If you are against the foreign Church Denominations influencing Zimbabwe's domestic policy please email the following and say so:

sgourdet@dom.disciples.org

media@zimbabwe-June27.com,

bshebeck@dom.disciples.org,

aeriej@ucc.org, rogersc@ucc.org,

ghaag@dom.disciples.org,

mcruzado@dom.disciples.org,

fortiz@dom.disciples.org,

dvargas@dom.disciples.org,

lcable@dom.disciples.org, aeriej@ucc.org,

selvarl@mchsi.com, arroyo@scncucc.org,

marveck@comcast.net,

glenjstewart@bellsouth.net,

cheryl@ccindiana.org, cecileg@ctucc.org,

janellebunn@soc-ucc.org

Ignorance always breeds more chaos. Wisdom about the use of God's word is knowing it does not come back void. When the word of God is used out of context or is misused for intended hidden agendas, then one should expect whatever the content of that word is to manifest. God is not mocked, He is faithful to perform His word, if we believe He will. I am against foreign Church Demonimations and governments inviting themselves into the issues of others and thus creating more problems for those who didn't ask. God is in control, and if we as Disciples of Christ believe that to be so, then why risk playing God and not trusting God to be who He is, The bible says in Mark 2: 4-5, "And when they could not come nigh unto Him for the press, they uncovered the roof where He was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. When Jesus SAW THEIR FAITH, He said unto the sick of palsy, Son thy sins be forgiven thee." Where is the faith, if we carry issues to God in prayer with faith of a mustard seed that God will move the mountain, will He not do so? God is faithful to His word. People are showing up in places God is not ordaining and hindering the salvation and helps of others. But to use the word of God in a way that is contradictory to circumstances can put others and ourselves in a bad way, because we unconsiously set ourselves up against God and His will. I only pray that the motive behind the prayer was genuine, because if not may the mercy of God be upon the heads of all involved. Email going out ASAP. May God have mercy and bless us all.

Thanks for the thoughtful article Rev. Ajabu, and thank you for the very thoughtful response, Ms. Edwards. The mainstream media machinery has taken a definite slant toward the situation in Zimbabwe and it is the responsibility of any organization to seek out the truth and pierce through the subterfuge. The country is being crippled by sanctions in order for a White minority to have control of the majority of land!

I recently heard that the Disciples of Christ removed the letter, but I think this action is far too passive. Why not discern the facts, correct the error of supporting the dominant political forces and take a stand for the sake of justice? This is a time for all of us who stand for what is right to become vocal. We ought to be about the business of putting pressure on our government to lift the sanctions. For myself, this is what I will do --- try to encourage others to join me in writing Bush to lift the sanctions in order to bring peace, justice, and order to Zimbabwe. And more importantly, it is time that the British and U.S. governments offer the financial help they once committed to in order for Zimbabwe to be truly independent. Since this action will likely not happen, and I apologize for my pessimism, it is the onus of religious, civic, and human rights organizations to organize to effect change in Zimbabwe. ct

Black Africa’s duty to help Zimbabwe defeat sanctions

By Chinweizu.
Talk at African Liberation Day Public Forum at Accra Polytechnic, 26May2008,
Organized by the PAN-AFRICAN COUNCIL

Greetings, Pan African comrades!!
I am here to remind us all of our Pan-Africanist duty to stand in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe in their present trials and tribulations.
May I remind you of Pan-Africanism’s Black Solidarity principle that, in Nyerere’s words, “as long as black people anywhere continue to be oppressed on the grounds of their color, black people everywhere must stand together in opposition to that oppression”.

In Zimbabwe for the last 8 years, the Black population has been under severe attack by the imperialist white power enemies of Black Africa, namely the UK, the USA and the EU. The people of Zimbabwe need our Pan-African help and solidarity against an economic war inflicted on them through sanctions allegedly targeted at only their leaders.

Sanctions have crippled the Zimbabwean economy. Markets for Zimbabwean exports are closed because Blacks now own the land stolen by Rhodesian colonizers. Foreign tourism has also plummeted, costing tens of millions of dollars a year in lost revenue. Basic imports are unavailable; currently (as of March 2008), Zimbabwe suffers from widespread food shortages, the world's highest inflation rate at over 100,000%. A sizeable part of the population has been forced to seek economic refuge abroad. This is all happening according to the white power plan. We should recall that former US Assistant Secretary of State on African Affairs, Chester Crocker said in a 2005 testimony to the US Senate for the Zimbabwe Democracy Act [i.e. sanctions and regime change legislation] "To separate the Zimbabwean people from ZANU-PF we are going to have to make their economy scream, and I hope you senators have the stomach for what you have to do." (Democracy Now!, April 1st, 2005). And that is precisely what is happening. The economy is indeed screaming, by enemy design. The enemy intended to so torture the Zimbabwean people that they would reject ZANU-PF at the polls.

