Zimbabwe: Outpost of Tyranny

The 'Genocide Olympics'

We posted earlier this week on Mia Farrow's efforts with her son (a Yale University Law student) to put pressure on China to use its influence on the Sudan government to end the darfur genocide.  We also drew a parallel between China as protector of the outlaw Sudanese regime and South Africa as the protector of the outlaw ZImbabwe regime.

Mother and son Farrow's Wall Street op-ed piece is below:

Published in The Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2007

The 'Genocide Olympics'

By RONAN FARROW and MIA FARROW

"One World, One Dream" is China's slogan for its 2008 Olympics. But there is one nightmare that China shouldn't be allowed to sweep under the rug. That nightmare is Darfur, where more than 400,000 people have been killed and more than two-and-a-half million driven from flaming villages by the Chinese-backed government of Sudan.

That so many corporate sponsors want the world to look away from that atrocity during the games is bad enough. But equally disappointing is the decision of artists like director Steven Spielberg -- who quietly visited China this month as he prepares to help stage the Olympic ceremonies -- to sanitize Beijing's image. Is Mr. Spielberg, who in 1994 founded the Shoah Foundation to record the testimony of survivors of the holocaust, aware that China is bankrolling Darfur's genocide?

China is pouring billions of dollars into Sudan. Beijing purchases an overwhelming majority of Sudan's annual oil exports and state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. -- an official partner of the upcoming Olympic Games -- owns the largest shares in each of Sudan's two major oil consortia. The Sudanese government uses as much as 80% of proceeds from those sales to fund its brutal Janjaweed proxy militia and purchase their instruments of destruction: bombers, assault helicopters, armored vehicles and small arms, most of them of Chinese manufacture. Airstrips constructed and operated by the Chinese have been used to launch bombing campaigns on villages. And China has used its veto power on the U.N. Security Council to repeatedly obstruct efforts by the U.S. and the U.K. to introduce peacekeepers to curtail the slaughter.

As one of the few players whose support is indispensable to Sudan, China has the power to, at the very least, insist that Khartoum accept a robust international peacekeeping force to protect defenseless civilians in Darfur. Beijing is uniquely positioned to put a stop to the slaughter, yet they have so far been unabashed in their refusal to do so.

But there is now one thing that China may hold more dear than their unfettered access to Sudanese oil: their successful staging of the 2008 Summer Olympics. That desire may provide a lone point of leverage with a country that has otherwise been impervious to all criticism.

Whether that opportunity goes unexploited lies in the hands of the high-profile supporters of these Olympic Games. Corporate sponsors like Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, General Electric and McDonalds, and key collaborators like Mr. Spielberg, should be put on notice. For there is another slogan afoot, one that is fast becoming viral amongst advocacy groups; rather than "One World, One Dream," people are beginning to speak of the coming "Genocide Olympics."

Does Mr. Spielberg really want to go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games? Do the various television sponsors around the world want to share in that shame? Because they will. Unless, of course, all of them add their singularly well-positioned voices to the growing calls for Chinese action to end the slaughter in Darfur.

Imagine if such calls were to succeed in pushing the Chinese government to use its leverage over Sudan to protect civilians in Darfur. The 2008 Beijing Olympics really could become an occasion for pride and celebration, a truly international honoring of the authentic spirit of "one world" and "one dream."

Mr. Farrow, a student at Yale Law School, traveled to Darfur as a UNICEF spokesperson in 2004 and 2006. Ms. Farrow, an actor, has traveled twice to Darfur and twice to neighboring Chad. She has recently returned from Darfur's border with the Central African Republic.

From Time Magazine: "Face to Face with Zimbabwe's Misery."

Thursday, Apr. 12, 2007

Face to Face with Zimbabwe's Misery

By Alex Perry / Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

A bad jail wastes a body quickly. When I entered Cell 6 at Gwanda police station, I was fit. After five days in a concrete and iron-bar tank, with no food and only a few sips of water, my skin was flaking and my clothes were slipping off. A prison blanket had given me lice. The water I had palmed from a rusty tap in the shower had given me diarrhea. Under a 24-hour strip light, I hadn't slept more than a few minutes at a time. And I stank. So many men had passed through Cell 6 that they had left their smell on the walls, and while I was making my own stink, the walls were also passing theirs onto me.

It took 22 hours to get arrested in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. On March 28, I flew into Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, with the intention of reporting on the ruinous policies that have turned Zimbabwe into one of the poorest and most repressive countries in the world. Foreign journalists are routinely refused permission to travel to Zimbabwe, so I entered the country as a tourist and drove south from Bulawayo to the goldfields of the Great Dyke. I was following tens of thousands of Zimbabweans who, as the economy collapsed, headed to the gold-mining region of Matabeleland, hoping the red hills might give up something to live on. My goal was to get a firsthand look at the misery facing ordinary people in Zimbabwe today. But I had little notion of just how close I would get.

TO MAINTAIN MY PRETENSE AS A TOURIST, I would have been safer staying north, near the game parks and Victoria Falls. But Matabeleland is a microcosm of Zimbabwe's implosion. Thousands in the region are dying of malnutrition. Hundreds of thousands survive by trapping wild animals or bare-handed mining. When I arrived in the gold-rush town of West Nicholson, I met with a local miner in his bungalow. Several times during our 10-minute chat, he would step out for a few moments. It soon became clear why. When I emerged from his house, two plainclothes officers were waiting to detain me.

In the 1980s, Zimbabwe was the second largest economy in southern Africa. Millions of tourists visited each year to see hippos, lions and the awesome drama of Victoria Falls. And Zimbabwe--a nation of 11 million to 13 million people (nobody knows the precise number, partly because so many have fled) gave black Africans the best education and health care on the continent. But over the past two decades, Mugabe's single-minded protection of his power has devastated the economy and turned the country into a police state. Unemployment is at 80%, living standards are back to their 1953 levels, and the World Health Organization says life expectancy is 34 for women and 37 for men--the lowest in the world. Inflation hit 1,792.9% in February and is predicted to reach 3,700% by year's end. (A currency free fall of that magnitude means, for instance, that in nominal terms, a single brick today costs more than a three-bedroom house with a swimming pool did in 1990.)

Arriving in the country is like touching down the day after a cataclysm--a place where the clocks have stopped. There are roads but few cars, and roadside railings are torn up at the stumps. The shops feature bare shelves and price boards for imaginary products that are changed three times a day. Telephones don't work, the power is out, and blackened factory stacks spew no smoke. People loll in the streets with nothing to do and nowhere to go, even if there were a way to get there. "What do people eat?" I asked a lawyer I met. "Good question," he replied.

The one thing Zimbabwe is in no danger of running out of is pictures of "Comrade" Robert Gabriel Mugabe. He looks down from framed photographs in every store, gas station and government office, a small man in gold glasses. When I landed in Zimbabwe, he was front-page news in every newspaper, railing against the West, which could "go hang" for plotting "monkey business" against his country, and members of the opposition, who "will get bashed." A few weeks earlier, I caught a television interview on his 83rd birthday. "Some people say I am a dictator," he said at his 25-bedroom villa in the capital, Harare, complete with Italian-marble bathrooms and roof tiles from Shanghai. "My own people say I am handsome."

