JOSEPH KONY, AMERICA'S PRETEXT TO INVADE AFRICA: US Marines Dispatched to Five African Countries
by Global Research News
Global Research, March 16, 2012
The hidden agenda in Uganda, Central Africa and the Horn of Africa is the conquest of oil and strategic mineral resources. Going after Joseph Kony and protecting Ugandan children is a cynical smokescreen, a pretext for a "humanitarian intervention" in a region where US sponsored "civil wars" (Sudan, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Ethiopia) have in the course of the last 20 years resulted in more than eight million deaths:
"Through AFRICOM, the United States is seeking a foothold in the
incredibly resource rich central African block in a further maneuver to aggregate regional hegemony over China. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is one of the world’s largest regions without an effectively functioning government. It contains vast deposits of diamonds, cobalt, copper, uranium, magnesium, and tin while producing over $1 billion in gold each year. It is entirely feasible that the US can considerably increase its presence in the DRC under the pretext of capturing Joseph Kony." (Nile Bowie, Merchandising and Branding Support for US Military Intervention in Central Africa, Global research, March 14, 2012)
In a recent decision, the Pentagon confirms the sending in of Marine Special Forces to train Ugandan troops in the fight not only against Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) but also against Al Shabab in Somalia. Joseph Kony is being used as a pretext for outright military intervention in five African countries.
"So far, the task force has deployed small teams to five African nations, including some threatened by the terror group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, according to a Marine news release" (Stars and Stripes, March 15, 2012 ).
Officially, the underlying framework is "peacekeeping" to be achieved through US sponsored "counterterrorism operations". The stated objective is to transform Ugandan soldiers into "counterterrorism engineers", namely Special Forces under US supervision, "who will then deploy to Somalia in support of infantry battalions."(Ibid)
The sending in of US Marines to Africa is upheld as "part of a new Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force-12 based out of Sigonella, Sicily" which will dispatch small teams of Marine forces throughout the African continent. The initiative was launched in 2011 "as part of an effort to prepare African militaries to conduct counterterrorism operations" under US guidance.
What this initiative also implies is the direct involvement of Ugandan troops and special forces in the civil war in Somalia:
Related US officials see progress in squeezing Lord’s Resistance Army in central Africa US weighs response as extremist group expands reach across Nigeria
“The genesis of this mission was operations in Mogadishu, Somalia, where African Union peacekeepers experienced IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and other complex obstacles, which exposed them to ambushes by al Shabaab,” said Maj.Charles Baker, a spokesman for the Marine mission, in a news release issued by the U.S. Embassy in Kampala.
“The soldiers on training will use the acquired knowledge in war-torn Somalia and in the hunt down of fugitive LRA commander Joseph Kony, wherever he is,” said Ugandan People’s Defense Force Lt. Col. Richard C. Wakayinja, in a separate Marine news release. (Stars and Stripes, March 15, 2012)
Michel Chossudovsky contributed to this Report
Labels: AFRICOM, NEOCOLONIALISM
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Mutharika tipped to shed-off ‘bad friends’
By Nyasa Times Reporter
March 17, 2012
A Kenyan governance expert, Professor Allan Odugo Mella, has tipped Malawi President Bingu Wa Mutharika to shed-off whom he has described as “bad friends” to avoid losing grip of his mandate to rule Malawians.
The Pan African Politics Forum (PAPF) Executive Director says by holding to the same advisors who have dragged him into chaos, the President will never solve the problems Malawi is going through. He said it was pathetic that those who helped to push Mutharika towards household name in 2004 and beyond “are Mutharika’s sworn enemies today.”
“President Mutharika has the potential to drive Malawi into where it started well in 2006 and 2009 where everyone envied the economic, good governance and political tolerance miracles. But he has to make a tough decision, get rid of bad friends,” says Mella.
Some of Mutharika's bad friends Vuwa Kaunda and Hetherwick Ntaba
By bad friends, the Political Scientist meant all advisors and Cabinet Ministers who have served him for too long.
“They all have turned into loyalists; they warm their seats by ill-advising your President. Mutharika must hire new advisors, Ministers and even spokespersons in his office. The new faces will tell him of the atmosphere outside the Palace and the Government, if he finds this too hard to carry-out then he will find it too hard to control Malawians,” he says.
Mello was in Malawi on a research mission towards his prescription paper to African leaders who always stick to power after their mandatory terms of office expire.
However, the Professor was sceptical if President Mutharika will listen to calls of cutting the excess “friends”.
“That is a big challenge but it can be done,” he says.
Asked on how Malawi can sail out of the current turmoil both economically and politically, the visitor said Mutharika must engage all high profile economists both new and old timers to a special meeting.
“Not these talk shows you show on Television Malawi where one person speaks and others listen, no, Mutharika should be in that meeting to listen and his secretaries take notes for his new advisors to digest after the meeting, but if he do a talk show, no one will come, professional think-tanks hate cameras and there is no show off here is a crises solving mission,” he says.
“Foreign exchange is in your country, but not in your banks. Reopen the forex bureaux and you will wonder how much forex Malawi has,” he says.
On political front, Professor Mella says all political leaders from opposition “must sit down with Mutharika, here Mutharika should also be a listening part.”
The advice comes at a time when the Public Affairs Committe (PAC) has asked President Mutharika to resign within 60 days expiring May 14 and called on political parties and other civic groups to push for a national referendum if he refuses to step down.
Malawi has drastically deteriorated politically, economically and democratically a country on the run from 2004-09 is now bordering on a failed state,the PAC statement said.
Labels: BINGU WA MUTHARIKA, NEOLIBERALISM
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A military of corrupt commanders
By The Post
Sat 17 Mar. 2012, 12:00 CAT
IT seems something has gone seriously wrong with the leadership and organisation of our armed forces.It seems for close to two decades, our armed forces have generally been led by crooks, thieves or corrupt elements.
How can one explain the fact that all the commanders of our army, air force and Zambia National Service have either been convicted for corruption or are in court on corruption charges or facing arrest and possible prosecution for corruption? What has gone wrong? What is happening in our armed forces? What type of leadership is there?
Where is this greed coming from? If the early leaders of our armed forces were this corrupt, this dishonest, this greedy, where would this country be today? What would be the state of our armed forces?
If Kingsley Chinkuli, Malimba Masheke, Benjamin Mibenge, Peter Zuze, Godfrey Miyanda and many of their colleagues were this greedy when they took over the leadership of our armed forces as young and inexperienced officers in the early days of our Republic, where would we be as a country today? As young officers, these now old men conducted themselves with sufficient honour and integrity and never ever thought of using the positions they held to enrich themselves.
None of these men has what the commanders of today have accumulated in such a short time. Look at the houses they live in and look at the houses corrupt Lt Gen Geojago Musengule and his corrupt friends live in!
Today, our senior military officers are businessmen, and they don't depend on their pay to sustain their extravagant lifestyles. They are the owners of most of our lodges and other businesses. Where do they get the time to run all these lodges and manage the affairs of our armed forces?
How was all this possible? It was possible because there was a breakdown in honesty, in integrity in our country's top political leadership. As commander in chief, Frederick Chiluba was stealing public funds. And he was using some of these intelligence and security institutions of the state to steal.
And those who were helping him to steal from public institutions also started helping themselves, started stealing for themselves. This is why all of Chiluba's top commanders, including his intelligence chief Xavier Chungu, were in problems for corruption. This was not possible under Kenneth Kaunda because immediately one was found wanting, they were out.
Kaunda could not send anybody to go and steal for him. Under Levy Mwanawasa, his top military officers who attempted to steal were immediately arrested and prosecuted. But discipline collapsed again under Rupiah Banda.
Rupiah's commanders are now being investigated for corruption, theft of public funds. With such leadership, how can our armed forces win the support and respect of the public? With such corrupt elements at the helm of our military institutions, how can we expect our soldiers and other officers to be disciplined, to be honest?
We wonder what the true state of our armed forces is today in terms of ability to defend the nation in times of trouble. This is what happens in a nation when values are lost, when principles are traded on the altar of political expedience. What security can be provided to the nation by rotten men? What can such corrupt generals defend?
We hope our politicians are learning something from all this. We also hope that those in our military are learning something from all this. Without an honest political leadership, especially at the level of president, no nation can expect to be led well, to have honest senior military officers and other civil servants. We hope those in charge at the Ministry of Defence are learning something from these prosecutions and convictions.
But we have a general problem of dishonesty and corruption in the country because we are trying to turn every civil servant and public officer into a businessman. You can't have a government led by businessmen, one in which every minister is a businessman, every general is a businessman.
Government institutions probably procure the largest amount of goods and services. And the decisions to do so are made by civil servants and other public officers. Sometimes even politicians participate in such decisions.
But if the government is full of businessmen, this means some of these goods and services will have to be purchased from the same people running government. Where does this leave the country? Inside dealings become the order of the day, corruption sets in and starts to dominate government business.
This is why we probably had a situation where a junior intelligence officer who was promoted to become the country's intelligence chief started to think he belonged to the business class. Most of his key friends were businessmen. What can you expect out of such an officer? This is how Chungu ran the intelligence.
We wonder how many hours our civil servants and other public officers put in government work. We say this because most of their time is taken up by their businesses. They are all the time dealing with suppliers to their businesses who sometimes also happen to be suppliers to government - a good opportunity for corruption.
Rupiah and his sons, before he became vice-president under Levy, used to move around government offices to look for contracts to supply this and that. Then one day he was made president and to be in charge of all this government business! What a big feast there was for him and his sons! Now they could get all the things they failed to get when they were not in power.
More is needed in the management and organisation of our affairs as a nation. If we continue on this path, fighting corruption will not be easy. We will be continually replacing one group of thieves with another.
If Michael Sata does not come up with a new setup, with a re-organisation of things, the ending of his government will not be that different from that of Rupiah and Chiluba.
