Massacres, forced labour haunt Zimbabwe diamond fields

Military control over diamond mining in Zimbabwe’s eastern Marange district has resulted in a brutal mix of massacres, forced labour, beatings and rape.

This is according to a comprehensive report released last week by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the New York-based rights NGO, which interviewed over 100 people in the region in February 2009.

Mining in Marange began in 2006. Initially the government allowed anybody to prospect in the area. Then it started clamping down. Recognizing the mines as an important revenue opportunity, the Zanu PF-controlled army invaded the mines in October 2008, massacring over 200 miners in the process.

Helicopters swooped down over illegal miners, shooting live ammunition and teargas. 800 soldiers were sent in to secure the area. Illegal miners were forced to dig mass graves for their murdered comrades. The report says:

A local headman told Human Rights Watch that in the three weeks of the military operation, Chiadzwa resembled “a war zone in which soldiers killed people like flies.” Another headman was forced to bury five bodies of miners; all five bodies had what appeared to be bullet wounds. None of the bodies were identifiable.

With the army in control of the area, the violence has continued and illegal mining – which the police and military were ostensibly supposed to shut down – has continued to flourish, this time in the hands of soldiers.

The army is forcing at least 300 children to work without pay in the mines. A woman forced to work on the mines told an HRW researcher: ‘We worked together with about 30 children of ages between 10 and 17 years. The children worked the same 11 hours each day as adults did. The soldiers had a duty roster for all villagers in Chiadzwa to take turns to work in the fields, irrespective of age.’ The woman explained how men did the digging, while children and women carried the ore, then sieved it before sorting the diamonds. The women and children were forced to work without breaks, with soldiers not even providing food and water, and beating those working too slowly.

Soldiers have also been plundering impoverished villages, stealing items like cellphones, maize and blankets. In addition to this, the report reveals that:

Several witnesses and victims told Human Rights Watch that soldiers continue to assault, harass, and subject the local community to torture…

Two such incidences occurred in February 2009 when:

[F]ive soldiers beat three Muchena villagers for over five hours using a rubber hose without stating any reasons for the assault. The same night, eight soldiers assaulted a family in Muedzengwa village using open palms, clenched fists, rifle butts, and booted feet. The soldiers then allegedly stole several items of personal property. During the beatings, the soldiers demanded information on local miners, which the villagers did not have.

Zanu PF party apparatchiks have also threatened to forcibly remove those who live in the area, estimated by HRW to be about 7000 families. The reign of terror and military oppression continues, with the illicit profits from smuggling (diamonds are sent illegally to Mozambique and Johannesburg, South Africa) benefiting soldiers and senior Zanu PF officials.

HRW has called on Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government to intervene and place police control over the area, ensuring ‘that the police abide by internationally recognized standards of law enforcement and use of lethal force.’ It also calls for the government to launch an investigation into the rampant human rights abuses in the area.

Unfortunately, the unity government is unlikely to do anything. While Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is eager to claim that Zimbabwe has made great strides in governance reform, and that his nemesis President Robert Mugabe is accepting this process, nothing could be further from the truth.

As I have discussed in the past, Zanu PF is doing its utmost to stall reforms proposed in the unity agreement. Furthermore, human rights activists, lawyers and opposition MDC politicos continue to be unlawfully harassed and detained. Hundreds of prisoners die of starvation in jail. And land grabs and persecution of farmers occur with impunity.

Zanu PF’s undemocratic participation in government is only further aiding Zimbabwe’s disintegration and prolonging the suffering of our ordinary Zimbabweans. The world cannot look away from the horrifying abuses and continuing tyranny in the Marange diamond fields and elsewhere. It is no use pretending that Zanu PF is prepared to surrender its illegitimate and strangulating hold on power. Zimbabwe will continue its agonizing implosion if the West decides to prop up this sham unity government.

Regional powerhouse South Africa as well as Europe, Britain and the US need to act in the best interests of all Zimbabweans and force Zanu PF to accept the rule of law and ensure that the obligations in the unity agreement are adhered to. The suffering citizens of Marange, and of Zimbabwe as a whole, deserve nothing less.

Zimbabweans – South Africa’s second class citizens

This video from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) outlines the struggles Zimbabweans face in South Africa.

Why there’s not much hope for Cope

This op-ed was written on the eve of South Africa’s elections in April.

When Mosiuoa ‘Terror’ Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa announced they were “serving divorce papers” on the African National Congress (ANC), their political home, there was a frenzy of speculation that this would result in a tectonic shift in South Africa’s political and electoral landscape. As the marriage broke down irretrievably with the SA National Convention, an anti-Zuma fest in Sandton, and the subsequent official launch of an opposition breakaway party in Bloemfontein just over a month later, pundits were hailing these developments as marking the end of ANC’s political hegemony.

