People in Zimbabwe eating buried dogs and cats

This has got to rank as the most shocking story to emerge from Zimbabwe In the second city of Bulawayo desperate, poor people have turned to a neglected pet cemetery as a source of ‘food’.

A poster to the civil organisation blog Sokwanele reveals what the site is like:

Horrifyingly, this pet-graveyard also revealed to me a very despairing side of the on-going desperate poverty in our country. A worker at the site tells of people who wait until dusk and then uplift the animals. If its a big dog, they take the meat and sell it. If the pet is in a plastic sack or bag, the carcass is dumped out and the bag retained to be sold or re-used. The health consequences of these desperate actions are huge.

There are little skulls and big skulls, little teeth and big teeth, little bones and big bones, scattered around as far as the eye can see. Crows circle overhead, the stench is horrendous, and it seems that we have all turned yet another blind-eye to yet another travesty in our community.

As Zim ditches Z$, millions face starvation

From Freakonomics

This currency has now been completely abandoned by even Zanu-PF.

Here in zimbabwe we are rapidly reversing the march of time and heading right back into the worst history has to offer.

Zimbabwe should revert to the ancient Yap system where gigantic one hundred pound, ten foot chunks of shiny stone were exchanged for goods (Yapese discs were commonly made of quartz, can’t [Central Bank head] Gono just hit the Matopos [hills] for a bit of this instead of the endless printing of waste paper and slashing of zeros?). Rolling stones would be a damn sight better than the wads of useless Z$ that are often seen littering the overgrown verges of our potholed and treacherous roads. Nobody bothers to even pick up discarded Gonillions, unless they need a dash to the nearest fetid public loo to deal with the common bouts of diarrhoea brought on by mucky tap water (pray not cholera).

From Sokwanele.

World Food Programme to cut core maize ration from 10kg to 5kg a month – or just 600 calories a day – for 70% of the population.

What to do? Sign the petition to move the World Cup from South Africa. Here I explain why.

Zimbabwe: what to do

Thousands have died of malnutrition and starvation. So many have been buried in their remote villages that nobody can be sure what is now the country's actual population.

Christian Science Monitor.

Daily Mail (yes!) has an excellent, underground piece today on the state of Zimbabweans.

And in my inbox is an Avaaz appeal about broadcasting a solidarity message in the new year to Zimbabweans.

Not enough. In fact I can just imagine how useful that will be. Worse than useless. Almost patronising.

What is needed is nothing but endless pressure on South Africa. They are the ones who can turn SADC and force change. They are the ones who Mugabe will listen to and accept exile. It is all about SA applying the screws - or not.

And this argument is sanctioned by endless African voices. Meaning, don't feel any lingering white guilt for doing it. This is about fellow humans saying what is right.

It is not enough to 'offer solidarity' to Zimbabweans!

Although Africa has worse horrors. Although bigger genocides are happening and have happened (Zenawi?), let this be an example to the other bastard dictators. Mugabe first.

What pressure on SA?

1. World cup - Move it. Seriously. Scare them that it could happen.
2. Shunning - No more big-ups from the likes of Bono and Geldof (big-up Botswana's leaders instead), back turning on the SA leadership - literally.
3. Shaming - Say it. Their behaviour is shameful. It is SA that is letting this happen. It is is SA which is responsible. Shame them.

'African solutions'? Pah. Time for world solutions and some real solidarity.

Embassies of South Africa to Other Nations

Boycott South Africa World Cup 2010 in support of Zimbabwe

Call a spade a spade

Some very interesting comments by Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party (South Africa) about Zimbabwe.

There is either a solution or there is not! There is, in my book, no such thing as a “made in Africa” solution. Zimbabwe either holds ‘free and fair elections’ like those recently held in America, or it does not.

Zimbabwe either adheres to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (to which it is a signatory) or it does not. It happens to do neither and no amount of pontificating about “African solutions” can disguise that fact. Her people are starving, the hyperinflation is running sky high, there is a humanitarian disaster of biblical proportions emerging with the cholera outbreak and the country is, for all intents and purposes, not being governed.

It is time to call a spade a spade.

Why, for instance, when Yugoslavia disintegrated in the early 1990s, did we not hear any voices calling for “Balkan solutions for Balkan problems”? No one said “ah let the people of Kosovo sort it out” or it is “an internal matter for the people of Bosnia”. Yes, it sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? In the end, Bill Clinton reluctantly intervened with his European NATO allies.

I believe we have fallen prey to the notion of relative standards: we are expected to hold ‘free and fair elections’ like everyone else, but there is an unspoken bargain that we will be given a bit of leeway. A “bit” of voter fraud or a “few” acts of intimidation – even murder – will be overlooked as long as the election is held and the result expresses the will of the majority.

As an African, who shares the joy of millions of people across the globe at the election of an African American as the leader of the free world, I believe it is time to say that we – as Africans – should be expected to adhere to the same standards as everyone else.

Zanu-PF = Khmer Rouge

"We would be better off with only six million people, with our own people who support the liberation struggle. We don't want all these extra people."

