ZIMBABWE

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Re: ZIMBABWE

Post by blindpig » Fri Feb 02, 2018 3:50 pm

what a depressing time to be living...

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Zimbabwe: British PM Sends Envoy . . . Zim Makes Headway in Re-Engagement Efforts

Image
Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa and British Prime Minister Theresa May (file photo).

By Tendai Mugabe

President Mnangagwa's administration is making headway in taking Zimbabwe onto the global arena, with the President this week expected to receive a special envoy from British Prime Minister Theresa May to discuss issues of mutual interest between the two countries.

The discussions will touch on several economic issues, including Zimbabwe's possible return to the Commonwealth. It will be the third time President Mnangagwa is hosting a British envoy in less than three months, signalling London's seriousness to thaw frosty relations with Harare.



The first was British Minister for Africa Rory Stewart who met President Mnangagwa a few hours after his inauguration on November 24, last year. He was followed by Sir Simon Gerard McDonald who is Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Head of the Diplomatic Service.

The engagements are in line with President Mnangagwa's sentiments in his inaugural speech that Zimbabwe was charting a new path that embraces all countries of the world.

This, President Mnangagwa said, would allow Zimbabwe to catch up with other countries in terms of economic development.

Addressing journalists yesterday after landing at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport from his African Union engagements in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and, before that, the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, President Mnangagwa reiterated that Zimbabwe was open for business for both local and global investors.

Said President Mnangagwa: "I had 30 or 40 minutes interview with BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and I really had (a) broad interview with them not only in relation to the transition, but in relation to broad issues like the Commonwealth, the issues of relations between us and Britain. I am aware that the current British Prime Minister Theresa May is sending an envoy during the course of the first week of February, so most of the issues will be ironed out at meeting."

The British envoy is coming in the wake of another confirmed high-profile visit to Harare by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to cement bilateral relations between Harare and Moscow.


Minister Lavrov's visit was confirmed by Russian acting ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Dmitry Korepanov after he met Cde Simon Khaya Moyo last week when the latter was the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

President Mnangagwa, who was making his maiden appearance at both the WEF and the AU in his capacity as Head of State and Government, said his engagements were "exceedingly successful".

In Davos, President Mnangagwa said many stakeholders at the forum were keen to meet his delegation, but they only managed to engage those key to Zimbabwe's current economic situation.

"We were well received," he said.

"In fact, all the delegations who attended Davos lined up in terms of requests to meet the Zimbabwean delegation. We were not able to see all the requests which these delegations made. But to some extent we did meet the most important delegations, which we felt it was necessary for Zimbabwe to relate. It was exceedingly successful."

President Mnangagwa said in Ethiopia he met a group of Zimbabwean professionals who expressed their willingness to come back home and exploit opportunities presented by the new dispensation.



"The group that (we) addressed in Addis Ababa from Zimbabwe was a smallish group of persons but they are enthusiastic about coming home and making a contribution. Most of them (are) professionals, not business people," he said.

"We did invite them and say come home you will find yourself a way to fit yourselves in the unfolding graph of our economy, unfolding enthusiasm for modernising our economy and industrialisation of (our) country."

Meanwhile, the President has thanked Zimbabwean businessmen whi chartered a plane for him to Davos and Addis Ababa as part of their support towards the Zimbabwean Government's re-engagement efforts.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201801310903.html

bolding added. jfc
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Re: ZIMBABWE

Post by blindpig » Tue Mar 27, 2018 2:08 pm

Zimbabwe: Women Continue Protest at Hwange Coal
by worker
Zimbabwe: Women Continue Protest at Hwange Coal
AfricaFocus Bulletin March 26, 2018 (180326) (Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor's Note
At a meeting on February 11, two weeks into a protest by hundreds of women in the mining community outside the company's offices, still continuing in late March, the Hwange Colliery Company Ltd. (HCCL) admitted that the company owed its workers a total of $70 million. HCCL management said they did not have the money to pay, although many workers had not been paid full wages for almost five years.

HCCL has been one of the most notorious cases of "wage theft," pervasive throughout both private and state-owned companies in Zimbabwe in recent years, as documented in a report in 2016 (http://tinyurl.com/y7ewon3g), based on extensive research by the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ). Workers have gone without pay or been dismissed without agreed severance benefits, while managers have continued to enjoy high salaries and murky accounting obscures the income paid to investors. In the case of HCCL, the company is 43% owned by government and 26% by British businessman Nicholas van Hoogstraten. Van Hoogstraten has been a resident in Zimbabwe and a close associate of recently ousted President Robert Mugabe, while being accused of having murdered a business rival in England.

This case is also exceptional in that the HCCL coal-mining operation represents a declining industry with antiquated technology, in which investment in modernization would further endanger the climate as well as being unprofitable. Yet it is the workers and their families who are bearing the costs.

It is also notable that the protests, led principally by women in the mining community, began as early as 2013, and have achieved some limited successes. They have gained support and ongoing engagement by trade unions and civil society organizations in Zimbabwe as well as internationally. These have included the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG), Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), and Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA). And, in recent weeks, political pressure at the national level to take action has also been rising.

Since the latest protests began at the end of January, the company is reported to have has paid 5.2% of outstanding back wages, on top of 7% paid in early 2017. But neither the company nor the government has promised to do more than review the possibility of further payments, falling far short of demands by workers and protesters.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a mid-March background report on the Hwange protest from the Centre for Natural Resource Governance, followed by a short list of additional resources of interest.

