Babs Naim determined to vote

AN elderly woman was determined to cast her vote in Harare's Avondale suburb earlier today (Blog Editor: Picture above shows veteran member of the Harare Jewish Community, Babs Naim in wheelchair accompanied by her helper and Mary Levinson on left.)
Source: http://www.zimonline.co.za/

HARARE – Voting in Zimbabwe’s key elections ended peacefully on Saturday with most voters having succeeded in casting their ballots by the close of polling at 7pm.

It was however not possible to establish from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) the exact figures of Zimbabweans who had voted in the election.

Some reports suggested that some voters had been turned away from polling stations after their names were not found on the voters’ register that has been condemned by Zimbabwe’s main opposition party as flawed.

ZEC senior polling officer in the second city of Bulawayo, Innocent Ncube, refused to say how many voters had cast their ballots saying the details, which have been released during past polls, will not be provided to the media.

ZEC chairperson George Chiweshe said in an interview that all polling stations had closed at 7pm and counting of votes had begun.

“Polling stations have closed and counting has started,” said Chiweshe.

Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party said earlier tonight that it was worried by the high number of assisted voters in President Robert Mugabe’s rural strongholds of Mashonaland East and Central provinces.

The MDC said the number of assisted voters in the two provinces was too high raising fears that the government wanted to manipulate figures there to steal the election.

“We have received reports that close to more than half of the voters in Mashonaland East and Mashonaland Central province have been assisted to vote and this is worrying in a country with a high literacy rate like Zimbabwe,” said MDC spokesman, Nelson Chamisa.

Chiweshe said he was still receiving reports from around the country and was therefore not in a position to comment on the opposition’s concerns. He also said it was still too early to state when the first results would be available.

“We are still receiving reports from around the country and therefore I cannot say much. If I do not get all the reports tonight it might have to be tomorrow that’s why I’m unable to say when we can start briefings,” said Chiweshe.

Several people who spoke to ZimOnline earlier in the day said they were desperate to see political change in Zimbabwe after years of repression and bad governance by Mugabe.

“We are hoping for change but I do not know what will happen if Mugabe rigs the election,” said Pamela Ncube a first time voter from Nkulumane constituency in Bulawayo.

Milton Sibanda said prospects for Kenya-style prospects in Zimbabwe were too ghastly to contemplate adding that he wanted a peaceful election were losers would accept gracefully accept defeat.

“The consequences of a rigged election are frightening. I do not want violence in Zimbabwe but I shudder to think of what will happen if Mugabe steals the election again,” said Milton Sibanda.

Mugabe, in power since the country’s independence from Britain 28 years ago, said on Saturday that he will not rig the election as his conscience would not allow him to do so.

Meanwhile, the International Bar Association (IBA) urged election authorities and accredited international observers to take all necessary steps to ensure that the will of the Zimbabwean electorate was not thwarted.

Zimbabwe barred election observers from Western countries and only invited observers from the African Union, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and other groups deemed not hostile to the government.

“They (invited observers) should not fail the Zimbabwean people by endorsing a process that falls below acceptable standards,” said IBA executive director, Mark Ellis.

The IBA said Zimbabweans have endured a series of deeply flawed elections but kept their faith in democracy saying this restraint and faith in elections was now wearing thin.

“It is, therefore, imperative that the foreign observers speak out strongly against all irregularities in this election,” said Ellis. - ZimOnline

As Zimbabwe Votes, a Once-Proud Community Searches for Sustenance

As Zimbabwe Votes, a Once-Proud Community Searches for Sustenance Letter from Harare

By Claudia BraudeWed. Mar 26, 2008

Harare, Zimbabwe — In early March, a South African rabbi traveled to Zimbabwe’s capital city on one of the many trips he has made in recent years to give material and spiritual sustenance to a Jewish community suffering from one of the world’s worst economic crises.

The rabbi, Moshe Silberhaft, held a meeting at the Rhodis Hall in Harare with 100 of the 190 Jews remaining in the city. Silberhaft distributed parcels including soap, toothpaste, washing powder, tea, coffee, sugar, cornflakes, jam, tinned fruit, tuna and soup.

Parcels read for collection by the Harare Jewish Community.

