New Zimbabwe.com

By Lunga Sibanda

1 February 2011

Teaching crisis … Matabeleland South has almost 1,000 teaching vacancies

CHANCES of a student from Matabeleland South enrolling at the University of Science and Technology (NUST) are reduced by 70 percent due to a secondary school teacher shortage for Science and Maths, an official said on Monday.

The province requires 261 Science teachers, but currently has 77 – representing a 70 percent shortfall. For Maths, only 106 of the 265 vacancies are filled, said Matabeleland South’s acting Provincial Education Director Samuel Selome.

The region only has one university – NUST – which is located in Bulawayo, and Selome warns that if the staffing crisis is not resolved, the region would be robbed of university education for its students.

“The situation is serious,” Selome said. “We have 70 percent vacancies for Science teachers and 60 percent for Maths.

“Beitbridge is the hardest hit area in the province with only 10 teachers for both Mathematics and Science in the district, while Matobo district is better staffed compared to other districts.”

No official staffing figures for schools in other provinces were available, but Selome said Matabeleland South was the worst affected.

Overall, the province has 452 teaching vacancies for primary schools and 335 for secondary schools.

Zimbabwe’s education sector is undergoing reform after a decade of decline occasioned by an economic dip and a long-running political crisis.

Education Minister David Coltart has indicated there may be as many as 20,000 teaching vacancies countrywide after educators quit for better paying jobs in foreign countries.

Herald

1 February 2011

The shortage of specialist teachers in Matabeleland South is a cause for concern and Government should swiftly address the problem, a Cabinet minister has said.

Addressing delegates at a meeting organised by Bulawayo Agenda last Fri-day, Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart said Matabeleland South had the biggest shortage of Science and Mathematics teachers.

“Over the years the province has been affected by a mass exodus of teachers in these subjects, who have been absorbed into the education system of neighbouring countries like South Africa and Botswana.

“Because of the geographic position of the province, teachers in those areas find it easy to cross the border to seek better jobs abroad.

“There is need, therefore, for the Government to look into the issue and ensure there is staff retention so that the quality of education can improve,” he said.

Minister Coltart said this had resulted in increased recruitment of temporary teachers, something that can compromise standards.

He said the Education Ministry had printed textbooks for indigenous languages but expressed concern over the lack of trained teachers for the subjects.

“For the first time, we have produced Grade One to Seven textbooks for minority languages.

“We already have Tonga, Kalanga and Venda and we are in the process of printing Sotho and Ndau.

“This is in recognition of the fundamental need to teach indigenous minority languages in our schools.

“The problem is that there are no teachers to teach these jobs.

“Even training colleges have a low enrolment of teachers from Matabeleland region and that makes it difficult to promote minority languages and have trained teachers from this region,” he said.

Minister Coltart said children learn better in their mother language and added that it was their right to be taught in that medium at school.

He called for an urgent review of teachers’ conditions of service.

Minister Coltart paid tribute to the Zanu-PF Government for bringing significant development in the education sector after independence.

“We recognise that for the first decade after independence, Zanu-PF achieved a lot in development of the sector.

“They produced what was the best education system in Africa as a whole. They managed to reverse the colonial segregatory policies on education and brought education for all.

“Sadly all that investment has been made for the benefit of other countries that have absorbed our skilled human resources and today our education system is facing a lot of challenges,” he said.

Minister Coltart said Government had identified five key areas for improving the education system.

These include improving teachers’ welfare, upgrading the learning environment, reviewing the curriculum, improving school management, and financing of poor but talented pupils.

Newsday

By Khanyile Mlotshwa

1 February 2011

The Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture says there is need to have only those teachers fluent in local languages assigned to primary schools in Matabeleland regions.

Education minister David Coltart said the move was appropriate as the first two years of a child’s education were vital hence it was important that they learn in their mother language.

Coltart was speaking at a public meeting in Bulawayo on Friday.

“The most important building block in any child’s education is the first few years they get to learn to read and write in their mother language,” he said.

“They must be able to learn in the language their mother and father speak to them. It forms the basis of their learning. If they don’t get that chance their education will be prejudiced.”

He was responding to the public’s outrage over the general belief that most of the teachers at primary schools did not speak the local IsiNdebele language.

Coltart said the teaching of children by teachers who could communicate in their mother tongues was important even for the so-called minority languages in Zimbabwe.

“It shocked me to know that in the past 30 years, we have not had textbooks in marginalised languages. It is an indictment of the education system of this country. We have so far introduced textbooks from Grade 1 to 7 in marginalised languages.

“It’s not just a question of issuing textbooks. If you don’t have a teacher who can speak that language, the textbook is useless. We need to have teachers fluent in languages like Sotho, Venda and Kalanga,” said the minister.

He said the loss of the status and of young people’s faith in the teaching profession had affected mostly marginalised languages.

“There is a need to encourage students from marginalised communities and languages to train as teachers.

“We have to recover teachers who have gone to South Africa. We have to try and get them back. We have the obligation to make sure that the salary is attractive to them,” he said.

Coltart said the problem his ministry faced was that teachers were trained by different ministries.

“Teacher training is the responsibility of Higher Education and that is the source of the situation that we find ourselves in, where we end up with teachers that may not be conversant in local languages.

“Is it right that the training of teachers for my ministry be in the hands of another ministry? That is just a question I want you to think about,” Coltart said.

“Educationists in my ministry feel it is not right. We need to oversee the training of our teachers so that in their deployment,  we know the skills they will need, we know where they are needed and in what numbers,” he said.

Standard

Sunday View by benjamin Chitate

30 January 2011

Politicians and political commentators have had their say on the ascendancy of Professor Welshman Ncube to the helm of MDC-N. Some have dismissed his rise as a non-event, while others have showered him with praise and embraced him as a capable and intelligent leader.

What most of the commentators seemed to miss is the tribalistic element in Professor Ncube’s rise which was pronounced by Professor Ncube himself and the late MDC-M Vice-President Gibson Sibanda. The commentators may have missed media articles in which Professor Ncube and the late Gibson Sibanda told a rally in Bulawayo that they had made a mistake inviting Professor Mutambara to lead the party. They both reportedly bemoaned the invitation of a Shona person to lead the party, and vowed that come next election, they would field a Ndebele as a candidate for presidency.

In my opinion, that is where Professor Ncube got it wrong. People should not be elected to leadership for a non-tribalistic national political party on tribal basis, yet all that Professor Ncube and the late Sibanda wanted was a Ndebele person to be the next leader of the splinter group and be able to contest in the country’s next presidential elections.

If Professor Ncube and the late Gibson Sibanda were as talented and intelligent as Silence Chihuri and others who have heaped praise on Professor Ncube want us to believe, the two would have said the party made the mistake of inviting someone who had not been in the party for two years as required by both MDCs’ constitutions.

