DURING the last interview, Comrade Gomba Midson Mupasu whose Chimurenga name was Cde Norman Bethune spoke about his deployment to the war front in Rhodesia.

In this interview with our team comprising Munyaradzi Huni and Tendai Manzvanzvike, Cde Bethune continues his narration talking about the early Zanla war strategies. He talks about fighting Red Indians and Israelites who had been recruited by the Smith regime to join the Rhodesian forces as the war intensified.

Cde Bethune says “there was no Christmas because this was the day to get busy”. Read on to understand why…

SM: Comrade, let’s pick up your story as you were operating at the war front during the early years. Can you tell us where most of the recruits came from during these years?

Cde Bethune: We got most of the recruits from the areas where we were operating. From Chiweshe, Dotito, Chahwanda, kuna Ruya, Bindura, Chadereka, Chitsungo, Chapoto, Msengezi and Zambezi valley among other places — we got the recruits from these areas during the early years. These were vakomana vakanga vabva zera. Chinodakufa and his group came from Chahwanda area. Recruits from urban areas started coming towards the end of 1973 because mukurumbira wakanga wavapo. People were talking all over that kuNorth East kwaita hondo. It was all over in radios and newspapers. At 7pm, there was a war communique from the Rhodesians. On our side we later had our radio station, Voice of Maputo.

SM: Can you tell us briefly about the terrain you were operating in during these early years?

Cde Bethune: The first thing I need to tell you is that we knew that hondo means death. The terrain was really bad because remember during these years, there were thick forests. But we were determined to fight and on many occasions we engaged in battles that we knew we could win. The only battle we could lose was that battle where we were ambushed. Every battle that we planned to fight we made sure tairova varungu. We could not win a surprise ambush muchifamba musingazive. Musango umu unenge usingazive kuti kwandiri kuenda uku, kana kuti kuseri kwemuti uku kunei. Unotozoona kuti pakanaka wapadarika. Paunenge usati wasvika or pawakatarisa, ichauya, chauya but we were always ready. We knew kuti tiri kufamba musango mune mumwe munhu anepfuti sesu ari kuti tsvaga ini ndichimutsvagawo. Mapfumo maviri aigara akatarisana nguva nenguva. That is why during war there was no time to relax. The moment you relax, that’s when you are killed. So we were alert all the time. We had been taught about all this during training. We were told that every second and every minute is important during a war.

SM: So there was no Christmas?

Cde Bethune: Ndiyo time yataitotsvaga nzvimbo dzevarungu dzekurova. This was the best time to attack the Rhodesians. Kutoita breakfast of killing varungu, especially Christmas Day and Zanu Day (8 August) we would make sure tarova varungu kwete mbichana. All sections knew this and they would make sure they found a target to hit. It was a must.

SM: During these early years, we are told that Zapu was still more popular than Zanu?

Cde Bethune: Zapu was popular but there didn’t have fighting forces on the ground.

SM: Why was it like that?

Cde Bethune: I don’t know. The former Zapu leadership should answer that. You need to know that as early as 1962 and 1963, that is when Zapu started sending recruits for training. When Zanu was formed on 8 August 1963 that is when it started sending recruits for training. They could send even one or two recruits at that time. When these recruits came back and were deployed into Rhodesia they became pioneers as they were given missions to accomplish until in 1966 during the Battle of Chinhoyi. That is when some of us later joined the struggle. When we joined the struggle, we supported the groups that had been sent earlier on. When we were deployed to the war front, we fought battles that gave Zanu lots of publicity worldwide. By this time we were still under the leadership of Ndabaningi Sithole.

By this time, Zapu was engaged in its own operations but they had not sent their military wing ZIPRA to the war front on the same scale as Zanu. There was only the Hwange Battle that had been fought by ZIPRA.

SM: Can you tell us briefly about the Zanla war strategies?

Cde Bethune: The war strategies changed according to the situation. It depended kuti how have you been attacked. The Smith regime was supported by the South African Defence Forces still under apartheid. They also got assistance from Red Indians, Israelites and mercenaries from across the world. The Israelites are the ones who taught Smith about bombing our bases. But we fought these outside forces and defeated them, especially Red Indians in 1973. Smith brought these outside forces in a bid to stop us front advancing right into Rhodesia over Mavhuradhona mountain but it was a waste of time. They thought they could contain the fight along Zambezi Valley. We knew this was their plan and we are hit them hard. The Smith regime would deploy lots of “stop groups” to ambush us, but even after the ambushes, it was forward ever.

Our plan was to get over Mavhuradhona mountain so that we could start our proper operations. The Rhodesian forces were operating from Mt Darwin and our idea was to get closer so as to plan properly. During these early years, the Rhodesian air force was operating from Thornhill in Gweru and Manyame in Harare. They also had small bases in Mt Darwin, Mukumbura, Bindura and around some white farms there were some runaways for small plans to take off. Later they set up a big base in Mt Darwin and from there they would use trucks.

These trucks would be driven in convoys and we came up with a plan to stop these convoys. We told villagers and bus owners that hakuchisina bhazi rinodarika paDotito or kubva Bindura going to Mt Darwin.

We started planting landmines along the road and we warned bus owners that kana bhazi rako rikarohwa nelandmine, you will compensate vanhu vafa kana kukuvara.

That is why Cde Herbert Shungu at one time akatora bhazi rekwaMusabayana kuChipinge while operating under Manica Province. We would warn the public in advance. We only started planting landmines after politicising the masses. We told the masses that even ngoro dzemombe musafambise mumugwagwa.

Do you know that most farm owners went for “Call Up” as the war intensified? They wanted to protect and defend their farms.

SM: What had caused this “Call Up?”

Cde Bethune: It was like a National Youth Service. Smith came up with the plan after discovering that we were advancing into Rhodesia and that we were oversmarting his soldiers. But then for us, this was a people’s war. We could not fight the war without the masses. The masses became our eyes and ears. Again we told the masses kuti kana masoldier aSmith awuya, tell them kuti vana mukoma vanga vari pano vaenda nekuku.

SM: There were some black soldiers in the Rhodesian army. How did you view these soldiers?

Cde Bethune: We knew that for these black soldiers, it was mainly just work. But of course there were some of these black soldiers aitomiramira chaizvo kuti awonekwe kuti anogona kurova pfuti. I have actually forgotten their names but I remember there were about two or three black soldiers vaitova namazita emadhunhirirwa nenyaya yekutirwisa. Vainzi vanogona kuroNato but still hapana kwavakaenda. AK47 silenced them.

SM: These were black soldiers and there were chances that some of them were your relatives…

Cde Bethune: Ahh, ahh, ahh, hama yakandinongedzera pfuti? A relative hunting me and wanting for kill me? To me that’s not a relative. Ndikanonoka kumurova he will kill me. There is no such a relative. You know when Chimoio was attacked, after the liberation struggle I remember there was a soldier called Njini, he is now a Retired Major, who was in the RAR (Rhodesian African Rifle), he commended me saying as I was the overall commander at Chimoio, I made their reconnaissance before the attack very difficult. He was among the group that was sent by the Rhodesian forces to come for reconnaissance before attacking Chimoio. He told me that the patrols that we conducted at Chimoio, we used to call these patrols “360 degrees” made their reconnaissance very difficult. This comrade we were now all under the Zimbabwe National Army and as we were just discussing the war he told me his story. These patrols were only known by me as the overall commander and Cde Kenny Ridzai who was in charge of security. Kenny Ridzai and myself tisu taiziva kuti security yepaChimoio yakamira sei.

The comrades at different bases would not meet frequently for security reasons, but I set aside Thursday as “Bongozozo Day” for all of them to meet and have some fun. Otherwise the security was tight. This is what this comrade was commending me for.

SM: Many comrades were killed during Chimoio massacre. When you saw this comrade who was working for the Smith regime during this time, how did you feel?

Cde Bethune: That massacre really hurt me. Up to this day I won’t forget that dark day but the war was over and we had been taught reconciliation. There was nothing I could do.

SM: Now, comrade tell us how and why you were later recalled from the war front to the rear in Lusaka?

Cde Bethune: I operated mainly around Chahwanda area and after some time, I became sick. Our gathering base yanga iri paseri peKaranda Hospital. First we had a fierce battle around Gwetera in March 1973 together with comrades such as Cde Chemist.

After this battle, muviri wangu just started kudzikira. It was later discovered that ndakanga ndaita cerebral malaria but it was not yet severe. Some comrades suggested that I should go back to the rear but I refused until towards the end of that year 1973, that I when I was ordered to go to the rear.

SM: Why were you refusing to go to the rear?

Cde Bethune: The war front was more enjoyable because maiti mukarova hondo yenyu zvakanaka zvainakidza. After a victory you would get inspired and think of planning another attack. Chinhu changa chakashata kuhondo was kugara for three or four days without engaging the enemy. That would create fear in some comrades. Maida kungodzinzwa dzichirira.

Also I didn’t want to go to the rear because kurear kwaiita ukanganwe hondo. But we were also taught through principles of Mao that when you are asked to go to the rear, it means the younger generation has gotten enough training to be able to come to the front to fight. I understood also that I was supposed to go to the rear to teach some of the recruits the practicalities of the war.

This was protracted war and we had no idea when it was going to end. The recruits at the rear were in need of political orientation.

I also need to tell you that up to 1974, there were no recruits going to Mozambique. By that time we had no bases in Mozambique. Even the operational areas from the Mozambican side were opened at the end of 1975 following détente. Détente had failed to stop the liberation struggle.

SM: Who gave you the orders to go back to the rear?

Cde Bethune: It was Cde Cuthbert Chimedza. So I first went kwaDuhwa in Mozambique which is North of Mukumbura. Later I went to Chifombo where I stayed for two days then proceeded to Lusaka. In Lusaka, I thought I was going to the offices but I was taken to Nampundwe Farm, which was one of our bases where I was appointed as the overall commander.

The system at Nampundwe was that all recruits would first pass through the security department for vetting, then come to the political department for orientation. We were also into agriculture at the farm after Zanu managed to secure two tractors. This is also the base that those injured at the war front would be brought for treatment.

Those coming from Tanzania after training also passed through Nampundwe because this is where they got their uniforms. From Nampundwe these trained comrades would be taken to Chifombo before deployment into Rhodesia. This farm had 50 hectares but arable land was 45 hectars.

Our main focus was maize production. The idea behind the farm was to encourage self-reliance as maize from this farm was taken to the war front to feed some of our comrades.

To be continued next week

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The Sharp Shooter
Vukani Madoda
What reforms are you talking about Nelson? Political space has been opened and more than 100 political parties will contest in the elections, but you still want to cause confusion with the unsaleable mantra of so-called electoral reforms.

