Zimbabwe Crisis Reports
By Chipo Sithole
16 September 2008

The power-sharing deal entered by long-time Zimbabwe ruler Robert Mugabe and leaders of the fractured opposition establishes the largest cabinet since independence in 1980, imposing a huge financial cost on the crisis-torn country.

Prime Minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, had all along insisted on a government with 15 ministers, arguing that Mugabe’s huge and bloated cabinet was draining the country’s finances.

He has, however, acceded to demands by Mugabe and his negotiating team for a much bigger administration.

In a 31-person cabinet, Mugabe’s ZANU-PF will have 15 ministers, the mainstream MDC will have 13 and the breakaway MDC, led by Arthur Mutambara, will have three. There will be eight deputy ministers drawn from ZANU-PF, six from Tsvangirai’s party and one deputy minister from the Mutambara MDC faction.

That makes a total of 46 cabinet posts. Each minister will attract a hefty monthly salary reported to be 10,000 US dollars. Deputy ministers will earn a bit less.

The new prime minister will have two deputies – one from his main MDC faction and another from the breakaway faction. There will also be two vice presidents from ZANU- PF. The salary bill alone will run well over 500,000 US dollars – excluding allowances that ministers and their assistants are entitled to.

Critics immediately said the country could ill afford such a huge wage bill at a time when it was struggling to feed its starving population. The ministers have a huge tax-free threshold, so the Zimbabwean exchequer will claw back very little in income tax from the salaries.

A senior MDC official, David Coltart, said the allocation of of cabinet posts to the three parties was based on total votes cast for the parties, rather than seats won in the March 29 election, when ZANU-PF lost control of parliament for the first time since independence.

Accordingly, said Coltart, if the two MDC factions worked together, which he said they should in the national interest, they will enjoy a majority in cabinet.

“This is undoubtedly historic but we still have a long and treacherous road to travel,” said Coltart. “Even had we in the combined MDC obtained total control, the challenges are immense.”

The bitter Zimbabwean rivals signed a power-sharing deal on September 15 that will establish a coalition government and potentially end an economic implosion that has seen inflation skyrocket to 11 million per cent.

“They have all endorsed the document, [they have] signed it,” said South African president Thabo Mbeki, the negotiator appointed by the Southern African Development Community. Speaking at a press briefing in Harare, he added that “all the parties have signed without reservations”.

Zimbabwe’s June 27 presidential run-off election saw the incumbent Mugabe claiming a landslide victory in a one-man race after Tsvangirai pulled out, citing violence and restrictions on his campaign.

Political violence and killings nationwide followed Tsvangirai’s victory in the first round of balloting on March 29, claiming at least 125 lives. The MDC leader, however, failed to reach the 50 per cent threshold that would have enabled him to form a government, forcing the run-off.

Aid agencies estimate nearly 200,000 people have been displaced by the conflict. Brutal extra-judicial killings were reportedly sanctioned by the Mugabe government and images of hacked bodies and Zimbabweans burnt to death shocked the nation.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai, who seemed irreconcilable just weeks ago, managed to hammer out an agreement during the last four-day round of negotiations.

Mugabe’s negotiating team had repeatedly accused Tsvangirai of deliberately delaying the talks to force a transfer of power. But Tsvangirai insisted he could not accept a post that made him a lame duck prime minister while Mugabe retained the sweeping powers that he has wielded since Zimbabwe won independence from Britain in 1980.

The road to recovery, however, remains difficult. The power-sharing agreement establishes the post of prime minister for Tsvangirai, an executive position that will coordinate and oversee the functions and affairs of the government. Both parties share the duties of appointing cabinet ministers.

But the proposed reforms will still have to pass through a deeply divided parliament that heckled Mugabe when he officially opened it on August 26.

IWPR understands Constitutional Amendment 19 – ensuring the setting up of an inclusive government that will initiate an all-inclusive process of constitutional reform – is due to be tabled in parliament, which has been adjourned until October.

The speaker of parliament, a member of the main MDC faction, and the senate president, from ZANU-PF, are due to call a special parliamentary session to push through the amendment.

That process will last 18 months, by which time a new democratic constitution must be implemented. A time frame will be determined for new elections which will be conducted in terms of the new constitution.

“The inclusive government will have Mugabe as president with greatly reduced powers to those he enjoys today,” said Coltart. “Morgan Tsvangirai will obviously be prime minister. Although he does not have absolute power, he does have substantial power. For example, he will advise Mugabe on all future appointments including judges, ambassadors and the like.”