Didymus Mutasa – Zimbabwe’s Minister of State for National Security, Lands, Lands Reform, and Resettlement – August 2002 (source)

Another week in Zimbabwe and more cracks emerge and the regime becomes even more isolated in its own country - though its neighbours largely stand by and watch.

Botswana's Foreign Minister, Phando Skelemani, told the BBC last week that regional leaders will only criticise Mugabe behind his back.

Low ranking soldiers riot after having their salaries stolen from them by senior officers, the ones being payed first to ensure their loyalty, the ones who got farms when Mugabe 'liberated' the land in 2000. The economic (beyond) crisis means there's lietrally not enough money to keep the lower ranks happy.

So now they are resorting to this (report from Robb Ellis, 'The bearded man'):

Obviously, I cannot vouch for this story personally, but having served in the Zimbabwe Republic Police during the time of the Gukurahundi [the early 80s mass killings in Matabeleland] - a time which I was obliged, by virtue of being a policeman in uniform, to clean up the mess of the Fifth Brigade - I can easily believe it.

Such cruelty, such hatred, such venom... belongs behind bars...

"The embattled Zimbabwean strongman, Robert Mugabe ordered the chilling execution of 16 rioting soldiers in a cold blood murder carried out by members of the Presidential Guard death squads at its PG HQ Base in Dzivarasekwa, North West of the Capital. Three others died during torture, our confirmed source can reveal.

The callous act has been communicated to all members of the armed forces as a chilling warning by the paranoid regime.

Last night, a fast track military court Marshal at Army Head Quarters’ KG6 Barracks was presided over by the retired High court judge Major General George Chiweshe, sitting with three other assessors, two Majors and a Captain. They passed death sentences to the 16 soldiers and it was signed by Robert Mugabe just before midnight and executions were carried out around 4 am in the presents of a military Doctor and the victim's bodies were taken to unknown destination."

I have run this page since the end of February 2005 and it may become my life's work - together with my book "Without Honour" - and it may not be anything I am ever remembered for - but I have stood on the side of what is good and right.,and I have taken some serious shots by detractors who accuse me of racism and call me all manner of names.

All of which I have been called before by instructors on the grounds of Morris Deport in Harare many years ago.

But when I read that Mugabe has ordered - callously - the cold blooded murder of serving soldiers, then I believe that everything I have written over the last three years is the truth - all the words I have typed whilst I have looked at Mugabe's disastrous rule and the damaged he has wrought - I find the strength to carry on.

I now believe that the MDC activists 'arrested' (together with a 2-year-old) have been executed as well.

How sick a man is Mugabe?

"The 16 soldiers executed on Tuesday morning are believed to have been arrested during the skirmish with police in the last few days.

It is also reported that three other soldiers died during torture.

The line of the Zimbabwe regime’s propaganda says the soldiers beat up and arrested illegal foreign currency traders in the streets of Harare on Monday, accusing them of causing severe cash shortages, but our source can revealed that this is all part on the power struggles within ZANU PF.

"They are all fighting for resources to take control, and how would they (soldiers) feel when they see commanders driving Q7s, yet they can’t access their salaries in the banks," said one source. Foreign currency dealers at Road Port are believed to be ZANU PF militia working for the country’s Central Bank to finance party activities against internal ZANU PF factions.

At the Reserve Bank, former police Commissioner Henry Mukurazhizha is in charge of the clandestine foreign currency operations with the assistance of CIO officers stationed at Atlas House, along Samora Machel House and some members of the police force."

And to think that I gave four years of my life to work as a loyal Zimbabwe Republic Policeman. I am sick to the stomach. Without reward, without any ideas of grandeur - I just did what any person would do if they wanted to be a good and successful policeman.

I don't care who says what about me, and I no longer care about the threats of reprisals here in the UK.

Whilst the so-called 'unity' government talks stall due to Mugabe's intransigence (or plan all along), the abductions and murders of the opposition which reach a peak before and after the July elections still continue. Sokwanele is calling for help with the series of cases, one of which involves a two-year old boy.



And Mbeki has dropped all pretence of being impartial, in responding to Tsvangirai's criticism of the latest SADC concession to Mugabe.

He said that Tsvangari did not have to wait for approval from its “external supporters” (i.e. the 'west') before signing away all real power in a so-called 'unity' government, using words which could have come directly from the regime's mouthpiece the Herald newspaper and repeating Mugabe's line on the MDC.

Zimbabwe's opposition MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai's prominent media headlines do neither help the country, nor will these help himself.

As you secure applause because of the insult against us that we are 'cowards', you will have to consider the reality that our people have accepted into their countries very large numbers of Zimbabwean brothers and sisters in a spirit of human solidarity, prepared to sustain the resultant obligations.

None of our countries displayed characteristics of cowardice when they did this.

All of us will find it strange and insulting that because we do not agree with you on a small matter, you choose to describe us in a manner that is most offensive in terms of African culture, and therefore offend our sense of dignity as Africans, across our borders.

You know this, too, that the rest of southern Africa, your neighboring countries, has also had the unavoidable obligation to carry much of the weight of the burden of the Zimbabwe crisis, in many ways."

I say this humbly to advise that it does not help Zimbabwe, nor will it help you as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, that the MDC-T contemptuously repudiates very serious decisions of our region, and therefore our continent, describing them as 'a nullity'.

