Zimbabwe State Security Minister Admits to Abductions

By Blessing Zulu

State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa has stated in court documents that agents of the state security apparatus, CIO, were involved in the seizure of Movement for Democratic Change and civic society activists, according to lawyers defending those detained activists.The lawyers say an affidavit signed by Mutasa to the effect that the seizures – or abductions as they have been described by the MDC and civic activists – were officially sanctioned.

Zimbabwe Peace Project director Jestina Mukoko and more than 30 MDC activists are now charged with plotting to overthrow the government of president Mugabe.

They were seized from their homes starting in October and were recently handed over to the police and charged. Legal defenders asked the high court to order police to name the persons who handed over the missing activists.

The lawyers said Mutasa in his affidavit refused to divulge those names citing national security concerns. Attorney Alec Muchadehama, a defender in the case, tells VOA reporter, Jonga Kandemiiri that the magistrate’s court will decide on bail in a hearing Friday.

Zimbabwe Activists Denied Medical Care Amid Torture Allegations

By Raymond Maingire

HARARE – The state on Friday filed an appeal to challenge the release of 32 human rights defenders and MDC activists who are being accused of plotting to dethrone President Robert Mugabe’s government through acts of banditry.

The prisoners are still being held in police custody despite Wednesday’s order to have them released forthwith by High Court Judge, Yunus Omerjee.

Justice Omerjee’s ruling concurred with last month’s ruling by Justice Charles Hungwe who declared both the arrest and the detention of the accused persons illegal.

But in their appeal the police deny any hand in both the arrest and the detention of the group.

The 32 were abducted from their homes and workplaces in Harare, Chinhoyi and Banket on different occasions since October 2008.

Their whereabouts were kept a secret until last Monday when police apparently took custody of them straight from the hands of state security agents last Monday.

According to the notice of appeal, the state says Justice Omerjee erred in endorsing the release of all the accused persons.

Police say the High Court erred in declaring their detention illegal as it (court) had no evidence police were responsible for the accused persons’ continued detention.

After a protracted effort by their lawyers to establish their whereabouts, the High Court in November declared the accused person’s continued “detention by whosoever” illegal.

Police insist they acted in accordance with the law which stipulates that accused persons must be taken to court within 48 hours of their arrest.

The state has further challenged the release of former broadcaster, Jestina Mukoko and eight others who were to undergo medical treatment at Harare’s Avenues Clinic under police guard.

The group, which claims to have been tortured by state security agents during weeks of detention, is due to be taken for a remand hearing on Monday next week.

The state further says in any event, there are no grounds for the accused persons to be kept in hospital until December 29.

In respect of Mukoko and eight others, the state says Justice Omerjee erred in ordering their release to the Avenues Clinic as it had no evidence to prove the accused persons needed any treatment.

Police further say they do not have any manpower to guard the accused persons while they receive medical attention at the Avenues Clinic.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights executive director, Irene Petras, confirmed Friday the defence was served with a notice of appeal against the ruling by Justice Omerjee.

“We received the notice of appeal by the state,” said Petras.

“The appeal notice is fraught with inconsistencies as police filed it with the High Court instead of the Supreme Court.

“To us, the notice is defective. As far as we are concerned, and in spite of its intentions to appeal against the order, the state is still acting in contempt of court by continuously holding our clients.”

Petras says they are going to challenge the appeal as it was not filed procedurally.

Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri and Chief Superintendent Magwenzi, the investigating officer are listed as appellants in Friday’s appeal notice.

Agencies: Zimbabwe malnutrition, cholera worse

HARARE, Zimbabwe – International aid agencies warned on Saturday that Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis is deepening, with a sharp rise in acute child malnutrition and a worsening cholera epidemic.

President Robert Mugabe's government has acknowledged the collapse of Zimbabwe's health system, but he also claimed earlier this month that the epidemic had been brought under control and that there was "no cholera" in the country.

The country is struggling desperately with a long-term economic crisis and has been paralyzed by a political crisis over a so-far unsuccessful attempt at power-sharing. International observers have raised concerns about the increasing clampdown on opposition to Mugabe, who is under severe pressure to step down or solve the political impasse over allocation of Cabinet posts.

Prominent Zimbabwean peace activist Jestina Mukoko is one of a group of activists detained for allegedly plotting to overthrow Mugabe. She had been missing for three weeks before she appeared in court. The plot has been widely dismissed as fabricated.