A senior ZANU-PF deputy – who declined to be named, saying parties had been sworn to secrecy – ruled out chances of parliament stonewalling constitutional reforms to legalise the coalition government.

The reforms are, he said, “a given, because there is consensus and we are simply approaching parliament to rubberstamp this”.

There has been fierce resistance in Mugabe’s ZANU-PF to the power-sharing deal.

Tsvangirai’s powers to “coordinate and supervise” government affairs constitutes more authority than the government had wanted to give, and the arrangement still leaves open the question of whether the prime minister will have executive authority that cannot be overruled by the president.

There will be a slightly cumbersome arrangement for conducting government business, which is the essence of the compromise agreed to following weeks of intense haggling among the parties.

IWPR understands that cabinet will be chaired by Mugabe, with Tsvangirai as the vice chair. A council of ministers chaired by Tsvangirai will supervise the work of cabinet. There are fears that the deal will collapse, but experts say as long as it is guaranteed through a legislative provision it will fly.

Despite the delicate process of sharing power, many Zimbabweans still have great expectations of Tsvangirai, whom they view as one capable of delivering long-kept promises.

“We seek the peace and healing of a nation traumatised for too long,” Tsvangirai told IWPR. His outspoken nature has earned him a reputation as Zimbabwe’s justice crusader.

On the campaign trail, he has railed against Mugabe for sanctioning violence against his supporters and slammed the veteran ruler’s disastrous handling of the economy.

Tsvangirai also accuses the 84-year-old Mugabe of being insincere in fighting deep-rooted corruption in his government. So many will expect change under Tsvangirai’s tutelage.

Mugabe, meanwhile, is counting on the MDC to attract much-needed foreign aid and investment, suspended eight years ago over his misrule.

Tsvangirai told IWPR that he estimated that “at least 5 to 10 billion US dollars would be urgently needed” to turn around the world’s fastest-shrinking economy.

The Zimbabwe government will also be looking to woo back some of the estimated three million Zimbabweans who have fled the country over the past decade, taking with them precious skills.

The deal opens the way for international donors to help revive Zimbabwe’s economy.

The European Union, which was due to expand its sanctions list on September 15 when its council of ministers had scheduled a meeting, has said it is reconsidering these plans in light of the power-sharing agreement.

“We need to study the agreement and assess the commitments of the parties,” said the bloc’s EU presidency in a statement. “We will be considering this over the course of the day and the weekend, and we will see how and to what extent there may be adjustments in the initial draft conclusions.”

Zimbabwe will be under pressure to plead for debt forgiveness. The crisis-torn country is currently saddled with heavy debts from multilateral financial institutions. The latest June report by the International Monetary Fund says Zimbabwe owes nearly 135 million US dollars in global arrears to the Bretton Woods institution.

The Fishmongers group of donors, comprising mainly western countries, has proposed an aid package worth 1-1.5 billion US dollars a year – almost four times the aid currently trickling into the country.

Britain, the former colonial power, plans to immediately double its aid from the current level of 90 million US dollars a year. Donors are optimistic that Zimbabwe could rebound rapidly.

But much depends on the economic reconstruction package cobbled together by the new government and the political willingness of the parties to re-engage the international community

Chipo Sithole is the pseudonym of an IWPR journalist in Zimbabwe.

Episcopallife online
September 15, 2008
[Ecumenical News International]

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

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

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

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

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

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

In a statement made available to ENI, Coltart said, “I am confident that this agreement, imperfect as it is, marks a significant step forward.”

He said the agreement would entail the setting up of a government that would initiate a process of constitutional reform to include civil society. He added that the process would last 18 months, by which time a new democratic constitution must be implemented that would also include a time frame for new elections.

“The inclusive government will have Robert Mugabe as president with greatly reduced powers to those he enjoys today. There will be two, largely ceremonial, vice-presidents from Zanu-PF. Morgan Tsvangirai will be the prime minister. Although he does not have absolute power he does have substantial power,” said Coltart.

In Nairobi, the Rev. Mvume Dandala, a South African Methodist who is general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, said he hoped the agreement would be implemented.

The AACC official noted that the projected agreement in Zimbabwe follows a similar one in Kenya after disputed elections at the end of 2007. Hundreds of people died in violence that followed the Kenyan election stand-off, and hundreds of thousands more became homeless before agreement was reached to form a national unity government.

“What we saw in Kenya was an example of the fragility of peace in Africa,” said Dandala. “We will not want any country to go through that.”