MY 10-MINUTE CONVERSATION WITH THE miner in West Nicholson turned out to be my last interview. The plainclothes officers brought me to the West Nicholson police station, where I spent the night. The next day I was driven north to the provincial police headquarters at Gwanda. My escorts accused me of planning to write "negative" stories about Zimbabwe--as if arresting me would dispose me to more positive stories--and carried with them a report from West Nicholson's police chief describing me as a "dedicated journalist on a clandestine mission."

At Gwanda, I was interrogated by a series of detectives and was denied a lawyer and a phone call. Officers crowded in to see me. They were excited. One said he wanted to "manhandle" me. Two others grinned and bounced before me, trying to make me flinch. The detective in charge of my case introduced himself as "Moyo" and disclosed that he approved of a beating if the crime warranted it. I was driven to the prosecutors' office and charged with breaching sections 79 and 80, Chapter 10: 27, of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, "working as a journalist without accreditation." The maximum sentence was two years.

"Do you think I can just come to your country, start asking questions and write anything I want?" demanded an officer. Nobody knew I was here, I replied. Nobody knew what was happening to me. I didn't know what was happening to me. Could I call someone? Moyo ignored me. His officers expressed outrage at my nerve.

The only feature in my cell aside from walls and bars was an iron shackling ring in the floor. Prisoners at Gwanda are paraded every morning before the station's officers and, one by one, interrogated and slapped, humiliated. Some of my fellow prisoners had been arrested for trapping porcupines in the forest, selling gasoline, stealing--petty offenses committed in desperate efforts to feed their families. A piece of graffiti on the wall read, P. MOYO WAS HERE FOR STANDING.

The prisoners weren't the only ones living in fear. Junior officers barely opened their mouths. Ranking officers like Moyo would not grant me permission to visit the toilet or brush my teeth without approval from their superiors. "I am just a worker," I heard the police-station chief say. "There are people above me." The jailers' anxiety about their bosses made them even more determined to demand respect from their prisoners. Moyo considered my demand for a lawyer insulting. "I am educated," he said. "And you do not cooperate." The walls of his office made clear that the regime saw the opposition less as a threat than an affront. The top crime on a list hanging above Moyo's desk was "insulting or undermining the authority of the President."

In truth, Zimbabwe's opposition remains weak. The main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (M.D.C.), peaked in 2002, when leader Morgan Tsvangirai polled 42% to Mugabe's 56% in presidential elections. Since then the anti-Mugabe movement has foundered because of infighting and intimidation. Mugabe has unleashed a campaign of beatings, mass arrests and shootings of his political opponents. On March 11, state police attacked a joint M.D.C.-Christian march. Tsvangirai was taken into custody and beaten savagely. Since 2000, Mugabe has also encouraged mobs to invade farms owned by the country's remaining white residents, who number in the tens of thousands and mainly back the opposition. The M.D.C.'s principal base is in the urban slums, so Mugabe destroyed many of them, forcing millions of shanty dwellers into the streets or exile. The opposition called a general strike on April 2, but it's hard for a strike to have much impact when many of its potential supporters are outside the country.

Mugabe has also targeted some longstanding foreign adversaries. The West, particularly Britain and the U.S., is plotting to recolonize Zimbabwe, he says. That paranoia courses through every level of the country's security apparatus. A large map in Inspector Moyo's office highlighted in red "areas of political activity"--which turned out to be every town or large village. A directive on the wall reminded him his job was to "investigate all cases of a political nature, suppress all civil commotion and gather political intelligence." There was even a detailed procedure in case the station ever came under attack. Fear and vigilance combined in an obsession with paperwork. Every remark I made was typed in triplicate. I was fingerprinted five times.

Moyo seemed to realize he was working for the bad guys. "The country is ruined," he said one day. Shame fueled his need for respect. He was haunted by the prospect of someday being called to account for the abuses he has overseen. "You cannot say anything against me," he would say. Mugabe's greatest trick is to make sure people fear him more than they hate him, and hate themselves most of all.

For all of Zimbabwe's privations, Mugabe's hold on power seems unlikely to slip anytime soon. On my first day in jail, a heads-of-government Southern African Development Community summit met in Tanzania. In its ranks were other veterans of the fight against colonialism, like South African President Thabo Mbeki, many of whose supporters sympathize with Mugabe's demonization of the West as racist. Despite worldwide calls for censure, the conference refused to condemn Mugabe's leadership and affirmed Zimbabwe's right to noninterference. Mbeki was asked to act as mediator between the government and the opposition, but Mbeki told the Financial Times, "Whether we succeed or not is up to the Zimbabwean leadership. None of us in the region has any power to force the Zimbabweans to agree." The next day Zimbabwe's ruling party, the Zanu-PF, endorsed Mugabe as its candidate for the 2008 presidential election.

I STUDIED THE MAPS ON MOYO'S WALLS FOR escape routes into South Africa or Botswana. What encouraged me was that I would hardly be the first to flee Zimbabwe. There are no reliable estimates of how much of the original population has left. Some estimates range from 2 million to 4 million; South Africans reckon they host 1 million to 2 million refugees. Shantytowns with names like Little Harare and Zimtown have sprung up outside cities across Africa. The stories their inhabitants tell--of risking crocodiles in the Limpopo River and lions in South Africa's Kruger National Park in their bid to escape--speak of desperation. They also illuminate why any recovery in Zimbabwe will be a long time coming. "It's a brain drain," says Archbishop Pius Ncube, a prominent government critic based in Bulawayo. "All the intelligent people--the doctors, the lawyers, the teachers--have left." Through the bars of my cell, wardens would quietly ask if I could help them find jobs in London.

I began to see my captors as victims as much as persecutors. Many had not been paid. A drive to Bulawayo, ostensibly to search my hotel room, became a shopping trip as five officers crammed the car and spent the day hunting roadside stalls for cheap tomatoes, queuing at gas stations and ATMs, seeking out a country butcher with a reputation for value. "I cannot lie to you. The situation is very bad," said Moyo. "You can see for yourself."

On my fifth day in detention, I was taken to court. En route, Moyo took me to a café for my first meal since my arrest. I was amazed to see an English breakfast on offer: sausages, eggs, toast, coffee. I hungrily ordered and sat down--only to see Moyo sit at an adjacent table. I beckoned to him, but, head down, he demurred. A man asked to share my table and introduced himself as a manager for the Christian relief organization World Vision. I asked him about this year's harvest. "There's zero," he said. "No crop. Millions of hungry people, and just our maize sacks to feed them."

