News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

‘Mugabe will be out by August 31’

Posted: 25 Jul 2016 11:04 AM PDT

Opposition MDC-T youths have declared that they will make sure Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe leaves office by August 31.

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Harare - Opposition MDC-T youths on Monday declared they will make sure President Robert Mugabe leaves office by August 31 this year, saying he has failed the country.

Addressing a press conference at the party’s headquarters in Harare after a special executive meeting, MDC-T Youth League national chairperson, Happymore Chidziva, said they had launched #MyZimbabwe campaign to send a message to President Mugabe that he was no longer wanted.

“The campaign that we are getting into, we are very clear that by 31 August Robert Mugabe will be done away with. So we are not leaving any room for anything outside that by 31 August this country will no longer be under the leadership of Robert Mugabe,” he said.

Chidziva said the government had breached the social contract that it had with the people by not using the mandate it was given to run the affairs of the country.

“So our campaign is centred around ensuring that the government of the day which has failed dismally to look after the citizens of Zimbabwe should go and we have said that in August, this is the month when we commemorate our heroes, it is a month that reminds us of the history we have gone through as a country where people took up arms to liberate this country from colonial regime.

“And in the same manner, we are using the month of August to launch an onslaught on the regime of Robert Mugabe so that we ensure that the people of Zimbabwe at the end of the day realise their democracy, freedom and equality,” he said.

He said the #MyZimbabwe campaign was a sign of love and patriotism by the youths and was meant to liberate the people from a corrupt Zanu PF government.

“We urge all citizens to embrace the month of heroes, the month of August as a month of action to liberate ourselves from Robert Mugabe. This country will remain ungovernable as long as Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF do not heed the call (to step down).

“We reiterate our call for Robert Mugabe to leave office as he has become tired, clueless and old and can only sleep in meetings instead of steering the ship forward. We are more than convinced that no-matter what, a 92-year-old can never be a face of a nation, he cannot bring anything new and his place can only be in an old people’s home. There is no investment that will come to this country as long as Mugabe remains in charge and for the benefit of many of us who still want to work, we want and demand that Mugabe goes.

The dishing out of residential stands to Zanu PF youths, Chidziva said, was cheap politicking and abuse of state resources to finance party programmes.

“We dismiss with the contempt it deserves the cheap politicking by Zanu PF Youth League and one Saviour Kasukuwere to abuse state land around towns by dishing it out to Zanu PF youth. We note that the abuse of state resources has continued especially under the ambitious Kasukuwere who plundered money in the youth ministry and is now taking his insatiable appetite to the land grab. This land belongs to all of us. We surely will one day make these people account,” he said.

African News Agency

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Zim activists demand apolitical reform

Posted: 25 Jul 2016 10:58 AM PDT

A group of prominent Zimbabweans hope to launch an apolitical ‘National Transitional Authority’ to run the country until ‘fair’ elections can be held.

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Zimbabwe - A group of prominent Zimbabweans calling themselves “concerned citizens” say they hope to launch an apolitical “National Transitional Authority” to run the country until “fair” elections can be held.

Zimbabwe is so desperately short of cash - it uses US dollars - it has had to limit imports and pay civil servants late. The cash shortage recently sparked several episodes of social unrest and a national strike on July6. Zimbabwe cannot pay its debts nor raise foreign loans.

The group of “concerned citizens” says it is so concerned about “serious social unrest” and possible “collapse of the state” that it proposes that no more than 18people should be appointed to form a “Transitional Authority” which would create some “optimism”, and an “acceptable political and socio-economic environment”, as well as reforms ahead of fresh elections.

The group says a “government of national unity” which ran Zimbabwe from 2009 to 2013, would not solve the crisis.

“We are of the opinion that no election in the current political climate, whether called early or in 2018, can resolve the deep structural deficits in the state, and, in any event, no election without considerable reform of the state and the creation of a level playing field can possibly lead to a legitimate outcome.

“The Platform of Concerned Citizens (PCC) is a group of like-minded Zimbabweans who have been meeting since October 2015 to discuss the crisis in our country and explore possible solutions.”

The statement from the concerned citizens came 24hours after the ruling Zanu PF party reacted with fury against a group of “traitorous” veterans of the war for independence who last week heavily criticised President Robert Mugabe’s 36-year rule, accusing him of “bankrupt leadership and corruption”, and described him as the “rot” which “needs to be uprooted, and right now”. The group of veterans said they would no longer campaign for him.

Zanu PF won a massive, if disputed, victory at the last elections in 2013, and many commentators say the party is now consumed by faction fights over who will succeed Mugabe, 92, who says he will fight the next elections in 2018, and intends to stay in office until he dies.

In a statement released to the press on Saturday, the group of “concerned citizens” says the present parliament and senate would continue, but it makes no mention of Mugabe’s executive presidency.

Among the 25 who signed the statement are several prominent analysts, human rights activists, academics, business people, as well as some who were part of the liberation organisations prior to independence.

Many of them were or are employed or supported by non-governmental organisations.

Elinor Sisulu, a Zimbabwean activist who married into South Africa’s legendary Sisulu family signed the statement, as did Trevor Ncube, prominent Zimbabwean journalist and publisher of the Mail & Guardian in South Africa, as well as renowned activist and writer Judith Todd, who was cruelly treated prior to independence by the Rhodesians and stripped of her citizenship by Mugabe.

The signatories said they hoped their proposal for a new way to deal with the Zimbabwe crisis would be supported by the African Union, as well as the Southern African Development Community.

They also said Zimbabwe would need economic support during any transitional period leading to fresh elections.