The World Student Christian Federation, which has been supporting the efforts of the Student Christian Movement in Zimbabwe, said it welcomed the announcement.

“WSCF also fervently hopes that this historic agreement marks Zimbabwe’s return to the rule of law and to effective governance for and by the people,” the group said in a statement issued from its Geneva headquarters. “We hope that the political leaders will be guided by the principles of good faith, and be faithful to the agreement and work selflessly towards its proper implementation.”

The Zimbabwe Times
September 8, 2008
Geoffrey Nyarota

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

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

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

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

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

Mugabe in the early days of Zimbabwe’s independence basked in the glory of overstated Western adulation, while Zimbabwe benefited from the backing and support of a Western world anxious to support a government they somehow believed would constitute a departure from the African post-independence stereotype of corruption, economic mismanagement, lawlessness and abuse of civic rights. Aid funds poured into Africa’s newest nation while Mugabe was toasted in Western capitals. A knighthood was conferred on him by Queen Elizabeth the Second at Buckingham Palace while members of the Zanu-PF Women’s League ululated in Harare. A number of universities on both sides of the Atlantic recognised him through honorary degrees.

The first lie is that Western nations are natural enemies of Zimbabwe.

The second falsehood, more significantly, is that Zanu-PF hates while people. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, Zanu-PF has built a strategic circle of its own white friends over the years. Not only does Zanu-PF have dealings and cordial relations with its white allies; the people concerned are in most cases capitalist entrepreneurs who have prospered magnificently in Zimbabwe through their association with the ruling elite. Some prosper through exploiting the very people Zanu-PF pretends to protect.

Back in 1980 Mugabe went out of his way to prove to an anxious world that he was more than willing to abide by the non-racist tenets of his party’s first election manifesto.

Zanu-PF’s election manifesto stated categorically: “Zanu wishes to give the fullest assurance to the white community, the Asian and coloured communities that a Zanu government can never in principle or in social or government practice, discriminate against them. Racism, whether practiced by whites or blacks, is anathema to the humanitarian philosophy of Zanu. It is as primitive a dogma as tribalism or regionalism.”

The Zanu-PF of today publicly castigates and demonizes opponents such as the MDC who espouse similar non-racist policies and openly engage with members of the white community, branding them as enemies of the people and as puppets of the West.

Surprisingly, supporters both in and out of the country who hailed Mugabe for his former concern for the welfare of the ordinary man and his policy of national reconciliation, still glorify him long after he abandoned both the concern and the policy and now constantly spouts racist diatribe without the mandate of the majority of his people to do so.

But then to a considerable extent Mugabe and his acolytes depend for their survival on the existence of powerful white supporters who manipulate and strategize behind the scenes.

In the eyes of Zanu-PF and some post-colonial African political opinion the grievous error that the MDC
makes is to parade its Roy Bennetts, David Coltarts, Eddie Crosses, Ian Kays and Trudy Stevensons in public; granting them a manifestly conspicuous frontline role in the fight for democratic change.

The MDC strategists perhaps never read George Orwell’s Animal Farm or took serious note of Squealer’s constant exhortation to “Tactics, comrades.” Squealer was the porcine equivalent of Zimbabwe’s former Minister of Information, Prof Jonathan Moyo. In the Zimbabwean context, Mugabe did not preach reconciliation until he had the keys to the office of the Prime Minister in hand. Yet Tsvangirai practices appeasement and magnanimity from a position of powerlessness. Maybe if he could persuade Bennett to withdraw from the front he would soon have real power to share with him.

Tactics, comrades!

While the MDC’s white supporters love to shout from public platforms, Zanu-PF’s whites are voiceless but powerful backroom strategists. Their rare forays onto newspaper front pages are often prompted merely by the pressing need to defend themselves in the face of allegations of corruption, outright fraud or other impropriety while making money for themselves and Zanu-PF.

Being dedicated capitalists, even when Mugabe was still an avowed socialist, their major preoccupation is to make as much financial hay as possible, while the Zanu-PF sun still shines. Over the past 28 years of Mugabe’s rule leading entrepreneurs such as the gregarious British businessman Roland “Tiny” Rowland, the somewhat eccentric Nicholas van Hoogstraten, also British, John Arnold Bredenkamp, who constantly parries accusations of arms dealing, and Conrad Muller “Billy” Rautenbach who took care of Zanu-PF financial interests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have forged strong alliances with the Zanu-PF leadership, Mugabe himself included.

So too have emergent businessmen such as Lt. Col Lionel Dyke (Retired). He quickly rose from the relative obscurity of an officer in the Zimbabwe National Army and was thrust into the limelight by the turn of the century as a political broker.

