Zimdaily
12 January 2009

ZIMBABWE – HARARE – Senator David Coltart of the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC says the main MDC must join government saying there is no other viable non-violent option open to Zimbabweans.

“The combined MDC should join the transitional government under protest and reserve its right to withdraw from the government if need be,” Coltart said.

It is exactly four months since the September 15 Global Political Agreement to set up an all-inclusive Government was signed by the principals of Zimbabwe’s three main political parties, President Mugabe’s Zanu-PF, the main MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai and the Mutambara faction.

The agreement was hailed by the SADC summit a few days later, but most analysts agreed that it lacked a time-frame and was riddled with contradictory statements.

There were far too many issues left undecided, and a whole series of subsequent negotiations have still not settled them.

Coltart said: “In short, there is no alternative but to press for the September agreement to be implemented, warts and all.”

Coltart said as bad as the agreement is, there was no other viable, non-violent option open to Zimbabweans.

He said an appeal to the African Union or the UN against what the SADC has arranged and endorsed, will be fruitless.

Critics say the Mutambara faction is desperate to get into government because its leader
had no claim whatsoever to be deputy Prime Minister given that he did not contest the presidential election and also lost parliamentary elections in Zengeza, where he was thoroughly drubbed by the main MDC’s Collin Gwiyo.

The MDC has refused to join the government as a junior partner and efforts to get SADC to resolve the outstanding issues have been futile.

At its October 27 extra-ordinary summit, SADC sidestepped issues raised by the main MDC and narrowed the dispute to the Home Affairs ministry, which the regional bloc recommended should be jointly run by Zanu-PF and the MDC, while Mugabe retained exclusive control of the army and the intelligence despite losing elections.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai described that resolution as a “nullity” and branded SADC leaders “cowards.”

Coltart however insisted that there was no other way to go around the problem saying the issue has failed to be tackled even at the highest level of international diplomacy. He said the US and Britain’s attempts to raise Zimbabwe’s humanitarian crisis in the UN Security Council flopped. Russia and South Africa vetoed action on Zimbabwe.

“While strong statements made by (British Premier) Gordon Brown, (US President) George W Bush, (German chancellor) Angela Merkel and (South African Nobel Peace Laureate) Desmond Tutu have called for the removal of Robert Mugabe, there is little prospect that their rhetoric will translate into action,” Coltart said.

“There is no stomach in the West for military intervention and many of us opposed to Mugabe would not support such a policy.”

Coltart said a spontaneous uprising was also unlikely.

“Zimbabwe does not have a pressure-cooker environment such as existed in East Germany where young people, usually the vanguard of any uprising, are forced to remain in the country,” he said.

“Zimbabwe has two safety valves – Botswana and South Africa – to which most of the young opponents have escaped. Most people left in the country are physically weakened by the collapse of the economy and the humanitarian crisis.”

Coltart noted that the newly-created office of Prime Minister, to be given to Tsvangirai, will have huge de facto power.

He said the success of the transitional government will depend on the amount of international assistance that can be raised, noting however that there was so much disdain for Mugabe that there is no prospect of any assistance coming through his door.

“The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, European Union and other governments and institutions will want to channel all their aid through the office of Prime Minister,” Coltart added.

“MDC also will hold the Finance ministry, giving Tsvangirai enormous power and an effective veto. If he decides to withdraw from the transitional government, aid will dry up at the same time.”
But the US government and its key allies has stated that it will not provide any financial support to a government with Mugabe at the helm.

Coltart said Zanu PF’s fixation with controlling the coercive ministries has resulted in it ceding control to the combined MDC of nearly all the service ministries, such as health and education, likely to have the biggest impact on the lives of Zimbabweans.

“If the MDC improves services, which should not be too difficult given that most government departments have all but collapsed, it will increase its support,” Coltart said.

He said the agreement obliges the transitional government to liberalise the political environment and to start, immediately, a process of constitutional reform that must culminate in a new democratic constitution being enacted within 18 months.

