PRESS RELEASE

Wednesday 26 March 2008

ZIMBABWE’S WEEKEND ELECTION CRITICISED AS INHERENTLY UNFREE & UNFAIR IN WASHINGTON: A SLOW MOTION HOLOCAUST IN THE MAKING.

NOTICE: Excerpted remarks by Clr Derek Fleming of the Tshwane Metro before members of the Press and Diplomatic Corps at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. These remarks were made in his personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect those of the Democratic Alliance of South Africa.

Councillor Fleming opened with his thanks to Mr John Hurly of the NPC for the occasion to address members on the critical situation in Zimbabwe and congratulated the Press Club on its one hundredth anniversary this year.

He characterized the upcoming weekend election in Zimbabwe as a “sham and a cruel pretense at democratic process when the ruling ZANU (PF) party had leveraged its control of the repressive state apparatus to ensure President Robert Mugabe wins yet another term”.

“The press, and international observers along with the accredited diplomatic corps should not let the scale of the pretence in the election organization passed uncritically, indeed a critical, ongoing monitoring of the entire Mugabe regime ought to become the order of the day, both before the vacuous ritual of ‘voting’ over the weekend and long after the ‘landslide” Mugabe victory is declared around Monday morning” he said.

“Courageous voices have already called the farce of electoral process for what it is, foremost Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch who are, as ever, foremost in noticing the dire situation that now obtains for all Zimbabweans at home and in its growing Diaspora” The United States’ State Department more guardedly announced that “significant shortcomings” exist in the electoral process.”

Fleming called for the following vigilance to be exerted by the international press and diplomatic corps:

Unless and until unfettered press access is allowed to all news organizations (inclusive of the BBC which is formally banned from the country) and journalists, who wish to cover the elections over the weekend, the ‘vote’ is best describable as a ploy to extend the threadbare legitimacy, if indeed what still exists, of the waning years of the Mugabe era.
The nature of Zimbabwe’s political impasse is not properly put down to the persona of President Mugabe himself, but rather the organizational nature and actions of ZANU(PF) and its supportive structures in what is left of civil society, the civil service (so-called) and its business-support networks.
Accordingly the emergence of ‘reformed’ ZANU(PF) candidates such as the contender Simba Mokoni, former ZANU(PF) Finance Minister should be viewed askance. It is to be recalled the current inflation rate of over 100 000%, the world’s worst, is one of the fruits of Mokoni holding office. Inflation little affects the ruling elites but impoverishes and even starves the working poor and unemployed.
The presence of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) in polling stations goes directly to the unfree and unfair nature of polling and represents an escalation, or more naked face, of ZANU(PF) intimidation over past skewed elections.
The international community in anticipation of further repressive actions by ZANU(PF) on the people of Zimbabwe such as selectively withholding food aid from areas not known to support Mugabe, with the inevitable resistance to that oppression, must prepare for humanitarian help for those who can reach neighboring states alive.
Diplomatically more engagement with member states of the African Union to shift their reluctance to criticize Mugabe and the “slow-motion holocaust unfolding across the country” as the economy further implodes. South Africa, in particular should be the focus of such efforts with the waning days of the Thabo Mbeki presidency and the re-examination of his ‘quiet diplomacy’ in dealing with ZANU(PF).
The press should confront those “sweet-heart observer missions” allowed into the country to explain and make full justification of any endorsement they may make of the ‘election’ as in any way free and fair.
Diplomatic chanceries, most especially the Peoples’ Republic of China, a zealous defender of ZANU(PF) in the United Nations and close business partner, begin to move towards an active isolation of the Mugabe regime, the ZANU(PF) hierarchy and their extended families, present and past such as Simba Mokoni, economically, militarily and politically.