They appointed someone who had been out of the country for too long and was out of touch with local realities, someone who had not been actively involved in party politics apart from stints with the now defunct Zimbabwe Unity Movement while a student at the University of Zimbabwe.

Having played a meaningful role in the formation of the National Constitutional Assembly, and having been the founding secretary-general of the original MDC were enough reasons to justify MDC-N presidency for Professor Ncube, rather than talk about the need for a Ndebele leader for the party and for the nation. Yes, Ndebeles, like every other Zimbabwean, have the right to contest for any position in a political party and at government level, but not when they say, vote for me because I am Ndebele as is the case here.

Another blunder which could cost Professor Ncube’s political career is his public refusal to work with MDC-T in the next election. If the media did not misquote him, he is said to have said it was to be each man for himself, and there was no way his party would work with another party, especially MDC-T, blaming the failure for the two parties to work together in the last election on Morgan Tsvangirai, never bothering to acknowledge the fact that it was the then MDC-M which made unrealistic demands on the proportion of candidates each party was supposed to field especially in Bulawayo.

In fact the MDC-T came out with more seats in Bulawayo than they had negotiated for. To blame Tsvangirai for the failure to reach agreement in the last election is out of question.

Going it alone in the next elections may prove to be the end of MDC-N, especially if mass defections of councillors and other officials to MDC-T in Matebeleland are anything to go by.

More progressive politicians in MDC-N like David Coltart, have been recently quoted saying going it alone reduces the chances of defeating Robert Mugabe the dictator and they would be happier if political parties opposed to the dictator could work together in the next elections.

I have nothing against Professor Ncube, as I actually admire some of his strengths, but his blunders may wipe off his strengths and he may find himself in the political dustbin.

Benjamin Chitate writes from New Zealand.

Newsday

By Silas Nkala

29th January 2011

While the introduction of new schools across the country is a noble and commendable idea, the same initiative in the resettlement areas across the country has faced a crippling resistance from teachers, pupils and some parents who shun the schools.

Revelations by the Ministry of Education, Arts, Sports and Culture indicate that since the inception of the schools after the chaotic land reform programme, teachers are shunning the schools due to their remote locations and lack of proper infrastructure.

Sikhwili Khohli Moyo Secondary School in Insindi resettlement area of Gwanda is still struggling to erect structures at the bushy site.

Villagers from the nearby Dambashoko village are shunning the school development project because they are not happy with the site.

They wanted it to be close to Dambashoko Primary School where it is currently operating from.

Insindi resettlement area has around hundred families with very few children to constitute a class. Most of the children are expected to be drawn from the nearby Dambashoko village, the reason why villagers say the school must have been situated close to the Dambashoko Primary School.

The school was named after the national hero, Sikhwili Khohli Moyo in recognition of his participation in the war of liberation.

Recently the Minister of Education, Arts, Sports and Culture David Coltart said schools which were introduced in the resettlement areas were just good propaganda to the politicians but detrimental to the children’s education and their future.

“The planning of the schools in the resettlement areas was not economical, hence the schools are currently faced by numerous challenges ranging from lack of infrastructure, shortage of stationary and are being shunned by teachers and pupils.

“This development leaves the future of those schools hanging in the balance and unlikely to last long unless proper measures are taken to alleviate the crisis” Coltart said.

He said the issue of the crisis at most resettlement schools is a serious problem to the children as their education is not secure due to the environment they are learning in and numerous challenges the schools face.

Coltart said his ministry considered the plight at those schools and was not discriminating them in the stationary supply programme.

According to the ministry, there are about 5 500 primary schools across the country.

Coltart said the schools in the resettlement areas were not properly set up. He said the schools are very small and unsustainable.

“They have no housing facilities for teachers and even for the children. This is the reason why teachers shun the schools. Although it is a general trend that teachers have always shunned rural schools in favour of urban schools, it’s worse in resettlement schools,” said Coltart.

After the land reform programme, the government introduced schools in the resettlement areas for the children of the so-called new farmers.

Coltart said in relation to teachers shunning rural schools, his ministry is drafting a policy that will ensure teachers take up posts in the rural schools.

“We are in the process of drafting a policy that will ensure teachers go to rural schools. We also want to draft a policy which will enable teachers working in the rural schools to get sound rural allowances in efforts to attract more teachers to the rural schools” said Coltart.

He further lamented the very limited resources from the government in improving the rural schools infrastructure saying it is one of the major factors that made teachers shun the rural schools.

He called for the massive injection of funds in the education sector in order to consolidate development projects in the sector.

Coltart said despite the fact that the schools in the resettlement areas were uneconomical and unsustainable, it was still important that children get proper education in those schools.

Newsday

29 December 2010

By Khanyile Mlotshwa

Government has distributed 13 million textbooks to schools around the country, a Cabinet minister has said.

This figure has surpassed earlier projections of nine million textbooks needed for over 5 000 primary schools countrywide.

Education, Sport, Arts and Culture minister David Coltart said by December 20 they had distributed textbooks to 5 300 schools countrywide, although there were some sticking problems, which he hoped would be ironed out soon.

“By close of business on December 20, 13 million textbooks had been dispatched to around
5 300 schools. Due to a significant number of schools not having been on the original distribution lists and rising enrolments, 93% of schools will be covered by the time the trucks reach their destinations,” he said.

Through the Education Transition Fund (ETF), the ministry printed textbooks for primary schools in a move meant to improve the pupil-to-textbook ratio and restore basic education for all to Zimbabweans.

With the help of international partners, through the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), Zimbabwe secured $30 million for the production of primary school textbooks.

Coltart said the ETF received substantial financial support from the European Commission, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The minister said, as a result of unforeseen challenges, some schools would not receive enough textbooks.

“Inevitably there will also be some schools which will not receive enough books and we know of shortages already in certain subjects and grades.

“Unicef and the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture are currently negotiating to procure the mop-up and buffer stocks with (publishers) Longmans and will be able to complete the job early next year while still remaining well under budget for textbooks,” he said.

Coltart said his ministry hoped to complete the book distribution exercise by the first term next year, and would, at the same time, start printing secondary schools books.

“As I have recently advised, we have secured funding for the secondary school textbook programme which will be rolled out early in the New Year. We hope that these textbooks will be delivered to secondary schools countrywide during the second term of 2011,” he said.

The minister said government had resolved to publish textbooks for secondary schools through the ETF.

“This will initially involve the purchase of textbooks in five subjects with delivery anticipated by mid-2011. There has been a delay in this exercise caused by insufficient funds which have however now been secured,” he said.

The primary school textbooks target core subjects which are Mathematics, English, Shona and Ndebele as well as Environmental Science.

The ETF programme is a multi-donor funding mechanism designed to mobilise resources for the education sector and ensure equitable access to quality education.

The fund was set up to respond to acute shortages of teaching and learning materials, textbooks and supplies in schools where most were operating on a 10:1 pupils to textbook ratio.

