Bulawayo News 24

By Takudzwa Chiwara

30th November 2017

The low registration of voters in Bulawayo is of great concern, says former Minister of Education David Coltart.

Coltart attributed voter apathy in Bulawayo to low morale and relocation to greener pastures abroad. As of November, 22, Bulawayo registered 114 389 voters, representing 27,9 percent of the targeted 409 389 people.

“The low registration of voters in Byo is of great concern.

“It is rooted in v (very) low morale here and in the fact that many of our citizens (more so than elsewhere) are in the Diaspora. The Constitution must be fully respected” i.e. ALL citizens over 18 must be allowed to register and vote,” tweeted Coltart.

However, a tweeter user, Tee Vanjick #FBPE‏ said attributing Bulawayo voter apathy to emigration is problematic since it carries the connotation that the city of kings is empty.

“Sorry David, I’m not laughing at the matter of voting but the excuse you just put there? Is Bulawayo empty because people are in the diaspora?”

As of November, 22, Harare registered 468 149 people, which is 34,8 percent of its target of 1 345 818, while Manicaland province registered 373 356 people.

Mashonaland Central has registered 306 768 voters. ZEC statistics show that Mashonaland East has registered 341 601, Mashonaland West, 274 125, Matabeleland North, 389 592 people, Matabeleland South, 123 366 people.

Masvingo has registered 48,8 percent of its 754 314 target. Zimbabwe is set to hold its election in 2018 which will be heavily contested by ZANU PF, MDC Alliance and an array of opposition parties that mushroom towards election time.

Bulawayo 24 News

By Simbarashe Sithole

27th November 2017

The arrest of former Finance Minister Ignatious Chombo over a litany of graft-related allegations has been described by former Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture David Coltart as the following of legal channels.

“It is astonishing to see former Minister Chombo in leg irons. At least legal channels are now being used to….,” he tweeted.

Chombo, the former ZANU PF Secretary for Administration is being represented by Lovemore Madhuku and is set to appear in court today for bail application.

Azor Ahai retweeted to Coltart saying “The way the former minister was handled is not to be admired.

“Though his chains should remind people in high offices , what abuse of those offices get them.”

Another commentator said it is now a fight between the Lacoste and the G40 “survival of the fittest.”

“Its only faction after the other after the tables have turned.That’s my take, ” Mongabeli Wabayi tweeted.

The Sunday Times

Christina Lamb in Matabeleland

November 26 2017

Zimbabweans old enough to recall the early days have reason to fear the new president

When Blessing Chebundo watched the crowds cheering and dancing at the inauguration of Zimbabwe’s new president on Friday, he wondered if it was time to leave the country. Chebundo, the only person to have taken on Emmerson Mnangagwa and defeated him, says the man now drawing all the adulation tried twice to have him killed.

In a hot, bare office with no water in the taps, a few Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) posters on the peeling walls and a pile of registration papers for next year’s elections on the table, a round-faced man in a crimson velvet jacket tells a story that gives a chilling insight into the man known as “the ­Crocodile”.

At 59, Chebundo is lucky to be alive. A long-time trade unionist at the country’s biggest fertiliser plant, he was persuaded to run for the newly formed MDC opposition party in the June 2000 elections in his home town of Kweke, which had been Mnangagwa’s constituency since independence in 1980. That is when his problems started.

“No one wanted to take on Mnangagwa,” says Chebundo. “He is one of the most feared politicians in the country.”

He soon learnt why. On May 9, 2000, he was on his way to the bus stop to go to work when he was surrounded by 15 youths. “One of them hit me with a pitch handle and I fell to the ground. Another grabbed a can from under his shirt and poured petrol over me. I grabbed one of the ­others and said we’re going to burn together.” He was only saved because in the scuffle the matches had been covered in petrol and wouldn’t light.

On May 13 his campaign manager, Abraham Mtsheno, was attacked. “They petrol-bombed his house in the night so it burnt down and beat his family including his one-year-old daughter so badly she ended up in hospital.”

Two days later they went for ­Chebundo’s house. Fearing an attack, he had sent his pregnant wife and child away. Suddenly, after darkness fell, he heard a noise. “When I tried to open the door an object flew past me and hit the wall and exploded. I thought, ‘Oh God.’”

He closed the door but then heard a window pane breaking as another petrol bomb sailed in. “Soon every room was petrol-bombed. I was inside and everything was on fire.”

He called the police but was told there was no one available. “It was a nightmare I didn’t know how to escape. Inside was fire all around and when I opened the curtain I could see a sea of people holding picks, knobkerries and other weapons. I thought, ‘If I go out I’m killed. If I stay inside I’m consumed by fire.’”

Will it be a new dawn for Zimbabwe?

Eventually he grabbed the breadknife and ran outside. “There must have been 40 or 50 of them and I knew I couldn’t pass them. I told them, ‘You’re going to kill me but I’m going to take as many as I can of you.’”

He started advancing towards them, brandishing the knife. Among them he recognised a local police inspector and a retired policeman. “They started retreating,” he said. “Afterwards they told people they thought I was possessed as I looked like I was flying.”

Though he survived, his house burnt down. “I lost everything I’d worked for over 21 years,” he said. “All our possessions, my three vehicles, my children’s things.” Despite the intimidation he ended up winning more than twice as many votes as Mnangagwa.