He was assigned by two men he claimed to be his allies in Zanu-PF, Emmerson Mnangagwa, then Speaker of Parliament and retired defence forces commander Gen Vitalis Zvinavashe to broker a partnership deal between the ruling party and the MDC. Dyke said the MDC was represented by the party’s secretary general, Welshman Ncube and Paul Themba Nyathi, its secretary for information and publicity.

Dyke revealed these details to me in December 2002 when I was editor of the now banned Daily News. He disclosed that he had also been assigned to secure the support of The Daily News, then the country’s largest newspaper, for the ambitious political initiative. The initiative sought to sideline both Mugabe and Tsvangirai, in favour of a new leadership. I turned Dyke’s proposal down, and blew the plot in the newspaper.

Col Dyke, one of Zanu-PF’s most trusted white allies now rakes in millions through landmine recovery operations in Zimbabwe, the Middle East, Kosovo and other trouble-spots of the world. South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki has since taken over the role of mediator in the Zimbabwean political crisis.

Dyke, who was commander of the Rhodesian African Rifles during Ian Smith’s war against the guerilla armies, was in charge of a regiment of paratroopers in 1983 to 84 during the Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland. The Catholic Justice and Peace Commission’s report “Breaking the Silence: Building True Peace” says Dyke expressed support for the deployment by government of Five Brigade against civilians, saying this strategy “brought peace very, very quickly”.

While Zanu-PF publicly berates opposition politicians for associating or having links with whites, behind closed doors Mugabe and his cohorts exploit clandestine relationships with their own white partners, most of them extremely wealthy capitalists.

There was Tiny Rowland, that colourful British businessman who was the most conspicuous epitome of western capitalism in Rhodesia, in Zimbabwe and elsewhere on the continent. In Rhodesia he was a friend of Ian Smith and in Zimbabwe he cultivated the friendship of both the late Dr Joshua Nkomo and Mugabe.

Rowland was the founder and chief executive of Lonrho, one of Zimbabwe’s largest multi-national conglomerates. After independence he became one of the most generous benefactors of Zimbabwe’s ruling elite. Rowland’s Metropole Hotel in London became home away from home for the top echelons of those fighting for the liberation of Zimbabwe, with full board on the house. The friendship between the controversial British tycoon and Zimbabwe’s new rulers flourished after independence. The Lonrho end-of-year dinner party became the social event of the year in Harare. Meanwhile, the Lonrho pavilions at the Harare Agricultural Show and the National Trade Fair in Bulawayo were the favourite haunt of cabinet ministers under the patronage of the flamboyant Herbert Munangatire, now late.

So revered was Rowland by Zanu-PF that when he was ousted in a board-room coup, Dr Nathan Shamuyarira, that eminent custodian of the party’s ideological values, lamented that the controversial businessman’s ouster was likely to end the “warm relations between Lonrho and the government of Zimbabwe”.

It is only after the constitutional referendum of 2000 that Zanu-PF has become openly critical of Zimbabwe’s white citizens and representatives of Western governments, especially those who challenge Mugabe’s excesses and point at his failures.

Mugabe’s personal friend Nicholas Van Hoogstraten, the British magnate whose status as the largest private owner of fertile Zimbabwean land complements is unchallenged, spoke with understandable warmth and affection when he described Mugabe as “100 percent decent and incorruptible”. Separately he said: “I don’t believe in democracy; I believe in rule by the fittest.”

Among Zanu-PF’s white allies, van Hoogstraten is the most vocal supporter of Mugabe, whom he regards as a personal friend. More significantly he is said to be a financial backer of the President.

Van Hoogstraten holds extensive investments in Zimbabwe. The Rainbow Tourism Group’s shares register shows that van Hoogstraten’s Messina Investments has a stake-hold of 2.17 percent with 35 727 640 shares. He owns 32 percent of Hwange Colliery Company and seven percent of CFI Ltd, one of Zimbabwe’s largest agro-industrial enterprises. He is the single largest shareholder in NMB at 20 percent. The founding owners of the bank were hounded into exile by Reserve Bank Governor, Gideon Gono.

The President’s friend also owns 600 000 acres of prime farmland. Not unexpectedly, van Hoogstraten’s farms have been spared the treatment reserved for the farms of less “patriotic” white commercial farmers.

Van Hoogstraten, who is reported to have relocated from the United Kingdom to Zimbabwe, is said to manage his vast business empire of 200 residential and business properties in Zimbabwe from an office in Harare. In January they hauled him to court. The police had caught him red-handed while receiving rentals from tenants in hard currency.

