Mugabe in a meaningless U-Turn on indigenisation; a board will supervise the looting!

With the deadline of January 2014 for foreigners to handover 51% of their shares looming; the looters were getting as excited as hyenas at the smell of blood. So Minister Nhema has been forced to step in and hold back the hyenas. So the Minister told the concerned foreign business owners that they should not entertain individuals who seek partnerships or takeovers without going through the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board (Nieeb).

“We are a business community, which should follow proper business procedures and maintain sanity in our country,” the Minister said.

Minister Nhema what you are doing is called looting. No business school will teach you that anyone could ever prosper from reaping where they did not sow. So what “proper business procedures” are you wittering about!

Unemployment is seating at a nauseating 85% plus, the Zimbabwe economy is in dare straits and the Zimbabwe government is broke following the reckless spending by Mugabe to pay for the vote rigging operations. Zimbabwe should be bending over backwards to keep the few businesses still operating in the country, to attract new investors and to attract financial help. Instead Mugabe and Zanu PF are kissing goodbye to any chance of economic recovery by continuing to pursue the country’s looting policies in the thin disguise of indigenisation.

Zimbabwe is in a deep hole. When you are in a hole; stop digging! None of the foreign business owners and would-be investors and financers will be assured the appointment of NIEEB, a board to supervise the looting.

Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops call for "national agenda for restoration" after decades of being in the tyrant's pocket!

Zimbabwe’s Roman Catholic Church Bishops call for a “national agenda for restoration and peace in Zimbabwe following the July 2013 National Elections" in a pastoral letter without saying what exactly is in this agenda.

Zimbabwe had a real chance to bring about meaningful political change if the GNU had implemented the democratic reforms necessary for free and fair elections as agreed in the GPA. The country's leaders had five years, FIVE YEARS, to implement the reforms and yet not even one reform was implemented.

Where were the country's civic and church leaders throughout the five wasted years? Why did they not get the politicians to implement the reforms?

It was not just the politicians that let the nation down but these good-for-nothing civic and church leaders too. Most of them were cheering and applauding the politicians along. They jointed the politicians in getting the people to vote yes to the weak and feeble Copac constitution which sealed the fate of the nation as far as getting any reforms implemented before the elections.

"Having been in the doldrums for more than a decade, Zimbabwe now needs both local and international support.” Father Clyde Murope SJ tells us. "Development and growth is possible only if we all oppose corruption and complacency."

If the truth be told, the Zimbabwe’s Roman Catholic Church’s cozy relationship with the corrupt and murderous tyrant Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs has been unhealthy, to say the least. The Roman Catholic Church has become the church of the tyrant and his filthy rich cronies. Not the church of the poor and down trodden that Jesus Christ founded.

If the Zimbabwe’s civic-society is serious about ending the country’s culture of corruption and brutal political repression that has landed the nation in this hell-on-earth then they must start treating Mugabe as the tyrant he is. They can start by denouncing Mugabe for rigging the elections and join in the call for fresh democratic elections!

Civil servants are negotiating with Mugabe for a pay rise: how naive is that!

Progressive Teachers Union Leader, Takavafira Zhou says wage increase negotiations with government are not making progress. The real big surprise is that Zhou actually expects a pay rise.

 

The trouble here is that the civil servants are being led by individuals like Takavafira Zhou who really have got the foggiest idea what is happening. Zhou is just as incompetent as Morgan Tsvangirai they may just as well have fed from the same breast!

 

Zimbabwe is broke; years of gross mismanagement, corruption and looting have destroyed the country's economy. Mugabe's reckless spending in the last two years to rig the elections was the last straw that broke the camel's back. And yet people like Zhou are still expecting government to increase the civil servants' wages. The government does not have the money to pay even half the wages; only an idiot can therefore be talking of a wage rise.

 

As long as Zimbabwe look up to people like Zhou or Tsvangirai then the country has no chance of ever going out of this mess.

Tsvangirai says Mugabe is illegitimate and there should be fresh elections in his third flipflop position on the rigged elections

Tsvangirai in a third flip-flop position on the rigged elections. After the July elections Tsvangirai filed a court challenge of the “flawed” elections. A few weeks later, he withdrew his court challenge on the grounds that the courts were no cooperating with MDC’s request to ZEC to release the necessary documents including the voters roll.

 

The withdrawal of the court challenge cleared the way for Mugabe to take his oath of office and form the next government. Tsvangirai argued the nation to accept the new regime as the “political reality”.

