'A mindless f#*#ing idiot ...'

Part one: Violence and vilification

Apparently, the time of the V-word has come. Now that Fred Khumalo has put him neatly in his callow place last Sunday, ANC Youth League president Julius Malema deserves no more attention. But it is hard to resist. I was searching for the right words myself when I fortuitously bumped into a minister who is archetypal of what one might now call the "veteran exile ANC set", has been a government minister since 1994 and who supplied me with the aptly pithy phrase: "Malema is a mindless fucking idiot."

This captures the essence of the ANC's current identity crisis. Remember how fond Thabo Mbeki was of asking "Will the centre hold?" I have come to appreciate that he was posing the question not only of South Africa but of his own organisation. So now we ask: Is the ANC the modern political party of sophisticates, well-versed in the ways of the world and able to "hold the centre"? Or is it a party of the lowest common denominator, willing to subjugate the Constitution's ideals of tolerance, rights and the rule of law to the rage of a populace that may have lost hope?

The right leadership would blend the savoir faire of the former with the anti-establishment zest of the latter. But at the moment it seems a zero-sum game, with the country trapped in the schism and struggling to breathe.

There is a good deal of snobbishness in the vitriol that now marks the differences between the two. The Mbeki set considers itself to be head and shoulders above the Zuma brigade, intellectually and strategically. Thus the veterans of Mbeki's exile crowd, and the loyalists of his 10 years in the West Wing, rail against the tide of vilification that now besieges their beleaguered leader.

And they have a point. Mbeki is seriously flawed; his legacy is all but bust; and he has made errors of judgement that should forever shame him. But he and his administration have done good things as well, which must be weighed in the balance.
Joel Netshitenze wrote recently in The Star that anyone who criticises the ANC wishes the ANC to be weak and is its opponent. Not so and not fair. At least for now, a strong ANC is a prerequisite for social cohesion. It may seem inappropriate to place such emphasis on a "mere" political party, and traditional liberals will balk at the notion, but this is no ordinary political party and when civic structures -- such as Sanco -- are weak, the ANC is needed to fill the gap.

After the recent violence against foreigners erupted, a survey of about 100 of Idasa's community leadership alumni elicited this primary, common observation: that where local government and/or the ANC is strong, there were no attacks; it was where the structures were weak or absent that the bulk of the violence took place.

Hence, this week it was the ANC leadership that the South African Human Rights Commission met with to discuss the Khutsong protests. The commission, the leadership of which deserves commendation for speaking up against the "ready to kill" talk by Malema and others, were deeply troubled by the reaction of the Khutsong community to the judgement of the Constitutional Court concerning its provincial boundaries.

Accusing the Constitutional Court of "vilifying" Justice John Hlophe, as Kgalema Motlanthe did last week, is as unhelpful as it is a disappointing and uncharacteristic lapse of composure and judgement. One day you are slagging off the Constitutional Court, Mr Motlanthe, the next the SAHRC is seeking you out to discuss how your organisation can help persuade a community to accept peacefully the judgement of the court. Do you see the problem?

In a violent and precarious society the very last thing you need is for people in leadership positions to appear to offer exhortation to murder or to undermine the rule of law. And yet again there is little but silence from Jacob Zuma. Yet again there are questions about his fitness for public office. Why does he stay silent? Because these expressions of violence represent a thinly veiled threat to the current establishment and especially the judiciary, which is seen as potentially the last real obstacle to a Zuma presidency.

Part two: Peace-making abroad

What is so striking is that some of the men of violent words south of the border are the same people who are quick to criticise Robert Mugabe for his violence against his own people. Are they blind to this connection? Do they not at the very least see how the connection would be made?

Given the events in Zimbabwe, there is now a strong case for an international peace-making initiative. A recent paper by Piers Pigou (Defining Violation: Political Violence or Crimes against Humanity? available online at www.idasa.org.sa under State in Transition Observatory/research reports) thoughtfully, carefully and persuasively makes the case for external intervention. The kernel of the argument is that Zimbabwe, whether it matches the high test of "crime against humanity" or not, has failed in its "responsibility to protect". This is a relatively new doctrine of international law, developed as a reaction to the failure of the international community to prevent genocide in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia, and permits collective intervention where a state has failed to protect its citizens from serious harm.

The idea is that state sovereignty implies responsibility and where that responsibility is breached, through state-sponsored torture or a failure to act to prevent internal repression or violence, the international community has authority to intervene. There is now ample evidence that this state of affairs prevails in Zimbabwe. In truth it has for quite a while and, for me, the arrest of Tendai Biti, the Movement for Democratic Change's dynamic secretary-general and a young man who has impressed many in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Pretoria, including the deputy minister, was the absolute last straw. He is no traitor; he is a decent, committed, progressive democrat.
So, thus, does Mbeki's failure becomes more acute. His strategy has been that of a one-trick pony: get the Zimbabwean political leadership to negotiate and enter into a government of national unity. But this fails to appreciate that a legitimate negotiation requires a reasonably level playing field. That has never been allowed for the MDC, with Mbeki's connivance. He doesn't like or trust the MDC. Some, such as his brother, believe this is a projection of his discomfort with leftist or trade unionist opposition at home. Others think that he believes, as Mugabe claims, that the MDC is a tool of the West. Well, the MDC has certainly received plenty of Western support, direct and indirect, including from the British. But so has the ANC, now and in the old days. Did that make them, the ANC, a tool of the West? And now, what about those British -- and German and Italian and Swedish -- weapons systems that were bought at the turn of the century? Isn't it time that they were employed, in the name of international law and liberal interventionism, to protect the Zimbabwean people? Or was the arms deal only about filling the empty coffers of the ANC?

This is not a call for a "regime change-style military intervention", à la Iraq, but a peace-making and peace-keeping force to create the conditions of stability and tolerance necessary to permit a (delayed) free and fair election and the protection of fundamental human rights.

The peril of my deadline means that in the three days before this column can be read, much could happen. Yet Morgan Tsvangirai's withdrawal from the presidential run-off is not only a justified statement of principle but a tactical retreat ahead of a multilateral intervention. There is a real sense that some SADC leaders, hitherto discouraged by Mbeki's stance, are so outraged that they regard Mbeki's position not only to have failed but to be wrong in principle. On this Mbeki may find that he is behind the curve of regional opinion, while in the capitals of the West his apparent appeasement simply serves to undermine his passionate desire to win respect for Africa and its people by playing into all the worst possible racist stereotypes of this continent and its leaders.

Part three: Business and PPP

The business sector is struggling to make sense of the latest acronym: PPP -- Post-Polokwane Politics. To many business leaders the two centres of power make their brains frazzle.

Dealing with one set of government relationships is demanding enough, but two? We want to engage constructively, say some, but we're unsure who we should be talking to. The global recession and the power shortages and high interest rates serve to make everything seem that much less cheerful. Uncertainties and anxieties escalate. Business sentiment and business confidence are fragile and fickle.

Whatever one may think of capitalism, at this point South Africa needs a vibrant corporate sector, willing to invest in skills and in new, sustainable business models.