Although a judge ruled Wednesday that Mukoko and six others be sent to a hospital so allegations of torture could be investigated, they remain in custody, state media reported Saturday, while the government appeals that decision.

Charging Mukoko, the respected head of a group known as the Zimbabwe Peace Project, is a sign that the 84-year-old leader is not prepared to yield after nearly three decades in power.

Critics blame Mugabe's land reform policies for the collapse of Zimbabwe's farming sector and the ruin of what had been the region's breadbasket.

Zimbabweans continue to die of hunger and disease.

Acute child malnutrition in parts of Zimbabwe has increased by almost two-thirds compared with last year, aid agency Save the Children said in a new report Saturday.

Lynn Walker, the U.K.-based agency's Zimbabwe director, said "some children are wasting away from lack of food."

The report says 18,000 tons of food is needed for January. Around 5 million people — half Zimbabwe's population — are in need of food aid.

Cholera has spread rapidly in the southern African nation where food, medicine, fuel and cash are scarce.

The World Health Organization said Saturday that 1,518 people have died of cholera and a total of 26,497 cases have been recorded since the start of the outbreak in August. The U.N. agency in Geneva said more than two-thirds of deaths occurred in December.

The latest figures, provided by Zimbabwe's Ministry of Health on Dec. 25, indicate that new infections are occurring in all parts of the country despite massive international aid efforts to stop the disease.

The percentage of cholera patients dying from the disease has risen to 5.7 percent from 4 percent at the beginning of the month, the agency said. Normally only 1 percent of patients die in large outbreaks, it said.

Agency spokesman Paul Garwood said the cholera outbreak is still not under control and that neighboring countries such as South Africa and Botswana, where the disease has also been reported, should scale up their disease monitoring and preparedness.

Source: Yahoo News

Tutu accuses South Africa over Mugabe

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has accused South Africa of losing the moral high ground by failing to stand up to Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe.

The Noble peace-prize winner told the BBC that using force should be an option to get rid of Mr Mugabe.

Archbishop Tutu also said he was saddened that his own country appeared not to be on the side of Zimbabweans.

He said: "How much more suffering is going to make us say 'No we have given Mr Mugabe enough time?'"

Archbishop Desmond Tutu also said South Africa had a leadership role as its president chairs the Southern African Development Community.

But he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that South Africa had instead betrayed its legacy by blocking firmer action from the United Nations.

I have to say that I am deeply, deeply distressed that we should be found not on the side of the ones who are suffering

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

He added: "I want to say first of all that I have been very deeply disappointed, saddened by the position that South Africa has taken at the United Nations Security Council in being an obstacle to the security council dealing with that matter.

"And I have to say that I am deeply, deeply distressed that we should be found not on the side of the ones who are suffering.

"I certainly am ashamed of what they've done in the United Nations.

"For the world to say no, we are waiting for South Africa's membership of the Security Council to lapse and then we can take action."

That, the Archbishop, said, was an "awful indictment" to a country that had a "proud record of a struggle against a vicious system".

He said: "We should have been the ones who for a very long time occupied the moral high ground.

"I'm afraid we have betrayed our legacy."

The Archbishop's comments come as Foreign Secretary David Miliband has written to the Times newspaper, describing Mr Mugabe as a "stain" on Zimbabwe and reaffirming Britain's view that he has to go.

Zimbabwe Government Admits to Jestina Mukoko Abduction

The Government of Zimbabwe, via it's mouthpiece, the Herald Newspaper, has at last admitted to abducting Jestina Mukoko, along with several other political activists. After nearly a month's disappearence, their physical condition remains in serious doubt, as the state has been known to use extreme forms of torture against it's percieved opponents. Here is the police statement:

Herald Reporter

FORMER ZBC newscaster Jestina Mukoko and nine MDC-T activists are expected to appear in a Harare court today on charges of recruiting or attempting to recruit people for purposes of undergoing military training to overthrow the Government.

Mukoko, an MDC-T activist and director of an NGO — the Zimbabwe Peace Project — was picked up at her Norton home on December 5.

