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"They
will not stop until they are stopped"
Judith
Todd
June 30 2005
1. I
am glad of the greatly increased and increasingly thoughtful coverage
of Zimbabwe in South Africa over the past fortnight because this
means we can today move straight into trying to address some of
the concerns of Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad who says that
the South African Government is not ignoring events in Zimbabwe,
but is at a loss as to what to do.
"We are trying to find a solution, but the problem is that we have
done everything we possibly can. We can't work out what else is
expected of us." - Sunday Times, June 26 2005.
2. Background
Firstly, it would be helpful to clear up some confusion which persists
regarding the background of the Zanu (PF), Robert Mugabe regime.
Just last December, for example, the ANC expressed its unequivocal
support for Zanu
(PF) through former deputy secretary-general Henry Makgothi at Zanu
(PF)'s fourth congress when he said, reading from a prepared statement:
"Our national executive of the ANC and the people of South Africa
are confident that Zanu (PF), as a party of revolution, will continue
to play a leading role to assert the political and economic independence
of Zimbabwe. As the ANC we take pride in the bilateral relations
that we have forged over the years of the struggle .The ANC wishes
to reiterate our firm support for the people of Zimbabwe under the
leadership of Zanu (PF)."
What was being blinked at here was the fact that the bilateral relations
forged during those years of struggle had been between the ANC and
ZAPU, under the leadership of Joshua Nkomo, while ZANU, under the
leadership of Robert Mugabe had stood with PAC, not ANC, lonely
and rejected on the outskirts of the OAU. Some also have missed
the significance of the progression of events since 1980 in Zimbabwe
which went, very briefly, as follows:
- 1980 elections
where Zanu (PF) kept large numbers of their fighters out of the
Assembly Points in order to ensure victory through intimidation
before people even got to the polls for Zimbabwe's first ever
elections.
- From those
elections onwards the emasculation of Zapu's military wing, ZIPRA,
under the Minister of Defence R. G. Mugabe which went hand in
hand with;
- The crushing
of ZAPU. This repression escalated significantly from the beginning
of 1982 with treason charges being brought against the two top
commanders of ZIPRA, Lookout Masuku and Dumiso Dabengwa and other
top military men and Zapu politicians. The same tactics were used
later against Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC.
- The deployment
of the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade into sections of Matabeleland
and the Midlands where, apart from a general campaign of terror,
they were furnished with lists of people in Zapu structures to
kill. As Robert Mugabe said at the passing out parade of the Gukuruhundi
Brigade December 1982, "The knowledge you have acquired will make
you work with the people, plough and reconstruct. These are the
aims you should keep in yourself". Plough and reconstruct.
- The 1985
elections which, although won by Zanu (PF), did not give Mugabe
a sufficient number of seats to change the constitution as he
wished. To punish those who voted against him he broadcast in
Shona urging his followers to go and rip the weeds from their
gardens and stump their fields which some of them did, burning
houses and businesses of perceived opponents and leaving over
2000 homeless in Matabeleland, Midlands and Harare, and leaving
scores dead. To punish the whites he sacked Denis Norman as Minister
of Agriculture.
- The culmination
of all these events meant that by late 1987 the spine of ZAPU
had been broken and "unity" achieved. Mugabe was declared Executive
President. ANC's old friend ZAPU was effectively dead and those
survivors of Zapu who remained or were forced to remain in the
hierarchy of Zanu (PF) were routed by the new opposition party
MDC in the 2000 elections. SK Moyo, Zimbabwe's Ambassador now
to South Africa was one of these, humiliatingly defeated in his
home constituency of Bulalima Mangwe on the borders of Botswana.
To punish those whom he thought had supported the MDC Mugabe destroyed
commercial agriculture and thus the economy of Zimbabwe.
3. Deception
By the skilful deployment as top diplomats of people formerly identified
with ZAPU and/or Joshua Nkomo like SK Moyo to South Africa, Kotsho
Dube to Nigeria, Report Phelekezela Mphoko to Botswana Zanu (PF)
have managed to prolong the fiction of being old allies from the
struggle for liberation. In fact today's Zanu (PF) is nothing more
than a criminal mafia which has hijacked Zimbabwe. Many of its servants
from the old Zapu are used and kept in place today by a mixture
of bribery, blackmail and terror, forever having to look over their
shoulders to see who is listening.
That brief background serves only to illustrate that what is happening
today is nothing new. It is simply an intensified operation to get
rid of the last vestiges of perceived opponents now described by
the head of police Augustine Chihuri as a crawling mass of maggots.