Ironically, the report is that Mbeki was riled up after MDC secretary general Tendai Biti questioned his impartiality. Ironic because Biti is still facing 'treason' charges from the regime.

And the South African government appears to be following Mbeki's line, saying:

[We] would be extremely surprised if the outbreak of cholera, the death of innocent Zimbabweans as a result of a failure of politicians to reach an agreement, does not spur them to more urgent action.

Huh? Cholera has nothing to do with the 'agreement'. It has to do with the deliberate neglect of Zimbabwe's water, health and sewerage - all of which have completely collapsed - and the starvation of the people, in geat part because of the farm seizures (echoes of the Ukraine in the 1930s).

Didymus Mutasa, who I quote at the top, was also the man who led Operation Murambatsvina [Operation Drive Out the Filth], in 2005. Soldiers, police and government militias used extreme violence to destroy the homes of hundreds of thousands of poor people on the outer edges of the country's towns and cities.

Mutasa presented Murambatsvina as a regeneration and renewal scheme to "clean up" urban areas. But most of the 700,000 to a million people who watched their houses being bulldozed, sledgehammered and set ablaze were opposition supporters.

Like Pol Pot's Kmer Rouge, the Zimbabwean leadership simply doesn't care how many of its people die.

All they care about is power.

~~~~~~~~

Here and here are some actions you can take to support Zimbabweans.

Soldiers vs. cops in Zim

Phando Skeleman

I had the pleasure of hearing an interview with Botswana's Foreign Minister, Phando Skelemani, recently. He is one a very few fellow Southern Africans (alongside his President) who have called spades spades regarding Mugabe and Zanu-PF.

The rest of us should own up and say 'Yes, we have failed'. Call upon the international community and tell Mugabe to his face, 'Look, now you are on your own, we are switching off, we are closing your borders', and I don't think he would last.

There are, finally, some positive signs coming out of SADC. They just condemned the 'land reform' progam (of seizing farms and giving them to Mugabe's cronies) as "racist".

Meanwhile, darkness continues to descend.

From Sokwanele:

At approx 3pm this afternoon an eye-witness spotted a soldier changing money with a vendor between Eastgate shopping center (next to Meikles) and Dulys in Harare.

A fight broke out between the two, so the police intervened. They apparently tried to beat up the soldier (note the ‘rule of law’ in Zimbabwe!).

With that, soldiers appeared from all over, and they apparently turned on the cop and started to beat him up.

More cops arrived and it ended up in a big punch-up between police and soldiers.

Stories about disgruntled soldiers taking money-matters into their own hands are coming up frequently. Some people are delighted, seeing it as a clear sign of anger towards the Zanu PF regime and an indicator that future loyalty might be diminished.

However, others are worried. Will the soldiers focus their attention on the real cause of the problem, keep in mind that we are all victims of this regime, or will they turn on businesses and private individuals for quick personal gain? Will they stand with the victims, or will they think the regime ‘owes’ them so they can money where ever they like?

From the BBC:

Dozens of troops have run amok in the Zimbabwean capital Harare after losing their temper while queuing up to withdraw cash at a bank.

Riot police used tear gas to disperse about 40 soldiers and a number of civilians who joined the protest.

The economy is wrecked. Even government monopolies (utilities) refuse the Zim dollar.

The term used in the real economy is 'units' (US dollars) as trading is illegal but to survive everyone had to be paid in and pay with 'units'. This anarchy is why different arms of the state are fighting each other.

Since it is them propping up Mugabe, and since not even they can avoid the rapidly growing (but denied) cholera epidemic, which has now led to Harare's water being cut, you have to hope that the end is nearing.

Does any of this make sense to you?

In Zim, life is one Nietzschean moment after another:

It’s hard to describe the grind of daily life in Zimbabwe without baffling people with numbers, percentages and statistics that are so unreal they are uncomprehendible. The cash crises that has crippled us for years has been one of those undescribable things.

The last few months have been horrific.

This morning I once again saw red when I opened my month-end bank statement.

Yesterday I had a balance in my account of $2,000 (at old value that is 20 trillion dollars / $20,000,000,000,000.00). This account is dormant, untouched for months.

This morning I find I owe the bank $500,000 in service fees for one month’s bank charges to hold my $2,000. This is no joke.

The joke may be the $4 interest I received or the $0.80 cents withholding tax that I am paying, but my sense of humor is weak today and I cannot even laugh at that!

As I write this the parallel / black market rates are as follows USD1 = ZWD2500 and ZAR1 = ZWD360.

These rates will change within an hour.

The daily cash limit, per person per day is now a whopping (ha, ha) $20,000 (USD8, ZAR55.56).
The cost of a personal cheque book at today’s price (it will change by tomorrow) is $2,000,000 or $33,333 per page.

You pay $33,333 (USD13.33, ZAR92.59) to receive $20,000 (USD8, ZAR55.56).

Does this make sense to you?

And to get that $20,000?

A friend of mine got to the bank at 3am this morning and was handed a number – number 94 in line. At 5pm he finally got to the front of the queue. There is only one withdrawal allowed per customer so you cannot even take a friend’s card and work a tandem operation. Nope: it’s to the back of the line please for the second card transaction!

A company cheque book at today’s price is $11,000,000 (USD4.400, ZAR 30.550) or $110,000 per page. A company is restricted to a cash allowance of $10,000 per day (USD4, ZAR27.78), half that of an individual. A company pays $110,000 to receive $10,000.

Does this make sense to you?

More