Once the pride of the Southern African region, and the symbol of dignity and joy among many nationals, the Zimbabwean education system has been affected by the economic decline of the past 10 years.

The next phase of the ETF will focus on expanding support to the secondary schools, providing teachers’ guides and textbooks for marginalised indigenous languages including Venda, Shangani, Tonga and Nambya and also the development of textbooks in Braille.

It will also focus on curriculum revision, improving quality of education and educational outcomes and supporting the implementation of the Ministry of Education’s new strategic plan.

Herald

29 January 2011

By Nathaniel Manheru

Victors … Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo

In the books you will find the names of kings.

Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?

The young Alexander conquered India, Was he alone?

Caesar beat the Gauls. Did he not have even a cook with him?

Every page a victory. Who cooked the feast for the victors?

Every ten years a great man. Who paid the bills?

So many reports. So many questions.

I have decided to introduce this week’s piece by lines from Bertolt Brecht’s seemingly commonsensical yet profoundly philosophical poem “Questions from a worker who reads”. Brief biographical notes on the poet are quite in order, more so for a Zimbabwean reader predictably raised on the staple of conservative colonial English Literature.

Not many of us are able, as Chinua Achebe puts it, “to face adversity down by refusing to be defined by it, refusing to be no more than its agent or its victim”. Achebe is trying to explain what he terms “the potency of the unpredictable in human affairs”, in his case how this phenomenon enables him to overthrow the unbending parameters of colonial education well designed for a “British-protected child” to end up a fiery nationalist African writer he now is.

The poet who read Brecht was a leftist German playwright-poet of the 30s, 40s and 50s who ends up wandering between Europe and America as part of his protest against Nazism. Famed for his short play, “Mother Courage”, Brecht stands tall as a personification of “committed art” where an artist turns his skills towards the furtherance of proletarian revolution. Predictably, Brecht’s works would not be among the must-reads of the “long” Rhodesian curriculum, whether before or after Independence. Long because as far as literary studies are concerned, not much has changed, which is why Zimbabwe has been churning our perfect Rhodesians, never mind that black tincture which misleads so many, so much.

Cooks in history

In the above lines, the worker who reads has so many questions for history and those who narrate it. He cannot understand who paeans on major events and monuments celebrate kings and generals as if these “big men” had no cooks to feed them, no servants to serve them, so they were well enough to accomplish those feats so panegyrised in historical accounts. The worker who reads cannot understand why history deletes the cook, himself an epitome of the common man/woman, of commonness.

History makes “small people” non-persons, non-actors. It effaces them while inversely legibly writing, rewriting the “great men” as solo actors, solo heroes who make and remake the world, who fight and win battles and wars, unaided. Therein lies the awesome depth of this poem so stylistically so matter-of-factly written, semantically so broad in reach and appeal as to speak to all mankind, all epochs, all generations.

That includes little Zimbabwe, a good 30-plus years after its Independence. I mean Zimbabwe, the sum total of its people. What is its history? Who writes it? Who recites it? Who teaches it? Who keeps it? Who interprets it? Who uses it? Who abuses it? To what ends? Who fights it? Who falsifies it? Who overwrites it? To what ends? Who is threatened by it? Who suppresses it? For what cause? Above all, who needs it? To do what with it? “So many reports/So many questions”.

Bishops in history

January 14, 2011, the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference issued a pastoral letter. I dealt with some of the issues it raised in my piece last week. I dealt with this letter irreverently, as befits a curious Catholic, a critical Catholic so clear that in times of national tempests, even holy men err by succumbing to secular dilemmas and choices.

I do not regret a word, a sentence, a paragraph in that whole piece. Quite the contrary, I still feel I could have said more, written more about this great Church again about to repeat monumental errors from its hurtful past. It is about to readmit a supremacist race, as in the past, apotheosising this race’s way of worship as a Christian standard, deifying the race’s reasoning so flavoured with bible verses to pass for beatitudes.

Above all, this great Church forgets the cloister of democracy, human rights, transparency, international community etc, etc can never hide, impart holiness to, or wash away sinful settler Rhodesian interests seeking a second coming under so many guises. Or play soothing balm to weeping wounds of a people so trodden, so trampled by colonial history, soothe weeping wounds of a people so traumatised by racist sanctions from a self-righteous white kingdom still standing in the way of the gift of social justice so eloquently proclaimed by different pontiffs in numerous, lengthy encyclicals which this great Church no longer reads, or wilfully misreads to give us another Alexander, another Caesar, never a small African cook.

When the church apportions history

The bishops made a statement on history which I again recall: “The liberation of Zimbabwe was achieved through the efforts of those who were inside the country (both armed and unarmed), outside the country and by the international community. The claim to have monopoly in the liberation struggle by any single sector or party, is therefore, false and may be the misconception solely responsible for the abuse of human rights and the erosion of the sovereignty of the citizens in Zimbabwe”.

I stand to be corrected but I think this is the first time since Independence that the Catholic Church has pronounced itself on the history of the liberation struggle. And it has done much more than simply pronounce itself on this matter. It has played partitioner of that history, a function only conceivably done from on high. The Church, god-like, has to place itself above that history, while at the same time enjoying proprietorship of it, to be able admonishingly parcel it out from those it thinks should not monopolize it, to those it thinks have long deserved it but have been long denied it. That is a fundamental status to which the Church has thrust itself without any prior national discussion.

Toppling Zanu PF from history

On the one hand, a clear disdain of violence it claims in some areas, on the other and an open charge of culpability for human rights abuse. The statement is thus not about history as memory; it is about history as a continuing evil that has been incubated in “structures of sin” located in the past and sired by personal sinful conduct, un-eradicated and un-eradicable in the present. History is thus a living tissue, indeed a resource in defining present evils and present struggles.

By dissipating ownership of the struggle to some nebulous, anonymous or nameless construct called “those inside and outside the country … and the international community”, they bishops are ousting Zanu and Zapu — now Zanu PF — from authorship, leadership and responsibility of a struggle they jointly waged, towards whose success they sacrificed life, limb and prospect. By suggesting the struggle just happened, just triggered itself and spontaneously harnessed “joint efforts” from this diffuse magnitude called “the international community”, the bishops have transferred the burden of arming that struggle from socialist countries to the West which stood by settlers here.

Historically, those who have invoked the notion of “international community” have never meant China, Soviet Union, Cuba, Romania, East Germany, Bulgaria, Vietnam or some such sources of the guns that liberated us.

When history just happens

Above all, by repudiating Zanu PF’s claim to the struggle, the bishops seek to make that defining event a common property which anyone can claim and which no one owns. That makes all men and women equal before it, does it not? Both in the sense of causing it and owning it. In such a situation it becomes an event with no heroes, with no villains. No one sacrificed for it; no one betrayed or ran away from it! It does not define anyone or anything; it cannot exalt or condemn anyone or anything! It exists only in the past; it has no bearing on and in the present. This is where the bishops have taken us. Let us leave the bishops for a while.