Labels: ARMED FORCES, CORRUPTION, GEOJAGO MUSENGULE
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Musengule goes in
By Salim Dawood, Maluba Jere and Agness Changala
Sat 17 Mar. 2012, 12:00 CAT
CONVICTED former Zambia Army commander Lt Gen Geojago Musengule says he is not scared of jail because he has been there before.
In an interview after the Lusaka High Court upheld the four-year jail sentence slapped on him by the Magistrate's Court in 2009, Lt Gen Musengule said going back to jail would reunite him with his friends who had also been sentenced.
"I am not scared, I have been there before so I am used. I am going to find my friends whom I left," said Lt Gen Musengule shortly before he was taken to Lusaka Central Prison, commonly known as Chimbokaila.
Lt Gen Musengule was sentenced together with former Base Chemicals chief executive officer Amon Sibande whose seven-year sentence has also been upheld by the High Court for corruption and abuse of office.
Delivering the six hours long judgment yesterday, judge Charles Kajimanga, sitting with judges Florence Lengalenga and Elita Mwikisa, upheld the convictions after all the 31 grounds of appeal were dismissed on grounds that they lacked merit.
Judge Mwikisa said the four-year jail sentence slapped on Lt Gen Musengule did not come with a sense of shock, saying they also did not consider it to be harsh.
Lt Gen Musengule in his appeal had filed 24 grounds of appeal while Sibande filed seven, which were all dismissed on grounds that they lacked merit.
He said there was overwhelming evidence against Lt Gen Musengule and Sibande requiring the court to dismiss the appeal.
However, Lt Gen Musengule said he would appeal against the judgment to the Supreme Court.
In this case, Lt Gen Musengule was convicted for irregularly awarding several business contracts to Base Chemicals, a Lusaka based company, when he was army commander.
He is also alleged to have awarded contracts to Sibande to supply fuel to the army worth millions of US dollars.
He was also found guilty of receiving gratification for awarding the contracts to Base Chemicals.
In its judgment, the court said there was no doubt that Lt Gen Musengule abused his authority when he facilitated payment to Sibande's company before the contract was awarded.
The judges said it was clear that there was in existence a tender committee that never met to engage Base Chemicals.
On the supply of fuel to the army, judge Kajimanga said there was no evidence to show that quotations were received from other sources for the awarding of the tender in question.
He said the fuel shortage in the country at the time was no justification for disregarding tender procedure by awarding the contract to Sibande.
Judge Kajimanga also said he agreed with the finding of the court below that although Kaoma Barracks were in a deplorable state, there was no justification to flout rules when awarding a building contract.
Labels: ARMED FORCES, CORRUPTION, GEOJAGO MUSENGULE
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Rupiah's exit is deceitful - Katele
By Moses Kuwema
Sat 17 Mar. 2012, 12:00 CAT
DR KATELE Kalumba says Rupiah Banda's exit from the MMD presidency is a deceitful one meant to cover up for his failure to be responsible for the mess that he has created in the party.
Commenting on Banda's decision to step down as MMD president because of the invitation he received from Boston University in the US, Dr Kalumba who is former MMD national secretary said, during the card renewal exercise, Banda came out too hard on the people that were calling for him to step down.
"It's really a deficit of truth. He more than anybody else knew this thing US invitation long time ago and not too long ago when he was renewing the party cards, he came very hard on young Moses Muteteka.
He said those people who have been calling for him to step aside must themselves step aside, must themselves get out of the party. Now that's not too long ago," he said.
"Let him say he was not aware of his programme at the time he was making this statement. How much should we trust his stepping down now if not to avoid the accountability that is required from party members as to what went wrong which has led to the de-registration of the MMD. Why has he failed to meet the cost of what the Registrar of Societies announced?"
Dr Kalumba said having been one of the people that were calling for Banda to step aside, he was not impressed with the timing of the former president's stepping down.
"This has come as a bit of a deceitful exist, which is basically covering up for his failure to be responsible for the mess that has led to a major political party to come to nothing and create considerable amounts of national political anxiety. He should have cleaned the house. I pity the members of parliament, including my colleague George Kunda, the former Republican vice-president. They are now left with a mess to clean up. I hope he has left them with the coffers because he controlled the presidential account."
And on the de-registration of the MMD, Dr Kalumba said the party president had always been interfering with the secretariat's role of remitting monies to the registrar of societies.
He said party presidents that included Fredrick Chiluba, Levy Mwanawasa and Rupiah Banda used their offices to inform the secretariat that the Ministry of Home Affairs or the registrar itself to ignore the question of branches.
"The issue is not that MMD was not making annual returns, the real technical issue is that MMD as a party was making returns only for its secretariat. It was not doing as by law required to also pay for all its branches and that's what this has come to. I think even the Registrar can confirm the fact that they were returns being done for the secretariat but they were remitting because presidents were intervening. They were asking the Registrar to look the other side, that's what I suspect. This did not start in the last three or five years no! it started under Chiluba, Mwanawasa and Banda. It has been the case all along, they are all responsible. No one should take exception here, it's not Banda alone. This is right from the beginning of the party, they ignored that particular requirement of the law," he said.
Dr Kalumba said the Registrar of Societies should have de-registered the MMD a long time ago because the law required that the MMD like all other parties should have made returns for their branches each year.
"It's the same with churches. It appears there is a case to be made, it may appear as if it is victimisation but the Registrar has a job to do. This is the problem with the NGO Act, there is a complex issue of what do you register? Do you register only your headquarters or you register the rest of your organs? For example for us MMD it meant we register the provincial organs, district organs, the constituency organs, ward and the branch organs," he said.
Dr Kalumba however, said in all honesty, the K390 million was not outside the reach of Banda.
He said Banda needed to help the party clean up rather than allow it to go into oblivion
"There are over 50 members of parliament, now that's a lot of members of parliament, you can't ignore their fate and just cut and run. I don't think Michael Mabenga has any fall back in terms of coffers. I don't think the secretariat have got more resources to meet the obligations of the party. MMD brought Banda from the farm as vice-president and as president of the Republic of Zambia. He owes an obligation to pay that bill, I really think it's a moral issue for him, it's a least he can do. It's not just a political issue," Dr Kalumba said.
"Mr Banda, MMD has made who you are now, the least you can do is help it clean up this mess now. Thanks you have stepped aside but still as a member, you must pay the bill because I don't think he has retired the presidential account. I ask him in good faith, let him do the honourable thing," he said.
Labels: KATELE KALUMBA, MMD, RUPIAH BANDA
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MMD's Machai beats Chambishi PF councilor
By Misheck Wangwe in Kitwe
Sat 17 Mar. 2012, 11:58 CAT
A female PF councillor in Chambishi has allegedly been assaulted by former MMD deputy mayor for Kalulushi Robbie Machai over a land dispute. Councillor Febby Mulenga of Lulamba ward in Chambishi was hospitalised for two days at Sinozam Friendship Hospital in Kitwe and treated for chest pains after she was allegedly beaten up by Machai over a piece of land at Kamalata Trading area.
Traders at the market who witnessed the incident said Mulenga had been protecting the trading area and the bus station from being grabbed by Machai, who claims that the land belongs to him.
But Mulenga had been contesting that the land in question had not been given away for residential and commercial plots by the council and that Machai's claims that the land belonged to him were false and illegal.
"Machai came with a private land surveyor and started putting up beacons and when councillor Mulenga heard, she came and tried to stop him from putting up beacons because this land belongs to the council and people who trade here are free to do so. They exchanged words, tempers flared because Machai was with some people and in the middle of the confusion he punched her and grabbed her by the chest and that's how people separated the two. We saw that she was in pain after that incident," an eyewitness Catherine Mweshi said.
And Mulenga said a docket at Chambishi police station had been opened against Machai for assault.
Mulenga said she would continue protecting the land for poor marketeers at Kamalata market which some unscrupulous businessmen wanted to acquire dubiously.
"I have been threatened many times but I will not give up and I know some people wanted me to withdraw the case but I will not do so. The due process of the law must take place because Machai's conduct was unacceptable," Mulenga said.
And PF Copperbelt provincial chairman Rebby Chanda said the party would support and protect Mulenga over the stance she had taken on illegal land allocation.
"Why did he become violent against a defenceless poor woman who was elected by the people to protect their interests? This behaviour is unacceptable and the law must take its course," Chanda said.
Efforts to get a comment from Machai proved futile as his phone was off.
Labels: MMD, PF, POLITICAL VIOLENCE
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Police detain Kabwe PF cadres over rejected DC
By Maluba Jere
Sat 17 Mar. 2012, 11:58 CAT
ABOUT 35 Patriotic Front members were on Thursday briefly detained by police in Kabwe after they protested against the appointment of Patrick Chishala as district commissioner because he is MMD.
The cadres went to the district commissioner's office where they chanted slogans against Chishala and police apprehended them and took them to the police station for questioning.
Police sources said the cadres were earlier warned to desist from making the district commissioner's work difficult, saying they would be arrested for conduct likely to cause the breach of peace.
The source said the cadres were protesting against the appointment of Chishala, whom they accused of reaping where he did not sow, alleging that he was MMD.
The cadres were angered after learning that Chishala had assumed office on Tuesday before a petition relating to his appointment which they took to the permanent secretary was dealt with.
The cadres were only released after two hours of being questioned and the intervention of senior party officials.
When contacted for comment, Central Province police commissioner Dr Solomon Jere confirmed that the cadres were briefly detained at the police station as a way of maintaining order.
Dr Jere said the cadres were protesting against the appointment of Chishala and that they had being talked to about not taking the law into their own hands.
"The thing is these people had made it clear that they would protest and we had agreed that they should use dialogue, but we were surprised that they started assembling unlawfully," he said.
"But after briefly detaining them, we spoke to them and they were all released."