Court took 10 minutes. I pleaded guilty and was fined 100 Zimbabwean dollars--at present values, half a U.S. cent. Outside, two men in suits and sunglasses, possibly secret-service agents, watched as I left court. Though the local authorities had let me go, there was no guarantee I would avoid being interrogated again by Mugabe's secret police. I jumped in my rental car and, calculating that the authorities would expect me to head south to South Africa or west to Botswana, drove 373 miles north to Zambia. An hour after nightfall, the road became muddy. It seemed to be raining. A rumbling filled the air. I looked left, and there, silver in the moonlight, framed between two cliffs, was Victoria Falls. I was out.

My last night in jail was a Sunday. I was falling asleep on the floor when I felt a low harmony echoing up through the concrete of the cell next door. There was bass, tenor and rhythm. For two hours, prisoners filled the jail with music. These were songs of suffering and acceptance, of beauty and soul undiminished.

Find this article at:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1609808,00.html

From an Illicit Foreign Reporter in ZImbabwe (In Yesterday's Economist)

"Robert Mugabe:  Man or Monster" is the title of a series of dispatches by an undercover reporter for the Economist who visited Zimbabwe recently.

He meets with, among others, Jonathan Moyo at his home (who, for the reporter, is not entirely convincing, when he states with an unmistakeable tone of authority that "Mugabe will be gone within a year").

He also meets "an opposition leader at a trendy cafe" whom the reporter silently reproaches (he admits, "entirely unfairly") to himself for "drinking capuccino when there is a dictator to unseat."

Entirely unfair, to say the least, at a time when the Mugabe regime is midstream in a meticulously calculated and ruthlessly executed plan to eliminate the main opposition party, Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Unfortunately, this illicit reporter spends too little time exposing the ongoing campaign of terror that consists of abductions, torture and arbitrary arrests of hundreds of activists from the democratic civil society movement and political parties.

In fact this wave of repression has spread and is now targetted not only to known civil society and MDC members of the democratic forces but to ordinary blokes on the street, especially in high density areas.

An example of this new generalization of the state-sponsored terror hit particularly close to home when my own night guard, who lives in Chitungwiza, was accosted last week by 2 men who demanded that he produce his ZANU-PF card and, when he was not able to do so, beat him to a pulp with metal bars.   He received 7 stitches to the head.

Our illicit reporter and many of his brethren in the international media are astoundlingly derelict in their duty to report on the ongoing and systematic campaign of violence and repression that Robert Mugabe and his thugs are directing to anyone suspected of potentially having opposition sympathies. 

CIO officers and other of Mugabe's thugs have been telling activists, as they beat them, that they have the names of all MDC and civil society officers, from top to bottom and that, in the words of one of the ZANU PF sadists, "by the end of June, we will have tortured every member of Tsvangirai's MDC."

We will post photos of some of Mugabe's torture victims since March 11th in later posts on this blog as well as details with regard to the numbers of persons arrested, beaten, tortured, kidnapped and killed in the hopes that the members of the fourth estate will feel moved to report on this appalling reign of terror.

The illicit Economist reporter's article can be linked to here.

The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) Also Says: "No New Elections without a new democratic constitution."

No New Elections without a new democratic constitution

NCA believes in the cause of a new, democratic and people driven constitution. All Zimbabweans must join the cause for a new constitution. It is only with a new constitution that Zimbabweans can enjoy full freedom and can be able to participate in free and fair elections. As the current government is already talking of the 2008 parliamentary and presidential elections, the NCA wishes to remind Zimbabweans that there can be no Free and Fair elections without a new constitution. Here are the illustrations:

§The current constitution gives too much power to the president. The president can use his sweeping powers to subvert the people’s electoral wishes. A new constitution will take away such dangerous powers from an individual.

§The current constitution creates a partial Electoral Supervisory Commission. For there to be a free and fair electoral system, there is urgent need for a democratic constitution to allow for the creation of an Independent Electoral Commission that can run elections on an impartial basis.

§The current constitution does not guarantee media freedom and diversity. A democratic constitution will give room for media freedom and diversity in electoral coverage and will not accommodate AIPPA.

§The current constitution does not allow for free political activity such as free campaigning and gives room to laws like POSA.

§As a result of the current constitution, which gives too much power to the president and his ministers, the Judiciary has been deprived of independence in solving election disputes. A people centred democratic constitution will guarantee the courts independence and effectiveness in the settling of electoral disputes.

§The current constitution provides for a “winner takes all” electoral system. This has given room for one party dictatorship. A democratic constitution will provide for proportional representation in parliament so that the House can effectively represent the interests if different social and political groups.

§The current constitution creates a weak parliament. A democratic constitution will establish Parliament as an institution representing People power and will accord parliament the powers and status befitting a house of representatives elected by the people.

§Zimbabwean police is partisan and they are amongst the perpetrators of violence and there is need to define their role in any election.

When these issues are considered, it becomes clear that the conduct and outcome of elections is largely centred on the country’s broader constitutional framework. In order to have meaningful and democratic electoral reform in Zimbabwe, the broader constitutional question must first be addressed. A democratic electoral system must have a democratic constitution as basis. _____________________________________________________
Madock Chivasa
Spokesperson
National Constitutional Assembly (Zimbabwe)
348 Herbert Chitepo Avenue
Harare, Zimbabwe
Tel: +263 4 736338
Cel: +263 2 91 904 492
Fax: +263 4 721146
Web: www.ncazimbabwe.org

Towards a negotiated settlement In Zimbabwe: A position paper prepared by the Peoples’ Policy Committee (PPC) to His Excellency the President of the Republic of South Africa in his capacity as the mediator to the crises in Zimbabwe

The following is a position paper prepared by a London-based group of Zimbabwe exiles addressed to Thabo Mbeki.  It contains some good ideas but I would have thought that the issue of elections should have been the primary focus in any document proffering advice to Mr. Mbeki.  It is crucial that Mr. Mbeki's focus in his role as mediator be on assuring that the minimum (or fundamental as some like to call them) requirements for free and fair presidential elections in 2008 in ZImbabwe be established.  Those conditions are well known, having been set our by SADC itself (the "SADC priciples for free and fair elections') and having been elaborated upon by the Zimbabwe Elections Support Network. 

Demanding a new constituion before 2008 elections may be a good bargaining position but there are few who appear to believe that it is actually an attainable goal--even if the regime were operating on good faith and desirous of "leveling the playing field"--which we know that it is not.

Towards a negotiated settlement
In Zimbabwe:

A position paper prepared by the Peoples’ Policy Committee (PPC) to His Excellency the President of the Republic of South Africa in his capacity as the mediator to the crises in Zimbabwe.