Used to spending days searching for a few eggs or a bottle of milk (people jokingly describe themselves as “hunter-gatherers”), the Zimbabwean Jews arrived at the hall expectant and weary. They were decently dressed, if without a hint of current fashion. People appeared confused by all the attention, but at the same time recognized the surrounding madness.

“Many senior community members find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. [This] assistance goes a long way,” said Clive Posen, a community member and prominent industrial psychologist in his mid-50s.
“It’s very difficult to receive when… we’ve been used to giving,” another grateful member told Silberhaft.

An independent archivist of southern African Jewry, I accompanied Silberhaft as part of a private research project. The visit gave me an inside view on how the decay of Zimbabwe has torn apart even the formerly middle-class Jewish community here. Like everyone else, they have fallen on hard times. Roads are ruinously potholed. Tap water, when it runs, is murky brown for lack of purifying chemicals.

All these factors are playing into this week’s elections, in which the country’s dictatorial president, Robert Mugabe, 84, faces a serious challenge to his 28-year reign.
Opinion polls indicate that the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, holds a significant lead before the presidential elections. If Mugabe claims victory, as is expected, the opposition is almost certain to dispute it. Mugabe has warned of the security clampdown that would follow. Refugee camps have been prepared on the South African border, in case hundreds of thousands flee political violence.

For the country’s Jews, a potential exit route is being planned by the African Jewish Congress. As is true elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, Zimbabwean Jews are served by the South Africa-based congress, of which Silberhaft — the so-called “traveling rabbi” — is the executive director.
Jews were among the earliest whites who, along with Cecil Rhodes, moved north into Zimbabwe from South Africa in the 1890s. Always part of the white minority society, they were involved in the modernization and development of commerce and industry, particularly in manufacturing and textiles.

Numbering 7,500 in the mid-1960s, the Jewish exit from Zimbabwe began when Ian Smith’s white-minority government declared unilateral independence from Britain in 1965. Many went to Israel. More came to South Africa, particularly Cape Town. When Silberhaft first visited Zimbabwe in 1995, before Mugabe’s rule turned bitter, he ministered to 900 Jews.
Today, the community numbers 300, mostly elderly, people. Some 190 Jews live in Harare and 110 in Bulawayo. Many, particularly in Harare, survive on money from abroad. One person saved for four months to pay for a kosher chicken. Silberhaft has since taken responsibility for his welfare.

Jews have twice been specific targets of Mugabe’s abuse. When South Africa’s opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, led by Tony Leon, a Jew, gave strong public support in 1999 to Tsvangirai, Mugabe accused Jews of undermining his government.

A few years later, when farm invasions began and many companies relocated across the borders, Mugabe again accused Jews of undermining his country. “The South African Jewish Board of Deputies wrote to him asking why he was singling out Jews and warning against the dangers of antisemitism,” Silberhaft said. They received dismissive a one-line reply.

On the day before Yom Kippur, in 2003, a fire destroyed Bulawayo’s Orthodox synagogue. While everyone agrees the fire was caused by fuel in the synagogue, community members unequivocally deny claims from the government-controlled media that they put it there themselves. There was no real investigation into the fire’s cause.
The community has since relocated to the local Reform synagogue and attracted an Israeli rabbi, David Alima, his wife Efrat and their young family.

“I organized a very moving 75th-birthday bat mitzvah for one Savyon Lodge resident,” said Efrat Alima, referring to the local old-age home. “I intended on making kitkes [challah] but there wasn’t power.” (A bequest has since enabled the purchase of a generator.)
When it comes to electricity and other basic needs, members of the the Jewish community are suffering in much the same way as their compatriots.

With inflation running well above 100,000%, savings and buying power have swiftly and steadily eroded. In 1998, 1 million Zimbabwean dollars bought a comfortable house. Today, a nurse earns 350 million Zimbabwean dollars a month. Products are unavailable or unaffordable. A box of matches costs 2 million Zimbabwean dollars. Electricity outages and fuel shortages are common. Eighty percent of the 9 million resident Zimbabweans are unemployed and hungry. They survive on groceries and hard currency, exchangeable on the black market, sent by 3 million refugees in South Africa, Britain and elsewhere.