Labels: CADRES, KABWE, PF
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Mongu riots cops impregnated 30 schoolgirls, Imenda tells Parliament
By Mwala Kalaluka
Sat 17 Mar. 2012, 11:59 CAT
PARLIAMENT heard yesterday that about 30 school girls in Luena constituency were impregnated by police officers sent to quell the Mongu riots who were accommodated at Limulunga High School.
During the Vice-President's question time in the House yesterday, Luena Alliance for Democracy and Development ADD member of parliament Mwambwa Imenda asked if the government was aware of the pregnancies.
Imenda said as a result of the events of January 14, 2011, the government sent policemen to various areas of Mongu and Limulunga and that these were accommodated in schools in the area.
"I want to find out from the Vice-President whether he is aware that as a result of that, Limulunga High School has over 20 to 30 girls who are pregnant," Imenda asked as other opposition MPs kept exclaiming.
Vice-President Dr Scott said the issue Imenda had raised was contained in the report of the Dr Roger Chongwe-led commission of inquiry which was yet to be released to the public.
Vice-President Dr Scott said the matter was seriously under consideration by Cabinet.
Itezhi-tezhi UPND member of parliament Greyford Monde said almost a month had elapsed since the report was presented to President Michael Sata.
Vice-President Scott said the report raised a lot of critical issues that needed consideration by Cabinet.
"I will expect the report to be in the public domain in one month," said Vice-President Dr Scott.
Labels: BAROTSE FREEDOM MOVEMENT, BAROTSELAND AGREEMENT, GUY SCOTT, MONGU
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Court stays MMD de-registration
By Namatama Mundia and Bright Mukwasa
Sat 17 Mar. 2012, 11:59 CAT
LUSAKA High Court judge Jane Kabuka has stayed Registrar of Societies Clement Andeleki's decision to de-register the MMD pending the hearing and final determination of the case.
Andeleki on Wednesday announced the de-registration of the MMD, but the party's national secretary Major Richard Kachingwe and 53 members of parliament through their lawyers Hobday Kabwe and Company and George Kunda and Company filed a notice of application for leave to apply for judicial review where they asked the court to declare the Registrar's decision unlawful, null and void.
The MMD women's league had planned to demonstrate on March 22 but has since cancelled the demonstration following the court ruling.
Ruling on an ex parte order for leave to apply for judicial review yesterday, High Court judge-in-charge judge Kabuka ordered and granted the application.
"Upon reading and considering the application for leave to apply for judicial review, statement of facts filed herewith and the affidavit verifying the statement of the said facts, it is hereby ordered that leave to apply for judicial review be and is hereby granted and is to operate as a stay of the decision of the Registrar of Societies made on the 14th day of March 2012 pending the hearing and final determination of these proceedings," she said.
Judge Kabuka also added that costs of the application be in the cause.
And briefing journalists yesterday, MMD legal chairperson George Kunda said the party had commenced a court action for judicial review and in accordance with the practice and procedure.
"…the MMD will continue with its normal operations. Our members of 53 members of parliament will continue to enjoy their rights and privileges and powers which they enjoy in the National Assembly," Kunda said.
"They were elected for a five-year mandate by the people of Zambia. We are challenging the powers of the Registrar of Societies to nullify 53 seats and also to cancel registration of MMD."
Kunda said the MMD would like the court to determine whether the Registrar had the powers to usurp the jurisdiction of the High Court and determine issues of tenure for members of the National Assembly.
Labels: GEORGE KUNDA, MMD
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American Sponsorship of Global Terrorism
5th January 2010
By Alex Constantine
Adnan Khashoggi’s mercenary army of global corporate criminals lives in Mafia mansions, basks in the political limelight, enjoys privileges of royalty in tyrannical desert dystopias, sips vodka in the shadow of gleaming Moscow spires. They are kings, Pentagon officials, priests, S&L thieves, assassins, prostitutes, nazis, Big Oil executives, metals merchants, New Age cultists, drug barons, boiler-room con artists, mobsters, dictators by the horde. And terrorists, of course.
Khashoggi is a Turkoman, the son of a doctor who tended to Abdul al-Aziz Ibn Saud. The Khashoggi brothers were classmates of the future King Hussein and several sons of the bin Ladens.1 His career as an international “connector” began in the 1950s, while still an undergraduate at Chico State College. His purchase of fifty Kenworth trucks for resale to Saudi Arabia’s bin Laden Group demonstrated his business savvy, and provided him the capital to launch his career as world-class death merchant.
50499830 American Sponsorship of Global TerrorismEdwin Pauley
In the early 1960s, he could be found languishing in the sun or plotting world domination at Edwin Pauley’s Coconut Island estate in Hawaii. Pauley, then Democratic Party chairman, operated an oil company called Zapata with the son of Prescott Bush, the Nazi collaborator.2
Houston attorney Linda Minor sidelines as an investigator into banking and political malfeasance. She discovered that Pauley was a slimy operator years before his alliance with Bush.
“He was a spy within the White House,” Minor says, “acting as a funnel for campaign funds to FDR, while at the same time gathering and transmitting information about oil policy and captured Nazi and Japanese assets back to his California business associates.”
Pauley’s political significance stems from his participation in Gulf of Mexico oil explorations in the 1950?s when, with an oil concession from Mexico, he threw in with Howard Hughes and George H.W. Bush.
“Pauley taught Bush how to launder money through corporate subsidiaries to be used for payoffs and the financing of political campaigns,” Minor notes. “Both Pauley and Bush used this system to finance Richard Nixon’s presidential campaigns.”
The laundering scheme unraveled after the 1972 election, when a check drawn at a Mexican bank – the subsidiary of a Houston corporation controlled by associates of Bush the elder – surfaced in the Miami bank account of a Watergate plumber.3
Saudi shiekhs and domestic oil barons struck up alliances. Shiekh Kamal Adham and a circle of cohorts founded Arabian Shield Development Co. in Texas. (since re-named the Arabian American Development Company).
Sheikh Mohammad Salem Bin Mahfouz at National Commercial Bank was an Arabian Shield investor.4 “During the 1980?s,” reports Martin J. Rivers of the Center for Research on Globalization, “Sheikh Mahfouz’s syndicate performed major CIA-inspired banking operations for such former CIA assets as Osama bin Laden … Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega and other drug dealing generals. George W. Bush, for his part, had important business relationships … with a total of nine prominent individuals central to Mahfouz’s financial empire.”5
The early 1970s also brought Saudis recruited by the CIA to train at American military bases, including Prince Bandar bin Sultan.6
After September 11, 2001, Bandar drew the attention of the press when it was discovered that two of the terrorists involved were found to have received financing from the Prince’s wife. Bandar trained at Ellington AFB near Houston.7
In the early 1970s, the prince fell in with James A. Baker’s social circle, struck up an alliance with Joanne Herring, who was instrumental in luring Texas Democrat Charlie Wilson to support Gul Hekmatyar of the Muslim Brotherhood chaptger in Afghanstan by the late ’70s.
The Big Oil-CIA-Saudi alliance was consummated with the establishment of the Safari Club of elite cut-throats, founded with covert Agency support on Sept. 1, 1976. George Herbert Walker Bush was then director of the Agency,. Nelson Rockefeller was vice president under Ford.
The Safari Club was a CIA cut-out: This clutch of intelligence agents, politicians and businessmen from three countries (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran) was founded with the express purpose of engaging in covert operations in Africa and the Middle East without leaving a CIA footprint.
Chicago Tribune book reviewer Padam Ahlawa neatly summarized the tensions that gave rise to the Safari Club: “The origins of world terrorism go back to the cold war era. Moscow’s monumental blunder in invading Afghanistan in 1979 set off a sequence of intrigue-laden events in Afghanistan…. High-profile military operations were out. Carter wanted a covert CIA operation like the one it had carried out in Laos, with no US personnel directly involved. The Agency, it was decided, would co-opt specialized American military personnel with the support of the Pakistan military to train an army of Muslim zealots.”
anwar sadat kennerly American Sponsorship of Global TerrorismAnwar Sadat entered into an agreement to assist in the training and equipping of recruits for the coming Anti-Communist jihad. “Russian weapons were flown to Afghanistan. Encouraging fundamentalism to grow in Egypt had its fallout when these Mujahadins turned hostile to Sadat for signing the peace treaty with Israel. It led to Sadat’s assassination and terrorist acts of killing 58 tourists. Zia ul Haq of Pakistan made the best of this opportunity, created the ISI to train Pakistanis and Afghans. By doing this, Pakistan’s economic and social instability increased and terrorist acts in Sindh grew.”8
The Safari Club’s cover was blown when the Ayatollah Khomeini allowed an Egyptian reporter to peek into the archives of the exiled Shah of Iran – a Club member.9 The CIA/Safari Club left footprints in the destabilization campaign at Mengistu in Ethiopia, the unrest in Costa Rica, and there were treadmarks all over Iran-Contra, not to mention the funding of UNITA in Angola and the Afghan “freedom fighters,’ including bin-Laden.10
The CIA funded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1977, and trained Mujahadin to support Hekmatyar of the Brotherhood in Afghanistan. The Koran-happy Muslim Brothers have served the CIA operationally for some 40 years, an arrangement rubber-stamped by Allen Dulles, Frank Wisner and Kermit Roosevelt.
Airline hijacker Mohammed Atta was ID’d as a Muslim Brother in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times shortly after the jet attacks on the World Trade Center. So were Khalid Shaik Mohammed and Ramzi Yousef, reportedly guided to a sacrificial pyre in the sky by Aman Zawahiri, Al Qeada’s second-in-command – also a co-conspirator, while operating under the aegis of the CIA, in the murder of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and the 1993 WTC bomb plot.
