Sunday 27 September 2009

Grace Mugabe dairy farm selling milk to Nestle: Mugabe destroyed so many productive farms to create a tiny few!

Grace Mugabe is the owner of a Dairy Farm supplying a million litres of milk to Nestle, the Swiss Food Giant.

Mugabe destroyed one of the most productive farming sectors in the world to create one that has been a total failure. Zimbabwe has gone from a net exporter of food and earning billions of dollars in foreign currency from the sell of products like tobacco before Mugabe's land redistribution programme to a point where 80% of our people are dependent on food aid and agricultural production has dropped to a tiny fraction of its original level.

The nation has heard of these few "success stories" of Grace Mugabe dairy farm and Gideon Gono’s chicken farm but before we swallow this story we must ask two things:
1) How much of their new wealth is going to the national coffers? I would not be surprised that these new owners are not only paying their workers poor wages but they are paying only a fraction of the tax due compared to the original owners of these farms.
2) How much has these new farm owners received in direct and indirect aid? People like Grace and Gideon no doubt had unlimited support; everything their touched had to turn into gold. They received all the funding they asked for even to the point of taking the funds away from critical national institutions like schools and hospitals!

Nestle continued to do business with people like Grace Mugabe knowing fully well what these individuals stand for. If this was happening in Europe or North America, Nestle would have rather closed down than be guilty of propping up such a repressive regime. Nestle is not alone in this, a few months the same thing was being about Barclays Banks.

As a nation we have to investigate the business dealing of Mugabe and all his cronies. People like Gono will use no doubt use their ill got wealth to maintain the status quo; that can not be allowed.

We have also to investigate the role of the many individuals and companies who propped the regime up. As long as they made fat profit, they did not care. These ill got profits must be shared by the many Zimbabweans whose lives have been totally destroyed by this unholy cooperation.

Friday 25 September 2009

CNN ALLOW MUGABE TO MAKE LAND GRAB A RACE ISSUE: IT IS NOT THAT!

The CNN reporter was drawn into seeing the land issue into blacks against whites which is exactly which is exactly what Mugabe wants the whole world to do. It is not that at all!

The original land reform programme which the British agreed to fund during the Lancaster Talks was aimed at buying off some of the commercial farms and settling Zimbabwe’s peasants who constitute 60% or so of the country’s 13 million. In the first 20 years of the country’s independence a small fraction of the landless peasants were actually resettled. Mugabe and his cronies kept for themselves some of the farms meant for resettlement.

When Mugabe lost the 2000 constitutional referendum he wanted the land issue to be the only issue in the country. Zimbabweans had other important issues they wanted addressed; the country’s economy was already in decline, corruption and mismanagement were by then deeply entrenched, and on the political front the dictator had become increasingly repressive as he felt his popularity slipping. So to take attention away from all these other pressing issues Mugabe instigated the lawless and the senseless violence that have become the hallmark of the white farm invasion.

All of the white farms seized since 2000 have been given away to Mugabe’s cronies and the ruling elite and a few are occupied by the party’s thugs who spearheaded the seizures. The landless peasants, who were supposed to be the beneficiaries, have been forgotten.

Zimbabwe’s economy was heavily dependent of the foreign currency and raw materials produced by the country’s agricultural sector. Mugabe’s orchestrated seizure of commercial farms destroyed this sector precipitating the country’s economic melt down.

The country’s food production also suffered because the Mugabe cronies failed to maintain the farms’ high agricultural production. Last year 80% of our people needed imported food aid, sad for a country that used to self sufficient in food with enough excess to sell to other countries in the region.

On the political front Mugabe has successfully used the farm invasion as the smoke screen to hide his intentions of denying the people a meaningful say in the governance of the country. He still maintains it is the West that is seeking regime change in Zimbabwe, “they are punishing him for taking land away from the whites and giving it back to the blacks”, he claims. He has conveniently forgotten the reign of terror he unleashed on the people and the hundreds of innocent people he murdered last year to force the electorate to vote for him.

Mugabe’s on going white farm invasion is not settling white colonial injustices; that are only a cover. The dictator is using the farm invasions to hide the violent repression of the Zimbabwe populous to consolidate his iron grip on power. He is using the seized farms to reward all those who have remained loyal to his dictatorial rule.

