'I don't want to leave Zanu-PF in tatters,' says Mugabe

President Mugabe (PM) last week held a wide ranging interview with the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation's Tazzen Mandizvidza (TM) in which he spoke at length about various issues. The first part appeared in last Saturday's Herald. Today we publish the second instalment of that interview.

TM: Your Excellency, I want us to focus on the issue of funding, you explained the method where we use our resources to get capital, are you confident that it is going to be a successful way of doing it, because without funding we might have problems with Zim-Asset?

PM: Yes, otherwise which other way is, say, selling our land and giving up the ownership of the resources. Urikutengesa upfumi hwevana vamangwana vachauya vachinzi, "Ah, zvese zviripasi apa zvakatorwa nemaBritish, zvatengeswa nevakuru venyu," ah no!

Yes, it works very much, it's a method that is used and it's a very good method, and, there I have given you two ways.

One, borrowing on the strength of your minerals, or of your wealth. Secondly, inviting partners, joint partners, who work with you on a 51/49 percent (basis) or even on a percentage much less than that.

I was talking to President Khama the other day and he was saying after the long period of being exploited by De Beers that they have now put their foot down and decided that no, De Beers must now have minority shareholding. De Beers now gets 17 or 18 percent and they get the rest. And he was saying "Ours is much better than yours."

TM: Your Excellency, let me take you back to the party Zanu-PF. Obviously there will come a day when the man Robert Mugabe will say "Well, I am done with politics." Have you prepared the party Zanu-PF for that period? Won't we have the party disintegrating over the issue of succession? Your critics actually say you seem to be avoiding this issue of succession in Zanu-PF.

PM: Why?

TM: It's not discussed openly and the people keep on guessing who is going to take over from the…

PM: But why should it be discussed when it's not due? Is it due? Well, the leadership still exists that runs the country. In other words, I am still there. The people can discuss it if they want, but the moment they start discussing it, they are going into factions and then you find the party dividing itself, and so why dividing, why discuss it when it's not due?

When the day comes and I retire, that's sure, the day will come. What I don't want is, I don't want to leave my party in tatters; I want to leave it intact.

We don't want selfish people. And you don't want to come into leadership because you want to serve own personal interests. You come into leadership because the people would want you to serve their interests, this is it, and that's why some of us never campaigned for any position at all, we left it to the party to decide and so it was but nowadays, oh no, you must have your people, these people belonging to so and so.

But it's terrible, even to have your name put as, mentioned as leader of a faction, it's shameful. You must go beyond that and say you belong to the people as a whole. You are a member of the party and all the other members become your people who will look up to you for the necessary help or benefits that they expect from the leadership by way of being empowered.

But then what you see is a selfish way of approaching leadership issues. You must have a few guys, kumayouth, kumawomen and so on, vanondisupporta, that's absolutely wrong.

If I had people I say, "These are my people, ndivo vangu ava, ko vamwe ndevani?" That's the issue. You are already dividing the party.

So be there, objectively there. If you have talents, the people will see those talents. "(They will say) Ah so and so ndiye ane attitude yatirikuona, ndiye anokwanisa kubatanidza vanhu uyu, unite the people, his attitude kwese, kwese, he is not tribalistic, regionalistic."

But as one looks at the present position, well, I don't know whether it's the politics of the day, zvinotonyadza.

Capacity to govern is not just the fact of your having gotten a degree or degrees it's not just the fact of your being a member of the party with a record of having participated in it, that record must show that you have not been tribalistic, you have not been regionalistic, you can be relied upon by each and every province to take up their cause, their own geographical interests that their children will be educated the same way as the people of the province from which you come or in which you were born.

All people matter. Independence makes us matter and all must have equal opportunity.

The settlers thought they were the most important people next to God, although they were doing ungodly things they thought that they were the better people, our people were heathen, they didn't believe in Christianity and they brought Christianity to us.

Well, we took up Christianity and we learnt its tenets and we tried now to relate their actions to the tenets which they brought us and we found quite a contradiction. "Love your neighbour" there they were spitting on us, they were suppressing us, regarding us as next to their dogs and so we said no they couldn't be Christians in action.

And you can see them as now, they apply sanctions on us, the capacity to lie, to tell lies as the truth and they do that quite openly. We cannot do that, kwatiri, ah ah, kuvatema.

Tinganzi tinotaura nhema zvedu but to be a liar to the same extent that the whites have lied say on Iraq, on Libya and use that to attack them, to commit again that heinous act of invading an innocent county.

Within our own system, the microcosm Zimbabwe, a leader should not lie. You must be honest. You must be truthful.

Well, I know all my people my people and all those who have been close to me I know them well, very, very well: what they tell me and what they have hidden away from me. I know how honest they are or dishonest some of them are.