Both Sadc and the AU have guaranteed the agreement including these provisions, he said.

“In addition, for all the criticisms levelled against SADC governments in the past few months, they have demonstrated a commitment to enforce all the terms of the agreement and it will be in regional governments’ self-interest to ensure reform continues,” he said.

Coltart said Zanu PF was now a shadow of its former self. Mugabe turns 85 in February and is increasingly out of touch with reality.

“He has retained some of his patronage system, ironically, because the transitional government has not been set up, but once it is he will be even weaker,” he said.

Constitution Amendment No. 19 Bill, which gives legal teeth to the September agreement, has just been gazette and Coltart claims by mid-January it should be passed into law, making the process of transition almost irreversible.

But the main MDC has threatened to block it unless other key issues are also settled, namely, the continuing violence, the fair allocation of ministries, key government appointments and the functions and composition of the National Security Council.

Mugabe on the other hand is refusing to budge.

Infact, the prospects for an inclusive government being set up look less and less promising after Mugabe’s rhetoric at the end of last year, with Tsvangirai holding out for a genuine share of authority, citing the recent evidence of the torture of MDC cadres and civil society activists accused of supporting the MDC.

“The wider international community including the IMF, World Bank, UN, EU and the US, is going to have to give the agreement a chance by helping to stabilise Zimbabwe’s economy and address the humanitarian crisis,” Coltart said.

“While there is understandable scepticism about the agreement, it is important that these concerns do not become a self-fulfilling prophecy. One thing is certain. If the MDC is unable to improve the lives of Zimbabweans, the agreement will fail and the region will be further destabilised.”

He continued: “Some argue that if the MDC waits a while the Mugabe regime will collapse. This is a possibility but a huge gamble. There is every chance that in the event of Mugabe losing power some of the more radical elements within the military may seize power, which in turn could see Zimbabwe degenerate into even worse forms of anarchy than exist at present.

“Furthermore, a wait-and-see policy will not address the extreme humanitarian crisis that needs to be resolved immediately if the lives of potentially hundreds of thousands are to be saved.”

Zimbabwe is in the vortex of a perfect humanitarian storm; an unprecedented convergence of AIDS, poverty, hyperinflation, malnutrition, a regime that does not care and, now, cholera. And the humanitarian crisis has its roots in the political crisis, Coltart said.

“There is no doubt that the agreement is seriously flawed,” Coltart said. “The powers of the Prime Minister are weak and the prospects of securing consensus in a Cabinet in which the combined MDC factions have a narrow majority are limited. Scepticism in the West may also result in limited support for the transitional government.”

Coltart acknowledged that Zanu-PF has demonstrated extreme bad faith since the signing of the agreement and is unlikely to change even once the transitional government has been established.

There has been a surge in abductions of human rights and political activists. Zanu PF also retains all the coercive ministries, including defence, the secret police and the police.

“Zimbabweans suffer from such a victim mentality that there is a danger that in focusing so much on the negative aspects of the agreement we will ignore the real opportunities that the agreement provides to transform Zimbabwe from an autocracy to a democracy,” he said, adding joining government was the only option available to the main MDC.

Washington Post Foreign Service
By Karin Brulliard
Sunday, January 11, 2009

As More Perish and Poverty Deepens, Kin Abandon Traditions

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Noel Nefitali died of cholera on Dec. 28 at age 35,
though no one passing by his grave site would know that.

The cheapest chipboard coffin and funeral parlor fees alone had sent his
family far into debt, making a $10 painted grave marker seem a luxury item.
With regret, they flagged the dirt mound with a jagged chunk of concrete
scavenged from the street.

“I don’t think he is happy,” Nefitali’s 21-year-old son, Gilbert, said in
the back yard of the township house where he and 10 other jobless relatives
survived on his late father’s income from hawking candy at a market.
“Because he was buried like a bandit.”