This man called Ian Douglas

Ian Douglas Smith died on November 20, 2007. He left this world unlamented, unless this was done in closets, whether here or abroad. Clearly the man knew when to die, and chose his month carefully, fastidiously some would say. The month of November is very significant to UDI Rhodesia, the dispensation he created and ruled. He could not have died before November 11, the day he struck a blow for God and Christianity. Or on the day, for the great act would not have been done or completed. It had to be after, well after, which is why November 20 was supremely appropriate.

When Smith banished the past

Ian Smith leaves behind a rich but baneful legacy. Willy-nilly, that legacy defines all of us, black and white, Catholic or Protestant. It is no mark of nationalism to deny this, only amnesia of a dangerous type; real ignorance of where the rains began to beat us, as Achebe would say.

Before he died, he sought to justify the ways of Rhodesia to Man. The result was “The Great Betrayal”, later post-scripted as “Bitter Harvest”. In credo and temperament, the man died truculently unrepentant, which is why his after-word to “Bitter Harvest” for me makes a fascinating read. I keep drawing from it, as indeed I am set to, again.

This time he is reacting to President Mugabe’s claim and proof or magnanimity, namely that after rising to power he did not proceed to shave old Smithie’s neck as behoved a leader of a bitter people seeking a vengeful catharsis.

He writes: “Let me remind Mugabe and the world, that as part of the Lancaster House plan, we signed an agreement that there would be no retribution for the past, no looking back, but concentrating on looking forward and building for the future. Mugabe has a short memory when it is convenient, or is this senile decay creeping in?

“He had a very real reason for supporting the ‘no retribution’ clause because of the barbaric acts of murder and mutilation committed by the Zanu terrorists against their own black people during the war. Our record was clear: we only fought against the enemy who were attacking the constitutional government of our country. Let us simply abide by the truth.”

The great taboo

It is a packed short paragraph which triggers the urge for pages and pages of vengeful diatribe against a man whose ears can’t hear anymore, whose ears rest beneath a layer of concrete slab, indeed securely lie beneath a dolphin-like mount of red earth. For me what sticks out like a sore thumb above this well-aimed compressed challenge and insult, is a statement — another statement — on Zimbabwe’s history.

Ian Smith’s Lancaster House plan bade all against “looking back”, exhorted all to concentrate “on looking forward and building for the future.” And for Ian Smith, this was to excuse Mugabe “from the barbaric acts of murder and mutilation committed by the Zanu terrorists against their own black people during the war.” Indeed, it was to fortify Ian Smith’s delicately balanced modesty of a clear record of prosecuting a clean war “against the enemy who were attacking the constitutional government of our country!”

In this short, tightly-packed paragraph, Ian Smith has interpreted the Lancaster House Agreement, the war and Zimbabwe. He has made history a taboo in post-settler politics, a dirty subject and focus in Zimbabwe. Could this then explain why we have not, cannot, will not, look back just a little to know what happened to us, to know who we are, at the very least?

Defining history’s Rubicon

Except the head of white Rhodesia is indicting a founding process of our collective being, our Independence, freedom and our claim to it, in short indicting our new identity beyond white settler Rhodesia? Except Ian Smith is laying boundaries and parameters for post-colonial politics as they have evolved to this day? Indictable offences, prosecutable offences only begin in 1980, itself the line and date of transgression. Before that lies clean white history. Before that lies atrocious black brutalities whose recall can only aggravate African crimes.

This is what Ian Smith is saying. This is what the bishops have just said, but without invoking Rhodesian arguments. Indeed this is what the Catholics and David Coltart are saying through “Breaking Silence” and the story of Gukurahundi. For Zimbabwe, history must begin in 1980, with no one being allowed to borrow lustre or damnation from events and occurrences before then. Period.

The one white man who gave power to a black

Since Independence, and especially since after the 2000 Third Chimurenga, Rhodesians have been writing copiously. To the title, 1980 and Gukurahundi are markers of when creation begins in Zimbabwe and for Zimbabweans. Before then … terra incognito! Before then, an amoral world where no one is culpable, or should be prosecuted. And killers of Rhodesia are leading the charge, indeed are the prosecutors. That riles.

And freedom fighters, real heroes of this same struggle about to be denied, about to be falsified, about to be misappropriated and pilfered, are the accused, the villains! That baffles.

Need we get stunned when Ian Smith adds: “Of course, no mention(s) made of the fact that history records that I was the first white man in Africa to hand over power to a black man, in 1979”?

We have allowed culpable Rhodesians not just to salve their consciences by reissuing “history”, not just to create new sideshows and tribunals, but to define for us when history begins and therefore who it saves, who it condemns. Let this vain, unrepentant racist lie for a while.

Ray’s repudiation of history

Charles Ray, America’s current ambassador to Zimbabwe. He has just published an undated “book” Zimbabwe: The Victor who owns no History which really is a simplified manual on civil rights for “infantile” societies and “infant” democracies which he takes us and Zimbabwe to be, respectively.

It gets its grand foreword from Bornwell Chakaodza, our man who signs off as “veteran journalist”. He obligatorily thinks highly of His Excellency Ray’s effort, and says so radiantly. The manual has a strange title, something like “Where you are coming from does not matter … It is where you are going”, or something like that. I do not have a copy as I write this piece.

This meant-for-Zimbabweans manual is condescendingly basic, which is what makes it very dangerous as a piece of propaganda. It is meant to be a training manual, with things to think about at the end of every short piece. For a man who has had something to do with Cold-War USA, the effort is well deployed. I wonder whether Bornwell is quite aware of what he is beatifying as a must read for those seeking democracy, presumably democracy American style on Africa!

The book repudiates history as inconsequential, idealises “where you are going”. There is no past-present-future time continuum. Only where you are going! I repeat: the manual is meant for Zimba-bweans set for another poll.

… but needs it to serve America

But something else happens after the publication of this manual. Ambassador Charles Ray is invited to address Catholic students at Arrupe, the Catholic School of philosophy in Mt Pleasant. This is on January 18, 2011, and the occasion is the commemoration of the slaying of Martin Luther King (Jr) by white America. Seemingly oblivious of his hot-from-the-press manual, he tells his interlocutors how important history is to him as a veteran soldier, black and an American diplomat.

Surely it can’t be the same history he repudiates in his training manual he has designed for us Zimbabweans? Of course it is not. He pledges his admiration to Abraham Lincoln, the American president credited by history for ending slavery. You read a little more about this president and you are cautioned against confusing his signing of anti-slavery proclamation with ending slavery. Someone had to sign that proclamation. He did, not as an expression of his disdain for the institution of slavery which he condemned occasionally and within bounds, but simply because he was the US president at a time when America could no longer hold on to that white monstrosity. Anyway, let us allow the ambassador to choose his heroes, black as he is.