1. Introduction

Following the SADC extraordinary summit held in Tanzania on 28 March 2007, the People’s Policy Committee (PPC) which is a network of Zimbabweans based in the UK, would like to put forward its preferred position as regards the proposed ‘SADC Initiative’.  We begin with a tacit acceptance that Zimbabwe’s crisis is an African problem requiring an African solution. The time has come for new, concrete proposals, promoted by African leaders and implemented by Zimbabweans from all political and ideological hues, to restore hope to Zimbabwe. On that note, PPC welcomes SADC’s decision to appoint President Thabo Mbeki as the mediator to the actors in the protracted social conflict in Zimbabwe. It is hoped that his mediation shall tame the hydra of violence currently sweeping across the country and also usher in a new democratic dispensation. This position paper is premised on the assumption that His Excellency President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa is willing to consider submissions  from voices other than those stakeholders so far invited to attend the consultative meetings in South Africa. Given the extraordinary and grave conditions now obtaining in Zimbabwe and the significant population of Zimbabwean exiles living here in the UK some of whom are members of our pressure group on whose behalf we are acting, it would be remiss of us not to make appropriate representations to the SADC-initiated process. The major issues and expected minimum outcomes from the process are largely a common cause. Accordingly, we restrict our inputs to those matters the further resolution of which will, in our assessment and in  light of our country’s chequered history, help create and deliver more enduring value, peace and national integration to all the people of Zimbabwe. In this context we would therefore have to address such issues as the aim of the negotiations, the creation of an enabling environment for genuine negotiations, the nature of the mechanisms for negotiation and therefore the question who would sit at the negotiating table, the cessation of human rights abuses, the possibility of the formation of a transitional government, the duration of the negotiations and the role of the international community in the negotiated resolution of the crises in Zimbabwe.

2. Multilateral negotiations

The People’s Policy Committee (PPC) would like to submit to the mediator that the problem of Zimbabwe is so huge such that inter-party dialogue would be a limited an approach to it. It is hereby proposed that if any negotiations are to take place to end the hostilities and build durable peace and democracy in Zimbabwe, then those negotiations including the pre-negotiation agenda-setting phase should be all inclusive. It is the view of PPC that the mediator should extend the consultative informal talks to the members of the civil society, church, professional bodies and any other stakeholders who are keen to make such positive interventions in Zimbabwe. The perception that only the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) factions and the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU PF) party legitimately represent the aspirations of the people of Zimbabwe and should therefore be engaged on the negotiations is incorrect. A case exists for an all-inclusive process comparable to that which ushered independence and democracy to South Africa in 1994. In the context of Zimbabwe, this would bring together the coalition of democratic forces currently operating under the Save Zimbabwe Campaign in addition to the ruling party and external observers from UN, AU and SADC. If the press reports emanating from Pretoria are anything to go by, PPC would unequivocally and unreservedly endorse the mediator’s stance on insisting on a broad-based crisis resolution approach.

3.  Enabling Conditions for Negotiations

In consonant with other stakeholders, PPC strongly affirms the position that formal talks should  only take place after the government has repealed some repressive pieces of legislation such as the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) as well as the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA).On that note, the government  should drop charges and release a legion of activists who are illegally being held in police cells on charges based on these unconstitutional laws. It is also the submission of PPC that the constitutional amendments that have been proposed by the ruling party should give way to the wholesale constitutional reform as enunciated in section 4 of this position paper. In furtherance of this constitutional condition, PPC would like to join many other voices including the ‘Save Zimbabwe Campaign’ in calling for the new constitution before the next presidential and parliamentary elections. As a matter of urgency the state should renounce violence on its citizens, stop abductions of activists and opposition members as well as refrain police brutality against innocent citizens. It is the considered view of the PPC that the EU should not lift the targeted sanctions on the ruling elite until the formal negotiations are underway and the government has demonstrated fully its commitment to allow a democratic transition process to take place in the country. PPC would also like to challenge the international community to enable all the actors, large and small with resources for them to participate fully at levels of the crisis resolution process.

4. A New Democratic Constitution

The position of the PPC is that the genealogy of the current problems in Zimbabwe is traceable to the National Constitution. Any diagnosis and prescription to the crisis which preclude the constitution is flawed and therefore irrelevant. The Lancaster House constitution was not cast on stone. Indeed it had been the expectation that in time, a new home grown supreme law of the land would be enacted by the people of Zimbabwe themselves in order to satisfy their local needs and realize their national aspirations. This is not the same thing as the piecemeal re-branding of the same document undertaken by the incumbent government over the years to satisfy its narrow partisan interests of keeping power at all costs. That there are serious limitations and flaws in the current Lancaster House Constitution and that these have given rise to issues of governance is widely accepted.  More compelling however is the fact that this constitution has resulted in a highly centralised unitary system of government which we submit is unsuitable for a future democratic Zimbabwe. That the incumbent government has manipulated the constitution to entrench itself and the interests of its constituents is accepted but this is only a symptom of a problem arising from use of an inappropriate constitutional model coupled with individual greed and propensity for excesses. Re-branding of the existing constitution in the hope that a new government emerging from next year’s elections would act in good faith and achieve enduring national integration is too large a risk to take now bearing in mind the genocide and trauma suffered by minority ethnic groups particularly the Ndebele in south western Zimbabwe from 1982 – 1987, the so called ‘Operation Clean Up’ which left 700 000 people homeless and the so called Chimurenga 3 which crushed the agriculture sector. It is for these reasons that PPC advocates for the mediator to help the various actors in Zimbabwe to constitute an ‘All Stakeholders Convention’ (ASC) to work out a new constitutional framework that shall usher in a new democratic order in the country. Participatory constitution making is today a fact of constitutional life as well as a good in itself. A democratic constitution-making process is critical to the strength, acceptability, and legitimacy of the new era in Zimbabwe.Inorder to avoid the recurrence of the current problems in the future PPC strongly advocates for a people driven constitution which shall take into account the histories, cultures, grievances and aspirations of all its citizens. In our view, it is only through effective decentralization of authority to autonomous regions/provinces in so doing creating self-perpetuating institutions such as those that would emerge under our recommended union constitutional blueprint, would human rights and equality of all Zimbabweans be adequately protected and entrenched. Experience in new democracies and old, demonstrates that if human rights are not adequately protected initially, it will be difficult to do so later.

• We further recommend that the president’s term of office be limited to a maximum of two five year terms

• Ministers appointed under the new constitution should be subject to confirmation by parliament both at central and provincial governments’ level.

• The judiciary must be an independent branch of government and not be under the Ministry of Justice. The judiciary should control its financial and administrative affairs free from executive involvement, though necessarily subject to parliament’s ultimate control over the budget.

• The agreed constitution should be subjected to approval by the people through a referendum supervised by SADC and the African Union and observed by the international community.

• The agreed constitution should be subject to review by an expert commission at ten year intervals.

•  The new Constitution must provide representative, accountable and multiparty government; respect for the rule of law; and the promotion of the fundamental human rights of all Zimbabweans.

5. Transitional Processes

PPC would like to propose the following sequence as a roadmap towards the resolution of the crises in Zimbabwe:

Prenegotiation Phase: - The mediator to consult the actors across the spectrum in order to set the agenda for the formal negotiations. These consultations can take the form of secret talks as already been happening but they should as a matter of principle be open to all stakeholder in Zimbabwe. The Prenegotiations are viewed by PPC as meant for bridging the chasm that lie across the various actors; the outcome of these meetings should be made known to the public at the appropriate time.