We had in 2008, the reason we were beaten was not just some of the votes went with vana Dumiso (Dabengwa) nanaSimba Makoni. Yes, they had a dent on our support but some of the leaders vekwedu were telling people "You know, you don't have to vote the President, vakahwina kare."

Where, the first time we had our harmonised elections, so the people would not mind and indeed quite a number of people didn't mind to vote but they were reminded to vote for Members of Parliament.

We didn't do as badly kuParliament, kuSenate we won, and kuHouse of Assembly I think we were beaten by one vote and we did badly kuPresidential election. I was defeated but the party had majority in Parliament and the party would still be regarded as having won and therefore I would drop because I would have been defeated and a new leader would be found and there would be a coalition established neMDC because we will have won in Parly and the MDC will be in a subservient role; but the party would have won.

This was the strategy of course. So, after the elections and we were addressing the party and I said to them, do you realise that if we had lost definitely, been beaten in absolute terms, even though if they had won tine majority kuParliament, both houses put together, we would not have governed the country?

Zvikanzi, "Ah, is that so?" Ndikati, "Eh, iyi ndiyo yana Goliath kuti isai wenyu apa isu tiise wedu apa tina Goriyati wemaPhilistines ndizvo zvavaiita mukakurira wedu mahwina ndozvazvine executive Government. Ihondo yana Goriati.

So they only grew away from it much later but of cause some wanted leadership change, ana Simba Makoni. He thought he was above everbody else and he didn't need to have a party in order to win. He thought people admired him if he would stand there saGoriati wo zvake except that Goliath ange asingadiwa nemaIsrael aidiwa nemaPhilistines. But and he thought he could stand there and make the whole of the population of Zimbabwe vote for him mushure ozosarudza vanhu vaanoda vanenge vahwina from mamwe parties.

That was his strategy it doesn't work here. It might work there, it might in Francophone countries. Boni Yayi … did (that) kwake kuBenin…he was telling me he said, I have no party but I was voted in by the people without a party.

Our people would not do that because vanoziva tradition dzekuparty. So they rejected him, Simba Makoni. After they rejected him, mid-way he tried to form his Mavambo and his friends deserted him. But to go to election this time he thought no was too n*ked in 2008, he must dress himself up and Mavambo has no adequate dress.

Now Tsvangirai has problems nanaBiti uko.

If I (Makoni) go and say Tsvangirai let's go to it together Tsvangirai would agree in the hope that if he wins there, he could then in due course take over Tsvangirai. Kuhwandira mumwe uku kwaaida kuita ane party yake zvake. But that did not work, too. Poor Makoni! Intelligent academically but very foolish politically.

Well tinavo. I don't want the fact of factionalism. I don't just like the idea of a leader seeking to be liked some, much more than by others. You go to stand there, all must like you.

You have people you work with you might be closer to, but never allow yourself to be called a leader of a faction. Ndopavari kukanganisa chete ipapo.

And you go into government; supposing you win, because you have this province supporting you, mamwe ma provinces will work against you. They become maopposition within your party. You see the danger there is? There, we are having to fight this apparently without very much of success because people want to be seen first and foremost as regional leaders and not as national leaders: ndini mukuru; mukuru wekuManicaland ndiyani? Mukuru kuprovince iyi ndiani? All that is nonsensical and rubbish! That's what is destroying the party.

Once wada hukuru kuprovince ikoko vamwe vanozotsavaga kudawo hukuru hwekuprovince kwavo and that's regionalism that you are creating.

You are a national leader. Remain a national leader kwete kuti wozoti ndiri mukuru kuprovince; kuprovince we have a provincial chairman. They will respect you if you come from that province, yes, but kwete kuti ndiwe politically wave mukuru ikoko. Aiwa.

That is what we are fighting against and I am going to fight against this one quiet blantantly because that is what is destroying the party.

TM: Your Excellency you said you are going to fight this problem of factionalism but it looks like people are not listening to you because it continues. You have been talking about this for quite a long time. How are you going to stamp factionalism?

PM: The party is greater than an individual and it is wrong, completely wrong tactics and wrong system, that recognises those of us who are in the executive of the party, the Politburo and the Central Committee to still have the right to be leaders of provinces.

This is a contradiction in fact. It is not like that in the party constitution. The chairpersons of the provinces must be the bosses of the provinces and not the leaders who are national leaders in the Politburo. Those must cease to be leaders of provinces immediately.

Anyone who purports to be a leader of the province must then forfeit his leadership of the party. That is a serious matter now.

You have members of the Politburo who want to dictate and determine the direction of the political events in the province were you have already a provincial leadership that must do so.

