Malawi says no Sudanese leader, AU says no summit

Joyce Banda

BLANTYRE, Malawi - Malawi won't host an African Union summit next month after a dispute over the southern African's country's refusal to host Sudan's leader, who faces war crimes charges, the vice-president said Friday.
"Much as Malawi has obligations to the AU, it has also other obligations," Vice-President Khumbo Kachali said in a statement on state radio. "The Cabinet has decided not to host the summit."
Earlier, according to Kachali, the government had received a letter from the AU saying that it had no right to dictate who could attend the AU summit set to open July 6, and if it insisted on barring Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, the summit would be moved to AU headquarters in Ethiopia.
Joyce Banda has steered a path of western appeasementfor Malawi since stepping in as president in April after the sudden death in office of Bingu wa Mutharika. Mutharika had welcomed al-Bashir at a Comesa summit last year.
Sudan's al-Bashir has visited African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries despite International Criminal Court warrants for his arrest on charges of alleged genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region.
Speaking at a news conference in May, Banda said a visit by Sudan's president would be frowned upon by Malawi's international donors.
Banda has worked to fawn before donors. Earlier this week, the International Monetary Fund said it and Malawi had agreed to a three-year, $157 million aid package. The IMF had described its work in Malawi as off-track under Mutharika, who had refused to devalue the currency as the IMF had advised. In May, Malawi devalued its currency by one third.
Last month, Britain said its central bank would work directly with the Reserve Bank of Malawi to help it cope with the impact of currency devaluation. Also last month, Britain — a former ruler of Malawi — pledged 20 million pounds ($32 million) to help stabilize the Malawian economy and 10 million pounds for the country's health system.
Last year, Mutharika expelled Britain's High Commissioner to Malawi after the envoy was quoted in a local newspaper as expressing concern that the president was increasingly intolerant of criticism and asserting that human rights were under attack. Britain, then indefinitely suspended aid to Malawi, which in the end invited the envoy back.

