Newsday

By Blessed Mhlanga

VICE-PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has denied accusations he played an active role in the Gukurahundi massacres, which reportedly claimed over 20 000 lives in Matabeleland and Midlands regions in the 1980s.

Speaking in a recent interview with United Kingdom-based magazine New States Man, Mnangagwa said reports linking him to the atrocities were being peddled by his political foes to soil his image.

Mnangagwa, who at the time was State Security minister, seemed to pass the buck to President Robert Mugabe, then Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi and army commanders for the massacres, which were perpetrated by a North Korean-trained army unit, the Fifth Brigade.

“How do I become the enforcer during Gukurahundi? We had the President, the Minister of Defence, commander of the army and I was none of that. My own enemies attack me left and right and that is what you are buying,” he is quoted as having said.

The late General Solomon Mujuru was army commander, while current Airforce of Zimbabwe Commander, Perrance Shiri was Fifth Brigade commander.

Mnangagwa was the State Security minister then and is often regarded as the face of the massacres.

A recent book by former Education minister, David Coltart also reveals the extent of Mnangagwa’s involvement and alleged hate speech utterances.

In the interview, Mnangagwa also denied leading the Team Lacoste faction or harbouring ambitions to succeed Mugabe.

“I don’t see myself doing that … I was not serving to be President. I was serving my country,” he said.

Mnangagwa scoffed at those praying for Mugabe’s death, as the only leader Zimbabwe has known since independence turns 93 next February.

“Under British constitutional law, you don’t conceive or desire the demise of Your Majesty. Why would you want to conceive or desire the demise of my President,” he reportedly said.

War veterans’ leader, Chistopher Mutsvangwa has insisted that Mugabe should step down and pave way for a new leader.

“We need to have a new look at the management of the economy … since he (Mugabe) is the elected President, he has to either deliver on that or make it possible for someone else to deliver on it. We would hope it’s the latter,” he told the magazine.

Coltart also seemed to endorse a Mnangagwa presidency, saying the Vice-President is business savvy and understands what needs to be done to save the ailing Zimbabwean economy suffering from a blistering liquidity crisis.

“For all his historical problems, he understands the running of the economy better than Mugabe, better than most Zanu PF politicians,” he said.

Financial Gazette

15 December 2016

LISTENING to both President Robert Mugabe’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) and Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa’s 2017 National Budget presentation last week, many were left wondering what to make of the two.

The SONA, presented two days ahead of the budget, was perhaps meant to inform and set the tone for Chinamasa.

Addressing a joint sitting of Parliament, President Mugabe delivered a speech full of hope and pregnant with optimism, never mind a swarm of critics that dismissed it as a fantasy divorced from reality.

Forty eight hours later, Chinamasa strode into the same august House and, in the presence of his superiors; he presented a gloomy economic outlook full of chilling suggestions such as further taxation on airtime vouchers.

The tax was veiled as a health levy.

Where his superior predicted an economic boom, Chinamasa revised downwards the economic growth for 2017 to a 1,7 percent from the 2016 projection of 2,7 percent.

While SONA did not address the contentious issue of civil servants salaries and bonuses, Chinamasa cleverly put it across by simply stating that government was running on unsustainable expenditure, with the wage bill now rising to 95 percent of revenue.

He left it like that, knowing how President Mugabe has on two occasions overruled his decision to stop bonus payments and slash salaries by a good margin of 20 percent.

Not that Chinamasa had the most brilliant budget; far from it.

It was probably more off-putting than SONA, which was good fodder for government critics following its presentation.

The criticisms that SONA received probably summed up Zimbabweans’ general impression towards their leadership — uninspiring.

And, as expected, the usual suspects coming in the form of disappointed political analysts, political opponents and social commentators, dug into the speech in the same manner that hungry vultures dismantle a large carcass.

Although SONA was not a wholesome disaster because it addressed a number of important issues such as improving the ease of doing business, sourcing and distribution of farming inputs and measures to curb gender based violence, critics still found more than enough reason to trash it.

The reactions were wide and diverse, but all collapsing into one common denominator: That SONA was far removed from the actual state that the nation is currently in.

“In the past (President) Mugabe had the capacity to deceive brilliantly; now he is just an emperor with no clothes and nothing to offer,” wrote former Cabinet minister, David Coltart, now an outspoken government critic on micro blogging site twitter.