Dreams of a breakaway party’s ability to chastise ANC arrogance and curb the party’s overwhelming electoral might weren’t the only things discussed amongst the chattering classes. Many were seduced by Lekota’s pro-constitutional rhetoric, calls for a constituency-based parliamentary system and for the president to be directly elected. They saw this as promising greater engagement and accountability between political parties and the people – an antidote to the Mbeki era’s alienation of the electorate and the erosion of parliament’s prestige and “people power”.

Now, as the April 22 election date looms dizzyingly closer, the body politic is in a very different mood. A Markinor poll estimates that the Congress of the People (Cope) will receive between eight and 12 percent of the vote, with this buttressed by the DA’s tracking poll results which show support for the breakaway hovering between six and eight percent. Both percentages are paltry compared to the optimistic figures bandied about in the early days of Cope’s creation. It appears that come April, Cope will little more than dent the ANC’s electoral dominance – far from cutting the ruling party down to size as so many initially expected.

There are a number of reasons for this. The initial media frenzy and fuzzy euphoria that surrounded Cope’s pro-constitutional democracy pronouncements soon faded as more and more personalities closely associated with Mbeki’s ruling cabal defected to the party.

Nosimo Balindlela, the erstwhile premier of the Eastern Cape, was welcomed by the breakaway with open arms, despite having led a provincial administration plagued by corruption, ineptitude and service delivery failures.

Smuts Ngonyama, another influential member in the new party, hardly represents democratic values – having been Machiavellian Mbeki’s spin-doctor-in-chief and head of the presidency. With Phumzile Mlambo-Ngucka, the former deputy president, jumping aboard too, Cope seemed to increasingly resemble a collective of has-beens sidelined after backing the wrong horse at the ANC’s landmark Polokwane conference in December 2007.

The party’s leadership also suffered a credibility crisis. While Terror Lekota has been lauded for being “his own man” and something of a firebrand, many sceptics pointed to the administrative collapse of the defence department while he was its political head. People were also left wondering where Lekota’s apparent commitment to the Constitution was while he was a member of Mbeki’s cabinet. After all, he seemed quite happy to toe the party line when it came to Aids, the Arms Deal, Zimbabwe and other issues.

Cope has struggled to define its identity. While it has claimed to be a fresh and new alternative to the ANC it has been unable to differentiate itself from the ruling party, thanks to the plethora of Mbeki-ites in its ranks and a “cut and paste” election manifesto startlingly similar to the ANC’s. Volunteer-in-chief Mbhazima Shilowa didn’t help matters by claiming Cope “reveres” Mbeki: an autocrat whose tenure was marked by the suppression of debate, demonisation of critics, racialisation, lacklustre service delivery and rampant corruption.

Cope’s failure to make a clean break with Mbeki’s reign has continued with the appointment of Mvume Dandala as the party’s presidential candidate. While some hailed the appointment as a masterstroke – after all, the political neophyte was supposedly untainted by the scandals and intrigue of the Mbeki era – the strategy backfired. Not only is Dandala relatively obscure — most South Africans haven’t heard of him until now – but journalists soon discovered that Mbeki has described the former head of the Methodist church as his favourite cleric. Dandala incidentally officiated at his presidential inauguration in 2004. Unlike most other senior religious figures he refused to criticise even the president’s most horrifying policies – most notably Aids denialism and the implicit support of Mugabe’s oppressive regime. Dandala reinforced notions of loyalty to Mbeki and his Aids-denialist agenda when he was unable to categorically state to a journalist that HIV causes Aids. It’s perhaps unsurprising that some have even gone as far as to accuse him of being a Mbeki puppet, acting as a proxy for the disgraced former president to reign in the influence of Lekota and Shilowa within the new party.

A deterioration in the generally favourable attitudes towards Cope in the mainstream South African media can be attributed to the quietening down of pro-constitutional sentiment, with the splinter party instead dependent on high-profile defections to maintain news momentum. But even this tactic backfired when several people, including the ANC MP Dennis Bloem, were included in both the ANC and Cope electoral lists in early March. It appeared that these principled specimens were hedging their bets, worried they were to be purged by the post-Polokwane faction in power at Luthuli House. The electoral list fiasco also sparked reports of fierce battles for power and positions within Cope. With the party’s foot soldiers fighting it out for top spots on the electoral list, focus on the real battle – the election campaign – has been lost. Shilowa, Lekota and Dandala’s wobbly and uncertain leadership exacerbated the situation, creating the perception amongst potential voters that Cope is rudderless, running aground on the quicksands of self-interest and organisational anarchy.

Cope’s already fragile credibility has also suffered from its lack of discernment around new recruits which include corrupt former pastor Allan Boesak and other politically irrelevant opportunists like David Dalling and Peter Marais, both of whom have been members of several different parties. (In a farcical twist, the latter has subsequently defected to the ANC.) To make matters worse, Cope’s election strategist Mlungisi Hlongwane rejoined the ANC in late March. Compounding this strategic instability are rumours that despite the backing of BEE billionaire Saki Macozama, Cope has run out of money.