The phenomenal success of van Hoogstraten is clear testimony that Zanu-PF merely pays lip-service to its anti-white and anti-western mantras.

Another strategic Zanu-PF ally, wealthy businessman, John Arnold Bredenkamp, has publicly expressed his open support for the Mugabe regime. He told the Zimbabwe Independent that because of his vast business interests and extensive travel experience he had become a friend of politicians and he had no regrets about it. He said he sincerely believed that it was in the “best interests of Zimbabwe for Zanu-PF to win the presidential elections next year”.

Mugabe narrowly missed losing the election in question to Tsvangirai in 2002.

Bredenkamp’s forlorn hope was understandable, given that at the material time he had just won a major tender to supply fuel to the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe. In any case, freedom of speech is enshrined in the constitution of our once great land.

Yet when British premier Tony Blair stood in the House of Commons to pronounce that his Labour government worked hand-in-hand with Tsvangirai’s labour-backed MDC, Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo, went totally ballistic in Harare.

That single statement by Blair and its opportunistic exploitation by Mugabe and Moyo may have made a considerable contribution to the recovery by Zanu-PF in 2005, of a significant number of parliamentary seats that it had lost to the MDC in the 2000 parliamentary election.

Reports in the international media have consistently referred to Bredenkamp, as an “arms broker,” “arms dealer,” “arms merchant,” “weapons dealer,” “weapons broker”.

Challenged by Bredenkamp to substantiate allegations of arms dealing against him, one British publication, Executive Intelligence Review, defended itself haughtily.

“In describing the charmed life of John Arnold Bredenkamp,” the editor wrote, “it is difficult to know where to start. In fact, it is difficult to find a media reference to him that does not mention his business in arms trafficking. From the London Observer, to the Washington Times, to the Guardian of the U.K., to WorldNet Daily, to the UN Association of the United Kingdom, to a broad swath of British-based organizations and NGOs that specialize in opposing arms proliferation, Bredenkamp is repeatedly mentioned in the context of arms trafficking – selling, brokering, and violating sanctions.

Bredenkamp gained his reputation as a shrewd “sanctions buster” while supporting the racist regime of rebel Rhodesian leader Ian Smith.

“Like many of my contemporaries, I have adapted to change,” Bredenkamp says. “I was Rhodesian; I am now a Zimbabwean. I was a tobacco merchant; I am now an investor in many different sectors.”

When the George W. Bush administration imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe and Mugabe in 2001, Bredenkamp was reported to be among Zimbabwe’s businessmen included on the sanctions list. He was charged with violating international sanctions.

On February 18, 2000, The Washington Times published a report that the DRC and Zimbabwe were purchasing arms from Bredenkamp, who was said to be based in Belgium.

After independence Bredenkamp, indeed, left Zimbabwe and moved his base of operations to Belgium.

A report submitted to the United Nations Security Council in October 2002 by a panel of experts investigating the exploitation of raw materials in the DRC cited Bredenkamp’s role as an arms broker:

“John Bredenkamp, who has a history of clandestine military procurement, has an investment in Aviation Consultancy Services Company (ACS). The Panel has confirmed, independently of Mr. Bredenkamp, that this company represents British Aerospace, Dornier of France and Agusta of Italy in Africa. Far from being a passive investor in ACS as Tremalt representatives claimed, Mr. Bredenkamp actively seeks business using high-level political contacts.

“Mr. Bredenkamp’s representatives claimed that his companies observed European Union sanctions on Zimbabwe, but British Aerospace spare parts for ZDF Hawk jets were supplied early in 2002 in breach of those sanctions. Mr. Bredenkamp also controls Raceview Enterprises, which supplies logistics to the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. The Panel has obtained copies of Raceview invoices to ZDF dated 6 July 2001 for deliveries worth $3.5 million of camouflage cloth, batteries, fuels and lubricating oil, boots and rations. It also has copies of invoices for aircraft spares for the Air Force of Zimbabwe worth another $3 million.”

Bredenkamp protested the findings of the UN panel. The report highlighted the existence of an “elite network” comprising Congolese and Zimbabwean government officials and private businessmen. The network was reported to be exploiting the rich mineral resources of the DRC. The report identified the key strategist for the Zimbabwean branch of the network as Mnangagwa, while the former army commander, Zvinavashe was described as his key ally.

