A frosty year draws to an end

SADC imposed Zimbabwe President Robert Gabriel Mugabe did everything to dampen spirits for Zimbabweans in a promising year 2009

For most Zimbabweans the year 2009 ended in as bad a mood as it started. This is not to say they did not get anything out of it but merely to state that what they realised fell far short of what they had anticipated following the signing of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) on 15 September 2008.

The stalled implementation of the GPA as subscribers haggled over allotment of Cabinet posts, Provincial Governors allotments, unilateral appointments of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Governor and the Attorney General (AG) by President Mugabe as well as the abductions and harassment of MDC and Civic Society activists by Intelligence and Law enforcement agencies.


The gloom that engulfed the nation’s raised and then dashed hopes was to become the
subject of a crucial SADC meeting in Pretoria on 26 and 27 January 2009 where it was resolved that;

I. The parties shall endeavour to cause Parliament to pass the Constitutional Amendment 19 by 5 February 2009.
II. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Ministers shall be sworn in by 11 February 2009;
III. The Ministers and Deputy Ministers shall be sworn in on 13 February 2009, which will conclude the process of the formation of the inclusive government.
IV. The Joint-Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC), provided for in the Global Political Agreement, shall be activated immediately. The first meeting of JOMIC shall be convened by the facilitator on 30 January 2009 and shall, among other things, elect the chairpersons;
V. The allocation of ministerial portfolios endorsed by the SADC Extraordinary Summit held on 9 November 2008 shall be reviewed six (6) months after the inauguration of the inclusive government.
VI. The appointments of the Reserve Bank Governor and the Attorney General will be dealt with by the inclusive government after its formation
VII. The negotiators of the parties shall meet immediately to consider the National Security Bill submitted by the MDC-T as well as the formula for the distribution of governors.

Poor ordinary Zimbabweans who by now had resigned the fight to have their votes in the March 2008 harmonised elections count after the interventions by SADC and AU had resulted in the GPA and imposed and legitimized a President most of them loathed and felt had outlived his usefulness could only watch haplessly as political events in the country slipped further out of their control and became the prerogative of SADC and the political leadership in the country.

The resolutions by SADC were received with skepticism among the generality of the populace but still carried the day as the populace was too weak to fight ravaged by years of economic deprivation at the hands of Zanu PF misrule which they wanted curtailed by whatever means no matter how flawed.

The fears of the ordinary Zimbabweans over SADC resolutions were soon to be confirmed when the President decreed that the appointments of the RBZ Governor and AG were fait accompli and would not be revisited let alone reversed.

The persecution of the MDC and Civic activists through abductions and torture perpetrated by supposedly National Law and Security enforcement and maintenance agents was escalated when the AG joined the fray by invoking section 121 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act (CPEA) at every turn where politically motivated felons were granted bail to keep them in detention a bit longer than would otherwise be the case if bail was not opposed.

It is instructive that in the more that 20 instances when the section was invoked the AG appeals to the Supreme Court failed and the decisions of the lower courts were upheld leading to the widely held view that the AG was abusing this well intended section of our laws because of his self proclaimed Zanu PF allegiance.

An MDC-T member or reputed anti Zanu PF Civic Society activist was involved in every single instance the now notorious section 121 of CPEA was invoked while it has never been imposed in instances where renowned Zanu PF loyalists are granted bail regardless of the severity of allegations they face.

Any hope the nation had that political repression through judicial persecution would recede were dashed when instead of him being sworn into Government the following day as Deputy Agriculture Minister Roy Bennett was arrested and detained in disregard of undertakings he had from SADC and MDC that he would not be persecuted on his return from exile.

His case is still before the Courts and more alarmingly he is the only prospective coalition Government official denied swearing into office by President Mugabe on allegations he is facing criminal prosecution when there are numerous others in the same government who were sworn into office while facing criminal charges of a similar nature and or had them withdrawn before plea by the AG signaling behind the scenes political horse trading behind the dropping of the cases.

No doubt all the fears that had been erased in the minds of the quick to buy in hopefuls that political abuse and impunity that characterized Zanu PF misrule had been reined in by the consummation of the coalition government were dashed forever by these acts of the AG.

One other hope that the nation had was the abolition of politically motivated inter party violence on commercial farms and the return of normal business environment so desperately necessary for economic stabilization and growth.

A fresh wave of farm occupations by Zanu PF activists and the cold shoulder that greeted the Deputy Premier when he rightly tried to verify the accuracy of claims of renewed farm invasions in Chegutu as well as the silence that followed his visit only confirmed what Zimbabweans had feared would ensue from the flawed SADC resolutions compelling formation of the coalition government where the Home Affairs
ministry was to be co-ministered by a Zanu PPF and MDC-T appointee.

The experiment has failed dismally to cause a swift paradigm shift in the manner in which policing is carried out in the country.

While MDC-T co-Minister Gilles Mutseyekwa has been frothing at the mouth about what will happen his Zanu PF counterpart Kembo Mohadi has been silently solidifying relations between the Police, Army and Central Intelligence Organisation and facilitating their access to the AG and Minister of Justice to ensure minimal glitches in the political judicial persecution so vital in instilling fear within opponents of Zanu PF imposition in the government after the party lost in the March elections to the MDC-T.

The result has been a sustained trumped legal onslaught on Zanu PF opponents and unprecedented arrogance from the Zanu PF contingent in the Coalition government in disregarding court verdicts and arbitration resolutions from SADC and international political blocs.

The problems now causing a gloomy political end for the year 2009 are because SADC realized too late that Zanu PF was allowed too much free play with security forces and that power in its control is being abused to derail progression of the coalition government to the attainment of its formative objectives.

The belated flurry of activity directed towards resolution of outstanding GPA issues could have been avoided had the resolutions of the SADC meeting in January 2009 stuck to the GPA and allocated the Home Affairs Ministry to the sole control of the MDC-T.

If Zanu PF activists were unsure of Police reaction to impunity they would desist from committing crimes and most of the acts currently encouraging them to disregard laws resulting in breaches of agreements to end the practice of selective justice would have set the framework for expeditious implementation of the GPA.

The coalition government has managed to breathe some life into the hitherto economically besieged ordinary Zimbabweans.

Despite all the mantra about sanctions reverberating from the Zanu PF contingent in government the country has managed to arrest rampant hyperinflation through the adoption of a multi currency economic policy, curtailment of RBZ quasi-fiscal indulgence and restocked retail shops that had been emptied by the Junta’s price wars.

While there is political stagnation in the implementation of the GPA the ordinary people in the country are no longer as threatened from hunger, disease and shortages of the past decade.

Even on the political front there have been immense benefits derived from the formation of the coalition government as the political playing field has been freed slightly and the stringent embargo on political association has been relaxed to allow for non Zanu PF politicking without undue political interference although some sporadic overzealous incidences have been recorded.

As we welcome 2010 with Mugabe still the President as he wished when his party sided with the then opposition MDC and forced him to use the current route that has embarrassed him with a defeat at the hands of Tsvangirai instead of his preferred route of extending his term to 2010 and then holding harmonised elections, we hope the shadow of gloom cast by outstanding GPA issues will be removed and progress recorded towards;

Freeing the Zanu PF monopolized airwaves;
Implementation of the National healing and reconciliation initiative;
Restoration of the impartial rule of law;
Abolition of lawlessness on the farms, commercial enterprises and in churches as well as within communities;
Improvement of national productivity;
Prosecution of the corrupt and deviants;

Fresh compilation of the Voters Roll and or at the very least thorough data integrity audit of the current one;

Introduction of legislation to curtail electoral fraud, theft and thuggery;
Completion of the current Constitution making process and the holding of internationally supervised and monitored elections by the 3rd quarter of 2011 or at the very latest the last quarter of that year.

There is an urgent need for the introduction of the Human Rights Act and the amendment of the AIPPA laws to bring them into line with best practice internationally and to legislate and accommodate the role of the Media commission.

We wish our readers and leaders a more prosperous 2010.

Saviour Kasukuwere and Joseph Made impose belated sanctions on Zimbabwe

Gushungo Holdings proprietor and President Mugabe's second wife Grace enlisted cousin in Law and Youth Minister Saviour Kasukuwere to drive Nestle Zimbabwe into closing shop over the company's refusal to buy milk from a farm she expropriated without paying a single cent to previous owners resulting in the company hitting back by closing shop and living 200 employees jobless. Thanks to Kasukuwere and Made we now know who is sanctioning our country-Zanu PF and its President's wife

At a delicate time when most well meaning Zimbabwean political leaders are spending sleepless nights trying to find avenues to revive the country’s battered economy and their efforts are showing positive turnaround signs dim-witted Zanu PF ministers Joseph Made (Agriculture) and Saviour Kasukuwere (Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment) have chosen to swim against the tide and impose sanctions on the very country they claim is burdened by illegal sanctions imposed by the US and its EU allies.
Saviour Kasukuwere and Joseph Made accompanied by senior Police officers, Chief Superintendent Chrispen Makedenge and ...
Detective Inspector Henry Sostein Dowa and Affirmative Action Group vice President paid the Swiss owned Zimbabwe food processing company Nestlé following failed attempted forced delivery of a tanker full of milk from Gushungo Holdings by six employees of the company owned by President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace.

According to the state owned Herald newspaper that many now consider a Zanu PF mouthpiece rather than the Public Media enterprise it was established to be, Kasukuwere accused the West of using Nestlé “to impose further sanctions on the country.”

While indeed Gushungo Holdings is an indigenously owned company seeing as it belongs to the First family that alone does not entitle it to secure contracts with any entity doing business in the country at gunpoint.

Like any other company Gushungo Holdings must attract customers for its products through ethical and competitive marketing of its products without using political and national law enforcement agents and Ministers to coerce sales.

