liticians and join Tsvangirai.
We want more people of Mutambara’s calibre. Mutara, join the party with clear objectives before you vie for a powerful position. Your turn to be president will come, considering your age.
If the factions remain separate, Mugabe could rig the elections even easier than he did in 2002 because he can simply apportion the votes between the factions or make the main faction lose far worse than the senate.
The factions must stop focusing on Mugabe and start debating which has more supporters.
Also, supporters might be confused as to who is who in what faction. How many Zimbabweans know which faction is that of Sikhala, Chimanikire, Biti, Mushonga, etc? The majority only know Tsvangirai and Mutambara. So if you can’t unite, please change names as soon as possible to avoid confusion.
This is the time to reconcile, taking advantage of the fact that Zanu (PF) is also fighting now. Let’s solve our differences. Hamuoni mazuva ano havachatiseka.
MANFRED CHIKWANDA, Zimbabwe
No happy new year
EDITOR- Compliments of the festive season. I wish I could say ‘Happy New Year’ but there is nothing happy about it.
Bus journeys to and from work now cost $1,000 for a single journey, bread costs $825, meat is $10 000/kg. A teacher or nurse’s salary is between $50 and $60,000. I wonder how we are surviving.
And now Zanu (PF) want Mugabe to rule until 2010! Are Zimbabweans a cursed lot?
SHEPHERD, Zimbabwe
Zanu (PF) is imploding
EDITOR – It’s becoming obvious now that Zanu (PF) is crumbling from within. It’s the economic situation that Mugabe can’t fix that is causing the dissent and fragmentation in his party.
Our problem is the fractured MDC party; will they be united and ready to take advantage of this crisis? There are many good people working hard to unite the MDC and all civil groups into a strong alliance that, if organized, can force Mugabe to run. It will happen because it has to happen.
The CIO are aware of how grave the situation has become for the party and its leader. A question I always ask is, “Who are the prisoners in Zimbabwe?” Certainly not us, we can still move around freely, but Mugabe and his cronies require armour and armed guards to get about; they are obviously terrified of the people that they are suppressing and committing crimes against.
The Johannesburg Star recently reported: “Sources say the CIO’s documents seem to make it clear that weary Zimbabweans would rather have Mugabe go in 2008. If presidential elections are to be delayed until 2010, then it might be easier to sell the project with a new leader for both the ruling party and the country. A special parliamentary committee on defence has warned that inadequate budgetary allocations to the army would leave Zimbabwean soldiers earning wages below the poverty datum line. The report is the clearest indication yet that Zimbabwe’s seven-year economic crisis is starting to cripple Mugabe’s ability to keep the armed forces happy.
The last frontier is the support the military gives to the regime. That frontier is looking increasingly fragile.
ANON, SA
Lecturers are true patriots
EDITOR – The recent utterances by Zanu (PF) Secretary for Youth, Absolom Sikhosana, at their National People’s Conference left me topsy-turvy. They not only reveal Mr Sikhosana’s remarkable ideological and political underdevelopment but also that the man is sometimes prone to foolish jokes.
Cde Secretary Sikhosana called for the recruitment of patriotic lecturers at the University of Zimbabwe largely because, in the words of the Pravda, “some of them were a bad influence on students”. Doctors Madhuku and Makumbe were cited as examples.
Sikhosana said, “Our children are put in the hands of Madhuku and Makumbe where they’re taught to hate themselves”.
I want to give Mr Sikhosana the benefit of the doubt and accept that he is sincere in calling for patriotic lecturers. But he appears to be ignorant of what patriotism is.
I have never been in Dr Madhuku’s class but I have had the opportunity to listen to him speak at various forums organised by civil society in Harare. I have been in Dr Makumbe’s Democracy and Human Rights class and I also had the opportunity to hear him speak at various forums.
My conclusion is that both of them are not only patriotic but also nationalistic. It is for this reason that I am convinced that the two lecturers are not a bad influence on students. They teach students to love themselves, love their neighbours as themselves, and to love their country.
Patriotism is not the exclusive property of Zanu (PF). In fact, it goes beyond party politics. You are a party leader and not a national leader, Cde Sikhosana.
What we want is transparency in all aspects of government, accountability, respect for human rights and a smooth flow of information. I believe this is exactly what Dr Madhuku and Dr Makumbe are fighting for 26 years after independence!
Cde Sikhosana’s words are not only an obstacle to modernity, but also detrimental to unity, peace, progress and development. They justify poverty and tyranny in the most vulgar manner.
The two lecturers have taught us the way to go. They have taught us to promote respect for human dignity and pursue social justice. It is through their teachings that I have come to the realisation that the dignity of the person is the basis for human rights.
In conclusion, my contribution is not motivated politically but rather to begin to reclaim our dignity as individuals living for and within the truth. I put it to you, comrades.
MUTSA MURENGE, Harare
Anglo active in Africa
EDITOR – We refer to ‘The End of An Era’ (The Zimbabwean, 14 December) penned under the pseudonym Muongorori.