Doping Zimbabweans

In any case, that is not the pith of my point. My point is on history and his seemingly ambiguous view of it. He needs history as a soldier, a black and a faithful servant of the American government. But we black Zimbabweans deserve a training manual from him that repudiates history, that refocuses us with single-mindedness on where we are going without worrying about where we are coming from, with whom, against who, against what? Why would a black envoy of America seek to induce amnesia here while selling and enthralling us all by bastardized figures from American history, figures such as Lincoln and King Junior? Who benefits from this mighty dope?

Gentle reader, I hope something is beginning to emerge, to show its sinister outline. Again, let’s rest the indefatigable envoy for a while.

History and fear of a Ndebele president

Sometime in December last year, Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga did a piece titled “Ndebele president: the secret fear”. It was a cheeky piece which triggered a fierce debate in the nether, but hardly any in the mainstream national media. She must have been disappointed, very disappointed. No-one likes a monologue, in her case to be made kurova bembera risina anonzwa.

Let her take heart from the fact that Manheru heard her, very loudly, very clearly. Shona supremacists live in the mortal fear of the possible rise of a Ndebele president, she argued, adding such fears explained the measureless animosity showed against Welshman Ncube, now the president of MDC-Himself. And given that Ncube’s rise had such a positive neighbourhood effect on Priscilla – now MDC-N’s secretary general and who knows, prospective Minister of Industry and Commerce, it is clear by conjecture then, hindsight now, that Priscilla had a direct interest in the argument she boldly raised in defence of this presidential possibility of no fixed term. It was a long piece where the lady poured her heart out.

Priscilla’s take on history

But for me what stood out was the following: “History has proven that there is always collusion between an ethnic group in any African conflict with white external capital forces. That collusion is always not on values or ideology, but is driven purely by the need to access and control resources. Conflicts in Rwanda, DRC and Kenya are testimony to this collusion.

“In Zimbabwe, that collusion started in the pre-colonial era, in particular during the Lancaster House negotiations when white capital forces’ self-interest meant that between a Ndebele leader and a Shona, they stood to benefit more by a transition from Smith to a Shona leader. This is explained by the support that Mugabe received from [the British] in spite of earlier demonization … a terrorist became the darling of the West. It is that collusion which explains the silence of the same white capital forces over the Gukurahundi era.

“Is it not surprising that given the arrest of many political activists during that era, with some of them dying in prison, there wasn’t a draft UN Security Council Resolution against the Zanu regime? Is it not equally surprising that Morgan Tsvangirai’s arrests have earned him a confetti of awards and yet my Google search shows not a single award to Joshua Nkomo? It is, therefore, clear that whilst white capital now has issues with Zanu PF primarily over access to resources, they now seek to facilitate a transition to Tsvangirai within the same framework where power can only be handed over to a Shona leader.

“The white capital self-interest is not threatened by a transition from Mugabe to Tsvangirai or Simba Makoni or Emerson Mnangagwa or Joice Mujuru. It is only threatened by a leader who, by the very fact that he comes from a minority grouping, may not in their opinion have the capacity to give them that access.”

She goes on to explain that Mutambara, then her party’s president, will not be forgiven by white capital for leading “a Ndebele-driven party”. Turning to Welshman Ncube, she explains American animosity towards as revealed in Wikileaks to the same calculation.

Confounded by Ian Smith

Gentle reader, please notice that it is again history, only read by one of Brecht’s cooks, not rulers, not kings, not generals as above. Like me and you, Priscilla personifies the underdog of history whom Ambassador Ray counsels to worry only about where she is going. She is Caesar’s cook who forces her name and mention on history so for once, the narrative is from below.

But let us see if the cook grabs the correct end of the stick of history. Let us resurrect Ian Smith again. He has had some good rest. In his broad justification, Ian Smith scans history, in the process giving his own interpretation of the Shona-Ndebele-White triad over history, particularly who was close to whom, at what point in the troubled history of the country.

Predictably, he starts by showing how frequent Ndebele raids into Shona territory in the early part of the 19th Century “in search of cattle and maidens” forced the invading white column to play protector to the peaceful Shonas whose prospects against a warrior enemy looked dire. Ian Smith, clearly vicariously assuming the burden of this great act of white humanity, writes, “It is interesting to speculate on what would have happened if the white man, the so-called colonialist, had not come to the country. Clearly the Shonas would eventually have been pushed over the border into Mozambique. This, of course, is seldom acknowledged.”

Smith’s whites and Ndebeles

The attack on Lobengula and his resisting kingdom is thus depicted as a blow struck for the otherwise perishing Shonas. It is not for purposes of establishing colonial rule over Zimbabwe. Of course Smith is not daft enough to raise the inconvenient fact of erstwhile foes joining hands against a protector. To him, that never happened. He moves straight on to explain the warm relationship he claims existed between White Rhodesia and “the Matabeles”, both during the colonial era and after Independence.

He writes: “… the Matabele have always had a closer relationship with our white community, probably because of their belief in a system which believed in discipline and honouring obligations, similar to our own. In spite of various setbacks caused by conflicts occasioned by history, there was a preservation of the underlying belief that we had more in common with one another than with others, and this continued over the decades, indeed was strengthened over the Gukurahundi era when Mugabe used the strength which he had inherited from the Rhodesian security forces to massacre the Matabeles.

“This ended, however, when Mugabe seduced Joshua Nkomo with very attractive bribes of high office, power, and financial reward, accompanied by an invitation to bring with him a number of his Matabele comrades. It stands to their credit that there were a number of Matabeles who resisted the temptation.”

Not quite Priscilla’s take on Lancaster and Gukurahundi, is it? Let us defer the argument for a while to hear the British Government’s take on 1978/79 when Zimbabwe was going through a crucial phase of her history.

The day Smith wrecked the British plan

I doubt whether Madame Priscilla is aware of this one reported by the London Times on December 29, 2008. Headlined “Ian Smith wrecked Britain’s plot to prevent Robert Mugabe gaining power”, this piece by one Martin Fletcher drew exclusively from Cabinet Papers of the British released under that country’s thirty-year rule, which focused on behind-the-scenes moves by the James Callaghan Government in trying to resolve the “Rhodesian question”, but without betraying Rhodesian and British interests in the process.

In summary, the British strategy as reported in those papers was secure white and British interests in a settlement that would raise the late Joshua Nkomo to transitional premiership ahead of elections, thereby giving him a decisive foothold ahead of Robert Mugabe. The scheme which had the support of Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Obasanjo of Nigeria would have seen Ian Smith stepping down for Joshua Nkomo who would either keep Mugabe out completely, or invite him in as his junior, both to weaken him and his Zanu even further.

