Opinion / Columnist
Governance Crisis in Zimbabwe - The Need for International Action
24 Nov 2014 at 11:03hrs | Views
Press Statement from MDC UK and Ireland
The MDC UK and Ireland joins the rest of the democratic world in demanding that the South African Presidency explain to Zimbabwean people why it hid from them for 12 years the findings of the Khampepe inquiry - that Zimbabwe's 2002 Presidential election was stolen.
It was the South African observer mission that led the SADC to the conclusion that the election was free and fair, against the findings of all other international observers, and against the findings of a panel of senior judges commissioned by President Thabo Mbeki which concluded that the election was flawed.
In short the findings of the Commission were:
That opposition candidates were denied access to the public media;
the MDC challenged the results in court, but no verdict was passed for 12 years;
there was intimidation and murder of 107 opposition supporters, arson and hostage-taking which curtailed freedom of movement, speech and assembly;
the Government of Zimbabwe failed to respect and implement recommendations by its own Supreme Court and High Court;
electoral laws of Zimbabwe were amended and manipulated by executive decrees in the run-up to elections;
final voter rolls and information on polling stations were not available timorously;
the Zimbabwean government discarded the rule of law by altering, reversing or undermining court decisions;
and numbers of polling stations in urban constituencies, and particularly in Harare and Chitungwiza, were substantially reduced, thus curtailing voters' access to polling stations and preventing them from voting.
The report concluded that the Presidential election was characterised by violence, intimidation, the restrictive legislation, the disenfranchising of voters through the flawed registration process, the partiality of the election officers, and the breakdown of the rule of law and the disputed election results.
The election violated the SADC norms and standards, and as a result the will of the Zimbabwean electorate was not expressed in a transparent, free and fair environment. But instead of taking the findings of his commission and acting on them, President Thabo Mbeki chose to bury the report, and litigate against the Mail & Guardian those who wanted the report to be released.
It has therefore taken 12 years for the Mail & Guardian lawyers to win the final battle in the Constitutional Court which has forced the release of the report. Had it been released timeously, it could have avoid the injustice of subsequent elections that have been held since 2002, including the recent June 2013 election.
The result is now an unstable country in which a regime that is used to lawlessness is now tearing itself apart through abuse of democracy procedures in its own party, abuse of media, abuse of security forces, and abuse of state resources - leading to economic and social instability, factionalism, crippled government operations, and a fragile economy now on the precipice of failed statehood.
We are therefore asking the international community, including the government of Great Britain, the United States, the European Union and other democracy-supporting countries to support the people of Zimbabwe by making contingency plans in case this very fragile government collapses.
As Zanu-PF factional fighting reaches its climax the MDC, the main opposition party in Zimbabwe which has been winning elections, but unable to get into power because of repression by the ruling party, is fearful that no plans and resources are in place to handle even the slightest emergy.
With Ebola rampant in Africa, we urge the international community to be prepared to for any eventuality, especially desease outbreak, but also possible insecurity as reports are coming out that there is unrest in the camps because of President Mugabe's attempt to impose his wife in the succession matrix of his party and government offices.
Violence has already been seen in Harare and is threatening to break out in the security forces who are also said to be divided along factional lines. The apex of the ruling party and government are unstable with the President's wife and her faction of influential ministers wanting to remove the vice-president.
We are also urging South African people and the international community to demand an explanation from the South African Presidency why it hid and did not act on the findings if the Khampepe Report and why it was spending tax money on preventing the publishing of the damning report.
Could there have been corruption involved, since Zimbabwe was then awash with diamonds that seem to have just disappeared into thin air.
We also call on SADC to censure, denounce and punish President Mugabe for his actions which show utter contempt of SADC principles, democracy, and common decency, yet he is allowed to operate outside of the strictures under which other member states of the region operate.
At least 107 MDC supporters were recorded in the judges report to have been killed in Zanu PF sponsored political violence; whereby marauding groups of military trained youths intimidated opposition voters.
While the world condemned the 2002 election in Zimbabwe, leading to sanctions by the US and the EU, the then acting South Africa president Kgalema Motlanthe, who was head of the South Africa observer mission, validated the elections, declaring them as 'completely free and fair'.
And, although he commissioned it, President Mbeki decided not to publish nor to act on the findings of the commission made up of Constitutional Court Justice, Sisi Khampepe and Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke.
The MDC itself also approached the Zimbabwean courts to invalidate the election, and 12 years later, no verdict of the court has been produced - underscoring total contempt for the rule of law.