NOTES
1) Roland Jacquard, In the Name of Osama Bin Laden, Duke University Press, 2002, http://print.google.com/print/doc?isbn=0822329913
2) Bruce Campbell Adamson, letter to Congressman Sam Farr, September 15, 2001, http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg96515.htm
33) Linda Minor, “Follow the Yellow Brick Road: From Harvard to Enron,” http://www.newsmakingnews.com/lm4,30,02,harvardtoenronpt4.htm
4) LB, e-mail exchange with author, October 2, 2004.
5) Martin J. Rivers, “A Wolf in Sheikh’s Clothing: Bush Business Deals with Nine Partners of bin Laden’s Banker,” geocities.com, March 15, 2004, www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAR403A.html
6) Anonymous, “Bandar bin Sultan, a CIA Agent,” House of Saud web site, http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/irancont.htm
7) LB.
8) Padam Ahlawat, “Journalists’ account of terrorism,” Chicago Tribune, May 5, 2002 – review of Unholy Wars. Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, by John K. Cooley, Penguin.
9) Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, review of Unholy Wars, Journal of Islam and Muslim-Christian Relations, Minaret of Freedom Institute, http://www.minaret.org/cooley.htm.
10) Dr Samir Rihan, “Arms or democracy, but not both,” http://www.globalcomplexity.org/Arms%20or%20Democracy.htm
11) Debbie Schlussel, “Bush’s Favorite Terrorist Buddy,” WorldNetDaily, October 1, 2001.
Labels: AL-QAEDA, CIA, TERRORISM
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COMMENT - These two ancient rhodies couldn't think themselves out of a paper bag, or they're just lying. Only a fool would go to them for advice on anything. (Dumb***). The bumper harvest was bound to lower food prices. And by the way, John Robertson is not 'an independent economist based in Harare', he is part of The Economist Intelligence Unit. For a much better article, see:
Zimbabwe: Annual Inflation Slows to 4,3 Percent, by Tawanda Musarurwa (17 February 2012).
Zimbabwe's inflation figures don't add up
MATT QUIGLEY CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - Mar 16 2012 14:40
Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate remained unchanged at 4.3% in February, according to official statistics released on Thursday. On a monthly basis, the rate of price rises facing Zimbabwean consumers edged up only slightly from 0.46% in January to 0.49% in February.
These official figures suggest that prices are rising at a slower annual rate in Zimbabwe than in neighbouring countries. Zambia reported a 6.0% annual inflation rate last month, for example, and South Africa most recently recorded a 6.3% inflation rate in January.
Tony Hawkins, an economist at the University of Zimbabwe and member of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's monetary policy committee, believes that "the figures don't stack up". They are "not realistic", he said in a telephone interview earlier on Friday.
[Project much, Tony? - MrK]
The consumer price index (CPI) data released by Zimbabwe's National Statistical Office -- Zimstat -- suggested that prices have increased at just over 1.0% in the three years since the country abandoned its local currency after a prolonged period of hyperinflation.
According to the International Monetary Fund, the only other country in the world to experience such a low rate of inflation over the same time period was Japan, a country which has long battled deflation or falling prices.
[Those two economies aren't even compatable. - MrK]
The IMF, according to Hawkins, "reckons Zimbabwe's inflation rate has been closer to 6%".
Hawkins believes that one of the reasons the numbers are so inaccurate is that Zimbabwe's consumer price index -- compiled based on the average prices of a fixed basket of consumer goods -- gives a 30% weighting to food prices. Most African countries weight food at around 50%, he says.
John Robertson, an independent economist based in Harare, agrees that something is amiss in the data.
"[CPI] numbers have not gone up in the last three months, very much against expectations," Robertson said, "Government increased import duties on food in January, but the food [price] index has yet to move."
Robertson argues that Zimbabwe's highly competitive retail environment may partially explain the situation. Zimbabwe has experienced a significant expansion in supermarket and other retail space since 2009's "dollarisation" (abandonment of the local currency primarily in favour of the US dollar and South African rand). And, more recently, retailers increased their stocks around the Christmas holidays.
Although reliable retail sales figures are not available in Zimbabwe, Robertson believes that retailers are experiencing a surplus of goods. As evidence, he cites the fact that retailers have yet to repay the banks for the borrowing they undertook late last year to stock up. As a result of this, and other factors, Zimbabwe's retailers have not been able to achieve price increases, keeping inflation in check.
"There is very little liquidity [in the country] and cash is just not available." As a result, he argued, "retail sales have suffered over the past few months".
Although the two economists cite different possible explanations for the data's unreliability, they both believe that the official statistics are painting a "more and more distorted picture", as Hawkins explained.
Robertson agrees. "I think there is a certain amount of political interference in the numbers."
Consumer price index (CPI) figures compiled and released by Zimstat are one of very few economic statistics regularly available in the troubled nation.
In South Africa, dozens of economic variables -- from inflation measures to tourism statistics -- are released -- predictably, regularly and reliably -- by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA). This information, in aggregate, provides a useful snapshot of the country's economy to policymakers, economists, investors and businesses. Zimbabweans do not enjoy the same luxury.
An online visit to Zimstat on Friday morning resulted in a message informing visitors that the website is down. The same happens with a visit to the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE), which was hacked in August of last year and has been "under maintenance" ever since.
Labels: INFLATION, NEOLIBERALISM, TONY HAWKINS, ZIMBABWE
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ANC, youth league trade blows over Juju
FARANAAZ PARKER - Mar 16 2012 17:46
The war of words between the ANC Youth League its parent body heated up on Friday with each side firing off bitter salvoes after comments made by President Jacob Zuma at a business breakfast in Port Elizabeth.
The league said Zuma had made "shocking" statements, and accused him of unduly influencing the members of the party's national disciplinary committee of appeals (NDCA) and of undermining the disciplinary process, which could lead to the expulsion of youth league president Julius Malema.
But the ANC hit back shortly afterwards with a statement of its own, saying it was "disgusted" by the youth league's response to Zuma's comments on the disciplinary process.
The public spat erupted on Friday after Zuma, speaking at a business breakfast hosted by the SABC and the New Age newspaper in Port Elizabeth, said the youth league should accept that it needs a new president and "move on".
Zuma is reported to have told attendants at the breakfast that "once the process of disciplinary procedures has been concluded there will not be anything else to do thereafter -- the youth league will have to move forward".
Malema was expelled from the ANC in February following a lengthy ANC disciplinary hearing and appeals process, which found him guilty of sowing division in the party ranks. He was disciplined for portraying Zuma in a negative light and for calling for regime change in Botswana.
The youth league has not accepted the party's ruling and is determined to exhaust all its options for overturning the ruling, short of going to court. Malema submitted an appeal this week but the disciplinary process is still unfolding.
Speaking at the breakfast, Zuma acknowledged that Malema's appeal process was still underway but said that "at the end of the day [it had] drawn to a conclusion".
The youth league, which has long maintained that the disciplinary process was biased, has seized on Zuma's comments as proof of this.
In clear reference to Zuma, the youth league lashed out on Friday with a press release, saying it would "never falter on principles of the organisation, and [would] not allow any member of the ANC to openly undermine structures and processes of the organisation".
The league complained that judgment has been issued on a process that had not yet begun.
"As a president of the ANC and country, President Zuma is unduly influencing the members of the NDCA to come to a conclusion which he has already announced publicly," it said.
The league said it would "consult with relevant structures of the movement and other officials of the ANC to determine whether we should go ahead with the NDCA process when the president of the ANC has already announced its outcomes".
Despite the strident tone of the league's release, youth league spokesperson Magdalene Moonsamy told the Mail & Guardian the statement was "not a defiance of any kind" and that it did not mean that the league would be taking a decision on whether or not to continue with the NDCA.
Rather, it sought to engage with the ANC to understand the way forward in light of the president's statements. "We're now finding ourselves in a conundrum, where the perception has been created that a decision [on the appeal] has already been taken," she said.
The mother body however has not taken the youth league's pronouncements lightly. ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said Zuma's statements had been misrepresented and that the youth league's response was "false and inaccurate".
"The president [said that] 'should the NDCA uphold the NDC ruling, the youth league will have to appoint a new president'. The response of the president on this matter is not only correct, it is also consistent with ANC constitution," he said.
Mthembu accused the youth league of pre-empting and "agitating" against the findings of the disciplinary process. He added that the ANC was concerned about the league's "public rebuke" of Zuma, which showed a lack of respect for the president and the collective leadership of the ANC.
"This matter could have been handled in a dignified manner as opposed to public false accusations," he said.
This public dispute, in a party that highly values the internal resolution of disagreements, is an indication of the degree to which the relationship between the ANC and its youth arm has deteriorated in the heated political environment leading up to Mangaung.
The youth league last week angered some senior members of the ANC by joining the Cosatu march, which called for the scrapping of e-tolling on Gauteng's highways and the banning of labour brokers, two issues that the ANC has rejected.
And, although it has not officially declared its support, the league has made it clear that it wants Kgalema Motlanthe to be the next president of the ANC. It also wants former youth league president Fikile Mbalula, currently sports minister in Zuma's Cabinet, to be secretary general.
Labels: ANC, ANC YOUTH LEAGUE, JACOB ZUMA, JULIUS MALEMA
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Law Society of Zimbabwe victimising Masimirembwa
Posted by By Our reporter at 1 March, at 00 : 49 AM
THE attack by Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) on Goodwills Masimirembwa and his Zimbabwe Institute of Legal Studies (ZILS) smacks of victimisation and argument advanced carries no justice.
The Institute will be offering Diplomas in various fields of law. In particular it is offering about four law diplomas which are Diploma in Applied Law, Diploma in Forensic Science and Crime Investigations, Diploma in Commerce and Law and Diploma in Mineral Law and Policy.
The expected targeted market is not lawyers per se, but anyone whose job would involve elements of law.
This idea should be commended as it would increase and brigade the gap of knowledge which exists in some professions like Chartered Accountants, Economists, and Business Executives.