Of course, enemy propaganda claims that the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy is simply the result of land reforms and mismanagement by the ZANU-PF regime. My friends, if you believe that you can believe anything. You can even believe that all the weapons of mass destruction in the world are stockpiled in Saddam Hussein’s shoes!
-----
So we come to the question: Why are the white powers torturing the black people of Zimbabwe?
They call Zimbabwe an “outpost of tyranny” and claim they want to remove ZANU-PF from power and bring to the Zimbabweans the pleasures and benefits of democracy. But that is a bloody big lie. In actual fact, they want to reverse the land reforms of the last 10 years, and engineer a situation where the whites, at less than 1%of the population can go back to owning more than 70% of the arable land, including most of the best land. That is why they are, through sanctions, which is an act of economic warfare, torturing the black people of Zimbabwe.
----
But how did whites ever come to own land in Zimbabwe, and so much land at that?
The answer lies in what happened during the so-called Scramble for Africa in the closing decades of the 19th century. Following the notorious Berlin Conference of 1884-85, the European powers set out on their scramble to conquer and seize the lands of Black Africans.

In 1889 Cecil Rhodes' British South Africa Company (BSA) gained a British mandate to colonize what would become Southern Rhodesia. In 1890 – a pioneer column of white settlers arrived from South Africa at the site of the future capital Harare, and started grabbing land. The Black owners of the land opposed the white land stealers. But by 1893 the Ndebele uprising against BSA rule was crushed.

But that statement does not convey how it was done. For a flavor of the genocidal war and sustained terrorism the British inflicted on the Blacks who resisted their land grab, consider the case of the Amandebele (Matabele) of what became Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). By the trickery of treaties and the terrors of war, the Amandabele were dispossessed of their land, stripped of their cattle, reduced to the status of bondsmen, scattered, barred from moving about from place to place except under a system of permit or pass, and made to do forced labour on the farms and mines of Whites. The net result, as reported at the time?

The net position is this: The native population of Southern Rhodesia possesses today no rights in land or water. It is allowed to continue to live upon the land on sufferance and under certain conditions . . . There appears to be no attempt on anyone’s part to deny the bedrock fact that these 700,000 natives have been turned from owners of land into precarious tenants.
And among the methods employed in the race war and terror campaign that achieved this? In the words of the Matabele Times,
We have been doing it up to now, burning kraals because they were native kraals, and firing upon fleeing natives simply because they were black.
And for a glimpse of the spirit in which the British troops waged that race war, consider these words by an adventurer friend of Cecil Rhodes, a certain W. A. Jarvis:
The best thing to do is to wipe them all out as far as one can--everything black.
And in letters to his mother, Jarvis wrote:
I hope the natives will be pretty well exterminated. . . . There are 5500 niggers in this district (Gwelo) and our plan of campaign will probably be to proceed against this lot and wipe them out then move on towards Bulawayo wiping out every nigger and every kraal we find. . . . And after these cold blooded murders, you may be sure there will be no quarter and everything black will have to die, for our men’s blood is fairly up.
At the end of it all, the Amandabele view of what the British had done to them was this:
Our country is gone, our cattle have gone, our people are scattered, we have nothing to live for, our women are deserting us; the white man does as he likes with them; we are the slaves of the white man, we are nobody and have no rights or laws of any kind.

This armed and genocidal seizure of the land of the blacks would be compounded and given a fig leaf of legality when, in 1930 the colonial government passed the Land Apportionment Act, which divided the colony into separate areas for whites and blacks. The act allocated to white settlers, who numbered only about 50,000 (less than 5 percent of the colony’s population), approximately 50 percent of the land. Leaving the other 50% to the 95% of the population that was black.
---------------
Now, as we all know, it was not until 1980, after a 15years guerilla war against the white settler government of Ian Smith, that the stage was set for the blacks to recover their land after almost a century of white usurpation. The setting for that was the Lancaster House agreement of December 1979.

The three-month long conference almost failed to reach conclusion, due to disagreements on Land reform. Mugabe was pressured to sign and land was the key stumbling block. Both British and American governments of the day offered to buy land from willing white settlers who could not accept reconciliation (the "Willing buyer, Willing seller" principle--which could not be changed for ten years) and a fund was established, to operate for ten years from 1980 to 1990.