Luanda Troika Summit: A tale told by a fool

Caesar Zvayi
 

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.Goes Macbeth's famous soliloquy in William Shakespeare's book by the same name. Whats immediately striking about this soliloquy is the phrase "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. "
This phrase aptly describes the two, or is it three, MDCs’ reactions whenever they misconstrue Sadc resolutions for acceptance of their reactionary agenda. They did it after the ill-fated Livingstone Summit which ended up signifying nothing, and like Shakespeare’s proverbial idiot, they are at it again, full of sound and fury after the routine Troika meeting in Luanda, which to all intents and purposes did nothing more than re-state the obvious. That we go for elections.
“Mugabe loses poll push”, “Mugabe poll push rubbished”, “Mugabe poll push crushed”, “Sadc snubs Mugabe poll”, “Mugabe’s double loss”, “Mugabe faces end of political career”, and ‘‘Tsvangirai outfoxes Mugabe’’ were some of the private media’s screaming headlines fed from Harvest House, the MDC-T headquarters.
Yet a perusal of the Sadc communiqué would leave one wondering from where the newspapers were carving the headlines.
This is what the extra-ordinary Summit’s communiqué says:
l On Zimbabwe Summit commended stakeholders for their commitment, co-operation and efforts towards the implementation of the Global Political Agreement and urged the parties to the GPA to finalise the constitution-making process and subject it to a referendum thereafter.
l Summit also urged the parties to the GPA, assisted by the Facilitator, to develop an implementation mechanism and to set out time frames for the full implementation of the Roadmap to Elections.
l Summit further commended His Excellency Jacob G Zuma, President of the Republic of South Africa and Sadc Facilitator of the Zimbabwe Political Dialogue for his efforts to towards the the realisation of full implementation of the Global Political Agreement (GPA).
Any reasonable person would naturally wonder where such headlines or notions of ‘‘victory’’ for the MDC formations, and ‘‘defeat’’ for Mugabe in Luanda are coming from?
Either the MDC formations — given that they are greenhorns in the workings of Sadc — misunderstood the communiqué or were just being wilfully mischievous in a bid to placate their restive constituency.
How anyone would think Luanda, of all places, Luanda whose infrastructure still bears the pockmarks of Jonas Savimbi’s ruinous guns, quisling politics and banditry would become Mugabe’s Waterloo and the equivalent of the Normandy Landing for Tsvangirai defies logic.
If Mugabe was isolated in Luanda, how then do the sages in the MDC and their private media hacks explain the summit of liberation movements from southern Africa that begins in Harare tomorrow? A summit aimed at enhancing synergies to outflank the neo-colonial designs of the erstwhile coloniser who is destabilising the region through proxy parties like the MDCs?
The African National Congress of South Africa, Angola’s MPLA, SWAPO of Namibia, Frelimo of Mozambique and Chama Cha Mapinduzi of Tanzania — all of which lead governments — are among the parties coming for the meeting of secretaries-general of the liberation movements.
The meeting is providential, coming as it does at a time the war-mongering US has identified southern Africa as an alternative source of energy to the Middle East during this decade.
A report that was released by the Bush administration’s think-tank, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in 2006 titled
‘More than Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward Africa’ predicted that;    ''By the end of the decade (2000 to 2010), sub-Saharan Africa is likely to become as important a source of US energy imports as the Middle East.
“China, India, Europe, and others are competing with each other and with the United States for access to oil, natural gas, and other natural resources. The world’s major powers are also becoming more active in seeking out investments, winning contracts, and building political support on the continent.''
In the report the CFR made it clear that the foreign policy of the US towards Africa is geared towards control of the continent’s resources, that is, it is ‘‘more than humanitarianism.’’
Add to this Uncle Sam’s attempts to have a base for the so-called US Africa Military Command, AFRICOM, and the picture becomes ominous.
As the introductory statement to the CFR report says, the West has identified the Middle East and Southern Africa as its sources of energy this decade. We have already seen what Uncle Sam has done to the Middle East to lay his hands on oil. The onus is on our leadership here to outflank the West’s neo-colonial projects. While Sadc has acquitted itself well in resisting western attempts to demonise Zimbabwe for daring to empower its people, it is not in dispute that Sadc could have done much more than just resisting, the bloc should actually have worked to bust the sanctions.
Zimbabwe has consistently shown its neighbours how to respond whenever a member state is threatened by external aggression, ‘injure one, injure all’ should be the bloc’s motto.
Our forces moved into Mozambique to save Frelimo from the insurgency launched by the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) bandits who had the backing of apartheid South Africa.
As former South African president Thabo Mbeki revealed recently when he came for the University of Zimbabwe fundraising dinner, Zimbabwe delayed land redistribution for South Africa’s benefit. President Mugabe did not want to scare the apartheid regime into thinking that once black people become independent, they proceed to dispossess their former rulers of ill-gotten colonial gains.
When the Democratic Republic of the Congo was invaded by rebels led by Rwanda and Uganda; Zimbabwe which was then chair of the Sadc Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation moved into to protect the territorial integrity of the DRC along with Angola and Namibia under Operation Sovereign Legitimacy.
Uganda and Rwanda’s incursion into the DRC was backed by the US which wanted to install a puppet regime to succeed Mobutu Sese Seko’s, so that it could continue pillaging the country’s vast resources while the citizens hacked each other to death.
Our intervention and successful campaign against the US-backed rebels disturbed the envisaged feeding frenzy; which is why our economy was targeted for sabotage from 1997 to this day. Operation Sovereign Legitimacy is one of the reasons why the US openly says the policies adopted by the Government of Zimbabwe continue ‘‘to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States.’’
Tsvangirai and his handlers should stop popping the champagne, the region is not fooled for ‘‘the actions and policies of proxy movements pose usual and dangerous threats to the region’s independence’’.
Sadc cut its teeth as the Front Line States that spearheaded decolonisation, it will be a cold day in hell that they forget that illustrious history.
The MDCs must be the change they want, change to be truly African. Then they wouldn’t have to misrepresent Sadc resolutions to assuage their supporters. Their politics would become palatable.