Minister Kasukuwere must know the difference between Gushungo Holdings and the country he serves in government well enough to avoid embarrassing himself, if at all he knows of the existence of the word, by making such foolish public statements.

There are numerous Zimbabwe establishments in dire need of milk such as Dairibord, Government Hospitals, Schools and other food manufactures too numerous to list here that it is curious why Gushungo Holdings appears determined to force Nestle to buy its product if not to push a political agenda that has lost favour with most Zimbabweans.

Be that as it may it would appear that its employees having failed to convince a potential customer to buy the Gushungo Holdings milk delivery they abused the office of the President by roping in Ministers and Police Officers to compel Nestlé to buy the President’s milk.

The justification for this high handed action appears to have stemmed from the fact that Nestlé had previously bought Gushungo holdings milk until October 2009 when it suspended dealings with the company following a public outcry and threatened customer boycott of its products after it was accused of dealing directly with a Zimbabwean company owned by people specified in EU sanctions for Human Rights abuses in the country.

To a certain degree then it appears minister Kasukuwere’s reasoning has logic that the company was complying with a sanctions regime that the country is attempting to smash at any cost.

But on further examination it becomes apparent that the reasoning is flawed and imposes more severe sanctions on the country than would be the case if it was left to operate without associating with Gushungo Holdings.

As a consequence of the political marketing strategy employed by Gushungo Holdings in its dealings with Nestlé, the Swiss owned company has closed shop and with that act the country has lost no less than 200 direct jobs in the company but will now have to import the products the company used to manufacture locally.
Downstream jobs in suppliers and customers of Nestlé Zimbabwe have not even been taken into account and it is safe to estimate than 100 000 jobs will be affected by this transaction alone.

When Nestlé refused to buy Gushungo Holdings milk no more than 1000 direct and indirect jobs were threatened.

Next time Zanu PF complaints that it is the MDC that caused the imposition of sanctions on the country they need to be reminded of the consequences of their ill conceived retributive actions against companies they believe are pushing a political agenda that is against their political agenda like Nestlé.

By forcing the premature closure of the Swiss based country in Zimbabwe at a time there is concerted regional and internal efforts to get the Swiss Government to rethink its participation in the sanctions regime against the country the ministers have not done the efforts any favours.

The Swiss government will simply hit back hard by imposing more stringent restrictions against the country bearing in mind that the country is a giant in world supplies of telecommunications and electronics equipment which the country desperately needs for its economic turnaround efforts to succeed.

But then the reputation of those that participated in the Nestlé closure is there for all to see.

Saviour Kasukuwere is a cousin to President Mugabe who made his fortune as a CIO operative in Mutare and is the proud owner of Comoil a company that racked in billions from fuel shortages in Mugabe and Zanu PF misruled Zimbabwe.

He was alleged to have led the disruptions of the all stakeholders constitution making process at the Rainbow Towers Hotel in July where he ended up embroiled in the Chinotimba/mahlangu mobile phone theft fiasco.

Joseph Made is the Minister of Agriculture who is reputed for accusing monkeys for fertilizer shortages and making flawed grain intake estimates from helicopter flights over Zimbabwe’s vast agricultural regions.

Of late he has been exposed as the minister of Agriculture who spends most of his time on Gushungo Holdings farms and Dr Gideon Gono’s poultry farm in Norton.
Chief Superintendent Chrispen Makedenge and Detective Inspector Henry Sostein Dowa are from the notorious ZRP Law and order section that has close links with the CIO and are the AG’s foot soldiers in persecuting MDC and Civic Society activists. They were there when Jestina Mukoko was abducted and we now know what the legal position is about their law enforcement methods.

As for Farai Mutamangira of the AAG it is important to know that this group is not regulated and much as it has noble intentions its methods are known to have been overboard and in many instances corruption tainted.

These are the people who Zanu PF must bring to book and whip into line if it entertains any lifting of travel restrictions and sanctions it says are suffocating the country and the party’s leadership.

It will be asking too much for the Swiss to open their doors for free entry by Zanu PF adherents symbolised by Kasukuwere and Made when the same people are closing down its investments in their country because they do not wish to deal with political leadership owned enterprises in Zimbabwe.

The politics of outstanding GPA issues

President Mugabe and Premier Tsvangirai now actively addressing issues threatening the coalition government

Before the SADC troika met on 5 November and resolved that the subscribers to the Zimbabwe Global Political Agreement must forthwith apply themselves to resolving the outstanding issues that had resulted in the MDC-T resorting to a partial pullout to emphasise the importance of it attached to the resolution of the issues we had been fed a nauseating overdose of Zanu PF mantra to the effect that there are no more outstanding issues to talk about from the implementation of the GPA.
But in a short 45 day period after the Mozambique meeting of the SADC Troika...

we now have the Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet announcing the appointment of three critical Commissions whose interviews had been concluded in September but outcomes had been kept under wraps in the office of the octogenarian Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.

The GPA principals have agreed on the names of Commissioners to serve on the Human Rights, Media and Independent Electoral Commissions and announced them as follows;
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission [ZEC] 8 Members: Daniel Chigaru, Geoff Feltoe, Theophilus Gambe, Joyce Kazembe, Petty Makoni, Sibongile Ndhlovu, Bessie Nhandara, Mukuni Nyathi

Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission [ZHRC] 8 Members: Kwanele Jirira, Carol Khombe, Joseph Kurebwa, Jacob Mudenda, Elasto Mugwadi, Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube, Neseni Nomathemba, Ellen Sithole.

Zimbabwe Media Commission [ZMC] Chairperson Godfrey Majonga, Deputy Chairperson Nqubile Nyathi and 7 other members: Lawton Hikwa, Miriam Madziwa, Chris Mhike, Millicent Mombeshora, Henry Muradzikwa, Chris Mutsvangwa, Matthew Takaona.

Even then the appointments were incomplete as the Electoral and Human rights Commissions were announced without disclosure on the names of the persons who will chair them as was agreed in the GPA that the Parliament’s Standing Rules and Orders would make recommendations to the President on who to appoint in the Commissions and the President would in turn and in consultation with the Premier appoint the incumbents and designate one among them as chairperson of the respective Commission.

But perhaps as MDC-T’s Elton Mangoma sheepishly told the nation in justifying the ongoing negotiating process this is because during the initial negotiations that led to the GPA there was agreement in principle on what the coalition government had to achieve but not on the how it will do so which is now what justifies the ongoing negotiations.

We can only hope that as the negotiators deal with the how part of the GPA they will also not forget to address the when, why, where and by who aspect so critical in holding performers accountable for successful performance.

But then lest we get carried away was this announcement not an outstanding announcement from the GPA when Zanu PF was dishing out the lies that President Mugabe had lived by his part in the agreement and it was now left to the MDC-T to fulfill its obligations to have sanctions lifted, dismantle pirate radio stations and as an offshoot dismantle parallel government structures in the Premier’s office?
And for it to happen so soon as the blind folded Zanu PF Congress had just resolved that;
“On the GPA and the Inclusive Government
Congress has noted that the Inclusive Government brings the Party into partnership with ideologically incompatible MDC Formations from which it must extricate itself in order to retain its mantle as the only dominant and ascendant political party that is truly representative and determined to safeguard the aspirations of the people of Zimbabwe.

Congress, therefore:

Castigates the continuance of the illegal declared and undeclared Western sanctions which remain a paramount and decisive outstanding issue in the Inter-Party dialogue on which the nation must speak with one voice and challenges the MDC Formations to undergo fundamental mind frame change (KUCHINJA PFUNGWA) in calling for their immediate and unconditional removal.

Expresses confidence that the new Facilitation Team will continue with the same diligence, patience and understanding that the Zimbabwe issue has delicate, sensitive and fundamental concerns on both sides that cannot be resolved overnight.
Instructs Mugabe and negotiators to ensure that all outstanding issues, once agreed, must be implemented concurrently.

This means there should be no movement on the concerns of the MDC Formations without corresponding and simultaneous redress of Zanu PF’s concerns such as the illegal Western sanctions, Western Funded pirate radio broadcasts and Western interference in Zimbabwe’s internal politics through the funding of parallel government structures and the sponsoring of political activities of NGOs as a force multiplier for the MDC Formations.

Negotiators should not countenance introduction or inclusion of provisions or agreements which seek to reverse or undermine the gains of the Liberation Struggle.
Congress instructs the party to signals that it will reject any outcome of the Constitution-making process that is not home grown.

An acceptable outcome would be a Constitution made by Zimbabweans for Zimbabwe, which entrenches the ethos and gains of the Liberation Struggle and is not the product of any external interference.

No foreigners, individual, corporate or national in whatever capacity they may from time to time find themselves involved in aspects of Zimbabwe’s bilateral dispute with Britain, have the right to dictate or impose a Constitutional order on Zimbabwe.

Declares that Security Forces an inalienable right of every sovereign state, and more so Zimbabwe’s

Security Forces are a product of the National Liberation Struggle, and therefore belong to the people and are mandated to defend the country’s territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty. Zanu PF, as the Party of revolution and the people’s vanguard, shall not allow the Security Forces of Zimbabwe to be the subject of any negotiation for a so called ‘security sector reform’ that is based on patent misrepresentations of Zimbabwe’s heroic history and for the mere purpose of weakening the state so that it can be easily overthrown.

Directs all Party members and organs to fully participate in the constitution making process in order to prevent it from being hijacked by those who wish to effect regime change or to undermine the gains of the Liberation Struggle,” shows how critical the Zanu PF Congress is in directing party policies and programmes.

This bunch of beneficiaries of Mugabe’s largesse with little or no influence whatsoever on the direction of the party which resides with security forces they purport to own and control was never consulted when Mugabe was forced to negotiate the GPA and will not be of material consequence in directing the party when it comes to the GPA and the coalition government.