We have seen all too often the tragedy of orphans fighting over the estate of their late parents.

Many a time, the orphans jostle for property, power and possession even before the father is laid to rest.

One child rallies other family members against his/her siblings, sometimes against a stepmother, with the promise of sharing the loot with them.

That is what is happening in MDC-T. It is something many of us have long seen coming.

We saw the lack of compassion before Morgan Tsvangirai was on his death bed. It was clear for anybody who cared to follow the spectacle that the very day Tsvangirai would die would be the day MDC-T would die too.

The lack of empathy in otherwise well-to-do and promising opposition political candidates was there for all to see.

Obert Gutu, the then spokesperson, did not hide his disdain at the impending implosion within the opposition.

He openly defied whatever that so-called democratic movement stood for. He spoke willy-nilly at variance with the party position and even had the bravery to declare himself the parliamentary candidate for Harare East constituency.

But now he is gone. He is history. Expelled by his own party. A party he so passionately declared would form the next Government. He is now in political oblivion.

When the first MDC was formed in 1999, it talked of winds of change and gave Zanu-PF a run for its money in consecutive parliamentary and presidential elections.

But it quickly started eating its own children. Professor Welshman Ncube, Ambassador Trudy Stevenson, and now Dr Thokozani Khupe, Gutu and Abednigo Bhebhe have all been devoured.

Khupe refused to be bulldozed into paying allegiance to the back-door leadership of Nelson Chamisa who had been elevated by Tsvangirai to vice-president in spite of the humiliation of being defeated by Douglas Mwonzora for the post of secretary-general at MDC-T’s 2014 congress.

What remains of the legacy of Tsvangirai’s party is a stepmother called Thoko Khupe who has been expelled as orphans from another mother seize the estate.

It is a Humpty-Dumpty scenario and it does not need much to see that no alliance will ever be able to put this broken egg back together again.

We have said it before that MDC is party of splits and counter-splits but the naïve continue to prop it up as the next best thing after sliced bread.

The circus of splits involving Welshman Ncube, Tendai Biti, Job Sikhala, Arthur Mutambara, Elliot Mangoma and Thokozani Khupe is enough evidence to show the electorate the calibre of misguided opportunists and charlatans that have, for the greater part of this millennium, tried to lead Zimbabwe.

Khupe formed her own MDC arguing that she is the rightful opposition president instead of cabal leader Nelson Chamisa.

But did Khupe really win an election at congress in 2014? Records show that she was announced the winner after running a one-woman pots-and-pans race completely uncontested.

Now this boy, who convincingly lost to Mwonzora at the same congress, has contested her and pulled the rug from beneath her feet and she is foaming at mouth and will have none of that.

I pity the loyal MDC-T supporters who seem entrapped in this King Lear-like tragedy in which all their efforts to effect regime change have fallen flat on their face and played very well into the hands of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu-PF.

There is no doubting that Cde Mnangagwa is having the last laugh as he revels in the manner in which the MDC-T orphans are tearing into each other.

ED will continue proudly wearing his scarf, open Zimbabwe for business and deliver free and fair elections that he and his party will win soundly.

In that respect he has been unwavering and the youth are going full steam ahead with the #EDHasMyVote strategy.

Of course you have Chamisa threatening protests if “electoral reforms” do not come.

What reforms are you talking about Nelson? Political space has been opened and more than 100 political parties will contest in the elections, but you still want to cause confusion with the unsaleable mantra of so-called electoral reforms.

Well go ahead, have your protests, and see whether Thokozani Khupe or Obert Gutu or Abednego Bhebhe will join you. See if Joice Mujuru will march with you. While you are at it wait for Ambrose Mutinhiri to join your protests.

But be warned that you could easily wait until you are twice your age before anyone will take you seriously.

Like all orphans who fight for an estate that they never built, we do not have much longer to wait until the entire estate disintegrates into small unrecognisable fragments, which the electorate will be at pains to vote for since each fragment will have little or nothing to offer.

As for stepmother Khupe, I think it is time to find a new home because the children of your late husband see no reason why you should call the shots when daddy is gone.

Dubulaizitha!

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For far too long, Zimbabwe has been the nation that eats politics.

We spoke about this on this space as far back as February 2016, as the flames of factionalism grew in the ruling party and threatened to distract Government from its key guiding objectives.

Those objectives are captured in the whole of Chapter 2 of the Constitution of the Republic.

Among others, they are listed as promoting national unity, peace and stability; fostering fundamental human rights and freedoms; national development; boosting employment creation and empowerment; ensuring food security; guaranteeing health services and decent shelter.

These are basic expectations citizens have of any modern state.

Citizens want a stable environment that encourages personal and national development, innovation and productivity.

They want to feel safe from the threat of violence. They want to advance themselves without having to grease the palms of public officers. They want water, food, housing, education and healthcare at affordable costs.

But for the better part of this millennium, Zimbabwe’s Government found itself preoccupied with retaining power for the sake of retaining it.

Factional considerations entered the frame and a bad situation just became worse.

Now with elections approaching, there are some quarters that want to keep us in the morass of politicking for no other reason than mere politicking.

Thankfully, this time around, it is not the ruling party that is largely responsible for diverting attention from the very real issues of national development.

This time, it is opposition parties — principally Mr Nelson Chamisa’s MDC-T — that wants national attention to be on politics rather than on livelihood issues.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been preoccupied with the core business of Government, which is guaranteeing the services, infrastructure and rights mentioned above.

While he is creating an environment that encourages investment, production and job creation, the opposition is threatening instability by taking to the streets to demand what they call electoral reforms.

The statements coming out of the opposition ranks point to political actors who thrive on chaos and have no interest in the kind of stability required to steer the national economy in the direction that all Zimbabweans deserve after so many years of hardship.

In addition to this, President Mnangagwa has already said he is inviting all political parties – more than 100 at the last count – who want to participate in the 2018 elections so that they all sit down together and discuss whatever issues of concern pertaining to the polls that may be there.

Now, if a platform has been created to thrash out such issues, why subsequently threaten street protests unless your only intention is to foment instability and derail current efforts to turn around Zimbabwe’s economy.

The opposition is engaging in the kind of grandstanding Mr Robert Mugabe has dabbled with recently: trying to create an international perception of a Zimbabwe that is hopeless and not a fitting investment destination.

Just the other day President Mnangagwa was at the official opening of Willowton Group’s refinery in Mutare.

A few days before that, he was overseeing the signing of a $4,2 billion platinum investment agreement – the largest mining deal in Zimbabwe’s history — between Government and Karo Resources.

Many other things have happened and are happening.

We are talking of thousands of jobs being created. We are talking of huge potential in export earnings. We are talking of creating the Zimbabwe we all desire.

Yet others want to detract attention to divisive politics that scare away investment and keep our nation in an economic rut.

Yes, MDC-T has shown that it has a massive appetite for political mayhem as seen by the circus that has been playing out in the opposition’s ranks since Mr Morgan Tsvangirai died.

In fact, they have revelled in bedlam for years now, which is why they have continued splintering and fighting each other with shameless abandon.

Not content with destroying each other, they want to extrapolate this bedlam to the entire nation, urging people to focus on political gamesmanship rather than on rebuilding their country.

It is their choice to make if they want to destroy each other, but we should not give them room to keep holding the whole Zimbabwe back.

The people of Zimbabwe are tired of this kind of politics.

The ruling party woke up to this last year, but it seems the message has not yet reached some in the opposition. The international community, too, is alive to this and many investors are keen to come and set up shop in a stable Zimbabwe that has no room for destructive politics.

We do not eat politics, and the sooner the Chamisas of this land understand this then the better for us all.

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Dr Gibson Mandishona
The Energy and Power Development Ministry is addressing the spectre of power shortages by way of augmentation: energy imports, demand-side management, clean energy development, …

Energy is a key enabler of socio-economic development.

Last week’s commissioning of the 300MW Kariba South Power Station by President Mnangagwa should be applauded by all sectors of the economy.

The project, which cost in excess of US$500 million and employs 1 500 people at peak levels, will partially offset the country’s 400MW monthly power imports from South Africa and Mozambique.

Zimbabwe’s demand for electricity is about 2 030MW while average supply is 1 200MW.

However, the country will need additional power due to factors such as the rapid rate of natural increase of the population needing electricity, exponential increase of industrial and manufacturing sectors envisaged in the near future, and gradual expansion of electrical services into rural and farming areas.

Zimbabwe’s access to electricity is estimated at 50 percent of the total population (78 percent urban population and 40 percent rural population).

Within the framework of the Southern African Power Pool, the country faces power shortages, with a deficit of 60 percent; hence power imports.

Sapp has a regional power deficit of 5 000MW.

The Zimbabwe Power Company manages Hwange Thermal Power Station (920MW), Kariba Dam Hydroelectric Power Station (750MW) and smaller thermals.

The power plants have had challenges due to obsolete generation equipment and inadequate capitalisation.

Hwange has an installed capacity of 920MW, but only averages 450MW output. Mention should be made of smaller contributions from stand-alone solar plants and mini-hydros.

National generating capacity is 1 400MW, with peak demand at 2 400MW (40 percent of power demand being driven by mining and heavy industries).

The Energy and Power Development Ministry is addressing the spectre of power shortages by way of augmentation: energy imports, demand-side management, clean energy development, energy mix, carbon credits, new power plants, liberalising the energy sector (independent power producers) and formulating new energy policies (the Rural Energy Masterplan and Biofuels Policy, and others).

Demand-side management/clean energy has the unique potential of creating a virtual power station.

Augmenting the power sector may be achieved by harnessing renewable energy resources or renewables (solar energy, mini-hydro, wind and biomass).

Whereas fossil fuels (coal-based) are blamed for global warming and greenhouse gas emissions, renewables are a benign and pollution-free source of energy.

Renewables have inherent attributes which include equitable distribution of energy, reduced dependence on fossils, small ecological footprints, decentralised mode, being modular (easy to replicate) and user-friendliness (energy for the poor).

The Zim-Asset development blueprint “recognises renewable energy (biogas, solar energy, wind, biofuels) as an essential development strategy for the country”.

Zimbabwe is no stranger to harnessing solar energy for households, farms, institutions and industry.

In the mid-1990s, the country hosted the GEF Solar Project, which oversaw installation of several solar systems mostly in rural homes and at growth points.

The GEF project culminated in the hosting by Harare, of the World Solar Summit (1996). The country has a vast untapped solar potential, with an enviable average irradiation of 6kWh/m2/day. The northern and western regions are most favourable.

Bioenergy consists of harnessing energy from biogas plants and biofuels from jatropha, forestry and sugar plantations. Government, through the Rural Electrification Agency, and some NGOs are popularising adoption of biogas digesters in rural areas and remote communities.