No one must allow themselves to be deluded about what is going on
in Zimbabwe. Just as Gukuruhundi was designed to kill, so is Operation
Murambatsvina. If, in bitter winter, you deprive people and their
children of shelter and thus also their food and clothing and warmth;
if you deprive them of their tools of trade and their means of survival
you do this for one reason only; you intend them to die. As a report
published in the UK Independent last week stated: "Aids, starvation
and depopulation of the cities is sending tens of thousands to a
silent death in the rural areas" where, jobless and homeless, they
are waiting to die. Daniel Howden was reporting from Brunapeg Hospital
on the border of Botswana from where help could still be made available
to the dying people he writes about, if the will was there to provide
it. It was the Independent who published the chilling statistic
that already the death rate is outstripping the birth rate by 4000
per week.
I remind you once more of the words of Didymus Mutasa now Minister
of State for National Security, Lands, Lands Reform and Resettlement
in the office of the President. In August 2002 he said "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."
They have been planning Operation Murambatsvina for a long time.
As Mugabe was reported just this morning on South African radio
it has been a campaign planned well in advance and has been "a long
cherished desire".
4. Possible action
a. Recognise the fact that while those who continue to oppose the
regime from within Zimbabwe need all possible support they cannot
be expected to drive change internally because of:
- the destruction
of the rule of law, the judiciary, the press and the economy
- the brutalisation
of the population including both the victims and the perpetrators
- the consequences
of attrition. It is estimated that 70% of the 18-65 age group
now live outside the country
- they have
no means of protecting themselves
b. There should
be no more solidarity of any kind with Zanu (PF) and no more political
cover - e.g. blocking efforts by the UN Human Rights Commission
to send a fact finding team and blocking efforts to get these issues
raised in the UN General Assembly and waiting for reports from whomever.
The meetings of the G8, the African Union and the United Nations
in the next weeks should be used as launching pads for very serious
action to be taken against this genocidal regime including gathering
evidence of crimes against humanity within Zimbabwe since 1980.
I do not use the word genocidal lightly. Even before the unleashing
of Operation Murambatsvina it was estimated that 4 million Zimbabweans
were in grave danger of starvation. If our population now stands
at about 10 million the deaths of 4 million plus people will bring
the statistics down to the figure given publicly by Didymus Mutasa
as desirable - 6 million.
c. Even now some form of loosening up of Zanu (PF) structures could
be started with complicit people like Chihuri perhaps through his
contacts in Interpol, or, on different levels, Ambassadors and High
Commissioners being offered leniency in return for their assistance
in providing information and resistance of all kinds to the regime.
A lot of those complicit now will want the chance to run for cover.
Stop all arms sales; all sales of spare parts; all bank loans; everything
that can extend the life of the regime. The longer the life of the
regime is extended the more people will die. The regime will not
stop with what we know so far of Operation Murambatsvina. THEY WILL
NOT STOP UNTIL THEY ARE STOPPED.
d. Appoint a very strong Ambassador to Zimbabwe and a full time
Presidential envoy to liaise with all groups in clearing the way
to a conference on a new constitution which should probably be convened
in South Africa. In order to compel all involved to move towards
a constitutional conference all pressure possible should be brought
to bear on members and servants of the regime, like the denial of
visas either to or through South Africa or SADEC countries until
they are compliant. Total sanctions should be imposed and, if necessary,
Dennis Brutus should be called back from the USA to talk to South
Africans like Gerald Majolo, Cricket South Africa chief executive
about sport and politics.
Support should be made available to all civil society organisations
in South Africa who are trying to assist counterparts and others
in Zimbabwe and to Cosatu and the SACP and the councils of churches
with their efforts
regarding Zimbabwe.
e. Enunciate the fact clearly and loudly that the people of Zimbabwe,
Nepad, the Commonwealth and the African Union are more important
than Robert Mugabe and Zanu (PF). Mugabe has only a little time
left on earth but the
people of Zimbabwe and their history will continue for ever. They
will want to know about silent diplomacy and how they were affected.
When Mugabe has gone and the era of silent diplomacy has come to
an end what will South Africa have to say to the people of Zimbabwe?
f. Inventory of the destruction of Zimbabwe and a corresponding
assessment of people able to come home for the reconstruction.
g. Instead of the electric fence being switched on along the Botswana
border, start immediately providing vast help to the affected and
dying people over the Zimbabwe border. If I remember rightly South
Africa flew water to victims of the Asian Tsunami. Hundreds of thousands
of Zimbabweans just over your borders need food, water, medicine,
clothing, shelter. They are within the reach of helicopters from
South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique.
"In a tiny scene, captured by a hidden tv camera filming the political
cleansing Robert Mugabe has visited on Zimbabweans, one shot expressed
a moment of great poignancy. A man reached out and stroked the arm
of his daughter as she walked away from him and he gazed down, eyes
shaded, at the ground. It was the gesture of a second, hopeless,
it seemed, because he could do nothing more to protect or soothe
her than this touch, a gesture which only told her he was still
a living being, and reassured him that she was too". - John Lloyd,
Father's Day, The Scotsman, reprinted in NETGO News June 19 2005
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