The good thing about is they know how ineffective they are in matters related to the GPA because their President reminded them that they are a disjointed lot on factional lines and are only kept together by his largesse.

That is why he has scoffed their GPA resolutions and announced a new Electoral Commission to replace the one he arm twisted to declare a Presidential runoff election after his routing at the hands of Morgan Tsvangirai in the initial March 29 segment of the harmonized election.

The parasites attending the Zanu PF Congress blindly ordered their President and
Negotiators to extricate their party from its relationship with the MDC formations in the coalition government and Mugabe stoked their pleasure by announcing he is ready for fresh elections because the coalition government had outlived its usefulness.

He did not tell his captive fools that he will not commit any such foolishness of extricating himself from the political arrangement that legitimizes his tenure of office and condemn his party into political oblivion.

Because of their advanced ages the Zanu PF Congress delegates can be pardoned for exhibiting bouts of amnesia commensurate with their ages.

They have not only forgotten that Mugabe is only a President of the coalition government and the minute he dismantles that government he will revert to the illegitimacy that haunted him over the period April 2008 to 12 February 2009.

But Mugabe has not forgotten the pain of illegitimacy and is aware where his problems in the coalition government are being coordinated from.

Sadly his blind followers missed his hint when he went on the offensive against
MDC-T Secretary General and Finance Minister Tendai Biti who vowed when he took appointment that he would be no one’s junior partner in the coalition government.
Mugabe has had long enough to realize that Finance Minister Biti is a sore in the Zanu PF politics of patronage and corruption.

He accused the Minister of scuttling the Party’s renowned inputs for political allegiance programmes by refusing to release the IMF drawing rights for the party functionaries he has allocated farms to squander on luxurious lifestyles they had become accustomed to.

The few who got his message are now pushing that the finance Minister is responsible for cash shortages in Banks forgetting that they have hitherto insisted that the Governor of the Reserve Bank whom they endorse is responsible for fiscal management and has been caught napping.

The same congress resolved that the disputed appointments of Provincial Governors, the Reserve Bank Governor and Attorney General were historically justified and should not be revisited by the Party negotiators and in any event whatever will be agreed upon which they obviously had no clue they directed that implementation be done simultaneously when all the party wishes were attained.

They will be disappointed with the appointment of Commissioners ahead of their wishes of the shutting down of pirate radio stations, the lifting of sanctions and the dismantling of so called parallel government structures in the Premier’s office if at all they will realize that it has happened in utter disregard of their resolutions.

And it appears they are in for more surprises after the same people they barred from negotiating further concessions have agreed to meet again and thrash out the remaining outstanding issues that had hitherto been dismissed as non issues.

Despite prolonged delays in posting the MDC nominated Ambassadors to their work stations it appears the game is up as the Registrar General has confirmed issuing the Diplomatic Passports for the designate Ambassadors and it can only be a matter of weeks before they are dispatched to their stations.

The real work that remains is for Legislators to work on giving the appointed commissions real teeth to deal with political misdemeanors.

Apart from the Electoral Commission that is regulated by the Electoral Act the other two Commissions have no legal framework in which to operate and enforce compliance and this must be addressed with speed before they are manipulated and abused.

It is not enough that they are established in terms of Constitutional Amendment No 19 because there is need to give them an enabling Act which will guide their operations and close loopholes that can be exploited to mislead them politically.

Even the electoral Act needs to be tightened up to close the loose language that allowed the previous Commission to delay announcement of results in order to find means and ways to manipulate them.

Equally important is the need to set specific deadlines on when after receipt of returns from polling stations the Chief elections Officer must announce the results as given and leave contestants to resort to the Electoral Courts to dispute figures returned from constituency registrars.

Parliament must never allow the situation where Patrick Chinamasa usurped its power to amend the Act through a statutory instrument to recur.

While we welcome the appointment of the Commissions we implore Legislators to be alert to these loopholes and close them well in advance of the conclusion of the constitution making process such that by the time elections are staged there will be no room for Commissioners to be abused by the President, Justice Minister and or the Military Commanders as happened after the March 2008 elections.

The magic of disengagement

Professor Jonathan Moyo shamed by developments of the "dumpest" MDC-T disengagement resolution

In politics scientific prediction of consequences of an initiative are near impossible and a best mere conjecture.

Zanu PF propagandist and democracy champions who went to town about the futility of the MDC-T partial disengagement from the coalition government in October 2009 have once again been confounded by the political ingenuity that is abundant in the party.

If it was not that they have long lost any modicum of shame two decades ago they would be burying their faces in their bloodstained hands in shame as to how they could have got it so wrong about the initiative they all nonchalantly dismissed as a non event soon after the party announced its resolution to disengage.


“As Zanu PF we are not surprised by this decision. The MDC has done it several times boycotting parliament and many other important national events so we are not surprised by this.

The MDC has its own problems and wants to make these problems national problems. They are only doing this to please a white man, they have always shifted goals posts but we will not lose sleep over that as Zanu PF we will continue working for the people of Zimbabwe,” bleated Ephraim Masawi on behalf of Zanu PF at the time the MDC-T disengaged.

But ever since the Sadc Troika met in Maputo on5 November and resolved that the parties in the coalition government must address all the outstanding implementation issues from the GPA signed on 15 September 2008 as well as the issues that the Sadc resolved on 27 January 2009 in Pretoria he has gone into hibernation out of shame.

Before that meeting a self professed former ZIPRA terrorist who did not fire a single shot or kill so much as a fly but now purports to have fought and defeated Rhodesian Selous Scouts and their colonial masters had waxed lyrical abut the need for Sadc to dismiss the GPA and replace it with the Zanu PF policies that have ravaged the country into a basket case over three decades.

Among the ludicrous arguments he advanced were the central issues that inform Zanu PF not to live by the GPA the party wilfully and consciously entered into with the MDC formations on 15 September 2008 to legitimise Mugabe’s disputed claim to election to president of the country on 28 June 2008.

Falsely reputed as the most incisive political analyst and scientist in the country despite a catalogue of failed predictions about the Zimbabwe political environment over the past decade Professor Moyo laid bare his deficient analytical skills when he labelled the MDC-T partial disengagement resolve its dumbest political initiative of all-time.

In his lack of political wisdom the vocal and controversial Zanu PF MP for Tsholotsho North exposed his and Zanu PF’s political blindness on issues material to Zimbabweans that the MDC-T was and is pushing for by insisting on full implementation of the GPA.

For a politician with his chequered history it is not surprising that he got it totally wrong because he really and truly lacks credibility as a trusted and objective analyst to the extent he mesmerises with eloquence in arguing wrong concepts convincingly.

Professor Moyo and the entire Zanu PF think-tank lost it on the disengagement initiative when they blindly fooled themselves into believing that the MDC-T disengagement resolution was motivated by;
 The indictment to trial and re-detention of the party’s nominee for Deputy Minister of Agriculture one Roy Bennett whom Zanu PF believes is undeserving of the position due to his history as a former Rhodesian army man whose nomination was intended to provoke the ire of Zanu PF instead of addressing the need to revive the country’s ailing yet key economic driver the agricultural sector
 The partial disengagement resolution was at variance with provisions of Constitutional amendment No 19 upon which the coalition government is premised and
 Disengagement would not yield any results in the changed economic environment stabilised by the intervention of multi-currency usage in place of the discredited and discarded Zim-dollar whose usage had benefited the party through the days of hyperinflation when every MDC-T cough used to cause the economy to sneeze.
 Zanu PF’s acting Junta Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa had on January 29, 2009, crafted the multicurrency usage policy that had given the country immunity against hyperinflation and taken the advantage from the MDC-T’s cheap politics of any kind.

“The multi-currency macroeconomic response to the MDC-T’s treacherous boycott of the coalition government is very loud and clear: While your boycott political antics previously caused havoc in the hyperinflationary Zim-dollar days, this time haurume in the dollarisation days!” bragged Zanu PF through the garrulous Professor Moyo.

Prof Moyo disclosed that the multi-currency usage dynamic’s hedging effects against inflation were beyond the comprehension f the MDC-T and its foreign strategists who were still playing around hyperinflation politics to cause disenchantment with Zanu PF among the populace while promoting MCDC-T’s unwarranted popularity.

As a consequence he predicted that disengagement from the coalition government would condemn MDC-T to the peril of political irrelevance which as we now know has not happened but to the contrary has strengthened the party’s grip in the coalition government.

The outrage of this kind of political reasoning within Zanu PF was premised on the fallacious belief in the party that it is people centred and will for that reason gain political momentum from economic stability brought about by multi currency fiscal policies which unbeknown to the party a largely and rightly credited to the entry of the MDC-T into government.

Rightly credited to the MDC-T entry, because the multi currency intervention only became possible when the GPA had been signed when it had been resisted by successive Zanu PF regimes for over 2 decades being labelled unworkable bookish economics by the Zanu PF party leader President Mugabe and RBZ Governor Gideon Gono.
Notwithstanding those realities on the ground Prof Moyo could not resist the temptation to credit economic stabilisation to the discredited Zanu PF.

“Put differently, what this means is that whereas Zanu PF has remained resolutely focused on people-centred policies in the context of the GPA and against the backdrop of the now irreversible multi-currency macro-economic environment, the MDC-T has remained a whimsical western proxy for regime change, which continues to see the GPA as a treacherous opportunity for getting a few posts for a few well connected individuals,” he bragged

The reality though is that the converse of what he said is true given the hard to dispute evidence that it was Zanu PF that perilously hanged the country’s economy on the worthless Zim-dollar for 2 decades arguing that it was a symbol of sovereignty worthy of retention at any cost despite its worthlessness only to capitulate when it realised that the Finance Ministry had fallen in the hands of an MDC appointee who would never countenance such ridiculous uneconomic arguments to formulate fiscal policies of his crucial Ministry.

