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Zimbabwean
political analyst says country's political culture violent and coercive
VOANews.com
February
26, 2004
A leading Zimbabwean
political analyst has started a policy research institute in South Africa
o give Zimbabweans a voice in shaping a new policy agenda. He says the
country's political culture as become violent and coercive.
The founders of the
Zimbabwe Institute say they are trying to create a research center that
will help open the political debate in Zimbabwe, and act as a force for
change.
Through workshops,
conferences and research, they hope to - in their words - add a new dimension
to he struggle for social liberation in Zimbabwe and the collective pursuit
of social justice.
Political scientist
Brian Raftopoulos will chair the institute. He says the current political
environment in Zimbabwe is closed and repressive.
"Clearly, there is
an urgent political solution needed in Zimbabwe. That is a solution that
can only come out of a dialogue between the two major political parties.
And, at the moment, the major force deciding the pace of that dialogue
is President Mugabe himself. That does not mean that there is not room
for other forms of engagement about a future process, about discussing
alternative visions of what's necessary in Zimbabwe."
The institute will
not say where its funding comes from, citing privacy agreements with some
of its major donors. Its director, Isaac Maposa, says the initial budget
will be between 200-thousand and 300-thousand dollars, mostly going toward
research and consultants in Zimbabwe.
At the institute's
launch in Johannesburg, Mr. Raftopoulos sat between two officials from
Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change.
He acknowledged that the institute's secret funding and its links to the
opposition party could leave it vulnerable to criticism, particularly
from the Zimbabwean government.
But Mr. Raftopoulos
says he is not concerned about how the government might perceive the institute,
and he thinks it would be painted as pro-M-D-C no matter what he says.
But he insists that the Zimbabwe Institute will be independent and non-partisan.
"The institute emerged
out of initial discussions with the M-D-C, but the idea is that it should
not be an instrument of the M-D-C. It should also be critical of issues
within the M-D-C. So, the idea is to try and get a broader debate within
Zimbabwe, because at the moment there is real closure of debating space
and political space in the country."
Although the Zimbabwe
Institute aims to foster debate on policy matters within Zimbabwe, for
the time being at least, it will actually not be located there. The institute's
headquarters is in Cape Town. Mr. Raftopoulos says that is only temporary,
because of what he calls operational problems in Zimbabwe.
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