Eddie: A Cross we do not have to bear

Caesar Zvayi

Rhodesia Never Dies ... Eddie Cross

ISRAEL’S greatest king, Solomon, was only 12 years old when God promised him that he would be granted wisdom, and be the wisest man who ever lived. In the very first recorded decision in the history of legal jurisprudence, in the Book of Kings (3:16), Solomon’s brilliance endeared him to the entire nation of Israel at that tender age.
Two women who laid claim to the same child following the death of one of the women’s children during the night approached King Solomon at his court.
To determine who the real mother of the baby was, the wise King proposed that the living baby be cut into two with each woman getting half the body.
The one who was laying false claim to the child readily agreed to the proposal saying, ‘‘Neither mine nor yours; shall he be. Cut!’’ But the real mother pleaded with the King to spare the child’s life, even if it meant giving the baby to the spiteful woman.
And through her compassion for her baby, King Solomon separated the mother from the impostor.
Israel was awed at the wisdom of one so young.
Well, we can apply this verdict of the ages to many situations among them Eddie Cross’ purported love for Zimbabwe. The bellicose, bankrupt MDC-T policy co-ordinator, who — at the height of the hyper-inflationary period — said, ‘‘. . . we should let the country crash and burn and then pick up the pieces’’, is no different from the impostor mother at King Solomon’s court?
Cross of the ‘‘crash and burn’’ infamy was back again with another ironic “gem” earlier this week saying his party, MDC-T, would unleash a wave of violence against Zanu-PF officials if it wins elections set for this year.
In an article published on his website — www.eddiecross.africanherd.com — and flighted by several Internet sites, Cross threatens violence and retribution against Zanu-PF if Morgan Tsvangirai lands the presidency in the next election.
‘‘People may well take matters into their own hands and take retribution against those who committed Gukurahundi, Murambatsvina and the general violations that have characterised the behaviour of the regime managed by these same hardliners.
“If that is not bad enough, the hardliners have to know that we in the MDC have kept detailed records of every violation of our rights and the abuse of the people.
“We have all the facts and evidence to press charges against several thousand thugs and worse and many of the most senior leaders responsible could face The
Hague,’’ he charged without any sense of irony.
Surprising, quite surprising coming from a Rhodie who was spared the gallows by the same people he threatens today. Who does not know that Rhodies had a hand in Gukurahundi, along with their allies in apartheid SA?
Cross should be careful lest he be hoist by his own petard. He should not insult the nation’s collective memory by adopting a holier than thou attitude when even the blind can read our scars like braille.
By his own admission, Eddie Cross worked for Rhodesia, moving people from prime agro-ecological regions to semi-arid ones, which makes him a Rhodie to the core.
He is a cross we have had to bear due to our good hearts when we could have nailed him on the cross along with his Rhodesian kith and kin on account of the atrocities they committed during the liberation struggle.
That the same man who was spared the gallows by the progressive policy of reconciliation stands up today to thumb his nose at his benefactors to the extent of issuing empty threats, and misrepresenting history, testifies to the triumph of our democractic tradition and tolerance.
That we are a thriving democracy can only be contested by mentally and financially bankrupt characters of Cross’ ilk.
Democratic elections have been constant features of our body politic since we taught it to the likes of Eddie Cross. This democracy, however, was not handed to us on a silver platter as we had to fight for it and continue defending it from those who want to subvert it for their selfish, neo-colonial ends.
The subversion began at the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference, where British and Rhodesian interests ensured that, for a whole decade, 20 seats were reserved for white MPs and white voters per se in the post independence binary voters roll.
This provision ensured that the likes of Ian Douglas Smith, the former Rhodesian prime minister, continued to defile the august house with their supercilious diatribes, under the aegis of the Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe, formerly the Rhodesian Front.
Smith and his white supremacist cronies were, however, tolerated in line with the new policy of reconciliation espoused by Prime Minister Mugabe, who proclaimed in his address to the nation on the night of Thursday April 17, 1980 that;
‘‘If yesterday I fought you as an enemy, today you have become a friend and ally with the same national interest, loyalty, rights and duties as myself. If yesterday you hated me, today you cannot avoid the love that binds you to me and me to you.’’
Where would Cross be if Government had decided to take the route of retribution on account of Rhodie atrocities not the imaginary charge sheet he waves at Zanu-PF?
This spirit of tolerance exists to this day even though the Rhodesians have regrouped under the Western-funded MDC, which continues the futile quest of subversion. The hideous intentions are always couched in the neo-liberal regimen of minimalist democracy; rule of law and something called “good governance”.
For instance, the MDC’s first motion in parliament was an attempt at impeaching President Mugabe for alleged human rights abuses, the irony was the fact that some opposition elements who served in the Rhodesian security forces were part of the motion.
Yet if it were not for the largesse of the man they wanted to oust, they would have been hanged for atrocities in areas such as Nyadzonia, Chimoio, Tembwe, Freedom camp, and the Zimbabwean countryside.
On their first day in the house, the MDC legislators wore black armbands “mourning” fictitious “victims” of political violence, rather than the thousands of patriots who made it possible, even for askaris of their ilk, to masquerade as representatives of the people.
The MDC and those who follow it forget that the liberation struggle itself was a quest for good governance.
Good governance, being the empowerment of the people through people-centred programmes such as agrarian reforms.
It is not measured by high-scores on the neo-liberal indices of the self-styled Western “human rights” watchdogs such as Reporters sans Frontieres, Transparency
International, AfroBarometer and the West Minster Foundation for Democracy, to name just a few.
Good governance is measured by the socio-economic transformation of the lives of the previously marginalised indigenous populace, and on this score we are not found wanting.
Its, however, quite instructive that it makes Cross very cross.