The British assisted in setting up the Zimbabwe conference on reconstruction and development in 1981. At that conference, more than £630 million of aid was pledged. The first phase of land reform in the 1980s, which was partially funded by the United Kingdom, successfully resettled only 71,000 families out of a target of 162,000.

What, after that, became of the Lancaster House provisions on land and the pledges?

Having secured the non-expulsion of the defeated white settlers, Britain proceeded to renege on its commitment to fund the repurchase of the land it had stolen a century earlier. By its own admission in 2004, “Since independence we have provided 44 million pounds for land reform in Zimbabwe” That’s £44m out of the £630m pledged in 1981.

The Zimbabwean Ministry of Foreign Affairs has noted that it was estimated that about $2 billion would be needed to properly support land reforms in the country. The government said it received only £40m between 1980 and 1996, and that, though a mission--sent by John Major to evaluate the position after the £40m provided under Mrs. Margaret Thatcher had been exhausted--recommended that further funding be given to Zimbabwe to complete the land reform programme, when John Major lost the 1997 general election to Tony Blair, the new regime immediately repudiated all the undertakings made by the British under the Lancaster House Agreement to assist Zimbabwe with land reforms. It quotes a letter written to the Zimbabwean Government on November 5, 1997 by Ms Clare Short, the then newly appointed Secretary of State for International Development, which reads in part:

“I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and, as you know, we were colonized not colonizers.”

Given this clearly worded reneging by the British Government on its Lancaster House commitments, the Zimbabwean government felt it was left with no option but to legally designate for acquisition in 1997 “nearly 1,500 white-owned farms for resettlement to landless peasants.”
That was how the Zimbabwean crisis was launched. Because Zimbabwe, when faced with Britain’s perfidious reneging on the Lancaster House Agreement, dared to try to repossess the stolen lands by any means necessary, Britain, supported by the white powers, launched a campaign of regime change, using sanctions and all the other familiar devices in the imperialist bag of tricks. They have demonized the Zimbabwean leadership, crippled the economy with sanctions, organized and paid for an opposition called the MDC. It is a script we have seen before in other parts of the world including Chile, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The result is the ongoing torture of the Zimbabwean people.

And where do the allegations of human right violations, and lack of democracy come in? Or the claim that Mugabe has ruled for too long and is too old? That is all part of the regime change scenario. Given their decision to drive ZANU-PF from power for daring to take back the land stolen by whites, these are all ways of giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it. It’s all part of the faked story to justify regime change. It’s like the famous weapons of Mass Destruction that the world was assured that Saddam had stockpiled!! But we must not be fooled. We must not forget that Mugabe has stayed long in office by being elected and re-elected each time. Now, is it for the imperialists, or for the Zimbabwean electorate to decide when Mugabe should stop ruling? And all this noise about elections not being free and fair? When was the last time any elections were held in Saudi Arabia, let alone free and fair elections? Yet nobody is organizing regime change there!!

even what the imperialist have not dreamt of asking to be given. The point of it all is that, if a regime defends the interests of its people, it will earn the enmity of the imperialists, and become a target for these accusations and sanctions. But if it serves imperialism, it can be as undemocratic as Saudi Arabia, as suppressive of human rights as the Obasanjo regime was in Nigeria, or Pinochet’s in Chile, and the imperialists will give it their seal of approval.

What is the role of Tsvangirai and the MDC in all this? Tsvangirai and the MDC are simply regime change tools of the imperialists. He belongs with black traitors like Dhlakama of RENAMO and Savimbi of UNITA. Not only have they been lavishly funded by the imperialists, but Rhodesian whites have openly supported MDC and come to Zimbabwe saying they will be taking "their" farms from indigenous Zimbabweans when Tsvangirai becomes president.

Make no mistake about it. What ZANU-PF has been doing since 1997 is to collect reparations by any means necessary, after having patiently given the imperialists every opportunity to abide by their own pledges to fund their own “willing seller, willing buyer” formula for land redistribution. For carrying the liberation struggle to its second stage, ZANU-PF deserves the support of all anti-imperialist Black Africans, of all Pan Africanists.

We mustn’t forget that when white-ruled Rhodesia was under sanctions in the 1960s and 1970s, it was helped to bust sanctions and survive by white-ruled South Africa and white ruled Mozambique. Now that Black Zimbabwe is under punitive sanctions from the vengeful white world powers, why are Black-ruled South Africa and its other SADC neighbors not doing enough to help Zimbabwe defeat these sanctions? What is Black Africa doing to help? We must all do much more! We will not have done enough until these sanctions are defeated with our visible help. So I must ask each and every one of you: what are you, in Pan-Africanist solidarity, prepared to do to help the Zimbabwean people today?

