The Zimbabwean News Roundup

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2008 election depends on Gono say Zanu sources

HARARE - President Robert Mugabe has told top officials of his ruling Zanu (PF) party that a decision on whether to hold a presidential election due in 2008 will depend on how well central bank governor Gideon Gono is able to stabilise Zimbabwe's sickly economy.
Members of the party’s inner politburo cabinet told Zimonline Mugabe told the key committee during one of its regular weekly meetings last week that Gono was an “agent of the party” whose specific assignment was to ensure that it would have something to sell to voters should a ballot be called.
"He (Mugabe) told us as that as far as he was concerned, Gono was an agent of the party, that his (Gono) mandate was to ensure that, come 2008, there would be some stability in the economy and as a party and government we would not have to face voters empty-handed," said one senior Zanu (PF) official.
Party spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira said the politburo had discussed several issues including the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)'s currency reforms. But he vehemently denied that the politburo had specifically discussed Gono or that Mugabe had told the party organ that the RBZ governor was now an agent of Zanu (PF).
Gono, appointed RBZ governor in 2003, is widely regarded as Mugabe's troubleshooter on the economy. His recent currency reforms angered many Zimbabweans chiefly because of their arbitrariness, while senior leaders of Zanu (PF) and the government were angry that Gono had not consulted them or even his political boss, Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa.
There were reports in the local press that Gono and senior staff at the RBZ were receiving death threats from unknown people over the currency reforms. But Mugabe last month publicly threw his weight behind Gono and said he was aware that some people wanted him (Gono) dead.
While Mugabe could step down in 2008 as he has indicated he will, his party could still amend Zimbabwe's Constitution to avoid having to face the electorate if it felt that whoever it eventually selects to succeed Mugabe would - for one reason or another - not fare well in an open poll.
Zanu (PF) commands enough parliamentary majority to pursue several options including postponing the poll and extending Mugabe's current term or allowing Mugabe to step down but change the Constitution to have the next president chosen by Parliament and not in an open ballot. - ZimOnline
CHRA plans demo


Combined Harare Residents Association street protests

HARARE - The Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) has resolved to carry on with street protests until sanity returns to Town House.
“Our latest action will be held before 13 September, 2006 when the City of Harare closes doors to objections to the intended sale of a council house to Sekesai Makwavarara, the chairperson of the commission running the affairs of the capital,” said Precious Shumba, the information officer.
Shumba said Makwavarara had already made a down payment of Z$1, 4 million towards the purchase, yet the process of objections was still ongoing.
“This is corruption which CHRA condemns in the strongest terms,” said Shumba.


Chinamasa acquitted

HARARE – Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister, Patrick Chinamasa was this week acquitted of trying to defeat the course of justice.
The court found evidence given by a key state witness, James Kaunye, inconsistent.
Chinamasa is accused of putting pressure on James Kaunye to withdraw charges against National Security minister Didymus Mutasa’s supporters, in the second case of alleged attempt to defeat the course of justice levelled against him in his career as Justice
Minister. - CAJ News


Zims missing Amai Sally – MDC

GUTU- Zimbabwe is in a crisis because President Robert Mugabe is being ill-advised, says the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Morgan Tsvangirai.
The party’s information and publicity secretary, Nelson Chamisa told about 3 000 villagers in Magombedze-Chivave in Gutu South constituency at the weekend that Zimbabweans were dearly missing President Mugabe’s first wife, Sally, who passed away in 1992.
Chamisa told the crowd that, since the death of Sally, Mugabe’s leadership style had seriously deteriorated.
“It is a clear indication that Mugabe is getting the wrong advice from his youthful wife. Things were better when Sally was still alive, zvino kana urimambondyire uchirima munda weumwe wako unoita sora”, added Chamisa amid a thunderous applause from the villagers, most of them old men and women.
Meanwhile, Tsvangirai addressed about 15 000 supporters in Chiredzi on Sunday. The former trade-unionist, who last week led senior MDC officialls in a march from his party’s headquarters, Harvest House, to parliament to submit a petition, urged Zimbabweans to brace up for mass protests.
The MDC says it will soon roll out its mass resistance program against the total collapse of the economy under the Mugabe administration. – Wilson Butete


License community radios – Zanu (PF)

HARARE - A senior ruling Zanu (PF) member Charles Pemhenayi says Zimbabweans should demand to be granted licenses to run community radio stations as provided for under the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA).
Speaking at the official launch of the Kumakomo Community Radio Station (KCRS) in Mutare recently Pemhenayi said the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) should be taken to task on why it had not issued the licenses in question. He urged Zimbabwean communities to make the right noises and demand for the licenses for community radio stations
The launch of KCRS is part of the intense lobby activities initiated by MISA-Zimbabwe under its Community Radio Initiatives (CRIs) to mobilise communities to demand for the licenses under its Free the Airwaves Campaign aimed at breaking the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings’ monopoly of the airwaves. The CRIs are fast gaining momentum following the launch of Wezhira, Kwelaz and Gweru community radio stations in Masvingo, Kwekwe and Gweru respectively.- MISA


