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Guardian.co.uk
By David Smith in Johannesburg
Thursday 29 October 2009

The United Nations torture investigator said today he would recommend action against Zimbabwe after he was detained on arrival at Harare airport and deported.
Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said he had been invited by the prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, and wanted to investigate reports of rising violence and intimidation. He believes that the president, Robert Mugabe, may have given the order to deny him entry.

“I have never been treated as rudely by any government as the government of Zimbabwe,” Nowak said after arriving back in Johannesburg, South Africa. “This mission has now failed. A lot of money was wasted because of the unacceptable behaviour of the government.”

The “serious diplomatic incident” happened days after Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change disengaged from Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party, citing human rights violations and persistent breaches of their power-sharing agreement.

A delegation of ministers from southern Africa began talks with the parties yesterday in an attempt to prevent the unity government from collapsing.   »Click here to continue reading

New York Times
By Celia W. Dugger and Caiphas Chimhete
October 16, 2009

JOHANNESBURG — Eight months after entering a power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai announced Friday that he and his party would boycott cabinet meetings and withdraw from dealing with Mr. Mugabe’s party, in the biggest breach yet in the transitional government.

“It is our right to disengage from a dishonest and unreliable partner,” Mr. Tsvangirai said at a news conference in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital.

The catalyst for this step was the jailing Wednesday of Roy Bennett, Mr. Tsvangirai’s deputy agriculture minister-designate, a white farmer who is scheduled to stand trial Monday on three-year-old terrorism charges that his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, says are fabricated. But even after Mr. Bennett was granted bail on Friday after the news conference, officials in his party said their decision to disengage had not changed.

“This is the time for us to say enough is enough,” said Thabitha Khumalo, a spokeswoman for the M.D.C.   »Click here to continue reading

The Daily Telegraph
By Peta Thornycroft in Zimbabwe and Sebastien Berger
15 October 2009

Zimbabwe’s unity government has been plunged into crisis after the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change staged a boycott following the jailing of its treasurer Roy Bennett.

Mr Bennett has been remanded in custody on terrorism charges widely seen as spurious.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the prime minister and MDC leader, cancelled the weekly meeting of the council of ministers, which works in parallel with the cabinet, and did not go to his office.

Tendai Biti, the finance minister and MDC secretary-general, said: “We will not be taking part in any official functions at present. The prime minister has cancelled the council of ministers meeting and we will be meeting as a party in the morning to discuss this.”

There is outrage within the MDC that Mr Bennett, who has not yet received a copy of the formal charges against him, was sent for trial in the high court, prompting his automatic re-arrest in the eastern city of Mutare, despite a court order compelling the state to start proceedings against him or release him.   »Click here to continue reading

SW RadioAfrica
By Violet Gonda
6 October 2009

A rather subdued Robert Mugabe finally opened the Second Session of the Seventh Parliament on Tuesday, where Morgan Tsvangirai was also present at the official opening for the first time as Prime Minister. Several parliamentarians also said that for the first time there were no tensions in the House while Mugabe was delivering his speech which was ‘relatively devoid of his usual nastiness.’

Observers say it appears the political rivals may have made some concessions to be ‘civil with each other’. Last August Mugabe was humiliated and left rattled after MDC-T parliamentarians jeered, heckled and sang ‘ZANU PF is rotten’ during his speech, but there was none of that this time around. Some MDC MPs, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were told by the top leadership in the inclusive government not to repeat last year’s performance.

One of the MPs said the instructions came via the party’s chief whip in parliament, Innocent Gonese, who allegedly told the MPs there would be no heckling. One disappointed MP said: “It was one of those sad and boring days in parliament where you just sat there and listened to an old, sickly man delivering another useless message to the nation.”   »Click here to continue reading

The Standard
By Alex Magaisa
20 September 2009

THIS week marked the first anniversary of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) between Zanu PF and the two MDC parties. Signed amid pomp and ceremony on September 15 2008, it became the basis of the Government of National Unity that has been in power since February 2009.

I still haven’t worked out why it is referred to as a ‘global’ agreement. Nobody has ever explained.
The term that came to mind when asked about the first year since the GPA was ‘Gringo Dish”.

I first heard of it many years ago and have always understood it to denote a dish containing an unlimited number of incongruous ingredients. It is a dish that you have not out of free will but because that’s what is on the table. You eat because you have to survive. So you squirm and close your
eyes in pain whilst forcing it down the throat as a matter of necessity.

For that is what the first year has been: a mixture of everything – the sweet, the sour and the bitter. ‘Gringo dish’ therefore seemed to me to be an appropriate label. Here are some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the first year of the GPA:   »Click here to continue reading

Guardian.co.uk,
By Blessing-Miles Tendi
Sunday 13 September 2009

At a summit last week, southern African leaders called on western states to “remove all forms of sanctions against Zimbabwe”. They contend that Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal cannot be effectively implemented until sanctions are lifted. The EU and US say sanctions will not be lifted until the power-sharing agreement is appropriately observed.