Whilst it was obviously written with passion for Zimbabwe and its future, a passion that we share, it contained some serious inaccuracies, which we should like to point out.
Firstly, Cecil Rhodes was a co-founder of the British South Africa Company, not Anglo American Corporation. Rhodes died in 1902, whereas the late Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, who founded Anglo American in 1917, only arrived in South Africa in 1904.
It was the BSA Co that was granted a Royal Charter in 1889, on the strength of which it then occupied and administered what is now Zimbabwe from 1890 to 1923.
With the exception of a small investment in a ranching operation in 1928, Anglo’s first real involvement in Zimbabwe only began in 1949 when it invested in a chrome refinery in Gweru – the forerunner to Zimbabwe Alloys. Two years later the government invited it to take over the running of Wankie Colliery, and it opened its first office in Zimbabwe in January 1954.
Thereafter, investments followed quickly in a variety of fields – forestry, agro-industrial (including Hippo Valley in 1957), the financial and money market sector, the milling industry and property.
When the BSA Co lost its mining rights in Zambia in 1964, it disposed of its interests in Africa, with those in Zimbabwe being sold to Anglo American in 1965. Included among the assets acquired was Charter House.
Our primary focus now in Zimbabwe is platinum and sugar, through its South African subsidiary, Tongaat. Where these disposals have generated foreign currency – eg Portland Holdings, Bindura Nickel Corporation and now Hippo Valley, the resultant funds have been paid into a special foreign currency account with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, earmarked for the development of Anglo’s Platinum deposits.
The suggestion that the Anglo American group is withdrawing from Africa is incorrect. Since 1999 the group has invested significantly in Africa, including in South Africa (with over R124-bn spent since 1999), Namibia, Botswana, Ghana, Tanzania, Mali and Guinea.
We continue to pursue opportunities across the continent, specifically such countries as Senegal and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Finally, the contention that Anglo has disposed of Hippo Valley and its assets for 16% of its book value is not supported by the facts.
SPOKESMAN, Anglo American Corporation Zimbabwe
Zanu (PF) has nothing to offer
EDITOR – The New Year resolutions for Zanu (PF) are nothing but empty promises deceitfully planned… damage-control measures to mislead us.
They slaughtered 160 beasts and thousands of chickens for the Zanu (PF) elite, only to come up with resolution that farm workers who are not willing to work for the new Zanu (PF) farmers are to be evicted – a second phase of Murambatsvina.
That nonsense, coming from Doctor Ignatious Chombo, will target those from Malawi and Mozambique. It’s a clear sign that the government will displace more families because they feel the Murambatsvina exercise to downsize the perceived MDC areas failed to achieve significant results.
The fact is that new farm owners do not pay the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers’ Union of Zimbabwe rates.
The other true fact is that Mugabe and his economic pirates arm-twisted the delegates at the Goromonzi Christmas party to help him shift the goal posts – his usual tactic when it comes to removing him from the Seventh and Fifth Avenue house doorsteps.
Most of the uneducated individuals within Zanu (PF) won’t wake up from a deep sleep, after he overfed them with 160 beasts, so that they don’t interrupt the hidden agenda of simultaneously giving and taking away, Robert style.
FRANK TINAGO, Harare
Dictating to the clock
EDITOR – The unilateral decision by Zanu (PF) to synchronise the elections reveals a political party that has lost popularity and self-confidence.
Much more, it exposes the desperate but futile attempt by Zanu (PF) to arrest the arm of the clock ticking towards the election date.
While it will grieve the electorate to wait a further two years to cast a vote of displeasure against a group of thugs masquerading as politicians, the clock of history will tick on patiently until Zanu (PF)’s epitaph is finally inscribed: ‘Here doth lie a political party that could not live longer than time’.
History contains many chapters on dictators who wanted to avoid the inevitable by meddling with the constitution and interfering with election dates – with little success.
The failure of Zanu (PF) to mould a leader to succeed Mugabe cannot be hidden. Zanu (PF) is Mugabe but the old man cannot rule forever.
With this knowledge the electorate should take comfort in the promises that tomorrow bears. No dictator can out run the clock of history, nor stand the tide of change.
CHIRENJE, Harare
Leaders were crushed
EDITOR – Does Zimbabwe have a single individual who can match Mugabe’s stature and replace him today? Many leading politicians lack vital qualities, and those that do are scared stiff to even cough or sneeze to announce their presence.
Anyone who expects to replace Robert Mugabe must not lack charisma, intelligence and firmness (which must definitely border on ruthlessness). Firmness can be counter-productive if it is not matched by an intelligent ability to change direction according to changing circumstances. Inflexibility sometimes depicts dullness, not intelligence.
Mugabe made all efforts to suppress (and even assassinate) his colleagues and contemporaries so that he alone would remain as an ‘icon’ while everyone else stood out as confused and lacking in leadership qualities.
Robert Mugabe himself created this sorry scenario, and we will pay very heavily and very soon for singing that simplistic song, ‘Long live President Mugabe’.
THE RADICAL SOLDIER, Chinhoyi