Having said all that, it is our comradely duty to also ask ZANU-PF to thoroughly review its methods of fighting sanctions and its methods of telling its story to its people and to the world. For it seems not to have done an adequate job of that so far.
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Chinweizu is a Black Power Pan-Africanist; the author of The West and the Rest of Us, Decolonising the African Mind, and other books. He is the co-founder of the Committee Against Arab Colonialism in Black Africa [CAACBA].
-----------------------

Feel free notice

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For print media use, please obtain prior written permission, and then send two (2) copies of the publication wherein used, to Chinweizu, P. O. Box 988, Festac Town, Lagos, Nigeria.

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© Chinweizu 2008

Manette & ct,

Your responses are right on target. God is not to be played with. In light of the historical analysis by Chinweizu we as Christians and really just as members of the human race should be appalled at how the U.S. and Britain has conducted itself in Zimbabwe. Now I see on CNN where the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, is calling for foreign armed military personal to be dispatched to Zimbabwe to insure the election. What kind of madness is that? Yet, this is the results that the Global Ministries of the Disciples of Christ has prayed. Lord help us today. It is highly suspect that Marshal and New Era will
advise us that support for our good brother over a questionable white woman was inappropriate, yet they are silent about a denomination of the church praying for violence in Zimababwe. What does this silence mean? Are we outside of their knowlege? Surely it's not because they don't care. Shouldn't we stand for what's right not based on whether it's Black or white? I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are just real busy to be able to respond at this time to the church's call for violence in Zimbabwe. We should all stand together on this one.

Dear Rev Ajabu,

I have seen your comments regarding Global Ministries’ call for churches to be in prayer with and for Zimbabwe as the citizens of that country head to the polls on June 27th for the Presidential run-off elections. Before I explain why we have asked Disciples and others to join in prayer for the citizens of Zimbabwe, and particularly our historical global partners, I want to explain that the scripture was not intentionally meant to be connected with the prayer used by Varsha Vijayakumar based on prayers by the World YWCA. The Scripture itself was the lectionary scripture for the week.

Newsletters and updates sent out by the Division of Overseas Ministries/Global Ministries do not purport to be the position of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) or that of the United Church of Christ with whom we work in partnership. We do not have the mandate to speak on behalf of the entire church. We do, however, take seriously our relationship with our global partners and constituents in the USA and articulate what we think is God’s vision’s for justice, love and fairness in the midst of that which stifles, oppresses and causes fear.

I have no reason to counter your argument that both political parties have engaged in violence in Zimbabwe. I agree that both the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and ZANU-PF must exercise tolerance if the situation is to change. It is clear to me that most of the violence is created by the ruling party, which has the power and machinery in place. I write in response to your letter not as a supporter of one party or the other in Zimbabwe, but as a Christian who has lived in both the United States and Zimbabwe and who has experienced injustice, intolerance, bias, ignorance, fear and oppression in both places. I write because of those we call “sisters and brothers in Christ” in Zimbabwe who are the victims as expressed in the African proverb, “When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers”.

You are correct to say that there are some serious problems in the USA that need to be addressed before looking for the straw in someone else’s eye. We are on the same page when you say that it is not our role to interfere in the affairs of a sovereign state, especially where we helped to create some of the chaos by our policies or acts of greed. We don’t have the moral authority to dictate to others how elections should be held. As a nation, we have not been faithful to the biblical call to be peacemakers. We have not been prepared to acknowledge our invasion of nations around the world or our participation in violence. The US government and media are guilty of focusing on conflicts in Africa and advancing the image of a “hopeless” Africa, which is an attitude widespread in the USA and the international community.

There are many things that we can agree on and I have shared some of them with you in a previous letter. I certainly agree that President Mugabe played a major role in the liberation of Africa as he fought to liberate Zimbabwe. After independence was obtained in his country, he stood firm when others dared not stir the water. The Lancaster Agreement that was signed at independence in 1980 is an example of how the colonizers seized control over the natural resources of the colony in order to retain their place of power in the country. I agree that the British and the USA failed to carry out their promise to subsidize the land transfer. Yet, let us not forget that the ZANU-PF government also delayed taking steps to redistribute the land. When it did act, those close to the government unquestionably became the largest beneficiaries of the land redistribution, whereas, the vast majority of the people still do not have land. I know that such a statement makes me counter–revolutionary, pro-Bush, pro-Britain and a lot of other negative things. Yet, this appears to me to be a slap in the face for all those who made a sacrifice for the liberation of the country.

