The South African government should end its sole reliance on an overburdened asylum system that protects only a tiny fraction of the more than a million Zimbabweans who cannot return to the humanitarian disaster in their home country, Human Rights Watch has said.

The reopening of schools in Zimbabwe after the Christmas break has been delayed by two weeks. Education Minister Stephen Mahere said teachers needed to mark last year's exams before the new term can begin.

The United Nations says it has "credible information" that Zimbabwe may have received Chinese weapons by way of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The U.N. Security Council says Boeing aircraft delivered 53 tons of Chinese ammunition, meant for the Zimbabwean army, from the DRC to Zimbabwe last August.

Thank you Prof. Mamdani for, one of the few comprehensive articles on Zimbabwe. My focus, however, will be a point by point rebuttal to some of the falsehoods that

3) Kashiri is correct. The constitutional project was in response to the NCA. And no, the NCA was not, and is not a "democratic force". 100% of its funding comes from the US and the EU. While many members honestly believe they are fighting for democracy, their sponsors have always been focused on regime change. The NCA gained prominence when the West decided Mugabe had to go for disturbing western economic interests by fighting off the invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Back then, there was no other credible political organization to use to get at Mugabe, thus the NCA became that vehicle.

4) True, there were Ndebele leaders/peasantscitizens in the liberation struggle.

5) True again, gukurahundi lasted between 1983 to 1987. While the atrocities that occured then (from both sides) were inexcusable, the war itself was justified. Many western nations SUPPORTED Mugabe during that dissident era. There is evidence to show that elements within Zapu were unhappy with being led by the "junior" that was Mugabe from the "inferior" Shona tribe. Sustained uprisings by these elements at Entumbane, Connemara, and the discovery of massive arms caches at Zapu farms (which Zapu now claims were for ANC use!!), made it imperative that Mugabe execute that campaign against the dissidents. Nkomo signed the Unity Accord (with the dissidents suspiciously dropping their arms at the same time!), not because he was pressured to (he was living good in exile in the UK), but because he saw the futility of this war.

6) ZCTU did not distance itself from Mugabe because of "corruption" and the other nonsense Kashiri says. I was there, I know!! Many of us were opposed to ESAP from the IMF and the low salary raises Mugabe's neoliberal Finance Minister, Dr. Chidzero, was recommending. He was trying to control inflation on the backs of the poor and was protecting business (largely white) as any neoliberal of that era would do. We broke away from Mugabe (who had agressively nurtured and helped grow the ZCTU since 1980) because he was now, thru ESAP, deviating from the socialist principles we all wished for (especially our leader, the now neoliberal Morgan Tsvangirai {an almost communist at that time}!)

7) Kashiri creates fiction here. The people of Zimbabwe were NOT strongly anti-Zanu in 2000. Sure, there were many who were against the party, but nowhere near a majority! If Kashiri remembers well, less than 900 000 out of a possible 6 million people participated in the referendum. While the opposition did their greatest campaigning amoung the 300 000 laborers at white-owned farms, Mugabe neglected his rural base and assumed they would still vote with him. The NO vote won with only about 480 000 people voting for it.
And no, there was no evidence of "rigging" in 2000 as Kashiri says. The commonwealth report on those elections clearly says so. However, they also claimed that because Zanu had unhindered access to the media, was more aggressive in its campaigns, and that the farm invasions had brought a "climate of fear", therefore they declared the elections "would not be free and fair". What the commonwealth forgot to include was the illegal funding of the opposition by foreign forces, a blatantly pro-opposition locally listened to foreign media (BBC, CNN, SABC, etc) and the strongly pro-opposition foreign-sponsored local "independent" media.

8) Prof. Mamdani is infact correct. Land reform as of 2000 was designed to go after underutilized land, lands near rural areas and multiple farm owners. The CFU (white farmers union) would not compromise, they took an all or nothing posture. Needless to say, Mugabe then took them on their challenge, where he obviously won!

9) Kashiri confuses "fast-track" with the longer-term land reform. "Fast-track" allowed for land occupiers to seize lands and remain on them. The reforms that Kashiri talks about which has gone on into 2008 no longer involve ad hoc peasant occupations, but are deliberative transfers that go thru cumbersome documentation processes before one is offered a farm or relieved from it for failing to be productive.

10) Food shortages in Zimbabwe have largely been due to "droughts" since 2001. I put "drought" in qoutations because of the unique nature they have occured. The total annual rainfall in Zimbabwe has not been that different from before. However, what seems to have changed over the past 10 years the the SPREAD of rainfall intervals. Rains continue to fall normally between November and early January. However, between January and late February, these rains have consistently disappeared, only to come back later in March, by which time the crops that were once vibrant have suffered from moisture stress and have withered.