Another former minister, Tendai Biti, who served along with Coltart in the inclusive government era, also waded in, posting on twitter: “Tired, exhausted, spineless, 45 minute (it was actually 31 minutes) rumbling that did not inspire nor offer any solution or meaningful insight on the State of the nation.”

Such has been the case of Zimbabwe, where anything the leadership tries to do, even in good faith, is met with serious scepticism and has missiles and salvos fired at it from all directions.

The general consensus was that if it was to be fairly analysed, SONA was a huge let-down, which did not address the real state of this nation.

Many analysts described it as a mere collection of what respective ministries were doing, or not doing.

Even so, the address was more about optimistic economic projections that were utterly not in sync with the reality on the ground.

For example, SONA proclaimed that a boom witnessed in the tourism sector continued to grow, adding that government was now expecting arrivals to hit 2,5 million by year end after 902 435 tourists reportedly came to Zimbabwe during the first half of the year.

How is it possible to lure 1,6 million tourists in the dying weeks of the year, when the country only managed a fraction of that in 11 months, is debate for another day.

“The true state of the nation is that our tourism figures are embarrassing, and that if we had any shame, we would just not bother talking about them,” opined political analyst, Alexander Rusero.

“During the course of the year, we saw hotels closing because there are no visitors booking the rooms. If we are receiving those huge amounts of tourists, then where are they sleeping,” he asked rhetorically.

SONA completely ignored the most talked about issue at the moment: The liquidity crisis which today sees citizens spending long hours in winding bank queues for petite withdrawals that are not worthy the endurance.

Nor was there any mention of the contentious bond notes that were ostensibly introduced as an export incentive, but have crept into account holders who hardly know what the whole export hullabaloo is all about.

People generally expected the president to address this ominous issue, but he didn’t.

Instead, the most pressing national issue at the moment was placed under the blanket of “all manner of economic hardships”, with the travailing populace being saluted for enduring such.

This left many wondering if the government truly has an appreciation of the degree of the suffering that the public is enduring.

SONA, thus, melted down into a squandered chance for the ZANU-PF government to pacify the agitated citizens or inspire younger generations who feel their future is in jeopardy.

How, for example, does a state of the nation fail to address glaring social woes such as crumpling State hospitals that have stopped executing some of their most basic duties like carrying out corrective surgeries for lack of equipment and pain killers?

Only this week, the Zimbabwe National Water Authority released damning statistics showing that major dams on which government is pinning its hopes for the success of the command agriculture programme do not have water.

And, in addition to the usual water challenges being faced in all the country’s urban areas, there is a huge possibility that the programme might fail if the dams that provide the much needed irrigation water do not fill up on time.

The forecasted heavy rains that had prompted government to devise the command agriculture maize production scheme have been slow in coming, and the agriculture season is marching on.

Watchers argued that the optimism that was shown so prevalently in the address is a big yawn from reality.

Said political commentator, Rashweat Mukundu: “No critical national issues were addressed. It was just a repetition of Zim-Asset (Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation) issues, while economic indicators are pointing in a certain directive, they say the opposite. This is downright disingenuous on the part of government. SONA induced neither hope nor confidence in the public.”

Japhet Moyo, secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, was disappointed that the address was mum on runaway unemployment, which is threatening to top 90 percent.

“We are not even sure that jobs will still be there, come 2017. People are being forced to use bond notes and some are going without meals, yet (President) Mugabe says the economy is recovering. His government cannot simply pay workers. What kind of recovery is that,” Moyo asked.

Opposition political parties also grabbed the opportunity to lash out at government.

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) spokesman, Obert Gutu, described SONA as a dump squib.

“Instead of addressing critical issues such as the grinding poverty that is afflicting at least 75 percent of the Zimbabwean population in both rural and urban areas, rampant unemployment particularly amongst the youth and the financial disaster that has been caused by the decision to introduce bond notes into the financial market, SONA was bereft of details on concrete and sustainable measures and policies to resuscitate the comatose economy,” he wrote.

People’s Democratic Party spokesperson, Jacob Mafume, touted: “You can no longer make sense of the policy positions that are announced by the government.”

