We were recently sent this photograph of the Bling Bus, which has been ferrying the Zimafia – Zimbabwe’s Worst Eleven team around South Africa during the World Cup.

According to the Zimafia website:

The star players in the ZIMafia team comprise Zimbabwe’s illegitimate and unelected Joint Operations Command (JOC) – a group of military and strategic commanders who maintain the oppressive structure set up by Ian Smith’s racist government 30 years ago under a State of Emergency.

This Nation-Beating (literally) team are the ‘real’ rulers of Zimbabwe, the ones who have sworn never to give up power, and the ones who have committed the worst crimes. All are experts in abduction, intimidation, torture and political murder.

Now they are in control of a multi-billion dollar diamond strike with which they are  personally enriching themselves while purchasing arms and ammunition to use against the electorate, or each other – or any other force that challenges their right to loot in perpetuity.

Read more about their recent campaign in South Africa here

Social and political commentator Rejoice Ngwenya believes that the right to property ownership should be enshrined in Zimbabwe’s new Constitution. He writes:

Property ownership – whether it is land, trademarks, brand names, patents, and works of art or literature – needs title in order to realise real market value. Ownership is not just a historical fact of life, but also a right whose spinoffs go well beyond the individual. It is about self-confidence, wealth creation, identity, legacy, inheritance and economic growth.

Make property rights part of the Zimbabwe Constitution today. Let’s go down in history as being the first country in developing Africa to enshrine private property in the Bill of Rights. If you do not agree with my ideology, let’s talk about it!

What do you think? Leave a comment here or contact Rejoice directly on rngwenya [at] ymail [dot] com

After 37 nights in custody, diamond whistle-blower Farai Maguwu, director of the Centre for Research and Development, has finally been released on bail. According to VOA news,

Maguwu’s release comes just two days before members of the Kimberly Process and the World Diamond Council are to meet in St Petersburg, Russia, to discuss certification of diamonds from Marange. Kimberly members failed to reach consensus last month on certifying Marange gems amid allegations of human rights abuses.

Coincidence?

Rejoice Ngwenya on civil society, free media, party politics and political vuvuzelas . . .

The vivacious Violet Gonda is a Zimbabwean journalist of persona non grata in her country simply because of being a rare breed of courageous radio broadcasters willing to take on a rogue state. Such is the paranoia in Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF regime that broadcast laws that deliberately prevent alternative opinion are entrenched in the legislative DNA. The positive spinoff of this scenario has been a proliferation  of shortwave and internet broadcast stations spanning the globe, the most popular being VOA Studio 7 news based in Washington DC, Voice of the People in Botswana and Violet’s own SW Africa radio in England.

On many occasions, Zimbabweans and gullible Africans have been made to believe that vice and toxic rumour is embedded in such alternative viewpoint. In more ways than one, it is for this reason that ZANU-PF refuses to take the Global Political Agreement forward, claiming as long as Morgan Tsvangirayi’s MDC does not influence closure of such stations, Mugabe will refuse to cooperate. Bulls eat grass, but the fresh results of their digestion are unpleasant to the eye. Had there been a more family-friendly term to describe the product of this biological process, I would have had no problem labelling ZANU-PF opinion.

Ironically, Violet Gonda and her friends do not want to live in forced exile, because of family commitments back in Zimbabwe. But as long as they face arrest, and as long as the broadcast regulations outlaw alternative opinion, we Zimbabweans at home will continue to tune in to VOA Studio 7, Voice of the People and SW Radio for REAL news. What we know is that MDC have no chance in hell to influence closure of these stations. That makes me feel good!

But it is not all diamond that glitters from these alternative airwaves – at least according to MDC Professor Mutambara’s sympathisers. There is consensus amongst his supporters that most if not all external broadcasters have taken a position to support Tsvangirayi’s formation at the expense of all other progressive forces of democracy. Their argument is that in the haste to rid Zimbabwe of the curse of authoritarian dictatorship, these broadcasters paint anything or anyone who takes a side that opposes Tsvangirayi as anti struggle.

They continue that MDC Tsvangirayi failures are not sufficiently interrogated, while only the opinion of analysts who have something negative to say about Mutambara are given undue prominence. For example, the best news item that can ever emerge from rural Matebeleland is when councillors from Mutambara defect to Tsvangirayi’s party. Such news, Mutambara’s people argue, takes precedence over the antics of Theresa Makone, Tsvangirayi’s new home affairs boss who is related to Mugabe’s political hit man, Didymus Mutasa. The two are currently on the front page for attempting to sprout habitual ZANU-PF property rights violators form prison. ZANU-PF, who term alternative studios ‘pirate radio stations’, amplify Tsvangirayi’s internal party struggles, reminding readers that Ms Makone is the same woman whose husband ‘controls’ Tsvangirayi via what they call MDC’s ‘kitchen cabinet’. At one time, Ms Makone was accused of displacing the MDC women’s assembly leader in order to exert more influence on the party’s strategy. And all this – Mutambara’s people argue – does not receive airplay on ‘pirate’ radio stations.