Meanwhile, in Harare’s Glen Norah suburb residents have resorted to legal action to stop police seizing food aid meant to be distributed to two hundred starving households.

And at one university?

The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) said after weeks of just eating boiled cabbage with no salt or oil, the students could take no more when the canteen menu changed to just plain sadza and no relish.

The cash strapped students say the situation was worsened by the fact that they were forced to pay Z$17 billion for their food by the college authorities. Although the money was later reduced to Z$1.6 billion none of the students who had paid the full amount have been reimbursed.

Zim: good signs

On Tuesday I voluntarily stopped at a Police road block set up in the vicinity of Bob’s palace and offered my hand in congratulations to the Police saying, “now you will have a better deal with MDC running Home Affairs”. They vigorously shook my hand and they were over the moon!

Witness, from Sokwanele.

Outside the Sheraton on Monday some war vets were singing “You sold out!” to Mugabe during the signing ceremony.

There were tens of hundreds of MDC supporters gathered singing and waving outside the hotel entrance. They completely blocked out the few Zanu supporters. The mood was electric, tangible with excitement and joy. Even the Presidential guard were looking relaxed!

When the ZPF dignatories left the hotel in their cars they were faced with a sea of waving open hands, chanting “chinja” (change) and just loving every bit of the rare window of freedom of expression.

A small group of (brave, stupid!) ZPF youth split into two groups and surrounded a small group of MDC supporters and started stoning them. Well, it was a matter of seconds before the wider crowd of MDC retaliated angrily on the spot. The ZPF youth were seen to go to the Presidential guards standing nearby complaining they had been beaten by the MDC. The guards response was, “what were you doing going into their group in the first place? !!”

The body language, reaction of the military man behind, standard of rhetoric, everything is summed up in these clips of Tsvangirai and Mugabe from Monday:



Tsvangari from his interview with Chris O'Neal today:

We had a similar kind of people in 1980, those who refused to accept black majority rule has arrived and were even undermining the government, even going to the extent of sabotaging the government. In the process of change of this nature that is expected, but it does not stop a train moving forward.

Zimbabwe: the end is nigh

The signing of the deal between Mugabe/Mbeki/Tsvangari is opaque. But as soon as I began reading about behind-the-scenes deals for the generals who have been running Mugabe for months I began to think: this is it, it's almost over, they're negotiating an exit strategy.

And the key driver behind this? The collapsing economy.

If you read/watch Zim at all you soon learn that there are always more factors at play than you'd thought of. Devil/detail. But let's be hopeful.

Chris O'Neal says 'Mugabe is now poised to sign his own political death warrant'. His big point about the deal: "Mugabe will not be without power, but he may be reduced to obstructing more than governing.":

Crucially, the two MDC factions have a majority of one in both bodies [council of ministers /cabinet], as well as control of parliament, allowing the party to out-vote Mugabe and set policy. That will allow the MDC to dismantle the apparatus of repression which helped keep Mugabe in power long after his popularity crumbled. The government will be able to abolish legislation banning newspapers, locking up journalists and imposing severe restrictions on freedom of speech.

Mugabe is expected to keep his hands on the military through a Zanu-PF defence minister, which the MDC can live with because it will help reassure the generals. Tsvangirai has pressed hard for control of the police, which is crucial if he hopes to assure people that they can vote as they wish in future elections. Both sides are pressing to run the justice ministry, but that may be one that Tsvangirai loses because of fears within Zanu-PF that if he controls the police and the justice system the MDC could hold the guilty to account.

Crucially, the MDC is likely to get the finance portfolio because foreign donors will not want to hand money over to a Zanu-PF minister. It is the prospect of that money that unlocked the prospect of agreement. Without power for Tsvangirai there will be no foreign aid, and without hard currency Mugabe had no means of turning around an imploding economy.

Here's the key, as the economy collapses:

Western governments have said they want to wait and see if Tsvangirai is really wielding power, fearing that he may have been duped into a deal that allows Mugabe to outmanoeuvre him.

More from David Coltart.

This is undoubtedly historic but we still have a long and treacherous road to travel. Even had we in the combined MDC obtained total control the challenges are immense. The grave humanitarian and economic crises are enough to test any Government. The new Cabinet that will have to address these challenges is composed of protagonists – virtually all of the Cabinet Ministers to be appointed by the MDC T and M have at some stage in the last 9 years been brutalized on the instructions of those they will now have to work with. Zimbabwe remains highly polarised and it will take statesmanship on all sides to make this work.

But work this must. Zimbabwe is a great country with a tremendous future and it can and will get through to a new dawn of freedom.

And here's another view, civic society in Zim is strong. And undiminished - note; kept strong by the web - still discussing Transitional justice options for Zimbabwe.