The family’s story is another example of the twisted arithmetic of crumbling
Zimbabwe. In a nation where life expectancy is in the mid-30s, graveyards
fill more quickly than ever, spurred by a collapsed health-care system,
hunger, AIDS and a raging cholera outbreak. But massive unemployment and the
world’s highest inflation rate are pushing burial costs out of reach and
causing proud funeral traditions to wither.

Some Zimbabweans turn to overseas relatives or elected officials for help,
but for many, the things that once seemed crucial for a dignified farewell
are gone. No more flowers or fancy coffins. No more engraved granite
tombstones, which cost hundreds of dollars and are often stolen anyway. No
more mourning for a week over meals of warm cabbage, soft cornmeal and
freshly slaughtered beef.

For the Nefitali family, it meant no white gown for Noel’s body or blankets
to lay over it and under the coffin, according to tradition. Not even tea
for visitors.

His death was a brutal and swift blow, emotionally and financially. However
meager his earnings, Noel was the family’s breadwinner.

On Christmas Day, he went to a party. The next day, the vomiting and
diarrhea started. On the 28th, severely dehydrated, he died. Though cholera
has been coursing through their suburb, Mabvuku, where sewage collects in
street-side pools, the family did not consider that it had infected strong
Noel, his son said.

On a recent hot afternoon, Noel’s father reached into his thick cardigan and
pulled out the crinkled blue receipt from Angel Light Funeral Services: Body
removal, $60. Administrative fee, $40. Mortuary charge, $120. Undertaker’s
fee, $50. Total: $270.

Then, a note at the bottom: Paid $50 and “left phone Samsung Slide.” The
family had one week to pay the balance or they would lose one of their
prized possessions, the cellphone. To the coffin shop, they owed an
additional $40, Gilbert Nefitali said.

It is difficult to compare how much it would have cost in the past, before
everyone, including the funeral homes, demanded U.S. dollars. But Gilbert
Nefitali said he is sure he could have managed.

“Five years ago, it was possible. You could at least give your relative a
decent burial,” he said. “We could feed the mourners. They were taking Zim
dollars then, and people had little, but enough to spare.”

Much used to be different. Two decades ago, before Zimbabwe’s enviable
infrastructure and robust economy broke down under the leadership of
President Robert Mugabe, the average life span was 60 years. Now, according
to the United Nations, about 20 percent of adults are HIV-positive. In five
months, cholera — a disease easily preventable with clean water and good
sanitation — has killed nearly 1,800 people. Public hospitals have shut,
and private health care is an impossibility for the 80 percent of people
estimated to be jobless.

Cemeteries tell part of the story. Noel Nefitali was buried in a row of
fresh mounds in a weedy field of graves over which grass has not had time to
grow. One grave in the section is flagged only with a yellow Zimbabwean
license plate that emerges horizontally from the earth. Nearby, according to
metal markers painted with block letters, lie Pinos Muchakazi, dead Dec. 29
at age 17; Sheila Jayiro, dead Aug. 2 at age 44; and Virginia Njeku, dead
Nov. 16 at age 19.

“You can go to any of our cemeteries at any time of day, on any day of the
week, and you will see two, three, sometimes four or five funerals taking
place,” said David Coltart, an opposition party senator. “Our hospitals
should be full to overflowing, and yet they’re empty. People are at home,
dying.”

In the economy of teeming Chitungwiza, a suburb south of Harare, the
capital, death is a clear player. Funeral parlor signs, roadside headstone
carvers and coffin workshops are common sights. But they are not necessarily
flourishing.

One longtime carpenter, Mazakwatira Kafera, got into the coffinmaking
business last year. He said many customers must barter for the plain, $100
pine coffins that take him 30 minutes to assemble. A young tombstone carver
said business has dropped since granite prices forced him to quintuple the
cost of his simplest model, to $200.

KC Funerals prepares few lavish ceremonies now, making most of its revenue
from its mortuary, which handles overflow from packed hospital morgues.