 

The right position was and has always remained as that elections could not have been free and fair because none of the democratic reforms had been implemented. Tsvangirai had five years to implement the reforms and not even one reform had seen light of day. The only possible explanation for no reforms was that Tsvangirai was breathtakingly incompetent. Mugabe went on to blatantly rig the elections too making it blatantly obvious that he was illegitimate.

 

Why Tsvangirai withdraw his court challenge of the election result in the face of the blatant vote rigging is again a measure of the MDC leader’s breath-taking incompetence. It was for the courts and not MDC to ensure ZEC fulfilled its public obligations by releasing the public documents including the voters roll.

 

 In a reversal of his last position to accept Mugabe Tsvangirai is now calling Mugabe “illegitimate” and for fresh elections.

 

“We will be embarking on a global advocacy campaign to the AU, SADC and the internal community on the need for the reversal of the fraudulent result of 2013,” said Tsvangirai.  

 

“The lesson from the July 31 poll is that all reforms, including security sector and media reforms that were agreed to under the GPA, are mandatory if we are to have an undisputed election,” he admitted.

 

When he had the power, authority and opportunity to get the reforms implemented he not only failed to do so but even had the arrogance to ignore all those calling on him to do so. He “was too comfortable and forgot the reason why he was in government,” SADC leaders said of Tsvangirai.

 

The most important lesson SADC, the AU, the international community and the people of Zimbabwe have hopefully learnt is that Tsvangirai is breathtakingly incompetent and therefore not to be trust. It is time to ignore him!

 

We, the West by rejecting the rigged elections and those Zimbabweans who have refused to accept Mugabe rule as fait accompli, known Mugabe rigged the elections and is therefore illegitimate. We can push Mugabe to accept fresh elections and completely ignore Tsvangirai whose confused involvement will only serve to muddy the waters.    

Tsvangirai dismiss the Zimbabwe budget as "a mere fantasy" - now speaks the breathtaking incompetent who landed us here!

Tsvangirai dismisses the Zimbabwe’s budget and the projected 6.1% economic growth rate as “a mere fantasy”. Of course it is but do we need Tsvangirai to tell us that, given it was his breath-taking incompetence that landed us in this mess.

 

Tsvangirai told the nation that the 2013 elections would be free and fair although everyone who is anyone said that would not happen, not without implementing the democratic reforms first. Tsvangirai had five years to implement the reforms and he did not get even one reform was implemented. He was confident the elections would still be free and fair regardless.

 

Mugabe took full advantage of Tsvangirai's breath-taking incompetence and rigged the elections.

 

Everyone knows the Zimbabwe economy is in a real mess for years. For years now Zimbabwe's national budgets have been a wish list in which all the Ministries say what they wanted but never got the money to pay for any of it. MDC's Minister of Finance in the last GNU, Tendai Biti, admitted that he got none of the diamond revenue, for example, which he had given as a key revenue source in his budget.

 

Tsvangirai is now telling us the Zanu PF government will not have the $4.4 billion promised in the budget. This is just another wish list. What is important here is that we would not be in this mess of meaningless wish list again if Tsvangirai had implemented the reforms. It is therefore an irritant for him to be telling us what we already know, particularly when it was his breath-taking incompetence that landed us in this mess! 

SA's Metal Workers Union end its relationship with ANC over Zuma's failed leadership!

South Africa’s Metal Workers Union breaks it alliance with ANC over President Zuma’s failed leadership.

 

This is a sign that South Africans are prepared to reject ANC leaders on the basis of their performance and not hang on to failed leaders for sentimental reasons as is often the case in post independent Africa. The British people reject Winston Churchill, the country's Second World War hero, in the first post war elections. This goes to show that SA's democracy is healthy and kicking.

 

If the ANC was to survive then it must get rid of corrupt and incompetent leaders. It is that simple!

It is not the survival of a political party much less of an individual leader that is at issue but the survival of the country, the nation! SA will go on to prosper without the ANC or Zuma!

Belgian firm trading in illicit Zimbabwe diamonds fined $195 million for tax evasion - lifting ban will stop fraud in Belgium but not Zimbabwe!

A World Policy Institute report has revealed a complex structure of diamond deals and dealers that span the globe, with some of Africa’s most controversial diamond producers, including Zimbabwe, being ‘looted’ to the benefit of a corrupt few.

In March this year a key player in the industry, a Belgian firm called Omega Diamonds, was handed a record breaking fine for tax evasion. The fine of $195 million is the highest the Belgian governed has ever imposed on a national company.