All we have said in the party is that members of the executive in party Politburo, Central Committee and those in Parliament can meet together with the provincial leadership in what we call the co-ordinating committee.

The chairperson of that committee is the provincial chairperson; he will preside over it and must not be dictated to. But we have the gurus of the provinces who will want to wield the big stick. That's wrong.

TM: Your Excellency when you unveiled the Joshua Nkomo statue in Bulawayo sometime ago you made an appeal to those who have gone back to Zapu to come home to Zanu-PF. Why is that important to you?

PM: To tell you the truth while that is necessary that's not what I said. I was talking about war veterans, strictly war veterans. I said war veterans are divided; whether the division is that between former Zanla or Zipra forces, they must come together, be together. I said war veterans and I did not go beyond that.

Dumiso then keeps his own party if he wants, if it means anything to him. But of course that appeal was taken now in broader sense that I was appealing to Dumiso and others to come back. That's not what I said.

… we want to address their (war veterans') problems, the challenges they are having in life. So if they are in bits like that it is difficult to do so, divided as they are.

I know some are well-placed, some work in government, some have gone back to school, are educating themselves, are professionals. But there are others who are in really difficult circumstances.

TM: Let me take you to the Cabinet that you appointed. It looks like it's now made up of new blood and these are the deputy ministers and you have retained the old guard who are the experienced ministers. What kind of a format is this?

PM: it is a mixture of the experienced and inexperienced ones and that is the way it should be, how it is, isn't it? How do the younger ones get experience except by working with those that have experience in the past?

You can't have a government with new faces who will for the first time learn how to govern. There are quite a number of younger ones who are new heading ministries but these are by and large were yesterday deputy ministers, they were members of Parliament, such as (Walter) Mzembi and (Walter) Chidhakwa.

Yes, it is a good blend I think. Unfortunately we do not have many ladies and the women are unhappy about that. But we had to vet them and we can't just get any person because of the dress. Who is that person in the dress? Ndizvo zvatinoda kuziva.

TM: When they (ministers) were sworn in you told them it was not business as usual; they had to hit the ground running. How do you rate the performance of the Cabinet so far? Are you satisfied that you have assembled a team that we achieve your goals especially on Zim-Asset?

PM: Yes, I think so. I think they have started well. The uncovering of the filth of corruption that has been going on and that is due to this initiative. We want them to … produce plans that address the objectives of Zim-Asset. Va(Patrick) Chinamasa will be demanding and demanding returns. He wants money from mines, manufacturing, transport commerce, and so on for revenue for Zim-Asset to work, and salaries.

I have said our Government must not repeat the ills of the GNU; it must work as a government that is in control of resources, that takes into account the fact of the hardships that people have gone through all along, the loss they suffered through hyperinflation, and the difficulties imposed upon not only by sanctions but also by the climatic conditions – the drought and so on.

And so we must have normal salaries. Yes, we cannot have them from day one, but we must have them on paper for a start and work towards their being fulfilled, towards their being fulfilled in practice. And that Chinamasa is doing.

At first he said we couldn't do it and I said well if you can't do it tell me I will get someone to do it. That is why he announced that salaries will be going to be above the poverty datum line.

The workers, let's think about their situation also: a person gets US$152, US$300 or so … taxes, a portion goes, ndiyo yaidyiwa nanaCuthbert Dube ikoko kuPSMAS; and marates and rents to pay and transport; mafees vana kuchikoro, medical fees, people get sick; food.

Ndaibvunza Biti kuti do you think people can make a living nemasalaries? Aiti ndaienda mumasupermarkets neUS$100 ndichidzoka ne change. NdiBiti uyu, hanzi ndinenge ndatenga zvemumba…Mangoma was there to say "yes, yes".

But that's nonsensical. Even the President wants to be paid well now. So, let's pay our people the salaries they deserve. I am glad they have gone some three-quarters of the way in meeting the poverty datum line requirement. I hope by June they will have come there.

Our workers are understanding. We do not want unnecessary demonstrations and strikes. When they have grievances that are well-based, you know, that are genuine, well what right you have to say kuti totuma mapurisa to go and quell them when they have genuine grievances? No we can't do that!

We have a genuine grievance ipapa panyaya dzemasalaries. Let us do all we can to pay salaries.

Yes, this might affect adversely our capacity to undertake the objectives of our Zim-Asset but we will be trying to derive capacity from our mining sector and other areas that can yield monetary capacity for us. We are not that poor. It is only that our financing capacity was not well-organised.

What should we get from mines? It is not just about diamonds. It is also about gold, for example… the women vanokorokoza they get ma kilogrammes egold, raw gold though it be. But a lot of gold was being smuggled to South Africa to be processed there yet we have Fidelity here.

