Gibson Sibanda has been Morgan Tsvangirai's deputy for many
years
Gibson Sibanda admits last year's split in the Movement for Democratic Change weakened the party.
But he told the BBC that all MDC supporters will back him after they know the facts. He says he has the support of 25 of the party's 41 MPs.
Correspondents say President Robert Mugabe has benefited from the split.
Founding MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai - who insists that he remains party leader - says the split was the work of government agents.
'Nothing special'
Mr Sibanda accused Mr Tsvangirai of repeatedly going against party decisions.
The National Council voted to take part in last year's senate elections despite Mr Tsvangirai's arguments that it would be a waste of time because the polls would be rigged.
Tsvangirai says the split was engineered by government
agents |
Mr Sibanda was Mr Tsvangirai's deputy at the MDC for five years and also for several years before that at the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, which set up an opposition party to counter what is said was Mr Mugabe's disastrous economic policies.
But Mr Sibanda told the BBC's Network Africa that for him, Mr Tsvangirai was "just a Zimbabwean like any other person to me - nothing special."
Mr Sibanda has been briefing Harare-based diplomats about the changes.
The MDC is set to hold a congress in February, which should hold leadership
elections.
Monday, 9 January 2006, 10
hours, 47 minutes and 43 seconds ago.
By James Mapapu
HPS is a strategic business unit owned by Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC), a subsidiary of the country’s power utility, Zesa Holdings. The matter came to light in written communication from HPS to Bulawayo City Council dated 15 December 2005, pleading with city fathers to allow HPS to borrow 200 bags of Aluminum Sulphate to allow electricity generating operations to continue. Part of the letter reads: “Our power station has run out of stocks of Aluminium Sulphate. We are still waiting to receive stocks from our supplier who was promised to deliver in the next two weeks hence the request to be loaned 200 bags so that we can continue generating electricity.” However, the request was turned down by council authorities who cited that they could not afford to loan HPS the bags of Aluminium Sulphate owing to the facts that Bulawayo council was using the bags for its own water purification purposes – particularly in a hostile economic environment that has seen supply of the chemical nosedive. City Director of Engineering Services, Peter Sibanda said council could not loan HPS the bags as it had been left with less than half a year’s supply of the scarce product, which is now being sourced on the black market due to supply constraints. Sibanda said because supply of the product was being rationed country wide, Bulawayo City Council feared that HPS would fail to replace the product given meager supplies the council is left with and the situation in which suppliers are failing to meet demand. “They (HPS) may fail to deliver on the date they had promised us. We understand their plight, but at the same time we also have to think of the peoples’ lives in terms of water purification,” said Sibanda. While ZPC spokesperson, James Maridadi could not be reached for comment, one senior official with ZPC who refused to be identified said the shortage of the component was likely to result in an upset to the company’s power-generating capacities. “What we are talking off is the situation in the long run. If those bags are not sourced consistently, then ZPC will have to import more power from ESKOM, Snel and Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB) at a time when SADC nations are facing a possible power crunch and no country wants to export power,” said the official. ESKOM is based in South Africa, Snel in the Democratic Republic of Congo and HCB in Mozambique. Zimbabwe currently imports 35-percent of electricity requirements from these three power utilities to meet the country’s peak demand of electricity which stands at 1825 MegaWatts (MW). The crisis comes at a time when Zesa Holdings, through ZPC, had concluded agreements with the China's National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation (CATIC) and Farab Company based in Iran to increase the power utility’s electricity generating capacity. CATIC would have started construction of HPS’ Units 7 and 8 – additional units to increase output – in a US$600 million investment that will involve coal production. The deal would have seen HPS increase its output by 600 MW.
A.N.D Africa
HARARE - Zimbabwe's Agriculture Minister Joseph Made says the Harare government is considering enacting new legislation to force the country's banks to finance black villagers resettled on land seized from whites.
Speaking to ZimOnline at the weekend, Made accused commercial banks of ganging up to sabotage President Robert Mugabe's controversial land reforms by refusing to advance loans to blacks allocated land by the government.
Made said: "We have been talking to the banks for a long time. But this diplomacy seems to have failed to work. We have come to a point where as Cabinet we say, what else do we do to ensure that our farmers are funded?
"Because they (banks) have failed to listen, our next move will be to force them to fund black farmers, by legislation or otherwise. This is a matter still under discussion and ways are being mapped out."
Zimbabwe's banks, both local and foreign-owned, have largely withheld funding from black peasants resettled on former white farms by the government chiefly because, unlike their white predecessors, the blacks do not hold title to the land and therefore cannot use it as security to cover loans.