As a regular contributor to these useful and value-adding radio stations, I attempt to present balanced opinions. Freelance analysts like me do not influence editorial policy, but we need to pitch our commentary from an objective perspective. I have no sacred cows. More importantly, Violet Gonda would not be able to influence what I say, but she would be in a position to decide what to publish depending on her editorial slant. For example, in one of SW Africa Radio Friday night programs called Hot Seat, Tony Reeler, director of Research and Advocacy Unit [RAU] commenting on Professor Arthur Mutambara’s position in government, tells Ms Gonda: “So he’s there by grace and favour of the Agreement but not by any other ground.”

A more mundane interpretation of this cryptic statement is that Mutambara is not in the coalition government by virtue of electoral credibility, but that he is the president of a [MDC] minority party with few seats in a remote part of Zimbabwe. Obviously with Zimbabwe’s first past the post electoral system, it would have been unthinkable to have the professor in government. Herein lies the need for progressive ‘pirate’ analysts to offer objective radio commentary.

My angle would be that the GPA brought into government hundreds of worthless politicians from all three sides. Morgan Tsvangirayi himself has on several occasions expelled councillors and recently reshuffled ministers. Accusations of corruption, underhand deals and inefficiency have plagued his party, while neutrals argue that even himself as Prime Minister, is guilty of soft-padding Mugabe in international foras. Observers insist that incomes, infrastructure and public facilities are only marginally better than before the coalition, while power blackouts hound an industry struggling to emerge from recession. The human rights sector is disastrous, with no single conviction of ZANU-PF zealots who murdered, maimed and raped innocent citizens in June 2008. His critics argue he has failed to reign in on rogue elements raiding commercial farms including those properties protected under regional bilateral agreements. Therefore to diminish Mutambara’s role in government without a rub off on Tsvangirayi’s personal political reputation is an impossible feat.

Mr Reeler himself is a product of a decade old struggle against dictatorship, a flag bearer of a contingent of brave human rights defenders that have survived determined ZANU-PF antagonism and intimidation. In this noble group of principled citizens one finds peace campaigner Jestina Mukoko, lawyer Irene Petras, constitutional expert Lovemore Madhuku and countless other civil society activists. But unlike Arthur Mutambara who has risen from mere student activism to national leadership, I and Reeler have little other than political vuvuzelas to show for our rhetoric.  My point is simple. This is no time to denigrate each others’ value propositions. If civil society was half as effective as its loud voice, Mugabe would have abandoned ship in 2002.

Any honest analysis of the MDC post September 15, 2008 would indicate that apart from unsuccessfully declaring unilateral appointments by Mugabe as ‘null and void’ the MDC as we have known it over the years: courageous, confrontational, uncompromising and proactive has become alarmingly ineffective and compromised. Indeed, there might just well be some justification for the view that many in the MDC have become ‘comfortable’ in government and are more focused on enjoying the privileges of office than on challenging Mugabe and ZANU PF.
- Psychology Maziwisa

SW Radio Africa recently interviewed Tony Reeler head of the Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) about the Zimbabwean crisis and what will resolve it. Read more here and below is an excerpt:

GONDA: And what are the main concerns of the people on the ground, especially the people that participated in the survey?

REELER: Well we asked them a very interesting question. We asked them what is the way forward? And we gave them a choice of – what are the three most important things for you to solve the problems with Zimbabwe? And that came back in rank order, three things. They said Number One – an end to violence, Number Two – free and fair elections and Number Three – democracy and those are very important things coming from ordinary citizens because that’s what has continuously emerged from the Afro-barometer surveys over the last five or six years – is they show that Zimbabweans have a very acute understanding of what democracy is, its manifestations and that they also have a very acute understanding that they don’t have a democracy.

So what you can see is Zimbabweans want a solution, they want a solution in a particular way, they want elections that are non-violent that restore democracy essentially. I think they also said there has been some improvement due to the inclusive government and the Global Political Agreement and they saw some improvements in health and a few improvements in education but they also saw many areas in which there was no improvement whatsoever. What we are hearing from discussions within communities are people who are deeply concerned about whether this Global Political Agreement and the inclusive government is working and people who are very concerned that there is a resolution to this crisis. And I think what people are saying is they understand quite clearly that the solution to a political crisis will be an election. That’s the Zimbabwean perspective. In other countries what used to happen was that you used to have military coups or rebellions as we’ve had to do to get rid of white colonial power here but Zimbabweans are saying they put their faith in an electoral process. That’s what they hope will resolve the crisis and clearly what that means is, is that people’s votes translate into the reality they expect and the majority of people, when they vote, expect a particular outcome, that they will in fact elect the party of their choice.