Probe, nullify disputed DCC polls: Politburo

Thursday, 17 May 2012 00:00

Zanu-PF national political commissar, Webster Shamu Takunda Maodza  Senior Reporter AN extraordinary session of the Zanu-PF Po-litburo met in Harare yesterday and resolved that national political commissar Cde Webster Shamu investigate disturbances that occurred in some provinces during district co-ordinating committee elections. Where irregularities are revealed, Cde Shamu will nullify the results and conduct fresh polls. There have been reports of imposition of candidates during the Zanu-PF DCC elections, especially in Manicaland and Masvingo provinces. “We had a report from the Zanu-PF national political commissar, Cde Shamu, on what transpired in the restructuring exercise, in particular the DCC. We had an extensive discussion and there were a lot of areas of concern. “We talked about the imposition of candidates and elections not having been run in a democratic manner. “People spoke their mind. Where there have been errors, we need to look into that. There are areas where there is need to re-         look and ensure that things are done properly,” said Zanu-PF spokesperson Cde Rugare Gu-mbo. He added: “We will give the political commissar another chance to go into areas where there is concern and, if he needs to nullify the results, he will nullify and we will have re-runs.” Cde Gumbo said yesterday’s Politburo meeting was “very open and frank”. Also see Mr Commissar, Sir! He said no one was blamed for challenges faced by the party during the DCC elections. Cde Gumbo said nothing was left untouched during discussions, including debate on succession, but did not give details on the subject. He said no one, including the President, was happy with what transpired during DCC elections in some provinces. “People are not happy. The President is also not happy with what is happening, but we (Zanu-PF) have survived a lot of crises. “We have had a number of crises, but we always resolve them. We are happy we have been open and frank to each other. This is the best Politburo meeting we have had for some time,” he said. The Politburo reiterated that national elections would be held this year without fail. “We re-affirmed that elections will be held this year and our candidate will be President Mugabe,” Cde Gumbo said. He said Copac had been given up to the end of this month to complete the constitution-making process to pave way for a referendum and elections. “Politburo wants the issue (constitution) completely resolved by the end of this month,” Cde Gumbo said. He dismissed reports of fissures in Zanu-PF as mere speculation. “There is no split. There is one President, two Vice-Presidents, National Chairman and a Secretary for Administration. “If you are organising somewhere, then you are a destabilising force. The party recognises the structure that is there,” Cde Gumbo           said. The Politburo also discussed the food situation, preparations for the winter wheat and the state of industries. The meeting started after midday and ended late last night.

Mr Commissar, Sir!

