Godwin Gandu

The Zimbabwean Central Intelligence Organisation recently seized all unedited tapes of President Robert Mugabe’s exclusive birthday interview with state broadcaster ZBC after sensitive comments about the controversial succession issue were leaked. In a rare outburst, Mugabe had lashed out at his Vice-President, Joyce Mujuru, for demeaning him.

In an interview with the Associated Press recently, Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe blamed last week’s severe torture of 15 arrested members of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) on the "overzealousness of one or two police exaggerating their role".

A belligerent President Robert Mugabe is placing conditions for the lifting of international sanctions first, before any dialogue or planned visit by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. Mugabe is expected to meet Annan on the sidelines of the African Union summit in Gambia this week.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has emerged as the new hope to resolve the hitherto intractable Zimbabwean political and economic impasse. After numerous failed diplomatic attempts to have Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe vacate his seat, Annan is expected to bring a political deal to Harare later this year.

It is official — Zanu-PF’s financial crisis does not go right to the top. The party has not held its weekly politburo meeting since the beginning of the year because it cannot afford to fix the lift in its 14-storey Harare headquarters. The party is battling to raise what sounds like the huge sum of Z$160-million (R6 154) needed for spares and maintenance.

Christmas lights on Harare’s First Street provide splendour to an otherwise dull festive season. Shops are decorated with interchanging colours beaming across supermarkets, luring the attention of children who are reminded it’s a time for Father Christmas, presents, sweets and new clothes.

Zimbabwe’s notorious Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) is running amok in the Midlands province, allegedly terrorising supporters of the yet to be launched United People’s Movement. The party is an initiative of former Zanu-PF members who fell out of favour with the ruling party.

Zimbabwe’s Senate poll is scheduled for this weekend, but there is little sign of the customary heated political activity. Incidents of violence hardly register on the radar screen. Ructions in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) over participation have dominated the run-up to the poll

Infighting over the Senate elections in Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change could scupper President Thabo Mbeki’s plans to broker multi-party talks with the ruling Zanu-PF. At a meeting at the Union Buildings recently Mbeki impressed on the MDC top brass that a fragmented party would weaken his political leverage over President Robert Mugabe.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has slammed an incursion by Ugandan rebels, the Lord’s Resistance Army into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but warned Kampala against using force to dislodge them. He reminded "governments that any recourse to the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of the DRC contravenes the United Nations Charter."

A new wave of land invasions has rocked Zimbabwe, with at least five farmers being forced off their proper-ties in the past week. Armed militiamen, accompanied by the police, army and the Central Intelligence Organisation, have been behind a spate of evictions in the Manicaland district.

Extra-parliamentary groups in Zimbabwe have signalled their intention to "fight the expropriation of the Constitution" by the ruling Zanu-PF. In a move seen as showing disillusionment with party politics in the country, more than 500 delegates from 50 civic groups will converge on Harare this weekend under the banner "Deciding Zimbabwe’s Destiny".

Johannesburg-based Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) has emerged as a key player in a potential South African loan to Zimbabwe. The bank was reluctant to provide details but its head of project finance, Peter Gent, told the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>: "Our involvement in such a transaction would be as a facilitator in what is essentially a government-to-government deal."

South Africa’s banking giant Absa has been roped into Zimbabwe’s biggest media scandal in 25 years, which erupted recently with revelations that the country’s state security agency had taken over three mainly private newspapers. Absa was dragged into the rumpus after disclosures that Zimbabwe’s central bank governor was instrumental in helping the Central Intelligence Organisation take over the newspapers.

President Robert Mugabe hurriedly rescheduled a planned visit to China after he choked on the tough conditions that South Africa slapped on its R6-billion credit line to Zimbabwe to avert its expulsion from the International Monetary Fund. Sources told the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> that Mugabe baulked at "bringing forward the 2008 presidential elections and forming a government of national unity".