In real terms, one needs not peruse the SONA speech to get the true state of the nation, which says government imported large quantities of maize to feed people, they need to visit villages where people are starving and little girls are dropping out of school to take up sex work to escape poverty.

The true state of Zimbabwe is realised when one travels to Beitbridge to see hundreds of people risking life and limb crossing the great crocodile-infested Limpopo River to beat the much lauded Statutory Instrument number 64 which banned imports.

To realise the true state of the nation, one may need to move around the filthy slums and crammed streets of any city or town that have been invaded by vendors, some with one-month-old babies strapped on their backs, selling all sorts of things.

News 24

7 December 2016

Harare – “This is a fact: Zimbabwe has the strongest currency in Africa”.

Sounds unbelievable – but that’s what the official Herald newspaper claimed on Wednesday, hours after President Robert Mugabe resolutely avoided the vexed topic of bond notes in his State of the Nation Address (SONA).

In its lead editorial, the pro-Mugabe paper said Zimbabweans “have full confidence in” their currency, ignoring the fact that photos of a broken bond coin are causing widespread alarm on social media. Ten million US worth of bond notes were introduced last Monday along with two million US worth of bond coins.

The central bank insists this surrogate currency is backed by a 200 million US dollar loan from Afrexim Bank. But many fear the notes will drag Zimbabwe back to the dark days of hyperinflation that reached a peak around 2006-2008.

Long bank queues have not improved since the notes were introduced. That is partly to do with the fact that teachers have just been paid and are having to queue repeatedly because of capped daily bank withdrawals.

The Herald claimed that Mugabe’s speech to parliament showed the economy was on the “recovery path”. Tweeted former education minister David Coltart: “Could someone please show me where that path is because all I can see is bond notes?”

Mail and Guardian Africa

23 November 2016

If Zimbabwe serves as an example of the way the US will go, Americans should be very afraid.

COMMENT

Much has been made of the warm reception that United States president-elect Donald Trump has received from many African leaders.

An enthusiastic pro-Trump editorial in Zimbabwe’s state newspaper, The Herald, was perhaps the most illuminating among the litany of diplomatic messages of goodwill from Africa to a candidate who received the endorsement of the most notorious white supremacist group in the US, the Ku Klux Klan.

The paper congratulated Trump, wishing “him all the best as he takes the reins at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue”.

Since the launch of an accelerated land reform programme in 2000, which primarily targeted white farmers and was followed by a renewed emphasis on indigenisation legislation, Zimbabwe has aggressively sought to project an image of a bold, black state.

Like the US, Zimbabwe has a sordid history of racial discrimination. After an initial period of reconciliation following independence in 1980, Zimbabwe is now highly divided along racial, ethnic, political and economic lines. Despite a devastating economic collapse, it may also be one of the few African nations in which the Trump family has on-the-ground experience – his two older sons have hunted for big game there. His youngest daughter, Tiffany, has been to Malawi.

Although the racial tropes of Trump and Zimbabwe’s ruling party, Zanu-PF, are polar opposites, each draws from the same playbook. Several of the core tenets of Trump’s abrasive election campaign are reflected in the policies and actions of Zanu-PF. Trump won the Republican primary by viciously attacking his opponents and party stalwarts such as John McCain. As president, Mugabe has disposed of his acolytes at will, most notably firing vice-president Joice Mujuru after 34 years of service in his Cabinet.

Team Trump shot its way to the top of a crowded primary campaign with the help of a controversial slogan, “Make America great again”, and promises to build a wall on the Mexican border, rhetoric geared to appeal to white US citizens threatened by changing demographics.

Similarly, Mugabe frequently exclaims that Zimbabwe will never again be a colony. Zanu-PF’s political longevity is built on a strategy that promotes it as the sole custodian of revolutionary leadership following the turbulent struggle against white supremacy.

Mugabe plays to his base with announcements that white Zimbabweans should “go back to England” and that “we say no to whites owning our land and they should go”. Homosexuals have been viciously derided as “worse than dogs and pigs”. But, like Trump, he manipulates language for his own purpose.

Several of Mugabe’s backers have been white businesspeople, some of whom were subject to US and European Union-targeted sanctions for their support of Zanu-PF. Mugabe has used the presidency to establish a business conglomerate, Gushungo Holdings, a worrying sign for those hoping that Trump will put his businesses in a blind trust, thereby reducing conflicts of interest.