Zimbabwe is land-locked and has low wind speeds averaging 3,5 metres/sec.

Favourable wind turbines would be those of the hybrid vertical axis type which activate at low speeds as opposed to conventional horizontal axis wind machines.

Viable winds are generally in the south-eastern mountainous region bordering Mozambique, which is also home to well-functioning mini-hydro IPPs.

Rural Zimbabwe has favourable exposure to off-grid solar products, but practical implementation of energy policies is limited.

Lack of a clear policy and regulatory framework has led to an off-grid market with sub-standard products.

Import tariffs have been removed for solar products.

However, value-added tax of 15 percent still applies. Companies in the sector have limited access to public financing channels.

Mini-hydros have been financed by private developers and NGOs, and challenges remain with respect to renewable energy adoption/integration. There is need to integrate renewables into the conventional energy mix. What is the feasible RE optimal mix?

Other challenges relate to energy storage in renewables, in addition to adoption of innovative upcoming renewables (gas turbines, solar hydrogen, fuel cells).

I omit nuclear energy for now!

 Dr Gibson Mandishona is a renewable energy expert. He wrote this article for The Sunday Mail

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Dr Sifelani Jabangwe
The opening of Kariba South Extension will go a long way in ensuring that Zimbabwe has stable electricity supply.

It reduces our electricity import bill which has been draining the fiscus in terms of foreign currency.

We have always said there is need for investment in power and this is a step in the right direction and must be commended.

We can take this as a new investment since it’s a new generating plant which is starting to operate now

In terms of the electricity tariffs, Zesa says they are the lowest in the region.

However, we feel they are low for the purposes lighting houses and for purposes of effective industrialization, they are still on the high side.

We need to meet somewhere; we need, yes, to improve our efficiency in terms of how we use our electricity in the industry, we also have to insure that the power can be in a range that makes us also to be competitive, significantly competitive so that we can export to the region as well.

The average regional price stands at 7,50c/kWh compared to 12,8c/kWh we pay in Zimbabwe, which is expensive.

If you look from the angle of industrialised countries like China, they use power at 7c/kWh, which is a source of competitive advantage.

Now the importer of minerals will add value to them and after adding value, they sell back to us.

We are now buying at higher prices from them and they are making more money.

If the country could reduce its electricity tariff for industry to that level of around 7,50c/kWh, it would go a long way in improving its competitiveness as electricity is one of the key cost drivers of the manufacturing industry.

Dr Sifelani Jabangwe is the president of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries. He made these remarks last week in an interview with The Sunday Mail Reporter, Norman Muchemwa

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Fatima Bulla in Beijing, China
“We don’t hate others in place of loving the Chinese. It so happens that the Chinese have a special place in our own body politic.

A historic encounter beckons when President Emmerson Mnangagwa meet his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, here in the former’s first State visit outside Africa.

Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to China, Mr Paul Chikawa says President Mnangagwa’s preliminary itinerary includes two to three days of official talks in Beijing with President Xi, Premier of the State Council Li Keqiang and other high ranking officials.

“I am aware there will be high level political engagements between his Excellency President Mnangagwa and Chinese officials,” he said.

“If all goes well, there is going to be a business forum where Zimbabwe should be showcasing its opportunities to the Chinese business partners and vice versa.

“In addition to that, I am not too sure how things will eventually pan out because it is normally the case that when State leaders visit here they are also expected to visit one or two provinces.

“But there are consultations still in place because the visit is coinciding with a very important Chinese festival – the Tomb Sweeping Festival.

“The fact that he would have met with the various players including the State leaders brings high hopes that the visit will be successful and memorable.”

A sizeable number of Zimbabweans here will be hoping for an interface with their President, and the visit also hold significance on the political, economic and social aspects.

President Mnangagwa’s visit comes after the Communist Party of China’s 13th National People’s Congress and 19th People’s Consultative Conference which amplified President Xi’s “Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”.

President Xi’s philosophy encompasses 17 areas of focus for China in its effort to build a prosperous society and quest as a global powerhouse through Socialism with Chinese characteristics, something Zimbabwe can borrow ideas.

The Asian giant is also pursuing peaceful development and cooperation with Africa under an initiative dubbed “A New Era of China-Africa Co-operation and Common Development”.

China has laid out 10 plans of co-operation with Africa which include an industrialisation programme to promote partnerships in industry with more investment in Africa by Chinese enterprises; agricultural modernisation with China sharing its experience in agricultural development.

The second largest economy is also pushing an infrastructure programme targeting Africa and step up mutual beneficial cooperation in infrastructure planning, designing, construction, operation and maintenance.

Further, President Mnangagwa comes as China pushes its ambitious multi-billion dollar Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiative (Belt and Road) to build massive infrastructure connecting China across the globe.

To add icing to the cake, the visit by Zimbabwe President is ahead of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation slated for later this year.

Ambassador Chikawa says due to a relationship with China that dates back to the pre-independence era, Zimbabwe is positioned for a rebranded partnership in areas of development.

“China was among the major, if not the most significant, supporter of our quest for liberation and the liberation struggle itself was quiet arduous and costly in terms of human life and emotions,” he said.

“I bring up this point to try and demonstrate that the relationship between our two nations is understood from an epochal point of view, in epochs.

“We had the pre-independence and the quest for liberation and they supported us. We then had the Independence period where as I know our former president Robert Mugabe chose China as his first port of call when he visited out of Africa. And we see that repeating.

“I also want to talk about a very difficult period which was when we decided to recover some of our very important natural resources, land in particular. We went through a lot of pressure and it was China and Russia that stood in our corner.

“Now fast forward to today China speaks about, among other things, the Belt and Road initiative, the Focac and Zimbabwe is already positioned in this relationship as can be seen in the history.

“Therefore, we are trying to consolidate our already strategic position in the China -Zimbabwe, China-Africa and China-Global relationship.

“I would like to stress is that we do this not on the basis of a zero sum game relationship, we do this on the basis of a positive sum scenario.

“We don’t hate others in place of loving the Chinese. It so happens that the Chinese have a special place in our own body politic.

“Zimbabwe is well positioned to take its part in this very strategic and visionary plan which is the Belt and Road initiative which actually has been described as the biggest initiative of the 21st century.”

Countries like Kenya have benefited from the Belt and Road initiative launched by President Xi in 2013, which involves setting up pipelines, ports, speed railways, roads among a host of infrastructure to enhance connectivity for trade initiatives.

Ambassador Chikawa says Zimbabwe has natural resources that are complementary to the vision that President Xi is driving.

“Zimbabwe occupies a strategic geo-political location in southern Africa,” said the ambassador. We are at the heart of the 15-member SADC and this region is very rich in human and natural resources.

“Therefore, the Belt and Road initiative will thrive with Zimbabwe’s active involvement and participation and that is happening.

“So the visit by President Mnangagwa itself is expected in my view to lay a vision, a platform, interface at the highest levels and then it is up to us the Zimbabweans and Chinese in this particular case at various levels to convert that into acts and action. Therefore, if we were to expect that the visit itself is going to translate into a highway the day after tomorrow or a building two days later we may be setting up ourselves for failure.

“One thing I said and I would like to repeat is that as Zimbabwe we believe that the current leadership in China with President Xi at the core is shouldering quite a heavy positive burden in terms of driving the sort of economic development agenda not only for China and Africa but China and the rest of the world.

“And so as Zimbabwe some of the resources and opportunities we have together with the Chinese will be able to contribute not only for the welfare of Zimbabweans or Chinese, but other nationalities including our own neighbours and further afield.”

49 total views, 13 views today

The issue of design electricity generation capacity and the actual potential of power plants is often misunderstood. Engineer Ben Rafemoyo spoke to our reporter Sharon Munjenjema on technical issues of the real capabilities of electricity plant.

***

Eng Ben Rafemoyo

It is important to give an explanation of what electricity generation capacity of a power plant entails.

An example would be of two machines commissioned in Kariba last week which are capable of adding 150 megawatts each to the grid.

But what can happen is when you are generating electricity, let’s say for Kariba, there is insufficient water allocation and you want to conserve that water allocation, you are forced to generate at a low level.

Thus, it must be understood that if a plant has a total capacity of 1 050MW megawatts, that does not mean that you generate electricity at 1 050MW continuously.

There are times when you decide to push it to the maximum and there are times when you can reduce generation output by whatever percentage.

This is done as a way of conserving energy because in a normal state of affairs, the transmission or the grid people advise that we require so much from this station.

So you can actually drop down output deliberately.

A normal working generation plant should be able to send out the rated capacity or design capacity to the grid for example the Kariba plant producing 150 it is designed to produce.

But this has an effect, just like using any engine at full throttle, the risks of breakdowns increase.

However as the machines get old they become less efficient.

At Hwange Thermal Power Station, for example, the machines have been running for years and the rated capacity is no longer feasible at the moment to be sent to the national grid.

So that is where the difference is between installed capacity and actual capacity.

It is not that designed output is not possible, it is possible when the equipment is still new or in good running state. When machines are old or other issues are being experienced, that is the only time when the rated output is not equal to the output being sent out to the national grid.

So we need to contextualise it, that is, it is possible and not possible under certain circumstances to generate electricity at designed capacity.

Another reason is operational parameters may lead engineers to reduce output by a certain percentage.

As many people are aware, the Zambezi River Authority, a company formed by the two governments Zambia and Zimbabwe to manage the water Kariba Dam, sells water to Zesco and Zesa.

They don’t just sell what each company requires, but they sell what each company is able to access from their side of the water body.

So what you do with that water allocation is a decision the operators make. There is a peak period, maybe let’s say six in the morning when people wake to bath cook breakfast and so forth, the demand of electricity for domestic is higher and we push the output up.

There is also another peak period in the evening. So what is done when you are operating a plant like Kariba you follow that graph.

You can even completely switch off the machines because you cannot continuously put out electricity which is not being used.

But that is a lot easier to do with a hydro than with a thermal power station because to start up a generator after switching it off is a lot of work.

The situation in Zimbabwe now in terms of power supply has greatly improved in the last 24 months because our internal power generation has been able to push more output.

This has been a result of repairs and maintenance done particularly at thermal power stations and now because of the new plants commissioned recently.

Engineer Ben Rafemoyo is CEO and regulator at the Engineering Council of Zimbabwe, and former Zesa Holdings CEO

What ED said

“I was delighted to commission the Kariba South Hydro Power Station Expansion Project this afternoon.

“This is a crucial national project because we need energy to fuel our economic development. This project, which adds 300mw of power to the national grid and directly creates 900 jobs, will enable us to cut power imports, bring down prices and provide electricity to more homes and businesses around the country.