The report said the illicit trade produce $ 4 billion in profits alone. Assume a profit of 10% of turnover that means $ 40 billion trade of which Africa’s corrupt leaders would be lucky to get 0.1% of total value or $4 million. The slave trade was abolished 200 years ago but there are new black traders selling Africa’s wealth for the same calico cloth and a handful of beads!  

Well that sure explains why Belgium is pushing the rest of the EU to lift the ban in the trade of Zimbabwe diamonds; the illicit trade is costing Belgium millions of dollars in revenue. The fact that the looting will continue in Zimbabwe itself and that Mugabe will go on to use the looted wealth to create a North Korea in Africa with disastrous consequence to the people of Zimbabwe, the region and Africa is of no consequence to Belgium!

 

Belgium has one of the worse colonial history in Africa and it is clear that some dirty habit die hard, others never die! Belgium is selling Africa short just as it did during its colonial rule of Congo!

"Where are our diamonds going?" asked Mugabe. What a foolish question and what a fool to ask it!

"Find money Chinamasa," Mugabe said to loud applause from thousands of supporters attending the Zanu PF Congress in Chinhoyi. "You can't say there is no money. Where is our platinum going? Where is our gold going? Where are our diamonds going?

What a foolish question to ask and what a fool to be asking it! You and your cronies are the ones looting the nation's wealth and you pretend not to know.

The late Solomon Mujuru's fortune was valued at $ 9 billion and his wife has $ 4 billion. These two alone can pay off the national debt of $12 billion.

You, Mugabe and your wife have 13 farms valued at tens of billions of dollars to say nothing of the cash and other goodies you have in foreign bank accounts, in the country and foreign lands.

Your relative Philip Chiyangwa has a fleet of posh cars and fortune valued at $270 million.

 People like David Beckham , Bill Gates, Henry Ford are rich and everyone can see how they made their fortune. People bought trillion football shirt every season just to have Beckham's name on it. At one point there was a million Microsoft Computer being sold everyday across the world. Henry Ford made his fortune designing and manufacturing cars.

What has Chiyangwa, Mujuru or you yourself Mugabe ever made? You are all filthy rich from looting, you have produced nothing.

The only way Zimbabwe is ever going to get out of the economic and political mess Mugabe and Zanu PF have landed the country in is by restoring the rule of law. And the only way to restore the rule of law is by restoring the people's basic and fundamental right to hold those in power accountable to them, the people.

The right to elect new leaders if those in power have failed the people is at the very heart of that democratic right to a meaningful vote.

Mugabe has just rigged the July 2013 elections and thus robbing the nation the key to ending this mess and now he is asking Chinamasa to find the money to sort out the mess. Where will Chinamasa find the money.

Zimbabwe is subject to the same laws of physics as the rest of the world. Gravitational force in Zimbabwe is 10m/s2 same as anywhere else on earth.

Similarly Zimbabwe is subject to the same basic laws of economics; prosperity is born out of production. Yes Zimbabwe has produced a filthy rich few from corruption and looting but at the price of throwing millions into abject poverty.

Corruption and looting does not create any new wealth but seeks to give the wealth that is there already to a new owner and more often than not by destroys the existing to build the new. One can never build a bigger house from salvaged bricks from an old house because many bricks will be damaged and destroyed in demolishing the old.

Unemployment in Zimbabwe is already seating at 85% plus seizing existing firms and giving them to blacks is not going to reduce the unemployment; that is the kind of voodoo economics that landed us in this mess.

People should not be like an ant impressed by Mugabe's mole-hill achievements because the fail to comprehend Mandela's Mount Everest achievements!

“In the last two decades of his life, Nelson Mandela was celebrated as a model of how to liberate a country from the colonial yoke without succumbing to the temptation of dictatorial power and anti-capitalist posturing,” you wrote.

“That is spot on, hit the nail on the head right there”, I said to myself. But I soon realized that I had spoken too soon!

“Is this, however, the whole story?” you continued. “Two key facts remain obliterated by this celebratory vision. In South Africa, the miserable life of the poor majority broadly remains the same as under apartheid, and the rise of political and civil rights is counterbalanced by the growing insecurity, violence and crime.”

Oh dear, here we go! The contrast of the clarity of the first paragraph with the confused nonsense of the second was stuck and brutal as that between Nelson Mandela and Mugabe, you have set out to compare.

Nelson Mandela was President of South Africa for five years, of course it is nonsense to think that he would have eliminated ignorance, poverty and want of the millions of black South Africans who have been neglected and forced into a life of despair for generations by successive apartheid regimes. Even if Mandela had remained in office until the day he
died, which is what Mugabe paragraph has blacks today – such was the enormity of the task.