Some business leaders appreciate that the post-Polokwane ANC and the policy resolutions that accompanied the change in leadership do not represent an ideological sea change. But they are also aware it is the execution of policy that matters most. As one normally robust and sanguine chief executive put it to me earlier this week: "The Expropriation Bill: put it in the hands of a Mathews Phosa, fine; but put it in the hands of Julius Malema …"

And he's quite right; people in power do matter. And that, Mr Malema, is the other consequence of your words: you undermine business confidence -- how does that help your "revolution"? Go and play Che Guevara somewhere else.

Government says crime stats are wake-up call, presses snooze button

Every day in the past year, 40 families have been attacked by robbers in their homes.

And the three hours between midnight and 03:00 is the time that robbers prefer to strike.

About 32% of all robberies countrywide occur after midnight.

According to a report by the South African Police Services (SAPS), homeowners should be on the alert also for robbers between 21:00 and 23:59 because 23% of robberies occurred during this time.

Source 40 families attacked every day

As if 'go to sleep early to save electricity and get cleverer' wasn't insult enough, even cleverer advice from the SAPS to homeowners 'be alert between 9 - 12' and 'be also alert between midnight and 3a.m.' to make sure you and your family don't get attacked, robbed, murdered..... The mind boggles.

PRETORIA. The South African government says that its latest crime statistics are disturbing, and that it fully intends to do something about crime, at some point in the future, possibly closer to 2010. According to a spokesman, the Minister of Safety and Security was "deeply shocked" by the latest figures, and would "need time to get over the shock" before he acted.

The government has drawn strong criticism over the figures, which it releases only once a year, with many parties and experts accusing the state of manipulating the statistics to suit its agendas.

However at this morning's press briefing, Safety and Security spokesperson Sizwe Corleone-Selebi defended the government's methods, saying that crime statistics were compiled in strict accordance with the latest cutting-edge astrological charts, factoring in data gleaned from the entrails of a sacrificial goose, combined with the prevailing body temperature of Jacob Zuma.

According to Corleone-Selebi, last year had seen a marked decrease in certain contact crimes, including dwarf-tossing, water-balloon throwing, and bear-bating.

Everything else was up or unchanged.

However he dismissed suggestions that South Africa's murder rate was out of control, saying that South Africans had become "morbidly obsessed with the negative aspects of homicide".

"We aren't denying that 18,000 South Africans are murdered every year," he said.

"But the thing that everyone is refusing to see is that while 18,000 citizens are murdered each year, over 47 million citizens aren't murdered each year.

"If you look at it holistically, the future is very bright indeed. Except, obviously, for the 18,000 people who are going to be murdered in 2009.

"But for the rest of us, it's really coming up roses."

He apologized to journalists for not being able to show them the raw data used to compile the statistics, saying that the relevant filing cabinet had been stolen by thieves dressed in police uniforms, carrying police firearms, and drawing police salaries.

Trading with Mugabe

It emerged on Sunday that six Tory MPs, including the new shadow home secretary, Dominic Grieve, have investments in firms trading in Zimbabwe. These firms include Shell, Barclays Bank, BP, Tesco, Rio Tinto, WPP and Anglo American. A senior manager at Imago, a Zimbabwean subsidiary of the communications firm WPP, even worked on advertisements for Mugabe's election campaign.

The Tory leader David Cameron told the Commons only last week that "businesses and individuals that have dealings in Zimbabwe must examine their responsibilities and make sure they do not make investments that prop up the regime". According to the Independent, "The revelations will embarrass the Tory leader, who has sought to take the moral high ground over the crisis in Zimbabwe." But will they? Many of these multinational corporations have been trading in the country for years, and only have relatively small operations there.

The fact that the Conservatives have been accused of involvement in unacceptable commercial dealings in Africa is nothing new. During apartheid, Margaret Thatcher notoriously failed to impose sanctions on South Africa, as British business supported the white regime with billions of pounds of trade. From Consolidated Goldfields to Barclays, Corporation UK raked in the money off the backs of exploited cheap African labour. Thatcher said at the time "sanctions would only hurt the poor black people". Bishop Tutu replied that "sanctions would be no worse than apartheid."

Cameron has since apologised for his party's stance on apartheid, and is clearly trying to make amends. However, Barclays should know better than to be supporting African despots again, especially as they may soon have to pay substantial reparations in an American court for their role in South Africa.

When the case against Barclays was first made, the bankers said it "had no legal merit," claiming they had "tried to be a positive influence for change" in South Africa. Lawyer Charles Abrahams said of the Barclays lawsuit in May: "This has the potential to change the relationship between states, individuals and multinational corporations with respect to human rights."

Barclays now owns two thirds of the shares in Barclays bank Zimbabwe, and last year the Observer reported that the company had helped to bankroll Mugabe. This all shows that the bank has a long way to go if it is to become an ethical investor.

Africa is better off now the likes of Tiny Rowland have passed into the history books. He was once referred to by Edward Heath as "the unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism." But as his former company Lonrho recently created a new investment vehicle called LonZim with a £100m to invest in Zimbabwe, it is clear that ethics come after profits for some companies.

Last week it emerged that the huge corporation, Anglo American, had a substantial investment in platinum mining in Zimbabwe. They mentioned their commitment to their 650 workers at the mine there, but avoided the question of whether their investment helps to sustain Mugabe. Rio Tinto, which owns a diamond mine in the country, used similar language, and spoke of having a "duty to our workforce and the community".

The former test cricketer Phil Edmonds has also been investing in Zimbabwe. Edmonds is allegedly associated with Muller Conrad "Billy" Rautenbach, a Zimbabwean who is wanted for fraud charges in South Africa, and who is believed to be close to Mugabe.

As George Bush announced a tougher sanctions package, these policies were immediately criticised elsewhere. "History has shown us that [sanctions] don't work because the leadership just dig in and dig in and feel persecuted," said Kenyan foreign minister, Moses Wetangula, ahead of the meeting of the African Union at Sharm el-Sheikh.

It will hurt the ordinary people of Zimbabwe, but a combined package of sanctions and disinvestment seems to be the only other option. There is a risk that such a move may pave the way for the sale of the rest of Zimbabwe's resources to the Chinese at bargain basement prices, but something needs to be done. Sanctions would be no worse than Mugabe. For multinational companies, failing to withdraw from Zimbabwe will ultimately jeopardise the work of their expensive PR machines and their boasts of a caring capitalism.

Money raised for Africa 'goes to civil wars'

By Linda Herrick

Billions of dollars raised for African famine relief by celebrities Bono and Bob Geldof have instead funded civil war across the continent, says terrorism expert Dr Loretta Napoleoni.

London-based Napoleoni, in Auckland to appear at the Writers & Readers Festival, has written two books, Terror Inc: Tracing the Money Behind Global Terrorism and Insurgent Iraq: Al-Zarqawi and the New Generation, on the economics of terrorism.

Her latest book, Rogue Economics, studies the destabilising effect of economic globalisation, focusing in part on why more than half a trillion dollars worth of aid sent to Africa since the 1960s failed to reach the intended destination - developing the nations' economies.

That huge amount of aid, which includes money from the United Nations and donations generated by Live Aid for Ethiopia, organised by Geldof, and the Live 8 concert in 2005, organised by Bono, has instead "served as a rogue force, notably as an important form of terrorist financing" in countries such as Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Kenya. Ethiopia, for example, received $1.8 billion in foreign aid between 1982-85, including a large contribution from Live Aid; $1.6 billion of that, she points out, was spent on buying military equipment.