For updates on the protests, use the following custom Google search for articles appearing after January 28, 2018: http://tinyurl.com/yb5eoaqt

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Zimbabwe, visit http://www.africafocus.org/country/zimbabwe.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++

Fighting for the unpaid labor of Hwange Women
March 2018

Centre for Natural Resource Governance Harare, Zimbabwe

[Report distributed by email and available at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... N3D6PQRQHI

Additional information available at the website of CNRG http://www.cnrgzim.org]

1. Introduction and Background
For five years now, the Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL), Zimbabwe’s biggest coal mining company that is partly owned by the government, has failed to pay its workers their dues, as well as the benefits entitled to widows of its workers. Although there is evidence that the company has not stopped selling its produce, it has for the past few years been declaring losses. The company’s workers believe the loss-making rhetoric is a tactic by the management to justify their not being paid salaries.

Coal production in Hwange (called Wankie in the colonial period) dates back to the late 19th century, the oldest of Zimbabwe's coal production operations. Underground and surface mines feed a 920MW-capacity coalfired power plant which provides electricity to the national grid. It was also the site of one of the most deadly coal mine disasters in history, when 426 miners died as a result of an underground explosion in 1972.

Unable to cope with the dire situation any longer, widows and spouses of the company’s unpaid workers as well as some female former workers got together and resolved to confront the company by holding demonstrations at its head office, demanding their long overdue remunerations.

However, the struggle of these women dates back to 2013 when they organised their first demonstration against the non-payment of their spouses’ salaries. But back then, before the demonstration could really start, the then trigger-happy Zimbabwe Republic Police officers in Hwange, was engaged by HCCL and descended on the placardcarrying women as they made their way to the company head office and assaulted them heavily. This was to signal a premature end to the women's first attempt at demonstrating against the non-payment of their spouses’ salaries by the company. However, in December 2014 CNRG began working with the women in Hwange, conducting capacity building workshops as well as sharing non-violent strategies for direct action. CNRG facilitated exchange visits between the women of Hwange and women from other mining-affected communities in Zimbabwe and in the region. CNRG also facilitated the participation of Hwange women at feminist training schools organized by WoMIN regional alliance. Thus a new and vibrant movement was born in Hwange.

Meanwhile, HCCL still has not paid its current and former workers their outstanding dues and has more than once reneged on its promise to settle the arrears in instalments. The least owed worker today is owed more than $5,000.

As the company continued to default on salary payments, the women became the breadwinners, sustaining their families – including the HCCL employees— mostly through informal trading and working numerous menial jobs. Thus the women subsidized the HCCL by supplementing their spouses’ slashed earnings, but the HCCL has never acknowledged the unpaid labor of these women.

Unable to take the injustice any longer, spouses of HCCL's current and former workers, as well as other female former workers, converged to once again express their discontent in the form of a demonstration. At a workshop held at the colliery by CNRG and Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) in December 2017, the women started discussions about non-violent direct action to demand their spouses’ dues. On January 29 2018 the women went and pitched a tent at the entrance to HCCL offices, where they are camped to this very day demanding what the company owes their families.

Privilege Musvanhiri on Twitter, January 30, 2018. Hwange Colliery workers wives demonstrated for payment of their husbands’ salaries. Pics by @RutendoMapfumo]

There is a good reason why it is their spouses instead of the workers themselves who are demonstrating: the company is in the habit of victimising any worker that raises their voice against any injustice. To spare their husbands the victimisation, the women decided it was safer that they be the ones to protest.

It has been over a month with the women camped outside the company offices, braving the rough weather which has over the last month been characterised by harsh winds, heavy rains and some heat waves in between, in their fight for a better life for their families that are currently in the clutches of poverty.

This report will focus on the plight of the Hwange women and their families as a result of non-payment of their husbands’ salaries by Hwange Colliery Company and the efforts that they, with support and encouragement from CNRG and WLSA, have been making to force the coal-mining company to pay what it owes. It will also touch on the impact that the non-payment has had on their families and on them as women. The report will conclude by mentioning CNRG’s efforts to strengthen women in miningaffected communities like Hwange to allow them to be able to uphold their rights.

2. Unpaid salaries sink families into abject poverty
Hwange Colliery Company Limited , a mining company that prides itself as being Zimbabwe’s major explorer, miner, processor and marketer of coal and associated byproducts, producing over 750,000 tonnes of coal per year and sometime exceeding that target in order to satisfy its domestic customers that include Zimbabwe Power Company, National Foods, Stable Chemicals, small-scale tobacco farmers, Dunlop, Boc Gases, Zimchem Refineries, sugar refineries, Macdonald Bricks and Delta Beverages, among others and exporting to more than 13 countries which include Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, South Africa, Belgium, China and Russia, has not been paying its workers their salaries for over five years. This is in spite of the mining company glowingly describing itself on its website as a socially responsible company that cares deeply for the Hwange community. On its website it wrote:

“Hwange is unique in many ways. It is a mining town, a Company and a coal town, but owing to its remote location, it has developed as a self-contained community. In order to attract and keep staff, the Company has to maintain high standards of housing, health, shopping, schooling and recreational facilities.”

If HCCL adhered to what it claims on its website, Hwange would be a happy town full of healthy and thriving people. Instead, the opposite is true. According to its workers and their spouses, Hwange Colliery Company Limited has become the very source of their anguish and has turned into a task master that shows little care for its own employees and the residents of Hwange town at large. The neglect of its workers, who had come to depend on it for their survival, has seen the town and communities that surround it sinking deep into poverty and unless measures are urgently put in place to restore the area, Hwange town risks becoming a ghost town in less than ten years.