The wind blows, sucking little particles from the earth’s surface, throwing them up as dust. On a gentle slope at Caledonia farm, 35km east of Harare, 500 families are tucked away in flimsy plastic shelters in this no-man’s-land, far away from the world’s gaze.

Zimbabwean doctors are threatening to down tools. They don’t want money but fuel. About 300 junior doctors countrywide face this predicament. They are classified as special services but complain that they are not getting the preferential treatment their jobs demand.

Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has filed petitions with the electoral court challenging the results of 13 of the 78 constituencies won by Zanu-PF in last month’s parliamentary election. MDC spokesperson Paul Themba-Nyathi said on Wednesday that his party had filed the petitions as a test case to show how the poll was rigged.

President Robert Mugabe’s refusal to sign into law the controversial NGO Bill and his pledge to compensate farmers for assets and improvements to seized land are the result of international pressure, say observers. They add that he is pandering to his rural constituency, whose votes handed Zanu-PF a two-thirds majority in the March 31 parliamentary elections.

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/199502/Zim_icon.GIF" align=left>Jostling for votes on opposition turf in Beit Bridge and Gwanda with less than a few days to go before the March 31 poll, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has continued to drum up his anti-Blair rhetoric. But on this leg of his campaign blitz, he added another "imperialist" target to his list: the Oppenheimer family. Mugabe took a swipe at mining magnate Nicky Oppenheimer, whom he described as selfish.

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/199502/Zim_icon.GIF" align=left>"The only decent meal I have is when I get back home after work, but often we sleep on empty stomachs when our groceries run out. But I am not alone in my suffering, not that it is any consolation. Many of my friends and relatives living here in Glen View have carbon copy lives." In the run up to Zimbabwe’s elections little attention is paid to ordinary people. Amson Hwandih shares his story.

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/199502/Zim_icon.GIF" align=left>Tsholotsho has become a symbolic battleground in the Zimbabwean elections with the ruling Zanu-PF, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and independent candidate Jonathan Moyo, former information minister, vying for the parliamentary seat in the March poll. This otherwise sleepy town has impacted like no other on the country’s political landscape.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is expected to spend the next six weeks on the campaign trail, mending fences with disgruntled provinces whose popular chairpersons have been suspended for attending the controversial Tsholotsho meeting to drum up support for Emmerson Mnangagwa’s failed bid for the party vice-presidency.

When Joyce Mujuru became Zimbabwe’s first and youngest female Cabinet minister soon after independence in 1980, she had no academic qualifications. Mujuru was one of 12 children born to a peasant family in Mount Darwin. She opted out of school at age 18 against her parents wishes to join the liberation army, adopting the name Teurai Ropa, which literally means to "spill blood".

There is growing evidence that tens of thousands of Zimbabweans face starvation, despite government insistence that "the food crisis is over", says an Amnesty International report. In Bulawayo, the country’s second- largest city, the health department has recorded 161 deaths from hunger this year alone. A new report reveals that Zimbabweans are unable to obtain food "because of discrimination and corruption".

President Thabo Mbeki is making renewed efforts to rescue Zimbabwe from further political turmoil. His latest attempts were triggered after the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) decided to suspend participation in the country’s elections in March next year until the government complies with Southern African Development Community (SADC) benchmarks for democratic elections.

About 100 families have been evicted from Porta Farm, 25km south of the Zimbabwean capital Harare, and their houses have been razed in defiance of a high court order. The farm is located in President Robert Mugabe’s constituency of Zvimba. The <i>M&G</i> witnessed three truckloads of families being ferried to a location 65km away, where there is no shelter or water. We look at the plight of Zimbabwe’s displaced people.

Zimbabwe’s Information Minister Jonathan Moyo is being reined in by the Zanu-PF supreme decision-making body, the Politburo, for publicly attacking his rivals in the party leadership. This is the second time in two months that the Politburo has asked party boss President Robert Mugabe to deal with Moyo. But the president needs his out-of-control minister to win the coming elections.