It may seem bizarre that the man who rigged elections for Robert Mugabe could not win his own seat in a poll, but Chebundo says urban seats are harder to rig and the attacks made local people more opposed to the ruling party.

“Winning the election in 2000 was like going to heaven and then coming down with a bang,” he said. “We’d had so many people killed or beaten and homes destroyed.”

In 2005 Chebundo managed to defeat Mnangagwa again, after which his rival created a new constituency.

He had mixed feelings last week as he watched fellow opposition activists pulling down portraits of Mugabe and stamping on street signs bearing the name of the 93-year-old deposed ruler. “Of course I’m glad he’s gone,” he said. “But no one can blame me for having reservations. Personally I’d say Mugabe is a better deal — I don’t like him, but this person is worse.”

He is not the only one. In the dirt-poor village of Emkayeni, just outside Tsholo­tsho in Matabeleland, Georgina Tshuma Ndlovu, 70, stands at a grave, tugging at her blue dress with red stitching, and bows her head.

“The pain never goes away,” she says. There lies her eldest son, ZuluBoy, shot dead at 19 with a friend while they were ploughing, by soldiers from Zimbabwe’s notorious Fifth Brigade.

Georgina Ndlovu with son Kenneth by the grave of her other son, who was killed during the Matabeleland massacresGeorgina Ndlovu with son Kenneth by the grave of her other son, who was killed during the Matabeleland massacres

With her is her son Kenneth, who ran away when he heard the shots that day in January 1983 but was later caught and beaten so badly that he still drags his right leg. He was 16 at the time.

“I thought they would kill me too,” he said. “Three times they pointed the gun at my head. Then they threw me face down on the ground and beat me so hard with droppers [fence poles] I couldn’t walk for a month.”

They are victims of Gukurahundi, the most brutal massacre of the Mugabe regime in which an estimated 20,000 people from the Ndebele tribe were killed or disappeared. The name comes from a Shona word that means “the early rain that washes away the chaff before spring” and the aim was to wipe out opposition after independence. “We call it the time of the killing,” said Georgina.

Mnangagwa was head of Zimbabwe’s spy agency, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), in the mid-1980s when the massacre was under way and is believed to have played a key role. “Mnangagwa was the leader of that army that did this Gukurahundi,” said Mtshumayeli Moyo, 60, the local head man, who was also abducted by soldiers. “I’m worried that what happened before will come back.”

Moyo had his identity card taken and ripped up but escaped with his life, he thinks, because he is partially crippled. His wife, Sihle, was so badly beaten that she could not walk for weeks.

The Fifth Brigade, trained by North Koreans and headed by Perence Shiri, who is now air force chief and was alongside Mnangagwa at his inauguration on Friday, spread terror throughout southern Zimbabwe from 1983 to 1987. The brigade set up camps in two schools and systematically went from village to village. Within six weeks more than 2,000 civilians had died, hundreds of homes had burnt down and thousands of civilians had been beaten.

Most of the dead were killed in public executions. Afterwards villagers were sometimes forced at gunpoint to dance on the freshly dug graves and sing pro-Mugabe songs. Entire families were burnt alive inside huts, women raped and mothers-to-be bayoneted.

Thirty years later many of those who witnessed the violence have now died in a country where life expectancy is, at 58, one of the lowest in the world. Others are scared to talk. Meetings I had set up at the start of the week were cancelled once Mnangagwa was announced as president.

Gukurahundi has never been officially acknowledged by the regime, and Mnangagwa has denied his role. “How do I become the enforcer?” he asked a New Statesman interviewer last year. “During Gukurahundi we had the president, the minister of defence, the commander of the army, and I was none of that.”

But the state-controlled Chronicle in Bulawayo reported him at the time likening dissidents to “bugs and cockroaches that had reached such an epidemic that the government needed to bring in DDT to get rid of them”.

A still taken from rare footage of the Fifth Brigade during the Gukurahundi massacresA still taken from rare footage of the Fifth Brigade during the Gukurahundi massacres

David Coltart, a lawyer in Bulawayo, opposition senator and minister for education in Mugabe’s cabinet during the government of national unity in 2009-13, describes Mnangagwa as one of the architects of the massacre.

In his book The Struggle Continues he documents how under Mnangagwa the CIO provided lists of members of the rival party Zapu that the Fifth Brigade would go after. He quotes him warning in a speech in April 1983: “Woe unto those who will choose the path of collaboration with dissidents, for we will certainly shorten their stay on earth.”

“Everyone’s celebrating but I’m not in a celebratory mood,” said Coltart, who used to sit two seats away from Mnangagwa in cabinet. “I’m happy Robert Mugabe has gone but am worried about Mnangagwa.

“Is he going to be another Gorbachev or de Klerk, or will he be a Milosevic or Idi Amin? The choice is literally that stark.

“His history doesn’t give us much encouragement,” he added. “It’s not just more of the same — it’s potentially worse. You have someone much younger and more vigorous and much closer to the military.”

A guerrilla fighter at the age of 16, Mnangagwa narrowly escaped a death sentence for helping to blow up a Rhodesian train. After taking a law degree, he became a commander in the liberation movement and was trained in China. He has been at Mugabe’s side for 50 years, first as his bodyguard and personal assistant and then, after independence, as minister of justice, state security and defence and Speaker of parliament. He has long seen himself as the heir apparent, sidelining rivals such as his fellow vice-president Joice Mujuru. When it looked as though he was going to lose everything to the first lady, Grace Mugabe, his close friend ­General Constantine Chiwenga, the head of the army, made his move, launching a coup that Mnangagwa is widely believed to have orchestrated.