“Zimbabwe belongs to Zimbabweans, pure and simple.” Mugabe said. In his Zimbabwe, the country belongs to him and his cronies; the rest of the people, black and white, count for nothing!

Tuesday 22 September 2009

TSVANGIRAI TO REMAIN IN THE GNU: SEEKING TO HIDE BEHIND FUDGED PEOPLE'S WISH.

The pressure is mounting on whether or not Tsvangirai and his MDC party should walkout of the GNU.

When ever Tsvangirai has to face a tough decision in which some of the more logical MDC leaders opposed him, he has always suggested that the party "will consult and listen to the people". The party will then go on to hold a number of public meetings addressed by the party leadership. Only a few party members will get a chance to speak. No doubt, some will say this and others will say that and the third group will say something completely difference which is neither this nor that. And so the party leadership will be left to pick and choose what the people actually said!

There are good political reasons why MDC should walk out of this GNU; for a start the power sharing has been a complete failure given Mugabe has all his dictatorial powers and he has continued to flex his muscles. There a equally good economic reasons for walking out. The economic recover, which is the acid test, will never occur; because no one is going to bank roll this dictatorship. The only reason why Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders would want to stay is for selfish gain. They are enjoying the social and economic benefits of being Prime Minister, etc.

Mugabe has already started beating the war drum; there will be no free and fair elections and MDC will be routed! So MDC leaders know they will once again be a nobody after the next elections.

Mutambara too knows his chance of winning come the next elections is zero and that is why he has been pushing for the GNU to last as long as possible. He too would like to hang on to his Deputy Prime Minister post as long as possible. At least he is honest and up front about it. The same can not be said about Tsvangirai and his MDC friends; they want to stay in the GNU but would like to hide behind some fudged people’s wish.

Some of the most heinous crimes against the people in this life are often committed in the name of the people. Tsvangirai never consulted the people before he joined Mugabe to form this GNU. He is going through the same meaningless motion of consulting the people to stay in. Whatever he does, staying in is clearly worse, the damage he has done in joining the GNU has been immeasurable.
Be joining Mugabe to form this GNU Tsvangirai endorsed Mugabe’s position that Mugabe alone will decide who rules Zimbabwe. The only election result Mugabe will accept is one that endorses his dictatorial position. Tsvangirai had no right to make such a outrageous and far reaching decision. It was a serious betrayal of the people’s trust and fundamental right.

Wednesday 16 September 2009

Professor Jonathan Moyo, the venomous viper, calls Tsvangirai a "blithering fool"; the viper is right!

Professor Jonathan Moyo calls Tsvangirai and MDC “blithering fools”.

Professor Jonathan Moyo will rank second after Mugabe himself in the role he played in building up and keeping this ruinous and repressive Mugabe dictatorship in power. For someone who was Minister, highest office he ever occupied, for a handful of years compared to three decades for many in Zanu PF; that speaks volumes of the potency of this venomous viper!

Professor Moyo masterminded Mugabe’s miraculous revival after the losing the 2000 constitutional referendum and facing the same electorate again a few months later in the parliamentary elections. He has boasted of this himself. The strategy was simple enough – force everyone to focus on the land issue and nothing else. Indeed for all its multitude of economic and political problems Zimbabwe has nothing else on the national agenda but land.

The violence and lawlessness that has accompanied the seizure of white farms was a deliberate and calculated ploy to draw attention to the white farms and away from Mugabe’s catalogue failures and repression. Whilst violence was reportedly directed at the white farmers in practise to country wide directed at Mugabe’s political opponents and their supporters.

Mugabe’s cronies took full advantage of the chaotic situation by taking over the seized farms. Mugabe was running out of wealth to bribe his cronies and so he was helpless to stop them.

The economic and physical consequences of Zimbabwe’s violent farm seizure have been devastating for the white farmer owners and the hundreds of thousands farmer workers. And for the nation as a whole, this was the single act that precipitated the country’s total economic melt down.

