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VOA
By Delia Robertson & Blessing Zulu
Johannesburg & Washington
23 September 2008

The resignation on Tuesday of 11 South African ministers following that of President Thabo Mbeki increased concern the shuffle in Pretoria could have a negative impact on the delicate power-sharing transition already running into difficulty in Zimbabwe.

VOA’s Delia Robertson reported from Johannesburg that Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said he would be willing to work with the incoming president.

The resigning ministers included Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi, a key member of the outgoing president’s Zimbabwe mediation team.

Top ZANU-PF and MDC officials said the Pretoria crisis could lead to the collapse of the Zimbabwe power-sharing process if it is not properly managed. However, they were all quick to add that Zimbabwe is in charge of its own destiny.

Nonetheless, political analyst Sydney Masamvu of the International Crisis Group in Pretoria told reporter Blessing Zulu of VOA’s Studio 7 for Zimbabwe Mufamadi’s resignation increases the risk that the Zimbabwe peace process could founder.

Meanwhile, inter-party discussions on forming a unity cabinet seemed unlikely to resume until Oct. 5, when president Robert Mugabe will be back in the country. Mr. Mugabe has traveled to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly and was expected to address the general assembly on Thursday afternoon.

Developments in Harare, meanwhile, indicated the gap between the parties to the Sept. 15 power-sharing agreement is widening. An opinion piece in the state-controlled Herald newspaper signed by Nathaniel Manheru, believed to be a pen-name for Mugabe spokesman George Charamba, has caused consternation among MDC officials.

The columnist warned against conducting an audit of land in the hands of ministers and top officials of Mr. Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, branding the MDC leadership “traitors.” the writer asserted that it is Mugabe’s sole prerogative to name ministers.

The Guardian,
Tuesday September 16 2008
Editorial

Thabo Mbeki has got his deal in Zimbabwe, although too late, probably, to save his own skin in South Africa. Robert Mugabe retains the presidency and control over the army, and Morgan Tsvangirai, the man who bears the physical scars of his regime, has at last got executive power as prime minister. Will any of this work? As the opposition Senator David Coltart said, the deal signed yesterday means that virtually all of the cabinet members nominated by the two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change have now to sit down with the very people who ordered them to be brutalised.

For those seeking justice for the hundreds killed, the thousands injured, and the tens of thousands who have lost their homes, this was always going to be hard to swallow. Mr Mugabe has got away with murder, at least for the time being. But if the two factions of the MDC can work together - and that is a big if - the former liberation fighter turned autocrat will still have lost, and lost disastrously.
He retains the army, but the generals will abide by the constitution. The MDC gains control of the police, which is vital if elections are to be held in two years time. No one is in any doubt that if free elections were held, Zanu-PF would be wiped off the map. The issue is what happens between now and then. Zanu-PF are expected to retain control of the prisons and the prosecuting authorities. They fear that prosecutors, unleashed from their control, would do to them what they did to the MDC. But that still leaves the MDC not only with finance (they will be the conduit of the foreign aid package) but also the ministries which spend money, like health and education.

New York Times
By Celia Dugger
15 September 2008

HARARE, Zimbabwe — After almost three decades of untrammeled power, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe on Monday signed an agreement that gives his longtime rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, the authority to shape and carry out government policies as the country’s new prime minister.

The power-sharing deal, a momentous development in one of the world’s most repressive countries, was celebrated by a rambunctious audience of Tsvangirai’s backers who clapped, hooted, danced and chanted from purple upholstered seats.

Among them were party activists who had gone into hiding for months before the June runoff election — widely denounced as a sham — and others who have been victims of state-sponsored violence over the years.

“I came to make sure my big fishes have not betrayed me and to make sure I’m walking in a free country,” said Godknows Nyamweda, 36, a local ward councilor here who rolled up his sleeve to show scars where he said he had been sliced by a knife.

As a brass band struck up a gospel tune, opposition supporters put their own words to it, singing, “Tsvangirai, can I turn to you in hard times?”

The question is whether this deal will help bring better times to a country where the economy has been shrinking for 10 straight years, most people are out of work, millions are hungry, and inflation tops an almost incomprehensible 11 million percent.

Some political analysts think the agreement, almost two months in the making, may be the beginning of the end of Mugabe’s years in power, while others doubt he will relinquish control of the security forces that have enforced his 28-year rule or question whether the two men can work together given the animosities between them.

Episcopallife online
September 15, 2008
[Ecumenical News International]

Christian leaders and organizations worldwide have welcomed the announcement of an agreement to form a unity government in Zimbabwe, while also saying that many challenges lie ahead for the southern African nation.

“We have an opportunity,” the Rev. Ishmael Noko, a Zimbabwean theologian who is general secretary of the Geneva-based Lutheran World Federation, told Ecumenical News International on September 12. “It is a great opportunity for the dark clouds that have been hanging over Zimbabwe for all these months and years to be lifted.”

South African President Thabo Mbeki had announced the previous evening that an agreement on a power-sharing deal between Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s leader since the country’s independence from Britain in 1980, and Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change party.