A controversial constitutional amendment passed by the government last August virtually nationalising all farmland by barring owners from contesting in court the seizure of their land by the state has made banks even more unwilling to finance agriculture.
The lack of farming skills among most of the new black farmers has also discouraged banks that fear the farmers may not be able to earn enough income from their farming activities to be able to pay back loans.
But Made said all that was set to change under the new measures the government was considering as it battles to revive the mainstay agricultural sector, which has declined by more than 30 percent since farm seizures began five years ago.
The government may have to force banks to reserve a certain amount of money for the black farmers or have their operating licences withdrawn, Made said.
He said: "Lawyers are forced to handle certain cases for free a year. Banks can also be forced to adopt a quota system. We will tell them that if they are to remain operating in Zimbabwe then they have to reserve a certain amount specifically to finance black farmers."
Made, considered among the radicals in Mugabe's government, did not say when exactly the government was likely to put in place the new funding requirements for agriculture that are certain to send tremors through the banking sector.
The 2005/06 farming season is already underway and there have been no directives on banks to finance black farmers most of whom are expected to record poor yields again this season because of lack of finance and farm inputs such as fertilizer and seeds.
But a senior executive with one of the country's biggest commercial banks described Made's statements as uninformed, saying forcing banks to give out loans without checking the creditworthiness of recipients would have a serious destabilising impact on the banking sector.
The banker, who did not want to be named, said: "Banks do not segregate on the basis of colour or political party affiliation. In fact, black people head most of the banks.
"The problem is most of the new farmers are not creditworthy and any serious bank would not throw money down the hole. It will be a first for a government to tell banks whom to give money without following business principles."
To prove his point, the banker cited the state-owned Agribank which almost collapsed after it was forced by the government to advance loans to black farmers without any rigorous checking on their ability to pay back. Many of the black farmers failed to repay the loans. - ZimOnline
Harare,
Zimbabwe
09 January 2006 02:10
Zimbabwean authoritites
will relocate 700 families from villages in the
southern districts of
Chiredzi to make way for a transfrontier game reserve,
an official said on
Monday.
"The 700 families will be relocated if all goes well at the end
of this
month," said national parks spokesperson Edward Mbewe.
He
said the villages fell under the proposed Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou
Transfrontier Park on Zimbabwe's borders with Mozambique and South
Africa.
"We had hoped to relocate them last month but we could not
because of other
logistical constraints," Mbewe said.
"The families
... are residing in a corridor where we would want the animals
to freely
move."
Mbewe said the parks authorities planned to declare the area a
protected
zone reserved for endangered rhinoceros species.
The
transfrontier park launched four years ago will merge Kruger National
Park
in South Africa, Gaza in Mozambique and Gonarezhou in Zimbabwe to allow
free
movement of animals and tourists.
Mbewe did not give the specific date
when the families would be moved to an
area next to the reserve.
He
said the government would help uprooted families form co-operatives to
buy
shares in the proposed game reserve. - AFP
BBC
Malta is the happiest place on
earth, while Zimbabwe and Ukraine seem to be
the most unhappy.
That's
according to the annual World Database of Happiness compiled by a
Dutch
boffin.
Money is not the main reason for happiness, with the United Kingdom
ranking
21st behind poorer countries such as Ghana, Guatemala and
Uruguay.
Zimbabwe, Moldova and Ukraine rank lowest, with no more than 20 per
cent of
their citizens happy.
Happy homes
Professor Ruut Veenhoven, of
Erasmus University in Rotterdam, also found
Denmark, Switzerland, Colombia,
Iceland, Ireland and the Netherlands were in
the top 10 happiest places to
live.
South Africa and Zimbabwe opened an office on Monday to help curb illegal immigration and the abuse of labour laws.
The office, at the Beit Bridge border post, was the first of its kind in Africa and would help assist Zimbabweans seeking employment in South Africa with legal papers, the Labour Department said.
It would also be the major recipient of about 2000 Zimbabwean deportees repatriated on a weekly basis from South Africa.
"Deportees and other people in need of legal documents will be served food and other basic amenities while their papers are sorted," the department said in a statement.
"The office includes among others, an HIV/Aids counselling centre and will be the centre point for World Food Programme support."
The office was opened by South African Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana and his Zimbabwean counterpart Nicholas Goche.
The ministers agreed the office would help minimise illegal immigration and the abuse of Zimbabweans by unscrupulous employers seeking to make a profit through the South African labour laws.