The corporate field has radically changed and evolved. It now demands that accountants or even geologists have a working knowledge of the law, hence the introduction of the Diploma in Commerce and Law and Diploma in Mineral Law and Policy.
This is knowledge one would not have acquired their specialized qualifications.
LSZ has taken upon itself to discredit this institution through its communication in the press.
It does not recognize the qualifications being offered by Zimbabwe Institute of Legal Studies.
One then wonders the motive and intentions of LSZ on its stance.
This is an organization which still holds that legal education is only for lawyers and that legal education should only be for a selected few.
It spearheaded the closure of the Faculty of Law at the then Great Zimbabwe University and Midlands State University sweated for its approval of the law degree.
It took the Midlands State University four or more years to get its approval.
Zimbabwe with all its sophisticated economy and society cannot be expected to have only two law schools.
We need legal education to be extended and made available to various professions without those professionals becoming lawyers.
Amongst other things, the LSZ has the powers to make recommendations in relation to training and to encourage and promote the study of efficiency and responsibility on the part of those seeking registration.
LSZ therefore only regulates the legal training of those who want to be registered by them and those people can only be lawyers.
Zimbabwe Institute of Legal Studies is not training lawyers. It is training people so that they can become legal technicians and legal executives.
If the Law Society of Zimbabwe was sincere in its “vested interest in legal training”, why does it not help the institute in establishing proper learning structures?
LSZ does not help the public which it purports to serve.
Is it not in the public interest for various professions to be taught the law component on which they would be encountering in the discharge of their duties?
Surely geologists and other related professions need to be educated about mineral law and policy without them becoming ‘learned friends’.
If the Council for Legal Education, the body tasked to ensure the maintenance of appropriate standards legal education and training in Zimbabwe gave them the green light, why then does the LSZ complain?
LSZ de-registered many lawyers before, including Dr. Lovemore Madhuku. For all we know LSZ had no objection in Madhuku lecturing in law at the University of Zimbabwe, but do not want the rehabilitated Masimirembwa to enter into academia and do the same as Dr. Madhuku. This time, Masimirembwa is not only lecturing, but owning the institution. Precedent?
We can only speculate that Masimirembwa is being persecuted because of his political affiliation with Zanu PF. If that is the case, then LSZ has gone to the dogs and it needs to be saved.
Tafadzwa Musarara
Labels: LAWYERS
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COMMENT - Talk about reality being caught in a false narrative, based on nothing except propaganda, that they cannot report on reality.
How Mugabe won over a nation – again
Alex Duval Smith
Friday 16 March 2012
After 32 years in power, Zimbabwe's President is winning new adoration with a familiar formula: taking from white businesses to give to black people. In Harare, Alex Duval Smith reportsHe may face opprobrium abroad, but at home President Robert Mugabe has soared back to popularity thanks to a campaign to turn over white-owned companies to black Zimbabweans. A crusading indigenisation programme – the corporate version of the farm invasions a decade ago – on Tuesday netted its juiciest prey yet when the world's second-largest platinum miner, Impala, agreed to cede 51 per cent of its Zimbabwean arm, Zimplats.
The controversial minister for indigenisation and youth, Saviour Kasukuwere, described the deal as a "historic moment for Zimbabwe and for the region" and called on black Africans to "reclaim their resources". The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the opposition party which in 2009 formed a power-sharing government with Mr Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF), sees the indigenisation wave as a feeding frenzy by ruling-party cronies that will deter foreign investors.
But it is working for the 88-year-old president.
[No British report on Zimbabwe can be complete without mentioning the age of President Mugabe, something unthinkable in African culture. Of course they never mentioned the age of President Mubarak of Egypt, because he was playing ball. How is this not propganda? - MrK]
In questionable health and in power for 32 years, Mr Mugabe has suddenly, in the eyes of many Zimbabweans, regained the revolutionary credentials he earned fighting white rule in the 1970s.
[There is absolutely nothing 'sudden' about this. The ZANU-PF fought for the independence of Zimbabwe from 1965 to 1980. They redistributed the land that was stolen from the people at gunpoint under both colonialism and UDI (the last dispossession happened in 1973). For 10 years, they were vilified, and the government and country put under economic sanctions like ZDERA, because they dared to challenge corporate 'property rights' - the property rights of crooks like Anglo-American, which was smuggling diamonds out of Zimbabwe for years, and has massively evaded taxes. Today, after massive resistance from the MDC and their rhodesian backers, they are finalising a partial transfer of ownership of the economy into Zimbabwe hands. What on earth is 'sudden' about this? The only thing 'sudden' is the partial U-TURN on behalf of the British media, who now realise that they are, again, on the wrong side of history. - MrK]
Emboldened by international sanctions,
[That's insane. International sanctions like ZDERA destroyed the Zimbabwe Dollar from 2002 onwards, and people were almost convinced, as intended, that the MDC was the alternative, rather than the creator of those sanctions. - MrK]
he is riding a wave of populist glory born of lots of rhetoric
[Riding a wave of populist glory? Now who is engaging in rhetoric? Land redistribution is real, indigenisation is real, so what 'wave of populist rhetoric' is President Mugabe riding? - MrK]
and a few converging realities: tens of thousands of resettled peasants
[That's hundreds of thousands of resettled families. I guess they 'did know how to farm' after all. - MrK]
have reaped bumper tobacco crops, civil servants have taken possession of thousands of hectares of redistributed farmland,
[That's as stupid slur. Desperately trying to cling on to the 'elite capture' slur, even against all evidence. - MrK]
and national pride is back, boosted by major diamond finds.
At the same time, the MDC has suffered its share of corruption scandals.
[They have. And that's because they a) are neoliberals who don't believe in restrictions on business or their own personal conduct and b) because they have no ideology that appeals to the Zimbabwean people, so they just steal what they can wehn they can. - MrK]
It has failed to reverse poverty or define itself as a reforming force within the power-sharing administration.
[That is because they are there to fulfill the Anglo-American and the IMF's agendas. We all know how that works whereever they were tried out - including in Zimbabwe from 1991-1996 as the WB visited austerity and pro-corporate policies on the people - the unilateral imposition of which led to the creation of the MDC. - MrK]
And the indigenisation programme, despite its popularity, has divided the trade unions, the MDC's electoral heartland.
In an interview with The Independent, Mr Kasukuwere , 41, did not deny that indigenisation was favouring Zanu-PF "cronies". In his office on the 20th floor of the Mukwati buildings, in Harare, the firebrand politician and businessman said:
"Indigenisation is undoing yesterday's cronies. That is why they are complaining. We are empowering the people of Zimbabwe irrespective of their tribe, language or home area. Yes, some will do better than others, but should I cut down those who are going to grow taller to help those who are still below? Every nation must have a middle class, and if I can create an environment in which millions of Zimbabweans are cronies, then fine, good.''
[So is the writer admitting that President Mugabe has millions of cronies, also known as The Zimbabwean People? - MrK]
Mr Kasukuwere , who is among 112 Zimbabweans under European Union sanctions, denied that the programme was a ruinous electoral ploy. "We want to get our people out of poverty. Who can be against that? There is now an appreciation that if the majority of the population remain a minority in the economic affairs of the country then they are beggars. They can now see which political party has their interests at heart."
[You know, Ben Freeth tried the 'land reform as as ruinous electoral ploy', which was 'used as a sweetener' for the 2000 elections talking point before. It didn't work for Land Reform, so why do they think they can make mileage out if it today. The rhodies and the corporatists have been not only rooting, but trying to make both fail, and they haven't, because of the resolve of the President of Zimbabwe and the people of Zimbabwe. - MrK]
Fourteen years ago, Zimbabwe was a breadbasket for southern Africa.
[Fourteen years ago, many Zimbabweans still lived on the low rainfall RESERVATIONS they had been relegated to, so that the center of the country could become a whites only area. Oh, those lovely days of colonialism and white rule. And when was Zimbabwe EVER the breadbasket of anything? And of Africa? If you look at maize production numbers, there were years in the 1990s that as low or lower than some years during the 2000s? Reason? Drought. And that was without the destruction of the national currency through ZDERA. - MrK]
Maize, tobacco and much more were produced by 4,500 commercial farmers – mostly white – using a black workforce.
[Who lived in abject poverty. See Mugabe And The White African. At one point Freeth even turns to his workforce before he is flying off to Namibia, and tells them, as if this is the 19th century instead of the 21st: "I will bring you blankets." Really? How about paying them enough so they can buy their own blankets? - MrK]
Then Mr Mugabe launched the often-violent "fast-track land redistribution" drive.
[Source? Violence during the Fast Track program was extremely rare. Of 4,500 white farmers, only 6 were killed (0.13%). And not by 'Mugabe's thugs', but by their neighbors, who were fed up by their attitudes. Compare that with 600 white farmers out of 40,000 killed (1.5%) in South Africa, without land reform. Clearly, it has always been much safer to be a white farmer in Zimbabwe, than in South Africa. - MrK]
The MDC was supported by the white farmers. Elections in the 2000s were violent, and in the 2008 presidential polls, Mr Mugabe finished neck-and-neck with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. A South African-brokered unity government took office in 2009, with Mr Tsvangirai as prime minister. It brought hyperinflation under control by replacing the local currency with the US dollar. Donor countries took over funding social ministries to support the 11-million-strong population. With a few exceptions, Zimbabweans are limping along under the burden of an economy going nowhere.
An agreement to move towards elections with a new constitution has become mired in party infighting. MDC finance minister Tendai Biti on Wednesday warned that the government would have to "close" unless the treasury received income from the diamond fields. Sensing his new-found popularity, the president has begun claiming he will call elections with or without a replacement constitution. He could also simply throw out the proposed document when it comes and hold elections using money from diamonds and indigenisation.