“The funeral industry seems to be the only viable industry at the moment. .
. . The death rate is high,” manager Tapiwa Chitekeshe said from behind his
front counter, above which hung a framed poster of Mugabe. But, he added,
“situations are very, very hard. People will break down their wardrobe to
make a coffin.”

The burial indignities extend to the public sector. One health official who
works in the lone cholera treatment center in Chitungwiza, where the illness
had killed 148 people as of Jan. 5, said the government long ago ran out of
body bags. Now cholera victims, whose bodies and graves must be sprayed with
disinfectant, are interred in three plastic trash bags — one each for the
head, torso and feet.

The official said many families cannot afford the coffins required in
Zimbabwe, where regulations still thrive amid the chaos. So corpses stay in
the morgue, sometimes rotting because of power outages, he said.

“Some of my colleagues, witnessing people in dire poverty, they just bury
them in plastic,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity
because he feared government retribution. “It’s not allowed. But the
situation is what it is.”

To cope with funeral costs, many poorer Zimbabweans used to join burial
societies, clubs whose members gathered in smart uniforms and paid dues to
foot the bill when a member died. But Phillip Makawa, a leader of the
Zimbabwe Burial Society in Chitungwiza, said the economic collapse has
changed even that. His society, founded in 1982, has lost two-thirds of its
membership since last year, he said, because monthly dues of a few dollars
are too much.

The remaining members still meet in their white shirts and black pants each
month, now to discuss what they will do when the inevitable happens: two
burials in one week and not enough money to pay for them.

“We are looking for members,” said Makawa, 46, who said he tries to impress
on people the need for funeral preparations. “How can I express it? Nowadays
death is a thing. Death can come at any time, to anyone. Young, old, middle
age.”

It could soon befall the Nefitali family again. Of the 11 remaining
household members, four were ill from cholera on a recent afternoon. Three
were in the hospital, but the family knew nothing of their conditions,
because they could not afford the bus ride to visit, and the cellphone that
sometimes rang with updates was now at the funeral parlor. Inside the dark
house, Gilbert Nefitali’s grandmother lay ill under a heap of blankets, but
there was no money to take her to the hospital.

Clean water would help, he knew. But tap water had run only once in two
months, he and neighbors said, and the electricity or firewood needed to
boil it was rarely available.

Sewage seeped into the borehole water the family purchased from neighbors,
Gilbert Nefitali said, but what were the alternatives?

“We wouldn’t know where to start,” he said, imagining another funeral. “For
sure, the situation is critical.”

Financial Gazette
8 January 2009
By Njabulo Ncube, Political Editor

Of PF ZAPU and year of the bull
Njabulo Ncube, Political Editor

ASTROLOGISTS from the country’s all-weather friends — the Chinese — say 2009 is the year of the bull or ox.

With ZANU-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) seemingly miles away from forming an all-inclusive government due to inherent sharp differences; could 2009 turnout to be the year of the actual revival of PF ZAPU?

This question becomes relevant seeing as PF ZAPU’s political symbol is a charging bull.

Dumiso Dabengwa, the former ZIPRA intelligence supremo was at the end of 2008 — the year of the rat — given the full mandate to resuscitate the party when he was unanimously elected chairman of PF ZAPU.

Dabengwa, who quit ZANU-PF early last year to dabble in opposition politics, firstly with former finance minister Simba Makoni’s Mavambo/Kusile/ Dawn project, said PF ZAPU, would hit the ground running this year.

The PF ZAPU revivalists have retained the black-charging bull as the party’s symbol, which party proponents expect to charge into the political territories of both ZANU-PF and the MDC.

While ZANU-PF and the two MDC formations have dismissed the revival of PF ZAPU as a non-event, its proponents are adamant that the mainly Matabeleland-based party would use 2009 to sell itself to the electorate disgruntled with ZANU-PF and MDC shenanigans.

