reforms that will enable free, fair and credible polls to take place in the country. In the MDC’s widely-circulated report of how the 2013 election was rigged, we note that the election was heavily militarized. We also noted the abuse of traditional leaders and the role played by the security forces to further the interests of Zanu PF in violation of the new Constitution which explicitly urges the security services sector not to further or prejudice the interests of any political party.
Most importantly, we need to ensure that ZEC is truly independent to enable it to execute its Constitutional mandate. Zimbabweans expect and will demand the institutional transformation of all state organs in line with the dictates of the new people’s charter as a prerequisite for the return to legitimacy and confidence.
All laws must be aligned to the new Constitution. It is our wish as Zimbabweans for the State and all its institutions to respect and abide by the Constitution as a major starting point for our journey to legitimacy.
Short-term economic recovery measures
On the economy, the country needs to mobilize resources to fund the productive sector in order to put back the economy on the rails. It is our hope that we must have a government that inspires confidence nationally and internationally to encourage Foreign Direct Investment and Overseas Development Assistance.
We need as a country to review our economic policies so as to attract investment, empower the people through job creation and kick-starting production to ensure economic growth. To improve and engender growth in this economy, we have to review some of our policies such as indigenization in its current form which drive away investors and Overseas Development Assistance, which this economy desperately need.
We all want Zimbabweans empowered, not through cutting our nose to spite our face, but by ensuring that we encourage investment so that we improve the economy, create jobs, widen our tax base and empower the people of Zimbabwe in the process. We need to call for more transparency on our precious minerals, particularly diamonds, so that revenues arising there-from play a part in growing our economy and improving the lives of the people of Zimbabwe.
Corruption
We note that the biggest threat to this economy is corruption as recently exposed in the nauseating benefits and perks of senior staff at quasi-State institutions such as the ZBC and the PSMAS. Unchecked corruption has been the result of the incapacitation of the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission.
In the case of the PSMAS, over a million people will go without health care as a result of graft and unmitigated corruption. As long as we don’t give the Anti-Corruption Commission teeth to enable it to execute its constitutional mandate, corruption, especially by the powerful and politically-connected, will remain a cancer to this economy.
Social delivery
Health
The health sector, which had virtually collapsed in 2008, had been greatly revived under the stewardship of the MDC in the inclusive government. The Health Transition Fund had gone a long way in giving some modicum of decency to our hospitals, which had virtually shut down in 2008. In the recent budget, public hospitals were awarded $23, 8 million against debts of $36,4 million accrued in 2013, which means they have been given nothing as they still have an outstanding debt of $12,6 million if they are to use the whole of this year’s allocation to pay service providers they owe for services rendered.
This is simply tragic. There is need to prioritize health care and it is important in this regard to ensure that our partners with whom we had established the Health Transition Fund be brought back to assist in this crucial sector.
Education
The Education Transition Fund, through which we distributed over 13 million textbooks for our schools during our era in the inclusive government, is now a thing of the past. We heard two weeks ago that one million students will not go to school this term because the Government has failed to provide enough financial support under the Basic Education Assistance Model (BEAM).
The MDC’s alternative Cabinet last week spent five grueling hours discussing this and other challenges facing the nation. The MDC has simply taken a position that education is a basic right as now enshrined in our Constitution. Every one of all those million souls has a right to be in school. Their basic right to education is now enshrined in the new Constitution, our supreme law of the land for which, as a nation we have expended blood, sweat and tears in order to achieve.
This government has no option but to abide by the Constitution and ensure all those children are in school as a matter of urgency. We ought to ensure that the Education Transition Fund is restored to enable our students to go to equipped schools and colleges. We have to restore BEAM because we cannot afford as a nation to have one million students out of school. To allow such a large number of students to be out of school would be both criminal and a dastardly act of academic genocide.
Energy
A severe energy crisis has gripped this country; it’s debilitating effect affecting various sectors of the economy from households to companies. At the core of our economic problems is the acute shortage of power but this government appears to be out of its depth to complete the projects we had started during the inclusive government to increase local power generation. We need a robust roadmap to a solution on the power crisis which has affected all sectors of the economy.
Water and Sanitation
There is a dire water situation in all the major cities and we face a high risk to the dangers of cholera, typhoid and other communicable diseases. The populist Zanu PF decision to cancel all debts to the tune of millions of dollars in all local authorities means that all the councils, the majority of them controlled by the MDC, are broke. This has encouraged defaulters and acted as a dis-incentive to those who were paying their rates.
I had a meeting last Friday with all mayors and council chairpersons elected on the MDC ticket and I heard horrendous stories of how they are struggling to offer basic services. The populist decision to cancel debts has returned to haunt local authorities as almost all of them cannot afford even to pay salaries, let alone to fund service delivery.
One council is now collecting about $900 000 in revenue every month against a salary bill of $1,7 million, meaning there is nothing with which to fund service delivery. We are cruising on the inner lane to the disaster of 2008 because of these populist policies which are now starving our local authorities of the much-needed money so that they are able to offer basic services.
Infrastructure rehabilitation
We must begin to put in place measures for the commencement of massive infrastructure rehabilitation of key but dilapidated infrastructure as roads, and railways, among others.
Global Engagement
The regional bloc, SADC, the AU and some members of the broader international community may have prematurely endorsed the July 31st election and its outcome, but it has since dawned on some of them that this election was stolen and we encourage them to support the national call for fresh, free and fair elections underpinned by comprehensive reforms.
The AU and SADC observer mission reports noted serious irregularities that did not inform their conclusions. The reports noted serious breaches that would be unacceptable in other SADC and AU countries.
This country cannot afford to be isolated. We have to engage everyone, the West, the East and everyone else as this isolation is not in the best interests of Zimbabwe. There is need for a sustained programme of global engagement but what must start is the cleaning of our own house first. We have to respect human rights and shun those human rights abuses that brought restrictive measures on some individuals in the country.
As we speak, Last Maengahama and two others have been detained at Chikurubi for almost two years without trial while one of our activists died in detention before her trial. An immediate cessation of abuse of human rights and the putting of our own house in order will be the basis for global engagement if Zimbabwe is to rejoin the family of nations once again.
National Social Cohesion
As a leader denied victory in the last election, it is my duty to restate that that there are serious crises of legitimacy and leadership in the country. We are all patriotic Zimbabweans despite our diversity. No single individual or political party has a monopoly on patriotism. This country urgently needs national healing so that we can harness our diverse energies for the national good.
As a country, we have faced several traumatic experiences and we need national cohesion, healing and unity if we are to move this country forward. The MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai are working for the well-being of this nation and its people. We may have different political beliefs but this is our country and that is why today we are coming with proposals that will improve the lives of the people of Zimbabwe.
Conducting a fresh, credible election
The seventh and last step on the way forward is the implementation of key reforms ahead of the holding of a fresh election. I want to restate that the only way forward, given the current economic status is a return to legitimacy and confidence which can only be achieved through a fresh election underpinned by comprehensive reforms in all sectors.
After comprehensive economic and political reform and global engagement, the mechanics of which will be agreed through national dialogue, Zimbabwe could be ready for a truly free and fair election which can usher in a legitimate government that can begin to address the huge crisis we are faced with as a country.
The forthcoming by-elections
Before any comprehensive reforms are undertaken, it is futile to engage in any kind of election such as the three by-elections slated for this coming weekend. These by-elections are likely to breed the same contested outcome as long as the contentious issues around election management are not resolved.
Without far-reaching reforms, any election in this country, however small, will always breed a contested outcome.
Conclusion
What we wish for in the country can only happen if we all dispense with arrogance and a mistaken belief that the whole world can go hang. When an economy loses $1 billion in a matter of weeks, as Zimbabwe did soon after the grand theft of July 31, drastic measures have to be taken to bring back trust, confidence, legitimacy and most importantly, hope.
I wish to restate that the long-term solution to our problems is to ensure that the current environment is overhauled, that ZEC becomes truly independent, that we undertake comprehensive political reforms and ensure that the environment is truly conducive to ensuring that the people are allowed to give a fresh mandate to a new government through a free and fair election.
We will as a country engender hope if, regardless of our diversity, we work towards a lasting solution by providing interim relief while we organize for a fresh ballot underpinned by comprehensive reforms.
We must continue knocking on the door of possibility until we achieve our national dream. Power without character is meaningless. We shall continue to fight all manifestations of the unbridled pursuit of power retention for power’s sake that has nothing to do with the people. We have always known as a party that the struggle was not going to be a stroll in the park. We have remained resolute in our quest to achieve and deliver change through democratic means. Some may be fatigued and may have begun to lose faith in the ballot.
We know we have a covenant with the people which we shall not betray. We will remain steadfast in our quest to bring prosperity, hope and dignity to the people of Zimbabwe.
I want to assure the people that their investment in the MDC is not misplaced. The MDC remains alive to its obligation and generational mandate to deliver real change and transformation to the people of Zimbabwe.
I want to assure you that the party is united, alive and well. We are focused as leadership on delivering on our agenda and we are impervious to the shrill cries of those who want to kill this people’s project.