I am not convinced that we can place the blame for Zimbabwe’s problems today on sanctions by the international community. The sanctions that have been imposed affect only a few key government officials and have been limited to travel bans and frozen assets.

The struggle for independence was to bring an end to the tyranny of British rule. The problems of Zimbabwe today are complex with many innuendos that the media never approaches and unfortunately, the focus is on one man, who has been unfairly dubbed, “the mad man” because of the 2000 land seizure. Yet, one wonders about ZANU-PF’s attitude of “If you are not for me, you are against me”. Since the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) came into being after independence, the members are painted as counter-revolutionary, pro-imperialists, and the cause for the problems in Zimbabwe today. When will they be recognized as citizens of the same Zimbabwe with rights as any ZANU-PF party member? Let us be reminded that many of the problems that the country is facing now, started before the formation of the MDC. And in times of tensions, particularly around election times, violent methods were used to quiet any opposition. It would not take a lot of research to know what happened in Matabeleland and Midlands shortly after independence with members of Joshua Nkomo’s party ZAPU, or in Manicaland with followers of Ndabaningi Sithole. Union workers and their supporters were subjected to brutal beatings when protesting their plight in 80s.

All this begs many questions, “What happened that changed the nature of the liberation movement for which people fought so hard?. Why does there seem to be such fear by those who struggled so hard to bring democracy? Why does the “oppressed” react in the same manner as the “oppressor”? Why is it always the fault of others?

During 15 years of torture, beatings and killings meted out by the Ian Smith regime before independence, Zimbabweans stood firm in their resolve to exercise their rights as human beings in their own country. And yet, today, when the same resolve is displayed, it is because the people are being influenced by “foreign instigators who are anti-ZANU-PF”. When the same resolve is exercised today, the President states that he would rather go to war rather than accept defeat and hand over government to those who voted against him. Clinging to power and resorting to such inflammatory statements, in my opinion, will only further alienate those persons who held the President in high esteem as a liberation leader and will create space for someone like Morgan Tsvangirai to be hailed as the new liberation leader fighting for independence from tyranny, torture, and oppression and who heeds the people’s cry for freedom and democracy.

You talked about the voice of the people being heard. I agree. But what does an election mean when the people voted on March 29th and the results were released on May 2nd? And, the incumbent called for a recount while at the same time refused to reveal the results? Why have elections if you are not going to reveal the results or declare that you will go to war if someone else wins? One does not have to be MDC or ZANU-PF or an observer to know that something is not right with that picture. It is up to the people of Zimbabwe to decide which candidate they want, and that is why we pray for an atmosphere of political calm.

Our call for prayer has been in light of the fact that the violence throughout the country makes it difficult for people to feel free to vote without risking their lives or those who are dear to them. How can one not fear when the President says that he is prepared to go to war before accepting defeat?. Or, when one hears, ”Ïf you vote for MDC in the presidential runoff election, you have seen the bullets, we have enough for each one of you, so beware.” This is a statement reportedly made by soldiers addressing villagers at meetings in Karoi, Mashonaland West. How can one not fear when one hears that the wife of a MDC official was burned to death last week in her hut after having one of her hands and both legs cut off? (Reported by the local media)

At a more personal level, allow me to share some incidents reported by global partners - credible sources – who are not associated with the established media. The examples that I give are from our sisters and brothers with whom we work on a regular basis. These are examples of our concern for the people of Zimbabwe and why we ask churches to pray with the people.

At one of the high schools that we support, the headmaster was roughed up because he would not admit to being MDC. The minister at one of the churches was arrested and brutally beaten, along with several members who came to his rescue. We have received documented, credible stories of people with no political connection being beaten in front of family members and others because they are thought to be against the government. As one man was driving home from work, he noticed soldiers in uniform beating a man. When he slowed down, one of the soldiers ordered him from the car at gunpoint and accused him of being MDC and the soldiers proceeded to beat him with batons and a fan belt. And yes, there have been cases of retaliation where wronged persons have reacted and attacked ZANU-PF members.

We are not calling for the church to take up arms against the ruling power in Zimbabwe. We ask people to be in prayer and solidarity with people who are suffering, who have lost a portion of their dignity and who are afraid. We ask people to be in prayer not only because we have been in a global relationship with Zimbabwe for over a hundred years, but because, as Christians, we have witnessed together God’s vision of love, justice and tolerance for all of humanity. And that vision inspires us to act out our responsibility to speak out where there is hurt and injustice. We ask Disciples to pray because we believe that God’s love and grace will sustain us and the people of Zimbabwe.