Tsvangirai and his “party of excellence” has completely failed to put any other issue on the national agenda in their tens years as the country’s main political opposition with a significant number of MPs in 2000 to 2005 and now with half as many Ministers and Prime Ministers as Zanu PF! Of course it is not because there is a shortage of issues for Tsvangirai to pick from; the situation is even worse now than it was ten years ago.
Many Zimbabweans consider Professor Moyo a venomous viper who would sell his own mother for a price and be proud he had a mother to sell. Still, when he called Tsvangirai and company “blithering fools”; like it or not the viper is right!

Sunday 13 September 2009

EU delegate welcomed by Mugabe; but are a curse to Zimbabwe's regime change agenda!

Mugabe welcomes a high ranking EU delegation with “open arms” to mark the thawing relationship between the dictator and the Union.

The West imposed targeted sanction of Mugabe in 2002 following his failure to hold free and fair elections and thus afford the Zimbabwean electorate a meaningful say in the governance of the country. Last year’s run-off presidential elections were even worse, Mugabe “declared war” on the people, as Tsvangirai so aptly put it.

When Mugabe dangled the carrot of the premiership to Tsvangirai, the later immediately forgot all hundreds of innocent blood the dictator had just shed and joined him to form the GNU. Indeed the political violence has never really stop and on Saturday Mugabe was telling his party’s Youth League those who had dare to vote against him last year had sold out. They should not allow that to ever happen again in future.

One of the key tasks for this GNU is to produce a new constitution in 18 to 24 months. The nation is then set to hold fresh election. Mugabe has already started denouncing his critics and opponents as anti-Zimbabweans the next election is set to be as violent and bloody as past election. Tsvangirai, blinded by all the trimmings of office, has himself refused to acknowledge Mugabe is the same ruthless dictator has always been; being in the GNU has not changed him in any way.

In June Mugabe sent Tsvangirai on a diplomatic charm offensive to the West to get sanctions lifted West financial aid renewed. Much to the annoyance of most Zimbabweans, particularly those at the cutting edge of Mugabe’s continued repression and misrule, Tsvangirai told the world Mugabe had changed and Zimbabwe was on an “irreversible” democratic path.

All the Western government dismissed Tsvangirai’s optimism with the contempt it rightly deserved and sent him back empty handed. All that is except European Union, they seemed impressed by the GNU and were ready to work with Mugabe.

On Saturday 12 September a high powered EU delegation led by EU Aid and Development Commissioner Karel De Gucht visited Zimbabwe and met the dictator Mugabe himself. It is a very significant diplomatic victory for the ruthless dictator Mugabe. He welcomed the delegation “with open arms”!

When Mugabe was asked after his meeting with the EU delegates whether he consider stepping down he laughed and answered “You are asking a regime change question. I am still young.”

This was a laughing matter to the dictator; he has vowed that only God will remove him from office. But to the Zimbabweans this is no laughing matter.

Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess because the people could NOT achieve regime change even when there was overwhelming evidence that Mugabe’s regime was incompetent, corrupt and repressive. For three decade Mugabe’s message to the Zimbabwe electorate was that they could vote for whomever the pleased as long as he alone emerges the winner; Henry Ford style. Of course it is the people who have should have the final say expressed through free and fair election on who should rule. Until this anomaly is dealt with the country will remain in this hell-hole.

So good governance and regime change remains top on the Zimbabwe national agenda.

The only reason EU Commissioner Gucht should be doing in Zimbabwe right now is to ensure the hang-man's noose seats snugly round the dictator’s neck. The targeted sanctions should be extended beyond the mere 203 individuals and 40 companies, for example, to include the next tier of the Zanu PF leadership and all their children and dependents.

Instead, the EU is welcoming Mugabe back into the community of nations, lift the sanctions and renew financial aid to the dictator. The EU is sweeping all the human rights violation and murders Mugabe has committed under the carpet. And worse still, the EU endorsing the dictator’s position that he alone - and not the Zimbabwean electorate - should continue to decide who rules the country.

The right to have a meaningful say in the governance of one’s country is a basic and fundamental human right. It is bad enough that one has to remind dictators like Mugabe of that; it is heartbreaking that one to do the same with EU leaders too. The truth even powerful democratic institutions like EU are still led by white racists who deep down do NOT accept that blacks are really fully subscribed members of the human race and therefore do not have to be accorded the same human rights and dignities accorded to whites.