Amid reports that Trump’s son-in-law is angling for a position in the incoming administration, Zimbabweans will be reminded that Mugabe’s son-in-law was recently named chief operating officer of the national airline.

Zanu-PF rhetoric mirrors the fault lines that Republicans see – but which pre-Trump were only articulated in private. Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign suffered a massive setback in 2012 when a leaked recording of him saying that 47% of the US population would not vote for him and that “[his] job was not to worry about those people” surfaced.

Zimbabwean ruling party elites also express disdain for those with different worldviews. In 2002, several months after Zimbabwe’s most closely contested presidential election since independence, Didymus Mutasa, then Zanu-PF secretary for administration, announced: “We would be better off with only six million people, with our own [ruling party] people who supported the liberation struggle. We don’t want all these extra people.” Zimbabwe’s population at the time was roughly twice that size.

Although Trump may ultimately be unable to get Mexico to pay for the wall, Zanu-PF has successfully translated similarly confrontational rhetoric into electoral (and policy) success. The government has nationalised large tracts of private land and, in a 2005 operation, Operation Murambatsvina (Clear the Filth), thousands of residential structures were destroyed, causing as many as 700 000 urban residents, the primary supporters of the opposition, to lose their homes and sources of livelihood.

Trump galvanised his supporters with threats of a rigged election, urging his followers to conduct partisan exit polling and poll monitoring, actions perceived as a way to intimidate supporters of Hillary Clinton. At a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump encouraged his followers to “watch your polling booths … [and] then go check out areas”.

Likewise, Zanu-PF has honed the art of rigging elections through a combination of violence and manipulation. The opposition and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) have routinely accused the government of deploying war veterans and a youth militia, commonly known as the Green Bombers, to intimidate voters into supporting Zanu-PF. Trump’s recourse to violence has been less overt, although he has made comments that Democrats interpreted as an assassination threat against Clinton.

Zanu-PF mobilises its base with rhetoric decrying the imposition of sanctions by the West and the meddlesome role of NGOs as a way to achieve regime change, a tactic similar to Trump’s criticism of the media, which he accused of trying to “poison the minds of the voters”.

During presidential elections in 2008, political violence resulted in hundreds of deaths and the playing field was further stacked in Zanu-PF’s favour when the electoral roll was not released until the day before the election. An analysis by the nonpartisan Zimbabwe Election Support Network subsequently revealed the roll probably contained about one million invalid voters and excluded a million valid ones.

Republicans have followed a similar strategy to suppress votes, emboldened by a 2013 Supreme Court judgment that struck down key parts of the Voting Rights Act. These efforts increasingly resemble Zanu-PF tactics, albeit under the guise of reducing voter fraud.

Both Trump and Mugabe appreciate a good insult. The former notoriously called Clinton a “nasty woman”, whereas Mugabe told the opposition to “go hang” following a violent election campaign.

Notably, Zanu-PF differs greatly from team Trump in its sophistication and intellectual composition. Mugabe, who holds seven tertiary degrees, once remarked that “cricket civilises people and creates good gentlemen”. He has few personality traits in common with Trump aside from a much younger trophy wife and a more pronounced propensity to campaign in political regalia.

But Jonathan Moyo, Zimbabwe’s higher education minister, is a downright Trumpian figure. Both enjoy recourse to litigation, actively court controversy and masterfully manipulate the media. Moyo has been accused of embezzling funds from the Ford Foundation in Kenya, the University of the Witwatersrand and, most recently, the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund, prompting his arrest.

Trump has found himself in a similar predicament with several of his business schemes. He recently settled a fraud case to the tune of $25-million against his now defunct Trump University venture.

Moyo has nearly 100 000 followers on Twitter, where, like Trump, he frequently engages in spats with his opponents. A primary recipient of his invective is David Coltart, a white former opposition minister whom Moyo revels in calling a racist idiot.

Both Trump and Zanu-PF regularly seek a legal mandate for their questionable actions, but they cry foul when they worry the law may not work in their favour.

Trump stated that the US-born judge presiding over a fraud case against him could not conduct an impartial hearing because he was of Mexican descent. Meanwhile, following a judgment by a regional tribunal in favour of white farmers, Mugabe responded that the court’s decision was “nonsense” and “of no consequence”.