The other eight are the husband and wife team of Manuel and Concilia Chinanzvavana of Zvimba, Pieter Kaseke of Banket, Audrey Zimbudzana of Chinhoyi, Broderick Takawira, the provincial co-ordinator of the ZPP for Mashonaland East; Fidelis Mujabuki Chiramba, the MDC-T Zvimba South chairman; Violet Mapfuranhewe and Collen Mutemagau, MDC-T Zvimba South youth district chairman.

A statement from the Zimbabwe Republic Police yesterday said some time in April this year, Manuel allegedly recruited Ricardo Hwasheni, a police constable based at Waterfalls in Harare, to undergo military training in Botswana with a view to forcibly deposing the Government and replace it with one led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

Manuel allegedly tasked Hwasheni to recruit four other policemen, promising them US$2 000 each.

Later, the statement said, Manuel and Kaseke, who is Hwasheni’s cousin, went to MDC-T’s headquarters at Harvest House, where a man identified only as Josen interviewed Hwasheni.

After the interview, Josen allegedly told Hwasheni that he would hear from him within two weeks or that Mukoko would contact him.

In June, the statement says, Hwasheni met Mukoko at her offices in Milton Park in Harare where she further interviewed him before handing him over to Takawira, who told him that he would be contacted within two weeks.

The statement further alleged that a man

who had been sent by Mukoko met Hwasheni at Girls’ High School in Harare and gave him 200 pula and some Zimbabwean dollars for transport to Botswana where he was to meet a man known as Special.

Hwasheni crossed into Botswana in July through the Plumtree border post and met Special at Ramokgwebana Border Post.

Special took Hwasheni to a military camp in Botswana where he underwent training in the use of FN and AK rifles, military tactics as well as political lessons together with five other MDC-T recruits.

There were, according to the statement, 50 other recruits undergoing military training in the same camp.

Hwasheni returned to Zimbabwe with specific instructions to study the mood of junior police officers inasfar as loyalty was concerned and the mood of the public towards Government.

When he was arrested Hwasheni implicated Mukoko, Takawira, Manuel, Kaseke and Zimbudzana.

The other four — Concilia, Chiramba, Violet and Mutemagau — are being accused of recruiting people for training under the National Youth Symposium Training Programme in Botswana in July.

Concilia is alleged to have recruited Tapera Mapfuranhewe, who is Violet’s brother, for the programme warning him not to tell anyone about it.

Tapera was given two letters which he took to Harvest House by Concilia and Ellen Musoni recommending him as a suitable candidate for the training.

Morleen Ncube and "Professor" Malvern interviewed Tapera together with 50 others at Harvest House and 48 who passed the interview attended a workshop held in Kadoma where they were told about the trip to Botswana for military training.

Between the end of August and September 9, the group allegedly travelled to Botswana in three batches with Tapera in the last batch that had 17 recruits with instructions from Edson Chamisa to meet a man known only as Zola.

The group was taken to Okavango Training Camp where they joined 120 other recruits, but on October 16 Tapera escaped and returned to Zimbabwe where he reported the military training to the State prompting an investigation.

Concilia and Chiramba are also being accused of holding meetings in Banket where they encouraged MDC-T youths to undergo military training in Botswana.

Mugabe "a mad dictator," U.N. rights expert says

By Robert Evans



GENEVA (Reuters) – Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is "a mad dictator" who has lost all sense of reality, a United Nations human rights expert said on Monday.

The only way Mugabe can be removed from power is for Europe to convince his "great protector South Africa" to withdraw all support for him, Jean Ziegler, an adviser to the U.N.'s Human Rights Council, told Swiss Radio.

Mugabe, Ziegler declared, "is a former hero of the liberation struggle who has lost all sense of reality.... and become a mad dictator." He added: "The horror in Zimbabwe today is absolutely intolerable."

The comments from the Swiss sociologist, who has little sympathy for the Western countries most critical of Mugabe, reflected the despair over Zimbabwe on the rights council.

Four other U.N. rights experts said Zimbabwe could not control a cholera epidemic that has killed more than 1,100 people.

The four -- who report to the Human Rights Council on food, health, drinking water and the situation of rights defenders -- said Mugabe's "violations of civil and political rights" made it difficult to get a united response to the crisis.

But the comments from Ziegler, long associated with left-wing causes and development issues and who has good contacts among African leaders and diplomats, were seen as a sign of the wider gloom over Zimbabwe.

While most African governments have been pressing for the formation of a unity government between Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Ziegler said power should go to the MDC.