The failure to deal with the 2002 irregularities also allowed similar injustice to be perpetrated on the 2013 election - an appalling act by the South African government, sweeping the Khampepe Report under the carpet.
The report was testament to what the MDC and what we thought were international partners and partners in the region have long identified as a problem in Zimbabwe - a dictatoirship which can only be dealt with firmly.
We urge our South African brothers and sisters to demand that the Khampepe Commisssion be extended to look further into the motivation of the South African Presidency in working in cahoots with the Mugabe regime to rob Zimbabweans of their most basic right, a right to a government of their own choice.
The MDC UK contends that Mugabe has been rigging elections since the 2000 Parliamentary election, and Mbeki was complicit in the stealing of the 2008 election whose poll result took almost two months to announce.
The delay in announcing the result, everybody know knows, was to allow for tampering with the result to reduce the margin of the Zanu PF loss, thus causing a run-off to be held. When they were at a SADC summit in Lusaka in April 2008 President Mbeki inadvertently spoke about a run-off, in the presence of the MDC President that when the results had not been officially announced.
He was privy to the Zanu PF machinations to manipulate the result and call for a run-off. We can now understand why he was at pains to ensure the Khampepe Report of the earlier election of 2002 was not made public, and we can understand why the oppressed people of Zimbabwe are outraged that some SADC countries were involved in subverting democratic processes of sovereign sister members.
SADC turned a blind eye when innocent civilians were being butchered in broad daylight and is therefore to blame for the current economic meltdown in Zimbabwe - the result of an illegitimate regime derived from yet another stolen election in 2013, with the full complicity of SADC, and with South Africa as the chief sponsor of the "free and fair" verdict.
With President Mugabe the current chairman of SADC it is difficult to see how Zimbabweans will be able to get justice from SADC, unless he is impeached as chairman of SADC on grounds that he was not properly elected as President.
So yes, we call on the African Union and SADC to have pity on the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe and tell the tyrant called Robert Mugabe that he has done enough damage to the Jewel of Africa which he inherited a short 34 years ago.
We call on the rest of the world to watch upon Zimbabwe, and indeed pray for the people of Zimbabwe.
We are the MDC-UK and Ireland and we have spoken.
MDC UK and Ireland
Makusha Mugabe, Spokesman
pratmdcinternational@gmail.com
The MDC UK and Ireland joins the rest of the democratic world in demanding that the South African Presidency explain to Zimbabwean people why it hid from them for 12 years the findings of the Khampepe inquiry - that Zimbabwe's 2002 Presidential election was stolen.
It was the South African observer mission that led the SADC to the conclusion that the election was free and fair, against the findings of all other international observers, and against the findings of a panel of senior judges commissioned by President Thabo Mbeki which concluded that the election was flawed.
In short the findings of the Commission were:
That opposition candidates were denied access to the public media;
the MDC challenged the results in court, but no verdict was passed for 12 years;
there was intimidation and murder of 107 opposition supporters, arson and hostage-taking which curtailed freedom of movement, speech and assembly;
the Government of Zimbabwe failed to respect and implement recommendations by its own Supreme Court and High Court;
electoral laws of Zimbabwe were amended and manipulated by executive decrees in the run-up to elections;
final voter rolls and information on polling stations were not available timorously;
the Zimbabwean government discarded the rule of law by altering, reversing or undermining court decisions;
and numbers of polling stations in urban constituencies, and particularly in Harare and Chitungwiza, were substantially reduced, thus curtailing voters' access to polling stations and preventing them from voting.
The report concluded that the Presidential election was characterised by violence, intimidation, the restrictive legislation, the disenfranchising of voters through the flawed registration process, the partiality of the election officers, and the breakdown of the rule of law and the disputed election results.
The election violated the SADC norms and standards, and as a result the will of the Zimbabwean electorate was not expressed in a transparent, free and fair environment. But instead of taking the findings of his commission and acting on them, President Thabo Mbeki chose to bury the report, and litigate against the Mail & Guardian those who wanted the report to be released.
It has therefore taken 12 years for the Mail & Guardian lawyers to win the final battle in the Constitutional Court which has forced the release of the report. Had it been released timeously, it could have avoid the injustice of subsequent elections that have been held since 2002, including the recent June 2013 election.
The result is now an unstable country in which a regime that is used to lawlessness is now tearing itself apart through abuse of democracy procedures in its own party, abuse of media, abuse of security forces, and abuse of state resources - leading to economic and social instability, factionalism, crippled government operations, and a fragile economy now on the precipice of failed statehood.