Mr Kasukuwere, accused by human rights activists of leading Zanu-PF mobs before the 2002 elections,
[HILARIOUS! Source? - MrK]
said the next poll would be violence-free. "We want peaceful, free and fair elections. Let us sell our ideas. People now understand what President Mugabe has been aiming at. He is the only politician who has clearly articulated his thoughts, unlike the other political parties who are just feeding on our people – look at the corruption in the local councils they [both wings of the MDC] control. How can they win elections when it is clear that they are a tool, an agent? They are incompetent, corrupt characters."
Zanu-PF's recent popularity surge has wrong-footed the MDC. Mr Tsvangirai, who recently visited the Marange diamond field, welcomed it as a boost for the country, even though his supporters are critical of the army's heavy hand in the extraction process. To Zimbabweans, the prime minister is seen as speaking with one voice when he addresses investors, and with another – more Zanu-friendly – when at home.
Mr Kasukuwere said his next targets, as he implements the 2007 indigenisation legislation, will be banks, such as Barclays, Standard Bank and Stanbic. "They take our deposits and yet refuse to lend. They have not been interested in funding our [resettled] farmers. "
[And that is perhaps the most interesting and relevant point of this article. Foreign banks in Africa are not lending to local entrepreneurs or farmers, which is part of what leads to a massive liquidity gap - the difference between savings rates and lending rates. Domestic borrowing by the state is too blame too, but the real issue is the anti-inflation, low wage, currency (meaning savings and earnings) depreciation policies that come straight out of the IMF and World Bank. Policies that benefit transnational corporations, and especially the banking dynasties that hold their shares. And that is a global problem. - MrK]
Details of Tuesday's Zimplats deal remain sketchy. But Impala has agreed to transfer 10 per cent of Zimplats shares to the community around its mines, 10 per cent to employees and 31 per cent to a National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund. State media put the total value of the Zimplats transfer at £383 million. Other miners with interests in Zimbabwe, such as Anglo Platinum and Rio Tinto, will watch developments closely. A few investors have sold up or left Zimbabwe, such as the South African construction giant Murray & Roberts.
Eleven years after the farm invasions were at their height, the Commercial Farmers' Union is struggling financially and has only 575 members, many of them past farming age or having moved their operations to Zambia, Australia or Britain. They are no longer political players and may no longer support the MDC.
It is a climate in which poverty grinds on and politics boils down not to delivery but to which party makes the best promises.
[But... you just wrote an entire article on the redistribution of the nation's mines to the people. And you've admitted that land reform was not an 'unmitigated disaster' and that yields have come back. So what non-delivery but promises are you talking about? Talk about cognitive dissonance taking time to catch up with the non-propaganda facts. - MrK]
To many Zimbabweans, President Mugabe once again looks like the country's best defender.
Fighting talk: The president's man
The son of a liberation war fighter, Saviour "Tyson" Kasukuwere is President Mugabe's point man on the issue he holds dearest: indigenisation.
Aged 41, he built his fortune a decade ago after using his ruling party connections to win five contracts to import oil. But Kasukuwere's oil company, Comoil, and his Migdale transport firm, both run by his wife Barbara, have suffered as a result of American sanctions that forbid US companies from doing business with his concerns.
"If anything, sanctions have emboldened me," he said.
[Those are personal sanctions, not the blanket sanctions that the entire government was put under like ZDERA. - MrK]
Mr Kasukuwere joined the the Central Intelligence Organisation straight from school. He moved into business in his mid-20s and only entered politics when he ran for Mount Darwin South in 2000, a constituency about 200km from Harare, becoming Zanu-PF's youngest MP.
He became deputy youth minister in 2005 and was studying for a political science degree when he was appointed minister of youth and indigenisation in 2009. He went on to do a masters degree in inter- national relations with a thesis on indigenisation and empowerment.
Labels: INDIGENIZATION AND EMPOWERMENT ACT (ZIMBABWE), ROBERT MUGABE, SAVIOUR KASUKUWERE
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Mugabe 'has won over nation - again': UK paper
16/03/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
A BRITISH newspaper which has traditionally been one of President Robert Mugabe’s harshest critics claimed Friday that the veteran leader had “won over a nation – again”.
The Independent said through “a crusading indigenisation programme – the corporate version of the farm invasions a decade ago” – the 88-year-old leader “has suddenly, in the eyes of many Zimbabweans, regained the revolutionary credentials he earned fighting white rule in the 1970s.”
With elections set to be held in the next 12 months, the newspaper claims to have found firming support for Mugabe on the ground as some of his populist policies begin to bear fruit.
“Emboldened by international sanctions, he is riding a wave of populist glory born of lots of rhetoric and a few converging realities: tens of thousands of resettled peasants have reaped bumper tobacco crops, civil servants have taken possession of thousands of hectares of redistributed farmland, and national pride is back, boosted by major diamond finds,” correspondent Alex Duval Smith wrote from Harare on Friday.
The newspaper claims it found Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party – Zanu PF’s main political rival – “has suffered its share of corruption scandals”.
“It has failed to reverse poverty or define itself as a reforming force within the power-sharing administration. And the indigenisation programme, despite its popularity, has divided the trade unions, the MDC's electoral heartland,” it said.
“It is a climate in which poverty grinds on and politics boils down not to delivery but to which party makes the best promises. To many Zimbabweans, President Mugabe once again looks like the country's best defender.”
The conclusions will sting the MDC-T which insists that Zanu PF’s indigenisation push – like land reforms before it – is only benefitting a small clique at the top and not the poor mass of voters.
But Zanu PF points to community share schemes which have seen large mining corporations giving away shares to local communities and employees. The party has vowed there will be no let-up as it fixes its eyes on foreign banks including Barclays, Standard Chartered and Stanbic which have been asked to cede majority shareholding to locals.
Indigenisation Minister Saviour Kasukuwere told the Independent: “People now understand what President Mugabe has been aiming at. He is the only politician who has clearly articulated his thoughts, unlike the other political parties who are just feeding on our people – look at the corruption in the local councils they [both wings of the MDC] control.
“How can they win elections when it is clear that they are a tool, an agent? They are incompetent, corrupt characters."
Zanu PF is increasingly confident it won't need to resort to violent tactics of the past to see off its rivals.
"We want peaceful, free and fair elections. Let us sell our ideas," Kasukuwere said, echoing similar calls by Mugabe who has agreed to travel around the country with his rivals Morgan Tsvangirai and Welshman Ncube to address so-called "peace rallies" organised by churches.
[CLICK HERE to read the Independent's full report]
Labels: INDIGENIZATION AND EMPOWERMENT ACT (ZIMBABWE), SAVIOUR KASUKUWERE
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COMMENT - What did the founding fathers of the US have to say about the foreign ownership of their banks? Minister Kasukuwere: " “They are also resisting pressure to lend to our companies so that we grow the economy and create jobs for our people.
“These banks have serious attitude problems and that is why the ownership law is necessary; and it will be implemented.” " Slowly, the Zimbabwean government is dismantling the infrastructure of neocolonialism.
Nothing sensitive about banks: Kasukuwere
Resistance ... Finance Minister Tendai Biti and Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono
15/03/2012 00:00:00
by Gilbert Nyambabvu
FRESH from facing down the world’s second biggest platinum miner, Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere has brushed aside reservations from cabinet colleagues and insisted that foreign banks must now comply with the country’s ownership laws.
Impala Platinum (Implats) this week agreed to give up 51 percent of its Zimbabwe operation, Zimplats, in what was seen as a key victory for Kasukuwere who is leading the government’s economic empowerment drive.
And buoyed by Implats' eventual surrender, Kasukuwere has now said focus will turn to the country’s financial services sector which is dominated by the British-domiciled Standard Chartered and Barclays banks as well as the South Africa-owned Stanbic.
However, he faces resistance from cabinet colleagues and central bank governor, Gideon Gono.
Said Finance Minister Tendai Biti recently: “There is no need for one to take over a commercial bank. If you want a bank come to me as the Minister of Finance and (central bank chief) Gideon Gono and we will give you the licence to start a bank.”
Addressing local business leaders in Bulawayo, Gono added: “Banking is a sensitive area which should be left alone. Indigenising those banks will make life more difficult for the people.”
But Kasukuwere told New Zimbabwe.com that he would ensure the country’s laws are implemented, adding that those with reservations should have changed legislation when it was enacted several years ago.
“What is sensitive about banks? The law is also sensitive,” he said.
“People should stop dreaming. We can have personal opinions but they should remain just that. We cannot, as leaders, be seen to be undermining the same laws we have enacted through parliament.”
Gono, who has over the years shut down several locally-owned banks over management and capitalisation problems, is concerned that indigenisation could further distabilise a key economic sector.
According to information from the RBZ, foreign-owned banks have healthy capital positions while the locally-owned institutions barely meet the minimum capital requirements.
“If you have an appetite for banking, please come to us with your whole family or clan,” Gono said in Bulawayo.
“We will issue you with the licence to start your own bank provided you have the initial capital of US$12.5 million. Why should people want to have shares in a bank for nothing?”
However, Kasukuwere said he was surprised that leaders were trying to protect institutions they blame for worsening liquidity problems in the economy by keeping large amounts of money outside the country.
“This is our money that we are talking about,” he said.
“No British bank brought British deposits to Zimbabwe. This is money which belongs to our people. I cannot understand leaders who defend banks that are working against the aspirations of our people.
“We have been struggling with liquidity problems and these banks have been keeping huge amounts of money outside the country.
“They are also resisting pressure to lend to our companies so that we grow the economy and create jobs for our people.
“These banks have serious attitude problems and that is why the ownership law is necessary; and it will be implemented.”
Labels: BANKING, NEOCOLONIALISM
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Zimbabwe to repossess idle mining claims
16/03/2012 00:00:00
by NewZiana
ZIMBABWE will repossess mining claims which are lying idle in order to make room for new players and investments, a senior government official has said. More players would widen revenue base through tax collections, Mines and Mining Development Ministry Permanent Secretary, Prince Mupazviriho has said.
