Finance Minister Tendai Biti said it was
"criminal" that diamond mines and executives failed to submit their
profits to the state. (Zimbabwe Mail 13 March 2013).
According
to an international diamond watchdog, Partnership Africa Canada, at least $2 billion
were stolen by Mugabe's cronies from Zimbabwe's eastern diamond fields last
year alone.
"I will be appealing to both the President and
Prime Minister to make these companies pay. We are beginning to lose our
patience," said Minister Biti. "It is irresponsible and unpatriotic
and a breach of our laws."
Laws, what laws? We all know that Mugabe is the law of
the land and you are out there right now campaigning for a yes vote to a constitution
dictated by the tyrant to reaffirm his dictatorial powers! By appeal to Mugabe
you, Minister Biti, are tacitly acknowledge Mugabe’s supremacy over the country’s
laws and courts including parliament itself!
The nation must be ruled by law, only strong and
decisive laws can do that and not weak and feeble one like the Copac
constitution, and not the whim of a dictator!
8 comments:
MDC Senator Komichi tells Mutare voters Copac Constitution is the key to unseating Muga-be. (The Zimbabwean 13 March 2013)
MDC has failed to get the democratic reforms to dismantle the dictatorship implemented; the Police are still acting in their partisan manner, Mugabe has secured billions dollars from Ma-range to fund his party, etc. proving the Zanu PF dictatorship is untouched. This Copac con-stitution will do anything to dismantle the dictatorship; the election violence of 2008 will be repeated.
There only way to force the implementation of the reforms BEFORE elections is by voting NO in the referendum. And yet here we are with MDC campaigning for a yes vote!
This is not the way to the "Promised Land", we are not crossing the river "Jordan" as Komichi would have us believe. This is the way to Hell and if people vote yes on Saturday then the nation will have crossed Dante's "point of no return" into Hell!
How this nation should be led by such incompetent men like Tsvangirai and brutal tyrants such as Mugabe at this critical stage in the nation's history – as if one was not bad enough - is the greatest mystery of our time!
An unemployed young man dies in Tunisia after setting himself on fire on Tuesday. The act recalled the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, whose death in December 2010 led to a revolt in Tunisia that spread across the Arab world
This is truly tragic.
Tunisians are learning that ending the autocracy and kicked out the dictator was one thing but getting a competent government afterwards is proving to be an impossible task!
In Zimbabwe we have spent the last five years pretending the dictator had changed to become a democrat and on Saturday we will be voting for a dictator's creed pretending it is a democratic constitution, egged along by PM Tsvangirai and his MDC friends! Once Mugabe has the yes vote safely in the bag he will roll out his terror machine and the people will realize too late their folly. How tragic!
@ Canuck
The Marange diamonds should be a blessing to the nation but now it is turning out to be a curse because not only is Mugabe looting the money from it but worse still he is using it to finance his dictatorial oppression. You have to ask yourself why the new Copac constitution did not have clauses to ensure the nation's wealth is not expropriated by a few? It does not because Mugabe dictated the constitution and he would have never wanted to limit his own dictatorial powers.
MDC are misleading the nation and the people themselves are following blindly like sheep to the slaughter! Contrary to what Tsvangirai is telling the nation, everyone can see there will be a repeat of the violence of 2008 but they choose to believe Tsvangirai because it is the lazy thing to do! Well the people will open their eyes when the violence sweeps the nation soon after the referendum!
@ Masuku
We need a good constitution to get out of this dictatorship and political paralysis. You are right this Copac constitution is not much different from the 2000 draft or the Kariba draft but that is so because they were all dictated by the same person - Mugabe. The failure by Tsvangirai and MDC to asset themselves in the last five years is a great national shame and tragedy!
Finance Minister calls for fuel price hike to pay for referendum and elections after failing to get donors funding.
Petrol currently sells at between $1,50 and $1,55 per litre will while diesel is going for be-tween $1,38 and $1,40 will all up by 5 cents per litre.
Zimbabweans are being asked to pay for the referendum and the elections only to discover the Copac constitution the nation has paid US$ 200 million for is not worth the paper it is written on and the election is just a rerun of the bloody elections of 2008!
Justice Chidyausiku and five other judges unanimously agreed that the time set out by the presi-dent for the referendum was adequate.