We are therefore asking the international community, including the government of Great Britain, the United States, the European Union and other democracy-supporting countries to support the people of Zimbabwe by making contingency plans in case this very fragile government collapses.
As Zanu-PF factional fighting reaches its climax the MDC, the main opposition party in Zimbabwe which has been winning elections, but unable to get into power because of repression by the ruling party, is fearful that no plans and resources are in place to handle even the slightest emergy.
With Ebola rampant in Africa, we urge the international community to be prepared to for any eventuality, especially desease outbreak, but also possible insecurity as reports are coming out that there is unrest in the camps because of President Mugabe's attempt to impose his wife in the succession matrix of his party and government offices.
Violence has already been seen in Harare and is threatening to break out in the security forces who are also said to be divided along factional lines. The apex of the ruling party and government are unstable with the President's wife and her faction of influential ministers wanting to remove the vice-president.
We are also urging South African people and the international community to demand an explanation from the South African Presidency why it hid and did not act on the findings if the Khampepe Report and why it was spending tax money on preventing the publishing of the damning report.
Could there have been corruption involved, since Zimbabwe was then awash with diamonds that seem to have just disappeared into thin air.
We also call on SADC to censure, denounce and punish President Mugabe for his actions which show utter contempt of SADC principles, democracy, and common decency, yet he is allowed to operate outside of the strictures under which other member states of the region operate.
At least 107 MDC supporters were recorded in the judges report to have been killed in Zanu PF sponsored political violence; whereby marauding groups of military trained youths intimidated opposition voters.
While the world condemned the 2002 election in Zimbabwe, leading to sanctions by the US and the EU, the then acting South Africa president Kgalema Motlanthe, who was head of the South Africa observer mission, validated the elections, declaring them as 'completely free and fair'.
And, although he commissioned it, President Mbeki decided not to publish nor to act on the findings of the commission made up of Constitutional Court Justice, Sisi Khampepe and Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke.
The MDC itself also approached the Zimbabwean courts to invalidate the election, and 12 years later, no verdict of the court has been produced - underscoring total contempt for the rule of law.
The failure to deal with the 2002 irregularities also allowed similar injustice to be perpetrated on the 2013 election - an appalling act by the South African government, sweeping the Khampepe Report under the carpet.
The report was testament to what the MDC and what we thought were international partners and partners in the region have long identified as a problem in Zimbabwe - a dictatoirship which can only be dealt with firmly.
We urge our South African brothers and sisters to demand that the Khampepe Commisssion be extended to look further into the motivation of the South African Presidency in working in cahoots with the Mugabe regime to rob Zimbabweans of their most basic right, a right to a government of their own choice.
The MDC UK contends that Mugabe has been rigging elections since the 2000 Parliamentary election, and Mbeki was complicit in the stealing of the 2008 election whose poll result took almost two months to announce.
The delay in announcing the result, everybody know knows, was to allow for tampering with the result to reduce the margin of the Zanu PF loss, thus causing a run-off to be held. When they were at a SADC summit in Lusaka in April 2008 President Mbeki inadvertently spoke about a run-off, in the presence of the MDC President that when the results had not been officially announced.
He was privy to the Zanu PF machinations to manipulate the result and call for a run-off. We can now understand why he was at pains to ensure the Khampepe Report of the earlier election of 2002 was not made public, and we can understand why the oppressed people of Zimbabwe are outraged that some SADC countries were involved in subverting democratic processes of sovereign sister members.
SADC turned a blind eye when innocent civilians were being butchered in broad daylight and is therefore to blame for the current economic meltdown in Zimbabwe - the result of an illegitimate regime derived from yet another stolen election in 2013, with the full complicity of SADC, and with South Africa as the chief sponsor of the "free and fair" verdict.
With President Mugabe the current chairman of SADC it is difficult to see how Zimbabweans will be able to get justice from SADC, unless he is impeached as chairman of SADC on grounds that he was not properly elected as President.
So yes, we call on the African Union and SADC to have pity on the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe and tell the tyrant called Robert Mugabe that he has done enough damage to the Jewel of Africa which he inherited a short 34 years ago.
We call on the rest of the world to watch upon Zimbabwe, and indeed pray for the people of Zimbabwe.
We are the MDC-UK and Ireland and we have spoken.
MDC UK and Ireland
Makusha Mugabe, Spokesman
pratmdcinternational@gmail.com
Source - Makusha Mugabe
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