“This is a time for bold action and we will not rest as we build a new Zimbabwe for all.” — President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa’s official Facebook page.

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Norman Muchemwa
For 20 years Zimbabwe has suffered depressed production levels as companies closed down.

The major reason for the closure was high operational costs, which had a ripple effect of negative economic performance.

The area of electricity generation was not spared as the country failed to avail financial resources to upgrade, renovate and construct new power plants.

With demand outstripping supply, Zimbabweans witnessed crippling electricity shortages.

Which is why it became critical to invest not only in new power stations, but also in upgrading existing plants like Kariba South Extension, and rehabilitation of Harare and Hwange thermal stations.

Smaller projects like Munyati Solar, Insukamini Solar and Gairezi Hydro have started bearing fruit.

Last week, President Emmerson Mnangagwa commissioned the Kariba South Extension which has capacity to add 300MW to the national grid.

The commissioning comes as financial closure is imminent on the 42-month Hwange Power Station upgrade to add two generators with a combined generating capacity of 600MW.

In the same vein, Harare Thermal Power Station is set to undergo a re-powering exercise to increase output from 40 to 20MW.

The projects are amongst the various initiative Government is pushing as a matter of urgency to ensure speedy revival of industry and lure investors.

At the commissioning of the upgraded plant in Kariba, President Mnangagwa highlighted the importance of energy infrastructure in reviving the economy.

“This event indeed bears testimony to my Government’s realisation of the centrality of energy infrastructure to economic resuscitation and growth,” he said.

“Furthermore, it is witness to our commitment to address the energy requirements in the country in the quest to boost productivity in all sectors of the economy and ensure access to power for a broader section of our economy.”

The President said Government was aware of the urgent need to put Zimbabwe back on track, and ensuring reliable energy supplies was key to this imperative.

Industry and Commerce Minister Dr Mike Bimha hailed the coming online of Kariba South Extension, pointing out it would also reduce Zimbabwe’s electricity import bill.

“Any additional power to us is very much appreciated, because we are looking to more industries coming up, we have hope that all closed industries will revive soon and what it means is that demand for power will be increasing.

“Sometimes when companies are closed, everything appears normal, but when they are revived that’s when reality will sink that we have shortage of power, so every development which gives us additional megawatts is greatly welcome.

“This is because we anticipate and foresee that in future, there will be high demand of electricity.

“So we need more of that and we celebrate of that,” he said.

With electricity supply now guaranteed, increased industrial performance is on the horizon.

214 total views, 144 views today

Ambassador Catriona Laing
In terms of value, the combined total value of UK projects approved by the Zimbabwe Investment Authority between 2014 and 2017 was more than US$336 million. These projects are all at various stages of completion.

I made a regional working visit to London at the end of February.

The main purpose of this visit was to attend the annual conference that is held jointly between the Foreign Commonwealth Office and Department for International Trade to look at trade and investment issues.

I felt that it was important — particularly this year — that I attended because we’ll be moving into a post-Brexit world shortly and we need to start preparing for new trade partnerships eventually with Zimbabwe.

It’s also because the prospects for investment in Zimbabwe are now looking more promising.

That was the main purpose of my visit, but I took advantage of being in London to also brief the business community.

The Business Council for Africa/Invest Africa organised an event where they invited either investors who are in Zimbabwe or who are considering investing in Zimbabwe to come and hear a presentation from me around the prospects.

I gave a similar presentation to the Whitehall industry group and then, obviously, did the round of meetings across Whitehall and went to see the academics at Chatham House who work on Zimbabwe.

The other key event that (my trip) coincided with was the visit of (Finance Minister) Patrick Chinamasa who has been appointed as special envoy to the UK.

We managed to arrange a meeting with the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, in which he handed over a letter from President Mnangagwa to Prime Minister May.

They discussed the challenges ahead, the importance of free and fair elections and the prospects thereafter if indeed Zimbabwe is able to deliver free and fair elections, as the President has committed to.

Investment

Well, of course, we don’t have the exact number of investors.

There was a lot of interest in my talk and a similar one I gave in Johannesburg, South Africa in January. So, there is interest and, of course, we already have a number of British companies still here.

The general message I’m getting from British business is that they welcome — and indeed are feeling quite positive about — the commitments that the new President has made around economic reform, around being open for business. They welcome, in particular, the changes to the Indigenisation Act, which have been passed now.

That is very encouraging.

But this is still the start of a long and challenging journey. The economy in Zimbabwe remains in deep crisis. What is important at the moment is that the Government is putting the building blocks in place to prepare for economic renewal and transformation.

I want to go back again here to the elections because a lot of investors have said to me that that will be a key test for them.

If the elections go well and are endorsed by the international monitors, that will send a very positive signal to UK investors that the Government is fulfilling its obligations and is committed to the rule of law, human rights and good governance.

So, what I am expecting following the elections is that companies that are in exploratory mode at the moment will move into more accelerated mode to actually start looking at prospects for real investment.

We have some data from the Zimbabwe Investment Authority.

UK investment projects approved (in Zimbabwe) between 2014 and 2017 included projects in the mining, tourism, manufacturing and construction sectors.

These are the sectors you’d expect and they’re areas where Britain is strong (particularly in mining) and where Zimbabwe has opportunities for investors.

In terms of value, the combined total value of UK projects approved by the Zimbabwe Investment Authority between 2014 and 2017 was more than US$336 million.

These projects are all at various stages of completion.

Relations

The UK and Zimbabwe have always had relationships.

There have been times when those relationships have been more difficult, but we’ve always been here and we’ve always agreed that we need to talk through some of the challenges.

The events in November have created an opportunity to put the relationship onto a better footing, and I think we saw the start of that very early following the Presidential inauguration.

Minister Rory Stewart, our then Minister for Africa, was the first foreign visitor in to see the new President and that was significant on both sides.

The President himself commented that he wanted to signal an intent to improve the relationship with Britain.

So, I think we’re in a better place.

We’ve had a second ministerial visit since then and we’ve had the inward visit of Minister Chinamasa to London to meet our Foreign Minister Boris Johnson.

Of course, what is important is that these relationships enable us to have a frank and constructive dialogue around how we get to the point where we return to full normal international relations.

And that’s a pathway.

The elections will be an important milestone.

Around that, we want to see genuine commitment to fulfilling all the obligations in the Constitution, which the President himself has committed to doing. We want to see the next stage on the economic reform plan and we hope to see that soon, as Zimbabwe prepares for the annual IMF-World Bank Spring meetings.

This is an opportunity for Zimbabwe to set out in more detail its economic plan up to the elections and beyond.

And if we continue to see progress, then I hope that we’ll be able to move to the next stage and get to a point where Zimbabwe and Britain have full normal investment and trading relations.

Then we can work together in fora like the United Nations and ensure that Zimbabwe plays its role as a good global citizen, supporting all of us in our efforts to ensure the global rules-based system works for everyone.

 Ambassador Catriona Laing is Britain’s Chief Diplomat in Zimbabwe. She shared these views with The Sunday Mail’s Sharon Munjenjema last week

2,374 total views, 2,037 views today

Sharon Munjenjema
When all hope is lost in Zimbabwe’s major referral medical centres as a result of a strike by junior doctors, mission hospitals stand out as a glimmer of hope.

It’s a Good Friday afternoon at Makumbe District Hospital in Domboshawa, Goromonzi district.

The sky is partly cloudy promising, some rains and despite being a public holiday, it is business as usual at the Catholic-run healthcare facility.

Small groups of people, mainly relatives and friends of patients, sit on the neatly manicured lawn within the hospital yard as they wait afternoon visiting time.

They have come to check on their loved ones whom they left in the institution’s care.

As soon as the clock hits 1pm, the groups begin advancing towards the hospital’s main entrance.

A woman in her mid-forties sits on a bench adjacent to the ward entrance and appears unsettled.

This reporter engages her in a quick conversation where she reveals that she is waiting for a turn to go in and see her mother.

After this reporter identifies herself, amidst attempts by nurses at the hospital to bar any interviews, the woman says her mother was admitted last Wednesday.

This was after having failed to get treated at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, where doctors had joined others in Government hospitals on an industrial action over a number of grievances.

“We live in Hatcliffe and Parirenyatwa Hospital was the closest to home, but as you know, doctors are on strike there,” says the woman.

“We were there for two days, we could not get her to be admitted and her condition deteriorated, so we came here. She was seen by a doctor yesterday, pano pari nani,” said the woman.

As The Sunday Mail seeks more details, the woman’s relatives emerge from the ward wailing — the patient has died.

“I can’t speak with you anymore. I have to go,” says the woman as she joins her colleagues.

It seems the help from doctors at Makumbe might have come a little too late.

Valuable time was lost in the two days the woman’s mother was at Parirenyatwa Hospital where junior doctors refused to attend to her as they press for better working conditions.

But the professionals at hospitals like Makumbe are doing all they can.

Mr Norman Motsi from Domboshawa said, “My grandmother was admitted yesterday (Thursday) upon arrival. Doctors here and all the staff are working well. We have not encountered any problems everything is normal.”

An elderly Getrude Mukwisha, whose mother is also admitted at the institution, said: “We have heard there is a strike by doctors in Government hospitals, but here the doctors and nurses have been working.”

A new mother, Nyasha Zimbudzi, came out of a consultation room holding her baby boy, born a week ago.

“My baby was born with a small growth on the little finger. The sister attended to him in good time,” she said.

Makumbe District Hospital clinical officer Ms Plaxedes Mutangadura said the strike at Government medical institutions had increased pressure on them.

“I have no statistics but all I can say is we are overwhelmed,” she said. “There are a lot patients coming in from referral hospitals. Whether they could not be helped there or they just prefer Makumbe I don’t know, but we have been treating them here.”

A visit by The Sunday Mail to Parirenyatwa and Harare hospitals revealed a dire situation as most patients either waited or left the institutions without getting medical assistance.

However, there were indications last night that the striking doctors had reached an agreement with Government to return to work.

The junior doctors went on strike last month demanding an upward review of general allowances and improved working conditions.

2,384 total views, 2,041 views today

LAST week, Cde Comrade Gomba Midson Mupasu whose Chimurenga name was Cde Norman Bethune spoke about the ZANLA strategies during the early years of the liberation struggle. He spoke about fighting Red Indians and Israelites who had been recruited by the Smith regime to join the Rhodesian forces as the war intensified.

In this interview with our team comprising Munyaradzi Huni and Tendai Manzvanzvike, Cde Bethune talks about the love life at Nampundwe Farm in Zambia. He has no kind words for some comrades who crossed from ZAPU to ZANU and describes Nhari and Badza as cowards.

Read on . . .

