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Saturday, February 14, 2009

Pessimism overshadows Sadc summit
By Vusumuzi Sifile

SOUTHERN African Development Community (Sadc) leaders Monday face their sternest test so far when they meet in South Africa for an extraordinary summit.

The summit will either save or mark the end of the stalled power-sharing deal on Zimbabwe.

Zanu PF and the MDC formation led by Morgan Tsvangirai go into the meeting with parallel hard-line stances that, barring a miracle, could all but confirm the collapse of the envisaged all-inclusive government.

Tomorrow’s meeting also comes amid reports President Robert Mugabe and Tsvangirai held a secret inconclusive meeting on Thursday to resolve their differences.

But MDC-T spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said he was not aware of the meeting.

Tsvangirai, whose party has insisted on an equitable distribution of key cabinet posts before the September 15 deal is consummated told civil society organisations at a meeting in Harare the dialogue could not go on for ever.

He said tomorrow’s meeting would be the last under Sadc mediation.

This was after the civic groups, who are among the MDC-T’s key backers, told Tsvangirai to come out openly on “whether there is an all-inclusive government or not”.

His silence, the MDC leader was told, had crippled a number of activities.

Prospects of the deal’s collapse heightened last week when a Sadc team led by President Kgalema Motlanthe of South Africa failed to break the impasse between the two parties, hence tomorrow’s summit.

Since then the parties have been firing accusations at each other over the collapse of the deal.

Both Zanu PF and the MDC are understood to have over the last week prepared dossiers to be presented at the summit.

Mugabe would seek to convince Sadc to endorse his decision to unilaterally form a government without the MDC, while the MDC would also insist on its five demands tabled at last week’s meeting.

The MDC position paper proposes that Mugabe, among the 10 key ministries, retains control of Defence, National Security, Justice, Foreign Affairs and Land.

Tsvangirai’s party is also demanding equitable sharing of the 10 provincial governors, as well as the release of political detainees.

Chamisa yesterday confirmed the party’s position, saying they were confident Sadc would address their concerns.

“It would be tragic if Sadc leaders were to continue to endorse the arrogance and rigidity of Zanu PF,” Chamisa said.

“We hope they will have an objective eye, a receptive ear and an open mind to address and understand the extent, scope and nature of the crisis in Zimbabwe.”

Chamisa said Zanu PF had “a casino mentality, where they are just concerned about who wins most and who loses most”, ignoring the plight of the people of Zimbabwe.

Addressing journalists, Zanu PF chief negotiator Patrick Chinamasa said his party was “not going to agree to a reopening of the subject on allocation of ministers” and the appointment of provincial governors.

He said abducted and currently detained political activists would also not be released.

National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) chairperson, Dr Lovemore Madhuku yesterday said Sadc was unlikely to give in to all the MDC’s demands, but would “want to be seen to have met the MDC halfway”.

Meanwhile, in a move that could cloud the Sadc extraordinary summit in Pretoria tomorrow, police yesterday banned an MDC rally that was scheduled for Huruyadzo Shopping Centre in St Mary’s, Chitungwiza today saying there was too much anxiety on the fate of tommorow’s talks.

Although police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena was not immediately available, MDC officials confirmed police had stopped them from holding the rally.

MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said in their communication, the police said the rally had not been banned, but “postponed”.

“They said there is currently a lot of anxiety because of the inter-party talks,” Chamisa said.

The rally was meant to update supporters on the state of the stalled inter-party talks.

The MDC leadership was also expected to use the rally to get an appreciation from supporters on the current cholera outbreak, which has claimed close to 3 000 lives.

Published in The S

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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.

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