If Mandela had stayed in power these last nineteen years; I believe he would have done an infinitely better job of running the country and thus reduce poverty in that country than Thambo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma have done. Such is my confidence in Mandela. But now that Mandela is dead; what kind of future would a significantly richer and prosperous SA now be facing? I will tell you without a shadow of doubt that is would be a really grime one.

Mandela’s greatest legacy to SA is that he gave the nation the confidence to embrace all the principles of a free and independent press, independent judiciary and all the other democratic niceties when the temptation was to reject democracy on the feeble grounds that it is a Western colonial imposition on Africa as leaders like Mugabe have done.

Mugabe wanted to impose a one-party state from the word go. He settled for a de facto one-party state instead of a constitutional one. All he cared about was to have absolute power and look what he has done to Zimbabwe.

Even if Mandela had turned SA into a prosperous nation economically but failed to create a democratic SA; SA under an autocratic Mbeki or Zuma with no democratic checks and balances would be heading one way – economic ruin! If you think just how incompetent and corrupt Mbeki and Zuma have turned out to be; think of how much worse they would have been if ANC was a one-party dictatorship like Zanu PF.

First secure the political rights and the economic rights will soon follow guaranteed. Leaders like Mugabe have promised the masses economic prosperity - “gutsa ruzhinji” mass prosperity –; giving with the left hand and making a big song and dance about each completed project regardless how small and insignificant compare to the need. Meanwhile he has taken for himself and his cronies even more. Mention any political rights and he might as well have spat into his face.

Those who think economic prosperity can ever be achieved with no political rights are as naive as the buck who believes the hyena’s tall-tale call of a peace conference in the middle of the night. Mugabe does not want the people to have their political rights no more than the hyena would want the light of day to show what he really is up!

It is amazing that so many people have been taken in with Mugabe’s propaganda and rhetoric suggesting that he made the lives of the masses in Zimbabwe in anyway better economically. The grim reality is that life expectancy, the best qualitative and quantitative of economic well being, has plummeted from 68 years in 1980 to 34 years today. So where is the economic prosperity Mugabe keeps wittering about?

 

To judge Mandela on the basis of how many black South he rescued from poverty in his five years as President is like judging the majestic size of Mount Everest from the point of view of an ant. Unless you can see the bigger picture, the value and critical importance of democracy and the respect for human rights, Mandela's legacy to SA, you will come out with a meaningless conclusion! Indeed the ant is more likely to be impressed by Mugabe’s mole-hill than Mount Everest!

Mugabe moulded Zanu PF to be a party of blood but the thugs are baying for each other's blood and his own, the tyrants calls for unity!

Mugabe castigates factionalism in his own party as the fight for who will succeed him hots up!

“Let us hear our people. They, after all, will in the end decide on who will be needed and who will not. Please members of the Central Committee, members of the Politburo, do not choose us and every one of them matters,” he said.

He is the man who has remain the top dog in the Zanu PF these 50 years, 33 years of which as head of state because he was ruthless in his application of the principles of divide and rule when it came to his own party, and silencing the people, at national level.

The division in Zanu PF run so deep and are so bitter it is now dog-eat-dog. Each faction knows that if they lose the winning side will be seeking to destroy them completely just as Mugabe destroyed all the other rivalry factions when he took over control of the party half a century ago and his other political challengers like Joshua Nkomo and, more recently, Morgan Tsvangirai.

At a national level; since when did Mugabe allow the people to be heard. It is now 33 years since independence and in all those years he has yet to hold free, fair and credible elections. Here is the man who has sucked the nation bone-dry; paying the Ministry of Higher education a misery $ 50 000 out of a budge of $380 000 000, for example; to pay for the most extravagant vote rigging operation in human history. Even parliament is closed for business because there is no money.

 “You cannot, therefore say ava ndevangu, ava handivadi. That thinking, which is a cause of factionalism, must go. We cannot build a united party when we divide people into camps of those who belong to so and so and those who belong to so and so. They belong to the party," continued Mugabe.

Now that Zanu PF in a real mess and; more poignantly, for the people at least, – they could not careless if the tyrannical party was to implode and blow itself out of their lives provided the idiots do not drag the nation into hell with them – the so too in the country; Mugabe was party unity and for the leaders to listen to the people.