SM: Comrade, let’s talk briefly about life at Nampundwe Farm. By this time female recruits were now coming to join the struggle. Didn’t you have instances where the comrades would fall in love at the farm?

Cde Bethune: Issues to do with love are between two people. As commander the word was always that “hakuna vanhu vanofanirwa kudanana nguva yehondo.” But these were grown-ups and some ended falling in love but the main problem was that no one of them knew when they would leave the base and where they would be deployed. So falling in love was very difficult. I was personally against it.

I would ask the comrades kuti iwe wakunyenga hauchaita zvehondo here or iwe wanyengwa hauchaenda to carry materiel here? I made the comrades aware that this farm was not for lovers.

You know some comrades would come as husband and wife. We would respect their marriage, but on many occasions husband and wife would be deployed to different areas.

As one of the pioneers of the Second Chimurenga who opened the North East front with other comrades, I knew that taiva nechiga chekuti usanyenge mukadzi. We were told that taisafanira kunyenga mukadzi kana kubikirwa nemukadzi achiri kugeza. Our generation was really committed to this, but apo neapo vakazviita vamwe vakazokuvara zveshuwa.

For example, when I left the farm, Kid Marong’orong’o was still alive. James Bond was still alive. They were deployed in Chiweshe area and I later heard that Kid got injured at one of the bases. I am told that there were some girls at that base. Some of the girls were actually injured and others were captured by the Rhodesian forces. When he got injured during this battle, Kid was later captured and he was hanged under a helicopter as the Rhodesians showed povho in Chiweshe that they had killed him. The Rhodesians were celebrating saying taribata gandaga riye guru.

SM: But we were told that Cde Rex Nhongo got one of the female comrades pregnant?

Cde Bethune: Yes, that happened but Rex was actually going against the dictates of the war. Rex got Cde Mahwinei pregnant. She was among the first group of female comrades to join the liberation struggle. Our generation whether at the front or at the rear, we were committed to stick to order that we were not supposed to sleep with women. Some of us we were actually afraid of proposing love to female comrades. Even myself, I didn’t have a girlfriend even though I was the commander.

SM: Are you being honest comrade?

Cde Bethune: Yes, I didn’t have a girlfriend. But female comrades washed my clothes. I actually remember one of the female comrades, Cde Nyemwererai. This Cde Nyemwererai later when we were at Chimoio fell in love with Cde Zhepe who was an instructor. This Cde Nyemwererai is still alive. There was also Cde Mabel who is now Colonel Mandizvidza. These are the two female comrades who used to wash my clothes. Mabel later fell in love with Cde Webster Gwauya. You need to know that later, as many recruits joined the liberation struggle they didn’t know shoko rambuya Nehanda rekuti musanyengane. Some of these comrades who came later didn’t believe in the words of Mbuya Nehanda. This message yekuti musanyengane was disregarded by many from around 1975. This advice from Mbuya Nehanda was supposed to be adhered to by comrades both at the war front and the rear in Lusaka and Maputo.

SM: But Cde Rex…?

Cde Bethune: Rex Nhongo was not our policy. He was just an individual. Why are you centring on him as if he was our policy? You also need to know that Rex came from ZAPU. He was among the comrades who didn’t believe in the words of Mbuya Nehanda. The ethics in ZAPU and ZANU were completely different. I worked with Rex for a long time and I knew him very well. You know when information got to Chimoio that the Rhodesians were thinking of attacking Chimoio, I informed Rex about it. I told him kuti zvanzi nemweya varungu vari kuuya and he told me point blank kuti ndezvako. When he gave me that response, I wasn’t surprised. He was coming from ZAPU where they didn’t believe in these things and they also lacked political orientation. They only got military training. So it was duty now to explain to the 14 bases at Chimoio camp what vana sekuru had said about the impending attack. Rex was just an individual person. You can’t paint all of us with the same brush. At the farm there were between 3 000 and 4 000 comrades.

SM: Ok, while at the farm in Zambia, we are told that there were also some Zimbabweans living in Zambia who assisted ZANU during these early years.

Cde Bethune: Yes, there were people like Mudekurozva, Mazhandu, Kombayi and many others. Those people played a crucial role and it’s unfortunate they were never recognised. These business people and farmers helped us a lot especially when Smith gave us free publicity by saying he was fighting ZANLA forces. These people knew we had made impact in Rhodesia and they gave us lots of support. Even Zimbabweans who were dotted around the world started assisting us. Patrick Kombayi and people like Mazhandu supported ZANU and they did all they could to provide resources. You know kuti mabhero ehembe amava kuona nhasi uno takaaona kare ikoko. Many countries offered so many things.

SM: Tell us of the assistance you got from the Zambian government?

Cde Bethune: The Zambian government was against us. Zambia caused détente when it arrested the majority of our leaders. I have my reasons for this. How can they arrest our leaders when Chitepo had been assassinated by the enemy and the fact that the Zambian government didn’t have any evidence linking our leaders to the assassination? They just jumped into conclusion that it was tribalism.

SM: But before the assassination of Cde Chitepo there were disturbances in ZANU?

Cde Bethune: What disturbances?

SM: The Nhari-Badza Rebellion.

Cde Bethune: Nhari and those who were implicated in that rebellion were militants. I was also a militant. The Nhari issue is another different story. This wasn’t about tribalism. Nhari was a coward. Militarily he was trained by ZAPU. What I understand and know is that he was accusing the leadership that had deployed us to the war front that they had sent us with inferior weapons. How could he quickly judge AK47 before using it? From nowhere he started questioning why the leadership had given us small arms. Guerilla warfare is never fought using big weapons. He was a coward in general. Same, same with Badza. He would go around nedumwa either muruoka, muchiwuno or in the pocket kwanza kuzvidzivirira muhondo.

When we crossed Zambezi River, they were made to cross one by one after it had been discovered that vane madumwa ekusaruka. So ukapinda nevamwe in Zambezi vamwe vese vanofa iwe uchipona. Our generation taibudirana pachena kuti haa vakuru, rasai mishonga yenyu iyi or ucharwa wega. Or you go back to the rear. We were very frank with each other and taidanana. That is why even as we were 45 at the war front during the early years, we made lots of impact. Shamwari yeropa proper, proper. That is why during these days we didn’t have many squabbles. When people like Nhari came from ZAPU, they started kusvora our ammunition. Kusvora kuti wapihwa AK47, wapihwa RPG7 or RPG 2? Wapihwa Light Maching Gun (LMG)? Or mortar 60mm or 82mm? Our generation we didn’t have the semi-automatic rifle.

You then just come and say you want tankers. From where and how? What we had was enough and we used them effectively. But after failing to use these weapons, they started blaming the weapons instead of blaming themselves. They were cowards.

SM: You keep saying “they came from ZAPU” and you don’t seems to have kind words for these comrades. Why?

Cde Bethune: They showed that they were cowards. It showed they lacked proper training. I operated with Nhari and Badza around Muzarabani area before we moved to Dotito. Their problems started in Muzarabani around Kakwidze area. These complaints against the ammunition started during deployment when we got to Zambezi. That is when Nhari and Badza started saying “hee matipa pfuti diki and so muri kutituma kuti we go and get captured.” Ko how do you get captured iwe une yako pfuti? That is the mind of a coward. How can you talk about being captured before deployment?

SM: We have spoken to Cde Chemist and others who argue that Badza and Nhari were just misunderstood as they had valid arguments.

Cde Bethune: That is not true. Kunzwisisa chii chacho?

SM: They say these comrades were at the war front and they knew what was required.

Cde Bethune: They were not alone at the war front. We were deployed together. The first comrades kupinda kufront included people like Cde Khumalo, Cde Chimedza, Joseph Chimurenga among others. So ihondo ipi yakarwiwa naNhari and Badza yavaitaura kuti zvombo zvidiki? From Zambezi to Mavhuradhona we came across many ambushes, around Mukoma, Chadereka, Mukumbura and so on as the Rhodesians fought to keep us from advancing deep into Rhodesia. They wanted to keep us along Lower Zambezi Valley. However their tactics failed. We used guerilla concept.

The problem was that in ZAPU they had been trained regular warfare. Regular warfare and guerilla warfare are totally different. Regular warfare you have an infantry at the front with supporting weapons like tanks at the back. Guerilla warfare is about hitting and running. Comrades like Nhari and Badza had inferiority complex. Kuwona kuti umm, murungu handingamukunde nepfuti idzi. You know Nhari was very light and handsome. He would look at himself and say “inini nehunaku hwangu ndingafe inini?” Saka wawaida kuti afe ndiani?

SM: (Laughing) But Cde Bethune …

Cde Bethune: I don’t want to mince my words. Those comrades were cowards. Nhari was a coward. If they had received military training that we had got from the Chinese, they wouldn’t have acted the way they acted. What is AK47? What is RPG 2 and RPG 7? What is LMG? What is 60 mm and 82 mm mortar bomb? They didn’t know these weapons and their effectiveness. If they knew these weapons, they wouldn’t behave the way they behaved.

SM: When these comrades crossed from ZAPU to ZANU, didn’t you retrain them?

Cde Bethune: I am told that they crossed from ZAPU to ZANU because in ZAPU only the Shonas were being deployed to the war front. There was tribalism. As for their retraining when they joined ZANU, that was an issue for the leadership. I was a fighter. They were never retrained. They just joined us. What I know is that they lacked political orientation. In Zapu there was no political orientation. We thought they would catch up with us as we spoke about political orientation.

I hear some saying Nhari and Badza wrote reports to the rear with requests but those requests were ignored. I don’t believe that at all.

SM: True some say they wrote reports …

Cde Bethune: What reports? Let’s be specific. Let’s not generalise.

SM: But …

Cde Bethune: Hold on, hold on. The main problem at the war front was food. As comrades we were supposed to mobilise the masses so that they could support us by providing food. We could also go to the shops and take whatever we wanted. I remember we went to shop yemurungu ainzi Savory and we took what we wanted.

SM: Just taking?

Cde Bethune: Yes, just taking. We went around 7pm and took what we wanted from this shop. I remember mabhunu akanga akagara padip paChahwanda. When they heard about this the Rhodesian soldiers tried to track us and failed but we were at a mountain near Karanda hospital. We could actually see them from our position. After taking whatever we wanted from the shop, as we retreated, takangogadzika 25 litres of cooking oil at the intersection of the road that goes to Dotito and Karanda hospital. They actually brought a landmine specialist to establish whether there was no bomb under the 25 litre gallon. There was nothing under that gallon but they panicked big time. You know gaba iroro rakaita about one week vakariwunganira until they brought a specialist from Salisbury. When they later discovered that there was nothing under the gallon, vakasvotwa zvakaoma.