There are fears if Tsvangirai decided not to join the unity government led by President Robert Mugabe this year, 2009 could turn out like 2008, the year of the rat or worse still 2007 — the year of the pig.
Will the black charging bull stand up to be counted in 2009 upon ZANU-PF and MDC failing to form a coalition government?

“Of course, we are a better alternative,” Dabengwa said.

Analysts are however, not giving the revived PF ZAPU much chance saying the party had come late into the political scene to make an impact just like Makoni’s project.

The party is also being viewed as a tribal project and not the old Joshua Nkomo-led PF ZAPU that had national appeal.

According to analysts, focus would remain on the MDC and ZANU-PF, and not PF ZAPU, given the pressing challenges facing the country and the efforts made so far in resolving them.

Eldred Masunungure, a professor of political science at the University of Zimbabwe, said judging by the political developments that have taken place, prospects for 2009 were very bright for the country.

Masunungure said he was very optimistic ZANU-PF and the two MDC formations would implement the shaky power-sharing deal brokered by former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, in September 2008.

“I am overly optimistic that something will happen in the first half of 2009 anchored on the controversial power-sharing deal,” he said. “I think the power-sharing arrangement will take off. When it takes off, I can foresee the downward trend the country has been experiencing in the past years being arrested and the nation start rebuilding.”

Masunungure said all the three main political parties have no option but to ensure that the power-sharing deal succeeded in 2009.

He added: “I am not pessimistic and I think that is why President Mugabe has given a two-month breathing space before proceeding with a unilateral government. He will in the meantime find ways of salvaging a political settlement. There is no other option other than this power-sharing arrangement. All other options are blocked,” he said.

Ernest Mudzengi, a political analyst drumming up support for a people-driven constitution, expressed pessimism over the formation of the much-awaited coalition government.

“I foresee another complicated year in which ZANU-PF will try to hang on to power at the expense of democracy,” Mudzengi said. “We are going to see more repression,” he said.

Mudzengi said ZANU-PF and the two MDC factions were miles apart, saying the power-sharing deal cobbled by Mbeki was fundamentally flawed as it excluded other stakeholders such as the churches and civil society organisations.

“I don’t see the power-sharing deal succeeding. There are no indications to that effect. We need an all-inclusive government, which is real, not this horse and rider kind of partnership. We want a democratic government based on people’s will,” he said.

On December 17 2008, President Mugabe wrote to opposition leaders Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara informing them of his intention to set up an inclusive government in terms of the Inter Party Agreement signed on September 15 the same year.

President Mugabe went further to invite both Tsvangirai and Mutambara to submit names of people they propose to hold ministerial and deputy ministerial posts as allocated them under the power sharing deal endorsed by a full Southern African Development Comm-unity summit.

“The Inter Party Agreement provides, among other things, for the appointment of Mr Tsvangirai as Prime Minister and two Deputy Prime Ministers, one to come from MDC-T and the other to come from MDC-M,” reads part of the letter written by President Mugabe.

President Mugabe stated in the letter that the Inter Party Agreement further stipulated the appointment of 31 ministers with 15 to come from ZANU-PF, 13 from MDC-T and 3 from MDC-M as well as 15 deputy ministers with eight to come from ZANU-PF, 6 from MDC-T and one from MDC-M.
He said the allocation of the ministries to the respective parties had been completed in accordance with the provisions of Article 20.1.3 (l) and then proceeded to attach a document reflecting the allocation of the ministries as a “reminder.’

Documents in possession of The Financial Gazette indicate the Mutambara camp is agreeable to President Mugabe’s overtures to form a new government.

MDC-M sources said their political formation had already compiled names for people they earmarked to hold ministerial positions in the all-inclusive government President Mugabe is understood to be pushing to put in place by February when he returns from his annual leave.

“While fully appreciating the utmost urgency of the matter, may I, your Excellency, respectfully suggest and request that the matter of nomination of individuals to ministerial positions be resolved by way of a meeting of the principals so that the nominations may be reflected upon by the principals,” Mutambara replied.