Mugabe moulded Zanu PF to be a party of heartless marauding thugs. All these years he has cheered and applauded whilst they set upon and tore his political opponents and critics like a pack of wolves devouring a lamb. Now they are eyeing each other with the same murderous intention and the tyrant is fearful if the fighting was to breakout he will not be spared. After all these years of being abused each faction will want nothing better that tear the tyrant to piece!

“Zanu PF ndeye ropa!” (Zanu PF is the party of blood!) Die-hard Zanu PF thugs have often boasted, especial after they have just shed more innocent blood in their campaign of terror to establish and retain the one-party dictatorship. Well the chickens have come home to roost Mr Mugabe; the party thugs are baying for blood of their fellow party thugs and yours too!

Zimbabwe doctors call for increased funding for health - forgive them they have just landed from Mars!

The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) has called on the Mugabe government to increase the funding of the health sector. Forgive them, they have just landed from Mars!

 

I know that the ZADHR mean well, still one cannot be help but notice just how naïve they are. Zimbabwe is broke after Mugabe sucked all the life out of the economy to finance this vote rigging operation. It is not the matter of this regime allocating more money towards health or any other area, how can they allocate something they do not have.

 

What is at issue here is getting a competent government able to put the national economy back on track so we can generate the wealth to pay for a decent health service, education, etc. And the search for that competent government starts and finishes with free, fair and credible elections! Mugabe rigged the July 2013 elections just as he rigged all the other elections in the past.

 

The country is in this economic mess where the health system has completely collapse because the years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption by this Mugabe regime. The nation has not being able to remove the regime because Mugabe rigs the elections. You would think that anyone with University degree, in any subject left alone medicine would have no problem comprehending the root causes of our economic mess and the solution. Clearly none of these ZADHR members have done so even after 33 years of this corrupt and oppressive Zanu PF rule.

 

No wonder Zimbabwe is in a mess; if doctors have the IQ of a village idiot then there really must be plenty of village idiots out there. Sadly there are indeed some first class idiots in Zimbabwe otherwise the nation would not have made all these monumental blunders that landed us in this hell-hole!

The World asking Zimbabweans to accept "reality of" Mugabe is no different from asking Czechs to accept Hilter!

Every nation has the right to peace, justice, self determination, the pursuit of happiness. These are the very pillars on which every nation out there that ever valued peace, stability and economic prosperity is founded. It was in pursuit of these cherished human freedoms and rights that the people Zimbabwe risked –all including their very lives that the nation fought the bitter war of independence against the racist white colonial regime of Ian Smith.

 
Zimbabwe attained its independence in 1980 but, sadly, not their freedom and human dignity. Replacing the white racist regime with one led by blacks did not necessarily mean freedom and liberty to all.
 

Whilst the white regime had denied the blacks a meaningful say in the governance of the country and a fair share of the nation’s wealth; the regime managed the economy well putting it on a sustained economic growth trajectory. At the time of our independence Zimbabwe had a strong and vibrant economy and it showed. The country had a life expectancy of 68 years.
 

Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies did not care about freedom and human rights; they paid lip-service to all these things before it the right thing to say; after independence they moved swiftly and ruthless to establish a one-party dictatorship and absolute power. They rod rough shod over the people’s rights and freedoms to attain and maintain their selfish goal!

33 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and an all-out looting spree in the last ten years by this Mugabe dictatorship has completely decimated the country’s economy. Life expectancy, the definitive qualitative and quantitative measure of economic wellbeing of a nation, has plummeted from 68 years to a misery 34 years.

If the population, the growth rate and everything else is the same; simple arithmetic will show that halving the life expectancy, from 68 year to 34 which is what Mugabe has done, has doubled the death rate. So for every two Zimbabwean deaths one of them could have been avoided.

In the 33 years of his brutal rule Mugabe has murdered over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans to establish and sustain his autocratic authority.

Let me say it now and for the record that the people of Zimbabwe themselves have played a major part in allowing Mugabe and Zanu PF to rob them of their freedoms, rights and drive them into economic despair by being naïve and gullible.

The nation had its best chance ever to end the Zanu PF dictatorship if only the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA were implemented. MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai had five years to implement the reforms and yet not even one reform was implemented. The only reason why this happened is the breath-taking incompetency of Tsvangirai and MDC.

The people themselves had a chance to force the GNU to implement the reforms by rejecting the Copac constitution; a key component of the reforms. The people were naïve and gullible to believe Tsvangirai’s lies that the rubbish constitution would deliver all their rights including the right to free and fair elections. Of course it did no such thing!