It was therefore not surprisingly that Prof Moyo reserved his parting shot for the Finance Minister Tendai Biti he predicted at the time he was appointed would be a catastrophic failure but has proven him wrong in every facet of political economic and social management to date.

“For Minister Biti and indeed for the MDC-T itself, the price of disengagement from the government is certain to be a traumatic movement from kiya-kiya economics to sewer economics,” he closed his ill advised plea to SADC.
But back to economic stabilisation Professor Moyo conceded that the Finance Minister had held his own by maintaining the multi-currency usage fiscal policies.

“Supermarket shelves remain full with more of the same on offer as the power of the so-called mighty dollar continues to reign supreme. In other words, the economy has ignored the MDC-T boycott by treating it as non event” he admitted to which we must add thanks to Finance Minister Tendai Biti’s resistance of desperate Zanu PF attempts to reintroduce the discarded and discredited Zanu PF symbol of sovereignty the worthless Zim-dollar.

“In view of the foregoing, if the MDC-T thinks its latest boycott stunt will find political traction by precipitating a political crisis of national, regional, continental or international proportions, then it is in for a rude shock,” the Professor erred.

We all now don’t we how shell shocked Zanu PF has been ever since the 5November SADC Troika resolutions were pronounced.

The party argument that Zimbabweans were prepared to sacrifice their all in defence of their sovereignty has changed to something like;

“What the people of Zimbabwe are waiting for are jobs, economic stability, affordable education, a reliable health delivery system, food security, safe and reliable water supplies across the country, sufficient electricity, safe and reliable roads, an efficient transport system, and a reliable social welfare system after retirement,” Zanu PF apologist Reason Wafawarova writing in the party mouthpiece the Herald or more succinctly;

“Indeed, it is very instructive to note that during the GPA negotiations, and over the last eight months since the formation of the coalition government, the MDC-T’s exclusive preoccupation has been about “posts” over “policies”- Professor Moyo justifying the need for Zanu PF to retain Provincial Governorships, the position of Attorney General and that of RBZ governor it expropriated in the coalition government in contravention of the GPA as well as the need to avoid the suffering it had caused the people over 3 decades of uninterrupted misrule and impunity in defense of sovereignty.

This dramatic shift only because its wish for SADC to write off the GA failed dismally in Maputo on 5 November 2009.

Now Zanu PF argues without any rationality that Provincial Governorships are an extension of the President’s Office which are to be manned at the President’s discretion by his trusted Zanu PF cadres and not some MDC-T functionaries loved by the localities where they are established.

“For example, it is unreasonable and treacherous to expect President Mugabe to accept the dilution and subversion of his office as Head of State and Government and the Commander in Chief of the Defence Forces by allowing 60 percent of it to be given to some other political parties or offices that are not loyal to him as President. There is no precedent for such a thing anywhere in the civilised and democratic world governed by the rule of law,” bleated Prof Moyo on behalf of Zanu PF.

Little did he realise that in so saying he was reducing the office of National President to the Zanu PF presidency equivalent. For indeed if President Mugabe is truly a President of the people of Zimbabwe he should be guided by people’s preferences of they want to be led by politically and appoint the most popular people to represent his offices at Provincial level.

But because the unpopular boys and girls in Zanu PF are in search of jobs whose scarcity they have exacerbated through unbridled political impunity over three decades President Mugabe must force them to preside over the governance of unwilling provinces who prefer the leadership option offered by other political parties and the erudite and “politically astute” Professor Moyo will applaud such a move as a show of how people cantered the President of the country and his party is.

But such has been the wit behind the MDC-T disengagement initiative that self acclaimed political scientists that attempt to rubbish it end up entangling themselves in a web of political stupidity.

That is why all who have advanced the argument that MDC-T is fighting for scarce jobs for its people have not been taken seriously. The reason is because a job can’t be a job for the boys and girls only when an MDC-T adherent eyes it and not when it is offered a Zanu PF cadre trusted by the President but unpopular with the general populace in a locality.

Which argument extents to the ridiculous demands that the Premier must dismantle parallel government structures in his office whatever that means.
To show how concocted the Zanu PF demand was, is and will always be Professor Moyo tried to clarify it but only further muddled it as follows;

“During the GPA negotiations the issue of central concern to the MDC-T was Cabinet posts. Later, the focus shifted to MDC-T demands for posts for the positions of Attorney General, the Governor of the Central Bank, ambassadors and provincial governors. Since then, the MDC-T quest has been only about posts in the Prime Minister’s office with special reference to the filling of illegal positions in the party’s parallel government structures whose civil servants earn top up salaries ranging from US$700 to US$7,000.

Parenthetically, there is new and incontrovertible evidence that some but not yet all MDC-T Cabinet Ministers are earning top up salaries pegged on the Kenyan cabinet salaries reported to be around US$15,000 a month. Otherwise, and as a matter of fact, all MDC-T Cabinet Ministers and civil servants are receiving top up salaries and their evil pecuniary interest explains why MDC-T Cabinet Ministers who do not agree with the disengagement decision have nevertheless succumbed to it.”

In as much as Constitutional Amendment No 17 revived the Senate as part of our political institutions Constitutional Amendment No 19 revived the office of the Prime Minister as an institution of our political governance and in the spirit of GNU reassigned leadership of government to that office from the office of the President where I had been escalated during the days period when the post of Premier was abolished.

This is the inconvenient truth that Zanu PF has to accept that the president is no longer the Head of Government but rather the Premier.

By insisting that the President is the Head of State and Government as well as Commander in Chief of the Defense Forces and Supreme Leader of Zanu PF the party and Prof Moyo in particular are actually attempting to justify the parallel government structures in the Premier’s Office by arguing that government structures devolve from structures in the President’s office which structures if there at all are well and truly the parallel structures that must be reassigned to the Premier’s office.

The absurdity of a Prime Minister duplicating government structures of the government he leads is difficult to comprehend unless the argument that the President remains Head of Government notwithstanding that his position as President was ratified when he signed a n agreement wherein he accepted the revival of the Premier’s office to head the government.

If such an argument carries the day it means the coalition government is thus nullified and both the President and the Premier are running governments and the Premier’s wing seems to be outperforming that of the President as it is paying its Ministers and workers better.

If that is the case then it was the smartest decision by the MDC-T to openly declare its dissociation with the president’s structures and thereby trigger SADC intervention as guarantors of the GPA which under such circumstances would have been a hoax agreement.

Nothing exposes Zanu PF inconsistencies in the coalition government than the attempt by Prof Moyo to hoodwink SADC into believing that the GPA has been fully implemented in terms below.

“Furthermore, SADC should take note of the fact that the other issues that the MDC T says are outstanding, such as the posts of the Attorney General, Governor of the Central Bank and provincial governors, are not mentioned anywhere in the GPA and were only raised in some SADC press statement and have since been dealt with in government as promised in that press statement.”

The same issues almost caused the failure of the signing ceremony of the GPA as MDC-T sought to have them agreed upon before putting pen to paper. The party only assigned the GPA after getting irrevocable assurances from the SADC mediator that they would be revisited and to his credit they were revisited and resolved by SADC resolutions of 27 January 2007 when due to Zanu PF intransigence they were referred to the guarantors of the GPA as formation of the government stalled over the same issues and disputed allotment of Ministerial portfolios.

It was at the same meeting that SADC authorised the first departure from the signed GPA when it resolved that the Ministry of Home Affairs will be Co ministered by a Zanu PF and MDC-T nominee meaning government Ministers were increased by one over and above the 37 parties had signed for.

The departure triggered further horse trading of Ministers of State portfolios resulting in a Government of a bloated 76 Ministers and Deputies instead of the 57 they had signed for in the GPA.

For Zanu PF and Prof Moyo to now argue that Resolutions of the SADC meeting on 27 January 2009 are not part of the GPA but a mere press statement that has since been attended o anywhere was the height of mischief and disrespect of the intelligence in SADC leadership as well as our national intelligence.

No wonder way SADC were tough on the feuding parties and prescribed deadlines on when action to resolve the disputed issues was to take place and be concluded. They were irked by the condescending attitude displayed by Prof Moyo on behalf of Zanu PF which was reverberating in the State owned media.

Such was the power of the so dubbed dumbest MDC-T political initiative to disengage from the GNU that it forced Professor Moyo and Zanu PF to expose their true colours and political intentions to sidestep the GPA and rule the country through an exclusive Zanu PF cartel disguised as the coalition government endorsed by SADC on 15 September 2008.

The folly of Zanu PF’s contention that the MDC-T disengagement was in protest to the lawful arrest, indictment and detention of Roy Bennett and its other MPs for felons became apparent when the 5 November 2009 SADC Troika summit held in its resolutions that continued refusal of his swearing into office by President Mugabe was an aberration from the GPA that required urgent resolution.

“The MDC-T decision to boycott the coalition government to protest the lawful indictment of Bennett by a court of law is a gross intimidation of the court and a scandalous interference with the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law specifically intended to make our courts part of the external US and EU project of illegal and undemocratic regime change.

In the same vein, the notion that the rule of law is what the MDC-T or its Western backers say it is, has gone too far and must now be stopped. Whenever an MDC-T person is arrested or prosecuted on whatever allegation, including cases of rape or obvious mobile phone theft, the response is always political under the self-serving claim of persecution or the so-called selective application of the law,” Prof Moyo had attempted to mislead SADC that the coalition government was upholding the rule of law through its relentless prosecution or is it persecution of MDC –T criminals in vain.

We now know what became of the cases against the alleged MDC-T mobile phone thieves and rapists when they went for trial don’t we? Yet Prof Moyo still holds them in negativity. They were acquitted of any wrongdoing.

“Of course, Bennett remains innocent until found guilty by a court of law, but he does face very serious criminal charges and the shocking evidence in support of those charges has been placed before the court for the attention of his lawyers following his indictment. That is what must now be addressed through the judiciary,” Professor Moyo declared authoritatively.