SM: Who came up with this idea of putting the gallon there?

Cde Bethune: Ahh, this was war. I told you we were trained to lead other comrades and so we had to think fast. We had to come up with all sorts of plans to instil fear into the enemy. As field commanders, Nhari and Badza should have come up with survival plans but they failed because they were cowards. They went to war with a defeatist mentality. If it was about ammunition, had they spoke to Cde Khumalo and Baba Juru who were responsible for that?

SM: They were also complaining about strategy.

Cde Bethune: What strategy? As commanders they were supposed to apply their strategies depending on what they wanted to do. That’s why I am saying they were cowards. They wanted more ammunition for what when they had not yet done much in their areas? These allegations of ammunition are just too shallow.

SM: We are also told that Badza had been demoted?

Cde Bethune: One’s demotion depended on the crime he would have committed. For example, Badza was cruel generally. Ini he attempted kundirova and I told him straight up kuti ukandirova ndokupfura. I will shoot you.

SM: What had you done?

Cde Bethune: I had answered him back in a way that he thought was rude. He also clashed with Cde Kenny Ridzai. Kenny and his group went for an attack but when they got to the spot, they discovered that they could not attack for a number of reasons. When they came back Badza wanted to punish they saying “you should have just attacked the Rhodesians.” Badza said Kenny ndokurova, Kenny akaramba kuti hazviiti. From that time Badza carried that grudge but as a commander, we never thought he would carry a grudge.

SM: I put it to you Cde Bethune that you are saying all these negative things about Badza and Nhari because they at some point wanted to beat you up?

Cde Bethune: No, no, not even. Nhari never attempted to beat me but I was saying all these things. I have explained to you why these comrades were cowards.

SM: You don’t have a grudge?

Cde Bethune: I don’t have a grudge because this is past to me. Hondo kwaiva kutambudzika and they failed to understand that. I am not even saying all the comrades who came from ZAPU were bad. No. There are some of them we worked with very well. People like the late Robson Manyika, Rex Nhongo and others. We worked well. These two were just power hungry cowards.

(to be continued next week)

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EASTER greetings to you dear congregants. Let’s start this sermon with Easter teachings. Luke 24 vs 2-3 says: “And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.”

They found the tomb of Jesus empty because He had been resurrected. Revelations 20 vs 11-15 tells us that since they found the tomb empty, our graves will also be emptied at the return of Christ when all will be raised, both those who trusted in Him and those who did not, but they will be going to two different locations.

Let us pray: “Lord God, You loved this world so much, that you gave your one and only Son, that we might be called your children too. Lord, help us to live in the gladness and grace of Easter Sunday, everyday. Let us have hearts of thankfulness for your sacrifice. Let us have eyes that look upon Your grace and rejoice in our salvation. Help us to walk in that mighty grace and tell your good news to the world. All for your glory do we pray, Lord, Amen.” This is my favourite Easter Sunday Prayer.

As we have been told, our graves will also be emptied at the return of Christ and on this lovely Easter Sunday, the resurrection day, I leave you with a question: “Nhai vanhu vamwari, muchazovepi kana tsuri yorira?”

Today’s sermon is on a boring ZANU-PF. Very boring actually. Kamwana katambura crying for attention, running all over the place, kicking and even farting. ZANU-PF ziii zvayo. Kuti mwiii! It’s as if they can’t see that Nelson Chamisa is dying for some attention and some action.

Don’t they say “mbudzi kuzvarira pavanhu kuti itandirwe imbwa?” Please Zanu-PF wonaiwo Chamisa. Mr President, hamuwoni here mwana anzwa nekupfikura? Arikuda kubviswa madzihwa.

Reminds me of my good old school days. There was this guy called Huntsen, a very funny character. He enjoyed making a fool of himself. Huntsen enjoyed athletics but he was an average athlete with his specialty being the 100m race. He had lots of enthusiasm but whenever he got to the starting line, Huntsen always became very nervous. On several occasions when teacher Chaitezvi shouted “on your marks,” he would suddenly sprint from the starting line before the teacher blew the whistle for the race to start. He would sprint for about ten metres, look back and discover that everyone else was still at the starting line. He would giggle irritatingly while rushing back to the starting line again.

Chamisa seems to be suffering from this Huntsen syndrome. He has bolted from the starting line several times, looked back and discovered that ZANU-PF in general, and President Mnangagwa in particular, were not yet even at the starting line for the election race. While Huntsen would giggle irritatingly walking back to the starting line, Chamisa is getting really impatient with President Mnangagwa as he walks back to the starting line.

When he bolted from the starting line for the first time, Chamisa thought of getting some attention by calling President Mnangagwa for some debate on national television. He went on to embarrass himself talking about bullet trains blah, blah. Ngwena ziii zvayo.

Then young Chamisa bolted again from the starting line, looked back and still ED was not even at the starting line. Chamisa got angry. Why was Zanu-PF this boring? Kana vasingadi maelections acho ngavataure. Chamisa thought of throwing some threats saying he would name some of the companies owned by President Mnangagwa. Still Ngwena zii? Ko nhai imi vanhu, when exactly are the elections? Are they in July zveshuwa shuwa? Ko why Ngwena kuti zii? Chamisa is furious and getting really mixed up.

Welcome to ED’s Journal of Politics. You continue using the Mugabe template and you will be very disappointed. Chamisa is stuck in the politics of the past. He thought it was going to be pound for pound. Chamisa in Bulawayo, Ngwena in Mutare! Ngwena in Gokwe, Chamisa in Buhera! And so on and so on. Well, that’s not the script according to Ngwena.

President Mnangagwa is showing the country that he has bigger and more important issues to attend to. More pressing issues than kuvukura kwekambwanana. The President is pitching his politics way, way above Chamisa. As Chamisa tries show-boating through the tired gospel of electoral reforms, the President is attending to serious national issues — re-engagement, investment drive and bread and butter issues.

Little Chamisa shouldn’t have rushed. That little boy can’t create the weather. He should have waited.

Proverbs 19 vs 2 says: “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.” Granted, Chamisa has lots of desire, but he lacks knowledge. He has made lots of haste with his feet and has missed his way. Even as he claims to be a pastor, Chamisa forgot Ecclesiastes 3 vs 1 which says: “Everything on earth has its own time and its own season.”

Little Chamisa got lost in the excitement and violence of grabbing power from the graveyard. As he tore Tsvangirai’s coffin to pieces, stealing the MDC-T presidency from Thokozani Khupe, Chamisa forgot that this was not yet the election season. He is way too green to set an election season. But then with those hoodlums surrounding him, Chamisa was always going to get lost.

Newspaper publisher, Trevor Ncube thought of being brutally honest with his brother Chamisa in a recent tweet. “I love @nelsonchamisa as a Christian brother. And the best he expects from me is truth not physcophancy. So far he has not impressed me as a mature politician,” tweeted Ncube. Many right-thinking Zimbabweans agreed with Ncube.

Of course, there are some who don’t agree with Ncube but the report from the Institute for Security Studies must have jolted them to think twice. In a paper titled, “MDC-T does succession the ZANU-PF way”, the institute gave an assessment of Chamisa saying his power-grab was both unconstitutional and damaging to the cause of democracy in Zimbabwe.

This is not good for young Chamisa. His claim to fame is that he is democracy personified, but then this? Like I said, Chamisa should have waited a bit. He has exposed himself way too early. The election race has not yet even started but people are already saying “dhololo” to Chamisa. Ko kuzoti kana Ngwena yati kwede murace?

One of Chamisa’s greatest undoing is going to be his leadership style which can best be described as transactional. Chamisa has surrounded himself with people who expect something from him for them to perform.

To them there must be some transaction, an exchange of something for something.

In this case, Chamisa has to give the hoodlums lots of beer, food and money while the well-to-do supporters are in it for posts and the pockets. Well, the generality of the populace is fed up with transactional politics.

Instead, Zimbabweans are looking for transformational leadership. Leadership that seeks to transform their lives and leadership that cares about the supporters. There is nothing transformative about Chamisa. Kushandisana basi and this won’t take Chamisa anywhere.

But then some have been charmed by Chamisa’s oratory. Unfortunately, running a country is not like some debate session where one can fool people through eloquence. Some have been charmed by his sense of dressing, but then this is not some fashion show. Others have been charmed by his good looks, but then this is not some beauty contest.

Reports reaching Bishop Lazarus are that Tendai Biti and Professor Welshman Ncube are “working on Chamisa” so that he gets out of their way. They have made their calculations and discovered that they can’t beat Chamisa but Chamisa can beat himself. This project is in full swing.

If you think the allegations that Chamisa is a dictator and that he got into power unconstitutionally are only coming from the Institute of Security Studies, then you need to read more on politics.

Biti and Prof Ncube are seasoned lawyers. They know an illegality when they see it. They know Chamisa ignored the constitution but they also know that the hoodlums support him. So for now, vari kukuchidzira moto mbichana mbichana from down under.

Talking about lawyers and as I finish this sermon, Bishop Lazarus has a few questions. Nhai imi maroya, imi vana mazvikokota vemutemo doesn’t Section 58 of the Constitution guarantee freedom of assembly and association? If that section guarantees freedom of assembly and association, what then is this unconstitutional demand from the opposition that chiefs should not be political?

By making this demand, what are we saying about their right of association? Are we saying chiefs have no rights of association? Why are we “othering” and “unpeople-ling” the chiefs? Asi machiefs sandi vanhuwo here?

Don’t get me wrong dear congregants — I know chiefs should not be office bearers in the different political parties but surely we can’t demand that chiefs should not be political. We are stripping them of their humanity. Ndokumbirawo magweta mundiwudze kuti zviri kumbofamba sei?

Bishop is out!

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“Our civilisation … is founded on coal, more completely than one realises until one stops to think about it.

“The machines that keep us alive, and the machines that make machines, are all directly or indirectly dependent upon coal.

“In the metabolism of the Western world the coal-miner is second in importance only to the man who ploughs the soil. He is a sort of caryatid upon whose shoulders nearly everything that is not grimy is supported.”

So wrote George Orwell in “The Road to Wigan Pier”. One must bear in mind that this is 1930s Britain, where coal was important than oil, and that combustible sedimentary rock was indeed the foundation on which Europe had been built. The book itself was first published in 1937, and in it Orwell — or Eric Arthur Blair — documents his investigations into working class social conditions in northern England before World War II. In “The Road to Wigan Pier”, Orwell also delves into his middle class roots and his gravitation towards socialism.

This is, of course, before his co-option by the “establishment” and his sponsored — albeit brilliant — dissections a decade later of socialism and communism in “1984” and “Animal Farm”.