All Stakeholders Convention (ASC):- An All Stakeholders Convention composed  of civil society, political parties, media , faith-based organisations, women , youths and student movements as well as all sectors of society  that are willing to contribute to this process should be constituted. The ASC should be organised into working groups so as to deal conclusively with all the critical issues in the crisis. PPC would like to propose the following working groups; (a) constitutional reform (b) land reform (c)  electoral reform  (d) truth recovery (e) economic recovery. The working groups would report to ASC for debate and approval  The talks should lead to a power-sharing agreement on a transitional government, including opposition and civil society in key government posts, a new constitution, demilitarisation of state institutions, a new voters roll, a program of administrative and legislative reform guaranteeing genuinely free and fair elections on an agreed schedule and emergency economic recovery measures that could lead to full resumption of external financial support  after elections. The stakeholders should agree on the composition and establishment of an interim authority to oversee the country's transition to democracy.

Dissolution of Parliament: - Incumbent president’s departure from office when his term expires in March 2008 followed by the takeover by an interim government. An interim government would take responsibility for the basic administrative functions of the state until a new government is elected later in the process. Constitutional amendments such as are required to facilitate the creation of an interim government should be passed by the current parliament in the spirit of the SADC-led Initiative.  As the process of normalising the constitutional and political situation develops, the international community should withdraw the targeted sanctions and other restrictions applying to the Zimbabwean government and initiate steps to assist in restoring democratic order and economic recovery in Zimbabwe.

Interim Government: - The All Stakeholders Convention should establish a transitional government, which should include the members of the opposition, civil society and the ruling party and provide for a rotating transitional presidency.
The mandate of the Interim government should include the following among others:
 organisation of a referendum for a new constitution and drawing up of a new voters roll; and

 Implementation of the transitional  articles of the new constitution

 Professionalisation of security and uniformed forces

 Repatriation of Zimbabwean community in the diaspora

The international community should be available to provide assistance to this process when required by the Zimbabwean negotiators. PPC would recommend that the African Union Force be deployed to give protection to the Interim Government.

Elections:- Following the ratification of the new Constitution, preparations should begin for new elections to be held no later than the end of 2008.The elections should be held under a new democratic constitution. The new constitution should provide for an Independent Delimitation Commission, ‘Independent Electoral Commission’, Media and Information Commission as well as the Security and Defense Commission all of which should be constituted in time to run both the Referendum and the Presidential/parliamentary elections. These elections should be based on the SADC principles and standards of holding democratic, free and fair elections. In that regard, the current electoral laws should be amended to meet the SADC principles and standards. The electoral reforms should also provide for the diasporans vote. An estimated 4 million Zimbabwean adults now live in exile outside Zimbabwe and have been disenfranchised by the incumbent government. PPC recommends that suitable arrangements be made to restore in full the voting rights of this community in time for the referendum as well as the parliamentary and presidential elections. International observers should be present to monitor the elections, to oversee the transition from the interim government to the new elected government, and to ensure that the elections are free and fair.

6. Truth recovery process

PPC would like to put it forward to the mediator that, for the purposes of building sustainable democracy in a failed state such as Zimbabwe, there is a need for a truth recovery process. While accepting the genuine doubts and fears around the issue of 'Truth', it is clear that many victims and survivors of the crises in Zimbabwe believe that some formal collective examination and acknowledgement of the past is necessary for them to find closure. The idea of truth recovery processes is based on the concept of 'transition', from crisis to peace or from one government to another. At its most basic, a truth process is meant to mark the end of one difficult era and the beginning of a new and better one. It is completely unacceptable, disrespectful and insensitive for any political leader to arrogate or appropriate to himself/herself the right to grant pardon to individuals that sponsored and committed human rights atrocities and state sponsored terrorism since independence in 1980. With or without a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, only the people of Zimbabwe can determine whether or not to take legal action against those who committed crimes against humanity and genocide against defenseless citizens. We would caution that this is a highly delicate matter which if not handled sensibly, could trigger conflict and war in future. The political leadership should honestly and publicly acknowledge responsibility for past political violence due to their acts of omission and commission. This would be seen as the first and necessary step having the potentiality of a larger process of truth recovery. When acknowledgement is forthcoming, we recommend that measured, inclusive and in-depth consideration be given to establishing an appropriate and unique truth recovery process. For this to develop, a team with local and international expertise should be established using a fair and transparent method to explore the specific feasibility of such a process.

The specific purpose of a truth recovery process:

• Promote reconciliation, peace and healing; and to reduce tensions resulting from past violence;
•
Clarify and acknowledge as much unresolved truth about the past as possible;
Respond to the needs and interests of victims;
•
Contribute to justice in a broad sense, ensure accountability and responsibility for past actions from organisations and institutions, as well as potentially from individuals;
•
Identify the responsibilities of the State, of military and police, and of other institutions and organisations for the violence of the past; and to make recommendations for change that will reduce the likelihood of future conflict.

The truth recovery process can take the form any of the following:

Truth and Justice Commission
Historical Clarification Commission 
Truth and Reconciliation Commission

7. Reconstruction

The new government would face the daunting challenge of entrenching democracy and peace, rebuilding the battered economy and resuscitating collapsed social services. The negotiations should thus, come up with an economic recovery framework. The economic reconstruction is crucial to restoring order and providing social security for the generality of the population. Without it, the negotiated settlement will be meaningless to the general public. PPC would like to recommend the implementation of an emergency economic recovery plan to curb inflation, restore donor and foreign investor confidence and boost mining and agricultural production, including establishment of a Land Commission with a strong technocratic base and wide representation of Zimbabwean stakeholders to recommend policies aimed at ending the land crisis. To this end PPC would like the negotiators to engage with the Brettonwoods institutions at various levels of the negotiation process inorder to build the confidence for their engagement in the reconstruction phase of this conflict resolution process.

10. Conclusion
In lieu of conclusion, PPC would like to ask the mediator to invest in its belief because it is made in good faith for the benefit of present and future generations of Zimbabwe. We further recommend that you take into account views from a broad cross section of Zimbabweans both individuals and groups. We highly value and appreciate the leading role that the SADC and the South African government are playing in trying to reach a negotiated settlement in Zimbabwe, and hope that this will continue under the form of an All Stakeholders Convention (ASC) to establish a constitutional order. Should the government of Zimbabwe maintain its strategy of terror, human rights abuses, violation of democratic principles, and their disrespect of the rule of law by violently repressing popular pressure for a democratic constitution, free and fair elections, we challenge the SADC, AU, and all other international institutions to completely isolate it. When all is said and done, we recognise that history does not offer a nation many such moments as one that our beloved Zimbabwe now has to rediscover its identity and sovereignty by among other things writing a new people driven constitution.
We thank you for this opportunity.

[1]PPC/DOC/14/04/07

Eddie Cross on the Economic Collapse: "Mr. Mbeki Better Understand That He Is Running Out of Time."