Webster Shamu

 Caesar Zvayi
Tony Namate is a brilliant cartoonist. While I do not subscribe to his political thinking I can’t begrudge him his talent. From the sketches to the humour, he is good at what he does.
One of his cartoons I liked most depicted the late vice president Dr Simon Muzenda with his trademark jersey and jacket accosting a congress of baboons — an appropriate name I think for our noisy Lower House — soliciting for a parliamentary candidate. The dialogue box above one baboon, which was depicted scratching itself nonchalantly, was ‘‘I am sorry Mzee, but this year I am standing as an independent!’’
Dr Mzee had brought the joke on himself when he announced, in the run-up to the 2000 general elections, that even if Zanu-PF fielded a baboon as a candidate, true party cadres should vote for it.
He made the announcement as he decried the factionalism that had gripped Masvingo province, pitting the then so-called Muzenda and Zvobgo factions.
While Namate saw the humour in Cde Muzenda’s utterances, I doubt the grassroots did or do whenever their wishes are disregarded and a candidate is imposed. The top-down approach to intra-party democracy is a cancer that has afflicted Zanu-PF in recent years.
In fact Zanu-PF played second fiddle to the MDC-T in the House of Assembly elections in the March 2008 harmonised elections even though it led the popular vote coluntrywide precisely because of imposing candidates.
Though the crunching effects of the western economic sanctions regime had a lot to do with voting patterns in 2008, Zanu-PF was in a position to shake off the MDC-T challenge but two issues cost the party outright victory in the March 29 harmonised elections.
The first, and gravest one was the imposition of candidates by the Politburo and other higher echelons of the party at the expense of what the grassroots wanted.
We saw hordes of people camping at the Zanu-PF HQ in Harare, among them chiefs resplendent in their regalia, seeking to drive the point home, but they were either turned away or ignored.
The result was either voter apathy or protest votes. Zanu-PF ended up fielding two candidates; a Politburo candidate and the peoples candidate, in one constituency, splitting the vote in favour of MDC-T in about five constituencies.
The second and equally grave one is the sheer absence of principles among some party members like the two Zanu-PF legislators who secretly voted for Lovemore Moyo during the House of Assembly speaker’s contest and the blind mice who urged party supporters to vote Zanu-PF in the council, House of Assembly and Senate elections, and then Simba Makoni for president in 2008 oblivious to the fact that they were splitting the vote in favour of Tsvangirai.
In times like these, especially after the near miss of 2008, it should be self-evident to any progressive Zimbabwean that votes have to be cast on principle not personalities.
You vote for the party not its representative which is what happens in systems of proportional representation where you would not even know who the party will nominate to be your representative in parliament.
This is what Dr Mzee meant when he said even if Zanu-PF fields a baboon, party cadres must endorse the baboon regardless.
However such cadreship was missing in 2008.
The game in town was the self-defeating practice code-named ‘‘bhora musango” (protest vote), that saw President Mugabe trailing Tsvangirai in the first round of the presidential contest even though Zanu-PF, the party he leads, led the MDC-T in the popular vote nationwide.
Coming back to the Speaker’s contest, I had it on good authority that Zanu-PF Chief Whip Joram Gumbo, and Women’s League boss, Oppah Muchinguri were interested in the Speaker’s post. Gumbo having done extensive groundwork but both were shunted aside as the Politburo wanted Khaya Moyo, the party’s most senior member out of government, to land the post.
This spawned disgruntlement in party ranks prompting VP Mujuru to threaten dissenting legislators with expulsion if they refused to vote for the Zanu-PF national chairman.
Yet a simple, amicable way out would have been primary elections pitting Cdes Khaya Moyo, Oppah Muchinguri and Joram Gumbo with the winner taking on Lovemore Moyo.
This cancer in Zanu-PF that sees some leaders say no self-respecting party cadre should challenge another cadre with a higher rank in party primaries must be nipped in the bud. The grassroots carry the party, not the chefs.
Let the inter-party elections be real polls where one's standing in the party is not an issue but one's ideas and appeal to the electorate so that voters get the candidates they want.
However, judging by what has been going on in DCC elections countrywide, the lessons of 2008 have been forgotten as some ‘‘untouchable’’ party chefs are busy filling party structures with their own choices at the expense of the grassroots. President Mugabe blasted this practice during the burial of national hero Cde Edison Ncube at the beginning of the month.
‘‘They go around and say do not vote for so and so. Ndiwe ani? Kunyora tutsamba kuti ava ndivo vanosungirwa kuvhoterwa muDCC. You are destroying the party for which people like Edson worked so hard. Do your work. Let the people judge you. If they do not like you, they do not like you. We do not want impositions. No!”
I hope the national political commissar, Cde Webster Shamu, took notice and will walk the talk.
Zanu-PF must exorcise the ghost of 2008 by cleansing its ranks of dubious characters and putting an end to the cancer of imposing candidates, otherwise they needlessly concede ground to the hapless MDC-T.

Beware of the opportunist!

Let us differ on how we see the contents of the glass not who should drink from it. Whether it’s half-full or half-empty, it’s our glass and we are entitled to everything inside it.

 

Caesar Zvayi 

“Dear Optimist and Pessimist, while you were busy arguing whether the glass was half-full or half-empty, I drank it! Yours Opportunist!” 

I do not know who came up with this telling quotation but one thing I know is, it is pregnant with meaning and worth learning from. 

It reminds me of another axiom I heard from the then independent candidate for Harare South constituency, Margaret Dongo in the run-up to the Harare South by-election that pitted her against Zanu-PF’s Vivian Mwashita and one Joseph Cohen another independent in 1995, the axiom of the three dogs.
Dongo, who had been expelled from Zanu-PF for standing as an independent after a dispute with the way primaries were held, said when two dogs fight for a bone, it’s the third dog that wins the fight. She was counselling on the possibility of splitting the vote with Cohen and handing victory to Mwashita.
For all that Dongo's proverbial third dog would need to do is creep over and slink away with the bone as the
other two canines tear each other to pieces.
So what is my point?