The EU can renew their past practise of propping up Mugabe; this GNU is nothing but a Mugabe dictatorship in everything but name. This will save to dilute the strong message the West was sending to the dictator and will, no doubt, help Mugabe to extend his ruinous rule of Zimbabwe. Still, regime change and good governance will remain firmly on the national agenda – this is one issue this nation must now resolve once and for all. Regime change is a now a matter of national survival, Mugabe can delude himself in thinking only God can remove his repressive regime!

Saturday 12 September 2009

MUGABE PREPARES HIS THUGS FOR FRESH ELECTIONS: ZIMBABWEANS ARE CAUGHT BETWEEN THE CRASHING JAWS OF A CROCODILE!

Zimbabwe is caught up in the crashing jaws of a crocodile; Mugabe and Tsvangirai which one of them is the upper and lower jaw is a matter of indifference!

With Mugabe the nation knows what he is – a single minded and ruthless dictator whose care is to hang on to political power at ALL cost. His weapon of choice in his fight to remain in power is brute force, he has again and again deployed his party thugs bolstered by heavily politicised and corrupt Police Force, CIO, Army and other state security organs to terrorised and even murder innocent Zimbabweans to secure his election victory. He even boost of having “degrees in violence” and proud of it!

On Friday Mugabe addressed his Zanu PF Youth League; he IS once again on a war-footing.

Mugabe has accepted that once a new constitution is agreed this GNU would have no plausible excuse for not holding fresh election. Of course there some individuals who fearing they would lose have been pushing for the GNU to last five years. Their only hope of seeing that happen is by making sure there in no new constitution at the end of the proposed 18 to 24 months! The counter argument is that there should still be fresh elections with or without a new constitution.

If the GNU failed to produce the new constitution, one of its principle tasks, in the stipulated period; why should the nation extend its tenure? What are the chances that the GNU will produce a new constitution after five years? At present the process has stalled supposedly because there is money. Not that much had been achieved with the millions already spent; the whole process had become a farce as Zanu PF supporters had disrupted all proceedings. At the end of five years of this GNU nation will have to hold election under the current constitution or worse still an equally repressive new constitution. The later is worse because after spending millions of dollars and of man-years in producing the new constitution the nation can ill afford to revisit the same issue again. So is this GNU should fail to produce a new constitution the nation should cut its loss and hold fresh elections and move on!

Mugabe being the shrewd politician that he is realises that and so is already preparing for elections in 18 to 24 months. And his message to his militant Zanu PF Youth League supporters was a call to arms – a chilling to the rest Zimbabwean:

He will reject a new constitution which was not anchored on the Kariba Draft Constitution. The Kariba draft gives Mugabe the same dictatorial powers. So the only new constitution acceptable to Mugabe is one that will restate his dictatorial powers!
The seizure of white owned commercial farms would continue and those who continue to resist will not only have the usual thugs to content with but be dragged before the courts.

“There is no reversal of our sovereignty. We don’t want outsiders to interfere with our system. Our stand with regards to interference is the same. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans.” He said. It is him and his cronies who are benefiting from all these seizures at a huge cost to the majority of the people. Are we not Zimbabweans too!

He considers all Zimbabweans who did not vote for him last year as “sell- outs”!

“When you vote against a revolutionary party, a Chimurenga party, you are becoming a counter-revolutionary,” he said. “You are voting against yourself. You are voting against your right to the ownership of your land. Kutengesa kwakaitwa gore rakapera hatidi kukuona (Let there be no selling out as happened last year)”.

The right to have a meaningful say in the governance of one’s country constitute the very soul and body of a free society in which the human dignity of each member is respected. As a people we have to reject this abomination by Mugabe in which those who exercise this fundamental right are labelled sell-outs to be hunted down and murdered in cold blood!

Tsvangirai and MDC, for all their posturing as the champions of democratic change in Zimbabwe have failed to deal with Mugabe’s repeated violation of the people’s basic human rights violations head-on. Tsvangirai has dealt with these issues as if they were difference in policy the same way economists have differed on the best solution out of the current economic recession.