"There is a lot of land being held by these large mining companies and some local individuals," he added. Mupazviriho said the government was committed to empowering locals and therefore all under-utilised land should be made productive.
"We are working under sanctions and thus we need to come up with our own solutions to the liquidity challenges," he said.
He said mining was given the task of resuscitating the Zimbabwean economy and hence there was a need to increase production.
"If we work together and increase production, the 15 per cent growth projected for 2012 will be achieved," he added.
Mupazviriho said the government would, through the Mining Loan Fund, assist small-scale miners with working capital and equipment to develop the sector.
Labels: MINING
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Libya: One year after the rebellion
Dr Mumba Gandiya
Tomorrow, it will be exactly one year after the United Nations sealed the fate of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, by proclaiming a war that started disguised as superintending over a no-fly zone to save the ordinary people of Libya.
This war has largely proved to be the West’s huge cheat on African politics and murder with actual intent. On March 17, 2012, UN Security Council Resolution 1973 was passed, imposing a no-fly zone over Libya.
The accusations were that Gaddafi had bombed his own people from air and land, used foreign mercenaries, ordered the use of rape as a weapon, and killed by the thousands.
To date another country is under a similar threat. Sanctions against Syria and looming prospects of an intervention into the country are drawing ever more parallels with the war in Libya and this has inspired this article. But as it turned out in Libya the “facts” used to wage a “humanitarian war” on Tripoli, underwent almost no verification.
To date, no tangible evidence has been given to prove that Gaddafi committed the crimes but the whole world was tricked by Nicholas Sarkozy that Gaddafi was about to strike Benghazi, hence the people needed to be saved from his savagery.
Last week, international filmmaker and independent journalist Julien Teil concluded that up to now there is no evidence to justify the humanitarian war in Libya.
In the beginning of this story, we got some allegations that have been looked at and send to the UN Human Rights Council and those allegations had never been verified or checked. And these had been used also as material for the ICC case against Libya.
Now one year down the line, Gaddafi is dead after a brutal murder and no one can prove there was bombing. All I know is that there is no evidence of bombing.
I happened to come across a statement by the one who went to the UN Human Rights Council, Sliman Bouchuiguir. Sliman Bouchuiguir was the former Secretary General of the Libyan League for Human Rights and is now the Libyan ambassador to Switzerland in Bern.
On February 25 last year, he went to the UN Human Rights Council to present his organisation’s allegations of crimes against Gaddafi’s government. In that session, a decision was taken to freeze Libya’s membership of the Council. He underlined the number of deaths — 6 000, including 3 000 in Tripoli alone.
When a journalist asked Bouchuiguir how these claims can be verified, he pointed to the former rebels — now Libya’s government — as his source.
“I got that information from the Libyan Prime Minister. Mr Mahmoud of the Warfallah Tribe who was on the other side of the National Transitional Council was the one who gave me these numbers,” he stated.
Yet there are still those who defend the Libyan intervention, like a former French intelligence officer.
We clearly have in this case the fog of war. It is very likely that some crimes attributed to Gaddafi were false or exaggerated yet on June 27, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Ocampo Moreno’s request for arrest warrants for Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and his intelligence chief was granted.
Some of us had the fortune of going through the pages of the arrest warrant application, most of which were redacted. Among the pages open to the public were lists of articles to support the case, one of which was Bouchuiguir’s February 25 speech — the one based on information Bouchuiguir himself said he got from the NTC, with no evidence or documents to back the staggering numbers. But those who raised questions risked being accused of taking the side of a man seen as a brutal dictator, already labelled by some world powers as “the bad guy”.
I think that was absurd.
If you are against declaring war on a country, it is not because you like the government.
l Dr Mumba Gandiya is a Zambian political analyst, who once worked in Libya. Day Africa.com
Labels: ICC, LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI, NATO, WAR CRIMES
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Govt forms committee to assess food situation
Friday, 16 March 2012 00:00
Agriculture Reporter
Government has resuscitated the food emergency committee to immediately assess the food situation and requirements countrywide. Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made will chair the committee. Other committee members are Local Government, Urban and Rural Development Minister Ignatius Chombo, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Paurina Mpariwa and Energy and Power Development Minister Elton Mangoma.
Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Nicholas Goche, Finance Minister Tendai Biti and Economic Planning and Investment Promotion Minister Tapiwa Mashakada are also part of the committee.
Minister Made said the inter-ministerial committee was formed after a realisation by Cabinet that there is a looming drought until next year.
The bulk of the maize crop that was planted during the 2011/12 summer cropping season has been declared a write-off.
This means that an anticipated short-term intervention in terms of grain loan scheme would have to be spread over 12 months.
“The committee is to establish the number of people requiring assistance, quantity of locally produced grain and total national requirement to close the gap between the available grain and shortage.
The committee would put in place an urgent programme to meet any shortfall in local production, identify areas of supply and deficit and come up with the types of distribution of grain and mode of repayment.
The committee would look at grain loan schemes as well as vulnerable households and come up with a comprehensive budget.
The grain loan scheme, which was relating to grain production, will also have to include cash purchases.
The scheme will no longer cater only for those who anticipated poor harvests but would include even those without food.
Minister Made said farmers in the southern region could use proceeds from their livestock to buy grain from the Grain Marketing Board.
On the grain loan scheme, Minister Made said Cabinet had concluded that its performance had been very poor.
“The GMB has been giving out inadequate grain far below the demand. With immediate effect anyone approaching the GMB requiring a grain loan especially in the communal areas has to be considered,” he said.
Minister Made said the movement of provincial managers had assisted in curbing the practice.
“As Minister of Agriculture, I would like to warn GMB employees to concentrate on matters relating to effective serving of the people in relation to the situation of food.
“Managers should provide good services to consumers otherwise we part ways,” he said.
The GMB recently dismissed four employees for defrauding the company while all provincial managers were transferred to curb rampant corruption at the parastatal.
Labels: HUNGER, JOSEPH MADE
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Ministers clash over banks
Friday, 16 March 2012 00:00
Golden Sibanda Senior Business Reporter
A WAR of words has erupted between Finance Minister Tendai Biti and his indigenisation counterpart Saviour Kasukuwere, over sharp differences on localisation of foreign-owned financial institutions.
On Wednesday Minister Biti told journalists there was no need to indigenise the banking sector as local banks already dominated the sector. But Minister Kasukuwere retorted: “(Minister) Biti has no business talking about indigenisation of banks. At the appropriate time, we shall advise on the steps we are taking to indigenise the sector. “Otherwise, we do not expect him to make any policy pronouncements on indigenisation. That’s not his domain.”
Foreign-owned firms operating in Zimbabwe are required in terms of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act to sell at least 51 percent stake to locals. Minister Kasukuwere has in the past said when the mining sector had been fully indigenised, the focus would immediately shift to the financial sector.
But Minister Biti said since only four out of 26 banks were foreign-owned, there was no need to localise them and that locals interested in establishing banks could approach the relevant authorities for a banking licence.
Minister Biti said if a certain bank was valued at US$60 million and US$30 million would be required to buy a controlling shareholding and that means anyone with such an amount of money could start their own bank.
“If you have US$30 million you can start a bank, why go into Mr Brown’s bank? Out of 26 only four are foreign. It’s an indigenised sector. If you meet capital requirements we can give you a licence tomorrow,” he said.
He said banks had worked hard to rebuild their eroded capital base from a mere US$300 million at the beginning of 2009 to over US$4 billion now.
“Banks play an intermediary role and they are as good as their deposits. They are not at the centre of production, so you cannot apply the same position with Zimplats. If it is not broken do not fix it,” said Minister Biti.
There is fear in some quarters that indigenising foreign-owned banks could affect stability of the sector and warp the confidence that is returning from the crises caused by almost a decade of economic instability.
Foreign-owned banks operating in Zimbabwe include Standard Chartered Bank, Stanbic Bank, MBCA Bank and Barclays Bank.
But there has generally been concern over the reluctance of foreign-owned banks to extend lines of credit to productive sectors of the economy. Foreign-owned banks have remained extra cautious over the calibre of clients they lend to, mostly blue-chip firms and high net worth individuals.
Government has viewed this as sabotaging a fragile economic recovery process considering that mostly firms from Western countries that unilaterally imposed economic sanctions on Zimbabwe control most of these banks.
While the foreign-owned banks were reluctant to support productive sectors of the economy and sitting on millions of deposits, local firms and other entrepreneurs were groaning from the spike of high interest rates.
Labels: BANKING, INDIGENIZATION AND EMPOWERMENT ACT (ZIMBABWE), SAVIOUR KASUKUWERE, TENDAI BITI
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MDC-T’s regime change agenda exposed
Friday, 16 March 2012 00:00
Takunda Maodza Senior Reporter
MDC-T is covertly working with some non-governmental organisations to prepare for foreign intervention in the event its leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai falls to President Mugabe in elections set for this year. Mr Tsvangirai and his party are reluctant to contest the elections that President Mugabe insists will be held this year.
Through a network of NGOs, MDC-T plans to launch an election vilification programme dubbed the Global Advocacy Campaign in South Africa this month. The campaign, trading under the banner “Towards a peaceful, free and fair election in Zimbabwe” will be launched by PM Tsvangirai in Johannesburg (South Africa) anytime soon.
Similar launches are set for Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Britain, Geneva and in other foreign capitals.
Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Jameson Timba yesterday denied leading such a campaign, but hailed the programme as good for Zimbabwe.
“If there is a campaign for Zimbabwe to have free and fair elections then it is good for Zimbabwe,” he said.
Sources say Minister Timba was recently in Tanzania to co-ordinate the GAC campaign.
He denied the claims saying he was in that country in his capacity as the MDC-T secretary for international relations.