Without money, parents are finding it very hard to keep their children in school. It is now common to see young men loitering purposelessly in the area, while some very young girls who would have dropped out of school are engaging in commercial sex work, thereby putting their lives at risk.

The majority of the company houses that the workers’ families live in are dilapidated, with most of them full of huge cracks, thereby putting the lives of the occupants in danger. Some have since succumbed to the deterioration and have caved in, posing serious danger to the occupants. Research carried out by CNRG in 2016 indicated that workers’ quarters lack maintenance, with the ablution facilities in an appalling state, forcing over 200 people to share a single toilet. Hwange women reiterated that their situation was a ticking time bomb as anytime, the area could see a spread of diseases such as cholera and typhoid.

Despite the company houses’ deplorable condition, the company has been threatening to evict its former workers from the houses, even though they have not been paid their dues to allow them to seek better accommodation.

Furthermore, while the company continues to claim its productivity levels do not allow them to timely pay its impoverished employees, the company’s disgruntled workers report that top management at HCCL has continued to live affluent lifestyles, with reports of them recently buying for top managers top-of-the-range vehicles that cost between USD$50 000 and $100 000. This is in addition to reportedly paying themselves allowances and each manager receiving monthly fuel coupons. According to one employee who refused to be named for fear of victimization, top management is paid from a different payroll from the rest of the workers, with their money being processed in the capital city, Harare. The rest of the workers therefore suspect management has continued to pay each other while the rest of the workers go without receiving anything for months on end. Meanwhile, investigations carried out by CNRG unveiled that the coal mining company owes each worker salaries ranging from $5 000 to $50 000—substantial amounts that would, if paid, allow many Hwange families to rise out of their current state of poverty.

2.1 Women’s unpaid labor
The HCCL management has failed to understand why women who are not on their workers’ register are demonstrating against the company. But protesting women have a very strong and legitimate reason why they are demonstrating at the company premises. It is because they are the ones who have over the years being bearing the brunt of the poverty brought into their homes by their spouses’ situation. The women have been subsidizing the HCCL since 2013 when the company stopped paying its employees their full salaries by taking on the role of breadwinners. The workers have been able to continue reporting for duty for the past five years because most of them were being sustained by their wives.

According to some of the protesting women, they are now their families’ sole breadwinners as they have been taking care of their spouses and children, a feat they say has greatly been weighing them down. The women credit themselves for the continuation of production at HCCL, saying without their support, their husbands would have stopped reporting for work years ago. To take care of their families, the women have been engaging in various forms of informal economic activities ranging from cross border trade, buying and selling airtime, farming, vending vegetables to mobile canteens and working other menial jobs that include doing people’s laundry, gardening and cleaning houses. Some have established stokvel credit unions which they call “societies” where members contribute fixed sums of money to a central fund on a monthly basis which is paid to one member at a time. This has enabled some of the women to invest in small business projects which they use to sustain their families. It is such economic activities that have helped to ensure their spouses report for duty at HCCL.

However, the HCCL has not in any way acknowledged how much the women have contributed into ensuring that the company continues to function by taking on the role of breadwinners after it stopped paying their husbands. Instead, the company has been treating the women as a pestilence that is disrupting the normal flow of business at the company and needs to be gotten rid of. Instead of attending to their concerns that resulted in them carrying out the demonstration, the company has continuously been appealing to the courts to have the women removed from its premises, a sign the company doesn't feel it owes the women anything.

2.2 Hwange Colliery Company’s heavy-handedness
Five years ago, on October 7, 2013, five months after HCCL had stopped paying its workers, the wives of the company’s workers and widows of its former workers decided to demonstrate to force the company to pay, citing the poverty that had been brought upon their lives by the non-payment. Instead of engaging them to address the matter as the women had hoped, their attempt at demonstrating was met with force and fury as the company engaged the services of Hwange police to deal with the demonstrators. The overzealous police did not take long before they descended on the women, severely assaulting the placard-waving women as they marched to the company’s head office. The assault the women suffered at the hands of the ruthless police was to see them relenting—effectively bringing to an end what could have been a successful expression of their disgruntlement.

Five years later, in 2018, HCCL still hasn’t paid what it owes its workers and the amounts have spiraled out of control. If the suffering that fell on the company’s families when the company stopped paying them in 2013 was bad enough to warrant their taking to the streets in protest, then one can only imagine how much the situation has deteriorated more than five years down the line.

Hwange Colliery infrastructure is old and inefficient. It reportedly features the last steam locomotive in commercial use on the African continent.

2.3 Hwange Colliery Company again turns antagonistic
When the women began their protest, setting their camp about 500 meters away from the Administration block entrance on January 29 2018, they hoped this time the company would heed their plea. However, HCCL again turned antagonistic and in a move reminiscent of 2013, the company’s first reaction to the demonstration was to engage the police in an attempt to disperse the demonstrators.

But in an unprecedented move, Hwange police this time declined to assist, citing that the demonstrators had the right to protest in terms of section 59 of the Constitution. Instead, all that the police offered to do was to ensure that the demonstration was peaceful, and true to their word, police officers have ensured the protest is conducted peacefully.

2.4 HCCL starts feeling the pressure
On Sunday 11 February 2018 the company called for what it termed “an all stakeholders meeting” which was attended by the workers committee, trade unions, retired employees who were owed money, representatives of demonstrating women, widows of former mine employees, retired former managerial employees who are also owed money, pensioners, the Ministry of Labour, the police, Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) and Chief Shana of Hwange.