Zanu-PF’s domestic interference in the judiciary has been significant. In 2001, Zimbabwe’s chief justice was forced to retire under the threat of violence.

But when it comes to reconciliation, Zanu-PF shows its most troubling colours. Originally acclaimed for its reconciliation efforts following the armed struggle for independence, the party has now drawn the same conclusion as Trump has with blacks, Latinos and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual community – minorities can be a useful punching bag.

In Zimbabwe, this rhetoric has been a matter of life or death. It’s estimated that massacres of the minority Ndebele in the 1980s, an ethnic group known for its opposition to Zanu-PF, may have resulted in as many as 30 000 fatalities.

Despite a unity accord with the opposition in 1987, no one has been held to account for it. Mugabe vaguely described the events as “a moment of madness”. Trump similarly struggles to be contrite. He has refused to apologise for his unsubstantiated claims that US President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and refuted allegations of sexual harassment after he was recorded boasting of that kind of behaviour.

It is no surprise that Zanu-PF is no fan of Clinton. As a senator, she co-sponsored the Act that led to sanctions against Mugabe and other prominent party officials. As a former secretary of state, her hawkish policies contributed to the death of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, a strong Zimbabwean ally. Mugabe’s spokesperson and secretary in the ministry of information George Charamba’s claim that a “Clinton presidency would have been terrible for Zimbabwe” is quite reasonable from the perspective of the ruling party. Attacks on Tendai Biti, a prominent opposition figure, for his support of Clinton, also fit with the Zanu-PF modus operandi.

But The Herald’s strongly worded op-ed represents a very generous olive branch to Trump, yet undermines the image Zanu-PF seeks to portray of itself as an uncompromising voice for those oppressed by the West.

Mugabe routinely savaged presidents George Bush and Obama but, according to US senator Chris Coons, the Zimbabwean leader was enthusiastic about a Trump presidency from as early as February 2015.

Zanu-PF’s zest for a Trump presidency is driven by a recognition that the new US leader exercises a version of realpolitik very similar to its own. In Zimbabwe, this has resulted in an unprecedented economic breakdown and high levels of political violence, with the ruling party demonstrating resilient political longevity.

It is a startling portent of what may be in store for the US, even if Trump begins, like Mugabe, by sounding the right notes.

Brooks Marmon is an American PhD student at the Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh. His Twitter handle is @AfricaInDC

TheZimbabwedaily.com

19 November 2016

LONDON – Zimbabwean pro-democracy activists have urged citizens to commit to nonviolent action after supporters were assaulted and abducted this morning ahead of a planned demonstration dubbed #MunhuWeseMuRoad.

Sources on the ground, who could not be identified for fear for their safety, told IBTimes UK that men abducted and beat half a dozen activists, including prominent political activists Patson Dzamara, Ishmael Kauzani and Sten Zvorwadza, who had been calling for Zimbabweans to gather and protest in the capital Harare on Friday (18 November).

Leaders of #ThisFlag, the National Vendors Union of Zimbabwe (NAVUZ) and #ThisGown are currently holding meetings to decide whether or not to go ahead with the demonstration in the light of the attack.

Protest movement Tajamuka stated it would not participate in the planned march in an official capacity, but IBTimes UK understands several of the movement’s leaders are expected to join the demonstration.

“[The attack] is clearly an act of intimidation to try and thwart the demonstration today,” Doug Coltart, a Zimbabwean lawyer and the son of David Coltart, a prominent Zimbabwean lawyer and founding member of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), told IBTimes UK over the phone.

“The police are out in full-force in Harare’s central business district (CBD) – moving out in groups of 10 all over the city in a clear threat to the demonstrators. It’s a tough dilemma that the movement leaders find themselves in now. Do they back down and submit to the intimidation of the state or do they go ahead and risk people getting beaten up, and potentially killed? Certainly, there is a high risk of more people being assaulted at the end of the day.”

Sande: ‘Zanu-PF has declared war on its citizens’
Having called citizens to join the #MunhuWeseMuRoad demonstration which was planned to start from 09:00 (07:00 GMT), activists urged the population to remain committed to nonviolent action.