It’s not just Gukurahundi that concerns Coltart but also Mnangagwa’s role in the 2008 presidential election, when he orchestrated a wave of deadly violence and intimidation that forced the opposition MDC to pull out of a run-off vote that Mugabe risked losing. Coltart says he helped rig the last elections too.

“He has been Mugabe’s point man all along,” he says. “He was his point man in Gukurahundi, point man in the run-off elections in 2008 — it was Mnangagwa who organised that entire election with all the incidents of targeting — and then, with General Chiwenga and the military, he ran the 2013 elections, where I had ­soldiers in my constituency voting early and often.”

His fears are shared by Chief Felix Nhlanhla Ndiweni, 52, who lived in Canvey Island, Essex, and worked as an auditor until three years ago, when he returned to succeed his father as paramount chief of the Ndiweni. “We’ve been through a hellish patch for 37 years, so, yes, the exit of Mugabe is good,” he said, “but we’re opening a Pandora’s box and I’m concerned history will repeat itself.”

Speaking in clipped English and wearing tribal beads and a black leather headband, he said barely a day passes without him meeting victims of Gukurahundi and insisted that Mnangagwa must address the issue urgently.

“We can’t gloss over the most heinous of human crimes: genocide. It happened, and thousands and thousands were killed,” he said.

He is calling for an inter­national investigation. “A simple apology is not enough. We need information: where are the bones of our loved ones and who did what? And at some point some individuals have to be locked up for this.”

Not only is the new president the most feared man in Zimbabwe but he is also reputed to be the richest. “He is the wealthiest man in the country,” said Tendai Biti, a former finance minister and an opposition leader.

How he acquired that wealth is a ­matter of great speculation. His business interests include a chain of petrol stations, ethanol production and gold panning. Eyebrows were raised when, in his inauguration speech, he called for an end to corruption. “As we focus on recovering our economy, we must shed misbehaviours and acts of indiscipline, which have characterised the past,” he said.

Demonstrators outside parliament on the day it began impeachment proceedings against Robert MugabeDemonstrators outside parliament on the day it began impeachment proceedings against Robert Mugabe

A UN security council report accused him of plundering diamonds from the Democratic Republic of Congo when Zimbabwean troops intervened to prop up the government of President Laurent Kabila in the late 1990s. According to the 2002 report, Mnangagwa was “key strategist for the Zimbabwean branch of the elite network” looting precious minerals.

This dark history makes some doubt his pledges to bring in a new Zimbabwe, particularly when he ended his first speech after Mugabe’s resignation by saying in Shona, “The dogs may keep on barking but Zanu-PF will keep on ruling”, and then departing in a long motorcade.

After all the euphoria of the past 12 days, some Zimbabweans are starting to wonder if they have been fooled. “It’s a Zanu-PF squabble we allowed ourselves to be sucked into,” said Shari Eppel, director of the Solidarity Peace Trust and one of the authors of the Gukurahundi report. “It was never about a return to democracy. I feel people en masse are succumbing to Stockholm syndrome, mistaking their captors for liberators,” she warned as she watched people hug soldiers and praise the army, which launched the coup that led to Mugabe’s resignation. “The army are not our friends and liberators. They never have been and never will be, particularly in this area.”

On Friday the military was clearly in evidence at Mnangagwa’s inauguration in a packed Harare stadium to watch him take the chains of office. It was followed by a fly-past and a 21-gun salute.

“We have no time to squander,” he told cheering crowds. The biggest challenge is an economic crisis so severe that the country has only enough money to fund one month of imports and more than nine out of 10 people are jobless.

Celebrations in the streets of Harare as news of Robert Mugabe’s resignation spreadsCelebrations in the streets of Harare as news of Robert Mugabe’s resignation spreads

Post-apocalyptic scenes lay before us as we drove from Harare to Bulawayo and then Tsholotsho: farms derelict, hotels abandoned, grass growing in factories and long queues outside banks. Big companies such as Sisco steel and Sable Chemicals have closed. Villages like Ndlovu’s are still ploughed by donkey, water must be collected from wells and most huts have only a little grain. “We’ve actually gone backwards,” said Moyo, the head man.

For this to change Mnangagwa needs the help of the international community, and he pledged in his speech to re-engage with the world. Opposition leaders are urging the international community to demand in return the freeing of state media and the holding of free and fair elections overseen by a unity government. He is expected to announce his cabinet this week. But many in the ruling party see no need to bring in opposition.

“Why should we?” asked Terence Mukupe, MP for Harare East. “The constitution says if you recall the president, the party in power stays till next election. If MDC were the ones in this scenario they wouldn’t be asking for a coalition.”

A former Wall Street banker, Mukupe is a supporter of Mnangagwa who is a close friend of his father-in-law and was guest of honour at his wedding, and says his fearsome reputation is unfair. Emmerson is a very humble guy, a man of few words,” he said. “He listens, whereas President Mugabe became detached from the people and the only person he listened to was Grace and her cabal.”

“People who say he is ruthless are people from the opposition. No one in the street has a problem with Emmerson coming. Everyone is celebrating and singing songs about him.”