"The money has ended up making Africa poorer and more violent because the money has been diverted towards warlords, weapons and armed invasions," she says. "The problem of Africa is corruption."

Napoleoni says there are parallels with Burma in the aftermath of the cyclone as aid organisations appeal for donations. "What is happening in Burma is a good example. You can have the best intentions but getting the money to the people in need is very hard because you have to go through the bureaucracy. The problem is the governance. You also need expertise. What the international relief organisations are saying is, you should send people from our team who know exactly what to do in these circumstances."

The cult of celebrity means that people who are famous for nothing more than being pop or movie stars speak out on issues they don't fully understand. "People like Bono and Bob Geldof are not ill-intentioned," she says. "But the simple fact that being a celebrity puts you in a position above everybody else is unacceptable.

"These people don't realise they are being manipulated by politicians and others. That is the case in the relationship between Bono and [American economist] Jeffrey Sachs, who is among the people who caused the chaos of the transition of the former communist countries into free-market economics. Sachs has been trying to relaunch himself as a sort of economist celebrity so he has been linking himself to Bono.

"Bono is repeating what he has been told about Africa. I am sure Bono hasn't got a clue about economics."

Napoleoni, who knows Geldof as a neighbour in the London suburb of Battersea, says he told her the first Live Aid was the "worse experience of his life because he found it very difficult to control where the money went. He suddenly realised it's easy to put famous musicians together to make money but to bring the money to the people in need is another matter."

Napoleoni adds that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy among stars linked to good causes. Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Bono and the other members of U2 were last year outed as tax-evaders for diverting their funds to the Netherlands, circumventing their democratic responsibilities to their home country of Ireland.

And Brad Pitt, Napoleoni points out, may drive a hybrid car, but he and Angelina Jolie use a private jet. Their trip to Namibia a couple of years ago, she notes, burned up enough fuel to take Pitt's hybrid all the way to the moon.

Source:

Possible scenarios ahead for Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has been declared the winner of a run-off election in which he was the only candidate after the withdrawal of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. We look at the possible scenarios ahead for Zimbabwe.

Mugabe isolated internationally and regionally

The US and UK governments have said they now do not recognise Mr Mugabe as the president of Zimbabwe. They would campaign for a similar decision to be taken by the regional southern African governments, especially South Africa, and by the EU. This could prevent Mr Mugabe from attending international meetings.

Interestingly, the African Union is holding a summit on Monday. It has a rule not to accept leaders who have not been democratically elected and a process to deny them accreditation. But it would be astonishing if they took such strong action so quickly.

Sanctions increased

Sanctions might be increased. At the moment, the EU has imposed travel bans and asset-freezing measures against Mr Mugabe and 130 of his leading supporters. This list would be extended and would apply to their families as well, including children at schools and universities abroad. The US and Australia have similar targeted measures and could increase them.

The government of Zimbabwe relies heavily on its earnings from mining and there could be EU and US restrictions on companies doing business with state enterprises in Zimbabwe. Care would have to be taken not to hurt the poor, already suffering from huge inflation. The loophole is that China or other countries might step in to fill any gap.

The UN has no sanctions on Zimbabwe. Whether the Security Council would impose any must be doubtful at the moment.

Some have called for South Africa to cut electricity supplies, or for landlocked Zimbabwe's neighbours to impose a blockade but such measures would obviously hit ordinary people worst and so are unlikely.

Government of national unity

The MDC would offer negotiations and, realising that his position internationally and regionally is weakened, Mr Mugabe agrees to form a coalition government. New elections would follow.

The key question here is whether Mr Mugabe would remain president. If he did, would the MDC agree? If not, would he agree? Any agreement would also need pressure on Mr Mugabe from South Africa and other regional governments and the African Union. Also, there would need to be guarantees that the new elections would be free and fair.

Collapse of Zanu-PF leadership

Mr Mugabe's close associates would break into factions, with some wanting to find a safe way out for themselves (through an immunity deal with the MDC, for example). Others might fight on, but in the end, even they might realise it was over, would turn on Mr Mugabe and tell him to go. Without support from the powerful security force elements, Mr Mugabe could not enforce his will. Despite reports of splits within Zanu-PF, the campaign of violence shows they remain united.

Civil unrest and economic deprivation

This is more of the same scenario. There could be violence as Zanu-PF seeks to establish total control under a renewed Mugabe presidency. Economically, the country falls into subsistence living. The chances of a full-scale civil war look remote at the moment, given the weakness of the MDC and the intimidation used by Zanu-PF.

Military intervention

Mr Tsvangirai has called for armed peacekeepers to be sent to Zimbabwe, but no government has shown any desire to send in troops to invade and remove Mr Mugabe from power. Such a move would need to be authorised by a UN Security Council resolution. This would be very difficult to get, even if anyone proposed it, which is unlikely at the moment.

Zimbabwe's army would resist any foreign military intervention - a civil war is probably the only thing worse than the current situation for ordinary Zimbabweans.

A humanitarian intervention, with the aim of protecting and feeding people, is a possibility if things get totally out of control. A UN authorised force might be assembled but it would be difficult to do anything if there was opposition from the Zimbabwean authorities.

International Criminal Court prosecution

The problem with this is that Zimbabwe has not signed up to the court and therefore proceedings cannot be taken against its leaders. Any legal action would need authorisation from the Security Council (along the lines of the tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda).

Mr Tsvangirai had stressed that he would like Mr Mugabe to have an "honourable retirement" - but that was before the latest campaign of violence.

Mbeki's cowardly leadership

LET there be no misunderstanding about SA's position in the Zimbabwean crisis: Robert Mugabe has brought SA's government to its diplomatic knees and reduced President Thabo Mbeki's regional leadership role to that of a cringing supplicant, begging for co-operation.

Mbeki's intercession at the United Nations Security Council to prevent it from declaring Mugabe's regime illegitimate, and his lobbying the African Union (AU) to permit the Zimbabwean status quo to remain at its summit in Egypt this week, serve only to confirm his submission to Mugabe.

Mbeki has always thought he could finesse Zimbabwe. He distrusts the Movement for Democratic Change of Morgan Tsvangirai and has actively sought to maintain a role in government for Zanu (PF). Mugabe has been promising him it'll happen and our deluded leader believes him, no matter how often he gets let down.

Now, his moral and political defeat at the hands of a petty despot is as ignominious and as humiliating as any on the battlefield. And it is a defeat into which Mbeki's cowardly leadership has marched this country and led to the slaughter of the most vulnerable members of Zimbabwean society.

It is a defeat that has shamed the heroes of SA's and Zimbabwe's liberation struggles and threatens to undo the defining character of our societies, of victory over tyranny and human bondage, and a striving for a just and egalitarian future. It is a defeat for which Zimbabweans and South Africans will pay for years to come.

However much Mbeki and other apologists for Mugabe wish to assure the world that this is the endgame, it is far from over. At every round of appeasement and resounding failure of quiet diplomacy, the junta's hand has been strengthened; it has proven that it will pursue venal and self-preserving interests until it has squeezed every last drop of blood out of the people and starts to consume itself.

The price for SA is that its credibility in mediating in the Zimbabwean crisis is lost, along with its status as regional leader.