Orwell is better known for “Animal Farm” and “1984”, but earlier works like “The Road to Wigan Pier” and the 1938 “Homage to Catalonia”, which are essays on his experience of the Spanish Civil War, are well worth reading.

In “The Road to Wigan Pier”, Orwell raises a key aspect of nation-building: his summation is that the person who digs up coal is second only to the one who tills the land. That is a question that Zimbabweans have to ask themselves at this point in time: on what foundation is our future built?Indeed, what pillars hold up the new dispensation? Prior to 1980, that national question had its answer in the quest and subsequent attainment for and of Independence. Come 1989, we found ourselves in a quandary. We had answered the question satisfactorily to get to 1980, and then found ourselves staring at an unmapped future. That is how we ended up with the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme as we allowed Bretton-Woods to ask the national question and answer it for us. That disaster ended around 1996 when the political superstructure —which by then had morphed from a progressive revolution into an unwieldy bureaucracy prone to corruption and arrogance — found that Esap neither asked the real national question nor answered it. And that is one of the reasons why land came to the fore. It was a legitimate aspect of the national question, but it was unfortunately squandered on the altar of political expediency as it remained confined to being a tool with which to win elections in 2002 and 2005. Which took us to 2008, where land as a political — rather than a developmental — tool no longer resonated and the country stood on the brink of grave civil unrest. The political establishment dug once again into its bag of tricks and came up with the nomenclature of “empower, indigenise and create employment”. Again, this had legitimate underpinnings but the architecture to translate this into a national narrative was squandered.

Add to that the mess created by cabal bent on grabbing power at whatever cost, while at the same time looting with a level of arrogance only seen when the minority colonial regime raped Zimbabwe, and our country was again on the brink of disaster. The regime of the day did not ask itself what the national question was. As such, it could not be expected to have an answer. And that is, in a nutshell, what took us to November 2017 and the entry of a new dispensation. The new dispensation must know what the national question is and must provide an answer to it. For every sovereign nation, the question is: “How do we develop.”

For Orwell and his England, the answer was food and coal. For a Zimbabwe so blessed with good soils, favourable climatic conditions, abundant mineral resources, and an educated populace, the answer is just about the same as the one Orwell wrote on. President Emmerson Mnangagwa has indicated that his administration has moved away from the hard-nosed political nationalism of years gone by, favouring what we could call economic nationalism.

He has also indicated that his vision is of a middle-income Zimbabwe by 2030, which is just 12 years away. The two must go hand-in-hand. There is need to ensure land is more than just a political factor. It must become an economic one; one defined more in terms of productivity than merely keeping a restive populace sufficiently calm from one election to the next. Government must invest in not just productivity for purposes of national food security, but also processing of produce for job creation and export receipts.

Needless to say, investment in productivity and agro-processing will also speak to manufacturing. Where Orwell speaks of coal, Zimbabwe can speak of more than two dozen minerals and metals.

Our natural resources are finite and hence the need to make the most of them now, which is what makes value addition key, rather than just shipping out raw minerals. The answer to the development question is found in agriculture and mining.

And domestic investment in these sectors is an existential imperative because we must always remember that foreign capital/FDI is a fickle mistress. We have not holistically addressed the national question, and deployed a sustainable answer, for post-1980 Zimbabwe.

The new dispensation offers an opportunity to do just that.

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Munyaradzi Hwengwere
The Zimbabwean story is a moving paradox. So much continues to happen but for some reason is poorly told, distorted, trivialised and in many instances never told. The culprits in general are those charged to tell the story , the media , both private and public  and of course those privileged to be at centre of information, the state and related elites.

It is strange, isn’t it, that the state which has an inherent responsibility to ensure that present and future generations  are able to construct a world-view based on a correct understanding of history, national aspirations, challenges, constraints, opportunities and achievements continues to  pay little attention to story telling, its packaging , presentation and  content.   Perhaps this says a lot  about developing countries incapacity to locate culture at the centre of development despite a well known fact that  nations grow and prosper because of their mindsets.  It all begins in the mind. If you let it wonder, you equally become a wondering nation.

Presumably because the Zimbabwean state is so poor at telling its own story it is no surprise that the media has become such a farce, excelling at continuous trading of insults in the name of news or at best fascinated by the trivial and totally out of depth when constructing and deconstructing the story as it takes place on a daily basis. No wonder ,  ‘Whatsapp’ with its lack of verifiable information has become the number one source of news and information in the country . There is just no trustworthy alternative.

Let us turn to the specifics.  I was one of the thousands who joined the multitudes as we matched in the City of Harare in celebration of the inevitable end of an era and hope that a new dispensation was indeed in the offing. I  also happen to be one still very optimistic that Zimbabwe has entered a different era.  However, I worry  that the optimism is slowly being chipped away by negative sentiment  fuelled by and large by  a collective failure to realise that a national psyche  that correctly tells the story is critical to development.  Instead,  the Zimbabwean Government continues  to pay scant attention  to institutions such as the ZBC and various other forms of media  to professionally and  objectively tell the Zimbabwean story.

Imagine that since Operation Restore legacy,  we are still to have a book, a documentary or movie that fully tells us that story and locates it within the global context where a similar event has occurred.    Is it because we are so obsessed  with pressing bread and butter issues,  we have lost the  desire  to make reflect, fall in love and hold on to our historical moments of triumph . Have we become so caught up in our quest  for a better world that we have ceased to understand that momentum is built on previous successes and that if you do not invest in understanding  what got you to where you are you may not get to your destination

More like Christians failing to link their faith with the death of Jesus Christ.

The effect of this is now clear for all to see.  Despite an evident change in fortunes for the country the general perception remains gloomy. The youths are becoming even more discordant and seemingly not interested in joining a national discourse of development . What seems to fascinate them  is peripheral issues and the comic.  To their defence, they  have not been made part of the story. They have not been told the story in ways and manner that they can understand. They have no connection with structures of the state and as such they create their own  world, whatever the risk of such a choice.

Perhaps the pace the of development has been overwhelming for both the state and story tellers, that the task seems impossible.  Just looking at the events of the past few weeks suggests a nation that is galloping.   First  was the supposed expiration of the 100 day  programme, then former president Mugabe was back in the media, the release of externalisation list , the signing of the historic USD4.2 platinum deal, opening  of  Kariba South extension and many more events.

While it may thus be tempting to forgive  the media and even State for failing to properly package such an enormous amount of news, the opposite is true.  The responsibility to create and make meaning of things resides with these two  institutions because their failure can only create more confusion in greater population . Imagine, the externalisation story ran for one day. Very little was said about the companies that externalised. Where they are? Who owns them? Why they did what they did? The same fate befell the platinum deal. Who are the investors? When they will start? Who they will employ? What is procurement policy?  The same again befell the lithium deal  Across the media it’s a bullet approach. Before you blink twice we have moved to the next story.

Compare and contrast with the USA where months after Donald Trump was elected into Office the story on Russia continues to run across all channels. The reason is because while news events come and go everyday, real development concerns are stable over a period of time. The nature of the human mind is that it is unable to absorb too many issues at once. The story of the new dispensation has thus not changed from November except of course in our media.

So why are we doing what we are doing? Evidently, the new dispensation started without correctly aligning with other carriers of the message. In biblically terms we put ‘’new wine in old wine skins’. A strong vision was articulated and a pace launched without focusing on the walkers of the journey. Little focus was also paid to assessing the story telling capacity of the State.  The result is that the same pace has become a source of grumbling by those used to an old order of doing things. More like the Israelite lamenting to be taken back Egypt. Suddenly they had  forgotten the many miracles that had been performed to get them where they were.

But there is a solution. It is both institutional and recruiting new story tellers. Zimbabwe has a group of  people who for long have taken a passive view of developments. Because of the structure of the State many do not have access to anyone in Government and thus  have failed to make known their views and contribute meaningfully to creating a new national narrative.  Worse still because a number of officials in government have remained the same they continue to  restrict access by progressive minds  who are dying to serve their nation.

The sad part for Zimbabwe is that owing to years of economic stagnation a number of these progressive  people  are man and women of means who are comfortable where they are. So they are unlikely to beg to be given space to contribute. It is the state that must invite them and be seen to transforming and ready to engage new minds. Such minds can they work especially with ZBC and main means of communication to reshape the way stories are told. This country is dying for story tellers. There are there but they must be given space.

The risk is the new dispensation will go up in smoke because we are over investing in the negative and losing people on the ground who have real issues they want to be brought to the fore.. Despite multitude of bad news I submit the Zimbabwean person continues to hope for a better future. The same person is rational and knows things don’t happen on a day. That person lacks at the a story to cling to. The government has an obligation to ensure the story is told well.

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Tonderai SJ Makoni
The ruthless colonial Rhodesians were said to be highly successful farmers.

This is because they went into farming supported by the Land Apportionment Act (LAA) of the 1930s.

The piece of legislation acted as an economic, political and racist tool to maximise their returns in the colony.

Under the LAA, the most conductive fertile farming land belonged to the whites while the least fertile was apportioned to the inferior race, the natives.

Land for natives was solely for subsistence purposes. It was the objective of the white colonial farmers to maximise their racial, economic, political, social and technological supremacy interests.  Farming became a commercial enterprise that was a preserve for the whites. The colonialist Government as well as agricultural and commercial banks gave full backing to the colonial agriculturalists’ advocacy organisation, the Rhodesian Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU).

These farmers had monopoly over the production of agrarian products, rearing commercial livestock for beef and milk, growing tobacco, maize, wheat, soya beans, citrus fruits, apples, grapes, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, just to mention but a few. Because of the 2000 execution of the Land Reform Programme (LRP), white former farmers left the country en masse.

Since they had controlled commercial agriculture, production dropped to worrying levels. Significant reduction was noted in tobacco, seed maize, wheat, potatoes and horticulture production.

It was worsened by droughts, shortages of fertilisers and agricultural chemicals. This was because whites stopped farming and closed shops, manufacturing and mining businesses.

There was consequently massive unemployment.  Beef, milk, piggery, chicken, ostriches and crocodile production fell drastically. Seed maize availability to indigenous farmers, who had grown to depend totally on purchasing from such shops, were unable to engage in farming. It baffles the mind why local farmers forgot their yesteryear farming practices to boost production. While living in Mashonaland East’s Melfort area between 2008 and 2016, I noticed land lying fallow because farmers said they did not have seed maize. This surprised me because those of us who grew up in the 1950s and ‘60s witnessed the selection of healthy maize cobs by our parents after harvest for sowing the following season. Such a tradition appears to have been abandoned after independence in 1980.  The sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe for embarking on the land reform programme brought about drastic fall in maize production which was accompanied by shortages of mealie-meal country wide.