The song he mentions, Mudhara Achauya, means The Big Man Is Coming.

Washington Post

By Kevin Sieff

25 November 2017

HARARE, Zimbabwe —For 37 years, it was the official newspaper of Robert Mugabe. Then, this month, the staff of the Zimbabwe Herald got an impossible assignment: They would have to cover the downfall of their benefactor.

In the days after Mugabe was detained by the military, editors and reporters gathered in a wood-paneled newsroom in an old office building downtown, trying to figure out what to do.

Should they back Mugabe or the military takeover? Did they still have to echo the party line? What was the party line, anyway?

Suddenly, a newsroom that had been the mouthpiece of the regime was without a censor.

“In the past we could never criticize the president,” said Felex Share, a political reporter, in the hours before Mugabe’s resignation. “Right now, we can touch anything.”

Phyllis Kochere holds the newspaper announcing the resignation of Robert Mugabe in the newsroom of the Zimbabwe Herald. (Kevin Sieff/The Washington Post)
The rapid descent of the world’s oldest head of state came as a shock to many Zimbabweans who assumed Mugabe would rule the country until his death.

The Herald, which is owned by the government, had advanced the idea that his rule was untouchable. Until two weeks ago, the paper was printing laudatory stories and editorials about the country’s despotic leader.

“President Mugabe deserves Nobel Peace Prize,” said one headline last month.

“He is undisputedly the most exceptional figure in the history of our country,” another article said in September.

The paper’s editors and reporters didn’t usually agree with those messages, but working for the Herald meant shelving your own politics. It was the best-paying newspaper in Zimbabwe, and in a country with a soaring unemployment rate, that meant something.

“It makes you feel stupid writing this stuff,” said Joram Nyathi, the paper’s deputy editor. “But you’re working for government media. You know what to expect.”

Even after Mugabe’s house arrest, the paper decided to play it safe. “Business as usual across the country,” its front-page headline said, ignoring the shock wave rippling across Zimbabwe.

Inside the newsroom, a frenzied revolution was taking place. Reporters who had for years bit their tongues while writing flattering stories saw an opening.

“It was a seismic shift for us,” Share said.

Days later, when thousands poured onto the streets of Harare to demand Mugabe’s resignation, the tenor of the paper’s coverage began to change. It started publishing straightforward news reports about the country’s swelling opposition. It sent reporters and photographers into crowds carrying anti-Mugabe signs. For the first time in decades, it gave Mugabe’s rivals a voice.

It wasn’t just the Herald that seemed to be liberalizing. Arbitrary police checkpoints vanished overnight. Foreign journalists, once heavily obstructed, could move freely (including into the Herald’s newsroom). The demonstrations themselves were unimaginable only weeks ago.

In the following days, the paper wrote front-page stories about Mugabe’s dismissal as head of the ruling party, ZANU-PF.

It covered plans by the parliament to impeach the president. It ran op-eds in support of efforts to bring Mugabe down.

“We have no doubt that the biggest winner in this fiasco are the people of Zimbabwe,” said one.

Zimbabweans started posting pictures of the Herald on Twitter and Facebook, in disbelief that the newspaper of Mugabe had suddenly abandoned him. The paper had to increase its print run to keep up with demand.

“This in the Herald. Pinch yourself — it is not April Fools Day,” tweeted David Coltart, a former senator and member of the opposition, after the paper covered Mugabe’s dismissal from the party.

It wasn’t just that the Herald was eager to seize a rare moment of press freedom. Its senior editors were also trying to sort out who was likely to emerge from the country’s political chaos — so they knew which horse to back.

“You don’t want to step on the wrong toes,” said Phyllis Kochere, the deputy news editor.

On Tuesday, the paper sent its parliamentary reporter, Farirai Machivenyika, to cover a session in which lawmakers were expected to begin protracted impeachment proceedings. About an hour into the session, Machivenyika watched as the speaker of the house stood up with a piece of paper in his hand, a smile spreading across his face.

The speaker began to read a resignation letter written by Mugabe. Machivenyika took frantic notes. Like many of the Herald’s reporters, he was born after Mugabe assumed power in 1980. He could hardly believe he was about to file a story about the president’s resignation.

He thought to himself: “This is what relief feels like.”

The next day, the Herald ran the words “Ta Ta, Cde President” on the front page, with the full text of Mugabe’s resignation letter. In an editorial, the paper wrote: “Last night was a new beginning for Zimbabwe.”

In the morning, the newspaper’s staff gathered for the news meeting, its first of the post-Mugabe era.

Nyathi looked around at the other editors and reporters and muttered under his breath, “Well, what do I do now?”

For about an hour the staff debated what had just happened to their country and what was going to come next.

“There’s a need for a coalition government,” said Ruth Butaumocho, the gender editor.

“If ZANU-PF thinks it will lead the country alone, they will continue just like Mugabe,” said one editor.

“We need to come up with an objective analysis of the trajectory the country’s politics is going to take,” another said.

“Things are changing every hour,” Kochere said.

“We need more stories!” yelled Nyathi.

That day, the major story line was the return of the soon-to-be president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who had been in exile for several weeks since being fired as vice president. No one — not even the paper’s reporters — was sure how the Herald would cover it.

Would Mnangagwa get the same kind of flattering coverage Mugabe had received for so many years? Would the Herald continue its streak of more objective reporting?