 My point to the three main political parties in Gov-ernment today is, please argue
over whether the glass is half full or half empty but never argue over who owns the glass or its con-tents.
No party should be used as a decoy so that Mr Opportunist can come in to drink from our glass once
our attention is diverted.
As we mark 32 years of independence today let us introspect what we have done for our country to abet
the cause of the gallant sons and daughters of this land who paid the ultimate sacrifice to give us freedom.
April 18, did not just spring from the calendar but is a culmination of the sacrifices made by the heroes and
heroines of this land from the time the Pioneer Column raised the Union Jack at Fort Salisbury on September 12, 1890 till the attainment of independence on April 18, 1980.
Nine decades of struggle that some among us had no stomach for, though today we feign courage while
stroking tummies distended by the erstwhile coloniser’s filthy lucre.
It is fortuitous that we celebrate 32 years of Independence at a time forces opposed to our total emancipation have ranged against us for daring to go beyond the façade of flag independence. Sadly, they have found succour in some who are willing to be used to lend black faces to patently racist, neo-colonial subversion. 
Be that as it may, that should not distract us from the agenda at hand. We should today beat our chests that as
a nation we chose to take the bull by the horns. We dropped the short-end of the stick the erstwhile coloniser had given us at the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference in 1979.
And over the past 32 years we have systematically worked to transform our coun-try into a truly independent unitary State. Indepen-dence does not only mean flying our flag over our terri-tory, neither does it mean having black faces in Gov-ernment, independence means non-dependence on anyone but ourselves
for our own destiny. As Bob Mar-ley told us on April 18, 1980 “every man has a right to decide his own destiny. . . and in this judgment there is no partiality”.
And when we look at the path travelled over the past 32 years, there is every reason to celebrate the achievements scored, gains that are unparalleled by any nation that attained political independence in our generation, or even those that have been free much longer.
The gains in the social services sector are phenomenal, infrastructure development, housing, you name it.
Yes, some of these gains took a hard-knock from the past decade of sanctions but the fact that we did not
become a failed state testifies to the strong foundation laid since independence. The only blight on an otherwise impeccable record was an economy dominated by foreign-owned compa-nies, and this is what we are painstakingly changing through the land reform programme and indigenisa-tion and economic empowerment programmes.
Indeed, the fact that despite a sustained 10-year assault, our country has not gone under is testimony to the strength of the foundation laid since 1980.
Yes, there are those who point gleefully at the prevailing economic hardships as a sign of failure, I disagree
with them strongly. What our nation is experiencing are the pangs of transformation, and only a fool can deny that sanctions account for the economic malaise of the past decade. Our economy has not collapsed, but
that which we called our economy when it was in fact a white economy collapsed, and in its place an indige-
nous Zimbabwean economy is emerging on the back of a genuine land-owning, wealth-creating middle class.
That transformation cannot occur overnight, neither can it be cosy, as it is a duel with dark forces whose very
existence hinges on continued exploitation of our resources, with us as chattel slaves.
These are the forces, along with their black minions, that we should all tell today, never again! Never again
will we allow them to reverse the gains we have made, amid so much opposition.
However, for that transformation to be achieved expeditiously, we must all pull in the same direction.
This is the last phase of our struggle, and history tells us that the myopia of those who opted to abet the enemy — either as Rhodesian Front members or Selous Scouts or outright sellouts — prolonged the liberation struggle.
Today they have been resurrected to mouth meaningless neo-liberal platitudes in a bid to divert us from the path of economic independence. They will tell you investment is more important than owning the means of production, jobs more important than owning the farm, factory or mine and food more important than farming. By their language you shall know them.
This is why we need, this day, to dedicate ourselves to the ideals of the struggle, close ranks to defeat the machinations of those seeking to torpedo and reverse our independence. The sanctions imposed by the West
are not for our benefit, but they are meant to benefit their kith and kin, who we dispossessed of resources that are rightfully ours.
Thus whether we are Zanu-PF, MDC-Tsvangirai or MDC, let us differ only on the modalities of governing our nation, not who should govern it. Let us differ on how we see the contents of the glass not who should drink from it. Whether it’s half-full or half-empty, it’s our glass and we are entitled to everything inside it.