Mbeki said details of the agreement would be released when it was signed in Harare on September 15.
“The churches should position themselves to be guarantors if this agreement is truly signed,” said Noko. “They should ensure that it is implemented, and they need to stay as custodians, on behalf of the society, to see that the agreement is honored.”

Mugabe won another five-year term as president in June as the result of a one-candidate presidential run-off election after Tsvangirai pulled out, citing a wave of violence against MDC supporters.
According to official results that the MDC disputed, neither candidate gained an overall majority in the first round of the presidential election in March. In parliamentary elections held at the same time, Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party lost its majority of seats for the first time since independence.

Senator David Coltart, a Zimbabwean Christian who helped found the MDC in 1999, described the agreement, which also includes a smaller MDC faction, as “historic.”

By David Coltart

Nine years to the day since I stood with Morgan Tsvangirai, Gibson Sibanda, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube and many other patriots on the 11th September 1999 at Rufaro Stadium to launch the MDC a deal has been agreed in Harare tonight to bring to an end 28 years of brutal Zanu PF rule.

The bare bones of the deal are as follows. Constitutional amendment 19 will shortly be moved in Parliament. It will enable to the setting up of an inclusive Government which in turn will initiate an all inclusive process of Constitutional reform (which will include civil society). That process will last 18 months by which time a new democratic Constitution must be implemented, which will also include a time frame for new elections at some point to be conducted in terms of the new Constitution.

The inclusive Government will have Robert Mugabe as President with greatly reduced powers to those he enjoys today. There will be two, largely ceremonial, Vice Presidents from Zanu PF. Morgan Tsvangirai will be Prime Minister. Although he does not have absolute power he does have substantial power. For example he will advise Mugabe on all future appointments including Judges, Ambassadors and the like. There will be two Deputy Prime Ministers, one from MDC T and one from MDC M.

There will be a slightly cumbersome arrangement for conducting Government business which is the essence of the compromise agreed to following the impasse of the last 4 weeks. Cabinet will be chaired by Mugabe; Tsvangirai will be the vice Chair. Then there will be a Council of Ministers chaired by Tsvangirai which will supervise the work of Cabinet.

By David Coltart
9th September 2008

During the last few weeks there has been frenzied media speculation that Robert Mugabe has entered into, or is about to enter into, a deal with the MDC formation led by Arthur Mutambara (MDC M ) *1 see below. The MDC M in honouring the terms of the MOU has steadfastly maintained a media silence which in turn has created a vacuum of information. That vacuum has been filled by media speculation, propaganda issued by ZANU PF and statements made by leaders of the MDC formation led by Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC T). In addition a few belligerent statements of Arthur Mutambara and the attendance of Arthur Mutambara and other leaders at State house and elsewhere have reinforced the perception in the minds of the public and that there is indeed a deal. Indeed many newspapers, with some noteworthy exceptions such as the New York Times, have taken it as given that there was a deal reached. Whilst the existence of a deal has been emphatically denied, the controversy surrounding the election of Speaker in the last week has served to enhance the perception that there is some deal.

It is my belief that there is a very serious gap between the public’s perception of what is taking place and the truth. It also deeply concerns me that erstwhile colleagues in the struggle to bring democracy to Zimbabwe appear to have deliberately distorted the truth for partisan ends. I cannot see how that can advance our just cause; all it serves to do is to further divide those who oppose the Zanu PF regime. In short I believe that there needs to be a truth telling so that all those genuinely concerned with the Zimbabwean crisis can be better informed.

The Zimbabwe Times
September 8, 2008
Geoffrey Nyarota

THE campaign pitch of President Robert Mugabe in recent elections has been consistent.Since the electorate shocked him out of deepening complacency in the aftermath of the constitutional referendum held back in February 2000 Mugabe has sought to portray himself as a patriot, while presenting his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, as nothing more than a groveling puppet of the West.

Mugabe and the former ruling Zanu-PF have paraded themselves as paragons of post-colonial political virtue, while dismissing those who oppose them as shameless sell-outs, permanently at the beck and call of a dispossessed white farming community and a Western world seeking to re-colonise Zimbabwe.

In the world of make-believe painted by Mugabe and his surrogates at Zanu-PF campaign rallies, political correctness entails having nothing or as little as possible to do with white people especially those of Zimbabwean commercial farming stock or with the representatives, even accredited diplomats, of Western nations, particularly the United Kingdom, the United States or Australia.

This essentially racist posturing was evolved and fine-tuned in the period after the 2000 referendum, when it suddenly dawned on the Zanu-PF leadership that they no longer enjoyed the fawning support and unquestioning loyalty of the Zimbabwean electorate.

Evidence abounds, however, that Mugabe’s and Zanu-PF’s racist pretensions are based on a false premise and shrouded in hypocrisy and double-speak. Zanu-PF has thus continued to delude both itself and party loyalists over the years simply because its rivals in the MDC have somehow allowed the party to get away with what essentially amounts to telling two self-serving falsehoods.