They said the move would also decrease levels of crime in the border area.
"My government will do everything to make the good intentions of the office work," Goche said.
Mdladlana said the initiative would be "a good forum to fight xenophobia".
Sapa
|
HARARE - Too many of Zimbabwe's judges and magistrates have benefited from the government's political largesse that the bench could not be deemed independent, local human rights lawyers and activists said yesterday. The lawyers and activists were reacting to a statement by Judge President Paddington Garwe, when he opened Zimbabwe's legal year yesterday that the bench was independent and not subservient to President Robert Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) executive director Arnold Tsunga, said the general consensus among the legal fraternity in the country was that the judiciary was compromised both at the personal level of individual judges and at the institutional level. "Let's look at conditions of employment of the judiciary. The judges and magistrates are mired in poverty, the Judge President mentioned it. The conditions of service are not attractive to the extent that it will be difficult for them to have personal independence when they are economically compromised," said Tsunga. Tsunga - whose ZHLR has taken Mugabe's government to the African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR) accusing it of violating human rights, undermining the judiciary and the rule of law - said judges had compromised themselves by accepting land controversially seized from whites. Some of Zimbabwe's judges such as Justices Ben Hlatshwayo and Chinembiri Bhunu allegedly personally invaded farms while several other judicial officers were also allocated land by Mugabe's government. Tsunga said: "A number (of judicial officers) have accepted farms which are contested. These farms have not come as written perks (in their contracts of employment) but as discretion perks by politicians. "When judges and magistrates are being given and accept discretion perks because of poverty, surely their personal independence is compromised as well. Institutionally, they are also compromised because the operating environment is providing them with serious challenges. Judges are given political cases to handle by politicians bent on settling personal scores." Top human rights lawyer and the faction-riddled opposition Movement for Democratic Change party's spokesman on legal affairs David Coltart said the bench's failure to deal expeditiously with political cases had also cast doubt on its independence and professionalism. Coltart said: "The problem with this judiciary is that it is not seen as independent because of what happened in the last five years in terms of failure to deal with certain political cases expeditiously." He was referring to the courts' failure to finalise several petitions by MDC candidates against victory by ZANU PF candidates during elections in the past five years including the petition by the opposition party's leader Morgan Tsvangirai against Mugabe's re-election in 2002. Although election petitions are dealt with as urgent, the High Court has over the last three years failed to conclude Tsvangirai's petition forcing the MDC leader to appeal last year to the Supreme Court, the country's highest court of law. Officially opening the 2006 legal year, Garwe defended Zimbabwe's judiciary as independent and professional and challenged critics of the bench to come out in the open and point out their specific grievances to judicial authorities. Zimbabwe's bench - reconstituted over the last five years after Mugabe purged independent judges - has been criticised by both local and international rights groups for failure to defend the rights of ordinary citizens and opposition activists in the face of increasing repression by the government. - ZimOnline |
|
HARARE – Fourteen-year old Sarah Chitambo is an orphan with a maturity well beyond her years. With her two-year old brother Simba strapped on her back, she spends the day dodging traffic at a busy intersection in Harare, a begging bowl in hand. While the majority of motorists probably consider her a nuisance, Chitambo is undeterred, as she is fully cognisant of the issues that are at stake here – survival in a cold and uncaring city. Chitambo is among thousands of young children, the majority of them orphans, who have been forced to beg on the streets in a desperate bid for survival. Social workers blame the AIDS pandemic, which is mowing down at least 2 000 Zimbabweans every week, for the increasing numbers of abandoned children on Zimbabwe’s streets. To make matters worse, traditional social safety nets as represented by the extended family have virtually collapsed as the country battles its worst economic recession which has seen inflation shooting beyond 500 percent. “I have realised that we tend to make more money on the streets when I am accompanied by my brother. People seem to be more sympathetic when they see this young child. “So I am forced to bring Simba here every day in order to make more money. This is how we have survived over the past two years,” said Chitambo. Moosa Kasimonje, the founder and executive director of Just Children Foundation, a welfare organisation that looks after orphans and abandoned children in Harare, said poverty has forced families to move away from the custom of taking in orphaned children. Even well-wishers, who are also struggling to make ends meet, have also found it difficult to assist. “More and more children are finding themselves on the streets because the surviving relatives cannot manage to take them in. Poverty has caused untold suffering to our people and children are bearing the brunt,” he said. Kasimonje said although there were still some individuals who still chip in with donations in cash and kind, the value of the donations has been severely eroded by inflation which currently stands at more than 502.4 percent, one of the highest in the world. “Our local currency has lost so much value such that a donation of $100 000 which used to buy a dozen loaves two years ago, can now buy only two loaves. We are struggling but God has been faithful - the children have not gone to bed without a meal,” said Kasimonje. Zimbabwe is going through a severe economic crisis which has seen almost all basic commodities like sugar, maize-meal, washing soap and cooking oil all in critical short supply. Fuel and basic medicines