(Received yesterday from the Zimbabwean Agricultural Economist, Eddie Cross.)

How much longer?

I set out in the following table the growth in prices [at an annualized rate] in a local supermarket over 12 months in the past year.

April 781%

May 1139%

June 992%

July 1050%

August 1283%

September 1026%

October 2285%

November 1875%

December 1895%

January 3425%

February 3298%

March 5202%

What is really scary are the results for the first week of April – 13 081 per cent!! I know there were other influences of this latest increase (it was Easter) but all the same there has been another huge jump in prices in April. Certainly more than in March and I do not think this supermarket owner would claim that the volume of his sales are rising like this!

If we add to this the outturn of the worst agricultural season in perhaps 50 years (we have grown barely 20 per cent of our food requirements), the near collapse of the mining industry under the burden of completely unrealistic exchange rates (the official exchange rate is 1,25 per cent of the market

rate) and a nonsensical gold price of Z$16 000 a gram when the market price is nearer half a million dollars a gram in the market. The continued, even accelerated collapse of industry and the almost complete absence of tourists and you get the picture of an economy in even deeper trouble than last year.

The IMF has revised its estimates of the decline in our GDP but even that does not reflect what is happening right now. The response of the government has been catastrophic – the Governor of the Reserve Bank has abandoned any attempt to influence exchange rates – he simply handed that over to the Minister of Finance who is the most ignorant Minister we have had in that portfolio since independence. The Ministry of Industry is trying to hold prices down and we have not seen sugar for three weeks, cooking oil has all but disappeared and bread is selling at ten times the controlled price. The Statistics office simply suspended publication of the inflation rate, knowing full well that the rate for March – even after they had massaged the figures and used the fictional controlled prices for key commodities, had surged to new heights. My personal view is that inflation in March was about 4000 per cent for the average consumer in Zimbabwe.

To compound the crisis the Customs department is now demanding payment of import duties in hard currencies. To give you an idea of just what that means my son imported a second hand vehicle from the Far East a month ago. He paid US$8000 and Z$1,7 million for the vehicle. If he were to try and do that deal today he would have to pay US$6 800 in import duties – the market rate for that would be Z$136 million. In addition he would have had to find the additional currency because he could not get it from the Bank.

The immediate effect was a huge accumulation of vehicles and goods at the border – people could not clear their imports, as the foreign exchange is simply not available. So essential imports that have been keeping the country going are now being strangled by the new regulations. This will make conditions very much more difficult for all Zimbabweans – unless of course you belong to the elite in power in which case you get your foreign exchange at less than 2 per cent of its value and a new vehicle imported from South Africa will cost you about US$85 – with import duty.

Does this mean anything to the regime here – on the surface, no! On Independence Day we saw the usual performance from Mr. Mugabe – the MDC were the puppets of the western powers, our economic problems are caused by the denial of my right to shop in London (targeted sanctions) and our business leaders are "greedy".

More seriously he made no reference to the SADC initiative to resolve our crisis, he made no concessions to the mediation of Mr. Mbeki. He swore ("on his ancestors grave" – about the strongest term a Shona leader can use) that he would "never" allow the MDC to come to power. Quite a statement for a man whose sole constituency is now about 2000 individuals living the life of Riley in a starving nation and some 40 000 thugs on government payroll whose task it is to beat and bludgeon the perceived enemies of Zanu PF in preparation for another farcical election.

For the benefit of those who will have read the SADC statement that Mugabe was elected democratically in 2002 we need to remind ourselves of that event which was the turning point in his relations with other genuine democracies around the world.

In the 2002 presidential elections the regime here used massive violence and intimidation in the run up to the election. Food was rationed only to those who supported Mugabe in rural areas. He disfranchised at least 500 000 voters prior to the election and in the election itself the authorities fabricated up to 800 000 votes and allowed 53 000 Zanu PF functionaries to vote more than once. In addition the postal ballot was clearly manipulated with the armed forces voting under supervision and some 400 000 potential MDC supporters were denied the vote on the day when polling stations closed without registering their votes.

Mugabe claimed he won the election by 400 000 votes and this point of view was faithfully endorsed by South Africa and the AU – but not be the SADC observer mission. Other observers rejected the result as a travesty. MDC challenged the result in the Courts and have yet to get a hearing. Mugabe lost his status as a democratically elected leader. Prior to the election the armed forces said they would not accept the result if Mugabe was not elected and since then they have been rewarded with heavy salary increments and perks and are now effectively running the country. Cabinet and Parliament are largely sidelined in the exercise of power.

If nothing is done soon to turn this situation around we are headed for a catastrophe – and I do not think that is too strong a word. Already 3 million Zimbabweans are in South Africa, 80 per cent illegally. Their numbers are rising by the day and I would not be surprised if another million flee the country this winter. Just on Thursday I spoke at a local meeting organised by Civil Society (Transparency International) on the subject of corruption in local authorities. Members of the audience who subsequently asked pointed questions about national politics or made statements suggesting that what we needed was regime change, were followed after the meeting and beaten. I spoke to three of them yesterday and sent one to a medical center for attention for what looked like a broken arm, the others had not eaten since the day before so we fed them then gave them money to get out of town. They were frightened for their lives.

Mr. Mbeki better understand that he is running out of time.

Eddie Cross

Bulawayo, 21st April 2007

From Yesterday's Zimbabwe Independent: Mbeki's Brother Strongly Condemns his Zimbabwe Policy.

President's brother condemns Zimbabwe policy

By Basildon Peta in Johannesburg

Published: 21 April 2007

The South African President Thabo Mbeki's softly-softly approach to Zimbabwe has earned a withering rebuke from his own brother, Moeletsi, who has condemned South Africa's ruling class for being the major obstacle to saving Zimbabwe from collapse. Mr Mbeki, who is a wealthy businessman who sits on the boards of various organisations, and is an analyst for one of Africa's largest banks, described his brother's policy as "a do- nothing scenario while appearing to be doing a lot". He spoke as President Mbeki vowed to maintain his quiet-diplomacy approach on Zimbabwe. Mr Mbeki was not impressed. President Mbeki was last month chosen by the regional Southern African Development Community (SADC) to mediate in Zimbabwe with a specific mandate to ensure next year's elections are free and fair. But he has maintained a deafening silence despite an outcry over electoral measures by Mr Mugabe. Delivering a lecture at the University of Pretoria's Centre for International Political Studies' Africa Dialogue series on Thursday, Moeletsi Mbeki described "South Africa's political elite" as the main "obstacle" to any efforts to save Zimbabwe from collapse. He said the South African government was doing so little to save Zimbabwe because the narrow interests of its ruling elite were not affected. It was the poor masses in South Africa who were bearing the brunt of Zimbabwe's collapse as they competed with millions of illegal immigrants for jobs and services. A quarter of Zimbabwe's population has fled to South Africa to escape poverty and deprivation at home, and illegal immigration is said to have increased dramatically since 11 March, when Zimbabwean police assaulted opposition leaders and kick-started a state sponsored orgy of violence against opposition officials. The President's brother said the national interest of ordinary South Africans was to see the restoration of Zimbabwe's economy to stop the influx of immigrants. He said that South Africa's ruling elite was propping up the Zimbabwean regime by calling it a democratic government when it was clearly a dictatorship. He even suggested that use of force by South Africa to save Zimbabwe from collapse was an option because of the dangers that a collapsed Zimbabwe posed to its neighbour. Mr Mbeki also partly attributed the Zimbabwe crisis to the "neo-states" left behind by the Western colonial powers after they were granted independence. He said: "The South African government needs to show a lot more energy in dissuading Zanu PF [Zimbabwe's ruling party] from brutalising the opposition. We need to send a message across that an opposition in a democratic country has a right to exist and has the right to participate in activities." It is unlikely that President Mbeki, who has repeatedly vowed to maintain quiet diplomacy instead of counterproductive "megaphone diplomacy" will take his brother's advice.