Mutambara reportedly met President Mugabe on December 31 last year to discuss the formation of the inclusive government.

While the MDC-T has expressed reservations in joining the all-inclusive government citing a number of outstanding issues in the power-sharing deal, MDC-M sources indicated that Mutambara would be appointed one of the deputy Prime Ministers, party secretary general Welshman Ncube, the minister of Industry and Commerce, Senator David Coltart, minister of Education, Sports and Culture while Priscilla Misihairambwi-Mushonga would be appointed minister of Regional Integration and International Cooperation.

Bright Matonga, the deputy minister of information and publicity, told state television and the international media that President Mugabe was proceeding with preparations for a new government in 2009.

Matonga said Tsvangirai should come back home from self-imposed exile in Botswana and join the coalition government.

“Tsvangirai should join the government. President Mugabe has invited them to come along and form the new government. So 2009 holds a lot for the country if Tsvangirai becomes serious. We can’t be held at ransom by him,” he said.

VOA
By Peta Thornycroft
26 December 2008

Lawyers representing detained pro-democracy activists and officials of the Movement for Democratic Change say police have refused to release any of those who the Harare High Court ordered freed on Christmas Eve. At least six of the nine who were charged with terrorism and were abducted weeks ago by state security agents, were transferred on Christmas from police cells to Zimbabwe’s main maximum security prison.

Lawyers for the activists say Jestina Mukoko, who heads the Zimbabwe Peace Project and was abducted from her home by armed men on December 3, was taken to the Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison early on Christmas Day. So were five others, including a two-year-old child.

Judge Yunus Omerjee had ordered that they be taken to hospital after they had been charged in the Magistrate’s Court earlier in the day.

The judge also ordered that several others who had also been abducted be freed from police cells where they had turned up early in the week after being held in a secret location. He said their detention was illegal.

Lawyer Alex Muchadahama said Friday that he has no access to any of his clients at the maximum security prison or at various police stations around Harare.

He and another human rights lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, said many court orders were ignored by the police. Mtetwa said in the past most judges were too afraid to charge the police with contempt of court for defying many court orders.

She said the lawyers will continue to try to get the court order acknowledged, but she held out little hope.

President Robert Mugabe has said that the Movement for Democratic Change was training insurgents in Botswana, which both the MDC and the Botswanan government deny.

David Coltart, a veteran human rights lawyer who has defended Mr. Mugabe’s political opponents since 1980, said the police force have a long history of refusing to obey court orders. He added that Mr. Mugabe had regularly ignored the rule of law.

No one is sure how many people have been abducted since October. The majority were kidnapped by security agents in December.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, in temporary exile in Botswana, has said he will have no more negotiations with ZANU-PF for an inclusive government unless all those abducted and now detained, are not freed or appear in a court of law by January 1.

Council for Foreign Relations
December 24, 2008

Washington Post
o Clear Conscience: In an editorial, the paper writes that the incoming White House counsel finds no problems with how Barack Obama’s staff dealt with Rod Blagojevich, adding that without any indication of impropriety, Obama and his team can put the Blagojevich business behind them.
o Syria Mood: In a reading of a recent interview given by Bashar al-Assad, Op-Ed Columnist David Ignatius detects a more relaxed, open minded Syrian President who seems to be looking for a new start with Barack Obama after years of chilly relations with George Bush.
o Zimbabwe Options: David Coltart, a Senator and member of Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change, writes that the only way out of the current crisis is the transitional agreement inked in September by President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

France 24 TV
Friday 19 December 2008
By ALEX DUVAL SMITH – CAROLINE DUMAY – GRAHAM WALSH (video)

Thirty years since Zimbabwe’s liberation and Robert Mugabe’s regime is still on the same warpath. Today’s enemy is the political opposition, accused of being western puppets. Human rights activists are the regime’s new target.

Senator David Coltart, human rights lawyer declares: “In the last month or so almost 20 people have been abducted and nobody knows who they are.