In the meeting, HCCL admitted that the company owed its workers a total of $70 million, however emphasising that its workers were not the only people it owed as it owed all its creditors a total of $352 million. HCCL management said they did not have the money to pay what then company owed its current and former workers, but could only pay if sales improve, saying that the previously agreed “Scheme of Arrangement” remained the only way to settle the matter. The said Scheme of Agreement was first agreed on in 2015 after workers had suggested appealing to the government to have HCCL placed under judiciary management; a move management was naturally opposed to. In an attempt to quell the fire, management agreed that it would, in a period of four years and six months, pay everyone it owed 23% of what was owed. However, the company has reneged on its agreement with the workers under the said Scheme of Arrangement and has to date only paid workers 12.2% out of the 23% they had agreed on in 2015, with the money paid only when those owed put the management under pressure to pay.

At the meeting, workers had a chance to personally detail their plight, telling the management how they were failing to fend for their families, their failure to pay school and university fees for their children, lack of medical care and the threat of evictions from company houses, among other problems.

But in the end, seeing that HCCL management was not being sincere, the representatives of the women demonstrators walked out before the end of the meeting. Meanwhile, the demonstration continued gaining momentum by the day.

2.5 The matter spills into courts
On February 7, the HCCL approached the High Court in Bulawayo seeking to be granted an order to bar the Hwange women from continuing to demonstrate on its premises. It was an act designed to further compel the police to evict the women, but the Bulawayo High Court threw out the case.

On February 28, HCCL took the matter to Harare High Court where it hoped to get a more favorable ruling and made an application under the Certificate of Urgency to have the demonstrators evicted. In this case the company cited Acting Commissioner General of police Edwin Matanga and Hwange Police Station Officer in Charge, Chief Inspector James Ngoma as respondents for their failure to disperse the demonstrators. In a decision that brought wild cheers from the women, CNRG and many members of the public that attended the court hearing in solidarity with the Hwange women, the judge Justice Makoni who presided over the matter, dismissed it on the grounds that it was a case that was very far from warranting urgency, also citing section 59 of the Constitution that affords people the right to protest.

2.6 Government’s inaction
At first, the government, who has a 37 percent controlling stake in HCCL, surprisingly remained mum on the situation. It was only when HCCL had failed to disperse the demonstrators that government resolved to send the Home Affairs minister Obert Mpofu to address the demonstrators. By sending Obert Mpofu, whose only relevance was that he hails from Matabeleland North province where HCCL is situated, the workers and the demonstrating women felt that government had trivialized and politicized the crisis.

It soon became apparent to the demonstrators that Mpofu had only been sent to use his political clout to persuade them to disperse, and not to attend to their concerns. Infuriated, the women told Mpofu he was not the right person to address them and asked him not to come back to address them if he had no solution to their problems.

After the women had maintained their resolve, clearly unmoved by Minister Mpofu’s plea for them to disperse, the government on March 7 sent the Minister of Labour Petronella Kagonye. After being locked in marathon meetings with HCCL management that lasted for more than seven hours, Minister Kagonye finally called into the meeting the demonstrators’ representatives, questioning them on why they were demonstrating when they were not employed by HCCL. The minister went on to tell the women the nonpayment matter was between the company and its workers and it was being attended to, telling the women they had no business being camped at the company’s premises and ordering them to immediately disperse.

While the Labour minister’s visit resulted in the announcement that going forward HCCL would pay its workers their full salaries as it works on fulfilling its pledges under the Scheme of Agreement, which would bring relief to many families if the promise is fulfilled, the women have resolved to remain camped at the company premises until the promised money starts reflecting in their bank accounts. This is a move that CNRG hails because the company is in the habit of backing out of its promises and has over the years proven it cannot be trusted to keep its word.

In its intervention measures, the government has shown more determination to stop the demonstrating women in order to bring back order to the company more than attending to the women’s concerns.

Additionally, the situation in Hwange is continually attracting the attention of political players, some of who seem to see it as an opportunity to further their political interests. On March 6, the women demonstrators received a visit from Joice Mujuru, who expressed concern for their movement, encouraging them to continue. Ironically, Mujuru was the country’s vice president when the company, in which the government is the major shareholder, started crumbling as a result of mismanagement. After she departed, the women were left convinced the visit had been nothing but an election campaign as she intends to run for president in the upcoming elections.

...

In response to the unfair treatment of women in mining areas, Centre for Natural Resource Governance is implementing a three-year movement building project for women affected by mining in Hwange, Mutoko, Penhalonga, Marange, Darwendale and Bikita. Supported by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), the project aims at strengthening the voice of women affected by extractive industries so they can defend their economic, social and cultural rights in the wake of extractivism. A critical mass of women is rising to challenge the model of extractivism prevailing in Zimbabwe, which values profits over people’s welfare.

Selected Additional resources:
Report on the Situation of Coal Mining in Hwange: Special Focus on Hwange Colliery Company CNRG, July 2016 http://cnrgzim.org/wp-content/uploads/2 ... PORT-1.pdf

Nyasha Muchichwa, Working without Pay: Wage Theft in Zimbabwe. Solidarity Center, 2016. http://www.solidaritycenter.org – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/y7ewon3g

"Address Grievances of Hwange Colliery Workers: ZCTU," Spiked, February 14, 2018. http://spiked.co.zw – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/y8hf9nno

Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) meeting with Hwange women protesters, February 1, 2018 - 15 minute video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tIsHAGLGvA Conversation mostly in Ndebele and Shona. For backgroound article in English, see the previous link.