Other than follow blindly the breathtakingly incompetent Tsvangirai, the people of Zimbabwe made a determined effort to remove Mugabe and Zanu PF through peaceful and democratic means. They registered to vote and on the day they went out to vote against all efforts by Mugabe to discourage them from doing so.

Even with all Tsvangirai’s blundering incompetence Mugabe would not have successfully rigged the July 2013 elections if it was not for the Israeli company, Nikuv, who corrupted the voters roll so that nearly one million voters according to most observers, 300 000 according to ZEC, failed to vote. Their names were not on the voters roll in spite all their efforts to make sure they registered.

Many voters’ names were deliberately posted in the wrong polling stations and since the regime refused to release the voters roll before the elections; all those whose names were not on the roll at the polling station they expected failed to vote.

Nikuv produced voters roll has six million voters. The country has a population of 12.7 million; how is it possible that nearly half of them are over eighteen years old? The inflated number of voters allowed Zanu PF to bus is its supporters from one polling station to the next casting multiple votes.

Everyone accepts that Mugabe rigged the elections; the rigging was blatant. We, the people of Zimbabwe, the real victim of the rigged elections, are being asked to accept that Mugabe is the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe and Zanu PF have the majority in parliament and therefore constitute the ruling party in Zimbabwe. We are to accept “the de facto political reality on the ground,” we are told.

The people of Czechoslovakia were too told to accept the annexation of their country by Adolf Hitler a few months before the outbreak of the Second World War. “The Germans have boots on the ground; that is the political reality!” How quickly those nations who only a few months before had been impatiently demanding that the Czechs should just capitulate changed their tune when the Germany boots were at their city gates.

Mugabe’s taking the oath of office and settling in State House does not change the fact that he rigged the elections and therefore then was not voted into power by the people of Zimbabwe and is therefore illegitimate and unconstitutional!

 “Zimbabweans should prepare for 2018 elections,” we are told.  Mugabe and Zanu PF are certainly not going to implement any of the democratic reforms in the next five years; one dispute that. Without reforms of course there is no chance of the nation holding free, fair and credible elections. In other words the people of Zimbabwe are being asked to capitulate to the reality that Mugabe is going to be in State House for the next five years but more significantly to the political reality that there is nothing to stop Zanu PF ruling for the next foreseeable future.

The people of Zimbabwe are being asked to give up their basic and fundamental right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country with it their freedom, human dignity and hope to end this corruption and political that have millions into abject poverty and over 30 000 murdered.

No one has a right to expect the people of Zimbabwe to give up the believe that they too are members of the human race and are just as worthy of the same human rights and freedoms that many the world over take for granted.

In pursuance of our right to be heard we the people of Zimbabwe ask “Who gave Israel the right to mastermind the rigging of Zimbabwe’s elections and thus condemn the whole nation to the mercy of a tyrant?”

Israel’s indifference to the suffering and deaths of in Southern Africa is well documented. We would like to express our disappointment at the deafening silence by the rest of the world over Nikuv’s obnoxious and treasonous activities for selfish financial gain!

 

The EU is looking for an excuse for lifting sanctions against Mugabe and not be seen as rewarding the tyrant for vote rigging!

The European Union is preparing to lift the sanctions against Mugabe and his cronies. France the EU in that direction because it does not want any African country to boycott the France-Africa conference in protest the outstanding EU sanctions. When the French authorities extended the invitation to the Zimbabwe government, the latter asked if Mugabe was invited and the EU banning him from visiting would be lifted. The French answered no to both questions and the Mugabe regime said no Zimbabwean Official would attend.

 

The Zimbabwe regime has since offered Paris an inducement; the regime will accept Mugabe not being invited provided the EU lift the sanctions!

 

The other EU country pushing for the lifting of the sanctions is Belgium. They want the sanctions lifted so that Antwerp can recover its dominant position as the cut-diamond capital of the world. Because of the ban, Zimbabwe’s illicit diamonds have ended up in China, Lebanon, Israel and India.

 

Mugabe refused to grant anyone from West election observer status. “Not whilst the West retains its regime-change sanctions against us,” Mugabe had argued.

 

At the time, the EU promised to lift the sanctions if the elections were free, fair and credible. The EU said it would use SADC and the AU’s finding as the basis of its own decision.

 

Despite all the evidence of failure to implement even one of the democratic reforms which both SADC and the AU had agreed were necessary for free and fair elections, failure to produce key electoral documents like the voters roll, confirmed reports that nearly one million voters were denied the right to vote; well published video of Zanu PF supporters bussed in to vote in areas they were clearly complete strangers; etc.; etc.; SADC and AU still judged the elections “fairly” free and fair. Both SADC and AU were keen to wash their hands of Zimbabwe, and did just that.