But Zanu PF had advised him to write the Bennett judgement before the courts hear his case so that they will have no reason o acquit hi even if the case against him was not proved.

Here is the “judgement” by “Justice” Professor Jonathan Moyo that should be reproduced by Justice Chinembiri Bhunu after presiding over the Ro Bennett case verbatim not withstanding his pretence that Bennett must be presumed innocent yet denied the right to take up appointment in the coalition government.

Whereupon after reading evidence of record and listening to the arguments by both the State and Defense Counsels I find that:-

“It is preposterous for anyone to say that Bennett should not have been charged or that, having been charged last February, he should not have been indicted simply because he is a white person or a former Rhodesian infantryman with the blood of freedom fighters on his hands.

Nobody is above the law, and that particularly goes for former Rhodesians who brutally massacred our freedom fighters and the innocent peasants who supported them or Zimbabwean children who were in refugee camps in Mozambique and Zambia.

The culprits must be brought to book and they will never ever be allowed to now masquerade as latter day champions of human rights. Never!

It is not okay for the very same Bennett who fought and massacred our liberation forces to be a Minister in the government of Zimbabwe 29 years after our hard-won independence. That is just not acceptable.

Although the media-connected Rhodesian network behind the MDC-T has whitewashed Bennett’s curriculum vitae to make it appear as if it starts from 2000, the year which Rhodies and their American and European backers say is when the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe started after the start of the historic land reform programme, even fools know that Bennett was a notorious member of the Rhodesian killer machine before 1980.

Given that reclaiming our priceless land from British colonialists who brutally and illegally stole it from our ancestors was the single most important driver of our national liberation struggle, the MDC-T’s treacherous nomination of Bennett who served in the Rhodesian infantry for the post of Deputy Minister of Agriculture is morally equivalent, and therefore as insulting as, having a former Nazi infantryman serving as a deputy minister of justice in Israel today.

If Israel would not accept that under any circumstance, including that of fake reconciliation, why should Zimbabwe accept the monstrosity?

There is no amount of the abuse of press freedom that can justify the rewriting of Zimbabwe’s history. Bennett’s hands have the blood of Zimbabwe’s liberation fighters including that of Zimbabwean children who were in various refugee camps in Mozambique during the liberation struggle.”

In the premise I find the accused………?

With that judgement will end the Bennett nomination issue and what Professor Moyo describes as:-

“In the vain hope of finding a SADC solution in Maputo, Pretoria, Kinshasa, Gaborone or Luanda, Prime Minister Tsvangirai is once again behaving like a nauseating drunkard who loses his car keys on the dark side of the street only to hopelessly look for them on the side with light.”


It appears Zanu PF after loosing the same car keys in similar circumstances have chosen not only to look for them in the dark side where they were lost but send blind political drunkards like Prof Moyo to find which is the dark side of the car and then the lost keys.

Dangerous MDC-M fundamentalism

Professor Welshman Ncube a fundamendalist?

After reading the transcript of Professor Welshman Ncube with Violet Gonda of SW Radio Africa I was convinced more than ever before that Professor Ncube is a dangerous fundamentalist who has been elevated to the leadership of our country thanks to the Global Political agreement.

There is the frightening arrogance in his belief that the political doctrine of the MDC-M should be implemented literally, without interpretation or adaptation that runs through the entire interview that I shudder to think would result in if he and his party were ever going to be elected to majority party status in our country.

Professor Ncube was at the centre of the reasons why the MDC split into two on 12 October 2005 and in the interview he sheds more light as to why the split was inevitable given his passion for self righteousness and obsession with self image.

First he argued that his Party name is MDC and not MDC-M as it is widely referred to in media coverage because there is no party registered as such in Zimbabwe and he is accurate about that.

The media use the prefixes of the surnames of the party leadership in the MDC to distinguish between the MDC splinter formations rather than in the strictest sense of their legally registered names.

Under normal circumstances a senior official in Prof Ncube’s capacity would not raise such trivialities in an interview where he was being examined on his party position towards contentious issue from the GPA but because he is a fanatical nitpicker he had to unsettle the interviewer with the objection to a party name he had hitherto never raised in previous interviews with any other media house he has given interviews to and been referred to as representing the MDC-M.

Fundamentalists are generally offended by trivial issues which they defend with disproportionate overzealousness with disastrous consequences in many instances.

But it was his summation of why the party he belongs to settled on who to assign to Ministerial responsibilities that exposed the fundamentalist views that drive his party.

“Well Violet, that’s illogical. The question of who this party deploys to government is an exclusive prerogative of this party.

It cannot be said because this one was elected, this was unelected – we have an obligation to deploy this or that person. On the contrary we have deployed Moses Mzila Ndlovu, David Coltart, and Tapela – all of whom were elected. We have deployed only so-called unelected people who are the senior leaders of the party and even that for good cause.

You are not going to go around buying our Members of Parliament who work with you and expect us to then deploy them into government.

And we did that quite deliberately and we were being asked to deploy people who were already working for another political party and we are not imbeciles, we will not do that and we’ll never do that.

We will deploy people who will stand by, defend the party, die for the party and will not deploy turncoats who can be bought overnight,” he declared.

In essence therefore it does not matter to the party who its grassroots supporters would want to represent them in government but rather who the party leadership believes will stand by, defend and die for the party under whatever circumstances and there is no better barometer to measure that level of loyalty than seniority within the party.

Frightening indeed!

When later in the interview he was confronted by the interviewer with accurate information about perceptions widely held in relation to his party’s alliances with Zanu PF he forcefully stated;

”I’m tempted not to dignify that rubbish with an answer. You have just been saying right now – passionately defending your right of your freedom of expression, freedom of the media to exist and to hold views and to allow people to propagate their views through their media as freely as they want to and you were very passionate just a few minutes ago – and surely you must be equally passionate about our right as a party to hold views which are different from MDC-T and which are different from yours and which are different from civil society and which are different from those of Zanu-PF, and therefore we don’t exist for the purpose of agreeing with this or that particular party.

And therefore when we disagree with the favourite party of some interest you can label us whatever you wish and we wouldn’t care a hoot. We take our position on the basis of our party policies and on the basis of our principles and we hold no brief for Zanu-PF. We disagree in a lot of ways, too many ways with Zanu-PF to be even considered as a party, which bids for Zanu-PF.

Just as much as we disagree in terms in particular of the practices of the MDC-T, fundamentally disagree with them in many ways and it’s our right to do so. The fact that we do disagree with them does not make us Zanu-PF.”

This was after he had earlier disclosed that his party position is to oppose the positions in MDC-T to avoid reinventing Zanu PF within that party and not because of shortcomings in its popular message of pledges to
the nation.

“So it’s quite simple as far as we are concerned and the principle issue is you cannot disagree with Tsvangirai and his party. All of us exist to serve them, if you don’t serve them you will be perceived in a negative way, if you jump at the top of the highest mountain and say Tsvangirai is God, you will be worshipped by the media and civil society – that is the bottom line and indeed you should be worried if you are a true democrat.

You shall be worried and indeed not just worried, you shall be truly afraid because you have a culture, you have a party, you have a civil society which is a mirror image of Zanu-PF in its behaviour, in its treatment of dissenting voices – because you believe that the positions you have taken are an eternal truth. Who dares challenge an eternal truth?” in his own words.

But the people are not frightened of Tsvangirai and the MDC he leads and they do not have reason to other than if they are persuaded by the likes of Professor Ncube.

On the contrary they are afraid of Professor Ncube’s fundamentalist views and his arrogant disposition towards anyone who dares tells him that he may be leading his party in the wrong direction by opposing popular ideas for nothing else other than that they are making a political opponent with the electorate.

Ideas will never be popular unless they carry perceived benefits for the electorate and the electorate has wised up to phoney promises from politicians that it will not be easily led up the garden path as Professor Ncube and his party discovered after 29 March 2008.

On the outstanding issues from the GPA Professor Ncube exposed bare the fears that are widely held that these negotiations are much ado about nothing.

His admission that all issues before the negotiators arise from the GPA which is the acronym for Global Political Agreement signed between Zanu PF, MDC-T and MDC-M political parties to manage the Presidential elections stalemate that emerged after the harmonized elections in March 2008 makes the current effort a waste of critically short time to move the country forward.

The same people who negotiated the GPA and initialed each and every clause in it are being asked to revise their agreement because of implementation misgivings by one party to the agreement –Zanu PF.

The issues in dispute are complimentary and implementation of what was initially agreed is seen as a means with which to address all the concerns but not by the original negotiators and subscribers and the nation wonders why that should be the case.

According to Professor Moyo the outstanding issues are outstanding because they have not been fully implemented as per the GPA and the reasons for that is because the parties mistrust each other in that if demands from the MDC-T arte fully implemented before the concerns from Zanu PF are addressed there are no guarantees that Zanu PF concerns will be addressed.

It is an absurd way of viewing issues because there is a cause and effect process that must instruct the priority of implementation of the agreement.

As Gonda put it and the Professor conceded;

“But don’t you realise that you can or you may discuss the issue of the external radio stations until you are blue in the face but nothing is going to happen because the creation of some of these radio stations such as ours had nothing to do with politicians and you have no authority to ask for the radio stations to close down. And secondly we all know that this is a Zanu-PF pre-condition – the closing down of these external radio stations – you can’t close down things you don’t like – isn’t that what it all means, isn’t this what democracy is about?”

The same question can be posed in respect of the unfulfilled clauses in the GPA. Logic demands that subscribers implement all the aspects of the agreement that are within their control before moving onto those aspects of the agreement that require foreign concessions.

But no Zanu PF wants foreign concessions before full internal implementation of what it agreed, agrees and knows is necessary to be done internally to move the country forward.

