The Homepage of Vusumuzi Sifile Sibanda: Mugabe 'offered Dabengwa VP post'

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Mugabe 'offered Dabengwa VP post'

By Kholwani Nyathi and Vusumuzi Sifile

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe on Friday said he was shocked at Dumiso Dabengwa’s decision to back Simba Makoni’s presidential ambitions, as reports surfaced that the ex-Zipra intelligence chief had turned down an offer to be Zanu PF vice-president.

Under an unwritten covenant of the Unity Accord signed in 1987 between Mugabe and the late PF-Zapu leader, Joshua Nkomo, Zanu PF and the State would have two vice-presidents from the former parties.

Joseph Msika holds the post on behalf of PF-Zapu, having succeeded Nkomo. He is due to retire after the 29 March elections.

Reports say Dabengwa turned down the offer on the grounds that it had come too late.
Although Dabengwa remained a Zanu PF politburo member after the 2000 parliamentary elections, in which he lost his Nkulumane seat to the MDC’s Gibson Sibanda, he was not in the Cabinet, his last portfolio there being Home Affairs.

Last week, Mugabe reportedly vented his emotions on Dabengwa’s defection at a private briefing of government and Zanu PF officials in Plumtree.

He said he had been particularly incensed by Dabengwa’s decision to back Makoni, "a little man".
"Why should Cde Dabengwa have gone that divergent way?" he asked. "I can’t understand what the real motivation is. What makes me feel rather upset is that Makoni was never in the limelight. Dumiso came from the grassroots. I can’t understand why, he chose to follow a little man like Makoni."

Yet Mugabe avoided attacking Dabengwa at rallies in Plumtree and Esibomvu Business Centre in Esigodini.

A host of former Zipra commanders have publicly backed Dabengwa’s stance.
The Standard was told that a few days before Dabengwa went public with his backing of Makoni, Mugabe tried to dissuade him, promising him the vice-presidency.
Dabengwa was said to be away on business in South Africa until Wednesday.

Sources said Mugabe tried again during a surprise overnight stop in Bulawayo on his way to Beitbridge for his birthday bash, but was again unsuccessful.

"No one knew about the president’s visit until the last minute and we had to run around to get people to welcome him at the airport," said a Zanu PF official in Bulawayo.
"The word was that he had come to find out why people in the province were switching to Makoni’s camp, but we understand he couldn’t meet with Dabengwa because he was out of town."

The rift between Mugabe and Dabengwa first surfaced late last year when Mugabe appeared to have re-admitted suspended war veterans’ leader, Jabulani Sibanda.
Former PF Zapu heavyweights were furious at the move.

A day after Sibanda’s "Million Man March" in Harare, Dabengwa said he was "not sure what whoever is using Sibanda is up to when party rules and regulations are very clear".

Zanu PF national chairman, John Nkomo, has been linked to Makoni’s presidential bid. At the launch of Zanu PF’s manifesto, Nkomo avoided an outright attack on Makoni. Even when Oppah Muchinguri and Joseph Chinotimba tried to incite Nkomo to say "Pasi naMakoni (Down with Makoni)", he ignored them and simply said: "Pasi nekuruza ma elections" (losing elections is not an option).

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About Vusa

Vusumuzi Sifile Sibanda is a Zimbabwean journalist currently working as editor of The Mirror, a weekly newspaper in Gaborone, Botswana.

He joined the Mirror in January 2009 having worked s a Staff Writer for The Standard, Zimbabwe’s only independent Sunday newspaper for close to four years. He also had stints with the now defunct Parade Magazine and The Weekly Times newspaper.

Born in 1981 in Mberengwa, a rural district in the south western parts of Zimbabwe, on the boundary of Midlands and Matabeleland South provinces, Vusumuzi did his primary and secondary education at Danangombe Primary and Matabo Secondary schools respectively.

In 2000, he was named the best student in the Gwanda High School Advanced Level class. A year later, he became the first student from Gwanda High School to enrol at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Bulawayo when he became part of 19 pioneer students in the Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Journalism and Media Studies. He completed the programme in 2005.

While still studying at NUST in June 2003, Vusa joined Parade Magazine, then Zimbabwe’s leading monthly magazine for Industrial Attachment. The very day he joined the publicatioon, on June 2 2003, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) embarked on their "final push". This was a real rude awakening for a young, raw journalist.

In November 2003, when all indications were that Parade would not continue publishing, Vusa left to join the World Agroforestry Centre/International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) where he worked as an intern communications assistant for the organisation’s Southern Africa regional programme. At ICRAF, he worked as an assistant Editor of the organisation’s regional publications, Miombo Voices ans Living with Trees in Southern Africa, as well as the organisation’s website, www.icrafsa.org. He was also a regular contributor to the organisation’s international weekly, Transformations. He also collaborated with Livai Matarirano in establishing Agroforestry Forum, an agroforestry newsletter focusing mostly on the ICRAF Zimbabwe national programmes and its partners.