"100 days of snubbing Zimbabwean workers," Industiall glboal union federation, March 7, 2018 http://www.industriall-union.org – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/yauj2zpf

Steam locomotive at Hwange Colliery, July 2017 – 7.5 minute video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVfDT2UmpT8

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worker | March 26, 2018 at 9:11 pm | URL: https://wp.me/pKlsL-4iJ
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: ZIMBABWE

Post by blindpig » Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:34 pm

A Turning Point for Zimbabwe

[Leftist Critic is an independent writer, researcher, and comrade who cares about the world around them. Other than posting on radical subreddits, they also tweet infrequently at @leftistcriticabout about the murderous US empire, international solidarity with nations and peoples under attack, and provide necessary criticism of the Western “Left.” They can be reached at leftistcritic@linuxmail.org.]

By Leftist Critic

On July 30, the Republic of Zimbabwe held its presidential elections. The turnout of the Zimbabwean population was, as a Zanu-PF party outlet, The Herald, reported, summarizing the announcement of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), an average of 75%. Clearly, Zimbabweans wanted to express their voice, even though, officially, a small percentage were “turned away for reasons such as not having valid identity cards, defaced identity cards and not appearing on the voters’ roll.” The Zimbabwean bourgeoisie lauded the elections, with the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) saying they were happy with how the elections were conducted and wanted them credible so “the re-engagement that we have with the rest of the world continues” as the CZI president, Sifelani Jabangwe declared. Additionally, the CEO Africa round table also praised the elections, saying they significantly boost confidence. [1] In some ways, much has changed since I last wrote about Zimbabwe.

In this election there are two contending parties: the Zanu-PF, a party which has led the country since Zimbabwe’s independence from British rule in 1980 and the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change), long the favorite of Western imperialists, with the biggest faction in this recently formed alliance (formed last year) being the MDC-T or Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai. The bourgeois media in the imperial core uniformly side with the MDC’s concerns about an “unfair” election, which has been watched by all sorts of election observers from the imperial core, especially their claims of Zanu-PF “rigging” or that the MDC magically won the presidential election, while not siding with the Zanu-PF’s claim that the MDC is inciting violence. [2] Additionally, there have been ruminations that “the military would have a strong influence over the way people voted” in the country, as declared by one think tank. Regardless, Zimbabweans voted in over 10,000 polling stations for 210 parliament members and over 9,000 councilors, with over 20 presidential candidates, with results from these votes announced on August 2. The results were originally to be released on August 4 but complaints by the MDC pushed it to August 2. The bourgeois media also claim that the vote may be close between the top two presidential contenders, since a candidate needs more than 50% of the vote to win outright, leading to the possibility of a run-off election on September 8.

Those two contenders are Emmerson Mnangagwa of the Zanu-PF, installed on November 24 of last year after the military coup in Zimbabwe, which ousted the “father” of Zimbabwe (Robert Mugabe), from November 14 to 21. Mnangagwa is described by British imperialist BBC as promising “to deliver jobs and is seen as open to economic reforms.” His opponent is Nelson Chamisa of the MDC-T, a lawyer and pastor, who would be the youngest president in Zimbabwe’s history. He is described by BBC as promising to “rebuild the country’s devastated economy” while also promising to introduce “a high-speed bullet train” and bring the Olympics to the country. The presidential manifestos of both parties, displayed by the Zanu-PF party paper, The Herald, show clear similarities without question, which is concerning. The Zanu-PF’s manifesto calls for transforming the country into a “middle-income economy” by 2030 with aggressive focus on opening up “the country for business” to the world, while gaining further foreign direct investment (FDI) (i.e. foreign capital) and domestic capital. This would be coupled with claims of improved health service in the country. Similarly, the MDC-T’s manifesto calls for enabling “economic growth and job creation” with a “pro-job economic recovery” which includes “large scale investment in domestic manufacturing and agriculture.” This would also include a “fully functionary basic health delivery system,” among other aspects. On a related note, the MDC Alliance’s manifesto calls for the “construction of a nominal 100 billion dollar economy” over a period of five years and a new health insurance plan. Finally, the manifesto of another opposition party, the CODE (Coalition for Democrats) calls for “double-digit economic growth,” making Zimbabwe a low-cost efficient producer, “reforming” the sector of state enterprises, while working for debt forgiveness, and having a different health system. Bloomberg, in their summary in late July, said that Mnangagwa is trying to show his “commitment to rebuilding the battered economy, attracting foreign investment and tackling corruption.” They added that in the case of Chamisa, he has been able “to make inroads into parts of rural Zimbabwe that were previously no-go areas for the opposition” since Mugabe’s ouster, with the former pledging to “build new roads, rail links and other infrastructure, improve the education and health-care systems and revive the economy if elected.”