The "Genocide Olympics" and the "Genocide World Cup."

Zoot has been traveling during the past 2 weeks which explains this unprecedented (since October 2006!) extended silence!

But events in Zimbabwe have not been quiet.  Others have been doing a creditable job chronicling the Mugabe regime's continuing reign of terror consisting of abductions, torture, beatings and arbitrary arrests, the most brutal examples of which began on March 11th with the vicious assault on opposition MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai, and many others, as they attempted to attend a peaceful prayer meeting in Harare.

World media attention to this outrageous abuse of Mugabe regime power was, for a period of around 3 weeks, excellent.  However, now that the ZANU-PF and CIO thugs have begun targeting middle and lower level activists in the democratic civil society and in democratic political opposition parties, most often via nighttime raids of their homes that result in abductions, beatings, and arbitrary arrests, international media coverage has petered out to a great extent.

More on Mugabe's torture squads in upcoming posts. 

But the issue we would like to address today has to do with South Africa and Thabo Mbeki and, in particular, his apparently reluctant role as SADC-designated mediator in the Zimbabwe crisis--and an idea for how pressure can be brought to bear on him to take a more robust and serious interest in his SADC-mandated role as Zimbabwe mediator.

Following several weeks of unrelenting violence by the Mugabe regime following the March 11th prayer meeting, the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), called an extraordinary meeting in Dar e Salaam, whose main purpose was to discuss the Zimbabwe crisis.  Although Mugabe attempted, in a geriatric saunter with clenched fist, to proclaim victory after the meeting--claiming that "not even one" of his fellow Southern African presidents had criticized him—it is clear that, behind closed doors, a very clear message was delivered by SADC to Mugabe.  That message consisted of telling him that he had this time gone too far in sanctioning what amounted to the attempted murder of the opposition leader, the rounding up of hundreds of civil society pro-democracy activists and the documented beating and torture of many of those.

The most concrete outcome of course was the naming of Mbeki as mediator.  There is ample reason to doubt that Mr. Mbeki will take his role seriously, based on his past invertebrate stance with regard to Mugabe. 

But there are also ways to bring pressure on him to undertake his role in a serious way and one way is to tell Mbeki that his country's bid to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup may be compromised if he continues to turn a blind eye to (some would say to be complicit with) the widespread human rights violations being committed by the Mugabe regime against its own people.

A recent article in the New York Times with regard to the pressure presently being brought on another country (China) that has much at stake as it prepares to host another important world athletic competition (the 2008 Olympics) with regard to its complicity in another situation of widespread human rights violations (Darfur), is instructive.

On March 18th, the American actress, Mia Farrow (who also serves as UNICEF's "Goodwill Ambassador"), published an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled "The Genocide Olympics".  In that piece, she called on her fellow American artist, Steven Spielberg, to use his influence (Steven Spielberg is serving as artistic advisor to the Chinese government for the Beijing Olympics) to call on the Chinese government to use its influence to urge Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to halt the genocide in its western Darfur region.

(The Washington Post may actually have coined the term "Genocide Olympics" in an editorial that appeared in its pages in December.)

Farrow warned Spielberg that he would go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing games, referring to the German dancer and film maker who gained notoriety when she made propaganda films for Hitler, if he did not speak out to China about Darfur.

Four days later, Mr. Spielberg sent a letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao asking him to do something about the genocide in Sudan through its influence with the Sudanese government.
According to the Times article, Hu sent a high level delegation to Khartoum 2 weeks ago to tell the Sudanese government to accept a U.N peacekeeping force.

As a colleague said to me last week, "it is a shame to have to get Hollywood involved" in order to push China to speak out against its strategic partner, Sudan. It might also be seen as a shame to have to use Hollywood (or to use football players with a social conscience?) to get Mbeki to do something about Zimbabwe. 

But just as the Beijing Olympics are too important to Hu, to allow a rogue regime like Sudan to ruin it for him and China through "guilt by association", as Hu and his apologists will probably see it, so the World Cup is too important to Mbeki for him to allow a rogue regime in Harare ruin the chances for him.

My colleague is correct to say that it is a shame that it took getting Hollywood involved to force China into acting with regard to its friend in Sudan and that it is similarly shameful that Mr. Mbeki would need the prospect of an "embarrassment" on his northern border that could potentially interfere with his plans to host the World Cup, to move him to act in a robust manner on Zimbabwe. But all methods that move us towards achieving the desired outcome of putting a stop to the violence and misery in both countries are fair and useful, I think. 

Because the massacre of hudreds of thousands of innocent Sudanese in Darfur and the slow death of hundreds of thousands of others in Zimbabwe are both much more than simply an embarrassment. 

They are crimes against humanity and genocide in the case of Sudan (some have also called the vast human cull in Zimbabwe a genocide too, a viewpoint with which we are in agreement) and it would be amoral and perverse that the 2 countries the most strategically placed to put an end to the violence in Darfur and Zimbabwe, respectively (China and South Africa, respectively), should be given a "pass" and allowed to peacefully pursue their glorious dreams of hosting the Olympics and World Cup.

Read the New York Times article here.

Arnold Tsunga in Today's washington Post: "Mugabe's Enablers."

Arnold Tsunga, President of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights has a fine op-ed piece in this morning's Washington Post entitled "Mugabe's Enablers," in which he calls to account the other Presidents from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) for their pandering to this bloody regime during the extraordinary session held in Dar e Salaam last week:

"When the heads of state of the Southern African Development Community convened last week in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to discuss the political situation in Zimbabwe, hopes among the Zimbabwean people ran high. President Robert Mugabe had recently extended his brutal efforts to crush dissent from his political opponents to include ordinary Zimbabweans. His ruling party left a trail of fractured bodies and two dead in its most recent crackdown.

With the economy in shreds and the tense political situation posing a security threat not only to Zimbabwe but potentially to its neighbors, too, there was an expectation that African leaders would finally act.

At the summit, however, the African leaders showed their indifference to the suffering that we ordinary people of Zimbabwe continue to endure. At the closing news conference, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete announced that he and his fellow heads of state were "in support of the government and people of Zimbabwe."