The move, as the British calculated, would isolate Mugabe from hardliners of his party thereby splitting it just ahead of the decisive poll. The British calculated that Ian Smith had little leverage given the way the war was going for him. Nkomo would galvanize him further by telling him at a meeting scheduled later for Lusaka that “Zapu would protect white Rhodesian interests better than Mugabe”.

The report then laments that “Mr Smith stalled, then leaked details of the meeting’, provoking Nyerere and others to denounce the plan. Concludes the report, rather lamentably: “The next year the war ended and Zimbabwe gained Independence, but the Lancaster House agreement contained no advantages for Mr Nkomo. In 1980, Zanu trounced Zapu in elections marked by violence and intimidation, and Mr Mugabe took charge.” Again, this British scenario plays havoc on Madame Priscilla’s theory of history, does it not? But that is a very small point in the whole narrative.

Corrupt Nkomo, fanatical Mugabe

The bigger points come through the voice of David Owen, Callaghan’s foreign secretary and therefore the man behind these sinister machinations. Presiding over the release of these papers in 2008, he described the late Joshua Nkomo “as corrupt, but not nearly as dangerous as Mr Mugabe”.

“He [Nkomo] was in it to feather his own nest … Better a crook than a zealot”, Owen told The Times, explaining the British Labour Government’s preference for Nkomo, ahead of Mugabe.

Mugabe, on the other hand, was “a fanatical Maoist with little time for democracy”. “His obduracy was so great and his zealotry so fierce that I felt you could not ignore the Maoist elements within him.”

Turning to Mugabe’s leadership in Independent Zimbabwe and the mayhem which followed, the report adds: “At first he courted whites, and Lord Owen thought he had misjudged the man. Then he launched his “genocide” against Nkomo and his supporters and Zimbabwe’s long slide began.

People often ask why we went overboard for Robert Mugabe,” Lord Owen said. “The answer is that we didn’t.”

Now the real facts of that episode

You speak to the real actors of that phase which the British papers purport to cover, you get a completely different story. They talk of a plan involving the British Labour Government under Callaghan, the Nigerian Government under Obasanjo (his first term) and the Zambian Government under Kaunda which was meant to entice late Vice President Nkomo into a secretive settlement that would have outflanked President Mugabe, Zanu and Zanla.

They tell you how one morning Garba, Obasanjo’s Foreign Minister then, flew into Maputo to summon the Zanu leadership for an urgent meeting with Obasanjo. Once in Nigeria, Obasanjo then asked Garba to disclose his plan to Robert Mugabe and his team which included Simon Muzenda and Josiah Tongogara. On hearing the plan, Mugabe goes ballistic, denouncing this as completely unacceptable.

He is put under tremendous pressure by Garba who reminds him that at times a leader must do just that, lead. This is after Mugabe has insisted he cannot commit Zanu to the plan before consulting its leadership in Maputo. He refuses utterly, hiding behind the need to consult. Angry Nigeria flies the Zanu leadership “home”, abandoning them in Zambia, not Maputo.

Once in Maputo, Mugabe gets Samora Machel to know about the plan which clearly revealed treacherous secret meetings involving Kaunda, Obasanjo and possibly Nkomo, outside of the Frontline States framework for the former, outside of the Patriotic Front agreement for the latter. Machel, equally irate, informs Julius Nyerere who quickly summons an emergence Frontline States Summit in Lusaka to discuss this matter.

And Kaunda wept

When confronted, Kenneth Kaunda breaks down and weeps, confessing to secret contacts with the British, the Nigerians and the Smith Government, vowing never to do it again. It later transpires that Joshua Nkomo was indeed aware of the plan, but had stoutly refused to meet Ian Smith without Robert Mugabe, his co-leader in the Patriotic Front. It was this principled obduracy on the part of the late veteran leader which had forced Obasanjo to summon Mugabe to Lagos, all in the hope of persuading him to accept the plan.

Trust between the two grew even stronger after this. But it had become very clear big brother had betrayed preferences on the Zimbabwean question, both in respect of relations with the colonial master and in relation to the two liberation movements. How far that influenced latter day Obasanjo in his relations with Robert Mugabe and Tony Blair over the land question, one cannot say.

Degraded narratives

Gentle reader, the import of this anecdotal or mosaic piece was to show competing histories, competing narratives on your country, its defining events and leading players. The Catholics have their own narrative. Ian Smith looms large, as also does Rhodesian historiography which he leads. Then you have America and its envoys here. More fundamentally, you have the British Government, both in history and in contemporary affairs.

I could have gone on and on to give more fascinating narrative accounts of the same history. Then I also gave you a glimpse of history from below, from a degraded vantage point of an underdog. Degraded because it’s a reading from Zimbabwe’s native politics as presently fractionalised. That narrative is a double tragedy. It misreads itself, its people, its rival actors. Above all, it misreads the enemy it must know and understand for a better fight. Quite the opposite, it defines a new enemy, all in narrow tribal terms, all in terms that further fragments the oppressed, in the process clouding focus and dissipating energies.

The victor who is history’s underdog

Conspicuously absent in all these narratives, in all these vantage points, is the voice of Zanu PF, itself the composite sequel to Zanu and Zapu, the real makers of this contested history. Consequently, the hero of struggle has now become the cook, the servant of history: a great player with no name, no mention. Much worse, the two silent movements have become villains of the piece, real butts of these frenzied narratives.

It is a demolition job on the liberation project which has gone dumb, if not deaf as well. Its records are there at the Party headquarters, more dumped than archived, loudly crying out for annalists, for interpreters in this epoch of well illustrated and even sacral lies.

The search for a second Southern Rhodesia

I called it a demolition job and it is clear who is being demolished. That cannot be the question. The real question is this one: when they demolish our gospel, our revolution, our high priests, our heroes, our monuments, what new fetishes do they want to give us in place of all these, to worship? What new dates, what new markers, what new boundaries, what new narratives, indeed what new names, have they lined up for us?

If it is not 1980, is it 1998? If it is not Chimurenga, is it Chinja? If it is not Land, is it Democracy? If it is not Zimbabwe, could it be Rhodesia? Or Britain? Or America?

Indeed so many reports, so many questions. Faced by a very happy and contended white Rhodesian population a decade and half after Independence, Doris Lessing met this stunning verdict. She had asked whether at all white Zimbabwean pensioners would consider leaving Mugabe’s “horrible” Zimbabwe, that horrible place of manicured lawns, dutiful black servants and sundowners of succulent boerwors. Thus came the answer: “Once we lived in a wonderful country called Southern Rhodesia. Now we live in a wonderful country called Zimbabwe.”

Today, Lessing writes angrily against Mugabe, rails against land reformed Zimbabwe where the white man can no longer watch beautiful sunset peacefully from the verandah of his vast estate, black servants in tow. Could this be what is at stake in the contested history? Will the victor one day reclaim and own history, or cook-like remain forever silent, deleted?

Icho!