 

Australia, Canada and USA said the elections were “not credible” without a moment’s hesitation.

 

“Gudo kushata, kushata zvaro asi haridyi chakafa chonga!” So goes the Shona saying. The baboon may be ugly still he would not eat something he is not sure what killed it. The hyena has no such qualms. Still even a hungry hyena is known to turn away from a potential meal.

 

The vote rigging was so blatant that even the EU, under pressure from the Belgians to lift the sanctions and not to be seen as going back on its own promise to do so, hesitated. Mugabe is like the black and white striped mephitis skunk, a well delivered stench will have the hyena gasping for breath.

 

In February 2014, eight months after Mugabe blatantly rigged the elections, the EU is going to another go at lifting the sanctions; under pressure from France and Belgium. Why then and not in August?

 

Mugabe’s propaganda machine backed by well-paid PR firms, one in UK and the other in USA, have since the July rigged elections been calling on those accusing Mugabe of vote rigging “to produce the evidence”. Those of us old enough to know the dark old days of colonial oppression, this is an old trick.

 

Stories of blacks being shot died by Police, for example, were very common. The Police will then bury their victim and claim that he slipped and fall whilst having a shower or that he committed suicide in his cell. It was no use having eyewitness accounts of the shooting; the authorities, Police, the Judges, etc., will all be united in their demand “to produce the evidence” they themselves have buried and put beyond your reach.

 

In the corrupted voters roll we have the smoking gun of the rigged elections, everyone knows that. Mugabe has stubbornly refused to release the voters roll although is legally obliged to do so. This is a key election document that should have been made public at least a month before the elections. Mugabe cannot refuse releasing the roll for much longer and the truth, the whole truth about how he rigged the elections will come out.

 

The EU is going to lift the sanctions on the feeble excuse that no one has failed to produce the evidence of vote rigging by Mugabe! This is no more than bathing the skunk in Channel 5 but as long as the skunk has smell glands the threat of the over-powering stench will remain real.

 

The EU is looking for an excuse for lifting the sanction but not be seen as rewarding Mugabe for rigging the elections. The reality is they will be rewarding Mugabe for rigging the elections, period.

 

For the ordinary Zimbabweans all talk of free, fair and credible elections will remain just that talk; not until we can demonstrate that no one can rig elections and get away with it! It is for that reason that the truth about the rigged elections must be teased out regardless how long that takes!

 

If Mugabe thinks if he seats tight on the voters roll and all the other incriminating evidence of vote rigging everyone will give up; he could not be more wrong.

Mandela's legacy is a South Africa "the rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world", his cherished wish!

Some Robert Mugabe supporters, fearful of the devil and iconic statesman contrast between their man and Nelson Madiba Mandela, have dwelt at length of the plight of millions South Africans still living in abject poverty. “Mandela failed to bring economic prosperity to black South Africans,” they have been saying.

 

To hear them speak, you would think Mugabe did bring economic prosperity to Zimbabweans! The South African economy has enjoyed a steady growth of 4% plus throughout the nineteen years since black majority rule - a first amongst all post-independent Africa. There is a very good reason to believe SA will continue to enjoy peace and economic prosperity – they have a stable and democratic political system. And that is Mandela’s legacy.

 

The Zimbabwe economy has completely collapsed during the 33 years of Mugabe’s rule characterized by mismanagement, corruption, looting and, worst of all, brutal political repression. The Zimbabwe economy shrunk by a staggering 84% in the six-year period 2002 to 2008 alone - world record! Mugabe has butchered over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans to establish and sustain the de facto Zanu PF dictatorship.

 

Some South Africans may not be pleased with elections results but I have never heard of one South African complaining of vote rigging. Every South African has, as Madiba promised in his “rainbow nation” inaugural speech, enjoyed their freedom and basic rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and the right to life itself guaranteed.

 

In his book “Voting for Democracy” Jonathan Moyo said Zimbabwe’s 1980 elections were about “voting to end the war”. He was stating the obvious; Zimbabweans were fearful that if Mugabe did not win the civil war would continue and voted accordingly. Once in power Mugabe moved swiftly to undermine and destroy the country’s democratic institutions and building in their place the ruthless dictatorship.  The country has yet to hold free and fair elections. As the years went by and the economy sunk deeper and deeper, dragging millions into poverty and despair and his notoriety as a ruthless tyrant grew; Mugabe has resorted to more and more ruthless measures to stay in power.