Since the coup in November 2017, it is clear that either Zanu-PF or MDC victory will benefit the hungry Western bourgeoisie while hurting the Zimbabwean proletariat. The MDC-T is a predecessor of the original MDC formed by the late Morgan Tsvangirai in September 1999 and has been backed by Western money ever since, only winning decisively in elections in 2008, leading to a short-lived shared government between the MDC and Zanu-PF until 2009. As for the Zanu-PF, its imperialist faction is currently in power, with those who were a group of dedicated Zimbabwean nationalists who positioned themselves as anti-imperialist purged out of the party or abandoning the party all together, with huge walkouts from Mnangagwa’s rallies and the National Patriotic Front (NPF) going on stage with Chamisa. [3] At the same time, Mugabe, in a surprise press conference on July 29, said he would not support the Zanu-PF, the ones whom he described as tormenting him, feeling that Chamisa of the MDC-T was the only choice to remove what he described as a military government, bringing the country “back to constitutionality,” an assessment which could influence Zimbabweans in their election. This was not a direct endorsement but rather Mugabe felt that Mnangagwa could only be defeated by Chamisa, who he likely voted for and having a “realistic chance of winning,” to use a quote from Bloomberg, while embracing the existing process, not making some secret deal as Mnangagwa declared with venom on his lips for Mugabe and all he stood for. Having a party stalwart like Mugabe abandon the Zanu-PF, angering The Herald (which spread lies about Mugabe supporter Jonathan Moyo by saying he had “dumped” Mugabe) of course, is a big deal which could change the results of the election. Mugabe also talked about varied other topics, like the fact that he was deposed in a military coup, that his wife Grace should be left alone by the media, and telling the history of the Blue House in Harare where he is living, noting it was built by Yugoslavians, originally supposed to be in the Chinese style to honor the Chinese support in the liberation struggle but this did not happen, leading to a weak form of construction.

As it currently stands, Mnangagwa is hopeful of victory and Chamisa has prematurely declared victory even before the results have been announced! [4] On July 31, results of elections were published in The Herald, deriving from information released by the ZEC, noting that the 102 “duly elected members of the National Assembly,” 73 were from the Zanu-PF (about 72%), 28 were the MDC (less than 28%), and 1 was of the NPF (less than 1%). This is extracted from the results, released so far, which have been posted by the ZEC’s website. If the results reported by The Herald reflect the reality on a nationwide scale, Mnangagwa would win in a landslide, with no runoff election in September. On August 1st, as summarized by AP, the ZEC announced that for the 210-seat Zimbabwean parliament, the Zanu-PF won 109 seats, the MDC gained 41 seats, and 2 seats were won by smaller parties, with “58 seats…yet to be declared.” As Reuters described it, the Zanu-PF “swept most rural constituencies by large margins” while the MDC “won in urban centers.” This goes against the pre-election assessment by pro-imperialist outlet, Quartz, which summarized a poll of AfroBarometer (funded by Western imperialists like NED, the U$ State Department, the Swedish government and varied capitalist-run foundations), saying that undecided voters numbered up to 20% and hoping the British (former colonialists) will come to the “rescue.”

Not long after this announcement by the ZEC, gunfire filled streets of Harare with soldiers coming in to disperse those “who had clashed with police” after those individuals burned “cars and threw rocks.” This followed Chamisa accusing “the ZANU-PF of trying to rig the results.” The streets were cleared by police, including some in riot gear, assisted by helicopters and armored personnel carriers, with police reportedly firing on crowds “with guns, water cannons and tear gas.” Of course, Mnangagwa accused Chamisa and the MDC of inciting violence by “already declaring he had won the election.” Be that as it may, the efforts by Zimbabwean police is clearly an attempt to maintain control, possibly to maintain military rule since the country’s army was deployed on the streets of Harare, with at least three civilians killed in the clashes. At the same time, it is highly likely the MDC stoked the protests in order to ensure that the election is not seen as “free and fair” by the West. [5] The latter manifested itself most recently in an EU observer mission grumbling about the “delay in announcing the results of the presidential race” and saying that “a truly level playing field was not achieved” with the election, declaring there was “misuse of state resources, instances of coercion and intimidation, partisan behavior by traditional leaders and overt bias in state media,” while they admitted that “the election campaign and voting were largely peaceful.” Such assessments are important as it could determine if Western sanctions, which began in the late 1990s, remain imposed on Zimbabwe. While this is happening, civil society groups, traditionally backed by Western imperialists, are “working on a court application to force the electoral commission to get all polling stations to publish results,” basing this off the position of the MDC. [6]

Regardless of who wins, it is clear that the economy is in turmoil in part from mismanagement by the Zimbabwean national bourgeoisie, but mainly from Western sanctions targeting the country’s economy after an effort to redistribute the country’s White-owned farms to the Black masses, angering Western capitalists without end! Clearly, the West will allow political change if it benefits Western capitalists, with the Zanu-PF and MDC having pro-imperialist positions meaning that these capitalists win no matter what. While Robert Mugabe and his supporters in the Zanu-PF had their problems, they were a clear firewall against Western imperialism in Zimbabwe, which was even noted by a hostile South African broadcaster, SABC, back in the day. Now, that firewall is gone, and the country is open to imperialist viruses. As such, no matter who wins, the Zimbabwean proletariat are losers and while new economic structures, not by the unfortunately useless Zimbabwean Communist Party should be created they should built on the Zanu-PF’s work so far while directly challenging and obliterating the nationalist Zimbabwean bourgeoisie.

Looking forward, while looking back at the past, it is much more productive to be critical without accepting the imperialist narrative of Zimbabwe wholesale as some on the Left have done to the peril of the global proletariat. [7] As such, it is important to point out that the murderous empire wants capitalism without question. This was expressed by Mike Pompeo on July 30 of this year, declaring in a speech about new imperial policy in the Indo-Pacific to the U$ Chamber of Commerce’s Indo-Pacific Business Forum: “the U.S. Government doesn’t tell American companies what to do. But we help build environments that foster good, productive capitalism. We help American firms succeed so that local communities can flourish, and bilateral partnerships can grow.” Additionally, one should consider what Michael Parenti wrote back in 2014, that not only do we not “really know how very rich the very rich really are” but we also “don’t really know how poor the very poor really are” with the poorest 50 percent having vastly more than the “accumulated wealth of the world’s poorest 50 percent” with many of those having “next to nothing.” As Danny Haiphong, favorable to Chinese revisionism, even recently wrote, “the US ruling class privately owns the most ruthless form of imperialism to date. For the last forty years, the concentration of wealth and profit in the hands of ever fewer numbers of capitalists has been achieved through an all-out assault on the concessions won by workers and oppressed people over the last century.” This is bound to be expanded to the Zimbabwean proletariat without question with expanded neoliberal destruction.