The MDC and its leadership remain a happy family of democrats committed to delivering the people’s expectations of positive change in their lives. I remain greatly inspired, at a personal level, by Nelson Mandela and his tenacity and resilience to continue with his fight and struggle despite setbacks and frustrations.
Because of his inspiration, I have since taken a decision that whatever is done by enemies of this great people’s project will not break my spirit. Yes, they may needlessly continue to humiliate me, engage in protracted press wars against my person, batter me in a police station, kill innocent Zimbabweans and torture me and the millions who believe in democratic change.
All they may achieve is to slacken my pace but I can assure you they will not in any way weaken my resolve and determination for national service and sacrifice. I will continue to boldly stride with confidence and greater willpower in my quest to bring real change, democracy and positive transformation in Zimbabwe.
They may continue with their unbridled malice and open provocation, including stealing our vote in broad daylight as they did last year, but I tell you, they will not succeed in breaking our collective spirit.
In my case, I know for certain that they will not break my spirit. I want to conclude by assuring you that the change we seek will definitely be achieved in our lifetime.
I thank you
Labels: MDC, MORGAN TSANGIRAI, SPEECHES
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(NEWZIMBABWE) Full text: Mugabe's speech to 68th session of UN General Assembly
26/09/2013 00:00:00
by Robert Gabriel Mugabe
Statement by His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe during the general debate of the 68th session of the United Nations Generally Assembly, New York, on September 26, 2013:
Your Excellency, the President of the 68tb Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Mr. John William Ashe,
Your Majesties,
Your Excellences, Heads of State and Government,
Your Excellency, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-moon,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Comrades and Friends
Let me begin by extending warmest congratulations to you Mr. John William Ashe, on your election as President of the 68tb Session of the General Assembly. Your election to this esteemed office is a befitting tribute to the personal and diplomatic qualities that you have exhibited over the years.
Mr. President,
Throughout the world, peace and development have remained the dominant themes of our times. People all over the world have been raising their voices in favour of peace, development and cooperation and against war, poverty and confrontation. Here at the UN we all acknowledge that peace, security, development and human rights are the pillars of the UN system and the cornerstones of our collective well-being.
In this regard, the theme for this Session - The Post-2015 Agenda : Setting the Stage - is quite pertinent and timely as it gives fresh impetus to our undertaking that achieving the internationally agreed Development Goals, including the MDGs and mapping the way forward beyond 2015, requires our collective efforts. The UN, as the centre for international cooperation, should lead in promoting the envisaged development.
Mr. President,
Thirteen years ago, our global efforts were mobilised behind the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and we now have less that 1,000 days to meet those targets. Our review and stock taking exercise reveal that while there have been some significant achievements, there are still gaps and unevenness in the attainment of these goals. In the case of Zimbabwe, we have made progress towards achieving universal access to primary education, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB.
Some of the goals, however, are, due to lack of capacity, mainly financial, off track and in some areas, progress has stalled including in those areas relating to the eradication of poverty and hunger, child mortality, universal access to maternal and reproductive health, environmental sustainability and access to potable water and sanitation.
As a country, we are committed to undertake coordinated efforts to accelerate progress to complete the unfinished business of the MDGs in the remaining period to 2015. Any unachieved goals by then, should be integrated into the post-2015 development agenda.
Mr. President,
Zimbabwe fully shares and supports the emerging consensus that eradicating poverty in all its dimensions should be the overarching goal of our post 2015 agenda. Eradicating poverty by 2030 may be an ambitious goal, but it is attainable if we mobilise our collective efforts. Building on the foundation of the MDGs, the post 2015 agenda should go beyond the social development agenda of the MDGs and achieve structural transformation in our economies that delivers inclusive and sustainable growth.
We expect a shift that will bring about industrialisation, decent jobs and qualitative change to the lives of our citizens. We are determined to modernise our infrastructure and ensure access to sustainable energy for all, food security and nutrition. However, we recognise that we cannot do this in isolation from other partners.
In the same vein, we also support calls to prioritise gender equality, the health related MDGs, education and environmental sustainability in the post-2015 development agenda among other issues. These are critical issues in our quest to achieve sustainable development for all our people.
Mr. President,
The lofty objectives of the UN Charter in the economic arena will remain unfulfilled unless all Member States join in efforts genuinely and seriously, to address challenges that developing countries face in their pursuit of development including meeting the MDGs.
It is therefore imperative that our discussions address what has so far been the weakest link – the means of implementation. It must be understood that in addition to national efforts, substantial international support and an enabling international economic environment are essential if the MDGs are to be achieved by 2015 especially in Africa. It is therefore important to fulfil the commitments made to support Africa in various international fora. The UN should track the fulfilment of these commitments.
Mr. President,
Zimbabwe supports the reform of the UN to strengthen its central role in promoting multilateralism and to be effective in tackling current and future global challenges. We are convinced that the reform will strengthen the organisation's capacity to fully promote and implement the principles and objectives of the UN Charter and improve its democratic decision making.
In this regard, the reforms in the economic and social actions of the UN remain of fundamental importance to us. Our firm belief in multilateral cooperation means that we place a premium in the ability of the United Nations system to deliver efficient development co-operation.
The democratic transformation of the architecture of the international financial system is quintessential as is a root-and-branch reform of the international trading system. The terms of trade have hugely burdened developing countries for too long.
Mr. President,
Zimbabwe supports the ongoing efforts to revitalize the General Assembly which is the most representative organ of the United Nations. We believe that the General Assembly should take the lead in setting the global agenda and restore its primacy that has over the years been encroached upon by other organs.
We cannot accept situations whereby the UN Security Council is increasingly encroaching on issues that traditionally fall within the General Assembly's purview and competence, including in the area of norm setting.
Indeed, recent events have revealed that its formal decisions have provided camouflage to neo-imperialist forces of aggression seeking to militarily intervene in smaller countries in order to effect regime change and acquire complete control of their wealth. This was so in Libya where in the name of protecting civilians, NATO forces were deployed with an undeclared mission to eliminate Muammar Gaddafi and his family. A similar campaign had been undertaken in Iraq by the Bush and Blair forces in the false name of eradicating weapons of mass destruction which Saddam Hussein never possessed.
We appreciate the central role that UN should play in furthering multilateralism in preference to unilateralism. In this regard, we applaud the consultations and negotiations on the eventual destruction of the chemical weapons in Syria. My country expresses its gratitude and appreciation to Russia and China for their principled stand on Syria. We hope and trust that the Syrian people will soon sit in dialogue to discuss peace and desirable political reforms. Those western countries in pursuit of hegemony as they pretend to be advocates of democracy must be resisted.
Mr. President,
For Africa, the reform of the United Nations Security Council is especially long overdue. The anachronistic and unrepresentative character of the Security Council must be redressed. For how long should Africa continue to be denied the right to play a pivotal role in the United Nations Security Council as it decides measures on conflicts within its own borders?
The Security Council needs to be more representative, democratic, transparent, accountable and accessible to the wider membership for its decisions to have more legitimacy. Africa's case for the correction of the glaring historical injustice of being unrepresented in the permanent category and under-represented in the non-permanent category has been made through the clear, fair and well-articulated Ezulwini Consensus. Zimbabwe remains steadfast in its support of the Ezulwini demand.
Mr. President,
Zimbabwe strongly condemns the use of unilateral economic sanctions as a foreign policy tool to effect regime change. Thus, the illegal economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the United States and the European Union violate fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter on state sovereignty and non-interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state.
Moreover, these illegal sanctions continue to inflict economic deprivation and human suffering on all Zimbabweans. In the eyes of our people, the sanctions constitute a form of hostility and violence against them for the simple crime of undertaking the land reform programme by which land was put in the hands of the then majority landless Zimbabweans.
Our small and peaceful country is threatened daily by covetous and bigoted big powers whose hunger for domination and control of other nations and their resources knows no bounds. Shame, shame, shame to the United States of America. Shame, shame, shame to Britain and its allies. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans, so are its resources. Please remove your illegal and filthy sanctions from my peaceful country. If these sanctions were intended to effect regime change, well, the results of the recent national elections have clearly shown you what they can do.
Mr. President,
We are preached to daily by the west on the virtues of democracy and freedom which they do not totally espouse. Zimbabwe took up arms precisely to achieve our freedom and democracy. Yet we have been punished by United States through the odious Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act enacted in 2001 to effect regime change in the country.
Now, this malicious intent to continue the relentless persecution of our small and peaceful country has happened again through the USA's rejection of the recent absolutely democratic and fair election results of our July 31st general elections, even as they were applauded by the African Union and all our regional organisations.
It appears that when the USA and its allies speak of democracy and freedom they are doing so only in relative terms. Zimbabwe however refuses to accept that these western detractors have the right to define democracy and freedom for us. We paid the ultimate price for it and we are determined never to relinquish our sovereignty and remain masters of our destiny. As we have repeatedly asserted, Zimbabwe will never be a colony again!!
I thank you.
RGM
Labels: ROBERT MUGABE, SANCTIONS, SPEECHES, UN, ZDERA
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(SUNDAY MAIL ZW) Inside President Mugabe's memory bank
Sunday, 01 September 2013 11:52
President Mugabe
Yesterday, President Mugabe delivered a riveting account of the liberation struggle during the burial of Cde Kumbirai Kangai at the National Heroes' Acre. In the off-the-cuff speech, which captured the attention of many and left scores others awestruck by the President's sharp memory, Cde Mugabe delivered the account blow by blow. Today we publish the first of a two part series of the address.