 

In 2008 Mugabe resorted to wanton violence turning the whole country into a war-zone to stay in power.

 

This year, aware that the whole world was watching him he used more subtle means; he     looted all the windfall from the Marange diamonds and a lot more besides to finance the most expensive vote rigging operation in human history.

 

He paid Nikuv $13m to corrupt the voters roll; $10 m each to two PR companies, one in UK the other in USA, to spruce up his image; spent hundreds of millions of dollars in buying cars and other bribes to his own Zanu PF MPs and other public officials like Police and ZEC members; spent hundreds of millions of dollars more bussing paid supporters to attend Zanu PF rallies and then bussed them from one polling station to the next to vote; etc. All in all Mugabe must have squandered at least $3 billion.

 

To some rich country $3 b is small change; not so for Zimbabwe. A few weeks ago the Ministry of higher education told a parliamentary committee that they received a misery $50 000 out of its budget of $380 m in 2013. It is not education alone that has been starved of funds. Prisoners with no relatives to bring them food have been left starving; hundred have starved to death, according to some reports.

 

The only thing Mugabe and Mandela had in common was that they both were imprisoned by the white colonial regime at one point. Mugabe has never allowed the nation and the whole world forget of his fight for Zimbabwe’s independence. To hear him talk of “heroic self-sacrifice for freedom” he and hundreds of his Zanu PF friends now buried at Hero’s Acre you would be forgiven to think Mugabe must be incarnated King Leonidas and his legendary 300 in the Battle of Thermopylae.

 

If anything Mugabe is in fact the incarnate of pompous tyrant Xerxes! And his cronies have desecrated Hero’s Acre turning it into Looter and Murderers’ Acre!

 

Mandela’s wish was for a South Africa, “a rainbow nation at peace with itself.” His wish has been granted in his life time and for generations to come. That is Madiba’s legacy and he can rest in peace, for a job well done.

 

After 33 years of unmitigated failure and brutal repression Mugabe is still hungry for power; hungry enough to the very existence of the whole nation in a vote rigging operation. There is not enough water in the Kariba Dam to water the blood of the innocent blood of Zimbabweans Mugabe has shed to gratify his greed and ego.

 

Zimbabwe is tittering at the edge of the abyss; it could easily slide into another Egypt or Syria. The three decades of brutal dictatorship have created an unquenchable desire for more loot on the part of Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies on the one hand and deep rooted mistrust of those in authority on the part of the long suffering masses. This is not a nation at peace with itself but at war!

 

Chaos and blood shed that is Mugabe’s legacy!

Mandela didnot pull millions of SA out of poverty but he give them all their freedom and humanity! and demo all them all 's legacy to his people

What is Nelson Mandela’s legacy?

Yes it is true that Nelson Mandela did not one of his cherished goals - to drag millions of his fellow black South Africans out of the despair of abject poverty. But he did something that most leaders in the world since the beginning of human history have very rarely ever done - restore the self-respect and pride of a people who have been made to feel that they are the scum of the earth for generations!

The only other leaders who have done what Mandela did are Martin Luther King in America to the down trodden descendants of former slaves. The other leader was Mahtama Gandhi.

Many black South Africans are still as poor as ever, yes but right across the length and breadth of that country all blacks will say they are free. They are free to travel around, to interact, to express their points of view and they all have a meaningful say in the governance of the country.

Mandela made mistakes during his five years in power and there were many things he could have done for SA; there is no doubt about that. His successors Thambo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma have been a total disaster; that is a historic fact. If it was not for Madiba who delivered a political system that allowed all South Africans to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country Mbeki and Zuma's blundering incompetence and love of power would have dragged that country into the gutter. 

So what is Nelson Madiba Mandela's legacy? He gave the people of South Africa a truly democratic political system which allowed every South African, black and white, rich and poor to have the pride, self-confidence and self-believe that they are human and they too have a right to be here.

Mandela did not deliver the economic prosperity for all but he did the next best thing - provided the democratic foundation on which a justice and prosperous SA can be built. 

Even if it was possible for Mandela to drag every South African out of poverty in five years; without democracy Mbeki and Zuma would have dragged the nation back into the gutter by now. After all it is a lot easier to destroy than it is to build - Mugabe is a living example of just that!

Mandela was certainly a man of vision; it takes a man of vision to focus the next generation when many can only see the here and now and me. Mandela’s legacy will inspire South Africans and the rest of the world for generations to come.

Rest in peace Nelson Madiba Mandela; we thank the good Lord for your life!