Nathaniel Manheru is a columnist for the Saturday Herald. He can be contacted on e-mail: nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw

Newsday

By Wellington Toni

28 January 2011

There will be no financial assistance for the senior national soccer team, the Warriors, for the African Nations Championships (Chan) finals as the Ministry of Education, Art, Sport and Culture was not allocated any funding for the trip following revelations that $300 000 is needed for the tournament.

The Warriors having been “living in hell” at a city lodge as they prepare for the second edition of the Chan finals that take place in Sudan from February 4-25.

The squad made up of 23 players went on strike on Monday demanding allowances for two weeks, forcing the technical team to cancel training.

They resumed preparations on Tuesday after the Zifa board scrounged for funds to cover their allowances.

Education, Art, Sport and Culture minister David Coltart and Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) director-general Charles Nhemachena on Thursday painted a grim picture over the trip, but promised to “scrape the empty barrel” to raise funds for the trip.

Said Coltart: “Just this afternoon (Thursday), I received a letter from Zifa demanding $300 000 for the trip and we have 24 hours to raise that while the total budget for the whole Ministry for Sports administration for 2011 is $800 000.

“The allocation is completely inadequate and I will make presentations to the Ministry of Finance on that. Finance Minister Biti Tendai has insufficient resources to meet all expenditure and it should be understood that our country is not as rich as it used to be.

“I have already instructed the permanent secretary Stephen Mahere to go through the budget allocation and see if any funds could be re-allocated for the trip and also the principal director Paul Damasane to look into our budget and see if we can help.

“But we cannot perform miracles. There are hardly any resources for sport and that is the dilemma that faces me and Biti. The biggest question is where is the money going to come from? In the past, there was no problem because money was just printed; now that can’t be done anymore.”

He added: “It will be tragic for the national team if they fail to travel. They are a good team and have been performing well. We expect them to do exceptionally well, but we do not know where the money will come from, which I deeply regret.

“It actually undermines the game of football.”

It was also established on Thursday that Mashingaidze met with principal director responsible for sports Damasane yesterday.

Mashingaidze confirmed he was in a meeting when called on Thursday, but was unavailable later to shed light on the proceedings.

Nhemachena echoed his boss’s sentiments.

“There was no allocation for the Warriors, clubs in the Champions League, Youth and Paralympic Games or even the All-Africa Games, so we can only appeal for funding.

“We have received a request from Zifa for Chan, Afcon 2012 matches and other games, but all those are not provided for in the National Budget.

“So we will be submitting our appeal for funding to the ministry. For now, there is basically nothing we can assist with in terms of funds.”

In other countries, governments invest in sport to justify their demand for results unlike in Zimbabwe where acting head coach Madinda Ndlovu will have to squeeze results from a rock using hungry personnel.

In 2009, when the SRC was allocated $500 000, the Malawi Sports Commission allocated the same amount to netball and now they are one of the best in Africa.

That same year, the Botswana National Sports Council received $9,2 million for sports.

Only the Mighty Warriors seem to be lucky: they received $30 000 from President Robert Mugabe when they played South Africa in an international friendly match on December 22 in Harare, have managed raised $80 000 through their fundraising initiatives and will be travelling to Germany in July for a training camp.

Zimbabwe Independent

28 January 2011

By Dumisani Muleya

DEPOSED MDC-M leader Arthur Mutambara was reportedly offered a smooth exit package six months before the party’s controversial congress earlier this month but rejected it, insisting that the party must not “subvert democracy”, it emerged this week.

A briefing of the Zimbabwe Independent by senior MDC-M (now MDC-N) officials this week shows that Mutambara was offered a “soft landing” by the party’s new secretary general Priscillah Misihairabwi-Mushonga mid last year. But he eventually refused to take the offer after initially accepting it.

The offer made to Mutambara by Misihairabwi-Mushonga in June last year was that the MDC-M leader would, after congress, become deputy president of the party and remain as deputy prime minister in the inclusive government.

“Sometime last year, after realising that Mutambara was not going to win because party structures were geared against him and in an attempt to ensure his dignified exit, we offered him a deal to become deputy president after congress and to remain as deputy prime minister,” a senior party official said.

“Misihairabwi-Mushonga went to meet him and discuss the issue. Mutambara initially agreed and said he wanted to talk to Welshman Ncube about it.

Ncube and Misihairabwi-Mushonga then went to him. When they got there Mutambara said he wanted to discuss the issue one-on-one with Ncube and in that meeting he changed his position. Mutambara said he was a democrat and would not want to subvert the democratic process in the party. He rejected the deal and said he would contest for the party leadership in the next congress. They agreed whoever loses would accept the result and allow the party to move forward.”

Mutambara, Ncube and Misihairabwi-Mushonga were not available for comment this week. Mutambara and Misihairabwi-Mushonga were apparently out of the country, while Ncube could not be located.

Ncube squared up with Mutambara before their recent congress and defeated his former boss to assume the party leadership. A group of disgruntled party officials are however challenging Ncube’s election and subsequent actions in the courts. Ncube and his party have now redeployed Mutambara in government to become minister of Regional Integration and International Cooperation.

Ncube, former Bulawayo East MP and party secretary-general, was redeployed by his party to become deputy prime minister, while Misihairabwi-Mushonga, an ex-Glen Norah MP and party deputy secretary-general, was proposed to become Industry and Trade minister.

Another MDC-N leader said after Mutambara’s meeting with Ncube to discuss the leadership issue in the run-up to congress, the robotics professor formed his campaign team in a bid to retain his position and fight off a challenge from his rival. In response Ncube, a professor of law, stepped up his campaign against Mutambara.

“The power struggle then became real and serious after the deal fell through. Mutambara’s campaign team worked hard around the country and party structures and was convinced he would win. Ncube’s team also intensified its campaign and believed he would win,” the official said.

“Both candidates, Mutambara and Ncube, thought they had a good chance, although Ncube’s team thought they would easily win because their candidate had been working with structures for much longer than Mutambara.”

Party officials said the battle between Ncube and Mutambara had been going for a long time. They said Ncube was sceptical about Mutambara from the beginning but had no choice at the time after the split of the original MDC.

“For the record Mutambara was not brought in by Ncube,”  an official said.

“It was Job Sikhala and Gabriel Chaibva who brought him to the party just before the 2006 congress. What happened was that the late Gibson Sibanda and Ncube were offered the opportunity to lead the party and refused on grounds that a Ndebele could not lead the party because of the ethnic demographics of the country.

“Chaibva and Sikhala said that was a false assumption because Joshua Nkomo once became the undisputed leader of the nationalist movement but after Sibanda and Ncube flatly refused, they came up with Mutambara’s name.”

It was said that Ncube was reluctant but Chaibva and Sikhala — later supported by Misihairabwi-Mushonga — pushed for Mutambara. Ncube gave in and he was assigned later to contact Mutambara who was in the United States at the time.