In addition to his Bachelor’s Degree, Vusa also has a number of other qualifications like Reporting Politics, Multimedia and Online Journalism, Population and Rural Development. During his stay at ICRAF, Vusa participated at a number of training programmes, with the two main ones being the Integration of Gender into Agroforestry Development (2003) and Teaching with Trees in Southern Africa (2004).

Towards the end of 2004, Vusa and nine other students from his class grouped themselves to form the editorial team of The Weekly Times newspaper. Despite being inexperienced, the team managed to produce a high quality weekly newspaper, which proved to be an alternative source of information for Zimbabweans. So serious was the newspaper that the authorities saw it as a threat, resulting in it being forced to shutdown in February 2005 after publishing just six issues.

During his at The Weekly Times, Vusa also contributed to Tariro/Ithemba Magazine, a publication focusing on orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). The magazine was edited by Parkie Mbozi, his industrial attachment supervisor at ICRAF Southern Africa.

His experience as a communications assistant inspired Vusa to write a dissertation titled: “An assessment of the knowledge and understanding of agroforestry issues by newspaper journalists in Bulawayo”.

On completion of his studies, Vusa joined The Standard newspaper as a junior reporter and rose through the ranks to the position of a Senior Staff Writer. He is also a regular contributor for reputable international news agencies.

Vusa is a God fearing journalist. He is a born again member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ). Among other positions in the church, Vusa is the current chairperson of the Luther League (Youth) Fellowship in the Martin Luther Deanery of the ELCZ.

As part of his contribution towards the ministry of the Gospel of Christ, Vusumuzi is among the founders of Anointing Magazine, a fortnightly Christian magazine published in South Africa. He is the magazine’s deputy editor.

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Zimbabwe impedes Sadc intergration’

By Vusumuzi Sifile

THE continued economic and political meltdown in Zimbabwe is endangering any prospects of regional integration within the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc), political analysts have said.
During a debate in Harare recently, the analysts were unanimous that the current situation in Zimbabwe was making it virtually impossible to integrate the region.
The debate focused on what role Zimbabwe could play in helping to integrate Sadc.
Among other factors was Zimbabwe’s inflation rate, estimated at more than 14 000% — more than 1 000 times the average across the region.
Weber Chinyadza of the MDC, who presented the argument, said although there had not been much effort in integrating the SADC region, Zimbabwe would “make the attainment of the integration objectives difficult”.
“The rest of the region is suffering as a result of Zanu PF’s misrule,” said Chinyadza. “Zimbabwe is short-changing the rest of the Sadc members. How can you integrate Zimbabwe, with an inflation of 14 000% with, say, Botswana, whose inflation rate is about seven percent?”
Chinyadza said the huge difference between the official and parallel market exchange rate was inconveniencing other countries.
The chairperson of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), Dr Lovemore Madhuku said “the levels of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe are not found anywhere in Sadc”.
“The extent of human rights abuses on its own makes it difficult for Zimbabwe to fit into a community of nations with respect for human rights,” Madhuku said.
“Our political culture is clearly outside the framework that is necessary for integration. Zimbabwe is not so much in a class of its own in terms of creating problems for the SADC. For example, we have Angola which still wants to rerun the 1990 presidential elections, and Swaziland which is still run by a monarchy. But the difference between Zimbabwe and those countries is that in those places there is a genuine effort to implement the Sadc guidelines on the holding of free and fair elections.”
Madhuku said Zimbabwe had polarised regional and world politics, making it difficult to implement any form of integration. He said “each time the issue of Zimbabwe is raised, so many other irrelevant issues arise, diverting people’s attention” and as such, if the “Sadc were to be serious with any form of integration, they have to handle the Zimbabwean issue with openness”.
At the same time, said Professor John Makumbe, it was impossible for the rest of Sadc to integrate without Zimbabwe, as “the country is literally at the centre of the region”.
“The country’s position at the centre of the region forces every infrastructure to somehow touch Zimbabwe. Our position makes Zimbabwe key to any efforts to integrate the region,” Makumbe said.
The newly conferred Professor jokingly added that Zimbabwe was already implementing its own form of regional integration.
“The whole country is now a training centre where people are trained and exported into the region. Zimbabwe is exporting victims of human rights violations into the region and elsewhere, forcing neighbouring countries to spend lots of money on deporting Zimbabweans,” Makumbe said.

The Homepage of Vusumuzi Sifile Sibanda

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Mugabe 'offered Dabengwa VP post'

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