So we have now corrected that system of disengaging our capacity and liberalism which was brought by Biti that they can sell to whomever they please. How can you make such a decision of that nature and expect accountability at the end of the day?

So we get back to the colonial system which we inherited and adopted at Independence and right up to the time we went to the Government of National Unity, that all of our gold should be sold to Fidelity.

Yes, the price must be fair, reasonable, and that no other buyers are allowed in between. Then you see growth and you will see growth and we will very soon go beyond the 11 or 17kg per year. Once upon a time were close to 30 but just under 30.

Quite a number of mines are dysfunctional; lets get them to function and let's get to organise makorokoza tione kuti vari kupi. Kuti vaite makomba murwizi izvo hatidi. Gold is practically in every province, apparently. So are our diamonds.

I was given the results of an exploration done over time by DeBeers by Va(Robert) Mhlanga veku Mbada and showing that the diamonds were everywhere but (they are) kimberlite. Let's organise also those ones.

All the mining companies that we had in Marange were just doing alluvial mining, the more so Mbada. They were unfortunate to go to the heart of alluvial deposits – and they admit it.

But they said they do not want to exhaust alluvial and they would now want to combine do kimberlite with alluvial and they will do kimberlite in five places. They are getting some machines. But the others still want to be given places that are easy – the Chinese and the Lebanese company. Marange was supposed to be ours alone – kwange kune basa – then I was persuaded to allow Ghanaians zvichinzi they have the capacity. One of them, Essien, was said to be an owner of a bank. Twakatinyeperara tuvakomana itwotutu. See, liars!

They brought no money at all even iye yataiti yakatorwa na (Goodwills) Masimirembwa. They had given the story that they brought some five six million (dollars). They were busy here smuggling gold and selling it vachitove ne arrangement neSouth African group.

That is why one was arrested and the other pleaded innocent and said no, he was ignorant; he was not related to the one arrested when the one who was arrested was his brother.

Now, we discovered they didn't bring anything; that Essien didn't own a bank. Yes he was a director at a bank but he didn't own the bank.

Takamuti come akati mapurisa anoda kundisunga, even when we had offered him protection. It was because of the lies he had told.

We will be much more vigilant. In fact, we are reorganising the diamond industry so that we create one or two big companies like we have in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Angola: you don't have a multiplicity of companies doing diamonds it's just one or two – the state plus a partner if you want a partner from outside who is reliable who has also the capacity from the point of view of technology or investment capital. And then try to look at areas that have been explored that we can study and establish new mines.

But gold is easier from a point of view of alluvial mining as I said, this, provided it's will organised like the men are not allowed to go digging holes everywhere and spoiling our rivers. But we organise them to do it properly. And the mines that are dysfunctional we make them functional.

But there are other minerals as well: chrome we have plenty of it; coal plenty of it; iron plenty of it (but) we have not done enough about it. We have just been using Buchwa and Ripple Creek. Manhize is a completely new area but what surprises me is that we never did anything even by way of exploring mhangura kuWedza. Ndokwaitorwa mhangura nevakuru kudhara.

I say this because it was when the son of Dr Sam Nujoma of Namibia came with an Indian friend and another wanting to be given an opportunity to mine and we asked them what mining and they said iron. Where? In Hwedza, and they produced a map. This had been done I think by De Beers showing mines where iron was purer than this which had little bit of sulphur in it and so on.

We were surprised and then I said why did the settlers not mention Hwedza to us and why did it not occur to us that mhangura vakuru vainotora kuHwedza. Map dziripo ku De Beers. Where did he get this? Ku archives kuCape Town University.

So there you are: it's not just Manhize; it is also Hwedza and we have not talked about that but it's beautiful; very rich. Then apart from that we have our asbestos mines to do. Copper, we stopped doing it because it was said it had been exhausted but we should re-examine that kunanaMhangura kwataita mine copper kuMashonalnd West area… kwaiva nelots of copper we used to visit that but all of a sudden ZMDC told us it is not worth doing anymore; its finished, its deep down. We just concluded that perhaps they feared the costs.

Then tin, we have that one place which closed because tin had lost value. Mahatir (Mohammad) told me Malaysia used to produce a lot of tin . . . but they gave it up because masynthetics had now come into being and vessels could be made of synthetics and plastics and they had replaced tin.

But it would appear the Chinese would want tin. They are the ones who used to do tin mining.

So, as for minerals we have lots of them. There are others we don't have in greater quantities. What we don't have is aluminum, we get our aluminum from Tanzania, most of it.

And so, there is lots of wealth which we can mine, explore, exploit, beneficiate, export and get value from.

Then of course agriculture . . .  It is not only tobacco that is a cash crop, we have soyabean also.