The organizations present at the workshop, having agreed on these principles also set non-negotiable minimum demands for a transitional justice process. The civil society’s minimum demands include no amnesty for crimes against humanity, torture, rape and other sexual crimes, and economic crimes such as corruption; no extinguishing of civil claims against the perpetrators or the state; comprehensive reparations for victims of human rights violations; no-one should hold an official office who has been responsible for gross human rights violations and corruption; a credible and independent truth seeking inquiry into the conflicts of the past which holds perpetrators to account and which provides victims the opportunity to tell their story; independent monitoring and reform of the operations and structures of the police, army, paramilitary, security coordination, administration of justice, food distribution and other organs of state involved in the implementation of the transition.

We wait to see whether the deal is as positive as it seems. Whether in any way the guilty will be held to account in Zim. Whether the hope is correct. But what is very, very clear is that if the world has chosen to forget and ignore - as they have in so many other countries - none of this would have happened.

And there's your take-away.

Mugabe has 17% support

Gallup just did a poll:

Zim: unresolved

The all-powerful Joint Operations Command (JOC), comprising military and secret service chiefs, which advises Mugabe on national issues, has taken the hard-line stance that Mugabe should abandon the talks and form a Zanu-PF government, possibly with some ministers drawn from Arthur Mutambara's smaller MDC faction.

"JOC has always been against the talks which could result in Tsvangirai getting some executive powers. Remember, JOC is made up of military commanders who have in the past made it public that they will not allow Tsvangirai to be the leader of the country," one source said.

Tsvangirai has rejected a power-sharing deal in which he would become prime minister and Mugabe remain president, as he says it gives him no real executive powers.

Source

Mbeki's strategy is falling apart. Good.

Notes

Barry in Hawaii.

When Barry visited London, Cameron gave him a box of CDs including albums by the Smiths, Radiohead and Lily Allen. Er, this is not Obama's taste. (Head. Hands ... )

Interesting ... The BBC's crap US election coverage last week had Hillary Clinton atop its list of possible 'Obama running mates'. Now it's flipped to Joe Biden atop and Hillary a-bottom.

Shameless.

As you may have noticed I'm a bit interested in the US election. So the coming week in Denver at the Democrat national convention has especially drawn my interest, in particular what Hillary and her fans will do. Maureen Dowd thinks she'll shit stir and I think she may be right - given that she's yet to slap down her more rabid supporters, aka PUMAs ('party unity, my ass'), and despite them being very few in number and turning into a Roveite Republican black-op.

The reason she lost has been analysed and the internal memos leaked: it was an incredibly badly run campaign.

Dowd's killer quote:

“A woman who wildly mismanages and bankrupts a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar campaign operation, and then blames sexism in society, will dampen the dreams of our daughters.”

Biden has a mouth on him. See Huffpost's video highlights.

According to this article in Africa Confidential, most of the Mugabe regime's ill-gotten gains are being ferreted out of Zimbabwe via UK and South African banks, ending up in either Malaysia or China.

It is this outflow of capital that is more than anything else destroying Zimbabwe's economy. Zimbabwe's capital exporters have intensified their operations as political and economic conditions have deteriorated, promoting a cycle of decline.

Regarding the talks, Zimbabweans have just 'a small measure of weariness and a massive dose of wariness'

Meanwhile, Mugabe's supporters latest tactic is poisoning.

In Haiti people are eating mud cakes.

Israeli civic organisation B'tselem has been giving out camcorders to people in the West Bank to record attacks by settlers and the IDF. Says more than a thousand words and some have already had play on Israeli TV with subsequent slaps on the wrist to soldiers shooting people in the foot and the like.

Here's one. 'Settlers attack shepherds in Southern Hebron Hills'.



Salon's Glenn Greenwald has been the best source on the really odd story about the so-called anthrax attacker. This is ongoing.

UPDATE: Nature, the preeminent journal of science, has an Editorial today (headlined: "Case Not Closed") echoing Sen. Grassley's demand for "a full congressional or independent enquiry into this case"; arguing that "the absence of such a full disclosure can only feed suspicions that the FBI has again targeted an innocent man in this case";

How much public money is a gold medal worth?

In Beijing, each gold medal has cost Australia at least $50 million, says Kevin Norton, a professor of exercise science at the University of South Australia. Or, to put it another way, $12 million came out of the public purse for each medal of any colour. Now we're told these sums are a pittance compared with what is needed to maintain our ranking in London.

What is it with Liverpool? The only big UK city not to host a gay pride and, says, one councillor "homophobia is endemic". This comes in the wake of a underreported killing of a gay teen where the killers got bail.

This story perked me up. I'm out of touch with the state of HIV drugs but according to The Indie cocktails are such now that takers can expect something approaching a normal life expectancy. This isn't everyone and like many of my generation who lived through the worst I fear for the young who are seroconverting in record numbers. But this is progress.

Aw yeah. We can destroy the world and we can be funky whilst doing it!



Quote of the moment:

'It is one thing, and a good thing, to arrest the man, Karadzic,' [Fikret Alic] says. 'He was the big war criminal, the man with the idea for all that happened. But it is another thing to arrest the idea. Karadzic's ideas live on in the existence of Republika Srpska, and if this is all about joining the European Union, for the Republika Srpska to join the EU would be like Europe admitting a part of Germany that still agreed with Hitler, just because it is in Europe. I have rebuilt the house you are staying in now, but in 1992 it was burned while my grandmother was inside - she is one of the 3,205 people still missing - and I was taken to Omarska. No one has ever said sorry for what they did, no one has ever helped us to return and the authorities oppose outright any monument in Omarska to what they did.'