There is another aspect worth noting: conflict between Chinese and U$ capitalists. Zimbabwe has taken a “look east” policy, meaning they have favored China over the U$, especially since the 1990s, with good relations with China since 1980. This was due to the fact that during the liberation struggle against the British colonialists and their White settler descendants. Whther Mnangagwa or Chamisa wins, the country could easily shift toward the orbit of U$ capitalists, but likely more in the case of Chamisa than Mnangagwa, who would try to balance the capitalists from each country. This is important because Xi Jinping of China recently went on a tour of Africa, pledging to defend the “multilateral free trading system,” cemented in the IMF, World Bank, and WTO, while also trying to expand Chinese investments and “infrastructure loans.” After all, they were fine with the horrid TPP (and its successor, the CPTPP), wanting more integration of the global capitalist system!

While this story is a developing one, with the reality clear on August 2 and the days afterward, it is clear that not only are hard times ahead for the Zimbabwean proletariat but this election will be said to be a turning point for Zimbabwe as a whole, without question.

Notes:

[1] In the same article, The Herald boasted of the policies which have benefited the Zimbabwean bourgeoisie since November 2017 and in recent days, weakening the gains made under Mugabe: “Due to the encouraging performance of companies since January, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has been overwhelmed by applications for foreign payments as firms seek to retool and boost their operations. Government has also announced a raft of policy changes such as the amendment of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act to attract foreign investment and has since scrapped the prior need for foreign-owned investors to hold 49 percent in business ventures they initiate while locals got 51 percent save for the diamond and the platinum sectors. The Diamond Policy, which will spell out a number of issues regarding the sector is under consideration. Immediately after that, a Platinum Policy, with similar aspirations, would also be created. Statistics show investment approvals between January and June 30 this year, are over $16 billion. The indications are investment inquiries through the Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA) are likely to increase tremendously after this week’s harmonised elections.”

[2] Christopher Torchia and Farai Mutsaka, “Zimbabwe says election is clean; opposition is skeptical,” AP, Jul 31, 2018; “Zimbabwe’s MDC Alliance says Chamisa beat Mnangagwa,” BBC News, Jul 31, 2018; Mel Frykberg, “Military may have made impact on Zimbabwe elections – legal think-tank,” African News Agency, Jul 31, 2018; Tom Embury-Dennis and Harry Cockburn, “Zimbabwe election LIVE: Two main parties claim lead amid accusations of ‘deliberate delays’ in first vote since ousting of Robert Mugabe,” The Independent, Jul 31, 2018; MacDonald Dzirutwe and Joe Brock, “Zimbabwe opposition accuses commission of delaying poll results,” Reuters, Jul 31, 2018; Susan Njanji and Fanuel Jongwe, “Tension mounts as Zimbabwe opposition claims election victory,” AFP, Jul 31, 2018; Christopher Torchia and Farai Mutsaka, “Zimbabwe polls close, counting begins in pivotal election,” AP, Jul 30, 2018; “Zimbabwe Election in Some Cases ‘Totally Disorganized’: EU,” Reuters, Jul 30, 2018; Hamza Mohamed, “Zimbabwe elections: Voters cast ballots in landmark polls,” Al Jazeera, Jul 30, 2018; Jason Burke, “Zimbabwe opposition leader: ‘We will have a new president … it will be me’,” The Guardian, Jul 27, 2018; “Zimbabwe opposition accuses commission of delaying poll results,” Reuters, July 31, 2018; “Factbox: Zimbabwe’s voting system,” Reuters, Jul 31, 2018; “Zimbabwe presidential election results expected from Thursday: electoral commission,” Reuters, Aug 1, 2018.

[3] “Zimbabwe: Scores Abandon ED Rally,” The Standard, July 29, 2018; “UPDATE 3-Zimbabwe’s Mugabe backs opposition on eve of election,” Reuters, July 29, 2018; Kim Sengupta, “Zimbabwe election campaign takes dramatic turn as Mugabe turns against his own party,” Yahoo! News, July 29, 2018; Farai Mutsaka, “Zimbabwe’s Mugabe emerges, rejects ruling party in election,” AP, July 29, 2018; Brian Latham, “Here Are the Leading Candidates in Zimbabwe’s Historic Presidential Race,” Bloomberg, July 24, 2018.

[4] Everson Mushava, “Chamisa, ED in final showdown,” NewsDay, Aug 2018; Sisipho Skweyiya, “Zimbabwe’s jobless generation hopes election will mark a change,” July 2018; Fanuel Jongwe, “Tension mounts as Zimbabwe opposition claims election victory,” AFP, Jul 31, 2018; Jason Burke, “Zimbabwe opposition leader: ‘We will have a new president … it will be me’,” The Guardian, Jul 27, 2018; “Violence in Zimbabwe after ruling ZANU-PF announced as winner of election,” AP, Aug 1, 2018; “Zimbabwe’s Mnangagwa says Harare violence meant to disrupt election,” Reuters, Aug 1, 2018; Christopher Torchia and Farai Mutsaka, “Riots shake Zimbabwean capital as election results delayed,” AP, Aug 1, 2018; “Zimbabwe police requested army help to quell post-election protests: spokeswoman,” Reuters, Aug 1, 2018; MacDonald Dzirutwe and Joe Brock, “Three killed as Zimbabwe troops, protesters clash after vote,” Reuters, Aug 1, 2018; “Zimbabwe ruling party has two-thirds majority in parliament: official results,” Reuters, Aug 1, 2018; “Zimbabwe’s ruling party wins most seats in parliament. But was election fair?,” AFP, Aug 1, 2018; David B. Moore, “Zimbabwe is getting ready for a very close election and a test of its democratic future,” Quartz, July 24, 2018.