That is why SADC set a 30 day deadline for resolution because the internal issues do not need hours to agree and implement as they have already been agreed to but are being deliberately delayed implementation as bargaining chips by Zanu PF with Professor Ncube’s implied consent in complicity.

People however know pretty well why Professor Ncube has been compromised by the coalition government. He has no chance of winning an election and returning to government in a ministerial capacity in elections to end the coalition and that is why he would rather see the outstanding issues drag on while he secures a job.

In a country where jobs are 80% in short supply we are tempted to empathise with him but the best chance he has os securing long term employment lies somewhere in a government that is internationally free to transact for the good of the nation and the current coalition government lacks that credibility.

A final word on the so called party sellouts he loathes for working in collusion with MDC-T as opposed to his preference for an alliance with Zanu PF during the elections of Speaker of Parliament.

The looming by elections challenge from the MP’s the MDC-M recalled from Parliament will not be good for the MDC-M as its candidates will be humiliated by the same renegades it dispensed with exposing the deep craters in the party leadership vision and philosophy.

GNU prefects are coming

PM Morgan Tsvangirai, DPM Arthur Mutambara and President Robert Mugabe seen here shaking hands in affirmation of having willingly signed the GPA they are now at loggerheads over full implementation.

Zanu PF nonchalantly dismissed the 15 to 30 day deadline that Sadc imposed on subscribers to the Global Political Agreement (GPA) to comprehensively address all outstanding GPA issues declaring that Sadc was not the Party’s headmaster who could punish it if it failed to meet the deadline.

Furious Sadc Chief Mediator (the headmaster) on Zimbabwe and South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has had to put together a team of three of his top aides (the prefects) to pay the truant Zimbabwe political protagonists a visit before the end of next week and whip them into line before he personally comes for an inspection in loco in the dormitory country ravaged by political malfeasances of Zanu PF.

The South African Presidential team includes the President’s political advisor Charles Nqakula, special envoy Mac Maharaj and international relations adviser Lindiwe Zulu.

There is no chance Zanu PF will detain and deport them in similar fashion to how they handled the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture Mr. Mafred Nowack on 28October 2009.

President Zuma’s prefects will no doubt be fully updated about the numerous acts of disregard of critical GPA articles by Zanu PF including among other things the illegal persecution of;

Jestina Mukoko and 17 others, Ghandhi Mudzingwa and three others, Pascal Gwezere and Farai Muyambwa

Rickson Kaseke, Norbert Dhokotera, Tongai Jack, Amiri Njawara, TereraiTsvakwi and Daniel Koroni and 15 other MDC-T Bindura activists convicted by Zanu PF Magistrate Chakanyuka

MDC Legislators Thamsanga Mahlangu (Nkulumane), Evelyn Masaiti (Dzivarasekwa), Blessing Chebundo (Kwekwe Central),Eliah Jembere (Epworth), Pearson Mungofa (Highfield East), Bedwin Nyaude (Bindura South), Mathias Mlambo (Chipinge East) and Trevor Saruwaka (Mutasa Central), Stewart Garadhi, (Chinhoyi) Ernest Mudavanhu (Zaka North) Ransome Makamure (Gutu East) Reggie Moyo (Luveve ), Albert Mhlanga, (Pumula) Takalani Matibe, (Chegutu West) Pishai Muchauraya (Makoni South) Senator Tichaona Mudzingwa (Non Constituency) Lynnette Karenyi (Chimanimani West), Shuwa Mudiwa (Mutare West), Meki Makuyana (Chipinge South) Hega Shoko (Bikita West), Edmore Marima (Bikita East), Tichaona Maradza (Masvingo West), Hamandishe Maramwidze (Gutu North) Shuah Mudiwa (Mutare West) " and Senator Roy Bennett (non Constituency).

The prefects will certainly want to know how many of these arrested alleged criminals have been brought to justice and with what results from the government that is prosecuting them.

It will be embarrassing for Zanu PF to defend the continued employment of an Attorney General (AG) who is at the centre of these arrests and selective persecution of MDC-T supporters.

The fact that appointments of Provincial Governors, the AG and the (RBZ) Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor were unilaterally effected by President Mugabe after signing of the GPA will not escape the eagle eyes of the prefects.

They will want full explanations from the Zanu PF subscribers to the GPA as to how the appointments in dispute fit into the letter and spirit of the GPA.
They will also want to find out what has happened to the names recommended to the President for appointment to the Media, Electoral and Human Rights Commissions and what progress if any these commissions have made to date to free the airwaves and encourage Pirate radio stations to operate from within the country.

They would also be interested to know why the Constitution making process has been deferred to 2010 and how that fits in with the GPA provisions.

They will not forget to enquire into the reasons why nominated MDC Provincial Governors, Ambassadors and the Deputy Agriculture Minister has not been sworn in or posted to date and to what extent such delays are in compliance with the GPA.

More importantly they would want to know what positive action the government has taken to ameliorate the reasons why the Zanu PF leadership has been slapped with the illegal sanctions which information they can use to help the government unshackle itself from the bondage of the sanctions.

With regard to the parallel government structures allegedly set up by the Premier the prefects would want to know why the premier’s staff are not on the State establishment nine months after their appointment by the Premier and why the Premier does not have direct access to the President and has to book appointments with him via the Secretary to the Cabinet Dr Misheck Sibanda or Information and Publicity Secretary George Charamba.

They will want to know how such arrangement promotes mutual trust requisite for smooth operation of the coalition government.

The prefects will brook no nonsense about the scapegoating that has been employed by the major protagonists in the coalition government and will demand realistic and concrete measures they will take to overcome all the outstanding issues from their agreement on 15 September 2008 and the addendum by SADC on 27 January 2009.

Both parties must be ready for some roasting from the Mediator’s prefects and will not be allowed to delay the GNU momentum any longer as ramifications of the failure of the government have serious bearing on Southern Africa as it prepares TO HOST THE Soccer World Cup in six month’s time and political stability in the region is a critical ingredient for the success of the showcase.

The headmaster appears to have taken his first move towards asserting his authority and grandstanding will not help the cause of whoever takes to it.

Reality check time for Zimbabwe diasporans

The villagers at Chisheche Township near Gutu Mission can now afford to sit around bar counters and watch TV together while drowning their sorrows in the famous brown bottles of lager


It is no exaggeration that many displaced Zimbabweans of the past two decades will need shock therapy when eventually they decide to return to their home country.

There is incongruence between the hopes and aspirations of the diasporans and those that remained and bore the wrath of Zanu PF impunity that the displaced must come to terms with.

Zimbabwe today is a totally different country from what it was in January this year going back to 2000.

This reality is lost to most of the diasporans whose expectations have been pegged way above what can be achieved by the coalition government.

No wonder there are reverberating echoes of discontent from writings of those in the diaspora.


The diasporans expected the entry of the MDC into government to yield positive and fundamental changes to the manner in which the government operates in specific areas that caused them to gap it which have not materialized.

On the contrary the people who remained in the country had high expectations that the entry of the MDC into the coalition would halt the plummeting living conditions they were subjected to and they have not been disappointed.

Zimbabwe diasporans left the country to seek refuge against economic hardships and political vandalism they were subjected to by a ruthless Zanu PF regime and they found immediate comfort for both wherever they settled and much more.

The plummeting economic conditions in the country placed diasporans at such an economic advantage over their remaining counterparts in that the forex remittances they were making fetched astronomical monetary value from a Zimbabwe currency in free fall.

They could afford to buy properties that they would never imagine owning in a lifetime working in Zimbabwe.

Due to hyperinflation a mortgage loan on any property within Zimbabwe would reduce to a Diasporan’s quarter monthly income within a period of 18 to 24 months and many who had a vision to return back to their home country whenever the political situation improved exploited that window and invested heavily in lavish properties.

The problem many faced was finding reliable relatives to identify the opportunities and manage the investments and many lost vast sums they intended to be invested for their future comfort on returning to their home country.

Even the reputed financial institutions in the country were no longer reliable to manage the remittances of diasporans and they misappropriated the funds to fund Zanu PF’s political lifeline at the expense of the very people the party had haunted out of the country.

Despite these investments many diasporans are still reluctant to return to their home country notwithstanding the political developments that have ushered the coalition government and by and large halted the economic morass by the multicurrency use intervention.

Increasingly the diasporans who had become used to remitting less than a tenth of their incomes to sustain the economic needs for entire Clans’ of relatives in the country are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain the lifestyles they had become reputed for sustaining by relatives.

The arrest on inflation by the coalition government that they now have to meet the same obligations they had taken on with real currencies and that is not easy for them to manage.

While the economic stabilization has brought relief and hope within the country it has brought misery and increased diasporans’ financial obligations to a point where they now have to trim down their beneficiaries in Zimbabwe to the closest family and risk alienating that nucleus family unit from the Clan that used to benefit from it.

But for diasporans the most disappointing development or non development in the country is to do with the rule of law.

There are too many reports of Zanu PF aligned officials and committing serious crimes against perceived or real MDC-T officials and supporters alike.

The diasporans blame continued impunity on the MDC because they had hoped that its entry into government would translate into an immediate stop of Zanu PF impunity.

The commercial farmers are still being evicted by continued invasions and Court actions ironically by a government supposedly headed by the MDC Prime Minister and deputies and they do not understand why that should be tolerated.

MDC-T Ministers, MP’s and activists are still being abducted by state security agents, detained without charge, tortured, denied opportunities to enjoy bail conditions whenever the courts intervene and grant them bail and then acquitted when they are eventually brought to trial over alleged offences for which they were violated in this manner.

Diasporans do not take kindly to the MDC co Home Affairs Minister and the MDC Prime Ministered government allowing itself to be compromised by being made accessories to the prosecution and persecution its core supporters and seemingly doing nothing to distance itself from the abhorrent actions than claim that the union is working well only to announce partial disengagements and re-engagements all in one breath.