Amai Kangai nemhuri yose yaVaKangai, Vice President Cde Joice Teurai Ropa Mujuru, National Chairman vedu, Cde Simon Khaya Moyo, Secretary vedu veAdministration, VaDydimus Mutasa, Nhengo dzePolitiburo ne Central Committee yeZanu-PF varipano, Maformer ministers varipano, Tichiyewukawo kuti tina former Deputy Prime Minster Professor Arthur Mutambara varipanowo, Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, Our service chiefs, Baba Mukonori nevafundisi vose varipano, Masenior civil servants, Representatives of the war veterans, ex-detainees, restrictees and war collaborators, Nhengo dzose dzemumusangano, Mastudent activists vauya pano, Vakamirira business community varipano, Mafarmers representatives varipano, Members of the diplomatic corps, Vanababa nanamai vose varikusvimha vatinavo, Ladies and gentlemen, comrades and friends.
Tauyazve panharaunda ino raakunge Dare reChimurenga. Tirikudanwa zuva nezuva. Avamatatu zvino mazuva achitevedzana nendufu dzirikuuyawo dzichitevedzana dzemagamba, vatinoti magamba echimurenga, vakazvipira kwenguva refu; kutambudzikira nyika yedu kuti ruzhinji ruzova nemagariro akanaka.
Hatipuhwe nguva refu imiwe. Vakataura Pastor patakaviga vaEnos Nkala pano kuti tinokanganwa kuti tiripazororo panaapa. Rwendo rwatinonzi tifambe rwakareba. Zvakatsinhirwa pano zvinoramba zvichitsinhirwa nevafundisi kuti rwendo rwedu nderwenyama. Rwenyama rwupfupi asi rwemweya ndorurefu rusingapere.
Ndakati rwatinoziva nderwe nyama. Rwunematambudziko atinoyedza kugadziridza. Nderwune matambudziko atakayedza kwenguva ndefu kuti vataive navo panguva iyoyo tichivaronga vatibatsire kuti tive nemusangano unozoita tigadziridze magariro edu; nyama yedu ive nemagariro akanaka.
Takanga tisingatarise nezvemberi tichiti “Kufa kunouya hongu. Asi tinemagariro atinosungirwa kugadziridza”. Hatingati nekuti remangwana richauya nemufaro unove wenyama ungarwadze zvawo.
Ungatambudze zvawo nyama toiregerera ichirwadziwa, ichiita zvirwere zvisingasungirwe kuvapo zvinokonzerwa nevamwe. Kwete. Takati kana. Kana avo vanokonzera kuti nyama yedu kwazvo kwazvo zvatinonzwa kuti hupenyu hupfupi uyu.
Tofanirwa kufaranukaka uye nemufaro inga tinaanachiremba wani vanotarisa kuti kana zviri zvirwere chaizvo izvo mishonga inenge iripo. Vamwe vanoenda kun’anga; hedzo dzokandira hakata. Kurikuenda kuti nyama iyi ifaranuke irege kuwana vanoitambudza kana vaya vanonzi varoyi.
Zvino yedu yakanga isiri nzira yehakata nokuti varoyi vataiziva ndevava vakanga vabva kunze vatitorera nyika yedu, mufaro wedu, minda yedu magariro edu ekuzvitonga.
Vatofanana nemavirus aya anopa disease. Tikati izvi zvinemushonga wazvowo. Mushonga ndewekuti isu tirikunzwa kurwadziwa, varwere vacho, nyama yedu isati yarukutika chaizvo towunganaka. Ivava vanenge vaine nyamawo. Saka inyama dzavo nenyama dzedu dzaisungirwa kurwisana apa.
Hezvo vakambotigara matumba tikati “Haa kwete hatichada kuti murambe makatigara mumatumba”.
Madzitateguru edu akamboyedza kuzvisunungura kuti nyama dzavo dzifaranuke vakazvitadza. Tikaberekerwa isu takazvarirwa munyika yakange yavane ava zvino vasingade kuti nyama dzevamwe dzifaranuke. Tive nemufaro munyika yedu, tive nekuzvitonga, tiwone kuzviitira.
Uyu watirikuviga nhasi, hezvo waenda kuchikoro - Zimuto. Kuchikoro ikoko achiwona nhamo dzaive nemastudents. Vaneruzivo rekuti mastudents dzimwe nguva vanobva vaendererawo mberi. Asi aiva neruzivo rwekuti ave anewonororo inopfuura yevamwe, aneshoko ringaunganidze vamwe.
Aivawunganidza kuti varambe zvinenge zvisina kunaka sekudya kusina kunaka. Yaingove mviro mviro idzodzo dzebasa raakanga achazoita guru guru. Varipo zvakare vakanga vakadaro mune zvimwe zvikoro, mastudents vatakaronga mhiri uko vauya nepfungwa dzavaive nadzo dzekuti ayehwa takaramba fundo yatingapihwe nevadzvanyiriri.
Nyika yedu isati yauwa, mufaro wedu usati wauya, simba redu rekuzvitonga risati rauya zvinobatsirei kuti ndiwane kafundo ikako? Saka vaiwuya. Ndovazhinji vakatibatsira zvikuru kuti tironge chimurenga chedu. Tive nevarwi vaive nehungwaru ihwohwo; ruzivo irworwo asi vazvipira zvekare.
Zvino, yatirikutaura nhasi ndeyaKangai. Takataura neyaVaNkala. Chitarirai VaNkala havana kubuda kuenda kunze. Kwete. Vaiva muno mukati maive nevatungamiri vatakaronga kuti vave vanokwezva ruzhinji rwevanhu; vave vanopa gwara kuvanhu.
Asi tawona kuti isu chimurenga hachingabudirire nokuti simba raive nomuvengi wandati aititadzisa mufaro takanga tisinaro, ndoratainotsvaga kunze. Kunze takanga tisina misha. Yaiveko. Saka vatakaona kuti avava ngavarongwe ndavaya vana vaibuda kuenda ikoko kana taikwanisa kutora kune vakanga vatamira kunze sekuna anaZambia, vana vaikoko vaibva kunzvimbo idzodzo.
Ndovana vatakaumbirira kuita Dare reChimurenga. Vakanga vabuda kubvakuno vachienda kunze vari nhengo dzemusangano. Tikati: imi woye! Kuno hazvichakwanisika. Musangano nemusangano wataita wava kubhanwa. Chirongai dare ikoko, mounganidza vamwe vamungakwanise kuwana. Nhengo dzemusangano dzakabudawo kuenda kunze nevamwe vamungagone kuwana, moronga kuti chimurenga chedu chienderere mberi.
Vemuno mukati vachazenge vachiita basa rekutsvaga vangabude kuenda kunorongwa kuchimurenga ichocho. So, ndozvakaitika. Mativi maviri awa, kuno nekunze, kuno uku kwarinda pamusana pekushaiswa masimba nevasvetasimba, kunze uku, ngakusimbaradzwe kuti kana kwasimbaradzwa vanobva ikoko vozouya vosimbaradza mukati zvakare.
Chimurenga chedu hecho-oo chobva zvino chava nemasimba ekuti tikunde muvengi, chova chimurenga chevanhu. Saka zuva ranhasi tirikuviga waiva mukomana mudiki ari kuchikoro, akagozobuda achienda kuchikoro zvakare kuti anoita fundo yemberi. Asi akabva aneshoko rekuti nyika inofanirwa kurwirwa.
Haana kungoti zvandabuda kuno kunze, aaahh, zvanaka. Fundo yangu ndoiwana ndobva ndagara kuno kunzezve zvaiita vamwe. Mmmm, wakati ndaiwana fundo. Ndinoziva kuti shungu yangu ndeyekurwira nyika. Ndichange ndichinosangana nevamwe kuna anaTanzania, kuna anaZambia, tobatana, tokuchidza moto wechimurenga, hondo yedu yekuzvisunungura yobva yavamba zvino chaizvo izvo kuenderera mberi.
Tinozvitenda zvaakaita. Once again, we are gathered here to lay to rest a cadre with a long
standing record of the revolutionary struggle. The cadre, who passed on in unbelievable circumstances, and, this, only a few days ago, about a week ago, now.
The circumstances of his death are best known to the family and we were with Kangai at the last Politburo meeting and he even made suggestions in our meeting. We never noticed, but one or two amongst us noticed that he was unwell; but we, the majority of us, never noticed that he was unwell.
And the meeting went into (the) late hours of the night and the following morning, we were shocked to hear that Kangai was no more.
And the story was that he was taking a bath, a cold bath apparently, and suddenly, he fell, and that fall, was a fateful fall, for he was never to rise from it alive, so we are told.
That’s how he died.
The previous night at a Politburo meeting; the following morning, he is dead.
He had attended the meeting as a Politburo member in style, as if to say: “Goodbye, you won’t see me again and this is the last meeting I’m attending”.
Then, he passed on. His brother, Cde Reward Kangai, has told us about Kumbirai’s animated joy on the day before he passed on and the family’s shock, the turn of events after that.
