Sunday, November 1, 2009

Let's talk: Mugabe urges Tsvangirai







PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe said on Saturday he was working to resolve a political dispute threatening his power-sharing government with rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party.




Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said a fortnight ago it was "disengaging" from cabinet until Mugabe agreed to fully implement the fragile coalition's power-sharing deal, including swearing in several MDC officials.



PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe said on Saturday he was working to resolve a political dispute threatening his power-sharing government with rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party.

Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said a fortnight ago it was "disengaging" from cabinet until Mugabe agreed to fully implement the fragile coalition's power-sharing deal, including swearing in several MDC officials.

Speaking at the burial of Misheck Chando, a senior member of his Zanu PF party on Saturday, Mugabe again condemned the MDC's partial boycott of the government as "baffling and illogical," but said the issue had to be addressed as a domestic issue.

"We are glad that we are talking about it. We are treating it as a domestic political problem, and our attitude is that ultimately it is up to us as Zimbabweans to sort out our problems," he said in a mixture of English and Shona.

Mugabe gave no further details or made reference to the mediation efforts of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community which had a ministerial team in Harare on Friday.


Tsvangirai and his officials did not attend the funeral at Harare Heroes' Acre, a national shrine where Mugabe's Zanu PF movement has been burying mostly veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s liberation war since it won power at independence in 1980. Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, leader of a rival MDC faction which is also represented in the power sharing government, was at the funeral.


Mugabe accused Western powers of "endlessly and shamelessly" interfering in Zimbabwe's domestic affairs and said the national economy had suffered under sanctions imposed in a drive to oust his party.

"They are trying to direct the way our politics should go. They are not ashamed. They want us to go down on our knees."

Mugabe -- who was speaking a day after regional officials announced that Southern African states would soon hold a summit on the Zimbabwe crisis -- said even in cases where Zimbabweans seek outside help, they have the ultimate responsibility to resolve domestic disputes.

The veteran 85-year old president sounded slightly conciliatory to the MDC on Saturday, saying he only wonders about his rivals' political strategy of "one leg in and one leg out of the power-sharing government."

“When you have, as a party, and even as individuals, taken a stand that you shall work together with your political neighbours and your neighbours reciprocate it, then the requirement is that we indeed continue, step by step, and work together,” Mugabe said. “Whatever the difficulties become our difficulties together. Whatever the positive steps become our achievements together.


“For one party on an odd day to decide we shall not be fully in, we shall have one leg in and one leg out, then you begin to wonder: Have I entered into agreement with persons who do not understand?


“MDC-T is saying we are out, but we are still in. I don’t know what that means … this logic where you agree and disagree, where you disagree and agree. It’s quite new.”


Besides refusing to swear in some of its members into government, the MDC accuses Zanu PF -- which it calls an "arrogant and unreliable partner" of persecuting its officials and delaying media and constitutional reforms that will be key to holding free and fair elections in about two years.

Mugabe says he has met obligations under the power-sharing deal and maintains the MDC needs to campaign for the lifting of Western sanctions against his Zanu PF, including travel restrictions and a freeze on general financial aid to Zimbabwe. - Reuters

Source.newzimbabwe.com

Sithambelumthetho:The history behind my uncommonly long name!




I was born exactly 31 years ago in a thatch and mud hut in the sleepy village of Makhwatheni in the Chief Sivalo Communal Area of Nkayi District ,Zimbabwe.My peasant family would later relocate to Nzalikwa Village[Gomoza] Lupane District,the place I call my natal home today.

My birth {or so I am told} was greeted by the trademark booming sound of a Bazooka shell explosion,punctuating the end of what turned out to be a successful ambush on the Rhodesian Forces by guerillas of Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army[Zipra]....hence I was nicknamed 'Ngindi'!

Although I no longer respond to same these days.I must admit that 'Ngindi' was not only my first nickname.It was also the first record of some of the events which contextualised my birth and tender age.! Suffice to say that this was at the height of Zimbabwe's war of liberation against the racist Rhodesian government!

My parents being a sample from Zimbabwe's peasantry were caught up in this war too!.They found themselves divided between their loyalty to the liberation movement and fear.!.THE FEAR OF THE LAW OF THE GUN.

Whoever had a gun called the shots! The gunmen of the day decreed and cancelled 'laws' as they wished!.The gun was the LAW. The ordinary man was always at the mercy of whoever sprung from the nearest bush armed with a gun. Either side of the warring factions could change the law of the land as they wished....for they had guns!.....The poor peasants were the object and most of the times silent victims of the law of the gun.

Only they could do was to 'thamba'{soften up] for 'umthetho'[the law ]...hence 'Sithambelumthetho'!Obedience to the law of the day was the only defensive weapon these defenceless folks had against both their supposed liberators[who raped and brutalised] and the Rhodesian Security Forces[who also raped and brutalised]

That is the name my parents gave me.The name that inspired me to be a lawyer and human rights activist.The name that is a rare record of injustices suffered by ordinary men in a time of war!

The name that remains my tag today:  SITHAMBELUMTHETHO!