For diasporans the MDC-T in particular appears to have been compromised by its involvement in the coalition government to a point where it has completely lost its head.

They argue that the policy shift and inconsistencies in the party behaviour are indicative of the party’s lack of vision and a workable alternative way of democratizing the country’s governance.

On the contrary Zimbabweans within the country are resolutely behind the same party diasporans view as having sold out to Zanu PF and are urging the MDC-T leadership to hang in the coalition government and slug it out with Zanu PF despite the negatives all appreciate are in place and working against the party.

The reason is not difficult to see as they are weighing the benefits they have derived against the deprivations that are resulting from the resistance in the coalition government and finding them to outweigh the deprivations.

The opposite is exactly true for diasporans whose disadvantages far outweigh benefits derived from the coalition government.

The problem the diasporans face in attempting to address the unpalatable aspects of the coalition government is that they are not well organized and courageous enough to confront the system head on.

Their only hope was to do so through MDC-T which for all intends and purposes appear to have abandoned them and are pursuing agendas the diasporans do not value and or understand.

The MDC-T on its part feels let down by diasporans who do not seem to appreciate what it is doing to consolidate the gains of its electoral victories in March 2008.

The MDC wants to resolve the plight of diasporans and its locally based grassroots via a holistic programme of action that is anchored in the positions it bargained for in the GPA.

Simply put the MDC –T is not unduly concerned with sporadic and uncoordinated criticism from exiled Zimbabweans ahead of the needs of its locally based grassroots supporters.

The belief is that if it addresses the plight of locals the diasporans will find it more lucrative to return home than stay in exile.

The party expects its sympathizers in the diaspora to lead the economic turnaround project by organizing themselves into viable investment syndicates to create employment in their home country but the diasporans many of whom have been abused into menial tasks have no clue what to do to compliment the internal efforts in their home country.

Most want the MDC-T led coalition government to create employment opportunities for them that will guarantee their incomes at the same level they are currently enjoying wherever they are which absolutely stupid.

Diasporans who want to return to their country of origin must take advantage of the low salaries and set up costs currently obtaining to start small enterprises that will create employment and generate wealth for the country rather than expect a bankrupt government creating employment opportunities for them.

Those that lack business acumen and want to be Civil servants must be prepared to drastically lower their salary expectations and use their expertise to facilitate economic turnaround in the country to realise improved incomes.

Emmerson Mnangagwa so little to show for strenuous effort

Emmerson Mnangagwa right and trusted advisor Professor Jonathan Moyo facing uphill task to retain relevance in Zanu PF

Emmerson Mnangagwa’s political life in Zanu PF has been characterised with lethargic failure at the last hurdle in similar fashion to the history of the Zimbabwe men’s National soccer team.

Here is the men that was entrusted with transforming the allegiances of the notoriously Rhodesia Front compromised Central Intelligence Office into the subservient and most dreaded Zanu PF military intelligence unit now masquerading as the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) to show how well thought of and trusted he was within Zanu PF at the attainment of Independence from colonial rule.

Even now he still holds the all too powerful position of Minister of Defence in the coalition government the first Ministry Zanu PF declared was to be under the stewardship of a minister nominated by the party.

But it’s not all gold that glitters when it comes to Mnangagwa’s political career in Zanu PF.


One touted the heir apparent to Robert Mugabe as the President of Zanu PF following the elimination of pretenders Edgar Tekere, the late Dr. Edison Zvobgo, Kumbirai Kangai and Dr Simba Makoni due to a combination of alcoholism, exhibited cowardice to challenge Mugabe for the top post in the party, corrupt tendencies and immaturity of all and some of the early favourites.

Mnangagwa enjoyed unrivalled opportunity to succeed Mugabe until a certain motor mouth Professor with an unequalled reputation for political turn coating advised him on how to get there resulting in the still birth of the infamous Thsolotsho declaration.

Mnangagwa must rue the day he ever trusted Professor Jonathan Moyo as his political misfortunes seem to increase whenever he listens to the highly regarded political scientist.

Professor Moyo’s reputation defies all logic like the Dream Team Warriors under Reinard Fabisch who remain highly regarded despite failing to win any trophies and or reaching final stages of any major international competition.

He has been making preposterous postulations about the fortunes of the country’s major political parties and when the outcomes failed to materialize he would not explore why but rather embark on a sycophantic attack of the party leadership that in his opinion failed his wayward postulations.

His return to Zanu PF to advise Mnangagwa on how to position himself as the next Zanu PF President has ended in misery of similar magnitude to Thsolotsho debacle that he had promised to atone for to Mnangagwa.

After the Tsholotsho declaration Mnangagwa who was gunning for the second vice Presidency of the party of geriatrics which he lost to Joice Mujuru was consoled with a demotion to rural Housing Minister by a disappointed Mugabe who does not take kindly to open challenges to his leadership of the party.

Professor Moyo was unceremoniously booted out of the Party and relieved of his all powerful position in government as Minister of Information and Publicity forcing him to revolt and contest elections as an Independent and won leaving Zanu PF with egg all over its face.

Mnangagwa mounted a fervent comeback campaign without the disgraced Professor and managed to piece together his tattered political career through leading the vicious Presidential runoff election campaign with Patrick Chinamasa who was his confidante during the Thsolotsho debacle and had been defeated in Parliamentary elections for Makoni Central by an MDC-T political novice the late John Nyamande who had been exiled in the UK for 7 years before the March 2008 elections.

Mnangagwa was this time handsomely rewarded with promotion to Defence Minister and for his troubles Chinamasa retained the Justice Ministry in the coalition government.

Professor Moyo who had banked on an MDC –T electoral victory to bounce back into the government was left in limbo when the vicious Presidential runoff campaign resulted in a farcical outcome as the MDC-T withdrew leading contender Morgan Tsvangirai from the race at the last minute citing conditions that were not conducive for a credible election that Mnangagwa and Chinamasa aided by the Military Commanders had masterminded.

The promotion gave him traction in the succession battles within Zanu PF and he moved swiftly to take advantage of strained relations between vice President Joice Mujuru and President Mugabe over the failed bid by the latter to extent his Presidential term to 2010 without facing a programmed and Constitutional election contest in 2008.

Suddenly there was buzz that Mnangagwa had reasserted himself as lead contender to succeed Mugabe when he retires as Zanu PF President after the coalition government term elapses within the GPA provisions.

That buzz was supported by the party’s restructuring exercises where party functionaries sympathetic to Mnangagwa seemed to be securing positions ahead of those sympathetic to VP Mujuru whose husband is the unrivalled kingmaker in Zanu PF.

Although this time around like in 2005 there was a contest for the 2nd Vice Presidency of Zanu PPF following the death of VP Joseph Msika, the contest was restricted to former Zapu members in tandem with the coerced 1987unity accord between Zanu PF and PF Zapu that resulted in the party being known as Zanu PF as it is today.

Still Mnangagwa had an opportunity to back a replacement VP who would create space for him to realise his not so transparent ambition to succeed Mugabe.

Mnangagwa like many other seasoned politicians within and outside Zanu PF knew that party Chairman John Nkomo was the most strategically positioned candidate to replace the late Msika and he moved to cement relationships with the Chairman provided the Chairman would also back him up on his preferred to succeed him.

It was all going smoothly until Professor Moyo jumped onto the rollercoaster and strained Mnangagwa’s relationship with Nkomo.

For strategic reasons Nkomo did not signal his displeasure at the Mnangagwa/Moyo alliance but worked behind the scenes to ensure a chairman other than one preferred by Mnangagwa and Moyo would succeed him in the likely event he was nominated for the Vice Presidency of the Party.

It did not make sense that while Mnangagwa was making overtures in support of Nkomo’s Presidency his strongholds of Masvingo and the Midlands Provinces were not openly supporting that bid and were instead rooting for Oppah Muchinguri to oust Joice Mujuru from the Vice Presidency and supporting Nkomo’s competitors for the other Vice Presidency spot reserved for former ZAPU cadres.

When nominations eventually were returned by the provinces it turned out that Mnangagwa and his astute advisor professor Moyo had been routed.

Mugabe whose nomination for the Presidency was forgone given the fear that grips his potential challengers to stand against him within the party was nominated uncontested by the 10 provinces and is duly elected and just awaiting ratification of party congress in December.

Joice Mujuru was nominated by 8 of the 10 provinces while Muchinguri got the support of one province Masvingo and the remaining province, Midlands played the wait and see game before announcing whom it would back between Mujuru and Muchinguri for VP as well as the John Nkomo, and Didymus Mutasa contest for the other vacant VP position.

In the aftermath of the returns from other provinces it is unlikely the Midlands will want to swim against the tide and even if it did Mnangagwa and his advisors have the onerous task of changing attitudes between now and the mid December congress of the party for them to secure the election of the nominees put by Masvingo, Midlands and Manicaland provinces out of the 10 provinces.

It does not help matters that the three opposing provinces are not backing the same candidates and will need to converge on a single candidate first before going out to seek protest votes from provinces supporting the leading contestants if at all they will not be forced to withdraw the nominations before the congress convenes.

It may not explode right away but Mnangagwa must be seething with anger at the curse to his political career of associating with Professor Jonathan Moyo.

Rumours that Professor Moyo has been earmarked for the powerful position of National Commissar may also fail to materialize if Nkomo and Mujuru team up against Mnangagwa and vent their anger on Moyo who is not a favourite of the likely VP’s.

Mnangagwa must know that what goes around comes around or as it is more succinctly put in Shona “Chisi hachiyeri musi wacharimwa.”

Those dreadful acts he led and coordinated in the vicious Presidential runoff election for the sole purpose of ingratiating himself with Mugabe are going to be negatively rewarded by the very party he worked so hard to sustain but using uncouth methods.