That night, Mnangagwa’s speech veered into the anti-opposition rhetoric Mugabe had often used. “Those who oppose us will bark and bark,” he said. “They will continue to bark, but the ZANU-PF train will roll on, ruling and ruling while they bark.”

It was exactly the kind of language many of the Herald’s top reporters and editors had expressed concern about, a sign Mnangagwa had no interest in forming a broad coalition.

The paper didn’t cover that angle. Instead, it published positive news stories and editorials, including one on the front page under the headline “President needs our maximum support.”

Had the paper’s brief window of freedom closed? Back in the newsroom, opinions were divided.

“Like any other media business, we are expected to toe the owner’s line,” Kochere said.

Share was more optimistic.

“There are no sacred cows now,” he said.

In the front entrance of the Herald, the portrait of Mugabe had already been taken down, leaving a slightly discolored rectangle on the wall where it once hung. The newsroom looked like any other — with piles of yellowing paper atop desks, clusters of reporters discussing their stories, editors trying to plan the day’s coverage.

Kochere looked through a list of story pitches in the center of the room. Outside, a crowd was waiting for Mnangagwa to arrive at the president’s office, waiting to hear what he would say on the eve of his inauguration.

Kochere sighed. She had been at the paper for 17 years. She knew the Herald as well as she knew Zimbabwean politics.

“I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed,” she said. “It’s a divided nation.”

Arkansas Online

25th November 2017

Zimbabwe’s newly inaugurated president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, said democratic elections will be held on time next year and pledged to lead the revival of the economically distressed southern African nation.

“We dare not squander this moment,” Mnangagwa, 75, told supporters at the 68,000-seat national sports stadium in Harare, the capital. “I have to hit the ground running.”

Mnangagwa, who replaced Robert Mugabe after he resigned Tuesday to end 37 years in power, spoke about the need to revive an economy in free-fall, with a 90 percent jobless rate, a severe cash shortage and crumbling public infrastructure. He vowed to clamp down on corruption and pledged to put the southern African nation back to work.

“We put a premium on creating jobs, jobs, more jobs,” he said. “We welcome mutually gainful partnerships with international investors. The bottom line is we need an economy that’s back on its feet.”

Mnangagwa was Mugabe’s right-hand man for half a century through the liberation war against white-ruled Rhodesia and since independence in 1980 until their rupture in recent months. He described the former president as “my mentor, my father, my leader.”

At Mnangagwa’s Friday inauguration, helicopters and planes flew in formation, an artillery unit fired a 21-gun salute, honor guards with fixed bayonets high-stepped and Zimbabwean pop star Jah Prayzah had people dancing on a day celebrating a new stage in the nation’s history. Such an occasion had seemed almost impossible to imagine for many Zimbabweans as the years dragged on under the 93-year-old Mugabe.

In a show of regional support for the new leader, the presidents of Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia attended the inauguration, with the crowd cheering Botswana’s leader Ian Khama for his past calls for Mugabe to step down.

Zimbabwean military commander Gen. Constantino Chiwenga also got a big cheer from the tens of thousands in the stadium. His forces staged a takeover last week amid alarm over a perceived power grab by a ruling party faction loyal to Robert Mugabe’s wife, Grace. The act of sending tanks into the streets triggered the national clamor leading to her husband’s resignation.

However, the national police commissioner, Gen. Augustine Chihuri, was booed when he pledged allegiance to the new president, reflecting public anger over perceived corruption in police ranks.

While Mnangagwa said “let bygones be bygones” in his speech and has warned against retaliation, human-rights activists and lawyers already were reporting moves against some figures linked to Mugabe’s wife.

Ignatious Chombo, the finance minister under Mugabe, was attacked after the military swept in and will appear in court today in connection with allegedly corrupt land deals, said his lawyer Lovemore Madhuku.

He said charges against Chombo, who has not been seen in public since the military takeover, were read out Thursday while he lay in bed at a government-run hospital.

Elsewhere in the capital, long lines formed outside banks, a common sight in the financially distressed nation.

“His major challenge will be creating an investment climate and efficiency in government, but he made no real mention of strengthening and rooting democracy,” said David Coltart, an opposition senator. “I suspect he’ll establish a Chinese-style of governance.”

Mnangagwa urged western nations that have imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe to reconsider their measures and said his government was committed to compensating farmers whose land was taken under a Mugabe-backed expropriation program.

The president himself remains under U.S. sanctions for his activities as Mugabe’s enforcer, a role that earned him the nickname “Crocodile.”

Mnangagwa was minister of state security during the army killings of thousands of people when Mugabe moved against a political rival in the 1980s, and was justice minister around the time that the farm takeovers started. He also was in the Cabinet at the time of a violent crackdown on opponents in the 2008 presidential election.

Mnangagwa came to power after a tumultuous three weeks that started with his firing by Mugabe on Nov. 6 over accusations by Grace Mugabe that the former spy chief was plotting a coup. The armed forces’ intervention and a decision by the ruling party to back Mnangagwa as its leader and to begin impeachment proceedings against Mugabe prompted the president to resign.

Mugabe and his wife, Grace, are currently at their Blue Roof mansion in the suburbs of Harare, according to an official close to the former president who asked not to be identified because he isn’t authorized to speak to the media. Mnangagwa’s administration won’t prosecute Mugabe or his family and they are free to remain in the country, according to the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.