And on a much lighter note when asked 'How do you relax?' sez Dizee Rascal 'A blow job relaxes me'.

Send Mugabe a Red card

Reading this? Hate Mugabe?

Click and do something.

The organisers of a march on the SADC conference this weekend in South Africa (which Tsvangirai was blocked from attending) have appealed to Avaaz for international support, and will carry signs at the march representing the "red cards" sent by Avaaz members.

So join and send a red card.

We, the undersigned, issue a red card for Mugabe — and urge Southern African leaders not to recognise Mugabe as President; to acknowledge that the Mbeki-brokered talks have failed — and to urgently devise a new negotiating process to bring a just and democratic resolution to Zimbabwe’s crisis.

Don't just read this! Click and do something! It all helps!

'Interference' + Zimbabwe

Vitaly Churkin, the Russian Ambassador to the UN, was quoted as justifying their veto of the recent UN Resolution on these grounds: “This draft is nothing but the council’s attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of a member state.”

Now although I know there are strong arguments against sanctions (Simon Jenkins made some excellent points in the Guardian), 'interference' is already happening, only it's not being reported.

Quite apart from the opinion of (and attempts at securing 'interference of) a number of neighboring states, primarily Zambia and Botswana, today's Independent reports that foreign mercenaries are part of the terror campaign - the most ruthless part. Someone is allowing this or turning blind eyes.

Mugabe already hosts another dictator (Ethiopia's Mengistu). Now comes news that some of the Hutus who engaged in the Rwanda genocide are there too, such as Protais Mpiranya, the former head of the presidential guard during the 1994 genocide. He is on the wanted list of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, but is suspected to have strong business links with senior Zimbabwe army officers.

[The mercenaries] dress in army fatigues, carry Russian-made guns and are accompanied by interpreters when out with the militias.

Patrick Chitaka, the MDC chairman in Manicaland province in the east of the country, said the foreigners had been identified in the past two to three weeks supporting government-backed men.

Mr Chitaka said: "We have observed that some of the people leading the violence are foreigners because they speak a different language and they do not understand our local languages.

"Also the tactics they are using are not peculiar with Zimbabweans because they are cutting out the tongue, removing eyes and genital parts. We are not sure where they come from."

"There are between six and 10 foreigners in each base, and there are 20 Zanu bases in the two constituencies. They wear military uniform, carry guns especially shotguns which we think are Russian. They are cruel and brutal. Each unit has an interpreter who tells them what to do. People here live close to several borders and they know Portuguese from Mozambique and languages from Malawi and Zambia. [These people] don't speak any of those or English.

There have previously been reports of Chinese soldiers:

The Chinese, together with about 70 Zimbabwean senior army officers are staying at the Holiday Inn, in the city’s central business district.

There are about 10 Chinese soldiers. “We were shocked to see Chinese soldiers in their full military regalia and armed with pistols checking at the hotel,” said one worker.

“When they signed checking-in forms they did not indicate the nature of the business that they are doing and even their addresses.”

And news as well that in order to boost its jamming operations against the UK based SW Radio Africa and Voice of America's Studio 7, Mugabe's regime recently received another shipment of the latest in radio wave jamming equipment from China.

Landing records, shown to us at the Harare International Airport by port authorities, confirmed that the government received the equipment on May 17. The equipment was among several other items the Chinese delivered, including an assortment of sophisticated military surveillance hardware.

They are also looking to 'block' web news sources, whether they are using the Chinese expertise for that the article doesn't say.

“The independent media, has made our lives difficult,” one official, working in the ZANU-PF information department, said. “The strategic leaks into the independent media of our plans by enemies within ZANU-PF, has meant that the world knows everything we about to do, hours before we do it.”

"With the list at hand, the task of the CIO, with intelligence officials from the military, will indentify, and eliminate all journalists working for these pirate news organizations," officials privy to the details said.

More Zapiro

Meanwhile the Zimbabwean economy is hitting another technical brick wall:

The bigger problem is the mess in the banking computer systems, which can only handle a maximum payment of Z$999 999 999 999.00 per transaction.

'Interference' is already happening, China and Russia and South Africa and all the others who shout about it. Only it's on Mugabe's side. This is hardly surprising. The BBC has uncovered hard evidence that China is militarily backing Sudan in Darfur.

Our shame: official, imposed destitution

Protest by Zimbabwean refugees - the banner reads 'you take our nurses but not our wounded'

In a story buried in almost all the media, Gordon Brown has misled people on his government's attitude to Zimbabwean refugees.

According to the Press Association:

The deportation of failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe has now been halted, Gordon Brown said.

The Prime Minister told MPs that while officials continued to deal with the issue on a case-by-case basis, no returns were currently taking place.

“No-one is being forced to return to Zimbabwe from the United Kingdom at this time,” he said.