Rabbi David Alima - sorting out packages for distribution in Bulawayo

Hylton Solomon, a Jewish shop owner in his early 50s in Bulawayo, was arrested last year on charges related to “price fixing.” Mugabe’s government has made it illegal to sell goods at higher prices than those set by the government, and the retail price of Solomon’s pasta was higher than the government-regulated price. “It was a survival tactic for Mugabe,” Solomon said. Mugabe threatened retailers again throughout his election campaign.
Despite the struggles, the remaining community members have cohered around community institutions.

In Bulawayo, Savyon Lodge is a nursing home for 25 retirees. Some of those residents have families abroad, who pay $150 monthly, but running costs are otherwise covered by assistance from foreign charities. Silberhaft, the South African rabbi, organizes regular deliveries.
Things are bad enough in Bulawayo that Jews in the city who don’t live in the old-age home occasionally come to the lodge for basic food and supplies. Still, at least some Zimbabwean Jews have managed to stick around and retain positions of prominence.

Eric Bloch, a chartered accountant in Bulawayo, is a prominent economic analyst with wide connections in political circles. He counts South African President Thabo Mbeki among his personal friends. When we met six weeks ago, he was upbeat about the prospects for change.
“Mugabe wants to stay in power, but his bigger desire is to stay alive with his ill-gotten gains and ego intact. He’s agreed in negotiations with Mbeki that he’ll resign within four months of the election,” Bloch said.

Bloch said that if Mugabe does not resign, he may face arrest and trial at the International Criminal Court.
Other, wearier members of the Harare Jewish community say that Bloch’s predictions have not always panned out. But there are calls for the South African government to arrest prominent Zimbabwean policemen and government officials when they enter South Africa on business or to shop.

Looking forward, a chunk of Zimbabwe’s Jews are intent on keeping their place in the country. One reason is the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Trust, a massive irrigation scheme.
The head of the project, Dumisa Dabengwa, has been in discussions with Israel, which has been recognized globally for its irrigation expertise. Dabengwa, who has visited Israel twice, is a part of the Mugabe government and is now the most vocal supporter of Simba Makoni, a leading presidential candidate in the current election.

“Unfortunately, recent political developments ruined discussions with Israel about this project,” Dabengwa told me.

“During our liberation struggle we had significant support from the Jewish community. I’d like to bring that back,” he said.
Despite the odds, Solomon sees his role in that future.
“It’s important to keep a Jewish light burning here. Israelis will come for irrigation. South Africans might come to escape crime,” he said. And Silberhaft is preparing to send matzo and other food for Passover.