are also in critical short supply because there is nor hard cash to import the commodities. The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party as well as Western governments accuse President Robert Mugabe of ruining Zimbabwe’s economy, one of the strongest in sub-Saharan Africa at independence from Britain 25 years ago. But Mugabe denies the charge blaming the crisis on sabotage by Britain and her allies whom he says are punishing him for seizing land from the minority whites for redistribution to landless blacks six years ago. Non-governmental organisations that deal with children's welfare accuse Mugabe's government of neglecting the welfare of children preferring to allocate more money to defence and security. “We are not getting support from the government under the social welfare programme. At times they pay fees for the children but most of the times the money does not come and we have decided to just live without their support,” Kasimonje said. - ZimOnline |
HARARE - Zimbabwe High Court Judge Bharat Patel yesterday postponed to next
Monday ruling on a bail application by two top officials of President Robert
Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF party and a banker jailed for espionage. The three, diplomat Godfrey Dzvairo, banker Tendai Matambanadzo and ZANU PF
party external affairs director Itai Marchi were sentenced to a total 16 years
in prison for allegedly violating the Official Secrets Act. The three men have appealed against both conviction and sentence. Their
appeal is expected to be heard at the end of the month but they have in the
meanwhile applied to the court to be released on bail pending the outcome of
the appeal. Selby Hwacha, representing the three said Patel had postponed the bail
application ruling to Monday because there was confusion as to his availability
for yesterday (Monday)'s court appearance. Hwacha had been in South Africa
until late Sunday night and court officials had assumed he would not be
available and rescheduled Patel's ruling on the matter. Said Hwacha: "They assumed I would not be available for today's court session
as I was in South Africa last week. They then postponed the matter to Monday
next week. The three were not brought to court today. The judge said judgment is
ready but he would like to hand it down in open court so the next day he will be
in open court is Monday." Dzvairo, Matambanadzo and Marchi were arrested following the arrest of former
ZANU PF Mashonaland West provincial chairman Phillip Chiyangwa on similar
allegations in 2004. Also arrested on similar allegations was ruling party deputy security
director Kenny Karidza. Charges against Chiyangwa were later withdrawn by the
High Court, while Dzvairo, Marchi and Matambanadzo were convicted and jailed
for varying terms of up to six years each. Karidza is still on trial at the magistrate courts in Harare and is on $1
million bail. In their High Court appeal, Dzvairo, Matambanadzo and Marchi decried the
manner in which they were convicted by the lower court and its refusal to alter
their plea to not guilty, among others. The guilty plea, they claimed, was made under duress when they did not have
legal representation, were hooded, denied food and kept in solitary confinement.
- ZimOnline
Tue
10 January 2006
HARARE - Zimbabwe Judge President Paddington Garwe has defended the
performance of the country's judiciary, rejecting charges that it lacks
independence and is subservient to President Robert Mugabe and his ruling ZANU
PF party. Officially opening the 2006 legal year in Harare on Monday, Garwe challenged
critics of the bench to come out in the open and point out their specific
grievances to judicial authorities. "If there is a problem with the way the judges do certain things for example,
this should be highlighted," said Garwe, who was promoted to his position after
the government purged independent judges from the bench and is widely perceived
as a staunch ally of Mugabe. "As a judiciary, we have acknowledged the fact that we are not above
criticism and that there is always room for improvement. Accordingly, I wish to
assure the nation at large that the judiciary will continue to work hard to
ensure that all persons approaching the courts will get justice, irrespective of
their status in society," said Garwe. He said courts will always take into cognisance "any extraneous
considerations in dealing with the various cases coming before them," but said
judicial officers would however remain guided by their sense of professionalism
and their oath of office. "Despite some negative sentiments expressed in some quarters about the
independence of the judiciary in this country, I wish to place it on record that
although we face a number of constraints, we in the judiciary will strive to do
the best we can to ensure that justice is served. We will continue to do so
without fear or favour," Garwe said. The Judge President lamented poor remuneration and working conditions of
judges, magistrates and other judiciary officials, most of whom he said operated
without computers, decent houses and official government cars. "In the High Court for example, the judges are without computers and spend
long hours researching legal points. In countries like South Africa such
information would be available on the touch of the button and judges have
qualified assistants to help them research," said Garwe. The judge president said in the magistrates courts a number of regional
magistrates and chief law officers were using public transport after presiding
over or prosecuting serious cases such as fraud, car jacking and rape. "Some judges are without adequate accommodation as it is not possible for
them either to purchase or rent reasonable properties on current salaries. All
these aspects unfortunately have an impact on the quality of performance and
output and ultimately the administration of justice itself," he said. Zimbabwe's bench has been criticised by both local and international rights
groups, including the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, for its
failure to defend the rights of ordinary citizens and opposition activists in
the face of increasingly repressive rule by Mugabe's government. - ZimOnline
Mon 9 January
2006
PRESIDENT Mugabe . . . accused of purging judiciary
Garwe also said Zimbabwe was facing numerous challenges, among them
sanctions slapped on the country by the West and the prevailing harsh economic
environment.