According to documents at hand, the MDC-T and the NGOs intend to develop a national, regional and international campaign reportedly for the observance and respect of a democratic outcome of elections through lobbying and advocacy.
They will encourage South Africa, Sadc, AU, UN and the wider civil society to remain engaged around Zimbabwe’s electoral and transitional processes.
“This should not be the conjecture to let up on the country.
“International diplomacy should be innovatively applied to dangle carrots and sticks during the next elections,” reads the GAC strategy and concept paper.
A number of activities have been lined up for the campaign.
“The first activity relates to the primary importance of developing an alliance to drive the campaign on a non-partisan platform. The membership of the alliance will be defined by a set of core democratic values and drawn from national, regional and international arenas,” reads the document.
The second activity deals with the formulation of a national alliance that will entail solidarity coalition building and voluntarism while the third relates to mobilisation of regional and international partnership.
In the region, bodies like the Sadc NGO Forum, are identified as main alliance partners with global labour federations, World Council of Churches and global forums of youth and women singled out as international partners.
“The fourth (activity) will involve canvassing some global icons to lend their support to the campaign.
“Consisting of distinguished statesmen and women, musicians, sportsmen and women and film stars amongst others, the icons will endorse the campaign and serve as ‘faces and voices’ of the campaign.
“The icons will be drawn from the region and continent but also from overseas including from amongst former Heads of State such as President Kaunda, President Chissano, President Clinton, President Mkapa and President Kuffour to name but a few.
“The campaign will also establish how it would feed into the independent work of the ‘Elders Group’ who work in troubled spots and have an interest in working in Zimbabwe,” further reads the GAC document.
The development of a global communication strategy for the campaign is also outlined as one important factor to ensure success of the campaign.
A strategy would be formulated to identify strategic modes of communication with appropriate stakeholders, and engagement with departments and individuals in relevant regional and international organisations like Sadc, AU and UN.
The sixth activity will see the staging in South Africa of a musical concert “where artists who subscribe to the respect and observance of human rights and democracy” are expected to perform carrying messages of the campaign under activity six.
Creation of synergies with like-minded institutions like the Zimbabwe Peace Project and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network and the publication of a “Zimbabwe Violence Watch Report has also been planned as the seventh activity.
The publication would monitor and highlight incidents of violence as they occur and bring them to the attention of the monitoring bodies, alliance partners, the international community and the public.
Public forum discussions on ‘The Road to Free and Fair Elections’ will be conducted in Zimbabwe and worldwide. It will involve high level presentations by civic and political actors, eminent academics and policy experts with knowledge on the country.
“The tenth activity will be a substantial one. It will consist of the overall co-ordination of the campaign. A co-ordination unit will be established to that effect.
“There would need to be synergy and synchronisation between various levels of the campaign. The national, regional and global levels would need to feed into each other thus enriching and invigorating the campaign.”
There would be forums and strategic retreats “for the leadership of democratic actors” for them to remain enga-ged on the objectives of the campaign.
The launch of the GAC “will be preceeded by pre-event local and international media briefings with the launch followed and buttressed by post event media blitz and follow up activities of local civic partners to popularise the campaign”.
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, MDC, NEOCOLONIALISM, TREASON
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Rupiah and his fears
By The Post
Fri 16 Mar. 2012, 12:00 CAT
RUPIAH Banda says he feels he is being persecuted by Michael Sata's government. And Rupiah says there is need to give each other respect so that the country moves forward and a way of resolving matters with him must be found before removing his immunity.
There is no one persecuting Rupiah and members of his family. Michael's government has treated Rupiah with a lot more respect than he had treated them when they were in opposition. Rupiah was ruthless and merciless with those who opposed him, those he detested.
But there is no element of revenge on the part of Michael and his government and others who Rupiah mistreated, persecuted. We can with all honesty and sincerity say we are part of the people Rupiah persecuted. Rupiah abused our country's judicial process to fix us, to punish us and destroy us.
And there were judges of our High Court and our Supreme Court who connived with him, who allowed themselves to be used in this attempt to crush us. And the Chief Justice of this Republic, Ernest Sakala, cannot in all honesty deny what we are saying. But there is no bitterness in us, there is no element of hatred or revenge in us. This can also be said about Rajan Mahtani.
Rupiah and his judges connived to finish off this man and his bank. These are also matters that can be proved. Rajan is lucky to be among the living today.
The pursuit of justice must be a fundamental norm of the state. And the rule of law requires equality before the law. If Rupiah and his sons did something wrong, the law, as Michael has correctly pointed out, should take its course.
We have adequate laws that govern the prosecution of a former president. Those laws should be followed if need be. If investigations reveal that Rupiah abused his office to enrich himself, his sons and his friends, he should be prosecuted. Doing this is not setting a culture that will follow every president after he leaves office.
Doing this is setting a culture that does not allow impunity among those elected to govern and administer the affairs of our country. Taken to the extreme, if we were left with only two choices to prosecute every former president for corruption or to allow impunity, a situation where a president steals from his people and goes scot-free, we would not hesitate to choose the former.
The need to respect each other also extends to respect for public property, for the rights and dignity of others. Stealing public resources or abusing public office is disrespect for others, for the rights and dignity of fellow citizens, people one is elected to lead.
Rupiah is suggesting that the government must find ways of resolving matters with him before removing his immunity. What matters? Let him give his suggestions on how these matters he is talking about can be resolved with him.
Let him state what he is offering on this score. But is this the way everybody who has committed a crime or who is suspected of having committed a crime should resolve matters? All of us should be given an opportunity of finding ways of resolving matters with the state before we are prosecuted or sent to prison! We are saying this in the light of the right to equality before the law or equal protection of the law, which every citizen should enjoy.
If Rupiah and his sons are innocent as he claims, let them do what people who feel they are innocent do: subject themselves to investigations and prosecution. When there were claims of Rajan having done something wrong at his bank and threats were being issued for his arrest, Rajan, who was in the United Kingdom attending medical treatment, abandoned that and came back home, against the advice of most of his friends, to face his accusers.
He didn't run away. His prayer was that if he had done something wrong, let him be taken to court so that he can have his day and clear his name. He was more concerned about clearing his name in court and not about the persecution he was indeed subjected to. Equally, when Rupiah was accusing us of having pocketed US$30 million from state institutions, our cry was: arrest and prosecute us if we have stolen anything from anyone.
Rupiah and his friends investigated us and found nothing. But they had no sense of honesty and dignity to tell the Zambian people that they had found nothing and kept on telling lies and insinuating all sorts of things. This is the man who today is talking about the need to give each other respect so that the country can move forward. What respect for others?
Rupiah has made it very clear that he knows where his son Henry is and he talks to him. Rupiah knows that Henry is wanted by the police here. If the Bandas are as innocent as they want to make us believe, why can't they ask Henry to come back and answer police questions? The truth is, in their heart of hearts, Rupiah and his sons know that they are not as innocent as they are claiming. They also know that nobody is persecuting them.
What they simply don't want is to be made accountable for the wrong things they did, for the crimes they committed. We all know that Rupiah has been working toward this impunity line for some time. In collusion with our discredited judiciary, Rupiah freed Chiluba from going to jail for corruption in order to establish a precedent, a culture where no president who steals goes to jail.
This was denounced long before Michael became president. This has nothing to do with Michael being president. And it doesn't matter who is president, the rule of law must always prevail and reign supreme.
It's clear that to Rupiah, what matters is his personal welfare and that of his close associates. He says he shed tears after his defeat in last year's presidential elections because his colleagues would lose jobs and their children would not go to school. But why should electoral defeat be so painful, so bitter and make an old man of Rupiah's age cry? As Joseph Clark observed, "defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it." It seems Rupiah swallowed it and it made him cry.
Jobs for Rupiah and his colleagues was all that mattered to them and not the plight of the 12 or 13 million other Zambians who did not have jobs in his government. Everything was about themselves and for themselves and by themselves. This is not behaviour that can attract respect for a leader or former leader.
If anyone has in his heart a vestige of love for his country, love for his people, love for justice, one cannot say the things Rupiah is saying. To save his job as president of our Republic and those of his colleagues, Rupiah was shameless and ruthless on those who opposed his rule.
He poured endless streams of lies and slander, poured forth in his crude, odious repulsive language all sorts of malice on his opponents, real and perceived. But the people of Zambia saw through him and refused to swallow his lies, insults and malice and voted him out.
To have believed him for a single moment would have sufficed to fill a man of conscience with remorse and shame for the rest of his life. Rupiah did not even attempt to cover up appearances. Rupiah and his men in our judiciary and other agencies of the state did not bother in the least to conceal what they were doing. They thought they had deceived the people with their lies and they ended up deceiving themselves.
They felt themselves lords and masters of the universe, with power over life and death. Of course, in every society there are men of base instinct - the sadists, brutes who guise themselves as human beings when they are nothing but monsters, only more or less restrained by discipline and social habit.
If they are offered a drink from a river of blood, they will not be satisfied until they drink the river dry. At their hands, and at the hands of their accomplices in robes, the best and noblest, the most valiant, the most honest Zambians suffered.
These tyrants, these corrupt elements called them crooks.
If respecting each other means allowing criminals of all hues to abuse our people, then there is a problem because the man who permits any man to trample and mistreat the country in which he was born, his people is not an honourable man, he is not a self-respecting man and one cannot respect others if one does not respect oneself. There must be a certain degree of honour.
And honour dictates that those who commit crimes against the people, those who steal the people's honour be tried for their crimes.
It is understandable that honest men had to suffer in a Republic where the president is a criminal and a thief.
Probably Rupiah knows very well what type of judiciary he has left behind and he knows that he will not receive a fair trial before it.
This is why he and his children are probably so scared of being prosecuted.
Labels: CORRUPTION, ERNEST SAKALA, FINANCE BANK, MICHAEL SATA, RAJAN MAHTANI, RUPIAH BANDA
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