“We have obtained court judgments compelling the government to release them. They deny they are holding them but we cannot find them and we know they were last seen in the hands of state operatives.”

They fear the latest disappearances are the cynical endgame of a regime seeking to silence those who know too much.

The Independent
By Daniel Howden, Africa Correspondent
Wednesday, 17 December 2008

The notorious Air Marshal Perence Shiri, who orchestrated the Matabeleland massacres in 1982, is said to have been shot in the arm in an assassination bid.

President Robert Mugabe is planning to declare a state of emergency in Zimbabwe, the opposition said yesterday, after what the government claims was an assassination attempt on the head of the air force.

Perence Shiri, one of Mr Mugabe’s inner circle, was shot in the arm on Saturday, claim state media reports that surfaced yesterday. Attacks of this kind are almost unheard of in Zimbabwe, where the opposition Movement for Democratic Change has insisted on using peaceful means. There has been no independent verification of the shooting.

A day earlier, the Zimbabwe government accused neighbouring Botswana, whose President, Seretse Ian Khama, is among the few African leaders to openly criticise Mr Mugabe, of training rebels to launch a coup attempt. The accusations were strenuously denied, but opposition leaders fear they will be used as justification for another violent crackdown on political opponents.

A senior opposition leader, Tendai Biti, said the ruling party was getting ready to declare a state of emergency as a prelude to outlawing the MDC. “We have no doubt they are going to declare a state of emergency,” he told the Zimbabwean agency, Newsreel.

Air Marshal Shiri was reportedly ambushed on the way to his farm, which was seized from a white farmer in 2000, and is now recovering in a Harare hospital. The Home Affairs Minister, Kembo Mohadi, said this had been an attempt to destabilise the country. “The attack on Air Marshal Shiri appears to be a build-up of terror attacks targeting high-profile persons, government officials, government establishments and public transportation systems,” Mr Mohadi told the state-controlled Herald newspaper. On Monday, the Justice Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, was quoted as saying he had “compelling evidence” that MDC members were being trained in Botswana to fight.

As the tensions rise, the Zimbabwe people are in the grip of what opposition Senator David Coltart has called the “perfect humanitarian storm”. A cholera outbreak has claimed at least 1,000 lives, the UN says, with officials from Zimbabwe’s health ministry privately saying the real figure could be at least five times higher. With the collapse of the health system, Zimbabweans have been flocking across the borders to South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique in desperate search of medical assistance.
Mr Mugabe, 84 and the only leader Zimbabwe has known, claims cholera is being used as a cover for foreign intervention, and one of his ministers accused the UK and US of using “chemical warfare” against the country, already facing civil disaster. The economy has shrunk faster than any peacetime economy in history, leading to unprecedented hyperinflation and the meltdown of all industries. Despite the crises, Mr Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF party have refused to honour a power-sharing agreement with the opposition, reluctantly signed after losing elections in March.

The government has consistently accused the opposition of terror attacks but has provided no evidence. Rights groups and journalists, including The Independent, have documented hundreds of cases of torture, coercion, murder and false imprisonment of opponents of the regime. Mr Biti said civil rights activists and MDC members had been abducted and tortured to obtain fake confessions of involvement in training camps in Botswana. The state was preparing to release video footage of these “confessions” to justify a fresh crackdown.

In recent weeks, more than two dozen leading critics of the government have been abducted. Zimbabwe’s own high court has called for Jestina Mukoko, director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, who was taken from her home in Harare, to be released. Police denied detaining her and claim not to know her whereabouts.

South Africa’s former president, Thabo Mbeki, mediated a power sharing agreement during the summer but Mr Mugabe has ignored the terms and tried to retain all meaningful authority with the ruling party. The political stalemate has dragged on for months and the MDC leader and would-be prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai is being prevented from re-entering the country because the government refuses to renew his passport.

Hopes that Mr Mbeki’s arch-rival and leader of the ANC, Jacob Zuma, would take a harder line on Mr Mugabe have so far been disappointed.