Briefs
An Open Letter to South African President Thabo Mbeki
25 June 2008By Wendy Urban-Mead
The motivation behind this issue originates in our dismay at the growing urgency of the situation in Zimbabwe. Human rights are being violated with increasing frequency. See, for one example, a report recently published by the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR). Please read it; a link to the report appears [...]
“Letter from Harare - May 8, 2008″
25 June 2008By Anonymous
The following letter was sent out May 8, 2008 from an NGO worker living in Zimbabwe, who offers an eyewitness account from the capital city of Harare as news of political violence began to be heard from individuals, news sources, and rumor. The letter captures well the anger ex-patriates often feel as [...]
Zimbabwe: Ndira Body Found
25 June 2008By Peta Thornycroft
Tonderai Ndira’s body was identified in the mortuary at Harare’s Parirenyatwa Hospital by a bangle around what had been his wrist.
He had been dead a long time, or at least a week as it was on May 14, in the early hours of the morning that this extraordinary activist, probably the most persecuted [...]
Operation ‘Final Solution’: Intimidation and Violence Against White Farmers in
25 June 2008By Amy E. Ansell
Two months after the March 29, 2008 election in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe’s defiant fistful image still leers from election posters hanging along the roadsides, boldly displaying the campaign slogan “Defending Our Land and Sovereignty”. State-run media reinforces these twin themes daily as Mr. Mugabe prepares for the June 27 presidential run-off [...]
An Academic’s Journalism in the Zimbabwean Interregnum
25 June 2008By David Moore
The following journalistic efforts are those of a political scientist-political economist who has been following Zimbabwean politics and its history since emerging into political puberty in 1971.1 Mixing scholarship and journalism is not always successful: journalistic deadlines are often missed, our articles get cut with no mercy, teaching and administrative wars at the [...]
Reaping the Bitter Fruits of Stalinist Tendencies in Zimbabwe
25 June 2008By Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni
Down with Tsvangirai
Down with his wife and children
Down with his dogs
Down with his cups!
(Robert Mugabe)1
Introduction
This epigraph captures the level of intolerance and indicates the degeneration of President Robert Mugabe from a respected liberator to a damned dictator. It is one of the most telling signs of the highest ebb of executive lawlessness. [...]
An Analysis of the Emerging Political Dispensation in South Africa — Parallels Between ZCTU-MDC and COSATU’s Relationship to ANC
25 June 2008By Augustine Hungwe
Introduction
The early 1990s in Southern Africa saw the emergence of a exhilarating and esoteric phenomena-the embryonic rise of what I will call ‘trade unions-turned- political parties’, with Zambia providing the inaugural prototype in the successful metamorphosis of aspects of the Zambian Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU-Zambia) into the first labor-based political party in [...]
Methodism and Socio-political Action in Zimbabwe: 2000-2007
25 June 2008By Jimmy G. Dube, PhD. United Theological College, Harare, Zimbabwe
[email protected]
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Are there no doctors there?
Why, then, have my people not been healed? (Jeremiah 8:22)
This paper examines the performance of the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe during the past eight years of Robert Mugabe’s regime and proposes a new paradigm for forming a [...]
Can Elections End Mugabe’s Dictatorship?
25 June 2008By Norma Kriger
Zimbabweans’ experience of elections, especially since 2000 when the MDC first challenged ZANU PF rule, has made them cynical about elections as a mechanism to transfer power. They have learned that ZANU PF will do whatever it takes to win elections. 2007 was rated the worst year in terms of the [...]
Kenya: Post-Crisis Agendas (from Africa Focus)
20 March 2008AfricaFocus Bulletin
Mar 20, 2008 (080320)
Editor’s Note
“The Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation between the political parties provides Kenya’s leaders with a historic opportunity to step back from the brink and to reform and establish institutions that can help build long-term stability. … However, challenges remain in ensuring that the institutions created actually deliver accountability for recent [...]