By backing Mugabe, Mbeki has made his dream of an African renaissance a mere delusion of grandeur. The opportunity created by SA's liberation to free Africa of stereotypical political violence and the archetypal tin-pot dictator is lost.

Mbeki's insistence that SA and the world had no business interfering with the internal affairs of Zimbabwe has become a self-fulfilling prophecy: now there is nothing he can do to prevent the Zimbabwean crisis playing out to a tragic end.

Of course, his game is clear. Suffer, now, the ignominy of Mugabe's election "victory" for the greater good. This time, for sure, he will go and Mbeki' s diplomacy will triumph. Unfortunately, that isn't what Zimbabweans voted for in March. They voted Zanu (PF) out of office -- Mbeki stepped in and brought them back.

SA is clearly no longer in a position to mediate or intervene effectively. Yet the lesser option does not mean nothing is to be done. Despite Mbeki's diplomatic defeat and lack of credibility as a regional leader, and despite the fact that he has Zimbabwean blood on his hands, he still has a voice.

Mbeki should, and must, publicly demand an end to the brutality. He should then acknowledge Tsvangirai's electoral victory, and seek his advice on how to proceed.

An about-turn in his stance will not redeem Mbeki's failure, but it would, even at this late stage, be the right thing to do. Unfortunately for him, Mbeki is no Henry Kissinger, and realpolitik is a game best played by the strong.

Mugabe's hatchet men : The Joint Operations Command (JOC), controls Zimbabwe.

They are the president's hatchet men. Without them, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe would not last a day longer in office.

Welcome to the world of Emmerson Mnangagwa, General Constantine Chiwenga, Augustine Chihuri, Paradzai Zimondi, Perence Shiri and Gideon Gono. This junta, the Joint Operations Command (JOC), controls Zimbabwe.

When Mugabe lost control of parliament and it became clear that he was also losing the presidency to Morgan Tsvangirai after the poll on March 29, these six men hurriedly assembled around their octogenarian leader.

They accused the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission officials of inflating Tsvangirai's share of the vote in exchange for "British-paid bribes" . They ordered the arrest of electoral officials and recounts in 24 constituencies, hoping these would reverse the takeover of parliament by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The recounts only confirmed the opposition's victory. But, though they could afford to let go of parliament, there was no way they were going to let go of the presidency as well.

So they unleashed the infamous Operation Makavhoterapapi (For whom did you vote?) in preparation for the presidential run-off, which had become necessary because neither Mugabe nor Tsvangirai had mustered an outright majority in the first presidential poll.

Through a well-organised campaign of violence involving uniformed police and soldiers and thousands of Zanu-PF youth militias, they assured Mugabe that they would keep Zanu-PF in power.

The first indication that the JOC meant business came soon after March 29, when Mnangagwa replaced Mugabe as its chairman.

A source said: "These six are running a regime within a regime. They are trying to run the election campaign as a military exercise rather than as a civilian process."


EMMERSON MNANGAGWA

If there should be an indictment in an interna-tional criminal court for the genocidal massacre of at least 20 000 Ndebele in southern Zimbabwe in the early 1980s, it would have to be that of Mnangagwa, 61, who was minister of state security at the time.

He has also been named in a United Nations report as being among those respon-sible for the widespread looting of the mineral resources of the Democratic Republic of Congo during Zimbabwe's deployment there to prop up the regime of Laurent Kabila in the late 1990s.

Mnangagwa is all but assured of succeeding Mugabe when the latter eventually decides to go.


PERENCE SHIRI

Shiri is the 53-year-old head of the Zimbabwe airforce and a veteran of Zimbabwe's independence struggle.

While Mnangagwa co-ordinated the work of the security forces in Matabele-land in the early 1980s, Shiri was in charge of the crack North Korean-trained unit, the Fifth Brigade, which did the killings.

The findings of the Chihambakwe Commission of Inquiry, instituted in 1982 to investigate the atrocities of the brigade, were never made public.



CONSTANTINE CHIWENGA

Chiwenga is the commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Force, which has spearheaded the campaign of violence that has led to the deaths of 86 people, the displacement of more than 200 000 and serious injuries to 10 000. It was Chiwenga who selected the senior officials, who took charge of the terror campaign.



AUGUSTINE CHIHURI

The only person to match Mugabe's rabid anti-opposition rhetoric is this 55-year-old commissioner-general of the Zimbabwe police. A longtime commissioner ofthe Zimbabwe police, Chihuri was promoted to "commissioner-general" recently as a thank-you for converting Zimbabwe's once promising police force into a military wing of Zanu-PF.

Chihuri was the brains behind Operation Murambatsvina (Drive out trash), which was condemned by the UN as a violation of international law after it left nearly a million people homeless.


PARADZAI ZIMONDI

Zimondi, the director of the Zimbabwe Prisons Service, is also a retired senior airforce officer.

Together with Chihuri, Shiri and Chiwenga, he has made it clear that he will never salute a "sell-out", referring to Tsvangirai.

Zimondi personally leads the campaigns for Mugabe in barracks and police camps, and is credited with creating a campaign to force army and police officials to support Mugabe in early postal ballots. The ballots were filled out in front of designated army and police superiors.


GIDEON GONO

The MDC has declared that, on assuming power, the first person it will arrest is this man, the chief of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

A close family friend of Mugabe, Gono is also Mugabe's personal banker and the man believed to know most about where the millions stolen by Mugabe and the military chiefs are stashed in Asia. Gono has kept Zimbabwe's money-printing machines running at top speed and is blamed for the country's hyper-inflation, calculated by banks at more than 14 million percent.

Though he has expressed mildly dissenting views occasionally, Gono's loyalty to Mugabe and the First Family remains unquestionable.

Devil's Delight

And Mugabe awoke with a hoof on his throat and he struggled and howled to be free,
tripped on the racks of his English shoes and clawed at his English suits,
And crashed down the unlit corridors where his wife has collected her loot,
Screaming “You may not condemn me - there are by-laws and statutes and fines”

But the Devil replied “God’s law trumps that, and by His law you’re mine.”
Come, see what you’ve done to your people, see what you’ve done to your land,
And then I’ll haul you back into the light, and see if you understand.

Then the Devil seized him by his neck and dragged him into the night
And Bob hung limp, for one against one was not his idea of a fight
They spiralled down to a wasteland, and Mugabe sprawled on his face,
“Spare me, spare me” he whimpered, “spare me this terrible place”,
For he saw charred beams and scattered bricks, filth and ruin and weeds,
And through the dawn came children, sifting the dust for seeds.

“Eight years ago” said the Devil, “this place was heavy with maize,
there was fruit on the trees and crops in the earth and grass for the cows to graze;
It was farmed by those who loved the soil, who knew it and tended it well,
And now it’s farmed by Cellphone, from the Monomotapa hotel.”

“Racist” screamed Mugabe, “Imperialist, Colonist, Queer!
These people are free, that’s down to me and that’s why I rule here!”