"After all, they won the elections," he said, referring to a presidential vote earlier this year. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the first round but then pulled out of the run-off after a wave of violence against his supporters.

Ziegler, whose new book "The Hatred of the West" on attitudes in the developing world, has become a best-seller in France and other French-speaking countries, said U.N. military action to remove Mugabe was prevented by Russia and China.

These two, he argued, would veto any move in the Security Council to dispatch U.N. forces to protect the Zimbabwean people, unless such action was supported by the African Union and above all by South Africa.

South Africa had strong historic links with Mugabe, who provided support during the struggle against apartheid, but was "a deeply civilized country" that would be open to real dialogue with the European Union on the issue, Ziegler said.

"Europe should call on South Africa to abandon its support for this mad dictator so as to open the way to a government of the opposition, which won the elections," he declared.

Action needed to stop Zim becoming failed state: Frazer

Desperate Zimbabweans scrounge for water in the cholera-ravaged state capital


JOHANNESBURG – The United States (US)’s top diplomat for Africa Jendayi Frazer has called for urgent action to save crisis-torn Zimbabwe from deteriorating into another failed state in the mould of Somalia.

"We're watching Zimbabwe become a failed state. We need to act now, proactively, in Zimbabwe," said Frazer, who is US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.
Fraser, speaking in South Africa on a tour of the region to consult with key leaders on the way forward in Zimbabwe, blamed President Robert Mugabe for ruining what was once one of Africa’s most promising economies and said that Zimbabwean leader needed to step down.

"We think that the person who has ruined the country . . . that he needs to step down," Frazer said.

If action is not taken soon, chaos could ensue and Zimbabwe's neighbours will be calling for peacekeepers, as some are now calling for in Somalia, Frazer told reporters.

A spreading cholera epidemic that the UN says has killed 1 123 people from 20 896 recorded cases since August, coupled with acute food shortages, has highlighted Zimbabwe’s worsening economic and humanitarian crisis that analysts say can only be tackled successfully through joint effort by Mugabe and the opposition in a government of national unity.

Western leaders and some African statesmen, alarmed by rising deaths due to the cholera epidemic, have in recent days stepped up calls for Mugabe’s resignation, demands that have not been supported by the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

South African President Kgalema Motlanthe on Wednesday stressed that he believed a proposed unity government under the September 15 power-sharing agreement between Mugabe and opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara was the solution, and that it must be formed quickly.

Frazer said the US – an arch critic of Mugabe’s rule whom it accuses of trampling on democracy – was not saying the power-sharing agreement has failed but wanted the veteran leader to give way to a transitional authority that would stabilise the economy and organise new elections. – ZimOnline

Mugabe says no African country will topple him

By Angus Shaw

Zimbabwe's 'highest ever inflation' BBC Play Video Zimbabwe Video: UN chief deplores Mugabe position BBC Play Video Zimbabwe Video: Miliband: 'Shocking' Zimbabwe BBC HARARE, Zimbabwe – President Robert Mugabe said Friday that "Zimbabwe is mine" and vowed never to surrender, saying no African nation is brave enough to topple him.

Mugabe, who has led the country since its 1980 independence from Britain, has faced renewed criticism — most recently from the top U.S. envoy for Africa — amid a cholera outbreak that has killed more than 1,000 people since August.

"I will never, never sell my country. I will never, never, never surrender," Mugabe told members of his ZANU-PF party at its annual convention. "Zimbabwe is mine, I am a Zimbabwean, Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans. Zimbabwe never for the British. Britain for the British."

Jendayi Frazer, U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said Thursday that "there is a complete collapse right now" in Zimbabwe.

"We think that the person who has ruined the country ... that he needs to step down," Frazer said. "We're watching Zimbabwe become a failed state. We need to act now, proactively, in Zimbabwe."

Mugabe on Friday questioned which African countries "would have the courage" to order a military intervention.

"What the Americans want just now, is the removal of President Mugabe. But President Mugabe has been elected by his people and we have told them as we have told the Europeans that the only persons with the power to remove Robert Gabriel Mugabe are the people of Zimbabwe," he said.

Most neighboring countries including regional giant South Africa are opposed to military intervention in Zimbabwe, where 1,123 people have died from cholera and the United Nations says half the population faces imminent starvation.