It has been alleged that before independence Bredenkamp effectively ran the finances of the Rhodesian armed forces during the later stages of the guerilla war. In this capacity he is said to have brokered export sales of Rhodesian products, mainly tobacco, and used the proceeds to fund the purchase of munitions and military equipment.

It is said that his complex “sanctions busting” deals sustained the UDI regime for far longer than would otherwise have been possible. Could Bredenkamp now be facilitating the survival of Zanu-PF as Mugabe clings to power?

On his return to Zimbabwe in 1984 after he made peace with the country’s new rulers, he remained involved in commodity trading and defence procurement while making himself generally useful to government and Zanu-PF. Using Zimbabwe as his base, Bredenkamp conducted business dealings elsewhere in Africa and in the Middle East. Not only did Bredenkamp become extremely wealthy, he also helped sustain the Zimbabwean economy in a period of some turbulence.

Bredenkamp made strategic inroads into the post-independence political establishment while gaining considerable clout in the economic affairs of Zimbabwe. Mugabe is often accused of having made a single-handed decision to deploy Zimbabwean troops to the DRC. It is alleged, however, that Bredenkamp may have played a significant role in the events surrounding Zimbabwe’s costly and suicidal intervention in the West African nation between 1998 and 2003.

The Zimbabwean army and air force were deployed to shore up the Laurent Kabila government in its fight with rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. In return generous mining concessions were granted by the DRC to key figures in the Zimbabwe political and business elite. It is alleged that Bredenkamp and his Zanu-PF allies were major beneficiaries. Mnangagwa has been the key Bredenkamp ally in Zanu-PF since the businessman’s return from Belgium in 1984.

In fact, it is also alleged that Bredenkamp became something of a power behind the scenes in Zanu-PF. Sources say he overplayed his hand, however, when he sought to facilitate the early retirement of Mugabe in 2004 and his replacement by Mnangagwa.

This displeased rival politicians in the party and government and investigations were instituted into the affairs of Bredenkamp’s Breco trading company concerning tax evasion and exchange control violations.

Controversial businessman, Conrad Muller “Billy” Rautenbach, is one of the handful of white businessmen who have prospered under Mugabe. He owned Wheels Africa, which quickly grew to become Zimbabwe’s largest freight company. He also held the Volvo and Hyundai franchises. He is said to own several thousand cattle north of Harare. The herd remained unscathed as neighbouring commercial farms were violently seized during by Zanu-PF sponsored war veterans and other party militants.

Rautenbach was one of South Africa’s best known businessmen but he fell foul of the law. The police wanted him in connection with massive fraud at his Wheels of Africa Group.

The charges against Rautenbach included stealing 1,300 cars from Hyundai, bribing customs officials and fraudulently reducing the tax liability of Wheels of Africa’s subsidiaries. He fled South Africa in 1999 after justice department investigators raided his office and home. Wheels of Africa was liquidated in December1999.

In Zimbabwe Rautenbach has enjoyed the company of equally tough businessmen, including the ubiquitous

The Guardian
By Blessing-Miles Tendi
Thursday August 28 2008

Mugabe has always switched his views on race to make political capital, as his enthusiastic welcome of Kirsty Coventry shows

“The only white man you can trust is a dead white man.”

“Our party must continue to strike fear in the heart of the white man, our real enemy.”

Those are Robert Mugabe’s words. They are forever etched in modern African history as indicative of the anti-white politics that took hold in Zimbabwe from 2000 onwards, when the Mugabe government proclaimed that Zimbabwe was for black Zimbabweans and Africa for black Africans. Race was politicised to an unprecedented level and aggressive threats to the white community were carried out, namely the violent seizure of white-owned commercial farms. White Zimbabweans were blamed for all of Zimbabwe’s problems. They were labelled racists and accused of working hand in hand with white Britain in funding and directing opposition politics in Zimbabwe.

Only a government with selective amnesia would ever embrace anything “white” after years of inexorable anti-white politics. The Mugabe government is one such government. Kirsty Coventry, a white Zimbabwean swimmer, won four medals – one gold and three silver – at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She was the only Zimbabwean athlete to win a medal at the games. Coventry was greeted with a heroine’s homecoming in Zimbabwe yesterday. Mugabe congratulated her “most heartily on that heroic performance”, on the eve of her return. Gone was Mugabe’s anti-white speechifying. A victory parade through the streets of Zimbabwe’s capital city Harare was staged in her honour and she attended a banquet hosted by Mugabe at his official state house residence.