Analysts have said much about Cope’s potential impact on other opposition parties, with some even claiming that the breakaway would unseat the Democratic Alliance (DA) as the official opposition. Although Cope has been campaigning in opposition strongholds and its Western Cape premier candidate Allan Boesak has desperately rubbished the service delivery record of the DA-led coalition running the city of Cape Town, it is unlikely that either will have much effect. This is supported by Cape Town’s two recent by-elections: the DA won both by a landslide, with support for Cope barely registering as a blip on the electoral radar.

Cope’s dire financial situation, combined with its lack of strategy and chaotic organisational structure, is up against the DA’s relatively well-funded and slickly operated election machine and therefore will not be capturing much of the opposition vote.

On voting day Cope can count on the support of Mbeki loyalists as well as a sizeable portion of the nascent black middleclass, the beneficiaries of Mbeki’s Black Economic Empowerment and affirmative action programme. There aren’t, of course, that many of either – a direct consequence of the nature of both the man and the policies he imposed.

Like the authoritarian and aloof figure that haunts it, Cope has failed to connect with the rural voters and urban poor that make up the bulk of the ANC’s support base. In contrast, this is a demographic that ANC president Jacob Zuma, with his populist charisma and empathetic warmth, has energised and inspired. The disillusioned frustration stemming from the service delivery failures, unemployment and continuing poverty that characterised Mbeki’s rule has shifted to a hopeful optimism that the messianic Msholozi will deliver. In the face of this, splutterings about Zuma’s corruption charges are powerless and largely irrelevant. In trying to seriously challenge the Zuma-led ANC, Cope has put itself at an even greater disadvantage through its incoherent leadership, uninspired election manifesto and its chronic credibility crisis.

It is clear that Cope’s formation will not fundamentally realign South African politics as some have hoped. While that realignment is indeed inevitable, it is also an incremental process. We still have a long way to go.

ANC will savage any opposition to its bid for perpetual rule

Leaked plans by the ANC to destabilise and distract from opposition leader Helen Zille from fulfilling her duties as premier of the Western Cape shows the contempt that our ruling party has for democracy.

After several years of the ANC’s chaotic mismanagement and paltry delivery, the Western Cape’s voters decisively elected the DA to run the province. In moves startlingly reminiscent to its repeated attempts to topple the DA-led Cape Town council, it is clear that the ANC simply cannot accept that its totalitarian agenda has been thwarted by Zille.

The ANC clearly isn’t interested in creating “a better life for all” as its slogan cynically claims. This is because the planned attempts to disrupt Zille’s administration will hurt the poor hardest. Zille has emphasised that service delivery and the practical obligations of her party’s much vaunted “open opportunity society” are her key priorities. Should she be prevented by the ANC from fulfilling this, then the poor – who would be the most significantly affected by her programme of action – will suffer.

Blinded by its elite’s relentless pursuit for power and privilege, the ANC’s track record local and provincial government – especially in strongholds like the Eastern Cape – has been that of abysmal incompetence and corruption, with the poor remaining shackled by apartheid’s legacy. Little wonder that the party cannot bear to be shown up by a principled, effective white woman who gets things done and actually genuinely cares about the plight of the impoverished.

When the MK Veterans Association threatened to make the Western Cape ungovernable after Helen Zille dared to exercise her right to free speech (even if she displayed unseemly insensitivity in the process), there was not even a whisper of condemnation from the ANC for this brazen, illegal incitement to violence. Making a province ungovernable is tantamount to rejecting the rule of law, and the constitution that underpins it. But this implicit endorsement of violent intolerance is not surprising. As we shall doubtless see in the months to come, the ANC will use its attack dogs – whether they be a semiliterate Youth League or washed-up war veterans – to brutally undermine any opposition that stands in the way of its bid for perpetual rule.

Sleeping around goes viral

Profundities expressed by the ANC’s Youth League spokesman have become a popular hit online, with the recording of  his conversation with talk show host Redi Direko having already over 12000 hits.

Watch it here.

South Africans must speak out

On Freedom Day, to celebrate fifteen years of democracy, I launched The Soapbox – a nonpartisan online platform where young South Africans can speak out about things they feel strongly about.

Why? Because South Africa is at a crossroads. Now more than ever is it important to use our freedom to ensure that democracy prevails in South Africa – that it is strengthened and sustainable. Periodic elections are not enough. A democracy can only live and flourish if citizens actively engage with important issues. Freedom of speech – and utilising that vital right – stimulates democracy by ensuring that power structures – from government and corporations to trade unions and NGOs – are held accountable for their actions and policies.