Disagreement over the imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe is not new. It goes back to 2002 when, at the request of Britain and some Zimbabwean civil society elements, the EU first imposed targeted sanctions on Robert Mugabe, Zanu-PF elites and companies associated with the Zanu-PF regime. African leaders’ reaction to sanctions at the time was typified by Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa’s remarks:

As you have heard about Zimbabwe and the EU’s decision to impose sanctions, it seems they want to divide Africa at Brussels in 2002 just as they did in Berlin in 1884. Africa must be prepared to say no!
Zanu-PF’s response was a determined propaganda effort to cast Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as “sell-outs” who campaigned for the imposition of unjustified sanctions that were “racist” and an interference in the country’s internal affairs. Since 2002 Zanu-PF has religiously circulated this message, depicting Tsvangirai’s MDC in cahoots with imperialist western states.   »Click here to continue reading

Zimbabwe Guardian
Comment
By Philip Murombedzi
Monday 24 August 2009

WHEN President Robert Mugabe shared a platform with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in February, the world was astonished and amazed by the show of unity, discourse and advancement taking place. But when the new Cabinet was sworn in on the grounds of State House, jaws fell right open.
The leadership of our country embarked on a road to recover the economy of our country and repair the fabric of our society.

When we are confronted with common problems we start working together in harmony.

A recent interview by education minister David Coltart expressed the dire need to reform our education system. Undoubtedly on opposite ends of the spectrum for the bulk of their political careers, minister Coltart and his colleagues in Cabinet have found common ground in the urgency of saving our failing schools, educating our children and providing them with the just opportunity to lead Zimbabwe to a state of unparalleled prowess.

The two MDCs and Zanu PF have fought on nearly every issue, often times representing the far ends of their parties, and probably still do on other issuse, but on education reform they have found a basis for shared concern: the future of today’s youth.   »Click here to continue reading

Sunday Mail
Political Editor Munyaradzi Huni
22 June 2009

BACK in the days, one would talk about the covert operations of the Westminster Foundation in Zimbabwe.

The Western governments could not pour their regime change funds directly into the MDC coffers because of the Political Parties (Finance) Act that prohibits local political parties and candidates from receiving foreign funding. And so organisations like the Westminster Foundation came in handy.

Alternatively, some shoddy non-governmental organisations were formed to receive the “dirty” funds under the guise that they were advocating the restoration of the rule of law, human rights and democracy.

Back in the days, it was diplomatically not possible for foreign governments to dictate and prescribe to the Government what policies to implement. This was done through international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB).

That was then.

Today, the regime change agenda is still the same and those covert operations are being announced in front of cameras and in broad daylight — thanks to the inclusive Government — that has opened many opportunities for different political games.   »Click here to continue reading

The Chronicle
11 June 2009
Political Editor

THE dust is beginning to settle following the fierce debate that erupted over the process of drafting the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

It should be borne in mind that Zimbabwe is using the Lancaster House Constitution of 1979, which was basically a negotiated political settlement that did not necessarily reflect the views and aspirations of the masses.

As a result, it is generally agreed that this was more of a transitional mechanism than a blueprint drafted by the people and it is therefore inadequate in meeting the needs of the general populace and generations to come.

The Lancaster House Constitution has consequently been amended a record 19 times.

If it were a pair of trousers, it would by now be threadbare with a lot of patches that would make it ugly and the person wearing it a subject of ridicule.

That is why in 1999, a process to draft a new “people-driven” constitution was initiated and spearheaded by commissioners appointed by President Mugabe in terms of the Commissions of Inquiries Act.   »Click here to continue reading

Zimbabwe Times
31 May 2009
By Jakaya Goremusandu

THE debate over remarks by Samuel Sipepa Nkomo suggesting an imaginary theory to slice Zimbabwe into tiny territories is, to put it mildly, based on a puerile and careless intention to divert attention from pressing national issues that urgently require Zimbabwe to rise from its own ashes.

Nowhere in the MDC policy documents, private and public positions or even the party constitution is there a plan now or in future to dismember Zimbabwe into little pieces reflecting the supposed various ethnic demographics of the country. Over the past two centuries, Zimbabweans have developed a common blood among themselves through inter-marriages, other indelible links and complex kinships.
The MDC was born out of a vibrant civic movement, initially calling for comprehensive political and economic reform, none of which anchored itself on a secession agenda, or a separate geographical autonomy arrangement. The party mirrored a strong national sentiment for inclusion – away from the divide-and-rule tactics and the arrogance of Zanu-PF.   »Click here to continue reading