We accept this sad occurrence. He is no more. But we cannot understand why.
And may I extend, in particular to Mai Kangai, who now has the burden of looking after the family without the support and love she had got to know, the deep condolences and sympathies of the party, of those in Government who had worked with him, of his dear friends, of my family and of my own.
Enos Nkala I knew in 1960, I said, but about that time, I did not know Kangai. Parties were banned here, but the enemy never rested. He knew we had prominent people outside.
After all, from detention we had asked Cde Chitepo, who had been asked for by Mwalimu Julius Nyerere to help with legal work in Tanzania because they did not have well-trained legal people, Tanzanians, at that time. . .they wanted a public prosecutor, and Nyerere asked for Chitepo and he insisted.
So, we said fine. You can go. Least did we know that one day we would be calling upon him to organise the party outside and so, as the parties were banned here, ZANU had been formed. We had made Chitepo the chairman of the party of ZANU PF as both ZANU, ZAPU were banned.
But from Sikombela in Gokwe, where we were, fortunately all of us, who were in the leadership of ZANU were detained together at Sikombela, so this gave us time to strategise as Sithole was there, VaMuzenda, VaTakawira, Edison Sithole, Mike Mawema and Morton Malianga.
The only missing guy was Enos Nkala who had become accustomed to being a jail bird.
So, we met and decided that since we had low capacity to meet as a party due to our detention and restriction status, let us commission those who are outside to form a revolutionary council and start training people for a revolutionary struggle.
Saka tiri kuSikombela, Chitepo used to come and we gave him
instructions as the chairman of the party to get other members of the central committee who were outside and vaanaChikowore, vaanaShamuyarira, nevamwe. They were outside. . .naana Mukono.
Get them together, form the revolutionary council and enhance it with other key people you are likely to get from our members of the party. We had this in writing. I put this in writing because I was the secretary general. But it was a decision we took at Sikombela.
And that is how Dare reChimurenga was formed. We asked Chitepo to free himself now from the obligation imposed upon him as an employee of Tanzania. He should now be free to organise the party from outside and this is how he and those he could get sat together.
Apparently, things didn’t go that well for a start. But later, they managed to get quite some people vaiveko kare vanaanaTongogara nevamwe vakazouya. AnaanaHamadziripi vakanga vabuda vanaana Rugare Gumbo vakange vapedza madegree avo kunaanaCanada vakazodzoka. He had been a youth of the party kuMasvingo. Ndokufomwa kwakaitwa Dare reChimurenga and Kangai himself apedzawo degree rake kuAmerica.
Achiri kuAmerica ikoko, he was doing a lot of work moving from one state to another, talking to individuals, other students from here and organising the party as our representative from ikoko. But this time he came back and joined the others.
Saka ndati the enemy never rested. In 1974, we were put together patakaita that inclusive political organisation yeUANC under Bishop Muzorewa. An armed struggle had already begun, but because vanaanaNyerere navanaKaunda wanted us to unite.
Well, takangoita zimano mano and we call this tamba wakachenjera. Taiti kana tadzoka kumusha nesu takanga tirimuprison, we were taken to Lusaka to form this organisation tichizodzorerwa kumaprison futi. Ndozvataiitwa. So, we went there, all parties and reluctantly, we agreed to form that foursome organisation –Zanu, Zapu, ANC yaMuzorwa and Frolizi yaanaChikerema naanaNyandoro - to be led by Bishop Muzorewa; that organisation was formed at the end of 1974.
Tadzoka kumusha, takaenda kumaprison edu. We were now in Kwekwe and not at Sikombela anymore. We were freed and we knew that we were not going to last for long. Taive netamba wakachenjera yedu.
So January 1975, we organised people muHighfield tichi recruiter. AnaEnos Nkala were now out navaana Morton Malianga. He said we must recruit as many people as possible. Sithole was arrested in February that year. Back to prison. Hanzi nekuti iwe haude; you are not listening to what the OAU wants.
Flimsy reasons and “you want to kill some other people”. March ’75: Chitepo is killed by a bomb in his car, small VW. It was then we had already Dare reChimurenga. We had already started organising some fighters and because there had been some revolt also the Nhari revolt - so called.
Vamwe vakomana vanga vafurirwawo nemamwe maleaders vanenge vachida kutora power saka vakange vaita revolt vaakubata some of the leaders, but they were rounded up by the Nhari group. And pakaitwa ANC yaBishop Muzorewa, vakange vasungwa kare; the Nhari rebels.
So, when Chitepo died, the party sat here. We had leaders of the party here. We had met kwaMushandirapamwe, Highfield, Mushandirapamwe Hotel, and it was then decided I should go and organise a take-over from what Chitepo had done. That’s then the journey we made with Tekere through Nyanga with Chief Tangwena so on and so forth.
But then, when Chitepo died, vakapomerwa mhosva. Those who were blamed for his death were his colleagues, kunzi ndimi mamuuraya and not the enemy. And our people at that stage were not capable of having a sophisticated mechanism of a bomb of that nature planted in the engine of a car in order to kill people. No. And there was no reason anyway for killing their leader.
So, later on, we discovered that it was the Rhodesians who had done it. So, as we went out after Chitepo’s death, those who had worked with Chitepo were locked up in Zambia. All of them, the leaders! And only two, I think, managed to escape; I think Mujuru and Zvinavashe, going into Tanzania.
Although they were wanted by the security in Zambia, they remained in Tanzania. But that situation then saw us having another group called Zipa vachiita nyay dzavo dzemahumbwe. They never wanted to lead the struggle. Vaingogara ikoko zvichinzi tirivashandi. Marxist ideas, which were distorted and never well-mastered, although they had aive mukwasha wangu ainzi ndiye expert wacho.
So, we had a situation which was ugly. Tekere and I did not have much time at all. But then came the need for us to deliver. And it was because of that we insisted kune vangavasisade kunzwa Zapu or Zanu at all. Hanzi hatichada. They just wanted UANC under Bishop Muzorewa. But Bishop Muzorewa is man of the Bible. He could not be expected to lead a struggle.
To lead an armed struggle. . . you can lead a spiritual struggle, yes. But the times did not demand spiritual struggle. Yes, priests and churches were praying all the time for peace in the country. But we had to do something physically to liberate ourselves. I renounced Kaunda for arresting our people.
I made a statement on Focus on Africa on the BBC to say he has arrested innocent people. I was actually interviewed, and they said but this is the man who has helped you all along and I said that is the more reason why we should criticise him kuti: he has helped us so much, why should he now negate his previous work?
That’s how I put it roughly. And for that I must say I was persona non grata even in Tanzania. They didn’t want to see me. I went to Ghana from London assisted by Samora Machel. We were together and I was staying in Keremani, Mozambique. So, we went to Ghana. Then we came back, landed in London. London–Tanzania, they said “No”. The chief was sent to the airport and said I could not come into Dar es Salam.
Why? And my passport was stamped “entry refused”. So, we spent three days by the airport and this was because I had denounced our friend Kaunda. When I got to Maputo, Machel told me the reason and I got to know it was because of that statement I had made.
But then ok, the Geneva Conference had to be attended and Tekere and I said, no, we cannot go. We must insist on the release of our people in prison in Zambia. We told Samora Machel that if we are to go we must have those people in prison because they are leaders of our party. “Which party?” Machel said and we said Zanu PF. And he smiled because the OAU did not want to hear about Zanu PF anymore.
So, I was in touch with JZ and I was saying to JZ, “Now look, this thing under Muzorewa is just a small creature”. And then now Cde Nkomo was also getting disillusioned. Plus ndaimufurira futi JZ ndichiti “You must, you must stop talking about Zapu being aligned”.
He said he couldn’t do it without those inside. But we were liaising. So, Samora told Kaunda that well, the people in prison have got to be released to go to Geneva and the same language. It so happened that all Samora wanted or the Frontline States wanted was for us to meet as Zimbabweans.
So, the Muzorewa group came to Mozambique. Sithole was there also no longer interested in Zanu. He was part of Bishop Muzorewa. And Samora told us that we now had to proceed to Tanzania because Nyerere wanted to brief us on the meeting we were going to have in Geneva. So, we were flown to Dar es Salaam. We had a meeting with Nyerere. There were various groups and we had to stay to register ourselves in the presence Nyerere.
He wanted to know what groups were there. VaMuzenda, Tekere and I said we were Zanu. Then vanaSilundika and JZ said they were ANC Zimbabwe, something like that, but hiding Zapu because they couldn’t say Zapu because it was banned. And Sithole said I am under Bishop Muzorewa. But Nyerere said you have got to be united. It was then we formed the Patriotic Front of Zanu and Zapu.
From Tanzania we then were sent to Lusaka, but I talked to Nyerere, “Please request President Kaunda to release our people”, and they said they were going to try. In the meantime, Sithole had now left, deciding to quit, leaving ANC yaBishop Muzorewa.
He made a statement to the BBC, saying he now is back to Zanu, but not the one, the Zanu we had, but his own. So, when we got to Lusaka, we had Sithole with Zanu; VaMuzenda, Tekere and myself with Zanu also then Zapu, of course. In the meantime, VaNkomo vakanga vabva now; he had flown from home.