“The most important thing for the movement is to come out with a unified front, with the same message, but above all, if the demonstration does go ahead that at least, from the demonstrators’ side, it is essential that it remains non-violent. The risk of demonstrating just after a very highly-emotionally charged morning when two of the movement leaders have been assaulted is that young men go out with an eye for revenge, which can be very damaging for the credibility of the movement, play right into the regime’s hands,” Coltart said.

“By now, word has reached out that [ruling party] Zanu-PF has declared war on its citizens,” activist Promise Sande, said following the attack. Referring to Zvorwadza’s injuries, the activist added: “There is no country [in which] citizens should live in where they are subjected to such butchery and to such torture. It is totally unacceptable. The government has gone to limits they are not supposed to reach at all.”

After almost four decades of quelled frustrations under Robert Mugabe‘s iron-fisted reign, a flurry of citizen and civil activism movements have been rising and spreading in the African nation, calling for social, political and economic change.

Zanu-PF, which has been in power since the country gained independence from the UK in 1980, has repeatedly repressed political opponents and is accused of mass atrocities against civilians to consolidate power.

The Zimbabwean government could not be reached for comment.

IB Times

10 November 2016

As the much-anticipated 2018 elections loom, Zimbabwe’s tortured politics face difficult times. IBTimes UK met with David Coltart, Zimbabwe’s former Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, who spoke of his fears of a perfect storm.

After almost four decades of quelled frustrations under Mugabes iron-fisted reign, a flurry of citizen and civil activism movements have been rising and spreading in the African nation, calling for social, political and economic change.

Although it has been a long struggle, its by no means over. In fact in many respects, Zimbabwe faces one of its greatest crises at the moment. It is what I describe as a perfect storm, the former minister and opposition MDC Senator told IBTimes UK in an exclusive interview in London, UK, where he launched his latest book The Struggle Continues: 50 Years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe faces a perfect storm

As Zimbabwe’s economic problems have led to heightened social instability, Coltart warned that the convergence of a number of factors could plunge the country into chaos.

Firstly, the minister described a leadership vacuum left by an ageing Mugabe (now almost 93), a divided ruling party and a fragmented opposition. As a result, the country is headless, we dont have any clear way forward, no clear leadership, Coltart explained.

The nations imploding economy – a very serious shortage of foreign currency, the collapse of what was left of industry, run-on banks and the introduction of bond notes – comes in the context of fears Zimbabwe could be thrown back to the horrors of its 2008 crisis, when peoples savings, and pensions were destroyed.

Theres a lot of anxiety in the country at present, with the proposed introduction of bond notes, the former minister said, adding these worries are aggravated by a crippling drought and famine. Weve had a terrible drought in the last year. That is compounded by the fact that the commercial agriculture sector has almost been destroyed and, despite the drought, there were some dams that were full – but they werent used for crops and so, there is starvation in the country.

Facing distractions, the international community may fail to act fast enough to prevent the storm from erupting. Neighbour South Africa has its own problems with its ruling ANC party going through a turmoil, Mozambique has seen the resurgence of RENAMO , uprisings and violence, and northern neighbour Zambia has had a contested election. The attention of the West, meanwhile, is focused on the war in Syria, Isis and the threat of terrorism in Europe.

So we have the converge of these four factors, which is leading to what I describe as a perfect storm, a very, very worrying short-term scenario, and the real worry that those tensions will develop into violence, he explained.

Because of the rising tensions, Zimbabweans have had very few avenues to vent their anger. They turned to social media – effectively giving birth to #ThisFlag and Tajamuka protest movements that are gaining momentum.

Speaking of #ThisFlags lack of physical leadership – its founder is now in exile in the US – and of other movements that have described themselves as somewhat harder than #ThisFlag, Coltart spoke of a real danger.

One of my beliefs is that violence has got our country into enormous trouble, and a major challenge for leadership, for people like myself and others, is to encourage young people in particular to remain committed to using non-violence to achieve political ends, he explained. The #ThisFlag movement has been committed to non-violence but there are – as is almost inevitable among young people – elements who feel that youve got to meet fire with fire. We hope that they dont gain the ascendancy in our political discourse. But obviously, the more the regime entrenches itself, the more the possibility for that type of violent response grows.

International community needs to work with Zanu-PF and region
When asked about potential avenues to prevent the situation from deteriorating, Coltart, who is a human rights lawyer, said that comply[ing] with the Constitution is a good rallying point. While an overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans agreed to a new Constitution in 2013, the government has so far failed to implement it and Coltart described a need to align our subsidiary laws to that Constitution.