“Free to do what?” asked the Devil, “to cower and cringe to survive?
The farms are going, the work is gone, now only your thugs can thrive,
Preying on women and children, feeding on horror and fear,
Flying flags of hate and despair that had no business here;
Look at your mindless militias, look in each alien face,
Condemned by their own insanity, exiled for life from the race,
Watch them go into action, cheer as they take up the fight,
Beating up Zimbabweans for the crime of being white,
Red-eyed from drink, thick-tongued from drugs, watch them go off on a spree
Burning the homes of Africans who dared to be honestly free.”

Mugabe licked his lips and whispered, “All freedom comes at a price,”
“Indeed?” said the Devil “And for the record - what was your sacrifice?
Did you give blood to the struggle? How many times were you mortared?
Or did you play politics in a hotel, and wait till your rivals were slaughtered?
If ever you tasted honour or pain those tastes were long since forgotten,
Eclipsed by the flavours of power and greed, the aromas of all that is rotten.

Come, Mugabe” and up they flew and soared over country and town
And each time they swooped, hunger and horror reached up to pull them down,
And the souls of children streamed past them, and on and up into the light
And Mugabe whimpered and twisted, to shield his eyes from the sight
“Sons of despair,” said the Devil “and daughters of desolate selves,
It’s the West that gives food to your people, while your cronies are stuffing themselves.
The West you despise and prosecute is the innocent’s sponsor and friend.
But when your young ‘veterans’ seize the supplies, these fragile lives have to end;”

“I did not know,” croaked Mugabe and the Devil applauded with glee:

“Save your lies for Mbeki, they make no impression on me.
Now, look at the shuttered factories, look at the overnight queues.”

“Blame the British,” Bob stammered, “the whites, the Norwegians, the Jews.”

But the streets sent up a whisper, a whisper as loud as a roar:

“The old man who stole three elections - it’s time that we showed him the door!”

A scream rose up from the city, a scream rose up from a cell,
And the Devil plunged them into the earth and to a cameo from hell
Of shadowed figures with smiling lips that shone with delight and disdain,
Of a body convulsing and wrenching, shaking apart from the pain;

“Applaud your police,” said the Devil, “corrupted beyond repair;
And caress the electrodes, the batons and guns, and the innocent tied to the chair.”

But as Mugabe stretched out his hand the scene was gone in a flash,
And he stared instead at a drive full of Mercs and a house full of money and trash,
And then at the gloom of an upstairs room, heavy with malice and lies,
Where fat men sat and talked poison, avoiding each others’ eyes:

“Here are your generals,” the Devil hissed, “your ministers, judges and hacks,
They have fortunes and forex and farms they can’t farm, it’s only a future they lack,
Do they flee for Malaysia, Libya, France with their women and all they can pack?
Or do they just turn and remove you, and claim dispensation for that?

Look at the wealth that seeps from them, and then hold your nose at the stench
Of the paltry crew that cleave to you, the cowards, the fools and the French;
See them plotting and scheming; hear your folly despised,
Even your reptiles want you gone - you made them, are you surprised?

Now do you know what you are Mugabe, now do you understand?
You’re the Lord of the bloated thousand, and King of an empty land.
What gave you most pleasure Mugabe? Which wickedness tasted most sweet?
The mass murder of the Ndebele?
The children with nothing to eat?
The whites you had casually butchered?
The election results that you changed?
Or the war that you fought in the Congo, for diamond commissions arranged?
The perversion of the system?
The enrichment of those you despise?
The limos, money and power?
The lies and the lies and the lies?

I ought to admire you Mugabe; you’ve certainly earned your hellfire,
And all for small motives; self interest and fear, that aspect I have to admire;
Better by far that you never had lived Robert Gabriel!
The world will heal the wounds you’ve left, but I cannot heal you in hell!”

Then the Devil’s right hand grabbed Mugabe, and Mugabe screamed in his fright,
And he scrabbled and pleaded and whimpered and begged…
And awoke to an African night,
And sweated and panted and shuddered, calling his aides to his side.
Reconstituting his ego, his vanity, his evil and pride.

But then he screamed again, recoiling from what he could not bear to see:
The slogans burning his eyes from the walls and the words… we want to be free!
Enough is enough! Zvakwana!! Sokwanele!!

The Devil meandered down Second Ave, strolled up Samora Machel Blvd,
“The brave will inherit,” he murmured, “when I have Mugabe in hell:
And the dawn will return to Zimbabwe , and children will learn how to smile,
Zimbabwe is one of God’s countries… but at least it was mine for a while...

Author unknown

Zimbabwe’s ‘democracy’ soaked in blood.

Hundreds dead or missing, thousands in hiding or leaving the country ... Zimbabwe’s ‘democracy’ is soaked in blood. Now the world will watch helplessly as a ruthless tyrant tightens his reign of terror.

ROBERT MUGABE, firmly in power for another five years as president of Zimbabwe following the most Orwellian election in Africa's precarious post-independence history, will today fly to the African Union's annual summit in Egypt and dare any of his fellow heads of state to criticise him.

By the time Mugabe touches down at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, he will have been sworn in again as state president. This follows the verdict by former Sierra Leone president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, the head of the African Union election observer team, that Friday's farcical run-off presidential vote, during which more people queued for scarce bread than at polling booths, was well organised.

"I'm highly impressed by the orderly manner in which the election has been organised," Kabbah said, while declining to comment on the 100 or more opposition supporters who had been killed by Mugabe's militias prior to and during the poll, the hundreds still missing, the thousands in hospital with serious wounds and the 200,000 or more whose homes have been burned and destroyed during the past few weeks of state-licensed savagery.

Kabbah's view is not shared by those who dared to hope Mugabe might be toppled from power, thousands of whom are in hiding or crossing international borders to safety. "We have been decimated, we have been crushed to the ground," said Shepherd Mashonga, a top opposition leader in the traditional Mugabe stronghold province of Mashonaland Central, where more than 24 critics of the head of state have been murdered in the past few days.

Despite warnings from Archbishop Desmond Tutu - the feisty opponent of South Africa's historic apartheid and a Nobel peace prize winner - that Zimbabwe is on the verge of becoming the new Rwanda, no severe action will be taken against Mugabe as the 53 African leaders get down to business on Monday.

Some heads of state will embrace Mugabe, decisively rejected by Zimbabwe's people in the first round of the election on 29 March but "newly elected" in Friday's run-off ballot against no opponent. Most will shake his hand while others, predictably, will drape garlands around his 84-year-old neck.

A few - perhaps Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa, current chairman of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC), and Botswana president Ian Khama, the most trenchant critic of Mugabe among Africa's leaders, will speak out.

But Mugabe, 28 years in power and now destined to reign until he is nearly 90, will taunt his fellow leaders by asking how many of them have clean hands. He will point out he has held five elections and referendums already this century - all rigged, admittedly - while others of the African Union have not faced electorates for decades. Angola has not held an election for 16 years. Swaziland's absolute monarch, King Mswati, has banned all opposition parties. Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak, the summit's host, has been in power for 27 years after a series of elections in which he was unopposed. Britain has suspended aid to Ethiopia, whose leader Meles Zenawi was Tony Blair's potential point man for a flowering of African democracy, after state police shot dead students protesting against the country's most recent heavily rigged election. In Kenya, which was praised as a showcase of African democracy, scores of people were killed when violence followed the highly questionable re-election of the ruling party in December. Last year's April elections in Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation, were farcical, with widespread vote-rigging.