We appealed to President Kaunda to release our people. We said we couldn’t go to Geneva unless those people in prison were released. We needed them and Kaunda said well it was easy for him to release those who had no cases, but Tongogara and another had actual cases to answer. We said fine and he proceeded to release them and amongst the people released were anaKadungure anaMayor Urimbo and Kumbira Kangai.
Sorry, I have gone round to give you the full background. And I now came face-to-face with Kangai and that was the time I got to know him. He was introduced to me. Rugare Gumbo I knew from before. He had been a youth before in Masvingo and working with VaMuzenda. We had also met before in prison in Harare. But this time, it was Kangai and I got the background, the degree he had done and so on and so forth. Well and good.
And it was the group now to go to Geneva, but as it happened, the court, also the next day after the release of these ones, almost a day or two, found that Tongogara had no case to answer. There was no evidence. And he and another, the other, I forget who the other one was, but those were released and now we were a complete team.
So, we now go to Geneva, have discussions with the British and remould ourselves later. That’s how we had this whole group and vaanaKumbirai Kangai vanga vari in it. So, we went to Geneva in October 1976, and discussed with the British team and they were not serious at all and it was the Labour party. Smith came one day and said, “I have better business to do back home”, aah and did not want to tag.
So, the meetings were being led by that Dutch fellow who was very prominent in the Rhodesia Front – PA Van der Wild and he was leading the meetings. I remember one crushing meeting at one time. Our group was late for a meeting that morning. We had been held up and he shouted: “How come you people are ggrrr?” and I interjected and said: “Come on, how long shall we wait for our independence?”
And we had the British Press, nonsensical Press. So, they say you always criticise Ian Smith, but you say you are a Christian and a catholic. Why don’t you give another cheek and I said to them, I’ve given this cheek and the other, but I do not have a third cheek to give. Give me a third one and I will give it.
So, we were together at that meeting navaana Kangai, who were the people who had formulated the programme of the revolutionary struggle - chimurenga. Then, kochiita ava vakomana vanga vachitamba zvavo ava, vanaana Dzino. They wanted to destroy this group. Kwanzi vese vaanaKangai, vaanaTongogara cannot come to the camp unless we admit them kucamp ikoko. Vanotitya and we had their IDs and guns. They were actually itching for a fight.
So, they prescribed an admission programme, how these people could be admitted into the struggle if they were conducting. Even anaTongogara; that they have got to apply one by one; aahhh! So, takati kuna Samora, we go to Geneva. Geneva ended in January. February we did our Patriotic meeting.
After this meeting upon our return to Lusaka and that was the command camp, command base so Rugare Gumbo naTekere on the third of the meetings; you take these comrades to go and do some unfinished work and unfinished work was to be done in some hotel. That is how we got rid of them. He was a hard worker Kangai. Very straight forward, very correct, very respectful also.
To be continued next week.
Labels: LIBERATION, ROBERT MUGABE, SPEECHES
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(NEWZIMBABWE) The truth: What Thabo Mbeki said about Zimbabwe elections, land reform
30/08/2013 00:00:00
by Thabo Mbeki
The following is the full transcript of former South African President Thabo Mbeki’s lecture at UNISA’s Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute (TMALI). Delivered in Tshwane on August 23, 2013.
CLICK HERE to listen to the audio of his address:
I had thought that you had started yesterday, but I was told only when I arrived here 15 minutes ago that actually you didn’t. I hope that doesn’t signify that as Africans we are always late.
We had agreed that I would speak at the opening of your symposium, because I had to go to Zimbabwe yesterday to participate at the ceremony of the inauguration of President Mugabe as President of Zimbabwe, I’m told that this was the seventh as President and more if you include his Prime Ministership.
The Zimbabweans insisted that I should come, and I agreed with them because they were saying that the inauguration marked the end of the Global Political Agreement which they signed in 2008 in whose evolution we had played a part.
So, I am saying all of this to apologise for speaking to you in the evening rather than in the morning.
But I really like to say to thank you very much for agreeing to participate in this symposium to look at this every important issue, the issue about solutions to Africa’s development. It is indeed very important that as Africans we must focus on all of this and mobilise the intellectual capital that exists among ourselves to answer this question.
What the principal was saying about the last Nelson Mandela Lecture here by Mo Ibrahim raising questions of leadership on the continent, those remarks were correct. I think this is an important part of our challenge as Africans, ourselves to find the solutions to Africa’s development.
I don’t know how many of our leaders on the continent read books. I am sure some of them do – well apart from the Bible and the Quran, other books – but I think we have to produce these books because there are other Africans who read books.
So as we meet at this symposium to look at what we do, we say as African thought leaders asking about where should we be tomorrow, it is important that we have to do this. There is nobody else to do it for us.
The people who have done this for us in the past, and they are many, have said who are these Africans? What are they? What’s their past? Where should they be tomorrow? Other people have said that about us. And what has it produced? Disaster! A disaster from which we should rescue ourselves.
I was saying that yesterday, I was in Zimbabwe for the inauguration of President Mugabe. I don’t know who among us here, what opinions we have about Zimbabwe, but there are certain things which worry me greatly about Zimbabwe.
With regard to the last elections, one of the things that worried me was a very intense and sustained campaign to discredit the elections before they took place, very sustained and very intense. So I was saying to myself, ‘Why?’ And I could see quite clearly that the intention was in the event that the elections resulted in the victory of President Mugabe and Zanu PF, they would obviously be unfair. In the event that they resulted in the election of Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC, then they would be free and fair. That was the intention.
Although it didn’t surprise me, what disturbed me was that many among us Africans seemed to buy into the story that was being told. And so I was saying to myself that this is very worrying because what it means is that we, as Africans, don’t know enough about ourselves and continue to be enslaved by a narrative about ourselves told by other people.
Any African, anybody following events in Zimbabwe for some time, would not have been surprised at the election results, not in the least, and indeed some of the people who were communicating these negative messages about the elections before they took place, even some of them actually predicted what would happen: that a particular politics of Zimbabwe meant we would have a particular outcome.
There is an old friend of mine in Zimbabwe, another intellectual like yourselves, I won’t mention his name. Shortly before the elections he says, publicly, the MDC is going to sweep in its major victory in the rural areas of Zimbabwe. So I read this thing, and I said: ‘But what’s wrong with him?’ I haven’t spoken to him for some time, but I am going to ask him that question. I said, ‘What’s wrong with him?’ You could never make a prediction like that if you knew what’s been happening in the Zimbabwean rural areas in the last 10 years.
Many years ago and as part of the leadership in this region, we engaged the Zimbabwean leadership – President Mugabe and others – in a very sustained process to discourage them from the manner in which they were handling the issue of land reform. We were saying to them, ‘Yes indeed we agree, the land reform is necessary, but the way in which you are handling it is wrong.’ We tried very hard, ‘No, no you see all of these things about the occupation of the farms by the war veterans, this and that and the other, all of this is wrong’, that’s what we were saying. But fortunately the Zimbabweans didn’t listen to us, they went ahead.
The consequence of it is that, I have looked at at least four books that have been written about the land reform in Zimbabwe, all of which say in fact the process of land reform in Zimbabwe has given land to at least 300-400,000 new land owners, the peasants of Zimbabwe at last own the land. The programme succeeded and has this direct benefit on these huge numbers of Zimbabweans. And so I found it very strange that this intellectual friend of mine could say the MDC would win the elections in the rural areas. They couldn’t, essentially because they were identified by that rural population to have opposed land reform, rightly or wrongly. We can discuss that.
The point I am making is that we still have a challenge to understand our own reality, and I am using the example of Zimbabwe to say that I have a sense that even with regards to this issue, which for some reason for years has been a major issue in the international media and politics and so on, that even we as Africans still have not quite understood Zimbabwe. I think it’s your task to change that, so that we understand ourselves better.
I think we should also ask ourselves the question: Why is Zimbabwe such a major issue for some people? Zimbabwe is a small country by any standard, there is no particular reason why Zimbabwe should be a matter to which the New York Times, the London Guardian and whoever else... why are they paying so much attention to Zimbabwe? Why?
I know why they pay particular attention to us, because they explained it, they said ‘You have too many white people in South Africa. We are concerned about their future. They are our kith and kin. We are worried about what you would do to them, so we keep a very close eye on what happens.’ So we understand, we may not agree with the thinking, but we understand.
But I am saying why this focus on Zimbabwe? Towards the end of last year, they asked me to speak at a conference on Zimbabwe diamonds. So I went, and what surprised me about the conference held at Victoria Falls was that everybody and anybody who has anything to do with diamonds in the world was there. From America, from Israel, from India, from Brussels – everybody. It was not about diamonds in the world, it was about Zimbabwe diamonds. So I was puzzled, saying but why have they all come?
Maybe two hours before we left the conference to come back, we sat in a session which was addressed by one of the Indian diamond people. In the course of his presentation, he explained why; he gave an answer to this query in my head. He said in a few years’ time, Zimbabwe will account for 25 percent of world production of diamonds. So I said, ‘I now understand. I understand why everybody is here.’