Declare April Zim history month

Caesar Zvayi

PRESIDENT Mugabe IN February 1899, British novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem entitled “The White Man’s Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands” in which he urged the US to take up the “burden” of empire, as had Britain and other European nations when colonising Africa. Theodore Roosevelt, later to become president, described it as “rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion point of view.” However, not everyone, particularly in the developing world, was as impressed as Roosevelt. African-Americans, among many others, rapped the notion of the “white man’s burden.” And one of the prominent responses to Kipling’s poem was “The Black Man’s Burden,” written by African-American clergyman and editor Hubert Johnson and published in April that same year. Hubert Johnson argued that the mistreatment of brown people in the Philippines was an extension of the mistreatment of African-Americans at home. There was nothing noble in imperialism. The bottom line is the black man has a burden of ensuring that his history, which has over the years been misconstrued as being synonymous with the history of the white man’s arrival in Africa, is corrected and captured for posterity. It is a history of not being seen nor heard; a history of being manipulated and subjugated. The onus is on us Africans to correct the historical distortions. I flew this kite before in 2006, and I raise it again this year in the hope that someone in the high offices takes note and does something about it. In spite of having a rich history of stolid, defiant resistance to all forms of colonial or neo-colonial domination, we Zimbabweans are notoriously modest. We do not seem to celebrate this history except waiting for days or events. Why don’t we, for instance, have even a Zimbabwe history month to mark the milestones that helped define us as the nation we are today? I have said it before and I will say it again. If ever there is a month that deserves to be called Zimbabwe history month, it is April, a month littered with numerous milestones stretching from the First, Second to the Third Chimurenga wars. One hundred and fourteen years ago, on April 27 1898, the architects of the First Chimurenga War, Mbuya Chahwe, the medium of the Nehanda spirit, and Sekuru Gumboreshumba, the medium of the Kaguvi spirit also known as Murenga, were hanged by the settler regime for daring to challenge colonial dispossession. It is from the Kaguvi spirit, that was alternatively known as Murenga, meaning “war spirit”, that the name Chimurenga was derived. Mbuya Nehanda along with Zindoga, Hwata and Gutsa wrongly stood accused of murdering a brutal white native commissioner, one Henry Hawkins Pollard of the British South Africa Company who lived near Mazowe and terrorised people in that district. Rhodesian legal documents classified Mbuya Nehanda modestly as a Mashona woman residing at Chitawa’s Kraal in the Mazowe District; Zindoga as a native kitchen boy residing at Nehanda’s Kraal; and Hwata and Gutsa as native hunters residing at Hwata Kraal. The four along with Sekuru Kaguvi were arraigned in the High Court of Matabeleland that sat in Salisbury on February 20 1898 and were subsequently convicted on March 2 1898 in a case entered as “The (British) Queen against Nehanda”. They were sentenced to death by hanging. The execution was authorised by the (British) High Commissioner for South Africa, one Alfred Milner, and endorsed by the (British) Imperial Secretary on March 28 1898. The presiding judge was Judge Watermayer, with Herbert Hayton Castens Esquire, as “the acting Public Prosecutor Sovereign within the British South Africa Company territories, who prosecutes for and on behalf of her majesty”. The warrant for Mbuya Nehanda’s death commanded that she be executed within the wall of the gaol of Salisbury between the hours of 6 and 10 in the afternoon. A Roman Catholic priest, one Fr Richertz, was assigned to convert Mbuya Nehanda, Sekuru Kaguvi, Hwata and Zindoga. It is said the hapless Catholic priest failed to make headway with Mbuya Nehanda but managed to convert Sekuru Gumboreshumba, whom he baptised as Dismas, the ‘‘good’’ thief. Gutsa, Hwata and Zindoga were also converted and similarly hanged. According to Fr Richertz’s account, Mbuya Nehanda “ . . . called for her people and wanted to go back to her own country Mazoe and die there . . . When I saw that nothing could be done with her, the time of the execution having arrived, I left Nehanda and went to Kaguvi who received me in good dispositions. Whilst I was conversing with him, Nehanda was taken to the scaffold. Her cries and resistance, when she was taken up the ladder, the screaming and yelling disturbed my conversation with Kaguvi very much, till the noisy opening of the trap door upon which she stood, followed by the heavy thud of her body as it fell, made an end to the interruption”, he wrote. Fr Richertz, however, conveniently forgot to mention the other words Mbuya Chahwe said to him, that “Mapfupa angu achamuka (my bones will surely rise)”. Fr Richertz may have considered it heresy, especially from a woman who had refused to be converted to “Christianity”, but he did not know that the settler regime had just killed the mediums of the Nehanda and Kaguvi spirits but the spirits proper remained to influence the war effort. Sixty-eight years later, Mbuya Nehanda’s prophesy came true when seven of her bones rose up in style on April 28  1966 to fire the first shots of the Second Chimurenga war. They struck just five months after Smith announced his Universal Declaration of Independence (UDI) and 20 months after the Rhodesian regime banned the nationalist movements Zapu and Zanu in August 1964. AMBUYA Nehanda It is not clear whether it was by design or providence that the seven cadres intended to hit on the exact date Nehanda was executed but were somehow delayed by logistical problems and did so a day later. The seven cadres — Simon Chingosha Nyandoro, Godwin Manyerenyere, Christopher Chatambudza, Arthur Maramba, Chubby Savanhu, Godfrey Dube and David Guzuzu — who entered the country from Zambia struck near Manyame River in Chinhoyi. Their aim was to destroy power pylons to cut off electricity coming from Kariba Dam and plunge the