BBC reports that President Robert Mugabe has sworn in Zimbabwe’s first human rights and electoral commissions:
The creation of the two commissions is seen as crucial in moving the country towards free and fair elections.
The Human Rights Commission will be headed by a law professor and the Electoral Commission by a former judge.
This is a step towards implementing the power-sharing agreement between Mr Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, but others issues remain.
The Human Rights Commission will be chaired by Reginald Austin, a law professor and former head of the legal affairs division of the Commonwealth.
The head of the Electoral Commission will be former Zimbabwean Supreme Court judge, Simpson Mutambanengwe, who was serving as acting chief justice in the Namibian Supreme Court.
The AFP has a story this morning on the attempts to normalize relations between Zimbabwe and the European Union:
Zimbabwe will appoint a committee next week to try to mend fences with the European Union, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said on Wednesday.
“Next week, we will put in place a mission designed to further normalise relations between Europe and Zimbabwe,” Tsvangirai said at a ceremony to accept a European education grant.
The 10.6-million-dollar (7.9-million-euro) grant will support a fund backing efforts to revive Zimbabwe’s public schools, after almost all of them shut down in 2008 at the height of the country’s decade-long economic crisis.
“The generous contribution today is a gesture of goodwill that serves as a reminder of the positive outcomes to be achieved as this government moves forward in… re-engaging with the international community,” Tsvangirai said.
Zimbabwe’s relations with the West were strained after President Robert Mugabe launched a violent campaign of land reforms 10 years ago, as his supporters staged deadly political attacks.
CNN reports on President Zuma’s attempts to assist Zimbabwe’s unity government, which consists of a fragile power-sharing agreement:
During his three-day visit, Zuma will assess progress “with regards to the implementation of the power-sharing agreement,” according to his office.
Bitter political rivals President Robert Mugabe and opposition party leader Morgan Tsvangirai formed the unity government last February after a disputed presidential election. Tsvangirai became the country’s prime minister and Mugabe kept his seat as president.
Zuma took over from his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, as facilitator of the fragile unity government deal. The pact was signed in September 2008 following spates of post-election violence, but problems have plagued the forced marriage between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai’s party, the Movement for Democratic Change has accused Mugabe’s Zanu-PF of failing to fully implement the deal. And Mugabe has threatened to end the unity government and reclaim power.
Though Mbeki managed to get the two parties to agree to govern jointly, he was accused of being a Mugabe sympathizer.
Before taking office, Zuma showed signs that he might take a tougher stance against the 86-year-old ruler. But critics say Zuma has not and have pointed to recent attempts to get Western leaders to withdraw sanctions against Mugabe and other members of his party.
Red Cross has issued a stern warning, according to the Associated Press, that approximately 2.17 million Zimbabweans are in need of food aid, fueling fears that the country is on the brink of a food crisis.
AP:
“In some parts of the country, the food situation is as bad as many of our volunteers and staff have ever seen it,” said Emma Kundishora, secretary general of the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society.
Erratic rain — too much in some areas and too little in others — has damaged crops of corn, the staple food across the southern African nation. The former regional breadbasket also has been hit by acute shortages of seed and fertilizer.
At least 4 million Zimbabweans are estimated to have fled the nation’s economic meltdown in recent years to find work in neighboring countries and further afield, leaving the population at about 8 million, according to official estimates from the finance ministry.
The Red Cross expressed particular concern about the possible impact of existing and looming food shortages on people living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
“Hunger is an especially brutal experience for these people,” Kundishora said, describing people interrupting AIDS medication because the drugs are too toxic without food.
“Once people do this, their situation deteriorates incredibly quickly,” she said.
In December 2009, the Red Cross extended emergency food operation in Zimbabwe until October 2010, calling on donors for $33.2 million in extra funding. The agency faces a shortfall in funding of about $23.9 million, Thursday’s statement said.
“Right now, the situation is already critical — more than 2 million people need direct humanitarian support,” said Dr. Stephen Omollo, the IFRC representative in Zimbabwe. “And we know that this will get worse as the upcoming harvest already appears to have failed.”
In yesterday’s presentation of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award to the women of WOZA, President Obama offered some sharp words for Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, as reported by the New York Times. In his remarks, President Obama said:
In the end, history has a clear direction and it is not the way of those who arrest women and babies for singing in the streets. It is not the way of those who starve and silence their own people, who cling to power by the threat of force.
Excerpts below, full New York Times account here
Mr. Obama’s decision to publicly recognize Women of Zimbabwe Arise, or Woza, whose members have taken to the streets for years to demand democracy, will probably confirm Mr. Mugabe’s belief that the United States and the West are out to topple him, already a recurrent theme in the state-run media he controls.
Though engaged in a power-sharing government since February, Mr. Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party have deployed state security forces to arrest and jail rival politicians and party workers, human rights lawyers and civic leaders.
Regional heads of state, worried that the government led by Mr. Mugabe and his nemesis, Morgan Tsvangirai, will crumble, have insisted the men settle their differences in coming weeks, but so far Mr. Mugabe has shown no inclination to bend.
The United States has limited political leverage in southern Africa, but Mr. Obama has repeatedly spoken out about Mr. Mugabe’s misrule — notably when he welcomed Mr. Tsvangirai to the White House in June, when he addressed the Ghanaian Parliament in July and in his remarks on Monday.
Momentarily Jenni Williams and Magondonga Mahlangu of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) will receive the 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award from President Obama. WOZA serves to provide women in Zimbabwe an opportunity and forum to stand up for their rights and freedoms.
Back in April, I and some other ONE staffers got a chance to meet with Jenni and Magondonga to discuss WOZA and the state of human rights in Zimbabwe. It was a remarkable experience. Many congratulations are in order for Jenni, Mogondonga, and all of Women of Zimbabwe Arise.
You can read details of the event here.
Nicholas Kristof’s latest column focuses on Tererai Trent, a remarkable woman from Zimbabwe who overcame extreme poverty and a husband who beat her and will be receiving her Ph.D. from Western Michigan University next month. As Mr. Kristof puts it: “Tererai is a reminder of the adage that talent is universal, while opportunity is not.”
Below is the beginning of her story. You can read Kristof’s full column here.
Of all the people earning university degrees this year, perhaps the most remarkable story belongs to Tererai (pronounced TEH-reh-rye), a middle-aged woman who is one of my heroes. She is celebrating a personal triumph, but she’s also a monument to the aid organizations and individuals who helped her. When you hear that foreign-aid groups just squander money or build dependency, remember that by all odds Tererai should be an illiterate, battered cattle-herd in Zimbabwe and instead — ah, but I’m getting ahead of my story.
Tererai was born in a village in rural Zimbabwe, probably sometime in 1965, and attended elementary school for less than one year. Her father married her off when she was about 11 to a man who beat her regularly. She seemed destined to be one more squandered African asset.
A dozen years passed. Jo Luck, the head of an aid group called Heifer International, passed through the village and told the women there that they should stand up, nurture dreams, change their lives.
Inspired, Tererai scribbled down four absurd goals based on accomplishments she had vaguely heard of among famous Africans. She wrote that she wanted to study abroad, and to earn a B.A., a master’s and a doctorate….
Keep reading here.