Prime Minister Right Honourable Tsvangirai on outstanding GPA issues

Right Honourable Morgan Tsvangirai the Zimbabwe Premier explains the MDC's position in respect of the GPA issues

Prime Minister Tsvangirai: "We are working as an inclusive Government. It must reflect both in our character and in our communication."


Clearing the deck
The Head of Government, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai (PM) speaks in detail to the PM Newsletter about last week's SADC Troika Summit in Maputo, Mozambique and the 30-day ultimatum set for the fulfilment of all outstanding issues.

Q: Prime Minister, you have been telling readers that you expect this Government to work but there have been some problems. Can you highlight the current status of the administration?

PM: The main hallmark of the crisis in Government came about as a result of the disengagement by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from any executive forum with ZANU PF.

This was precipitated not by an individual but by accumulation of frustrations over the last nine months especially with regards to the fulfilment of the SADC Communiqué of 27 January and the Global Political Agreement (GPA). But to emphasize that, it was exacerbated by the violence against our members, the combination of abductions, arrest of Roy Bennett and of civil society activists, so we felt very strongly that we had to draw the line.

Over the last nine months we had been concentrating on Government delivery rather than on ensuring that the conditions of the letter and spirit of the GPA were fulfilled. The Troika Ministerial mission then came to Zimbabwe following our disengagement, interviewed various political actors in the country and produced a report which was subject for consideration by the extra-ordinary summit of the Troika in Maputo.

Fundamentally the conclusion of the Troika's report was that whilst Government seems to have made progress on a number of key areas of delivery, the GPA had a lot of things that had not been implemented. Of course in response Mr Mugabe said that his party felt that they were the only side that was giving so much and unless there is reciprocity on the question of restrictive measures they cannot do anything further.

We as the MDC believed that the issue was about implementation and not negotiation.

If the process has to gather momentum they must start from the basis that all the conditions of the GPA are fulfilled and of course the (Arthur) Mutambara group had to play in between and suggested that all grievances have to be resolved to the benefit of all the parties.

Q: We are talking to you after the SADC Troika summit, would you kindly unpack the Communiqué for the benefit of the readers? What does it mean?
PM: What SADC resolved was that first and foremost if we have to resolve these issues there must not be any precondition for the resolution of the outstanding issues and for re-engagement.

That's why we announced that we were suspending our disengagement to allow the SADC resolution to be tested and the issues resolved. I think it's important that having lived in the inclusive Government for nine months we can as well be patient for 30 days to ensure that all these issues are resolved once and for all.

The preoccupation of the MDC is to ensure that the concept of the inclusive Government is strengthened rather than undermined. As far as we are concerned we are giving the SADC resolution a chance to resolve the issues in the 30 day period so that we concentrate on the Government Work Programme.
Q: There is scepticism that your partners ZANU PF might take longer than 30 days to resolve these issues. How practical is this time frame given that it has already taken a year to fully implement the GPA?
PM: It's not up to MDC or ZANU PF to choose what to do.

The parties have been tasked by the resolution that in the first fifteen days they have to sit down and go through everything that is affecting the smooth running of the inclusive Government including the outstanding issues.

So it's not by choice. It's by the resolution of SADC that both parties are bound by that resolution to ensure that they fulfil that resolution.

After 15 days the facilitator (The Republic of South Africa) will come and evaluate what has been implemented, what has been agreed and what has not been agreed. Surely I think that both MDC and ZANU PF do not want to find themselves wanting after 15 days to say that nothing has happened. It will be an insult to SADC and their own commitment as parties.
Q: What next if the Troika resolution is ignored and the SADC timeframe lapses without any concrete action?
PM: There is always an option. If the MDC is not happy and if there is no fulfillment of the GPA in 30 days, nothing will stop us calling for an extra-ordinary summit of SADC which I think will be foolhardy for anyone to call for an extra ordinary summit when we have an opportunity of resolving all these issues in 30 days.
Q: Since the SADC meeting, have you talked to Mr Mugabe, informally or otherwise? Has there been any movement?
PM: Not yet for the simple reason that Mr Mugabe left Maputo for Egypt and I have only been back in the office today. So we hope that at the earliest opportunity we will meet, perhaps in the first session of Cabinet this week.
Q: Do you think the unavailability of Mr Mugabe could cause delays in meeting the 15 day deadline set by SADC?
PM: No, it doesn't stop the process. The parties to the Agreement are supposed to meet this week. They do not need the Principals to direct them. They sit on their own and hammer out the issues.
Q: The current stand-off seems to contradict your previous description of your working relationship with Mr Mugabe as ‘cordial'. How would you describe your working relationship now?
PM: I'm sure that Mr Mugabe will say we have a working relationship. But if it is a working relationship that works to the advantage of one party against the other, it's no longer mutual.

The gap in the implementation of the spirit and letter of the GPA tells it all. Of course you can sit down and talk, but talking is cheap until you are able deliver and it is delivery that has affected the relationship.
Q: Do you think it's enough for you and Mr Mugabe to enjoy a cordial working relationship when supporters on the ground are still fighting?
PM: This is the paradox we have to deal with. Various layers of our political parties must appreciate that we are in a new political dispensation. It's no use to retreat into your compartment and have the same combative attitude towards other parties.

We are working as an inclusive Government. It must reflect both in our character and in our communication. That's why my biggest disappointment with the state media in which they are actually on a super drive to apportion blame and success.

That's not how the inclusive Government should communicate. The inclusive Government must reflect that inclusivity that there are parties working to contribute to the success of the administration. It's very unfortunate that this should continue to be reflected in the state media.
Q: Media space has not opened up since the formation of the transitional Government. What happened to the ZMC, which we hear you agreed on the candidates long back?
PM: We have agreed on the composition of the Zimbabwe Media Commission, the chairperson and deputy, what is only left is to announce the commissioners. We want to ensure that all these commissions are announced in time so that they can do their work.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission interviews were carried out and we have to agree on the appointments. Once these commissions have been appointed they can start working including of course open up the media space.
Q: Still on the public media, they have identified sanctions and pirate radio stations, parallel government as some of the issues you have to deal with? And there are claims that you told a European Union delegation that came to Zimbabwe not to remove sanctions?
PM: I can't respond to the state media's obsession with sanctions because I'm sure that anyone who was in Maputo will tell you that there were various issues around the lack of implementation of the GPA and of course restrictive measures was part of that discussion.

But I must underline that Morgan Tsvangirai is not personally accountable neither is the MDC as a party accountable for the removal of sanctions. This issue in terms of the GPA is a collective responsibility. Zimbabwe's isolation is a collective responsibility.

It should not be apportioned to any particular party, let us approach it from that angle.

The other thing on radio stations is that once the ZMC is in place you make the parallel market irrelevant.

On the EU delegation, that's an obsession, a pre-occupation that the state media has. The problem with propaganda is that you say it so often and you end up believing it yourself.

And that's what they are doing. They have said so many lies that even those who write it do not believe what they are writing about so who am I to give them credibility.

It's just a figment of their imagination.
Q: There seems to be continued disregard for the rule of law especially in the farming community by senior security personnel, what is your take on that?
PM: These are the issues that are all subject to us looking at them in terms of the GPA.

The rule of law issue is a very important aspect of the Agreement. Let the parties deal with it.

We want a framework, a timeline to deal with all issues and you cannot be selective and say this issue is more important than all the other issues.

All issues are as equally important as those that are contained in the GPA to create the necessary peace and stability.
Q: To what extent is the current stand off as well as the renewed cases of violence and hostility affecting your efforts to deliver?
PM: As long as there is instability, as long as there is violence against Zimbabweans, it affects the credibility of this inclusive Government.

We cannot be held accountable for the actions of national institutions when they become errant.

We have to rein in on those errant individuals who are acting outside the law. It affects our credibility, it affects the confidence, nationally and internationally as an inclusive Government. It affects our credibility as leaders.
Q: You have been heading the Government since February, can you describe how it has been for Zimbabwe since you started heading the Government? What major achievements have you made?
PM: Well, I cannot blow my own trumpet. Ask Zimbabweans, surely there is ample proof that they would like to see this Government continue to deliver to their needs.

I'm sure there is positive reception as to the actions taken by the inclusive Government. I can assure you that the majority of Zimbabweans are having much better lives than they were ten months ago.
Q: What have you not achieved that you would have wanted to achieve by now?
PM: I'm disappointed at the slow pace of implementation of the GPA and evidence on our actions demonstrates that. We cannot continue to procrastinate on these issues, it just becomes frustrating.

We do not want to become frustrated on things that we have agreed.

Let us be frustrated by things that are out of our control but we cannot make complaints about things within our control.
Q: There seems to be uncertainty partly because of the problems in the transitional Government, what would you say to assure the business community and the generality of Zimbabweans?
PM: The worst thing you can ever have in a country is lack of hope.

The decision by the MDC to disengage was to deal with these issues and the re-engagement creates the necessary hope and confidence that will allow business to look forward. What I can say is that this process has to be consolidated.

We remove all doubt, we create conditions for business confidence and international investment and anything that undermines that drive is against the interests of Zimbabweans. So to me taking the people's interests first means that we have to deal with these outstanding issues so that people cannot raise doubt about the commitment of the inclusive Government to the rule of law, democracy, progress and security of persons.
Q: Prime Minister Tsvangirai, has anyone come to you, ordinary people or business people, to say we are concerned with what is happening and have you given them any assurances?
PM: Yes, yes, I've had so many meetings with civil society, the business community and so many ordinary Zimbabweans.

I've even had personal calls and the outcry is todzekerazve here kuya, zvauyazve here zvakare. That has been the greatest concern.

I have told them that the action that we took as MDC was to clear the deck so that when we take off we do not raise doubt. When people want to put their money in this country they must be assured that this process is strong, irreversible and that is able to create the confidence that is necessary. The better we do it now than to do it two years down the line.