Mr Brown, who has been under pressure to stop the deportations in the wake of the violence surrounding the disputed presidential election, said that ministers were also looking to help failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers who were unable to work.

It is noticeable that the story fails to quote press statements such as by the Refugee Council's Donna Covey.

They were not deporting anyway because of a legal challenge - it’s not news, it's not some great act of charity, source G.Brown, which might please his Minister father.

What’s desperately needed is that the Zimbabweans in the UK are granted ‘leave to remain’ so they can work.

At the moment 11,000 are officially destitute. Many are homeless and begging. All are reliant on charity. This is intolerable.

What Brown said was, frankly, a lie.

This is what the Refugee Council said:

The Refugee Council will tomorrow accuse the government of “utter hypocrisy” as its Chief Executive, Donna Covey, addresses a rally outside Parliament calling on the government to give Zimbabwean asylum seekers leave to stay in the UK and allow them to work.

Thousands of Zimbabweans have been refused asylum in the UK, yet the government admits it is not safe to send them back. They are left homeless and destitute, with no entitlement to any support or the ability to work and support themselves.

It comes close to a charade for the Foreign Secretary to applaud the courage of refugees from Zimbabwe in South Africa, while in this country Zimbabwean refugees are being left to rot.

“The current situation amounts to a policy of saying to Zimbabweans, we won’t return you but our protection will amount to you being allowed to stay and beg on our streets.

“If the government had a shred of decency it would act now, to give Zimbabweans some temporary status in this country, allowing them to work and indeed to reskill so that they are better placed to help rebuild their country when the Mugabe regime falls.”

Unfortunately we have a strong anti-refugee movement led by the media outlets which aren't covering this or quoting the Refugee Council, and this is why it's so difficult to get pressure on G. Brown to do something about the situation of the Zimbabweans.

The government hides behind blatant falsehoods about their system's supposed 'fairness' but the reality is as I explained: official destitution.

They have merely suspended deportations to Harare but only after being forced to by being taken to court.

I and many Brits find this shameful. We live in the fifth biggest economy and most other European countries - or for that matter African countries - do not behave this way. At least they let people work.

And it's not just Zimbabweans. We are now sending refugees back to Darfur. And because the system which creates this is getting no media coverage, British people haven't a clue about what's being done in our name.

Web power: From the Zimbabwe underground to the G8

Two days ago the Zimbabwean civic organisation Sokwanele published this photo on their blog.

It is of the mutilated and burnt corpse of Joshua Bakacheza, MDC driver for Mashonaland West and discovered late on Saturday. Many people apart from the 103 confirmed dead are also missing. It had taken his family two weeks to find it.

Joshua and another MDC supporter, Tendai Chidziwo, had been assisting murdered MDC activist Tonderai Ndira’s wife to move her furniture and personal belongings as she no longer felt safe at her home in Mabvuku, a sprawling township on the outskirts of Harare.

Their truck was ambushed by 16 Zanu-PF thugs, leaving Tonderai’s widow and her two children standing by the roadside, trembling from fright and crying.

Joshua and Tendai was taken to a torture centre and tortured and then shot. Tendai miraculously survived, he directed the family to where the corpse might be found.

Sokwanele have a Flickr page which hosts this photo and many others, and a Google Map, as well as the blog, where they are documenting the terror campaign.

Yesterday Gordon Brown used this photo at the G8 summit to convince his fellow leaders of the need for action against Mugabe's murderous regime.

The meme is that he was producing it from his back pocket. (It was also mentioned on his Twitter feed).

From determined family to Sokwanele to the G8 - this is an amazing moment in web history.

I have read many comments on Sokwanele's blog about whether their documentation is worthwhile, whether people elsewhere can make any real impact. Today showed that they could and the web is enabling this; this is worth noting and I am amazed that none of the news reporting about Brown's actions have sourced the photo back to the web and the heroic people behind Sokwanele.

Postscript: What is more, well, amazing is that in my correspondence with Sokwanele they do not care if credit is given.

These people are my heroes.

Zimbabwean exiles abandoned, left destitute

One image from the terror campaign: More

Cross-posted from LGBT asylum news also on Wardman Wire

The UK Prime Minister is currently in Japan lecturing people about doing more to oust Robert Mugabe.

At the same time his government is doing everything it can to oust the opposition to Mugabe from the UK.

This week 11,000 Zimbabwean refugees received letters asking them to return to a country described by the same government as undergoing a campaign of terror orchestrated by a military cabal. No opposition is brokered and activists are being hunted down and killed.

These refugees are being denied a right to work or any official support (because they are 'refused' to return because they are terrified and do not have 'leave to remain') so they are - officially - destitute and many are homeless and some beg to survive. This is the practice adopted by the UK government to force people to return.

It is hypocrisy of the highest order. Many poor African countries have accepted thousands more Zimbabwean refugees, in South Africa millions. Yet the fifth richest country in the world refuses basic support to the very same people it is praising in Zimbabwe - Mugabe's opposition.

The sole reason is because the UK government is beholden to a few media proprietors who propagate lies about asylum seekers to make money from populist fears.