“Sikhala and Chaibva were the ones who had contact with Mutambara”, another party official said. “So they gave Ncube Mutambara’s contact details in the United States and the two later arranged a meeting in South Africa to deal with the issue. Mutambara was clear from the beginning that he wanted to situate the MDC-M within a pan-Africanist context because he thought the original MDC was too closely associated with imperialist powers,” the official said.

“That is why right from the beginning Mutambara came saying he was standing on the shoulders of Sekuru Kaguvi and Mbuya Nehanda and Josiah Tongogara and Nikita Mangena. Mutambara was his own man and Ncube accepted that because he had no choice.”

There were many other names, including some top business executives and senior officials in MDC-T, who were initially considered for that post before Mutambara was roped in. The reason why Mutambara became a compelling choice was because of his history as a student leader, an academic and the desire to block Gift Chimanikire who was manoeuvring to take over.

However, after taking over, Mutambara found himself at loggerheads with senior party officials because of his rhetoric which they considered “immature and smacking of student politics. It was also felt that his anti-imperialist rhetoric was out of sync with the political mood of the time and made the party sound too much like Zanu PF,” an official said.

“However, Mutambara sincerely believed that was what was needed to shift the MDC politics and agenda. This created an explosive situation and started making Ncube and others uncomfortable because they thought their party was going to lose ground to MDC-T if it appears like an extension of Zanu PF.”

Serious tensions and divisions developed as a result of Mutambara’s ideological drift and pronouncements, leading to threats of resignation by senior party officials such as David Coltart, Trudy Stevenson and Miriam Mushayi, among others.

After that, a committee of senior officials led by the late Renson Gasela was formed to engage him to “tone down” his “unhelpful grandstanding and rhetoric” but he effectively refused to change course. That angered many party official and they started plots to remove him.

“There was actually a serious attempt to overthrow him just after the signing of the GPA around November and December 2008 but Ncube blocked it, saying it would appear as if it was an attempt to stop him from becoming deputy prime minister,” an MDC-N official said. “It was then agreed that he should be allowed to lead the party until congress by which time he would have no chance of political survival.”

Herald

25th January 2011

By Tendai Mugabe

DEPUTY Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara could quit Government following moves by MDC leader Professor Welshman Ncube to reassign him as a Cabinet Minister.

Prof Ncube on Sunday said the party had resolved to re-deploy DPM Mutambara, who lost leadership of the party at a recent congress, to the Regional Integration and International Co-operation portfolio.
However, indications are the robotics and mechatronics professor is not interested in any position in the party and Government on an MDC ticket.
He has kept his cards close to his chest since the acrimonious congress deposed him early this month.

Senior politicians and Government officials yesterday said the suddenly reclusive DPM had told his confidantes that he was assessing the situation and would soon make a public statement on his intentions.
Last night, a senior Government official said Prof Mutambara had flown out of Harare on Sunday evening and was attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The official met Prof Mutambara on Sunday, but would not be drawn into saying what they discussed.

“He will comment when he comes back. It’s better to hear it from the horse’s mouth,” he said.
Another source disclosed that Prof Mutambara met several senior Government officials, oddly none of them from MDC, on Sunday.
“What they discussed is up to them to divulge but it appears DPM Mutambara is taking things in stride and is more disappointed than he is angry with what is going on,” said the source.

Mr David Coltart, one of the three MDC officials who sit in Cabinet, last night said he did not know what Prof Mutambara was planning.

“I was not there at the meeting (on Sunday) when the decision was made and I don’t know if he has been formally informed of the reassignment. “I don’t think he will reject the reassignment because he is someone who can do well in that portfolio as he is respected in the region.”
An official who has worked with Prof Mutambara since he was appointed DPM in 2009, told The Herald that the former MDC leader was not “worried about the future”.
“He has other options outside of Government and MDC and is not bothered by what the new MDC leader is doing.”

It is not clear what these options are but there is speculation that he might go back full time into private consultancy, or – though this is highly unlikely at present – join another party or form one of his own.
DPM Mutambara’s silence has led to a lot of conjecture as to what he is thinking and plotting, after having entered national politics in 2006 when he was invited to lead the MDC formation that had the previous year broken away from the one led by Mr Morgan Tsvangirai.

While Prof Ncube has said his party wants him to take over the deputy premiership, it is not a simple matter of reassigning Prof Mutambara.
The constitution and the Global Political Agreement, which gave rise to the inclusive Government, make it clear that President Mugabe – as the Head of State and Government – has the sole prerogative of hiring, reassigning or firing members of Cabinet.

All Prof Ncube can do is make a recommendation but the final decision reposes in President Mugabe.
Technically this means Prof Mutambara could remain DPM at President Mugabe’s pleasure, or he could accept a reassignment that is effectively a demotion, or in the final extreme simply quit Government.
Should he quit Government, he can put back on the robes of a private citizen or pursue other options as an active politician.

Last year President Mugabe accepted a request from Prime Minister Tsvangirai for changes to the MDC-T line in Government, a reshuffle apparently instigated by internal party strife.
Constitutional law expert Dr Lovemore Maduku yesterday said it was up to President Mugabe to oblige Prof Ncube or dismiss his recommendations.
“There is no such thing as recalling, redeployment or reassigning in terms of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

“There are only two options available; in this case that DPM Mutambara has to resign or else President Mugabe has to dismiss him.
“If Mutambara refuses to go and President Mugabe does not dismiss him, there is nothing Ncube can do.
“What if President Mugabe says I cannot dismiss Mutambara because he is competent in Government and has only lost a mere party election?
“It’s his (President Mugabe’s) constitutional right and there is nothing Prof Ncube can do about that,” he said.

Dr Maduku said Prof Ncube’s ascension to the helm of the MDC was of no legal consequence in State politics and structures.
Political analyst Professor Jonathan Moyo said it would probably be best for Prof Mutambara to accede to his party’s wishes for him to remain a credible politician.
“It is in his interest to remain cool because in that case he may be a recipient of God’s mercy. He may be surprised to get many opportunities including being invited by other parties.
“He should accept with humility serving as Regional Integration Minister because Prof Ncube just wants to provoke him into leaving the post so that he can replace him with one of his own cronies,” said Prof Moyo.

He questioned why Prof Ncube did not even want Prof Mutambara to become Industry and Commerce Minister.
Prof Ncube is the incumbent Industry Minister.
He has recommended that MDC secretary-general Ms Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga be appointed Industry Minister.
She is presently in charge of the Regional Integration brief.

Speculation is that Prof Ncube is banking on Prof Mutambara rejecting the demotion and quitting Government so that he can then appoint MDC vice president, Mr Edwin Mushoriwa, as the Regional Integration Minister.
All three Prof Mutambara, Prof Ncube and Ms Misihairabwi-Mushonga are non constituency Members of Parliament