MDC supporters defy Zanu thugs

MAMINA - More than 2,000 MDC supporters congregated at Mamina Growth Point on Saturday, defied a group of Zanu (PF) youths and war veterans who had laid siege to the venue of the rally.
The provincial leadership, led by Chitungwiza MP Fidelis Mhashu and provincial organizing secretary Pinias Mushayavanhu, forged ahead with the rally despite attempts by the ex-combatants and youths to disrupt it.
The rally drew rural supporters from as afar afield as Mhondoro and Ngezi, more than 50 kilometers away, with some of the supporters saying they had woken up at 4 am, before footing to the growth point to listen to their leaders.
There was a heavy police presence. When speakers slammed the directive instructing police officers to start paying fares while traveling on public transport even on official duty, police officers could seen clapping in solidarity.
Mhashu, who is also the MDC shadow Education minister, said the huge dropout of children in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions gravely worried him.
The MDC will contest all 21 seats in the district election. The Chitungwiza provincial chairperson, Lillian Mashumba, urged women to ensure that each and every member of their family who is eligible to vote had registered to do so. She said women had born the brunt of Mugabe’s misrule. – Gift Phiri


Prayers for reconciliation

HARARE - President Robert Mugabe’s cornered regime last week pleaded with some obscure representatives of nine European countries who came to apologize for the sins of their ancestors, to ask their governments to lift sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.
Addressing the European-African Reconciliation Process Prayer Network conference in Harare last week, Chris Seaton, leader of the nine representatives from Britain, France, Germany, America, Austria, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Belgium said they were in Zimbabwe to apologise on behalf of their ancestors who had “pillaged the continent, leading to Africa’s current underdevelopment”. Presented with such a rare occasion to push its anti-west propaganda which of late has had no takers, President Mugabe’s regime immediately seized the opportunity to flog its rhetoric that sanctions were hurting ordinary Zimbabweans.
The president of the Chiefs Council Fortune Charumbira said: “I am stunned by what I saw and I didn’t expect it to come from the arrogant whites, kneeling before us in typical African culture, asking for forgiveness for the sins committed by their ancestors to us.”
Charumbira said the European Christian representatives should call on their governments to remove “sanctions” imposed on the Zanu (PF) government because they were “hurting people.” An EU travel ban applies personally to government ministers and a few other individuals complicit in the abuse of human rights but is willfully misrepresented by the Mugabe regime as sanctions against Zimbabwe as a nation.
Former Mozambican President Joachim Chissano, who also attended the conference, said the reconciliatory initiatives being pursued were symbolic for Zimbabwe, “currently suffering the effects of unjust international relations.” President Mugabe, who was supposed to address the conference, did not turn up in as yet unclear circumstances. – Own correspondent


Zimdaily.com slammed for plagiarism
By Our Correspondent

HARARE – While Zimbabwe-related online news agencies are important in filling the information gap created by the regime’s repressive media laws, the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) has slammed one agency, Zimdaily.com, for plagiarism.
MMPZ said that in the week August 21-27, Zimdaily.com lifted some five stories from other publications and simply presented them as its own. On August 21, the agency lifted verbatim two stories on the currency change over that had appeared the previous week in the Mail and Guardian and Zimbabwe Independent.
On the same day the website also stole from the Cape Argus a story about civic groups’ concern over the failure of a SADC summit in Maseru to censure Robert Mugabe. Later in the week, Zimdaily.com ran word-for-word a substantial part of a ZimObserver report on Zimbabwe buying Chinese fighter planes. Similarly, said MMPZ, a story on a rally by the Arthur Mutambara MDC faction was largely lifted from a report by Peta Thornycroft which appeared on VOANEWS.COM.
Plagiarism – giving the impression that somebody else’s work is your own – violates journalistic ethics.
“Such unprofessional conduct gives the authorities an excuse to retain their tyrannical media laws, which they have used to either silence the private media or stifle the establishment of alternative sources of information,” said the media watchdog.
Elsewhere, the state-run media’s efforts to avoid reporting on, let alone investigating, anything that portrays the regime in a bad light led to fresh distortions and contradictions.
Despite reporting symptoms of the chaos in the currency changeover, such as businesses refusing to accept old notes on the eve of the changeover or the critical shortage of small denominations in the new currency, the state mouthpieces continued more or less celebrating the changeover.
Thus The Herald reported on its front-page that in some cases armed police were called in to maintain order, while claiming in commentary that the exercise went “remarkably smoothly.” Just a few local problems which were, as ever, the fault of someone else, anyone else. In this case, The Herald cited “laziness by some bank managers in some branches and the desperate desire of Zimbabweans to keep large sums of cash at home.”
Even when Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono acknowledged that all was not well, the state media shied away. The Herald and The Chronicle saw the extension of the currency changeover deadline in rural areas not as reflection of the chaos, but passively quoted Gono as seeing himself as magnanimous.
MMPZ noted the state media also made no attempt to square Gono’s claim that the changeover was a success with his revelation that $10 trillion (about 22% of the total cash in circulation) was still unaccounted for after the August deadline.
The private media, however, highlighted the inconveniences and the gloomy outlook. The Daily Mirror said that the authorities had already printed more new bank notes dated March 2006 which Gono threatened to introduce at 24 hours’ notice.
However, only Studio 7, SW Radio Africa and ZimDaily reported the arrests in Bulawayo of 200 women from Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) for demonstrating against the economic mess.
Commented MMPZ: “None of the mainstream media appeared to consider this effort to prevent the women from exercising their right to express themselves a newsworthy event.”