[5] MDC involvement was acknowledged in the August 1 story in Reuters (“Three killed as Zimbabwe troops, protesters clash after vote”), saying that “the unrest started soon after Nelson Chamisa, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), declared that he had won the popular vote…“I was making a peaceful protest. I was beaten by soldiers,” said Norest Kemvo, who had gashes to his face and right hand. “This is our government. This is exactly why we wanted change. They are stealing our election” [a common claim of the MDC]…Chamisa’s spokesman, Nkululeko Sibanda, told reporters the army’s reaction was unjustified. “Today we saw the deployment of military tanks and firing of live ammunition on civilians for no apparent reason” [it wasn’t for “no reason”]…“We are tired of them stealing our votes. This time we will not allow it, we will fight,” said a protester who wore a red MDC beret in central Harare…“The strategy is meant to prepare Zimbabwe mentally to accept fake presidential results. We’ve more votes than ED. We won the popular vote (and) will defend it,” Chamisa said on Twitter.”

[6] “CORRECTED-Zimbabwe group preparing election court action, opposition says,” Reuters, July 31, 2018.

[7] One example is Horace Campbell, recently interviewed by the progressive alternative news outlet, The Real News. He is a person who, as I noted in a YouTube comment, “favors the Western-backed MDC and doesn’t like Mugabe,” accepting “imperialist narrative in this case,” while I added that “if sanctions are lifted and the country opens for business (to the Western bourgeoisie) the latter especially would hurt the Zimbabwean proletariat. Still, Campbell is right that neither party wants to economically empower the people and that the economic programs of both parties are similar! He also makes good points about organizing new structures and other voting across the African continent. I

https://anti-imperialism.org/2018/08/01 ... -zimbabwe/
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Re: ZIMBABWE

Post by blindpig » Sun Sep 09, 2018 1:54 pm

Zim’s coffee production bound for major boom
Sep 7, 2018 | Agriculture | 0 |

Zimbabwe’s coffee production sector is bound for a major boom following an interest by global coffee processor Nespresso for a long-term investment plan to revive the country’s coffee industry and stimulate the rural economy.

A huge boost for the coffee farming industry especially small holder farmers following an announcement by Nestle’ Nespresso Global to buy more than 95 percent of the high quality coffee by Zimbabwean smallholders this season which will be available to global consumers in 2019.

Nespresso Global Chief Executive Officer Jean Marc Duvoisin confirmed through their official website that they are investing in reviving coffee farming in different regions of the world, where adverse conditions have impacted the lives of farmers and their ability to grow and nurture their coffee industries.

Zimbabwe’s coffee producing industry has suffered a severe decline over the last 18 years from a peak potential of 15 000 tonnes under 8 000 hectares to the current 430 tonnes produced over 379 hectares.

But it’s a sector that wields a lot of potential given the country’s history in producing high quality coffee in areas such as the Eastern Highlands, Goromonzi, Guruve, and Hurungwe.

Essentially the Swiss based group will provide training and technical assistance to 400 smallholder coffee farmers over the next five years in a campaign to boost the country’s output of quality sustainable coffee.

A non-profit making organisation Technoserve that is working with the global coffee processor is optimistic of a quick turnaround of the country’s coffee sector after its president and CEO William Warshauer stated through the issued statement that their partnership with Nespresso and the farmers of Zimbabwe will help transform one of the country’s most promising sectors and share more of its incredible coffee with the world.

The revival of the Zimbabwean coffee industry is part of Nespresso’s commitment to investing in coffee communities to create sustainable sources of income, preserve the environment and ensure coffee availability for future generations.

http://www.zbc.co.zw/zims-coffee-produc ... ajor-boom/
Mugabe's land expropriation without compensation is having the desired effect, and Zimbabwe's black farmers are in an advanced level of development. That EWC will lead to mass food shortages is a racist myth which must be destroyed

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Re: ZIMBABWE

Post by blindpig » Fri Nov 23, 2018 6:20 pm

Zimbabwe: Govt Avails U.S.$53 Million Compensation to Former White Farmers

Government has set aside US$53 million towards compensation of former white farmers affected during the Land Reform Programme, Finance Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube has said.

Presenting his 2019 Budget statement yesterday, Ncube said the compensation plan is in line with the country's laws and various bilateral agreements entered between government and former colonial masters, Britain.

Image

"In the interim, the 2019 Budget proposes to avail US$53 million towards payment of compensation to former white farm owners, whose disbursement will be targeted.

"Government has put in place structures to determine the extent of Government's obligations. This work is on-going and will be finalized in the next few months," he said.

Prof Ncube added that they are exploring various mobilization strategies and finance mechanisms with all stakeholders.

"Cognizance is being given to the fact that the resources required to compensate and put closure to this important issue, are obviously beyond the capacity of the fiscus.

"In this regard, various mobilization strategies and finance mechanisms are being explored in consultation with all stakeholders," he added.

https://allafrica.com/stories/201811230177.html

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