Information for this article was contributed by Brian Latham and Godfrey Marawanyika of The Associated Press and by Christopher Torchia and Farai Mutsaka of The Associated Press.

Bulawayo 24

24th November 2017

Former Zimbabwean cabinet minister, David Coltart, told a South African radio station, Power 98.7, that Zimbabwe President-designate, Emmerson Mnangagwa’s history shows that he was Robert Mugabe’s point man and that is why ‘we don’t have the champagne out.’

“We place a tiny bit of hope in him. We wait to see whether he will be an Gorbachev or a Milosevic.

“There’s a lot of expectation.

“Words are easy, actions are far more difficult.

“There are mixed messages and there’s an element in ZANU-PF trying to encourage Mnangagwa to go it alone and not include the opposition.

BBC

24th November 2017

BBC reports that Robert Mugabe’s finance minister Ignatius Chombo has been admitted to hospital after beatings he received in military custody.

His lawyer Lovemore Madhuku reportedly said that Chombo has injuries to his hands, legs and back and was blindfolded throughout his week in custody.

Chombo was accused of corruption and abuse of power relating to his time as local government minister more than a decade ago, Madhuku was quoted as saying.

Chombo was detained when the military took over last week in events that eventually led to Mr Mugabe resigning as president.

Former Zimbabwean minister David Coltart says: “This is utterly reprehensible & those responsible must be brought to book.”

The Globe and Mail

By Geoffrey York

24th November 2017

After 37 years of Robert Mugabe’s autocratic rule, Zimbabwe’s new president Emmerson Mnangagwa has taken office with an inaugural speech in which he vowed to revive the battered economy, attract foreign investment and provide compensation to the thousands of farmers whose land was seized on Mr. Mugabe’s orders over the past two decades.

Mr. Mnangagwa took the oath of office on Friday in front of a cheering crowd of 60,000 people at a sports stadium in Harare. He is replacing his long-time comrade in the ruling party, Mr. Mugabe, who resigned on Tuesday under heavy pressure after a military coup.

The stadium was filled with music, dancing and singing as Zimbabweans celebrated the first change of leadership since the country’s liberation from white-minority rule in 1980.

“This is a new dawn, a new era,” state broadcaster ZBC told a national television audience.

While the rhetoric in his inaugural speech was conciliatory and moderate, Mr. Mnangagwa’s long and shadowy career has raised deep concerns that he still might prefer repressive rule.

Mr. Mnangagwa, along with many other Zimbabwean ruling party members, is currently the subject of sanctions by the Canadian and U.S. governments for his role in undermining democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe.

He was one of Mr. Mugabe’s closest aides for more than four decades, including periods of brutal crackdowns on dissent. Never a great populist or orator, and twice defeated in constituency elections, he has preferred to operate quietly from the back rooms. Even his exact birth date is uncertain.

He has denied that he played any role in the notorious Matabeleland massacres of 1982 and 1983, in which an estimated 20,000 civilians were killed in a military campaign to crush dissent in the region. Yet researchers in recent years have uncovered strong evidence of his role in supporting the atrocities in the Matabeleland region.

Mr. Mnangagwa was born in the mining town of Shabani in what was then the British colony of Southern Rhodesia. His family had to flee to Zambia because of his father’s resistance to colonial rule. After receiving military training in China and Egypt, he rose to prominence as a guerrilla fighter in the early 1960s during the war of liberation from colonial and white-minority rule. His guerrilla unit was known as the Crocodile group – the original source of his nickname, the Crocodile. (His political supporters have embraced the nickname, portraying him as wily, patient and dangerous.)

In the early war years, Mr. Mnangagwa and his Crocodile unit sabotaged a locomotive and killed a police reservist. He was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison, where he sometimes shared a cell with Mr. Mugabe. He was tortured by the colonial police and was kept in solitary confinement for three years.

After his release, he became an assistant to Mr. Mugabe in exile in Mozambique. When Zimbabwe became independent in 1980, he was appointed to the Mugabe cabinet, where he served as the president’s enforcer for decades, helping build the regime’s secret police, known as the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO).

Despite his denials, there is powerful evidence that Mr. Mnangagwa was one of the main architects of the brutal campaign against the Matabeleland dissidents. He was the minister of state security at the time of the massacres, and his CIO supported the military in the Matabeleland operation.

David Coltart, a senator from Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, has documented Mr. Mnangagwa’s role in Matabeleland. In an autobiography last year, Mr. Coltart cited a 1983 report in which the state security minister threatened to “burn down all villages infested with dissidents.”

Mr. Mnangagwa denied Mr. Coltart’s allegation. But a Zimbabwean journalist dug into the archives of a state-run newspaper, The Chronicle, and found reports confirming Mr. Mnangagwa’s comments and several similar comments. In one report, for example, Mr. Mnangagwa is quoted as describing the dissidents as “cockroaches and bugs” who needed to be treated with pesticide – his euphemism for the army’s notorious Fifth Brigade, trained by North Koreans.

“Taking both the circumstantial and specific evidence together, his intimate involvement in the killings is indisputable,” said Stuart Doran, a historian who was extensively studied the Matabeleland massacres.

“Even if we were to confine ourselves to his contemporary public statements, those alone are enough to demonstrate his participation,” said Mr. Doran, author of Kingdom, Power, Glory: Mugabe, Zanu and the quest for supremacy, 1960-1987.