From the Los Angeles Times Zimbabwe's Ahab Robert Mugabe, poised to steal another election, has led his nation to ruin. By Peter Godwin March 25, 2008 Once it was Africa's shining city on a hill, a beacon of prosperity and economic growth in the gloom of a continent shrouded by poverty. Emerging in 1980 from a seven-year civil war against white settler rule, the newly independent nation of Zimbabwe embraced racial reconciliation and invited the country's whites (one in 20 of the population) to remain and contribute to the new nation. I was one of those who gladly dismissed Rhodesia and became Zimbabwean. Upon the firm economic infrastructure he had inherited, Robert Mugabe, our first black leader, built a health and educational system that was the envy of Africa. Zimbabwe became the continent's most literate country, with its highest per capita income. Zimbabwe easily fed itself and had plenty left over to export to its famine-prone neighbors. I remember crisscrossing the continent then as Africa correspondent for a British newspaper, and each time I returned to the newly renamed capital of Harare (previously it had been Salisbury), I was reminded that in comparison to what surrounded it, Zimbabwe was like Switzerland. The roads were well maintained, the elevators worked, electricity was constant, you could drink the water, the steaks were world-renowned. The Zimbabwe dollar was at near parity with its American namesake. Fast forward to today, and the country is unrecognizable. Zimbabwe now has the fastest-shrinking peacetime economy in the world. This week, one U.S. dollar (even in its newly enfeebled state) will fetch you 55 million Zimbabwe dollars on the street. Hyperinflation there has soared well above 100,000% -- way past what it was in the Weimar Republic, when Germans loaded up wheelbarrows with money to go grocery shopping. Zimbabweans must carry huge wads of cash around in shopping bags, and by the time they reach the checkout desk at the shortage-racked supermarkets, the prices have already gone up. Commercial agriculture -- the backbone of the economy -- lies shattered. All but a few of the country's 5,000 large-scale farmers, most of whom were white, have been run off their properties by government-backed squatters and militia. From being a food exporter, Zimbabwe would now starve without U.N. famine relief. And even with it, half the population is malnourished. Education and healthcare have collapsed. Ravaged by AIDS, life expectancy has plummeted from around 60 years old to about 35, the world's lowest. Zimbabwe has more orphans per capita than almost any other country on the planet. Water is undrinkable, power infrequent, roads potholed, fuel scarce, corruption endemic. My own parents, an engineer and a doctor and better off than most, still lost everything as I watched from my new home in New York, frequently returning to check on them and try to persuade them to leave. But they insisted on staying. By the time my father died in 2004, their pensions, life insurance and stocks were worthless. Why? It comes down to one man: Robert Mugabe, now in his 28th year in power and still refusing to go. Like Sampson, he would rather pull the temple down around him, would rather destroy Zimbabwe than leave office. The damage he has wrought will take generations to repair. The country's free-fall into failed statehood began in earnest in 2000. That was when the electorate tired of him and his increasingly imperious one-party rule and voted down his attempt to do away with term limits so that he could continue as president. Mugabe, the onetime guerrilla leader who now saw himself as liberator of the country, reacted with astonishing venom. He turned on the newly emboldened black opposition, harassing, imprisoning and torturing their supporters. And those white commercial farmers he'd invited to remain in 1980 he threw off the land, distributing their farms among his cronies, which helped precipitate the economic catastrophe because few of them had the inclination or technical know-how to farm. Mugabe became an African Ahab, Melville's "monomaniacal commander," marinating in a toxic brew of hate and denial as he plunged his ship of state down into the dark vortex, railing all the while from the quarterdeck against the great white whale. He blamed Zimbabwe's plunge on the largely symbolic sanctions imposed by the West. And he refused to negotiate with his own, overwhelmingly black, opposition, dismissing them as lackeys of Britain, the former colonial power. Why do Zimbabweans continue to put up with Mugabe? In large numbers, they don't. Since 2000, most have tried to vote against him in presidential elections, but these were blatantly rigged. Now, as many as 70% of those between 18 and 60 have left the country to live and work elsewhere. It's an exodus on a par with the flood of Irish immigrants into America after the potato famine. And it's also the key to how the shattered Zimbabwe state survives -- remittances from its diaspora. People like me sending hard currency back to family and friends. By doing so, we inadvertently assist Mugabe to survive too. Now a sprightly 84 years old, Mugabe has recently moved into a $26-million palace, with 25 bedroom suites, furnished with Sun King flourishes. He rules as a dictator through a network of army officers. It is on them that he will rely once more to mastermind the presidential election Saturday. It is an election in name only, with no hope of being "free and fair." Mugabe has already rejected various constitutional reforms backed by South Africa. Electoral rolls are a joke, stuffed with fictitious voters. Police officers are to be allowed into voting booths "to assist illiterate voters." And votes are to be counted not at individual polling stations but at a single "national command center" staffed by senior army officers, which is where the rigging will likely take place. Mugabe has banned most independent observers, instead inviting teams from China, Russia, Iran and Angola -- nations with no modern history of free and fair democracy. And finally, the more than 4 million in the Zimbabwe diaspora are not allowed postal votes. None of this bodes well for Mugabe's two main opponents. Morgan Tsvangirai, of the Movement for Democratic Change, is a veteran of several rigged poll defeats and seems unlikely to fare any better this time, despite the enthusiastic crowds he draws to his rallies. Mugabe's other threat is Simba Makoni, a member of Mugabe's own politburo until he was expelled recently for daring to compete for the presidency. The only real hope is that the men responsible for carrying out the rigging -- Mugabe's secret police, his senior government apparatchiks and the army leadership -- may have lost faith in their longtime leader. Perhaps they will refuse to fiddle the vote, especially because Makoni, the former Cabinet minister, is running as a "reformist" candidate, presenting the prospect of change with continuity. It is a very slim prospect. Peter Godwin is the author of "When a Crocodile Eats the Sun -- A Memoir of Africa," which describes the collapse of Zimbabwe and the disintegration of his family there.

Mandaza says Israel helping Mugabe to rig

(source: Zimbabwe Times -

Mandaza says Israel helping Mugabe to rig

By Raymond Maingire

HARARE, March 20, 2008 (thezimbabwetimes.com) – Dr Ibbo Mandaza, a close ally of independent presidential candidate, Dr Simba Makoni, yesterday urged the United States government to come clean on some of its policies on Zimbabwe.