So Mugabe will be among people he understands, and who understand him - and who will collectively fail the biggest test of their continent's post-independence history when they avoid taking action against Zimbabwe's dictator and the military junta he used to destroy his opposition.

But if neither the African Union nor the SADC try to save Africa from this, they will be plunging their people into a dark age because white-knight outsiders - never mind the outraged statements from London, Washington, the United Nations and European Union - will not come riding to Africa's rescue to rid it of the turbulent, Jesuit-educated Zimbabwean despot.

To be re-elected, Mugabe launched a terror blitz on his own people. Women were raped, had their limbs and breasts sliced off and were burned alive; homes were burned down and whole rural communities marched to polling booths at gunpoint; and people were openly beaten by Mugabe's Nazi-style militias.

Archbishop Tutu last week said Mugabe had "mutated into something unbelievable. He has really turned into a kind of Frankenstein for his people."

Urging international intervention to end Zimbabweans' nightmare, Tutu said: "I just hope, I mean, that we don't wait until it is too late. You know, Rwanda happened despite all the warnings that the international community was given. They kept holding back and today we are regretting that we did not, in fact, act expeditiously."

History - very recent history - tells us that when General Roméo Dallaire, the Canadian commander of the United Nations force in Rwanda in 1994, appealed to US president Bill Clinton and Kofi Annan - then the UN peacekeeping chief and soon-to-be secretary-general - he was not only turned down, but his force was also reduced. Within weeks, the 100-day Hutu rulers' genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus had begun.

Neither Clinton nor Annan suffered any retribution. Clinton's smooth and grinning presence at last week's London celebrations of Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday demonstrated just how short-lived shame is among powerful statesmen.

Unfortunately for Tutu, the somewhat slower and more grinding genocide of Zimbabwe's people - in which women can no longer expect to live beyond the age of 34, compared with 62 just before the turn of the century - will go on without international intervention.

Mugabe and his generals will continue skimming off Zimbabwe's remaining cream - and there is still quite a lot of it, as Anglo American's controversial plan to invest £200 million in a new platinum mining project in Zimbabwe illustrates. Anglo American will be the target of huge demonstrations and demands to withdraw, and the company might well do so to avoid debilitating opprobrium, but knowing Chinese, Malaysian and Iranian companies will step in and pay even bigger sweeteners to Mugabe for the privilege of extracting the world's second-richest reserves of a metal in huge demand.

Tutu knows the pressures on his own country will increase as a result of the consolidation of power by Mugabe, whose deranged ego threatens the stability of southern Africa.

As the violence continues in Zimbabwe, fresh waves of refugees will begin flooding into neighbouring countries. Widespread ethnic cleansing last month against black African migrants in South Africa showed the ability of its society - in which more than 40% of people are unemployed - to absorb more refugees has moved beyond saturation point.

A quarter of Zimbabwe's population, three million people, has already fled to South Africa. At least another two million will soon begin arriving in the wake of Mugabe's stealing of fresh power.

"We simply cannot cope with that," said Allister Sparks, Africa analyst and former editor of the liberal Rand Daily Mail, which was closed when it became over-critical of South Africa's apartheid rulers. "It would mean a major destabilisation of our society, with devastating effects on our national image and our economy. With Zimbabwe's hyperinflation now accelerating beyond one million per cent and the UN saying mass starvation is imminent, the outflow is bound to increase.

"Even if the unrest subsides with Zimbabweans' exhaustion, the flood of refugees will continue, for there is no prospect of international aid to halt the country's precipitous economic collapse as long as Mugabe is president."

Shoot-out between JMPD and SAPS

Just over four years ago on June 18, 2004, 200 Durban Metro Police officers blockaded Durban's freeways on a Friday afternoon, gridlocking the city.

In 2007, the same thing happened in Cape Town.

On Wednesday South Africans were given a new reality as a shoot-out erupted between the Joburg Metro police and South African Police Service (SAPS) officers.

First, motorists were barricaded in by 400-odd metro policemen protesting over poor pay and nepotism. Those who tried to move were threatened and abused and the city was gridlocked. Then, after the SAPS arrived, the public was caught in the middle of a shoot-out as uniformed police officers opened fire on one another.

Four years after the Durban incident, none of the 200 metro police officers involved have been fired. The 200 officers went on a wildcat strike on June 18 2004, in a dispute over pay and conditions of service, and blocked all Durban's main exit routes. At the time, Durban city manager Sutcliffe promised to fire members of metro police found guilty of setting up the illegal roadblocks, but none were.

Professor Elrena van der Spuy of the Centre of Criminology at UCT said Wednesday's gunfight was a dramatically tactile demonstration - "a street version" - of political tensions elsewhere within security sector circles, such as those relating to the disbanding of the Scorpions and infighting in intelligence circles.

The actions of the metro cops were symptomatic of bigger problems relating to morale, lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities, principles and systems of accountability, Van der Spuy said.

It also had huge implications for 2010 and the prospects for cooperative relations as the responsibility for managing order would be shared between three tiers of armed security: the SAPS, metro police and private security forces.

"In terms of state coherence, the last thing that you can afford is a violent in-fight between segments of the armed forces," Van der Spuy said.

The violence comes after calls to arms earlier this month by two public figures: ANC Youth League president Julius Malema and Cosatu general secretary Zwelenzima Vavi.

"We are prepared to die for Zuma. We are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma," said Malema on Youth Day.

"For him and for our revolution we are prepared to lay down our lives and for him we are prepared to shoot and kill," said Vavi a few days later.

None has apologised. None has retracted their statements.

SA Human Rights Commission senior researcher Danzel van Zyl said a moral regeneration was needed among leaders.

"It seems there is a race to the bottom as to who in public office can make the most controversial statement. What is particularly disturbing is that people think it's okay to say whatever they want to, and that doesn't bode well for responsible leadership," he said.

South Africans need leaders that inspire non-violent responses to situations in a country where violence was a societal subtext.

"These are the very same forces that are being tasked to provide safety and security to the people of South Africa." Van Zyl said.

Also telling was that the metro police felt the need to take matters into their own hands and did not turn to official dispute resolution channels. Van Zyl said Wednesday's action should not be smoothed over because this would further a culture of impunity.

"We really have to develop a culture of accountability. People must know that deeds have consequences."

For Dr Johan Burger of the Institute for Security Studies, the group's action was completely illegal, right down to gathering without permission, he said.

"The situation that they created that required SAPS to react should have been avoided if they acted within the law. And it's completely inexcusable that when the police started acting against them in the prescribed manner that they used sharp ammunition."

Recent events seemed to indicate a lack of strong leadership at all levels that allowed for the incident to happen.

"It creates a lot of anxiety among ordinary people who sense a breakdown in order, discipline and control. I don't think this does the country a lot of good," Burger said.

Statements, like those of Malema et al, added to creating a sense of lawlessness and "only enhance the feeling that it's okay to do these things and the chances of facing the consequences of one's statements are very slim. And in some cases one is even applauded".

Strong action was needed: charging those involved and dismissing them if found guilty.

"This is the best way to show strong leadership and the fact that police members are willing to act unlawfully will not be tolerated in a law enforcement agency," Burger said.

"Throw the law book at them and then get rid of them because we cannot afford to have law enforcement officials who don't themselves uphold the law."