The government has been trying for some time to forcibly send people back to Zimbabwe - there was a court case which highlighted the unreported issue this week.

Donna Covey, Chief executive of the Refugee Council said:

“The legal ping pong over the removal of Zimbabweans is now becoming farcical. The Judges in explaining their decision today said as much, making the point that the test case going through the courts is more than a year old, and based on even older evidence, while the situation in Zimbabwe is clearly deteriorating day by day.

“It’s now time for the government to drop the legal action and do the decent and sensible thing. It should give all Zimbabweans a temporary right to stay in the UK until the situation in their country improves markedly. This would allow the Zimbabweans, many of whom are well qualified, to work to support themselves and to carry on making plans for rebuilding their shattered country once the Mugabe regime falls.

“The current situation, where brave Zimbabweans who have stood up for democracy and human rights are left homeless and destitute in the UK, having been refused any protection, is a disgrace.”

Sir John Waite, co-chairman of the Independent Asylum Commission, which has just published a report on the asylum system in the UK, described the situation as a source of shame.

He said: "We heard testimony from many Zimbabwean asylum seekers and we were shocked by what we found - Zimbabweans sleeping on sofas, in parks and launderettes, reliant on charity and prevented from working."

He added: "Our nation's leaders have loudly condemned the Mugabe regime, but perhaps we should also look a little closer to home, to the thousands of Zimbabwean asylum seekers who have been left in a harsh legal limbo - unable to work, deprived of welfare and unable to return home. If the British people had heard what we have heard from destitute Zimbabweans, they would be troubled and perhaps even ashamed."

A march and rally is due to be held in Westminster on Friday, to ask for asylum seekers from Zimbabwe to be given status and the right to work. It will begin in Parliament Square, outside Westminster Abbey, at 1.30pm.

It will be preceded by a special service at St Margaret’s Church Westminster Abbey, led by the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu.

• Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's website
• Foreign Secretary David Milliband's blog

• The Still Human Still Here Campaign
  Dedicated to highlighting the plight of tens of thousands of refused asylum seekers who are being forced into abject poverty in an attempt to drive them out of the country.

First: Zimbabwe vote-rigging filmed

The Guardian has an astonishing underground video of vote-rigging in the Zimbabwe election as well as how the violence is organised and of MDC Deputy Tendai Biti, a heroic man, in prison.

The video was shot by a very brave police officer. Police were made to vote in front of 'war veterans' - no secrecy.

Shepherd Yuda, a 36-year-old prison officer, fled the country two nights ago. His wife and children are with him. He said he hoped the film, much of which was shot inside his country's notorious jail system, would help draw further attention to the violence and corruption in Zimbabwe.

Yuda, who has worked in the prison service for 13 years, was motivated both by the increasing violence directed towards members of the Zimbabwean opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and the murder two months ago of his uncle, an MDC activist.

Initially, he had just intended to chronicle secretly what life was like inside the country's jails but he found himself present when a war veteran and Mugabe supporter organised the vote-rigging by getting prison officers to fill in their postal ballots in his presence.

Using a hidden camera, Yuda filmed for six days prior to the run-off election last week in which Mugabe claimed victory with 90% of the poll. The MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had earlier announced that his party would not be participating because of the intimidation.

"I had never seen that kind of violence before," said Yuda, of the run-up to the election. "The impact has left a lot of orphans; it has left a lot of people displaced. You cannot expect that from your government. You expect that from a rebel group. How can a government that claimed to be democratically elected kill its people, murder its people, torture its people?"

The video will also be shown on BBC Newsnight.

According to the MDC, over 1500 party officials and activists are now in custody.

103 supporters have been murdered by Zanu PF supporters but not a single Zanu PF supporter has been arrested.

Postscript: Shepherd has a history of resistance. In 2001 he was suspended from the prison service for supporting the MDC.

Postscript: Now on YouTube

Zimbabwe economic collapse very near

Sokwanele:

The new week dawned with even more dramatic news. The USD, trading at over 30 billion to 1 on Friday opened the day at over 60 billion.

As the cash crisis grows, the disparity between the street and the business rates widened as the former relies on the availability of hard cash. When it is in short supply, desperate relatives of economic exiles compete for the ever diminishing ZWD by reducing the price.

As it stands now, no matter the size of the corporation or business, the limit on daily cash withdrawals still remains at ZW $25 Billion, enough to buy 6 fresh eggs!

Likewise, employees do not have enough days in the month to withdraw sufficient cash to pay for their groceries as the financial sector nears collapse.

The OMIR sits at 66 Billion to USD1 and the Hard Boiled Egg Index Fair Value Rate has risen to 28 Billion which is just above the street rate.

Mugabe may literally run out of money - protests have started at the Munich based printers, Giesecke & Devrient, who produce Zimbabwe's money, including, finally, by the German state. Because the trade is a tiny fraction of the company's income, as with Tesco they may well decide to stop the bother and the supply.

UPDATE: Pressure pays, they've stopped supplying notes.

A visibly rattled Mugabe at Sharm el-Sheikh

And the winner is ...

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