It is tempting to conclude that given Zimbabwe’s prevailing political, social and economic morass, the Mugabe government is capitalising on Coventry’s Olympic success to deflect national attention away from the country’s problems. Certainly, Coventry’s achievement has provided weary and oppressed Zimbabweans with some national fanfare in a land where all else is a litany of monotonous struggle and human suffering. However, the Mugabe government’s response to Coventry’s medal-winning performances is part of its wider contradictory logic of race relations.

Whites were embraced as brothers and sisters at independence in 1980 because it was politically expedient. In 2000 they were disowned as the political necessities of defeating the burgeoning opposition MDC took centre stage. Mugabe rants and raves against white people and Britain yet he professes his undying affection and respect for the British royal family. Indeed there is a lot about Mugabe that is British, from his accent to his dress code to his love for cricket. English remains Zimbabwe’s national language, 28 years after colonialism.

The contradictions are starker with regard to the majority black population, which the Mugabe government has attempted to indoctrinate with its racist politics. Anti-white politics has not aroused black Zimbabweans against white people. Even during the explosive land seizures phase, to a greater extent attacks on white Zimbabweans remained linked to state-sponsored farm invasions and official pronouncements. Spontaneous nationwide populist looting, beatings and lynching of white people never occurred. Four white MDC members were elected to parliament at the height of the farm seizures.

One of them, a farmer called Roy Bennet, had his commercial farm invaded by war-veterans in 2000 but scored a resounding electoral victory none the less.

Another elected white parliamentarian, David Coltart, was a Rhodesian police officer when he was 18 years old. In spite of the Mugabe government’s use of Coltart’s history against him, Coltart remains a popular politician.

The Mugabe government’s “hatred” of whites has not filtered down to the average black Zimbabwean. Most black Zimbabweans are aware that the root cause of Zimbabwe’s problems is, ultimately, the Mugabe government. Blaming white Zimbabweans and white Britain will never wash this charge away. Black Zimbabweans see through it – just as they see the irony in the Mugabe government’s taking of Coventry to its bosom.

The Los Angeles Times
By Robyn Dixon
26 August 2008

The election of a candidate from the Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, deals a blow to President Robert Mugabe’s regime. The vote is seen as a key test of who will control parliament.

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — Zimbabwe’s main opposition party won its first legislative showdown against President Robert Mugabe on Monday, taking the post of speaker of parliament.

The Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, is deadlocked in talks with Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party over who should control the government, and Mugabe reconvened parliament despite opposition complaints that such a move would “decapitate” the negotiations.
Frustrated by their country’s economic collapse, voters stripped Mugabe of his parliamentary majority in March 29 elections for the first time since independence in 1980. But Mugabe was declared the winner in a presidential runoff in June that observers found to be undemocratic.

International aid agencies say that by January, 5 million people will need emergency food aid to avoid starvation. But Mugabe has banned international humanitarian agencies.

Monday’s vote on the speaker was the first significant test of who will control parliament, analysts said, and the election of Lovemore Moyo was a blow to the regime.
Even though it lost its majority, ZANU-PF has been trying to tempt opposition members to defect by offering jobs and rewards, according to the opposition.

Police arrested two opposition members as they arrived at parliament and tried to seize a third, according to the MDC, which accused the ruling party of trying to rig the vote on the speaker’s job. One of those taken was freed in time for the vote, but the other, Eliah Zembere, was being held Monday.

ZANU-PF did not field a candidate, but it was unable to unite with a breakaway faction of the MDC to elect that group’s candidate.

Although the ballot was secret, it appeared that the 10 members of the breakaway MDC faction voted against their candidate rather than cooperate with ZANU-PF. The main faction, loyal to Morgan Tsvangirai, has 100 members of parliament, 99 of whom were present Monday. ZANU-PF has 99, and there is one independent. Moyo received 110 votes.

The vote underscores the problems Mugabe will have in passing laws and getting a budget through parliament.

“It’s not just about the speaker, but [Mugabe] has lost control of parliament, which makes it very difficult to govern,” said David Coltart, a senator representing the breakaway MDC faction. He believes this will force Mugabe back to the negotiating table.

Tsvangirai won the most votes in the March 29 presidential election, but not the outright majority required to avoid a runoff, according to official results. He pulled out of the June 27 runoff because of widespread violence against MDC activists, which human rights groups said was overwhelmingly state-sponsored.

Mugabe is determined to maintain control of the Cabinet and security forces, and Tsvangirai suffered a setback when leaders of the Southern African Development Community said that allowing the president to keep those powers was a good basis for a settlement.