Kashiri knows that pre 1999, Zimbabwe's rural population was 70% of the population and did not buy processed maize meal. That fact alone is enough to convince anyone that these peasants therefore produced at least 70% of the nation's food needs (for themselves, off course). Not only did they produce enough to feed themselves, they also had a little surplus that was sold for urban consumption, and in some good years for export. Kashiri also knows that most white farmers stayed away from maize production because of the controlled prices, limited profits and the better opportunity costs offered by cash crops such as tobacco.
If Kashiri knows this, and also knows that land reform ONLY affected commercial farms, not rural plots, what other reason besides drought does he think these hitherto very productive peasants were suddenly failing to produce the food they could before?

11) Kashiri's question has already been answered in 10) above.

12) Kashiri, here is your answer, one can buy sugar made in Zimbabwe from MOZAMBIQUE or ZAMBIA!! If you live in Zimbabwe, you fully well know that production of many Zimbabwean products has hardly decreased at all. What has changed is that many of our manufacturers are smuggling their produce to neighboring countries, prefering to sell their product in us$ there than at the controlled zim$ within the country! Now that the economy is dollarizing, I expect this trend to reverse and most of these goods to eventually start competing with the foreign imports currently on our store shelves.

13) Kashiri obviously looks like an opposition supporter, judging from the talking points he spews here. The opposition called for sanctions against the country. The country's education, healthcare, transportation system, etc was partly financed by NGOs and western aid. How does Kashiri expect the same standards of life to maintain once this source of financing was removed? Zimbabwe is now on its own, and unsuprisingly, its hospitals, schools, roads, etc will not be as good with sanctions imposed on it, and deliberate economic sabotage against it.

It seems Kashiri believes that if the rich in Zimbabwe stopped driving Mercedes Benz and Hummers, then there will be enough money to cover our current deficits!

What also needs to be made plain to readers here is that while there are a few rich Mugabe "cronies", the vast majority of people driving the posh cars Kashiri is talking about are infact opposition supporters in the NGO industry and in corporate Zimbabwe!! The remainder are alleged credit card criminals, stealing cards in the UK and using those funds to return to Zimbabwe in a life of luxury. Most of these people went to these western countries on the back of the opposition, claiming "prosecution" from Mugabe.

Mary Ndlovu’s analysis of the situation in Zimbabwe is the clearest I have seen yet and reflects what many in civic society have been saying since well before the March elections.

WOZA, the NCA and the 3,000 civil society representatives who gathered at a People's Convention in Harare in February this year have all called for a transitional authority to address the humanitarian crisis in the country and create an acceptable climate for elections.

The opposition called for a transitional authority and NOT a government of national unity in the stale-mate following the March elections. Alas, the International community with it's lazy media and ill informed advisors did not seem to be able to tell the difference between a government of national unity and a transitional authority. But Zimbabweans know the difference only too well; just as they know about the 20,000 massacred in order to coerce into existence the last government of national unity with Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU.

To avoid the crash that Ms Ndlovu sketches in her article, those with responsibility for Zimbabwe's future; SADC leaders, international diplomats and our own national politicians need to take a long hard look at our country's recent history and accept that power sharing in Zimbabwe died with the victims of Gukuruhundi. It is now time for all Zimbabweans at home and abroad to unite with one single voice and call for an internationally approved transitional authority with a limited and clearly defined remit to establish the conditions needed for terror free elections in Zimbabwe.

, it is understandable that you are very upset with professor Mamdani, who so eloquently puncture all the lies you are peddling about Zimbabwe. But please, stop portraying yourself as a friend of Zimbabwe and an anti-imperialist. You are neither in the way you act in the case of Zimbabwe.

In your article you are mixing up things in order to pretend being an anti-imperialist.

You are of course totally right when you talk about the “pseudo-humanitarianism of the so-called international non-governmental structure." I suppose you have in view the so called international NGO-community, heavily supported by Western governments. In Sweden for example, the most NGOs engaged in developmental business are funded by the (conservative) government (between 80 to 95 percent). Western governments in many cases use the NGOs as a tool and human rights as a pretext to destabilise intransigent countries that oppose a neo-liberal agenda. Zimbabwe is a showcase and WOZA epitomize these organisations, wholly funded by the British as it is.

But you are deadly wrong when you talk of the “Mugabe dictatorship” and blame it for all the malice in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe has been ostracised from normal economic relations with the most powerful nations and financial institutions in the world for more than a decade. That is now taken its toll.

Then you mix things up. I follow you when you write that Idi Amin was manipulated by the British and eventually removed by Tanzania. A justified intervention, it seems.

But then it is not easy to grasp you. Do you really mean that the end goal of the present British Zimbabwe policy is, in connivance with Mugabe and Bredenkamp, to rob the Zimbabwean people? And that they will force Tsvangirai into a coalition government in order to perpetuate the scam? Isn’t there a spin to much in your machinations?