Last year Mugabe carried out one of the most outrageous acts of election violence and murder ever seen in human history. Not even the placid AU Election Monitoring Team could give the sham their stamp of approval. What Tsvangirai and MDC did by signing a power sharing agreement with Mugabe is sweep all Mugabe had done under the carpet as if nothing mattered.

Well Mugabe is shaking the Zanu PF hornet nest; Zimbabwe must now brace itself for yet another violent and murderous election! No effort was made by Tsvangirai to confront last year’s political violence head-on and now the nation must relive the same horrors all over again.

Whilst Mugabe is preparing his murderous thugs for deploy, MDC is meeting in Bulawayo to ‘Celebrating a Decade of Courage, Conviction and Leadership.’ What leadership?!

Here is a party whose leaders have become Mugabe’s cheer-leaders, especially in the West, singing the praise of the dictator at every opportunity. They entered into this GNU convinced SADC and AU guarantees count for something. Last week SADC rebuffed MDC’s calls to force Mugabe to honour his side of the agreement.

MDC has betrayed the cause of democratic change they claim to stand for. The party, especially Tsvangirai himself, has displayed a shocking level of incompetency and naivety, in total contrast to the party’s claims of being a party “of excellence!”

What MDC needs, desperately, is a totally overhaul of its leaders. Instead, there is talk of Tsvangirai extending his leadership of the party at the end of his two five year teams ending in 2011.

Mugabe is just using MDC to give his continued brutal dictatorial rule of Zimbabwe some semblance of being democracy. But as far as the ordinary Zimbabweans are concerned nothing, absolutely nothing has changed; their suffering continues and their very lives remain at the total mercy of Mugabe. Tsvangirai and MDC are nothing more than the lower jaw – a distasteful role Tsvangirai show have never accepted and has no excuse to continue to play - against which Mugabe can crash his victims!

Thursday 3 September 2009

US CONGRESSMAN TALKS OF HOPE IN ZIMBABWE'S GNU: WHAT NONSENSE!

“We are here because there is hope,” Congressman Gregory Meeks told journalists soon after meeting Tsvangirai on Tuesday. This is the kind of false hope we in Zimbabwe can do without. What reason(s) does the Congressman has for his optimisms?

“The Prime Minister has told us that there are so many good things in as far as the unity agreement is concerned and that the differences they may have can be worked out,” Congressman Meeks explained. What nonsense!

This unity government has is almost a year old since they signed the GPA and seven month old since the formation of the GNU and still they can not agree on minor issues like the appointment of RBZ governor. The rainy season is upon us and still the teething problem of getting back the farms seized by Mugabe and his cronies now laying idle can be put to productive use again has not even been brought up yet. Indeed the farm invasions has continued and thus disrupting the little agricultural production that was still taking place.

Congressman, Zimbabwe was once able to produce enough food not only for its own people but with surplus for export. It was the bread basket of the region; that is a fact. Today 80% of our people are totally dependent on food aid and, sadly, there is nothing to show this is set to change.

The GNU has yet to address the big beasts in the political front. The writing of the new constitution has been kicked into the tall grass. The GNU is yet to investigate and punish all those involved in the politically motivated violence and murders during last year’s sham presidential run-off elections. There are the institutional reforms of the Police and other State Security arms still to do. No one in the GNU has yet raised any of these issues and without them Zimbabwe’s next election will be yet another sham.

Congressman Meeks understand that PM Tsvangirai has his own selfish reasons – he has joined Mugabe at the high table being one of them - for giving a positive spin to everything the GNU has done. The reality is this GNU nothing but a Mugabe dictatorship by another name. It is bad enough that we, Zimbabweans, continue to suffer under this dictatorship but, please, do not insulting our intelligence by talking of hope in this political marriage of convenience.

Ironically almost all the American leaders who have dealt with Zimbabwe so far including President Obama, have all dismissed this GNU as a failure. Congressman Meeks is therefore sending a contrary message. PM Tsvangirai has so far been swimming against the popular and logical current of opnion, of course he will now seize on Congressman Meeks' very words. Only last week he was finally talking of pulling out of the GNU, he was desperately searching for an excuse to stay put - and the Congressman has given him one!