Mugabe's critics blame his policies for the ruin of the once-productive nation. Mugabe blames Western sanctions for the nation's economic meltdown, though the European Union and U.S. sanctions are targeted only at Mugabe and dozens of his clique with frozen bank accounts and travel bans.

Frazer was in southern Africa consulting with regional leaders Thursday about what can be done to help Zimbabwe. A day earlier, South African President Kgalema Motlanthe stressed that he believed a proposed unity government was the solution, and that it must be formed quickly.

Foreign ministers for the five Nordic countries also called for the end of Mugabe's "misrule," saying in a statement Friday that Zimbabwe's authorities "alone bear the responsibility for the tragic situation" facing the country.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in March presidential elections at which his party also ended the 28-year domination of Parliament by Mugabe's party. But officials results said Tsvangirai did not win outright, and he withdrew from a runoff because of state-sponsored violence.

To break the impasse over the presidential votes, Mugabe and Tsvangirai agreed to form a unity government three months ago but have been deadlocked since over how to share Cabinet posts.

Tsvangirai said Friday that he will ask his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, to halt negotiations unless political detainees are released or charged by Jan. 1.

He told a news conference in neighboring Botswana that more than 42 members of his opposition party and civil society have been abducted in the past two months. They include three journalists and their whereabouts remain unknown.

"The MDC can no longer sit at the same negotiating table with a party that is abducting our members and other innocent civilians and refusing to produce any of them before a court of law," Tsvangirai said.

Also Friday, the central bank unveiled a new 10 billion Zimbabwe dollar bank note, the largest in a range of bills introduced since August when it slashed ten zeros from the old currency in a hopeless effort to keep up with stratospheric inflation.

___

Associated Press Writer Sello Motseta in Gaborone, Botswana contributed to this report

Zimbabwe's Bloody Diamond War

Chris McGreal in Mutare

Scores have been killed during a campaign of terror unleashed by Zimbabwe's rulers against illegal diggers in the east of the country

The young miner already recognised the sound of dogs as a terrifying harbinger of death but the dull thud of the helicopter blades was something new.

Minutes later a Zimbabwean air force helicopter swept over the hundreds of fleeing illegal diamond miners and mowed down dozens with machine-gun fire. After that the police arrived and unleashed the dogs that tore into the diggers, killing some and mutilating others. The police fired teargas to drive the miners out of their shallow tunnels and shot them down as they emerged.

How many died in the assault two weeks ago is not clear but the miners say it was at least scores. Some bodies remain unclaimed and unidentified in Mutare hospital mortuary.

"First we heard the helicopter and we knew it wouldn't be good but I thought it would just deliver soldiers," said the young miner, a former student who gave his name only as Hopewell.

"Then it came over us and started shooting. There was a man next to me, he had been digging near me, and the bullet went right through his head. Everyone was in panic. People ran but they didn't want to leave their finds behind so they were stopping to grab them and getting shot ... The police were waiting for us with the dogs. I was lucky. A dog ran for me but there was this woman, she was slower than me and it attacked her. I don't know what happened to her. I went back to my diggings a few days later but she hasn't come back."

The police and military have for weeks been conducting a bloody campaign, which Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights has described as "resembling a war", to drive thousands of illegal miners out of a recently discovered diamond field that some in the industry believe might be the richest in years.

The miners say hundreds have died. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change says it has the names of 140 people killed although there is common agreement that many have been buried without a word.

Help Zimbabwe Magazine: Meet the Team

The Editor, Zvisinei Sandi

Zvisinei Sandi is an exiled political activist from Zimbabwe, presently a Scholar Rescue Fellow at Stanford University, where she continues with her teaching and human rights work.

Emmanuel Sigauke

Emmanuel Sigauke grew up in Zimbabwe, where he studied English and Linguistics at the University of Zimbabwe. He helped found the Zimbabwe Budding Writers Association, for which he served as National Secretary from 1992 to 1995. He moved to California in 1996 and studied English at Sacramento State University. He teaches composition and writing at Cosumnes River College and is one of the editors of Cosumnes River Journal.

The Unnamed Zimbabweans

The Unnamed are our team of journalists still in Zimbabwe. Because they live a dangerous existence on the frontlines, they cannot afford to have their names mentioned. The only gratitude we can show them is to hear their voices, and push our politicians to do something.