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Mediation did not understand the core of Zim problem
Global Zimbabwe
October 29, 2008

http://swradioafrica.com/pages/mediation291008.htm

We are writing to express our worry of the imminent collapse of mediated agreement. It seems the mediation team were not aware of what brought Zimbabwe to its knees. They saw it as a conflict between two parties, being a matter of choice for Zimbabweans between two warring parties. They thought a mediation to bring the parties to work together is the answer. They missed the problem, and unfortunately we are only watching from the side. If the mediation team understood the Zimbabwe problem they would have included the actual allocation of cabinet appointments during the mediation. The mediation secured an agreement because they did not touch the very core issue which has paralysed the country. Let us explain it again:

Zimbabwe cannot move forward as long as there are vigilantes/terror groups in the rural areas who stop the rural people from expressing their vote freely. The details of how it operates were transmitted to meditation through South African foreign affairs. The rural people are watched by vigilantes, executioners who live there and are paid salaries. THESE VIGILANTES ARE NOT ZANUPF PARTY ACTIVISTS. They are under a command structure of a few so-called war veterans (one or two per village armed with AK47s). A village is about ten rural homes. They abduct, torture, kill, beat publicly, banish, eliminate, rape and do whatever they want to control the rural voters to force them to follow the wishes Robert Mugabe and his top lieutenants. There is no media there and cameras are confiscated by the same vigilantes. In this blind corner they hurt people to force them to vote ZanuPf. The trick is that they are not arrested. They succeed in controlling the people because they are not arrested. They are a law onto themselves and are protected by police and CIO, and are paid monthly salaries to do their jobs.

It is not the entire Zanu which is involved but a few top figurers with Mugabe at the helm, who appoints a police chief and arranges with them not to arrest these vigilantes. If the victim reports his fate, the police arrest the victim, claiming someone has already reported earlier. When rural numbers drop, through migration to cities and exiles to SA, Mugabe pushes more people into the rural areas e.g. Operation Clean up, farm invasions etc. Even ZanuPf cannot change itself. Whatever you do, Mugabe will come out winner via the rural areas system.

Three ministries work together to enforce control and strangulation of Zimbabwe.

• The Home Affairs (which is the police) to protect the vigilantes. If the vigilantes are not protected the people fight back as they often do, when the army and green bombers are deployed to support these vigilantes. But the army is not key here. It is police protection (by not arresting them) which is key. In urban and peri-urban areas police arrest, detain opposition and harass and torture people. If Mugabe loses this ministry his stranglehold on the country fails because a new police minister will instruct police to arrest everyone who breaks the law, bringing an end to this paralysis or stranglehold.
• Finance - to pay these vigilantes, the CIO and network of security structures using government coffers. These structures can lie low, but can be activated and paid any time.
• Information - to propagate divisive and confusing propaganda, banning media. The nation is divided by the way the media churns out propaganda. The rural people think Tony Blair is around the corner because of the way they are bombarded with propaganda.

If mediation cannot separate these 3 ministries, by allowing Mugabe to control these 3 ministries, then there is no way Zimbabwe can free itself to move forward.

We will withdraw our support to this mediation if it preserves the core of the problem. If mediation separates these 3 ministries, Mugabe will walk away from the deal. If mediation cannot separate these 3 ministries, Zimbabwe is back to square one. Those in the Diaspora face a huge trap into they are forced to go back to.

Are you not surprised that people who admit they are suffering, starving to death, crossing crocodile infested rivers, yet they are always voting the same thing? The truth is they cannot change their lives as those who try to move out of Mugabe stranglehold are banished and become refugees inside and outside the country. Our view is that President Mbeki is aware of the rural control. If so, his support or recommendation for Mugabe to take control of these ministries transfers the liability for the death and starvation of these people to the doorstep of South Africa.

There are other ministries and governor appointments still to agree on, together with threat to financial interests of top Zanu members, which they are not willing to give up.

Our suggestion to break the impasse on the question of Home Affairs, is the appointment of a SADC police commissioner, one of whose tasks will be to eliminate rural terror structures and clean the police. At independence a Pakistani army general was appointed, so its not new.

*Luke Zunga is the treasurer of the pressure group Global Zimbabwe

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