If we are silent and apathetic we are complicit in power abuse, in reinforcing mediocrity as a standard and in ensuring that an unsatisfactory status quo is maintained.

Many people feel that expressing their opinions about the burning issues of the day is pointless, because their voice will be ignored by mainstream media. Others feel alienated with regards to current, more rigid mediums of expression (such as the letters page of a newspaper) or intimidated by the rigours of maintaining a something like a blog on an ongoing basis.

The Soapbox takes all of these dynamics into account. By creating a platform for opinion online, The Soapbox is situated within a medium that young people are comfortable with. It also means that the project is easier to integrate with current modes of communication and social connection (such as Facebook) that young people use.

Sited in a political landscape characterised by the inanities and incitements of the likes Julius Malema, The Soapbox aims to fight political and cultural apathy and to foster tolerance and a culture of intelligent debate among young South Africans.

For more info, check out The Soapbox.

Ingore this film

Amnesty’s new campaign “Defy them” is a stirring call for action against torture. But this time there’s a fresh approach to the copy to hook you in and demolish your apathy. Employing powerful reverse psychology, the copy puts the choice in your hands — to ignore the abuses of human rights and pretend it’s not happening. Or to sensitise yourself, and join Amnesty to make a difference.

The email sent to me, with a link to an anti-torture film says:

Torturers, traffickers, executioners, rapists, THEY all want you to STOP READING NOW.

A man in Algeria who tortures people by forced ingestion of urine to simulate drowning.
A businessman in eastern Europe who sells women to the sex trade.
A general in Burma who uses soldiers to silence monks.
A militiaman in Sudan who wages war by raping women.

THEY are all real people. THEY are all going about their business as you read this email.

And THEY all share one hope: that you DON’T WATCH THIS FILM.

DEFY THEM.

A lot of people are hoping you won’t watch this film. But many more are hoping you will.

Acting Good – you can make a difference

A good friend of mine is launching a fantastic project called Acting Good and is appealing for funds. With your help she can make a difference to the way Capetonians interact with each other and with their city.  Below is her email appeal — feel free to pass this post around.

Dear Friends,

I am starting a social project called “Acting Good” which will focus on education and good social behaviour regarding litter and pedestrian safety. I would like to do this in a fun and novel manner through the use of student actors and funny skits in the streets of the Cape Town CBD.

In order for me to run this project successfully, I require funding – R16 500 to be precise. I have approached corporates such as Shoprite, McDonalds, PnP and Woolworths (their packaging making a major contribution to litter) for sponsorship, to no avail.

The City of Cape Town Solid Waste Department is very excited about this project and it has potential to be utilised in other cities and areas if it is successful. The City will be collaborating with litter statistics over the 3 month period the project will be run in order to determine its success.

I appeal to you to please make a small contribution to the cause, to the environment, clean cities and to a sustainable anti-litter campaign. If you do make a donation, please be sure to put your name as a reference so that I can send a thank you note and update you on the project’s progress.

I have opened a savings account for this purpose:

Standard Bank Savings Account

Account Holder: Mireille Wenger

Account Number: 074852132

Branch Code: 020909 (sometimes 02090900)

Branch Name: Thibault Square

If you have any questions or would like to know more, I would be more than happy to supply this information and send you the full project proposal.

Thank you ever SOOOO much!

Mireille

Should you have any queries or would like to get involved, contact Mireille at mimikem [at] gmail [dot] com

The Soapbox – now live!

The Soapbox, an online platform where South Africans can speak out, launched yesterday on Freedom Day. Below is the post I wrote in “The Editor’s Notebook” on the site:

==

It’s fifteen years since South Africa became a democracy, and we’re launching today in celebration of this. But furthermore, we chose Freedom Day because of the importance that free speech has in ensuring that our democracy continues, and flourishes in the years to come. Stimulating, supporting and fighting for free speech is what The Soapbox is all about.

South Africa has had a tempestuous, momentous, exhilarating and sometimes tragic decade-and-a-half of freedom. Now more than ever before it is essential that young people speak out about the things they feel strongly about. We simply cannot afford to be apathetic and silent. Our democracy, and the rights – such as free speech – which underscore it are too important for us to ignore the very real issues we face as a nation.

As you will see on the about page, The Soapbox “aims to fight political and cultural apathy and to foster tolerance and a culture of intelligent debate among young South Africans.” We can only achieve this with your support. So, quite simply, become a contributor – change the world. Tell your friends about The Soapbox. And write! We can really make a difference if we all, collectively, speak out.

I hope you enjoy the launch opinion pieces. We plan on updating The Soapbox as frequently as the flow of written contributions will allow. Soon we will also host our first speaker event. Very excitingly, we will also be launching the SoapBox fashion label.

==

The Nando’s ad the Youth League wants to ban