We need to start respecting it in letter and deed. The government, the regime of Robert Mugabe is pushing back against the Constitution, trying to amend it, trying to ignore it, Coltart said, highlighting how he believes that the international community should work multi-laterally with Zanu-PF and regional players including South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique.

Thats where the international community has to come in. There is no doubt that this regime is under enormous pressure and to that extent theyre susceptible to influence from the outside.If Zimbabwe implodes again, it is going to impact the South African economy and the region – so its important that the West work alongside those governments to try and get a regional consensus, which in turn must bring pressure to bear on Robert Mugabes regime to comply with its own Constitution.

Africareview.com

1 November 2016

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has declared bond notes legal tender amid charges by experts that the intervention was unconstitutional.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) announced in May that it would introduce the currency linked to the US dollar.

The announcement at the height of serious shortages of the dollar in the country sparked a flurry of lawsuits challenging the legality of the bond notes.

Measure of doubt

President Mugabe’s decision to use his powers to declare the notes legal tender is seen as an attempt to block court challenges.

“It has been decided that the legality of bond notes as legal tender in Zimbabwe should be put beyond any measure of doubt,” Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa said in a statement on Tuesday.

“It is to this effect that the president has today gazetted statutory instrument 133 of 2016 President Powers (Temporary Measures) Amendment of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act in issue of bond notes regulation 2016.

Powers regulations

“The measures that have been gazetted under presidential powers regulations will fortify and underpin the existing legal framework for the issuance of the bond notes.”

However, former Finance minister Tendai Biti immediately dismissed President Mugabe’s intervention as illegal.

“The use of a presidential decree to enact law is unconstitutional, authoritarian and contemptuous of parliament,” Mr Biti, now practising as a lawyer tweeted.

“They are tearing the constitution (sic),” he added.

Call elections

Former Education minister David Coltart suggested Mr Chinamasa avoided using parliament to push through the law because the bond notes were not popular even among ruling Zanu-PF party legislators.

“Zanu-PF knows they cannot not use parliament to force through the bond notes law because it will reveal just how unpopular they will be even within Zanu-PF,” he tweeted.

In 2013, President Mugabe used his powers to call elections without reforms. At that time, Mr Chinamasa was Justice minister.

IB Times

26 October 2016

An acute and growing shortage of medicines in Zimbabwe is aggravating the spread of deadly infections typhoid and cholera across the country, as the ailing economy worsens the nation’s failing public health system.

Zimbabweans are still reeling from the economic and humanitarian crisis of 2008/2009 when more than 4,280 died from cholera – an outbreak Unicef has described as one of the worse ever recorded in sub-Saharan Africa – compounded by poor sanitation and limited access to healthcare.

Just days after the nation’s health authorities issued a cholera and typhoid outbreak alert in the capital Harare, due to severe water shortages, legislators have urged President Robert Mugabe to declare the spread a national health crisis after more than 60 new cases were reported in three provinces this week.

Against a backdrop of alarming poverty levels, a cash-strapped public health system, aid agencies have warned that health institutions have run or are running out of medicine, and clinics and hospitals are struggling to cope with the soaring number of patients.

A student nurse at Harare’s Parirenyatwa Hospital is quoted as saying by Times Live that the number of deaths per week from water-borne diseases was on the increase.

Lack of drugs worsening the situation

According to local press, members of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health – which monitors the activities of the Ministry of Health – was this week told that the situation was worsened by budget restrictions, looting and a delay in salary payments for civil servants.

Because of what the World Health Organisation describes as an “unprecedented deterioration of healthcare infrastructure”, the large majority of medicine available in Zimbabwe’s hospitals is supplied by foreign aid agencies and organisations.

Whilst drugs such as pethidine and injectable morphine are expensive, the state has abandoned the cash budgeting principle, as outlined by current finance minister Patrick Chinamasa during his mid-term budget review on 8 September.

“Whilst drugs are expensive, the state won’t cut back on military equipment and vehicles and transfer that money to medication. If it did it could actually go a long way,” Zimbabwe’s former education minister, and human rights lawyer, David Coltart, exclusively told IBTimes UK over the phone from Bulawayo last month.

IBTimes