Yours in Christ,

Sandra Gourdet,
Area Executive for Africa
Partner Relations Ministry Team
Wider Church Ministries

Zimbabwe USA UK Europe
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zimbabwe: UN blocks British, US attempts to halt run-off
Posted: 06/26
From: MNN

Britain, the current president of the Security Council, tried to use Belgium to halt Friday's presidential run-off election and illegally install Morgan Tsvangirai as president, but South Africa's Ambassador to the UN, Mr Dumisani Khumalo, blocked these attempts.

Herald Reporters
(The Herald)

THE United Nations yesterday blocked attempts by Britain, the United States and France to declare MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai as the President of Zimbabwe on the basis of the results of the March 29 harmonised elections.

This came as South Africa’s ruling ANC party rejected foreign intervention in Zimbabwe, especially from erstwhile colonisers.

Britain, the current president of the Security Council, tried to use Belgium to halt Friday’s presidential run-off election and illegally install Tsvangirai as president, but South Africa’s Ambassador to the UN, Mr Dumisani Khumalo, blocked these attempts.

Associated Press reported that the US and France also tried to include in the Security Council statement language asserting that Tsvangirai should be considered the legitimate president of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe’s permanent representative to the UN Ambassador Boniface Chidyausiku said submissions by South Africa and Zimbabwe convinced the 15-member Security Council that it would be legally improper to halt the run-off and install Tsvangirai.

The original draft compiled by the British had claimed that the elections would not be free and fair, but the Security Council eventually issued a watered down non-binding statement condemning political violence.

"We would like to pay tribute to Ambassador Khumalo for the sterling work he did. It is a big victory for us.

"Britain, through Belgium, which is not a member of the Security Council, tried to get the UN to impose Tsvangirai as president in contravention of the country’s Constitution and electoral laws.

"But South Africa made it clear that this would not be acceptable and we also made submissions indicating that it would be improper to subvert the law like that," Ambassador Chidyausiku said.

He said last week, Belgium— apparently acting on orders from Britain — had asked for a Security Council brief on what was going on in Zimbabwe.

The strategy was to use this as an excuse to criticise the electoral process, negate the need for a run-off and then recognise Tsvangirai as president on the basis of the March 29 poll results.

"The draft that we saw on Friday was mild. It was something that we could have UN blocks British, US attempts to halt run-off lived with. But over the weekend Tsvangirai said he didn’t want to participate in the run-off anymore and this gave Britain, through Belgium, ammunition to attack Zimbabwe," Ambassador Chidyausiku said.

On Monday morning, he said the draft was suddenly harder and bent on preventing a run-off as if they were aware Tsvangirai would lose the election.

"They were happy to go with the results of the March 29 poll when the law is clear that there should be a run-off.

"We, too, respect the results of the harmonised elections and that is why we agree that there should be a run-off. For anyone to prevent a run-off is to prevent the free expression of the will of the people as provided for by the law," he said.

Ambassador Chidyausiku said Britain and its allies tried to argue that a cancellation of the run-off would be necessitated by the prevalence of State-contrived violence.

However, Zimbabwe’s mission to the UN presented the Security Council with statistics indicating that the opposition was mostly behind the political violence in the country.

"The figures we have show that 400 MDC-T supporters have been arrested for political violence compared to 160 Zanu-PF supporters.

"We also demonstrated that there have been numerous cases of MDC-T supporters going around dressed in Zanu-PF regalia and beating up people.

"This is an outdated strategy used by the Selous Scouts during the liberation struggle and with the predominance of Selous Scouts in the MDC-T it is obvious what is going on.

"We managed to get them to recognise these realities and they failed in their bid to install Tsvangirai."

He said the people of Zimbabwe would determine the future of Zimbabwe.

Ambassador Chidyausiku also said that it was imperative for Sadc to remain united under the Lusaka Summit resolution to respect South African President Thabo Mbeki’s mediation role.

"Sadc gave President Mbeki the mandate to mediate in Zimbabwe and that should be respected. That is a mandate that came out of a summit and no pronunciations by any individual outside of a summit should nullify this reality.

"Lusaka stands," he said.

The ANC, South Africa’s ruling party, rejected any outside diplomatic intervention in the Zimbabwean matter yesterday arguing that "any attempts by outside players to impose regime change will merely deepen" the problems in Zimbabwe.