And in order to stop this heinous piracy you are calling on the Obama administration and US Justice department to prosecute the Britons who have been involved in corruption and fraud in southern Africa? Jesus! Aren’t you a little naïve here, Mr Campbell?

More interestingly and revealingly is that you are calling for the blocking of all international payments to Zimbabwe. Economic ostracism is partly to blame for the predicament in Zimbabwe and it is obvious how liberals change colours when they scent blood.

Recently Dagens Nyheter, the largest morning paper and leading liberal paper in Sweden, wrote:

“If the (Zimbabwean) borders were totally blocked, making it impossible to get food or money into the country, Mugabe would have difficulties to salary “his cronies” and would run the risk they may turn against himself.”

This way of putting things reveal of course a (white) liberal pipedream, namely that a deluge of blood would purify Zimbabwe from Mugabe and at the same time teach all the Africans and anti-imperialists elsewhere a lesson: stop support the cancer* in your midst or you will face the same destiny!

I remember when Madeleine Albright once got the question if the sanctions against Iraq were worth the price of 500.000 dead Iraqi children and answered: It’s a hard choice, but I think, we, think, it’s worth it.

Now, if the economic strangulation of Zimbabwe will succeed and the government of President Mugabe removed by this way of foreign intervention to the price of hundreds of thousands dead Zimbabweans, we will ask the Campbells around the world; Can you really justify such a price for the removal of Mugabe?

And most likely they will answer us: Yes, we can!

Horace Campbell in makes too many generalised statements not supported by facts e.g. "Zimbabwean workers are being assaulted every day." This is a clear exaggeration coz I'm also a worker and have not witnessed the daily occurrence of this.
-on homophobia & virginity tests, how many people have actually been killed because they were gay? What's the extent, in numbers PLEASE, of the problem of virginity tests?

"It is scientifically NOT correct to say cholera is caused by "unsanitary conditions." The disease is, in fact, caused by a bacterium called Vibrio cholerae. Unsanitary conditions catalyse the spread of cholera but do NOT cause it. That's why you can have dirty slums but without cholera ravaging there.

"If Mugabe is only popular "OUTSIDE of his own country" then in the March 29 elections why didn't the MDC win by a landslide margin like 95% to 5%?

Why is Campbell sanitizing the role of whites in the DRC mess? While he is happy to link Mugabe's military to the Rwanda genocide (itself questionable) why does he opt to be silent on the part played by Belgium, France, UK & the US?

While "African dictators" are associated with grand theft which requires the UN to lead repatriation of stolen wealth, how about the the daylight robbery of African resources by white former colonialists? How about reparations for the slave trade?

If Campbell thinks the sanctions imposed by the US, UK & EU are "targetted" at Mugabe & his cronies, he is either not being sincere or he is not serious! It's the common man who is suffering, not Mugabe. The German withdrawal of printing paper from the RBZ affects the poor man in the street who has to queue for days on end at the bank to get his meagre earnings. In short those sanctions are neither "smart" nor "targetted"

Mahmood Mamdani’s presents an excellent, contextualised view of Zimbabwe. The land question is crucial for the country and the region. The MDC was initially mooted partially to diffuse it. The determined action of the West against the Mugabe regime is in part responsible for the present multifaceted crisis. The focus on formal democracy, for all its merits, hides the real issue.

In response to , I agree with your sentiments around attempting to resolve the situation in a peaceful and democratic way. However, all this has been tried many times before in engaging with ZANU-PF. There is no need to wait for any foreign military intervention to de-humanise the people of that nation; ZANU-PF has already succeeded in that respect. As for democracy, no such luxury exists in Zimbabwe because the current regime will ensure that they will win any election at any cost. Furthermore, there will never be any ‘political process’ when faced with this kind of intransigent evil tyranny. As for peace, will this only be possible if ZANU-PF is the one and only ruling party? But then again, maybe you are in favour of one-party states? Your Marxist rhetoric referring to the intervention of ‘imperialist powers’ is, quite frankly, ludicrous. All that is necessary for evil to perpetuate itself is for good men to do nothing.

Reporters Without Borders is very disturbed by the abduction of freelance photojournalist Shadreck Manyere and attempted abduction of Obrian Rwafa, a reporter with the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), in separate incidents on 13 December 2008. The incidents took place just 10 days after the kidnapping of journalist and human rights activist Jestina Mukoko, who is still missing.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe announced on Friday he had invited rival Morgan Tsvangirai to be sworn-in as prime minister in a shared government, but expressed doubt whether he would accept. Opposition leader Tsvangirai, meanwhile, threatened to ask for a suspension of power-sharing talks if the government did not stop what he called the persecution of political opponents.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has said African leaders are not brave enough to force him from power, the state-run Herald newspaper reports. He told a meeting of his Zanu-PF party that the US was encouraging African countries to oust him, but said it would not be easy to send in an army.