On the matter of whether or not the people had been allowed enough time to study the document it is hard to see how the Supreme Court or anyone for that matter can ever say yes to that. Did the Court ask those tasked to distribute the constitution whether they had done so; when and to how many people?
The Courts would have learnt that only 100 000 copies were printed in a country with 13 million spread over an area of over 390 000 sq km.
How anyone can say the people would have shared the few available copies in the time is nonsense. But wonders of wonders, miracles of miracles six Supreme Court Judge of Zimbabwe ruled that it was adequate time!
Mugabe is desperate to have a yes vote, so desperate he did not want to risk people discussing on any of the state controlled media or time for many to read it before they voted. That is what dicta-tors do best, dictate!
@ Mugaradziko
You are absolutely right that many Zimbabweans think this Copac constitution "is better than the current Lancaster House constitution and view it as breakthrough for the good of Zimbabwe" and thus will vote yes for it.
What these people do not realize, this would have been out right if the country had a free media and more time and space was given to the no camp, is that it is not with the Lancaster House Constitution they should be comparing this Copac rubbish but to the "democratic constitution" called for in the GPA.
You readily admitted that the failure to implement the reforms has resulted in the failure to deliver free and fair elections.
In all your rambling you failed to show how the new Copac constitution had failed to address all those issues Mugabe had said no to in the reforms. Surely a good constitution should address the issue of security sector reforms, media reforms, etc.; this is what makes this Copac constitution so weak and feeble.
In all your rambling you also failed to point out that once the Copac constitution is accepted the door to the outstanding reforms will be closed.
This Copac constitution will do nothing to end the Mugabe and Zanu PF dictatorship and therefore it is folly to accept it. The main reasons the nation finds itself in this pitiful position were this rubbish Copac is going to be accepted is because:
1) there is no free media and thus the majority of the people are having to rely on the word of political leaders
2) the political leaders they are relying on, MDC, failed to implement the reforms, compounded that by accepting a weak and feeble constitutions and then have been lying endlessly about it delivering free and fair elections. History will judge all the MDC politicians for what they really are incompetent and useless individuals who betrayed the nation for imaginary selfish gains. All MDC leaders will be just as responsible for the broken limbs and the lost lives as the Zanu PF leaders who order the violence!
@ Yepec
If my warning of the country being dragged into a dangerous and deadly Zanu PF death trap turns out to be wrong then, yes, I am an empty drum just making a lot of noise.
I have pointed out the overwhelming evidence to show this is a deadly Zanu PF trap and you and your leader Tsvangirai have chosen to ignore the evidence or lie to down play its value.
I have refused to accept you argument that we should just accept what idiots like Tsvangirai say and let time settle who was right him or me. If the nation vote yes this Saturday then there is no turning back the nation will have forfeited the last chance to implement the democratic reforms and will go into the bloody elections.
We do not need a repeat of 2008 to know what needs to be done here. This is not a movie where the director will shout “Cut!” and all those with broken limbs and dead with all get up and walk away. This is for real those whose limbs will be broken by the Zanu PF juggernaut will carry the scars to their graves and those killed will be buried. No doubt Tsvangirai will preside over the odd funeral to eulogize about the heroism of the victim and quickly retain to his US$ 3 million mansion and gravy train lifestyle.
You ask what will happen next if people voted no; I had already answer this in an earlier comment which I will repeat here.
Yepec you are what the French call les incompetents (the incompetent)!
You had finally, finally, got it and in the right sequence too:
1) we must implement the reforms and dismantle the dictatorship brick by brick, nothing, ab-solutely nothing can ever be achieved until we do.
2) if the reforms are to be implemented then people must vote NO in the referendum. If the yes vote wins the day then the door to reforms will be closed for good.
So there I was thinking maybe you were not as thick as you had presented yourself to be when, true to form, you ask "what is your strategy of getting around the Zanu PF legislation or President?" If we have dismantled the dictatorship brick by brick then there will be nothing left to "get round"!
This is like someone asking, what is the number of 911; an example the French would give for les incompetents!
This is not a game; the fate of the nation is at stake, millions of ordinary people’s lives will be dra-matically affected one way or the other and hundreds will live or die, this year alone; all dependent on whether the yes vote carries the day or the no vote win. Your les incompetents is therefore not amusing; one should never ever gamble with other people’s lives!
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