But I think the reason there has been this kind of focus on Zimbabwe is that for many years now, the political leadership in Zimbabwe have been communicating a message which many among the powerful players in the world find unacceptable.
I was saying earlier that we opposed, we tried to discourage Zimbabweans from taking the particular steps they took with regard to land reform, acknowledging that it was indeed necessary to have land reform, and I was saying they ignored us. It is, I think, exactly the manner in which they came at that question of land reform that offended other forces in the world who said, ‘This is wrong, we don’t like it’. And unlike us who said, ‘Well, they are not listening. They have done what they want to do about their country, we have to accept that’, these others said, ‘They have set a bad example which we don’t want anybody else in Africa and the rest of the world to follow, so they must pay a price for setting a bad example.’ Bad example, bad in the instance of the interests of these other people, not bad in terms of the interests of the people of Zimbabwe.
So, I think this is part of the reason that there is so much attention, globally, to a country on the continent which is actually in itself – never mind the diamonds – is not that particularly important, but is important because it is setting, in the minds of some, a bad example which must be defeated. But principally are we as intellectuals telling that story? Are we explaining that, in the first instance to ourselves so that we know what is the correct position to take in our own interests; in own defence? My sense is that we are not doing it, we are not explaining why, what is this enormous interest in a small African country here in Southern Africa which really basically – I can’t think of any particular reason why it would have such enormous, global, geo-strategic importance, but it has. Why?
You know, all of us know, the African Union and SADC among others, deployed large numbers of observers for these recent [July 31, 2013] elections. The African Union even had placed its observers there at least a month ahead of the elections. This was to ensure... I don’t think, at least I know of no deployment of African observers of this size because between the AU and SADC, just those two, I think they had at least a thousand observers. I know of no instance when the continent has deployed that kind of number – it is because of this concern about Zimbabwe in particular. And both observer teams have essentially said the elections were peaceful and everybody agrees about that; and they have said the elections were free, and that they represent the opinion of the people of Zimbabwe.
SADC have said they need a bit of time to look at the matter of the fairness of the elections. ‘Yes indeed the elections are credible, they represent the views of the people of Zimbabwe’. The reason SADC observers said that they want to look at this is because they want to look at it in detail and say, for instance, was the media coverage of the contending parties, was it fair and balanced? They may make a determination about that and say it was not fair or fair. Was the location of voting stations done in such a way that it would ensure equal access, relatively is the access between rural and urban areas? They will make a determination about that.
They are not questioning the credibility of the elections, but want to look at this matter about what is meant by ‘fair’ in order to ensure that as a continent when we do indeed conduct elections in future we have some standards to follow in terms of what will constitute this element of ‘fair’. So they decided to leave a residual group in Zimbabwe to look at that question, and the AU agreed to join them, left another group there to do that, which is fine.
I was talking three-four days ago to a member of the executive of the SADC Lawyers Association which includes all the lawyers in this region and their law societies and this and that and the other. They decided to send an observer team to Zimbabwe, which they did. They have done their report and I have asked for a copy but they said they would send it. But what they are telling me is that one of the things that surprised them was that as soon as they made that announcement that they would be deploying an observer team in Zimbabwe, out of the blue, completely unsolicited, they got huge offers of money from the United States to say, “Look, we want to pay for your observer mission.” And they say that we never asked for this money, we had never ever been in contact with these people, we don’t know how they got to know that we were going to do this, but were very, very happy to support us with huge sums of money. But we said, ‘No’, we refused. We said, ‘No, we will finance ourselves’. The reason we did it was because we knew that if we accepted that money, then we would have to produce a report consistent with the views of the paymaster, so we said, ‘No’.
Now, the very strange thing at the end of this story which I am telling you... Well, let me say, what the Zimbabwe government did was of course to refuse that organisations like the EU which have imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe, countries like the US which have imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, should have election observers for the natural and I think logical reason that, ‘You declared yourselves as an enemy, in what way would you then send observers who are going to be objective in terms of observing these elections, please don’t come.’ I think they were right. Nevertheless, they said all the countries that have embassies in Zimbabwe, the embassies are free to observe the elections, which they did. African, European, Asian – all of them.
But I am saying one of the strange things is that you have the entire continent in terms of its credible and legitimate institutions say, ‘Yes indeed there were problems, and we are going to detail those problems, but these elections represent the will of the people of Zimbabwe.’ Then you have an alternative voice in Washington, London and Brussels which says, ‘No, you Africans are wrong.’ How does that happen? Why this absolute contempt for the view of the Africans about themselves?
I was saying just these two organisations, the AU and SADC, had at least a thousand observers in Zimbabwe – I am not talking about others, even the African Caribbean and Pacific Community had an observer team there, I am not talking about those – watched this process. When the chair of the AU Commission was in Harare and talked to all the political leaders, she said none of them have raised any issues about serious problems with the elections, they hadn’t. And yet when all of these Africans say, ‘Yes problems, we will tell you what these problems were, but the result presents a credible view of the Zimbabweans,’ you have people in America and Europe who say the Africans are wrong. Why? Maybe because the Africans are stupid? The Africans can’t count... or something?
The latest SADC summit has just taken place in Malawi, in Lilongwe. In the days before the summit, during the summit, the British government were putting pressure on the government of Malawi to persuade the summit that there should be an audit done of the Zimbabwean elections.
The MDC decided to go to court in Zimbabwe to contest, as you know, the elections. And then suddenly withdrew the petition. Personally, I was very pleased that they submitted the petition, because it would give a possibility actually to look in detail at all the allegations that have been made about what went wrong with the election. I was quite upset when they said they are withdrawing the petition, because it denied us the possibility to do this thing. But later, I understood why they withdrew, because even in the petition they made various allegations and did not submit to the court any document to substantiate any of the allegations.
At some point during this electoral process, the British ambassador to Zimbabwe spoke to one of the British television channels, and said in one constituency, 17,000 people voted of whom 10,000 were assisted to vote. Now, this is allowed in terms of Zimbabwean processes if you are illiterate, you might be old, you might be blind – whatever – that the people at the voting station can assist you. You come and say, ‘Look, I can’t read but I like Morgan Tsvangirai, please tick for me where it says Morgan Tsvangirai,’ that’s assisted voting which is allowed.
So, the British ambassador says here was this one constituency, 17,000 voters 10,000 of whom were assisted – so many – but she doesn’t identify the constituency, up to today. Morgan, in his affidavit to the Constitutional Court, includes this... ‘There was a constituency where 17,000 people voted, 10,000 of whom were assisted voters’. He doesn’t identify the constituency like the British ambassador.
In the end, I can say (inaudible name) is a very ugly fellow, but if I accuse him of that in court I should prove it. And that became a problem. So, we still don’t know what was the substance, what is the substance of all the allegations made which Washington and London and Brussels have used to say the elections were not credible. We don’t know. In reality, the only reason they were not credible is because Robert Mugabe got elected. That’s all.
I am using this, all of this talking about Zimbabwe, as an example about our continent because all of these things I am saying relating to Zimbabwe you can find the same similar examples on the continent, but we are not challenging it as intellectuals. We are not challenging a narrative, a perspective about our continent which is wrong and self-serving in terms of the interests of other people.
The Zimbabweans now are talking about indigenisation and I can see that there is a big storm brewing about indigenisation. But what is wrong with indigenisation? What is wrong with saying, ‘Here we are as Africans, with all our resources. Sure, we are ready and very willing to interact with the rest of the world about the exploitation of all these resources, but what is the indigenous benefit from the exploitation of these, and even the control?’
You have seen examples of this, all of us have, when Chinese companies in terms of all this theory about free markets, have sought to acquire US firms, they get prohibited. ‘No indigenisation of US intellectual property. We can’t allow it to be owned by the Chinese, so, No!’ When the Africans say ‘indigenisation’, why is this a strange notion and yet when we talk about solutions to Africa’s development one of the issues that we have to address is exactly this indigenisation? How are we utilising our resources to impact positively on African development?
I am saying that because I can see that there is a cloud that is building up somewhere on the horizon when Zimbabweans say ‘indigenisation’. But we have to, as intellectuals and thought leaders, we have got to address that and say, ‘Yes indeed as Africans we are concerned about our own renaissance, our own development, and we must as indigenous people make sure that we have control of our development, our future and that includes our resources, and therefore indigenisation is correct.’ We must demonstrate it even intellectually, which I am quite sure we can.
I wasn’t intending to speak for so long, but as you can see I get very, very agitated about Zimbabwe because it’s very, very clear that the offensive against Zimbabwe is an offensive against the rest of the continent and what has facilitated that offensive is indeed wrong things that Zimbabweans have done. They have done wrong things, they have acted in ways that have been incorrect, so it has been possible for some people to stand up and say, ‘Look, look, look there is a violation of democracy and human rights’, and all of us say, ‘Yes, yes, yes what they did there was not quite right.’
But all of us make mistakes, we have made mistakes here [in South Africa], but they have been used, those mistakes, to mount a particular offensive against Zimbabwe... that offensive is not in the first instance about Zimbabwe, it’s about the future of our continent. So the Zimbabweans have been in the frontline in terms of defending our right as Africans to determine our future, and they are paying a price for that. I think it is our responsibility as African intellectuals to join them, the Zimbabweans, to say, ‘No!’