SA arms flow to Zimbabwe

South Africa has been supplying Zimbabwe with weapons of war, including helicopters, revolvers and cartridges -- despite the mounting human rights atrocities in that country.

The sales, some involving state arms company Armscor, have been quietly taking place for some years. When a Chinese freighter recently carried weapons destined for the Zimbabwean military and tried to dock in Durban, there was an international outcry.

Information at the Mail & Guardian’s disposal points to a cosy relationship between the defence forces of both countries, as well as government-to-government arms transfers. This appears to conflict with President Thabo Mbeki’s mediation role between the ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition MDC, which demands neutrality.

The M&G can also reveal that private South African companies have sold arms to Zimbabwe and that these transfers must have been approved by government’s National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC).

The committee is chaired by Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi ­-- who also happens to be Mbeki’s envoy in the Zimbabwean negotiations.

Mbeki has been mediating between the Zimbabwean parties since 2001 in an attempt to break the cycle of stolen elections and mounting violence.

Repression by the Zimbabwean state and its agents has seen tens of thousands of Zimbabweans harassed and displaced and scores killed.

The M&G can reveal that in recent years:

Armaments to the value of $237 401 (R3,3-million) were privately transferred from South Africa to Zimbabwe, according to 2004 and 2005 figures.

The South African defence department donated Dakota aircraft engines worth millions to Zimbabwe, while Armscor transferred spares to get Zimbabwean military choppers flying again.

Zimbabwean soldiers and flying instructors have been trained by the South African Defence Force and the South African Air Force.

Armscor was contracted to transport the weaponry destined for Zimbabwe and carried by the An Yue Jiang from the Durban port to Harare. The deal fell through when a court order stopped the ship from offloading and it sailed away.

The arms transfers to Zimbabwe are reflected in official trade records between 2004 and 2005.

Although these statistics concern sales by private companies in South Africa, they would still have had to be approved by Mufamadi’s NCACC.

The trade records show that in 2004 South Africa exported about 2,6 tonnes of revolvers and/or pistols, another 2,5 tonnes of other firearms, between four and 7,5 tonnes of cartridges and what appear to be parts for military vehicles.

These armaments were transferred in the run-up to and aftermath of Zimbabwe’s 2005 parliamentary polls, which were marked by violence.

Altogether 18 entries in the trade records were specified from 2004 to 2005, most of them under the general category, “Arms, Ammunition, Parts and Accessories”. But some were specified under the category that includes bombs, grenades, torpedoes and missiles, while some transfers fell into the category of “revolvers and pistols”.

In the NCACC’s annual reports from 2003 to 2006, which are not publicly released but of which the M&G has been given a detailed description, no mention is made of any of these transfers.

The only mention of arms transfers to Zimbabwe between 2003 and 2006 is a “temporary export” called “Type A” -- a classification used for spares or repairs -- in 2005.

The data also show the sale of arms to Zimbabwe by China, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates -- but South Africa is by far the most frequent and largest supplier.

In 2005 Armscor delivered spare parts for Alouette military helicopters to Zimbabwe to a value of $150 000 (about R1-million), an Armscor spokesperson confirmed. The Alouettes, previously grounded, were made airworthy.

According to the annual report of the South African defence department, South Africa donated eight Dakota aircraft engines worth R9,5-million to the Zimbabwean Air Force in September 2005.

The disclosure of the extent of South African arms transfers to Zimbabwe comes after the Chinese arms ship saga, when civil society stepped in to prevent the An Yue Jiang from offloading at Durban harbour.

The issue is known to have caused conflict in the Cabinet, where President Mbeki and Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota insisted that the ship should be allowed to offload. As previously reported in the M&G, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and Transport Minister Jeff Radebe disagreed and tried to halt the delivery.

Trucks from an Armscor affiliate were ready to take the weapons from Durban to Harare by road. But when the ship sailed away in contravention of the court order, the transaction was cancelled, said the Armscor spokesperson.

Mufamadi later told Parliament that the permit for the transportation of the arms had been approved and that the South African government saw nothing wrong with facilitating delivery.

This suggests a political conflict of interest for Mufamadi, who is also a key player in the Mbeki faciliation team brokering a deal between Zanu-PF and the MDC.

SANDF annual reports make it clear the South African government has become closer to the Zimbabwean military in recent years.

Several Zimbabwean soldiers and flying instructors have been trained by the SANDF since 2002. In 2006 a joint permanent commission of defence and security was formed to ensure close cooperation on defence issues between the two countries.

In May 2006 the SANDF presented a course to, among others, Zimbabwean chaplains in the combating of HIV. In the 2006 annual report the deputy minister of defence, Mluleki George, said the South African Air Force was considering using Zimbabwean flying instructors to supplement its own trainers, who were in short supply. The South African Air Force participated in the “silver celebrations” of the Zimbabwean Air force in 2005.

Cooperation between South Africa and Zimbabwe on the issue of border protection is also ongoing.

South Africa recently voted in the United Nations General Assembly for a process to set up a global Arms Trade Treaty to prevent the irresponsible transfer of arms, an idea launched in a campaign by Amnesty International and 800 other NGOs in 2003.

South Africa was recently allowed into the multilateral Wassenaar Arrangement, subscribed to by a number of countries, to contribute to regional and international security and stability by promoting transparency and greater responsibility in transfers of conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies.

The text of the arrangement reads: “Participating states seek, through their national policies, to ensure that transfers of these items do not contribute to the development or enhancement of military capabilities which undermine these goals.”

According to Nicole Fritz, director of the Southern African Litigation Centre, states which render assistance to states that use state machinery against some sections of their society are held responsible under international law. “Knowing what the situation is like in Zimbabwe means a government that gives them assistance becomes complicit.”

Bush orders new sanctions against Mugabe regime

George W. Bush

Statement by the President

On Friday, the Mugabe regime held a sham election that ignored the will of the people of Zimbabwe. The international community has condemned the Mugabe regime's ruthless campaign of politically-motivated violence and intimidation with a strong and unified voice that makes clear that yesterday's election was in no way free and fair. Any legitimate government of Zimbabwe must represent the interests of all its citizens and the outcome of the March 29 elections.

Given the Mugabe regime's blatant disregard for the Zimbabwean people's democratic will and human rights, I am instructing the Secretaries of State and Treasury to develop sanctions against this illegitimate Government of Zimbabwe and those who support it. We will press for strong action by the United Nations, including an arms embargo on Zimbabwe and travel ban on regime officials. We will continue to work closely with the African Union, Southern African Development Community, and other world leaders to resolve this crisis.

The United States stands ready to support a legitimate government through a robust package of development assistance, debt relief, and normalization with international financial institutions. In the meantime, we will continue to support the people of Zimbabwe by providing food assistance to more than one million people and AIDS treatment to more than 40,000 people.

Statement issued by the White House June 28 2008

Zuma’s friends will have to kill millions

Julius Malema and Zwelinzima Vavi have both uttered statements that they are prepared to kill anyone standing between Zuma and the presidency. They have also in the past insinuated that the free press, the due process of law, the political opposition, and even political activity within the ANC, have somehow conspired against Zuma. But the real threats to Zuma come not from any of the above but from the poor and the unemployed. If Malema and Vavi want to kill to protect Zuma they will have to start here.