Zimbabwean feminists will caucus with women activists from the SADC region to break through the Zimbabwean political impasse and begin the implementation of the Global Political Agreement (GPA). In their meeting with SADC facilitator Thabo Mbeki, at 4pm, they will hand over their resolutions, with actions to move the current Zimbabwean question forward.

cc. Concerned scholars should revitalise their opposition to Zimbabwe’s Mugabe regime, writes Horace Campbell. While being against any form of opportunistic, external intervention in the country, Campbell argues that scholars must come to offer an effective challenge to ZANU-PF’s persistent retreat into spurious anti-imperialist discourse. Heavily critical of writers like Mahmood Mamdani for echoing ZANU-PF’s claims around the effects of economic sanctions levied against Zimbabwe, Campbell argues that blocking international payments would prove a far more efficacious means of tackling Mugabe’s misappropriation of funds.

The 12th ordinary summit of the African Union (AU) will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia between January 26 and February 3, 2009 under the theme of ‘Infrastructure development in Africa’. According to the Centre for Citizen’s Participation in the AU (CCP-AU), the summit will likely be dominated by issues related to: peace and security in Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea and Djibouti; the union government – a topic to which a one day extra-ordinary summit is devoted; the draft social policy framework of the AU; the election of a new Chairman of the Union to replace the outgoing Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete; the impact of the global financial crisis on Africa.

In other news, the Chairman of the AU Commission said he will not consider sending troops to Zimbabwe to address the humanitarian and political crisis until all diplomatic channels are exhausted. Meanwhile, the Commission of the AU, deeply concerned over the devastating cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, has donated 100,000 dollars to the country as a contribution to tackle the epidemic.

A group of 26 countries in east, central and southern Africa launched ‘The African Climate Solution’ at the UN climate change talks in Poland that aims to reduce green house gas emissions by forest resources and carbon sequestration through agriculture, forestry and land use in Africa and throughout the developing world. Participants at the talks were negotiating a new global climate change deal to be clinched in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the end of 2009. The AU Commission signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Food Policy Research Institute aimed at strengthening food security by providing a better framework to find solutions to food security issues, poverty alleviation, hunger and malnutrition.

Meanwhile, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, at its 44th ordinary session, adopted a resolution calling on African States to observe a moratorium on the death penalty as a step towards making the AU a death penalty-free continent. In other news, the AU is planning to set up a communal fund, held by the African Development Bank and open to contributions from international donors and African governments, to pay for education, science and technology programmes on the continent.

Finally, the University of Cambridge has issued a call for papers on the theme of ‘Contemporary India-East Africa relations: shifting terrains of engagement’ as part of a collaborative project between the British Institute in Eastern Africa and the British Association of South Asian Studies.

This latest report from the International Crisis Group, argues that the inter-party negotiations to implement a power-sharing government under the Global Political Agreement are hopelessly deadlocked. The ZANU-PF regime has repeatedly violated the agreement’s premises by resuming a campaign of violence against Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters and making pre-emptive appointments.

cc. With its power-sharing agreement manifestly failing, Zimbabwe is on the brink of collapse, writes Mary Ndlovu. The author argues that in the face of an entrenched kleptocratic elite, life grows ever more difficult for the country’s population, a situation markedly exacerbated by a broader political culture of selfishness undermining the development of any form of effective collective action. Without an internationally sponsored, technocratically based transitional authority to replace ZANU-PF as soon as possible, Zimbabwe may yet be spoken of in the same breath as Somalia and the eastern DR Congo, she concludes.

The current political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe is dealing a blow to the provision of free treatment and care to people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs). While there has been a significant decline in the country’s HIV prevalence rate from 18.1 percent in 2005 to 15.6 percent in 2007, activists believe this has been "the most difficult year" for HIV-positive persons.

African National Congress secretary general Gwede Mantashe, claimed on Thursday that Robert Mugabe had ‘real fears’ of being hauled before the International Criminal Court in the Hague, if he were to relinquish power. Mantashe made the claim in the coastal city of Durban during a breakfast meeting with journalists and editors. He revealed that the higher structures of the ANC had discussed Mugabe’s reasons for wanting to stay in power and that he was afraid of being arrested and charged with war crimes like former Liberian President Charles Taylor.

Zimbabwe's President Mugabe has called MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai a political prostitute and said that British premier Gordon Brown must undergo mental examination. He was addressing mourners gathered at the national burial shrine, for the burial of ZANU PF political commissar Eliot Manyika.