country into darkness. This was supposed to be the signal for other groups that were strategically placed in towns like Mutare, Rusape, Chegutu and Mvuma that the war against the Smith regime had begun. Lack of proper equipment and explosives saw the cadres fail to bring down the pylons near Lions Den, the Rhodesians got wind of the operation and descended on the people who were harbouring them. But the gallant fighters, who had retreated to Golden Kopje, dared the Rhodesians to come out and fight, and the cowardly Rhodies came complete with helicopter gunships and all sorts of weapons to face seven men armed only with AK-47 assault rifles. The seven commandos gave as much as they took as the battle lasted from about 9am to around 4pm. Eyewitness accounts say several helicopters and scores of Rhodesian soldiers were gunned down and littered the battle scene when the seven cadres were finally wiped out. It is important to note that they were only overcome because they had inferior weapons and ran out of ammunition, while the enemy was armed to the teeth and had the advantage of going back to base to replenish both ammunition and manpower. The bodies of the seven cadres were never seen again after the Rhodesians took them. The nationalist leaders learnt a lot from the battle of Chinhoyi and future incursions inflicted heavy losses on the Rhodesian regime that was finally brought to its false knees in 1979. In the intervening period, another milestone again occurred, on April 4 1975, when Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe, who had just been released from an 11-year incarceration by the Smith regime, crossed into Mozambique in the company of Cde Edgar Tekere. The following is the verbatim account of the crossing that President Mugabe gave during an interview with Power FM ahead of his 82nd birthday in 2006. “It was on Saturday morning and we decided to leave in the afternoon of that day. Old Tangwena, late now, Chief (Rekayi) Tangwena at whose home we had slept was instructed by his wife to lead us. Mai Tangwena vaisvikirwa, vakati zvanzi izvo iwe Tangwena pachako tungamirira vana ava. So he accompanied us. There we were, we had two young men carrying our bags and I think there were five of us and we decided to cross the border. “There was this big boundary road they called Bhinya. It was also so called after the name of the person who was chief native commissioner . . . I will think of it. We had to cross the broad road, not tarred, but just a dirt road, gravel, not tarred because it was meant to facilitate the vigilance that the Rhodesians kept on the people. “So we crossed that, after looking at both sides of the road, we moved on and at night we had to cross rivers. There was a small river that we crossed and upon putting our shoes back, I could not distinguish the right from the left. Ndakaita sambuya vangu vaimbouya kuchurch vakapfeka matennis vachiti yekurudyi yoenda uku (laughs indicating his left foot). Ndakatozoona zuva ratobuda kuti that was the disaster that had attended my feet. “You know the Tangwenas had been fighting for Gaerezi Ranch. It was that resistance, vaivingwa from time to time vachipfurwa. Ndiro chaidzo dzaiboorwa nemabullets kuti vabve, their children were all taken away to a school somewhere, but they resisted. We got to a village where two headmen vekwaTangwena decided to get away from this problem and settled on the Mozambican side, and two headmen had remained. So they were four. “We were drenched, very wet and we needed fire, so early in the morning fire was lit for us outside. I noticed that my shoes had done harm to my toes and we were not prepared to continue. So we remained there for quite some time. Kwakanga kusina masoja eFrelimo akawanda, so we had to relay our presence to them, and from that place word was sent ahead that we were there and we then got to a base that was close to Tete, this place was called Vam-Vam. “We were at Vam-Vam for quite some time that’s where we met vana Mao and others who had been recruited in Highfield. From there we were taken along a road in the direction of a town yaimbonzi Villa Guveya, now Katandika. It was while we were at Vam-Vam that Mozambique celebrated its independence. We stayed at Katandika for a month or two. From Katandika we were taken to Chimoio, and there we met many more and now we were moving with other comrades that we had met along the way. “That is where we met vanaChamu (Oppah Muchinguri) vachiri vadiki and many others. We had some students from university, vana (Zororo) Duri, vana (Christopher) Mutsvangwa vana Gula Ndebele, vana (John) Mayowe, who had left university, we met them there. “There were about 5 000 to 6 000 of us kuChimoio. It was a little outside the town, and then the governor decided that some of our cadres who had been trained who were in Tete should be informed about our presence. There were about three ladies and mukuru wavo akavatora ndiMai (Joice) Mujuru, and there were about four or five male cadres. So they came and saw us and came back, and we asked them to take control because they were trained cadres. “So that was the journey, and all the while we were with Chief Tangwena, right up to the end taive naChief Tangwena, and when we came back, we came back with him also. He was quite a gallant cadre, very strong,” President Mugabe said. The President was to gallantly lead the war effort from Mozambique for the next five years. He participated in all the peace initiatives up to the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference of September 10 to December 15 1979 that paved way for the first democratic elections in March 1980. It was a month later, again in April, that the new Zimbabwe was born on April 18. This was the month that the Union Jack was pulled down and the Zimbabwean flag, as we know it, rose majestically in its place at midnight on April 18 as the heir to the British throne Prince Charles and Governor Lord Soames saluted the new nation and its people. This was the day that defined us as a people as the then Prime Minister-elect, Cde Mugabe, laid out the policy of reconciliation in his maiden address, much to the amazement of terrified Rhodies who thought they would be made to account for their war crimes. That is April, a month that traces a century of resistance, from Nehanda to Mugabe.