Jacob Zuma has had a tough 18 months. His financial advisor was convicted of fraud. He was fired by President Mbeki as South Africa’s deputy president. He was charged with but acquitted of raping a family friend. Throughout this period he has himself been under investigation for corruption. The political opposition and the media have had a field day with such scandal and political intrigue. In every case, though, constitutionally enshrined principles and processes were allowed to run their course.

Now Vavi and Malema want to use killing to influence these processes. This implies political assassinations, the murder of judges, the disappearance of journalists and newspaper editors. There is no other final logical interpretation of what they have in mind. But such means would do little to bolster Zuma’s political career. The real threat he faces comes not from constitutional principles but from the vast economic inequalities that South Africa confronts. There must be no doubt in any South African’s mind that if these are not adequately addressed during Zuma’s possible two terms in office between 2009 and 2018 they will have dramatic political consequences.

Despite the ANC’s various successes in service delivery and the rollout of social grants about 40% of South Africans still live on under R3000 per annum. It is further unlikely that the state will be any more successful in service delivery than it has already been with the civil service arguably functioning at the peak of its potential – as inefficient as that is. Nor is transformation and redistribution ever likely to be sufficient to bolster living standards adequately. Agriculture for example, which receives so much government attention for redistribution, contributes only 3% of GDP. No matter how much expropriation, or transformation, or BEE takes place in that sector you can only split up 3% of GDP so many ways. It cannot alleviate rural poverty although continuing agricultural uncertainly can drive up food prices.

Similar arguments hold true in mining and manufacturing and a host of other sectors targeted by the state for transformation in the vain hope that that will help to eliminate poverty and inequality.

We can state with certainty today that redistribution will never succeed in meeting that goal – it is mathematically impossible.

If poverty and inequality are therefore the main threats that Zuma faces and continuing along the current ideological path of the ANC almost guarantees that poverty and inequality will at some point in the future serve to unseat or seriously undermine the Zuma administration then what should he do?

Some of his backers might suggest killing the poor and the unemployed. Zuma should rather consider simply ensuring that South African children leave the school system literate and numerate and that those children have access to tertiary education – in a technical or academic field. This will require the scrapping of outcomes based education, more mother tongue education, reopening the teacher training colleges with free bursaries for any student who will later teach in the state school system, and free tertiary education for poor, and therefore mainly black, South Africans. Such a high standard of public education will do away with much of the rationale for BEE and AA provisions. This will aid in facilitating a free market for skills and capital which will in turn bolster investment and growth.

If these provisions are met and the state at the same time learns to provide security and good public healthcare then it is difficult to see why South Africa could not grow at a rate necessary to eradicate poverty and inequality and ensure that South Africa becomes a middle class, industrialized, tertiary sector economy.

If Zuma survives the corruption charges against him, and the damage done to his standing by Malema and Vavi, he then faces his greatest challenge. That will be to turn the ANC and the government away from the damaging ideology of redistribution that can do little more than sustain a status quo of poverty. If he manages to do that and to set in place the two main conditions necessary to grow South Africa’s economy then he will have done as a much as is possible to eliminate threats to his presidency. The free media, the ANC, and the even the political opposition will no doubt applaud him if successful and he will have nothing to fear from an independent judiciary.

However if killing is again to become a legitimate political tool in the hands of ANC leaders, then we can be certain that the poor and the unemployed will sooner rather than later be on the receiving end. They are the real threat to Zuma. The free press, political opposition, the judiciary, and other ‘imperialist forces’ are a smokescreen just as they were in Zimbabwe where today the poor and the unemployed are terrorized and killed for being the real threat to Mugabe.

Apartheid under ANC rule

If there is compulsory racial classification, as happened under apartheid and happens under ANC rule, it’s bound to be ludicrous as well as bigoted.

The disgusting Employment Equity Act (EEA), which enforces racial classification, is essentially apartheid II, perpetuating the legacy of apartheid. It makes it illegal for an employer to classify a worker as a human being. He must classify him as a racial specimen.

Under apartheid there were definitions of each race group and tests to distinguish between them. The pencil test told the difference between “white” and “coloured”. They put a pencil in your hair and asked you to bend forward: if the pencil fell out you were white; if not you were coloured. This test would make me coloured and Trevor Manuel white.

The EEA does not define “African”, “Asian” and “coloured” and there are no tests to distinguish between them. The classification is done secretly and shamefully according to the racial prejudices of the classifier.

But what about the Japanese and the Chinese? Where do they fit in? Under apartheid I, the Japanese were considered honorary whites. Under apartheid II, it was not clear whether the Chinese were “black” or “white”. So the Chinese Association of South Africa (Casa) took the matter to court, and last week the Pretoria High Court declared that Chinese were “black”.

I don’t blame Casa for pressing this. After all, you are at a big disadvantage for getting jobs or contracts if you are classified as “white”. This is a major reason for the exodus of white engineers, accountants, science teachers, doctors and artisans from SA.

Chinese people have a worldwide reputation for enterprise, family life and good citizenship. They are an asset to any country. In Malaysia they were considered to be too successful and so had to be discriminated against in a system of legalised racism, also called “affirmative action”.

Loss of Knighthood "blessing in disguise."

"This knighthood is meaningless to land hungry black Zimbabweans. It should also assume the same meaningless form in the rest of Africa because Africans do not survive on knighthood but on their resources, such as land. Knighthood did not bring independence to Zimbabwe and to Africa." Deputy Information Minister, Bright Matonga

On Friday the government controlled Herald newspaper in Harare ridiculed the decision by Queen Elizabeth to revoke President Robert Mugabe's knighthood. The newspaper described the decision as a "blessing in disguise." The article quoted Deputy Minister of Information and Publicity, Bright Matonga at length saying the following:

"My President never used that knighthood. It meant nothing to him and it means nothing to us as Zimbabweans and this is why it was never talked about here. Zimbabwe is not a part of the British Empire and their titles and honoraria mean nothing to us unless they promote the values and virtues of our existence in the form on protection of our land rights and our right to exploit our resources.

My President has nothing to benefit from being considered a subject of the British Queen. It is something we rejected and that is why Britain today is trying to meddle in our affairs. The same goes for the honorary degrees that various Western institutions gave him.

Cde Mugabe is a very educated man with seven degrees of his own that he earned through his own sweat. You will not hear him talking about his honorary degrees and in fact, they can take them away along with the knighthood

The whole American story is that of trying to establish military base in Africa and President Mugabe is a threat because he would certainly reject such a move. The British story is a bilateral problem emanating from the historical colonial land issue.

This knighthood is meaningless to land hungry black Zimbabweans. It should also assume the same meaningless form in the rest of Africa because Africans do not survive on knighthood but on their resources, such as land.

Knighthood did not bring independence to Zimbabwe and to Africa. It was the war waged by comrades that brought independence to Zimbabwe and it is the land revolution that makes sense to President Mugabe's supporters not knighthood."

The article also quoted an anonymous "social commentator" as saying: "I am sure that given a choice between knighthood on one side and his country's independence, sovereignty and 100 percent empowerment any reasonable Zimbabwean would never go for knighthood."

On Thursday President Mugabe was reported as telling a rally "We continue to respect the queen. It's the demons at Downing Street that need to be exorcized."