Mandaza, a leading publisher and academic, claimed that the super power has allowed two countries aligned to it to sponsor covert operations aimed at helping President Robert Mugabe to rig the forthcoming elections. He identified Israel and Pakistan as the alleged culprits, saying both nations had deployed teams to Harare to help the beleaguered Mugabe regime to rig elections.

Mandaza said the group of former Finance Minister, Makoni, was fully briefed on the underhand strategies that the Zimbabwean leader was employing in a bid to influence the crucial vote next week in his favour.

Zimbabweans will go to the polls on Saturday, March 29, to elect a new President as well as parliamentary, senatorial and local government representatives.

“We have to ensure elections are not rigged,” Mandaza told a full house during a public discussion forum in Harare on Wednesday evening.

“We honestly have to do so because the elections are rigged by human beings like us. How is it done, where is it done.

“In fact, we already know there are seven senior CIO functionaries who have been attached to ZEC (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) since last week to do the dirty job. We have their names. We have given some of the names to the SADC observer teams last week and to the press.

“Some of them have even asked us to make it be known that this is what has happened because they are also like any other Zimbabweans who are tired of doing this dirty job.”

Mandaza said his group has been informed that a team of Israeli intelligence agents were deployed last week to help President Mugabe rig the election.

“They were seen arriving in Harare last week,” he said, “Their team arrived in Zimbabwe to help in the whole election management. They have also sent a team of Pakistanis who arrived last week for the dirty job.

“The question is, ‘What is the position of the super power, the USA, when two of its surrogates, Pakistan and Israel are involved in dirty business in Zimbabwe or are intending to do so?’”

Mandaza urged the opposition to work together to expose some of Mugabe’s underhand dealings. Tsvangirai, the MDC president, is scheduled to address a press conference today, where he will disclose his own details of the rigging process.

Mugabe’s political opponents and observers have accused him of using unorthodox methods, including the militarization of state institutions, to remain in power.

Mandaza accused Mugabe of instilling fear among Zimbabweans. As publisher of The Mirror newspaper Mandaza was an ardent defender of Mugabe. His cosy relationship with the ruling party ended when his publishing company was seized by the CIO.

“The Zimbabwe of today is enveloped in fear, stress and tension,” Mandaza said. “There is no respect for the law; no human rights. We have been beating up our fellow citizens like animals for nothing other than that they have expressed their view, a view which is obvious - that there is something wrong with the country and that Mugabe must go.”

He said Zimbabwe’s education and health care systems had effectively collapsed because of Mugabe’s mismanagement of the economy.

“We have a population which has been patronized and paternalised by a state which claims it can provide everything, a state which is completely lacking in capacity and completely unable to turn around this economy, other than to drive us deeper, and deeper and deeper into crisis.”

He said he agreed with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s assertions that the forthcoming election was a referendum on President Mugabe’s rule.

“By next week, Tsvangirai, Makoni and all of us should go into the election with one thing, one thing only – get that man out into retirement, then we can start doing real business,” he said.

President Mugabe faces the toughest challenge to his 28-year old iron-fisted rule. His diminishing support has manifested itself in various ways, including serious rifts within the ruling party and the spectre of previously intimidated rural folk thronging opposition rallies. For instance, where Mugabe’s rally in Gweru attracted a paltry 4 000 supporters, most of them children, on Tuesday, Tsvangirai and Makoni addressed crowds of 30 000 and 7 000 respectively over the weekend, and that without any form without coercion.

Fearful of a massive show of support in Harare the police denied the MDC permission to hold a final rally at Zimbabwe Grounds on Saturday, March 22.

They claimed that Zanu-PF had booked the same venue from Friday to Monday continuously. But Zanu-PF may have taken a calculated risk, especially if the small numbers that have become characteristic of the party’s rallies of late turn out.

More than 100 000 supporters turned Zimbabwe Grounds into a solid mass of people on February 27, 1980, when Mugabe heroically led Zanu-PF back from Maputo after years of struggle.

Above all, the Mugabe election campaign appears doomed when those that might normally be relied upon to facilitate any rigging process have become reliable sources of information for the opposition