Although it said it was concerned with the situation in Zimbabwe, the ANC evoked Zimbabwe’s colonial history and insisted that outsiders had no role to play in ending its current problems.

"It has always been and continues to be the view of our movement that the challenges facing Zimbabwe can only be solved by the Zimbabweans themselves," the statement said. "Nothing that has happened in the recent months has persuaded us to revise that view."

In what seemed a clear rebuke to the efforts of Western nations to take an aggressive stance against the Zimbabwean Government, the ANC included a lengthy criticism of the "arbitrary, capricious power" exerted by Africa’s former colonial masters and cited the subsequent struggle by African nations to grant new-found freedoms and rights.

"No colonial power in Africa, least of all Britain in its colony of ‘Rhodesia’ ever demonstrated any respect for these principles," the ANC said, referring to Zimbabwe before its independence.

http://www.herald.co.zw

Zanu-PF gears for victory

NO country in the world, including those in the African Union and Sadc, can dictate how Zimbabwe should conduct its elections, President Mugabe has said.

He said irresponsible and reckless statements by some Sadc leaders could lead to the breaking up of the regional grouping.

Addressing a rally at Chitungwiza Town Centre yesterday, President Mugabe said the Zimbabwean situation was not as bad as that which obtained in the other countries during elections.

"Some African countries have done worse things and when I go to the AU meeting next week (in Egypt), I am going to challenge some leaders to point out when we have had worse elections.

"I would like some African leaders who are making these statements to point at me and we would see if those fingers would be cleaner than mine," he said.

Cde Mugabe said while any country was free to discuss with Zimbabwe possible solutions to the country’s challenges, this has to be done with respect.

"We remain open to discussions, and proposals that come in good spirit would be listened to (but) not because these have been dictated to us from outside.

"There are countries that have had elections in worse conditions in Africa and we have never interfered."

Cde Mugabe said Zimbabwe would not be forced to violate its laws and cancel the presidential run-off by some African countries.

"For any country to say stop the elections, to tell us to violate our laws would not only be unfair, but completely lawless to us. We reject such moves, it does not matter where these are coming from but such suggestions are completely unacceptable," he said.

"We hold our elections within the precincts of our laws. Yes, advice can be given but not to be dictated to us. No one should be deluded into believing that they are so and so and what they say would be listened to."

He said while some Sadc countries could also help in solving the challenges facing the country, other leaders were saying negative things after being pressurised by the British to condemn Zimbabwe.

"We are surprised by what some Sadc leaders are saying. Some are even calling for (South African) President (Thabo) Mbeki to stop current mediation efforts while others want him to be replaced.

"These reckless statements being made by some Sadc leaders could lead to the breaking up of Sadc. When we formed the regional bloc, it was agreed that members of the bloc would quietly intervene in areas that face problems and we have done that in some countries although we had to use military intervention in the DRC.

"There are, however, some countries wanting to be better Sadc members from others and Zimbabwe would never accept it."

Sadc chairman and Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa in March admitted being pressured by Washington and London to call a summit to discuss Zimbabwe’s elections even before the results of the elections had been announced.

On Wednesday, Tanzania and Swaziland succumbed to Western pressure to call an emergency meeting of the Sadc Organ on Politics, Defence and Security which resolved to call on Zimbabwe to cancel the run-off.

However, Angola, which chairs the organ, and South Africa, the mediator in the Zimbabwe issue, snubbed the summit.

Analysts said the summit ended up being a bilateral meeting between Tanzania and Swaziland and its resolution would have no effect on Sadc, let alone Zimbabwe.

President Mugabe said despite the isolated cases of politically motivated violence, Zimbabwe still remained a peaceful country.

"We are a peaceful country. Although there have been incidents of violence, the country has remained quiet and calm.

"The incidents of violence by the MDC and in some cases by Zanu-PF supporters, in retribution after having their houses burnt, does not make the situation insecure in terms of law and order.

"I have been everywhere around the country, there is peace and some statistics telling blatant lies are naturally offending. I would rather have the world leave us alone. They can impose sanctions on us, but we have the capacity to work for ourselves because we have the land, resources and the capacity to work for the country.

"There are, however, some African countries that are content with budgets that have been made by others, they have weaknesses that leave them subjecting to their donors."

Cde Mugabe called on Britain to stop meddling in Zimbabwean affairs and stop lying to the world about the bilateral dispute between it and Harare.

"The British should stop their devious, deceitful, insidious and deceptive activities on Zimbabwe. They should keep quiet about us, they should stop telling lies about our bilateral dispute which is over the land issue.