We have a common responsibility as Africans to determine our destiny and are quite ready to stand up against anybody else who thinks that, ‘Never mind what the thousand African observers say about elections in Zimbabwe, we sitting in Washington and London are wiser than they are. They say the elections were credible, we say that they are very foolish, those elections were not.’ We stand up as Africans to see an end, and really an end, to that contempt for African thought! We have to, if we don’t, this development we are talking about will not happen.
[Transcript by New Zimbabwe.com]
Labels: SANCTIONS, SPEECHES, THABO MBEKI, ZDERA, ZIMBABWE
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(STICKY) (NEWZIMBABWE) President Robert Mugabe's 7th inauguration speech
Patient ... Zimbabweans queue outside National Sports Stadium for Mugabe's inauguration
22/08/2013 00:00:00
by Robert Gabriel Mugabe
Full text of President Robert Gabriel Mugabe's inauguration speech as he took the oath for a seventh five-year term on August 22, 2013:
Vice president Cde Joice Mujuru,
Heads of State and Government,
Former Heads of State and Government,
Outgoing members of cabinet,
Esteemed delegates representing various countries and organisations,
Representatives of sister liberation movements and parties,
Newly elected Members of Parliament,
The Chief Justice and Members of the Judiciary,
Senior Civil Servants,
Representatives of War Veterans, Detainees, Restrictees and War collaborators,
Representatives of the Business Community,
Representatives of our Farming Community,
Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Representatives of the Civil Society,
Student activists,
Invited guests,
Comrades and friends.
On behalf of the people of Zimbabwe, I wish to extend to you all a very warm welcome to this joyous occasion marking the end of our electoral processes, and the beginning of steps towards shaping a new administration which shall mind the affairs of our Nation for the next five years. In welcoming you, I am aware of the inconveniences you suffered from what really was a short notice to this event.
Our invitations reached you very late, forcing you to set aside equally pressing commitments you may have scheduled for the same time.
We apologise most profusely for this inconvenience created by certain Constitutional requirements that perforce precede the inauguration of the President-elect. We had to allow for petitions as required by our Supreme Law.
Yet it is this positive response to this short notice on your part which attests to the deep affinities between you and ourselves.
We are truly humbled and today our hearts are aglow with happiness which we readily share with you on this joyous occasion.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades and Friends,
The just-ended harmonised polls whose high point we now gathered to celebrate, do mark and usher in a new Constitutional dispensation for our country, Zimbabwe. This poll is the first we have held under a new home-grown Constitution which has replaced that which we negotiated at Lancaster House with our erstwhile colonial masters, the British, in 1979.
While the Lancaster House Constitution served us well as we moved from war to peace, from a settler colonial administration to black African self-rule, the passage of time and the sheer weight of emerging issues progressively made the document rather too old.
We thus had to work on a new Constitution. Consequently, we sat together as a united people and produced a draft document that was subsequently endorsed by the majority of our people through a well-subscribed Referendum we held early this year.
True, today’s event marks the inauguration of the President, but it is also a celebration of our new Charter which shall guide our society for the foreseeable future.
A key feature of this Constitution is its blending of first-past-the post electoral approach and proportional representation.
Elections for Presidency, for the Lower House or House of Assembly, and for Local Government are managed under first-past-the post principle, while membership of the Upper House or the Senate is drawn up on the basis of proportional representation based on votes garnered by each vying party, while recognising the Constitutional need for gender parity.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, comrades and Friends,
I have no doubt that the days of our elections were quite engrossing, if not, nail-biting to some of you.
The undue politicisation and publicity of our polling processes, the ominous auguries that stalked those harmonised polls, could have made you fear for us, indeed may have triggered deep anxieties regarding our prospects here. Routinely we were imaged as a society at war, a society riven by conflict.
After all, the preceding elections of 2008 had been disputed on allegations of violence, itself a fertile backdrop to these rumours of war. Since that disputed poll, Zimbabwe had hung on an uneasy peace, indeed had tenuously held together on a fraught coalition, an inclusive Government of three uneasy partners.
Genuine friends feared that the five uneasy years during which the coalition had survived — barely — would soon see Zimbabwe to this violent patch which had slurred its electoral honour.
Our enemies and detractors sought to goad us toward such a self-destructive path.
Happily, this negative augury, this hell-fire vision of Zimbabwe and its electoral prospects now stands confounded by the durable peace that reigns over this land.
We have had peaceful elections. We have had free elections. We have had fair elections, with our Constitution allowing for any challenges from whomsoever.
Well done Zimbabwe! We pledge to ensure that the peace we have built endures. And that the attainment of that peace we pay unstinting tribute to all our people who accepted the exhortations to peace from us all, who practiced and radiated it reciprocally in their immediate neighbourhoods. The result was local peace which built towards and fed into perfect national peace.
I want to pay tribute to my partners in the Global Political Agreement for joining hands in these peace-building efforts. Equally, I salute church and community leaders who prayed for it, demonstrated it through personal example.
I have no doubt that I continue to count on them all for durable peace that subsists for all times.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades and Friends,
Except for a few Western dishonest countries, our elections have been hailed as peaceful, free, fair and credible. Sadc, Comesa, the African Union, the ACP, the United Nations as well as many nations of good will have praised our elections here. We welcome this positive spirit, this encouragement which should see us do even better, move forward faster as a nation.
But like in all elections, there will always be bad losers, real spoilers. It is a part-price we pay for electoral democracy, indeed an inevitable phase in our growth as a people wedded to democratic practices. Where such a grousing stance remains non-antagonistic, where it expresses itself within the four corners of the law, it must be tolerated as part of the democratic tussle, part of the post-electoral adjustment.
As of those odd Western countries who happen to hold a different, negative view of our electoral process and outcome, well, there is not much we can do about them. We dismiss them as the vile ones whose moral turpitude we must mourn.
They are entitled to their views, for as long as they recognise the majority of our people endorsed the electoral outcome, indeed for as long as they recognise that no Zimbabwean law was offended against. And for us that is all that matters. After all, Zimbabwean elections are meant for Zimbabwe’s voting citizens.
After all, Zimbabwean democracy is meant for the people of Zimbabwe who must, within set periods, go to the polls to choose and install a government of their choice. It is their sole prerogative and no outsider, however superior or powerful they imagine themselves to be, can override that right, let alone take it away from them.
It is our inherent right. We fought for it when it was lost .We won it through our own blood. We keep it for us and posterity; we reserve forever as an expression of our sovereignty as a free people.
Today we tell those dissenting nations that the days of colonialism and neo-colonialism are gone, and gone forever. The era of white colonial “whispers behind the African throne” passed on and got buried together with Lord Laggard the author of this anti-African, neo-colonial notion.
Having struggled for our independence our fate has irrevocably orbited out of colonial relations, indeed can no longer subsist in curtsying and bowing to any foreign government, however powerful it feigns itself to be and whatever filthy lucre it flaunts.
We belong to Africa. We follow African values here. We follow our conscience. We abide by the judgment of Africa as indeed, we did in 2008 when Africa advised us to set aside results of the disputed elections.
Today it is Britain, and her dominions of Australia and Canada who dare tell us our elections were not fair and credible. Today it is America and her illegal sanctions which dare raise a censorious voice over our affairs. Yes, today it is these Anglo-Saxons who dare contradict Africa’s verdict over an election in Zimbabwe, an African country.
Who are they, we ask? Who gave the gift of seeing better than all of us?
Solidarity ... Some of the African leaders who attended President Mugabe's inauguration
Watching history ... Youths follow proceedings at Mugabe's inauguration
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades and Friends,
With the elections now behind us, we can now focus on rebuilding our nation which has been ravaged by illegal sanctions imposed on us by the West. If yesterday the pretext for imposing those sanctions was to do with a deficit of democracy here, today we ask those culprit nations what their excuse is now?
COMMENT - The fact that the mines don't belong to De Beers. - MrK
Whose interest are those sanctions serving?
The Rothschild Bank owned De Beers. - MrK
Zimbabwe is an open, friendly country. We seek friendship across geographies, across cultures, and quite often against past wrongs. We seek partnerships with all nations of goodwill, but partnerships based on sovereign, equality and mutual respect.
Those are the sacred principles that upon which the global architecture, as defined by the United Nations, is founded.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades and Friends,
Elections here were fought over the question of sovereignty gained in 1980 after a gruelling armed liberation struggle. Today the flag of that sovereignty flutters gaily in the winds of our spring. We sing our national anthem, itself a compendium of all that we aspire for, with full-throated ease.
We have a government through which we define policies, itself the prime agent for implementing those same policies. That government reigns over our territory, its authority firmly felt to the remotest corner of our territory. We have sought the political kingdom, we have found it.
But much remains to be done before we assume full sovereignty, well beyond the owning of politics, indeed beyond symbols and rituals of independence. Our resources have not yet fully come. Yes, we regained control over our land and our people are happy.
Today they revel in the ownership of that land which has now come. They are beginning to use it profitably, using it for durable wherewithal. They have become key players in agriculture, proving that they are as good farmers as any in the world, once they have access to key inputs. It has been a key milestone.
