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Groups push for non-payment of debts incurred by Mugabe
Nqobizitha Khumalo, ZimOnline
February 14, 2008

http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=2705

Bulawayo - Civic groups say they will campaign for any new government that assumes power next month not to pay for debts that were incurred by President Robert Mugabe to sustain repression against Zimbabweans.

The civic groups said while the people of Zimbabwe had an obligation to pay for debts accrued for infrastructural developments such as roads and hospitals, they should not pay for debts accrued to sustain dictators.

Lovemore Madhuku, the chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) pressure group, said yesterday that civic groups were unanimous that debts incurred to sustain Mugabe's brutal regime would not be honoured.

"Civic society agreed that any debts accrued to build infrastructure should be paid back . . . but we will not pay for debts for the supply of weapons and tear gas that is continuously being used against the masses," said Madhuku.

Madhuku, a strong critic of Mugabe's government, cited loans given to Harare by the Chinese and Libyans to buy military hardware among those that he said were likely to be ignored by any new government.

Mugabe has over the past eight years secured loans from Libya, China and Malaysia as well as from Equatorial Guinea in West Africa raising fears that the Zimbabwean leader was mortgaging the country to foreigners.

At least 50 non-governmental organizations met for their National People's Convention in Harare last weekend to decide which political party to support in next March's parliamentary and presidential elections.

The meeting however ended in disarray after civic groups clashed over which candidate to back in the election that is likely to be a three-horse race pitting Mugabe against his former finance minister Simba Makoni and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

The civic groups also expressed their dissatisfaction with plans for the elections saying any elections that would be held in Zimbabwe under the present "defective" constitution would remain illegitimate.

"We hold that all elections in Zimbabwe remain illegitimate without the ushering into existence of a new democratic and people-driven constitution. This means that all elections held hereafter remain without national legitimacy and merit if not undertaken under a new people-driven constitutional dispensation," said the groups.

The civic organisations said the political environment in the country has remained characterised by a lack of respect for the rule of law, political violence, a lack of fundamental rights and freedoms, including freedom of expression and information.

Zimbabwe is in the grip of an acute economic crisis critics blame on repression and bad policies by Mugabe. The veteran Zimbabwean leader says he is ready and raring to go for the 29 March election.

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