In an e-mail to The Globe and Mail, he also cited comments in 1983 in which Mr. Mnangagwa said the Fifth Brigade troops had arrived in Matabeleland “like fire” and had “cleansed” the dissidents and “wiped out their supporters.”

Mary Ndlovu, the Canadian widow of a former Zimbabwean member of parliament in the Matabeleland region, says she has “no doubt” that Mr. Mnangagwa was the mastermind of the crackdown on that region in the early 1980s.

Her husband, Edward Ndlovu, was a member of ZAPU, a political party that was repeatedly targeted by Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Mnangagwa. In 1985, he was detained without trial for eight months, accused of plotting to overthrow the government. When he was finally released, a cabinet minister told him that Mr. Mnangagwa was responsible for his imprisonment, Ms. Ndlovu says.

She has met Mr. Mnangagwa several times. “Everything I know about him makes me want to stay as far away as possible,” she told The Globe. “Friends who know him well fear him.… One gets the impression of a man who keeps his innermost thoughts to himself and prefers to play a quiet game.”

Since the 1980s, Mr. Mnangagwa has held a series of senior cabinet posts and key positions in the ruling party. Corruption allegations have swirled around him and he is reported to be one of the wealthiest people in the ruling party. In addition to business interests in Zimbabwe, he became embroiled in the illicit trade of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after he led a Zimbabwean military intervention there.

An investigation by the United Nations in 2002 described Mr. Mnangagwa as a “key strategist” for an elite network of Congolese and Zimbabwean officials who controlled the trade of billions of dollars worth of diamonds and other Congolese mineral resources, using Zimbabwe as a diamond-trading centre. The UN investigation recommended that a travel ban and financial restrictions be imposed on him.

At the end of the closely fought 2008 election, Mr. Mnangagwa is widely reported to have orchestrated a campaign of violence and intimidation that killed at least 200 people, forcing the opposition to pull out of the election.

In recent years, he is seen as an economic pragmatist who wants to bring back foreign investment. Yet he retains the old warlike rhetoric. On his first day back in Zimbabwe this week after the coup, his speech to the ruling party included an ominous line in the Shona language: “Death to the enemies.”

Mr. Coltart, the senator, describes Mr. Mnangagwa as an enigma. “While he has been Mugabe’s most trusted lieutenant, and thus responsible for terrible human rights abuses, he now opposes the death penalty, has protected white farmers in his home district, and understands what is needed to transform the economy better than anyone else in ZANU-PF,” he told The Globe.

Mr. Mnangagwa’s inaugural speech on Friday was filled with economic promises, but made no mention of democratic reforms – a worrisome omission in a country where elections have been rigged and opposition members have been terrorized.

He promised that the scheduled 2018 election will go ahead as planned. He said his government wants to “re-engage” with the international community, and he asked Western nations to reconsider their sanctions against Zimbabwe.

He paid tribute to Mr. Mugabe as his “mentor, comrade-in-arms and leader” and a “founding father” of the nation. He showed no interest, however, in seeking justice for the victims of historical atrocities. “Let bygones be bygones,” he said.

Many Zimbabweans are hoping that the new President will loosen the official repression and allow greater democracy. But there was a disturbing sign of fresh abuses on Friday when reports emerged that the military had assaulted and blindfolded Zimbabwe’s finance minister, Ignatius Chombo, a leading member of a ruling-party faction that had feuded with Mr. Mnangagwa.

Reuters

By Emelia Sithole-Matarise

24th November 2017

New President Emmerson Mnangagwa laid out a grand vision on Friday to revitalise Zimbabwe’s ravaged economy and vowed to rule on behalf of all the country’s citizens.

Sworn in days after the overthrow of Robert Mugabe, the 75-year-old former security chief promised to guarantee the rights of foreign investors and to re-engage with the West, and said elections would go ahead next year as scheduled.

In a 30-minute speech to tens of thousands of supporters in Harare’s national stadium, Mnangagwa extended an olive branch to opponents, apparently aiming to bridge the ethnic and political divides exploited by his predecessor during his 37 years in charge.

“I intend, nay, am required, to serve our country as the president of all citizens, regardless of color, creed, religion, tribe or political affiliation,” he said, in a speech that also hailed the voice of the people as the “voice of god”.

Behind the rhetoric, some Zimbabweans wonder whether a man who loyally served Mugabe for decades can bring change to a ruling establishment accused of systematic human rights abuses and disastrous economic policies.

He made clear that the land reforms that sparked the violent seizure of thousands of white-owned farms from 2000 would not be reversed, but promised that those who lost property would receive compensation.

To some political opponents, the speech was a welcome contrast with the habitual belligerence of Mugabe and appeared to be drawing on Mnangagwa’s knowledge and understanding of China as a model for running an economy.

CHINA MODEL?

“His model has been the Chinese,” said David Coltart, a former education minister and MP from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

“He will drive to make Zimbabwe a more attractive investment location, and more efficient, but like China will not tolerate dissent. If you ‘behave’, you will be secure.”

Those skeptical about the new president’s commitment to change question his role in the so-called Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland in 1983, when an estimated 20,000 people were killed in a crackdown on Mugabe’s opponents by the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade.

Mnangagwa was in charge of internal security at the time, but has denied any part in the atrocities.