But our dominion goes beyond land. It extends to all those resources found in and on our territory, including those lying beneath our land, principally minerals.
And nature has been generous, prodigal in fact, granting us oversized portions of almost all minerals that matter on earth. It has been a generous serve. The time has come for us to extend our dominion to all those resources which the Almighty has been so generous enough to give. That is the next revolution whose first step is this administration, this new Government.
I stand before you as now a sworn President of Zimbabwe. My mandate comes from the just ended election which my party won resoundingly. But there are key truths that come with that victory, which come with that honour.
The peasant who cast his vote on July 31, created my victory and thus made a portion of my Presidency, I am at his service, and his emissary and servant. He or she did not cast that precious vote in vain, did not repose it in us without expectations of a good, deserved return.
Similarly, the unemployed youth who cast his vote did so amidst great expectations. He, too, moulded my Presidency. He, too, claims it. It must work for him, deliver to him. The woman — that larger half of mankind voted for me V a man! She has deep hopes that must be fulfilled!
The businessperson, he or she too, voted for me, contributing a limb to my Presidency. He or she has definite expectations founded on his or her role in society as a creator of wealth.
The farmer — small, medium, big — voted for my party, thereby assigning my Presidency. His vote was his input; he must now turn the soil, broadcast seed in the hope of plenty. I am the instrument of his dream. The self-employed, that small man and woman always struggling on the margins of the formal economy, he or she, too, has expectations, great expectations at that.
So, too, are those who did not vote me, those who voted for other parties. They have hopes and expectations which must reside and repose in my Presidency.
As we move into the future, our work as a nation is cut out for us. Although God may favour us, not all men do. We have been under sanctions for a decade and three years. Most likely we shall remain under these sanctions for much longer. But we have held our own. Our will has been our principal resource.
We have to raise ourselves by our bootstraps. Let me share with you my vision for the future, lay out for you the work that must be done.
Foremost, we must always believe in ourselves by turning to our own resources. Luckily they exist in fair abundance. The mining sector will be the centrepiece of our economic recovery and growth.
It should generate growth spurts across sectors, reignite that economic miracle which must now happen.
The sector has shown enormous potential, but we are far from seeing its optimum. We have barely scratched our worth, even in the sense of merely bringing above ground what we already know to be embedded in our rich soils. We need to intensify the exploitation of existing deposits.
More mineral deposits remain unknown, unexplored. We need to explore new deposits, developing new greenfield projects in the mining sector.
Above all, we need to move purposefully towards beneficiation of our raw minerals. The scope is great and I call upon you all to summon your full will, to give your utmost. That is what will empower us, develop us, indeed create employment for our people.
As we go about reorganising this critical sector, our policy reflexes must be oriented towards the goals of indigenisation and economic empowerment of our people. This was the centrepiece of our manifesto. This is what the people voted for. It must become the centerpiece of our development endeavours.
We dare not let our people down. We are aware that people of ill-will have cast aspersions on our hallowed policy of indigenisation and economic empowerment. Well, it is a set policy, our chosen path to full sovereignty.
The premise of what policy is an easy one. Our minerals are a depletable resource. We cannot grow them again once they have been exploited. Consequently, we cannot be bystanders in their exploitation. We need a share, a controlling share in all ventures that exploit our non-renewable natural resources.
Where we can, we can go it alone. Where we cannot do so, we seek partners on a 51/49 percent shareholding principle. Genuine partners should find this acceptable.
We reject totally as skewed the economic principle which puts capital, technology or expertise before natural resources. It is a principle of imperialism, the source of unequal agreements which have been the bane of our ever exploited Africa. That is our reckoning here and we stand by it.
Unequal agreements are unacceptable; they reek of colonial and neo-colonial relations. But where an investor brings in his or her capital, technology, expertise and raw materials, we will not insist on the principle!
The five years of the inclusive Government have seen a slowdown in agriculture. Our farmers — big and small — have gone without the support of Government. They have not been assisted in accessing inputs and capital from banks. Except for tobacco which has been funded by the private sector, food agriculture which tended to lean on Government support declined.
Yet agriculture remains the mainstay of our economy, the source of raw materials for our manufacturing sector. We must become a food secure nation, and that means sensible agriculture policies that recognise support to the farmer by way of inputs. No nation on earth does without such support.
The new Cabinet will be expected to move with full speed in mobilising adequate inputs. Equally, issues around electricity and irrigation must be tackled definitively so that this season marks a return to food sufficiency, and anticipates an active winter season which should see us growing part of our wheat requirements again.
After all, agriculture provides livelihoods and direct employment to thousands of our people.
There are pressing social service challenges which must be tackled immediately. Taps are dry in most of our cities and towns, worse so in Bulawayo. Water must be restored; taps must run again. The search for durable solutions to water supply for our towns and cities must begin almost immediately with the announcement of a new Cabinet.
We cannot have erratic water supply in urban conurbations without risking outbreaks of serious diseases. And of course our hospitals, clinics and dispensaries must be well equipped for health delivery.
Often our clinics have run out of essential drugs, vital pieces of equipment and accessories. Rural areas have been hit hardest. That area must be stabilised as a matter of urgency.
Another key area of urgent attention has to do with infrastructure. Happily we had already begun working on our road networks, with many rehabilitation projects in the offing. These must be expedited so mobility of people, goods and services is expedited. The same also passes for other modes of transport.
The road maintenance equipment which the responsible Ministry has been acquiring for rural development agencies should see us maintaining feeder roads in anticipation of the agricultural sector and other economic activities. It is gratifying to not that the community share ownership programmes have also played their part in hastening community development.
A key facet of infrastructural development shall relate to water provision and sanitation, especially in rural areas.
Equally, the supply of electricity must be stabilised both for the sake of our domestic users and for the sake of agriculture, industry and commerce.
We have key power projects which are about to take off, and which, if completed, should augment internal power generation. All these are key enablers which must now kick in. There are many financing models which the new Government will explore, including public-private-partnership on the strength of which some projects have moved.
When all is said and done, our financial system or policy will need to be examined including the banking institutions and their supporting role to industry. Partly as a result of sanctions and partly because of regional manufacturing and trade dynamics, Zimbabwe has declined as a regional manufacturing centre.
We are fast turning into one huge warehouse, a dumping ground for all manner of imports. Our cities and towns are dying. Bulawayo, for a long time the industrial capital of Zimbabwe, has now become a sorry industrial scrap-yard. And this has been an indicative trend for all manufacturing centres in the country.
We have become a net importer of finished goods, while also being a net exporter of raw materials.
Even our cotton industry, for a very long time an area of comparative advantage, has collapsed, with it many small cotton growers. This has become a structural handicap which we must tackle head on, and urgently too. Plans to resuscitate our ailing industries never took off largely because of internal contradictions during the era of the inclusive Government.
That era is gone and we must now move purposefully.
Internationally and diplomatically we remain friendly and well disposed towards all nations.
We seek friendships. We seek partnerships. We seek to diversify our relations to encompass new, emerging regions of the world. Principally; we continue to look East, hoping all those countries which had held back on fears of our unsettled situation here can now move forward to partner with us on clear parameters laid out in our policies.
We seek peace; we work for peace and exhort the rest of the world to do likewise.
We do not brook any form of interference in the internal affairs of other nations. A strong sense of right must always temper might. As our own case demonstrated, often it is local solutions which work best in curing problems that may rise within and between nations.
The current Western policy of sponsoring conflict in the Middle East must be condemned.
As the desperate situation in Syria has shown, such a policy brings enormous grief to affected nations. We watch helplessly as small nations get wrecked by high-handed nations. We hold deep fears for Egypt, that great African country. We hope that peace can return to it soon, and hold for all time.
In concluding, I want to thank countries of Africa, both singly and organised as sub-regions.
In particular I thank Sadc and AU for standing with us during our difficulties. I thank the sister Republic of South Africa, I thank its leadership which, in succession, played the difficult role of facilitating political dialogue and settlement in our country.
It was a trying task but the two men burdened with that role, firstly, former president Thabo Mbeki who is here with us, and later President Jacob Zuma bore it all with amazing patience and perseverance. I am sure today is a happy day for both men. They can walk tall in full knowledge that they have signed off a rare but glorious chapter on African solutions to African problems! Siyalibonga sonke!
Lastly, I owe nothing but praise and respect to my GPA-era partners who are also my fellow countrymen.
I am referring to former Prime Minister Morgan Richard Tsvangirai, former Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara and, much later, Professor Welshman Ncube.
We have worked together. Initially compelled by GPA protocols, we eventually found each other and proceeded to produce the current Constitution.
This is our land, our country together and for as long as our nations subsist, so will elections and the opportunities they offer.
Our common destiny bids us to work together, never at cross purposes.
More important, that destiny bids us to work for the well-being and in defence of our people who must always come first. I thank you all! I thank you Zimbabweans of all tribal cultures, of all religious and political affiliations, thank you traditional Chiefs, thank you all civil servants, all students, all social groups, all youths, mothers and fathers, well done.
Ndinotenda! Ngiyabonga! Zikomo kwambiri, Asante sana!
I thank you!
RGM
Labels: 2013 ELECTIONS (ZW), ROBERT MUGABE, SPEECHES
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