"The land issue has been the case even during the Lancaster Conference where they (British) promised to pay compensation for the land we would take from their sons.

"While we have always been prepared to talk about the issue, they have refused during the (Tony) Blair era and even now with the nonsensical (Gordon) Brown who is much more idiotic. We, however, feel pity for (George) Bush for supporting the British."

He said the British should openly admit that they were wrong on the land issue.

"They should come out and say we did wrong on the land issue. We will never go back on the land issue. Never, never, never. Win or lose, we will not go back on the land issue and that is where we differ with our colleagues in the MDC who think they would give the land back to the whites and that would be calling for war."

President Mugabe said a Zanu-PF victory would not mean the death of opposition politics in the country.

"A Zanu-PF win does not mean we would push opposition parties into oblivion. The MDC has won a considerable number of seats in Parliament, there is a role they would play in Parliament.

"We are not going to make a Kenya in Zimbabwe. Kenya is Kenya, Zimbabwe is Zimbabwe and nothing forbids us from doing what we want in our country.

"Victory by us does not mean the death of MDC or any other party that wants to participate in our electoral process," he said.

He reiterated Zanu-PF’s willingness to hold talks with both MDC factions in the interest of the nation.

"We want our brothers in the MDC to come to us to discuss our problems, but the MDC should be totally local, they should respect our sovereignty and tell us to work together as Zimbabweans."

He said some MDC-T leaders were committing treason by some of their utterances.

"It is treason to call for war in Zimbabwe. They should do away with such utterances and stop writing irresponsible documents. If they mean well, then we are open to discussion.

"We are not going to be arrogant, we would rather be magnanimous and they are free to talk to us as fellow Zimbabweans."

President Mugabe said the country was holding the presidential run-off today because there was no winner on March 29 during the first round held jointly with parliamentary and council polls.

"We held our elections in March and there was no winner. Although the MDC led in those elections, it did not get the required percentage poll of above 50 percent and in accordance to the laws of the country, the two leading candidates would go for a run-off.

"We decided as Zimbabwe to re-organise the second phase of the election, a presidential run-off. The MDC did not want the run-off. Sure, they (MDC-T) led in the March election, but our electoral laws have it that we hold the run-off."

President Mugabe called for peace during the run-off.

"There has been violence in the country after the March 29 elections and that violence from all parties must come to an end, no retribution and we must look to the future."

He said the elections were in the people’s hands, expressing hope that there would be jubilation for Zanu-PF after the election.

After having read all of the aforementioned information, I am reminded of how the Spanards exterminated the Arawak Indians in Jamaica and when the British sought to take them over by bringing South Africans into the Island, making them slaves and using them to strip the Island of its resources while building a government that is still in place today, to some extent. It is evident that Europeans are known for infiltration, raping and destroying other nations all in the name of democracy and/or Christianity. The United States (Europeans) got it's place in time through the same tactics being used in the 18th and 19th centuries. I mean why wouldn't they help tear down other nations, this is their trade mark. We must remember where we live. In the 1960.s the situaiton in El Salvador, the United States funded the military that killed thousands of innocent people, actually helped a people commit genocide and killed Romero when he continued to speak out against it and held nonviolent marches to help the natives stnd up for thier civil rights (sound familiar), much like what is taking place in Zimbabwe. We sometimes behave as if we are surprised the U. S. has it's hands in on something as horrific as is what's going on in South Africa; in my opinion it is not will we help, but when? It is evident that if we who say we fight against injustice need to began to behave as we believe. So, I guess the next question is (outside of sending emails) how? I read books that are geared toward conditioning the minds of our (black) people, especially our black youth, I go to a school that teaches the history of language was founded on Indo-European intellectuals and is something all aspire to speak, as well as said to being the dominate language because it comes from an affluent sociocultural enviroment. I say this in relation to the comment of things being done by design. Surely they are; many years ago when Cecil Rhodes gained control over Zimbabwe, did one really think it was over when he lost it and the name was changed? It is time for us to wake up and realize there are many of European descent who will never be satisfied unless they are in control on some level. Sanctions. The U. S. is good about placing sanctions on nations in the name of helping in ways others aren't asking. This is why it is so necessary for us to support those who understand that things can not remain the same; if we align ourselves with those who have the resources to make a difference, even in foreign affairs, then it is our responsibility to do so. Our vote this year will speak volumes about who we really are and what we are willing to do. This is not to say just vote, but be willing to step out on faith and stand on behalf of others.

Pastor

I am not knowledgeable enough to join this erudite discussion on Zimbabwe but I am willing to read and learn from your comments.

Marshall