Many Zimbabweans, especially the ethnic Ndebele who bore the brunt of the Gukurahundi slaughter, will see his appeal on Friday to “let bygones be bygones” as an attempt to gloss over his nation’s darkest chapter.

Some critics have alleged harsh treatment by soldiers of opponents of the military intervention last week – a de facto coup against Mugabe, 93, and his 52-year-old wife Grace.

Axed finance minister Ignatius Chombo was in hospital with injuries sustained from beatings during a week in military custody, his lawyer told Reuters. He was blindfolded throughout his time in detention, Lovemore Madhuku said.

Emmerson Mnangagwa swears in as Zimbabwe’s president in Harare, Zimbabwe, November 24, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings
“It was a very brutal and draconian way of dealing with opponents,” he added.

Asked to comment, police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said she had no information about Chombo.

Separately, High Court Judge President George Chiweshe ruled that the military intervention last week was legal, following an application brought by two citizens who petitioned the court to confirm the military had been right to do what they did.

THE “CROCODILE”

Since his return to Zimbabwe this month after fleeing a Mugabe-led purge, Mnangagwa has been preaching democracy, tolerance and respect for the rule of law.

Along with Mugabe, Grace – Mnangagwa’s sworn enemy – has been granted immunity from prosecution and had her safety guaranteed, part of a deal that led to Mugabe’s resignation on Tuesday, sources close to the negotiations said.

For decades Mnangagwa was a faithful aide to Mugabe, who was widely accused of repression of dissent and election-rigging and under whose rule one of Africa’s once most prosperous economies was wrecked by hyperinflation and mass emigration.

Mnangagwa earned the nickname “Ngwena”, Shona for crocodile, an animal famed and feared in Zimbabwean lore for stealth and ruthlessness.

In his speech, Mnangagwa called for the removal of Western sanctions and said he wanted to “hit the ground running”.

He appeared to have initial support from neighboring states. South African President Jacob Zuma said he hoped he would steer Zimbabwe successfully through the transition from Mugabe’s rule.

The Southern African Development Community, an intergovernmental organization, said it was ready to work closely with Mnangagwa’s government.

Zimbabweans listening to his speech said they were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, but were also realistic about the chances of injecting life into an economy with 90 percent unemployment and banks devoid of cash.

In the last 15 years, an estimated 3 million have emigrated to neighboring South Africa in search of a better life.

“I wanted to see for myself that Mugabe has really gone. He is the only president I’ve known,” said 33-year-old Lenin Tongoona.

“We have a new president who may try something a little different to improve the economy. I’m excited today but tomorrow is uncertain because we don’t know how he will turn out. He talks about creating jobs. How does he plan to do that?”

Bloomberg

By Brian Latham

24th November 2017

Emmerson Mnangagwa took office as Zimbabwe’s new president with pledges to hold democratic elections on time next year and to revive the economically distressed southern African nation.

“We dare not squander this moment,” Mnangagwa, 75, told supporters at the 68,000-seat national sports stadium in Harare, the capital. “I have to hit the ground running.”

Mnangagwa, who replaced Robert Mugabe after he resigned on Tuesday to end 37 years in power, spoke about the need to revive an economy in free-fall, with a 90 percent jobless rate and a severe cash shortage and crumbling public infrastructure. He vowed to clamp down on corruption and pledged to put the southern African nation back to work.

“We put a premium on creating jobs, jobs, more jobs,” he said. “We welcome mutually gainful partnerships with international investors. The bottom line is we need an economy that’s back on its feet.”

Mnangagwa was Mugabe’s right-hand man for half a century through the liberation war against white-ruled Rhodesia and since independence in 1980 until their rupture in recent months. He described the former president as “my mentor, my father, my leader.”

Mugabe at Home

Mugabe and his wife, Grace, are currently at their Blue Roof mansion in the suburbs of Harare, according to an official close to the former president who asked not to be identified because he isn’t authorized to speak to the media. Mnangagwa’s administration won’t prosecute Mugabe or his family and they are free to remain in the country, according to the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.

“His major challenge will be creating an investment climate and efficiency in government, but he made no real mention of strengthening and rooting democracy,” said David Coltart, an opposition senator. “I suspect he’ll establish a Chinese-style of governance.”

Mnangagwa came to power after a tumultuous three weeks that started with his firing by Mugabe on Nov. 6 following accusations by Grace Mugabe that the former spy chief was plotting a coup. An intervention by the armed forces and a decision by Zanu-PF to back Mnangagwa as its leader and to begin impeachment proceedings against Mugabe prompted the president to resign.

“We must accept that our challenges emanate in part from the way we’ve managed our politics, both nationally and internationally,” Mnangagwa said.

Western Sanctions

Mnangagwa urged western nations that have imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe to reconsider their measures and said his government was committed to compensating farmers whose land was taken under a Mugabe-backed expropriation program.

“For the time that I shall be president, I solemnly promise that I’ll do my best to serve everyone, everyone who calls and considers Zimbabwe their home,” he said.

While Mnangagwa made the right noises about democracy, the economy and a re-engagement with western nations, it’s his delivery that will count, said Eldred Masunungure, a political science professor at the University of Zimbabwe.

“We must wait and see whether he will carry through on the many nice things he said,” Masunungure said. “The complexion of his government, the people he will appoint in his cabinet, will give us an indication of the direction he intends to take.”

— With assistance by Desmond Kumbuka