So far, neither Zanu PF nor the opposition Movement for Democratic Change have reacted. The MDC and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai won elections in 2008, but Zanu PF was rescued by former president Thabo Mbeki, who facilitated the government of national unity which negotiated a new constitution.

Reuters

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Pastor chained, starved own son for ‘ritual’

Posted: 25 Jul 2016 08:03 AM PDT

A Nigerian pastor has been arrested after chaining his nine-year-old son in a room for several weeks with a padlock and denying him food.

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Nigeria - A Nigerian pastor has been arrested after chaining his nine-year-old son in a room for several weeks with a padlock and denying him food, police said Monday.

“We acted on a tip-off that a boy had been locked up in a room near a church at Atan in Ogun state. We forced the door open and rescued him,” state police spokesman Muyiwa Adejobi told AFP.

He said the boy was found chained to the ground with a padlock in a room on Friday.

“He was in a very bad shape, greatly emaciated because of poor feeding. The boy told us his father was not giving him food regularly and that he had been locked up in the room for over one month,” Adejobi said.

“It is shocking and baffling that a man who claims to be a man of God could be involved in a such a barbaric and inhuman act,” he added.

He said the pastor, 40, told investigators that he locked up his son to perform a ritual intended to stop him stealing.

“The man said his son was always stealing his things anda to stop the habit, he needed to chain him with (a) lock so that he would not run away,” he said.

AFP

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Is Mugabe facing his Waterloo?

Posted: 25 Jul 2016 12:58 AM PDT

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe may be “facing his Waterloo” after his most loyal supporters, the veterans of the liberation war, abandoned him.

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Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe may be “facing his Waterloo” after his most loyal supporters, the veterans of the liberation war, abandoned him.

A growing number of other war veterans have joined the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association in calling Mugabe, 92, a “dictator”, demanding he quit and vowing not to support him in the next elections in 2018 if he does not.

The association also criticised the government's recent attacks against peaceful protesters who spoke out about the economy and against the police via social media and conducted a stayaway three weeks ago.

Mugabe was facing “an endgame of tragic dimensions”, Zimbabwe weekly, The Independent, editor Dumisani Muleya said on Friday. “If the war veterans join forces with the national resistance movement driven by civic groups and backed by churches and opposition parties, Mugabe, already on the ropes and hanging onto power by [his] fingernails, could soon face his Waterloo.”

Growing protest against the government has been fuelled by a dire economic crisis, including a lack of cash, even to pay soldiers on time. They are usually the first to be paid.

On Saturday the governing Zanu-PF struck back at the war veterans, calling them “treasonous” and “traitorous.”

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is also a war veteran, delivered a more muted response. “If they are true war veterans, the president is their commander-in-chief and they must be loyal and committed. I don't think those who say such things are loyal or genuine war veterans.”

Mnangagwa is tipped to succeed Mugabe and has the support of many veterans.

War veterans leader Chris Mutsvangwa was fired from the cabinet post he held on behalf of veterans in March and was then expelled from Zanu-PF for opposing Mugabe's wife Grace, who appears to have ambitions to succeed him when he dies.

New war veterans minister Tshinga Dube suggested on Saturday that the ex-fighters elect a new leader to replace Mutsvangwa. But another senior veteran Francis Nhando responded by saying the association fully backed Mutsvangwa.

“He [Mugabe] should announce his retirement date. It will be very difficult to campaign for him in 2018 because we are no longer working together,” he said.

Former vice president Joice Mujuru, herself a veteran of the liberation war, said over the weekend: “I want to tell war veterans not to be scared with threats that your farms will be repossessed and your pensions freezed. That won't happen,” she told a rally about 100km southeast of Harare, which she addressed as leader of her new political party Zimbabwe First.

Mujuru, a life-long member of Zanu-PF, was stripped of her position and expelled from the party in late 2014 after she declared her interest in succeeding Mugabe. The attack on her was led by Grace Mugabe's supporters.

Another war veteran Rugare Gumbo, a former Zanu-PF spokesman also expelled from Zanu-PF in 2014 and now a supporter of Mujuru's party, said on Sunday: “The statement was issued by genuine war veterans. They were in Mozambique. We knew them there. They fought in the war, and the situation in Zimbabwe now is very poor. So many are suffering. The criticism was correct. You will see more and more of them criticising Mugabe.”

Mugabe has repeatedly depended on war veterans for political support at several key moments, particularly after the launch of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999.

After it became clear the MDC was rapidly gaining support, it was war veterans who led the the invasion of thousands of white-owned farms, not least because the MDC received considerable support, both financial and logistical, from white farmers and their enormous work force.

Many veterans awarded themselves farms after that.

Some also helped Mugabe and Zanu-PF by co-ordinating attacks against MDC supporters during elections. They also helped prevent the MDC holding rallies in Zanu PF's rural strongholds.

Veteran Zimbabwean political analyst Brian Raftopoulos, head of the Platform for Concerned Citizens, said after Mutsvangwa was sacked - and even before the war veterans association abandoned him: “Yes, finally this seems to be the end of the road for Mugabe, and I can't see him standing for re-election in 2018. He will be gone before then.

“People on the streets and groups are telling me, and I can see with my own eyes, that there is almost no respect left for Mugabe and a lot less fear of him as well. “

“The money problem is too huge for him [Mugabe] to survive as there is a complete loss of livelihoods and the government has no control over the currency they use, the US dollar. No flourish of nationalist rhetoric will work for Mugabe any more.”

Mugabe had no international standing any longer in a world in which Zimbabwe no longer played any role, he added.

African News Agency

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