...Zimbabweans were left to wonder how neighboring governments can continue claiming to support the brutalizer and the brutalized at the same time."

Read Tsunga's whole op-ed piece.

U.S. Senator Barack Obama's Resolution Condemning Violent Actions of the Zimbabwe Regime Against Peaceful Pro Democracy Activists.

BILL TEXT
S Con Res 25
VERSION: INTRODUCED IN SENATE
March 29, 2007

110th CONGRESS

     1st Session

S. CON. RES. 25

Condemning the recent violent actions of the Government of <Zimbabwe> against peaceful opposition party activists and members of civil society.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

MARCH 29, 2007

Mr. OBAMA (for himself, Mr. BIDEN, Mr. FEINGOLD, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. KERRY, and Mr. DODD) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Condemning the recent violent actions of the Government of <Zimbabwe> against peaceful opposition party activists and members of civil society.

    Whereas in 2005 the Government of <Zimbabwe> launched Operation Murambatsvina (“Operation Throw Out the Trash”) against citizens in major cities and suburbs throughout <Zimbabwe>, depriving over 700,000 people of their homes, businesses, and livelihoods;

    Whereas on March 11, 2007, opposition party activists and members of civil society attempted to hold a peaceful prayer meeting to protest the economic and political crisis engulfing <Zimbabwe>, where inflation is running over 1,700 percent and unemployment stands at 80 percent and in response to President Robert Mugabe’s announcement that he intends to seek reelection in 2008 if nominated;

    Whereas opposition activist Gift Tandare died on March 11, 2007, as a result of being shot by police while attempting to attend the prayer meeting and Itai Manyeruke died on March 12, 2007, as a result of police beatings and was found in a morgue by his family on March 20, 2007;

    Whereas under the direction of President Robert Mugabe and the ZANU-PF government, police officers, security forces, and youth militia brutally assaulted the peaceful demonstrators and arrested opposition leaders and hundreds of civilians;

    Whereas Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangarai was brutally assaulted and suffered a fractured skull, lacerations, and major bruising; MDC member Sekai Holland, a 64-year old grandmother, suffered ruthless attacks at Highfield Police Station, which resulted in the breaking of her leg, knee, arm, and three ribs; fellow activist Grace Kwinje, age 33, also was brutally beaten, while part of one ear was ripped off; and Nelson Chamisa was badly injured by suspected state agents at Harare airport on March 18, 2007, when trying to board a plane for a meeting of European Union and <Africa>, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States lawmakers in Brussels, Belgium;

    Whereas <Zimbabwe>’s foreign minister warned Western diplomats that the Government of <Zimbabwe> would expel them if they gave support to the opposition, and said Western diplomats had gone too far by offering food and water to jailed opposition activists;

    Whereas victims of physical assault by the Government of <Zimbabwe> have been denied emergency medical transfer to hospitals in neighboring <South> <Africa>, where their wounds can be properly treated;

    Whereas those incarcerated by the Government of <Zimbabwe> were denied access to legal representatives and lawyers appearing at the jails to meet with detained clients were themselves threatened and intimidated;

    Whereas at the time of <Zimbabwe>’s independence, President Robert Mugabe was hailed as a liberator and <Zimbabwe> showed bright prospects for democracy, economic development, domestic reconciliation, and prosperity;

    Whereas President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF government continue to turn away from the promises of liberation and use state power to deny the people of <Zimbabwe> the freedom and prosperity they fought for and deserve;

    Whereas the staggering suffering brought about by the misrule of <Zimbabwe> has created a large-scale humanitarian crisis in which 3,500 people die each week from a combination of disease, hunger, neglect, and despair;

    Whereas the Chairman of the <African> Union, President Alpha Oumar Konare, expressed “great concern” about <Zimbabwe>’s crisis and called for the need for the scrupulous respect for human rights and democratic principles in <Zimbabwe>;

    Whereas the Southern <African> Development Community (SADC) Council of Non-governmental Organizations stated that “We believe that the crisis has reached a point where Zimbabweans need to be strongly persuaded and directly assisted to find an urgent solution to the crisis that affects the entire region.”;

    Whereas Zambian President, Levy Mwanawasa, has urged southern <Africa> to take a new approach to <Zimbabwe> instead of the failed “quiet diplomacy”, which he likened to a “sinking Titanic,” and stated that “quiet diplomacy has failed to help solve the political chaos and economic meltdown in <Zimbabwe>”;

    Whereas European Union and <African>, Caribbean, and Pacific lawmakers strongly condemned the latest attack on an opposition official in <Zimbabwe> and urged the government in Harare to cooperate with the political opposition to restore the rule of law; and

    Whereas United States Ambassador to <Zimbabwe>, Christopher Dell, warned that opposition to President Robert Mugabe had reached a tipping point because the people no longer feared the regime and believed they had nothing left to lose: Now, therefore, be it

      Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That—

              (1) it is the sense of Congress that    

                      (A) the state-sponsored violence taking place in <Zimbabwe> represents a serious violation of fundamental human rights and the rule of law and should be condemned by all responsible governments, civic organizations, religious leaders, and international bodies; and

                      (B) the Government of <Zimbabwe> has not lived up to its commitments as a signatory to the Constitutive Act of the <African> Union and <African> Charter of Human and Peoples Rights which enshrine commitment to human rights and good governance as foundational principles of <African> states; and   

              (2) Congress—   

                      (A) condemns the Government of <Zimbabwe>’s violent suppression of political and human rights through its police force, security forces, and youth militia that deliberately inflict gross physical harm, intimidation, and abuse on those legitimately protesting the failing policies of the government;      

                      (B) holds those individual police, security force members, and militia involved in abuse and torture responsible for the acts that they have committed; 

                      (C) condemns the harassment and intimidation of lawyers attempting to carry out their professional obligations to their clients and repeated failure by police to comply promptly with court decisions; 

                      (D) condemns the harassment of foreign officials, journalists, human rights workers, and others, including threatening their expulsion from the country if they continue to provide food and water to victims detained in prison and in police custody while in the hospital;   

                      (E) commends United States Ambassador Christopher Dell and other United States Government officials and foreign officials for their support to political detainees and victims of torture and abuse while in police custody or in medical care centers and encourages them to continue providing such support;   

                      (F) calls on the Government of <Zimbabwe> to cease immediately its violent campaign against fundamental human rights, to respect the courts and members of the legal profession, and to restore the rule of law while adhering to the principles embodied in an accountable democracy, including freedom of association and freedom of expression;      

                      (G) calls on the Government of <Zimbabwe> to cease illegitimate interference in travel abroad by its citizens, especially for humanitarian purposes; and

                      (H) calls on the leaders of the Southern <Africa> Development Community (SADC) and the <African> Union to consult urgently with all <Zimbabwe> stakeholders to intervene with the Government of <Zimbabwe while applying appropriate pressures to resolve the economic and political crisis.