But analysts say such a deal would do nothing to unravel Mugabe’s control of the country or allow it to attract the Western support needed to rebuild its economy and feed its population.

Tsvangirai is pushing for control over Cabinet appointments, the police and intelligence service. While Mugabe still would control the army in that plan, his role would be much reduced.

John Makumbe, a political analyst at the University of Zimbabwe, said Tsvangirai was under pressure within Zimbabwe not to compromise.

“The majority of people in Zimbabwe are saying, ‘If you are not in control of the security forces, don’t sign, because it means Mugabe can unleash violence whenever he likes,’ ” Makumbe said.

Gareth Evans, president of the International Crisis Group think tank, said Tsvangirai was right to hold out for greater powers, even though he was being cast as the intransigent party by the SADC mediator, South African President Thabo Mbeki.

“Though Mugabe wears no general’s uniform, for all practical purposes, his is a military dictatorship, relying on the support of the military establishment and brute domestic force to cling to power,” Evans wrote in a recent article in Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

robyn.dixon@latimes.com

The Telegraph
By Sebastien Berger, Southern Africa Correspondent and Peta Thornycroft in Harare
26 August 2008

Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe suffered a major blow to his attempts to hold on to power when an MP from Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change was elected as speaker of parliament.

In a stunning upset Lovemore Moyo, chairman of Mr Tsvangirai’s MDC faction, defeated Paul Themba Nyathi, of the smaller MDC grouping led by Arthur Mutambara, by 110 votes to 98.

Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party did not put up a candidate itself, instead ordering its newly sworn-in MPs to support the Mutambara faction’s man. Mr Mugabe will undoubtedly have been infuriated by the result.

The indications are that Mr Mugabe had been hoping to engineer a deal with Mr Mutambara’s faction to exclude Mr Tsvangirai from a government of national unity, and that enough of its MPs would support the government in parliament to enable it to function.

As of yesterday, those plans are in ruins. In Zimbabwean politics the speakership is a powerful role, with the ability to determine parliament’s agenda, and the octogenarian leader now faces the prospect of having to deal with a lower house fully controlled by his opponents if he decides to abandon the deadlocked negotiations being brokered by the South African president Thabo Mbeki and form a government of his own.

“Whatever game plan Mugabe had has been complicated and this greatly diminishes his capacity to form a cabinet and govern,” said Eldred Masunungure, professor of politics at the University of Zimbabwe. “Mugabe is seriously weakened and he and Zanu-PF will have to take the negotiations more seriously.”

David Coltart, a lawyer and Senator for Mr Mutambara’s MDC, added: “This is highly significant because it means Zanu-PF have lost the legislative control of parliament. It shows there is a determination throughout the opposition that there should not be any two-party arrangement with Zanu-PF and it will force president Mbeki to take Morgan Tsvangirai’s concerns more seriously.”

The house of assembly, which is reminiscent of the House of Commons with its wood panelling and green leather benches, was standing-room- only for the vote, despite two MDC MPs being arrested before they could be sworn in – the opposition has raised fears that Zanu-PF will try to circumvent its majority by detaining its legislators.

In the parliamentary poll earlier this year, Mr Tsvangirai’s MDC took 100 seats, Mr Mutambara’s 10, and Zanu-PF 99, with one independent.

It was the first time Zanu-PF had lost its majority since independence in 1980.

Initially the MDC’s MPs sat down on the government benches yesterday, shouting at Zanu-PF representatives: “You sit on that side. You are now in the opposition.” They sang and cheered when Mr Moyo’s victory was announced, hoisting him on to their shoulders.

Zanu-PF was forced to put a brave face on events. The hardline rural housing minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, a key player in the Gukurahundi massacres of the 1980s and long seen as a potential successor to Mr Mugabe, congratulated Mr Moyo.

“Mr Speaker, Sir,” he said. “This is a truly historic event and I would like, on behalf of the president, our party and this side of this august House, to congratulate you.” But in the internecine world of Zimbabwean politics, the result may actually work in Mr Mnangagwa’s favour, by potentially hastening Mr Mugabe’s departure.

The vote for speaker is held by secret ballot, so it is impossible to determine exactly what went wrong for Mr Mugabe. But it is understood that eight of Mr Mutambara’s MPs rebelled to back Mr Moyo against their own candidate, as did four members of Zanu-PF.

It is a clear indication of divisions within Zanu-PF. As it happens, Mr Moyo’s mother-in-law Sithembiso Nyoni is a former minister and a senior member of Mr Mugabe’s party, and is understood to have been campaigning quietly for her relative.