New Zimbabwe.com
By Msekiwa Makwanya
Last updated: 01/08/2006 21:15:11
THERE is nothing new about the
“democratic resistance” that we are told is being planned by Morgan
Tsvangirai.
In fact Tsvangirai has been arrested and tried in courts for a series of unsuccessful demonstrations or mass actions before.
It is important therefore for Tsvangirai to explain to his followers what exactly he is referring to if he should be believed this time around. Making promises that may not be fulfilled will further demoralise his followers who now have to come to terms with wisdom of participating in local government elections in January 2006 after letting go unchallenged the senate elections only two months ago.
The Zimbabwe Independent of 23 December, 2005 on “What they said in the year gone by” summed up Tsvangirai’s views on mass action after Operation Murambatsvina as follows:
“People blame us for not organising protests against the government. But how do you organise a person whose immediate priority is to see where his family is going to eat or sleep next? You cannot tell a person preoccupied with finding alternative accommodation for his family or a temporary place to keep his belongings to join a protest march.” — MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai responding to charges that his party should have seized opportunities presented by the unpopular Operation Murambatsvina to rally people against the regime.
There is need for political clarity otherwise Tsvangirai’s statements risk being viewed as publicity driven statements. Bold statements do not constitute action and the masses may actually sympathise with him or take him seriously if he does not promise something he may not be able to deliver. Everyone understands that he has tried his best to make his point about what needs to be changed and there is general frustration and disillusionment which should not be blamed on him alone. Of course he says the buck stops with him and that puts him under more pressure. The problem is that he rules out options and vows not to “compromise with the dictator”. This can be taken to mean that he will never talk to Zanu PF. Moshe Dayan would advise that, “If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”
While leading his faction calling for a boycott of the senate, Tsvangirai vowed to demand constitutional changes to level the political landscape before he could take his party into future elections. Now we are aware that the Tsvangirai faction is taking part in local government elections scheduled for January 2006.
Tsvangirai needs coherence between choices and practice and he should refuse to be drawn into making undisciplined responses and learn to reject manipulation by whoever is advising him. If Tsvangirai wants live out the coherence between political choice and actions, he is best advised to consider the dialectical unity between action and reflection. It is a matter of being a bit more discursive.
If the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) could not mobilise the masses successfully when they were a united and a strong party, how much can be achieved by a divided party? Infiltration or no infiltration the MDC is no longer as strong as it used to be and it is not wise to start a fight when you are at your weakest point. To deny this fact is unhelpful and maladaptive. At a point of weakness, you may be better off negotiating not fighting. In any case, Tsvangirai may be popular but are the people prepared to die for him should the democratic resistance get to that point?
Amilca Cabral once advised some soldiers that, “We will not die if we do not make war or if we do not attack the enemy at the point of his vulnerability. But if we make mistakes, if we find ourselves in a position of weakness, we will die; there is no other way out." He knew that cannons alone do not make a war and that the resolution of a war comes when the vulnerability of the oppressed becomes strength, capable of transforming the power of the oppressor.
I admire Welshman Ncube courage to admit that, “In 2000 we were given a mandate by the people to remove President Robert Mugabe. We are going back to congress in February, but he is still there. You have an obligation to report that we have failed to remove him. We have to report (even if) we say he stole the elections.”
The point has to be admitted
and the faithful members will admit that you tried. You cannot do better than
your best but you can keep trying, as long as you are united and
disciplined.
Msekiwa Makwanya is a social commentator based in England.
Contact can be made through makwanya@yahoo.com