For the land reform programme to have been efficient and effective, there was need for experts in agriculture and propagation of better methods of farming.

Despite the virtues of the land reform programme, its worst, if not its major weakness seems to have been the failure by Government to create a program and mechanism to increase systematically, crop and livestock production and improve output quality.

The land redistribution programme should have been followed up by the creation of the Land Production and Productivity Programme (LPPP).  The formation of the LPPP would have been informative, educative, develop good work habits, impart skills and mobilise the population in the art and practice of making land use more productive by adopting means of learning by practical participation. Theoretically, action learning, which I shall illustrate with what happened at St Faith in Makoni District from the 1950s to 1970s, was needed.  Agricultural institutions namely: Land Commission, Forestry Commission, Zimbabwe Agricultural Society, Zunderamambo, Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union, Zimbabwe Indigenous Commercial Farmers Union, Commercial Farmers Union plus Agricultural Research Institutions, Colleges and University Faculties of Agriculture had to live to their mandate in accelerating growth of the national economy.

At grassroots level, action learning meant imparting best farming practices via mass mobilisation of the youth, village heads, headmen, chiefs, informed and able individuals or groups with necessary expertise, at effecting objectives as obtains in some Zanu-PF structures as existing in Muzarabani, for example. Greater productivity is availed by knowledge of crops, livestock production that flourish best in each region and what needs to be done. General agricultural grains in the country are inclusive of maize, rapoko, sorghum, wheat, mhunga, mapfunde, mupunga and root crops which are groundnuts, sweet potatoes, potatoes, cassava with soya beans, pumpkins, pumpkin leaves, watermelons, soya beans, beans and a host of other worthy vegetables and products.

Dominant commercial agricultural products include tobacco, cotton, tea, coffee, potatoes, beans, groundnuts, soya beans, apples, pears, peaches, citrus fruits plus different types of tree nuts and plantations of usable trees. There is room for cultivation of zumbani, moringa, makoni tea through the introduction of new useful food plants, commercial or otherwise.

I have no doubt that spreading of indicated approaches, hardworking and duty conscious bodies would lead to broader and deeper agricultural revolution, whose effectiveness rubs onto the whole industrial sector.  Existence of effective and efficient industrial sectors in the country will be realised through national ability to raise agricultural production through capacity to make by ourselves and for export, capital goods that fabricate capital goods which manufacture agriculture equipment and chemicals plus consumer good, cum services.

The outcome is highly possible if we develop a national strategy to educate engineering students solid engineering theories accompanied with three to five years of practical experiences in engineering fields.

Such technological indigenisation objective needs reinforcement from the government, and negotiations with engineering capital goods producing companies to offer practical experience in their corporations to our inexperienced graduate and new graduating engineers.

Ability to increase agricultural production does not rely solely on literacy although it does help.  Rise in production and productivity particularly in agriculture, results from practical field experience as obtained during the 1950s St Faith Mission Farm in Makoni District. The priest in charge at that time was Father Donald Stowell and his wife Ruth, sadly both are now deceased.  They persuaded Guy Clutton-Brock in the UK to come to St Faith to assist them in improving living conditions and agriculture there in accordance to the best Christian practices, as the mission had a big farming area.  Clutton-Brock started a program of getting farm workers to improve production and living conditions as requested by Father Stowell through learning by doing, discussions and the importance of balanced diets. He and his wife Molly, now both deceased, used to eat with the local people among whom they lived. They dressed simple as the locals, but they were not quite at peace with the race discriminating settlers colonial establishment.

The techniques he taught of learning by doing were applied on the family allocated ten acres of land and ten herd of cattle as per need.  Their harvest increased substantially through this exercise while Molly who was a trained nurse, went on to establish a physical health centre to improve the health of children at the mission where she also housed disabled children.

The net effect of the Clutton-Brock’s action learning led to some of the farm workers being given access to small farms ranging from thirty to four hundred acres, depending on land quality. This followed the anti-African antics of a Father Lewis who was hostile to what Clutton-brock and Stowell were doing.

Father Lewis was a quarter Church of England Missionary involved in the Rhodesian settlers’ racism. He destroyed the Father Stowell and Clutton-Brock running of the mission and the mission farm.  He made sure life at St Faith would be as racist as it was in First Street, Salisbury, Rhodesia. I was made to understand that the hardly literate St Faith’s mission people who obtained small farms of their own, had a reputation as the best small scale farmers in the 1960s and 70s Rhodesia.  Their success is indicative of the efficacy of learning by doing in the Zimbabwean Agrarian context.  Therefore, the spreading of such an approach through: entities mentioned and Zunderamambo , one village or village clusters appear to me, to be some of the best mechanisms for the massive spreading of better techniques of farming to raise outputs in variety quantity and quality.

This exercise is about how agricultural productivity in Zimbabwe under endless Western economic sanctions, deteriorated but can be revived through action learning as that of 1950 at St Faith Mission Farm as they realised dramatic increase in outputs and productivity.  It is possible through practicality, monitoring and determination to boost and improve the agricultural sector.  Impact of proposed LPPCs mechanisms to augment production and productivity would have had to have been most robust: by our ability to manufacture for ourselves agricultural equipment cum components, by knowledge of what crops, livestock; grew best in which particular areas and localities. In addition, the encouragement of people to rear aquatic and wildlife where possible, wild fruit, trees, shrubs and fowls usable in the homesteads, at the same time introducing new crops either commercial or subsistence.  Agriculture activities in this presentation, are more certain to result in increase in; production and productivity income per capita, employment plus the general living standard given the intelligence and hardworking nature of Zimbabweans.  It will therefore not be out of question for the 2018 Zanu-PF General election manifesto, to propagate also the setting up of LPPCs aided by specified entities, to bring out the true transformation of agriculture, in a most beneficial fashion particularly to its liberation rural base and whole nation.

Tonderai SJ Makoni is an economist (universities of Zimbabwe, Cambridge and York). He is the first Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe black banking office manager in independent Zimbabwe and wrote this article for The Sunday Mail

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Teddie Bepete
Zanu-PF and President Emmerson Mnangagwa look certain to secure a landslide victory in this year’s harmonised election, and this is on the back of a new chapter of national optimism.

With the international community hailing the new administration, lucrative economic avenues have opened.

However, what has happened in our recent past has taught us that whatever achievements we score need to be religiously guarded from external and internal subversion.

The only way we can safely advance our nation is by nurturing an ideologically founded people.

Over the past years, it has been an embarrassment that some people in positions of national importance did not even understand the ideological conception of the centre, Zanu-PF, from where all government policy evolves.

The Chitepo Ideological College has become a hub of ideological inquiry, marking a resurgence of consciousness.

Chitepo Ideological College is not a propaganda school as suggested by certain media outlets, but it is a real centre of ideological advancement. It is a revival of the ethos of the liberation struggle, it’s aims and objectives; and the way forward.

Recent experiences on the global platform have indicated that overt neo-imperialism has tactically retreated and is regrouping.

The Libyans revolted against an economically egalitarian state never seen anywhere else because they lacked profound ideological orientation.

Now horrified by poverty and terrorism, they recall the colourful days of Jamahiriya with bitterness. Their predicament fits Maxim Gorky’s assertion that: “Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.”

The Chitepo College is doing a paramount job, one that should have been done many years ago, to make the people the vanguard of their revolution. A State cannot exist without an ideology that shapes its policy planning and implementation. A people without a firm creed defining their footsteps can be are prey to saboteurs.

We can only reach our destiny if we treasure the creed that led us from colonial enslavement.

It is our unique historical experience that will help us shape a socialism that appeals to our people. What is important is to realise is that the net aim of socialism is to uplift the people in justice and equality.

If the opposition in this country does not have socialism, what then do they have which can change lives?  The age of quislings of foreign interests is a thing of political antiquity and has no room in a revolutionary country such as ours.

Pierre Joseph Proudhon, one of the early founders of what became known as utopian socialism, once said, “Communism is a society where each one works according to his abilities and gets according to his needs.”

Modern Chinese communist ideology bears certain similarities with some aspects of capitalism. At one time Russian leader Nikita Krushchev said about the future of capitalism and communism: “You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept Communism outright, but we will keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you will finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you.”Krushchev was right.

Today the US and Britain have economies with many features of Communism.

Capitalism was doomed long ago when it allowed the concentration of capitalism in the hands of a few individuals. These are ideological lessons we need to grasp as Zimbabwe. As Chitepo Ideological School begins to be fully operational, there is a sigh of relief amongst revolutionaries who had watched with dismay as the ideological situation deteriorated in recent years. As I have said in my previous writings, our future as a country can only be assuredly achievable if we are led by ideologically oriented leaders.

Without such leaders, our presidency will have a difficult time in achieving the goals of the new dispensation.

Maxim Gorky said about the past, “In the carriages of the past, you can’t go anywhere.”

We have to travel with the carriages of the new dispensation so that we reach the doorstep of tomorrow.  Italo Calvino, in “The Invisible Cities” had this to say: “Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches.”

We need living branches on the tree of our freedom. President ED Mnangagwa requires an ideologically strong team and vanguard to advance our dream of a developed, modern Zimbabwe.

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Andray Domise
On the morning of March 3, 1986, a stolen bakery van pulled up to the corner of NY1 and NY111 in Gugulethu, a township just outside of Cape Town.
Seven young black men exited the vehicle, with the intention of ambushing a bus known to carry senior police officers to the station each morning.

But the seven men were themselves led into a trap orchestrated by Riaan Bellingan, an officer with the South African Police death squad dubbed Vlakplaas.

Shortly after the men exited the vehicle, police cut them down in a hail of bullets.

Though Bellingan would later claim during his Truth and Reconciliation hearing that some of the men threw grenades and were gunned down from a distance, forensic pathologist David Klatzow said their bodies told another story — skin charred by muzzle flash, and flesh shredded by close-range fire.

The van’s driver, Jimmy Mbane, was a government informant (known as an askari) and he had infiltrated the group with the intention of rooting out MK — the armed operatives of the African National Congress.

His work came at a grave, bloody risk for the South African resistance: summary execution, if not lengthy detention punctuated by torture, beatings, and starvation, were routine punishments doled out by the police forces.

In response, alleged informants were known to be punished by “necklacing” — strapped into a rubber tire, doused with gasoline, and burned alive.

For his counter-revolutionary efforts, Mbane was paid the equivalent of US$1 000.

The gruesome aftermath following the massacre of the Gugulethu Seven was carried on national television, the men’s torn bodies splayed across dirt as their mouths gaped to the sky.

The sight of Christopher Piet’s body being dragged away at the end of a rope was still fresh in the consciousness of black South Africans when Winnie Mandela, by then the face of the nation’s black resistance with the imprisonment of her then-husband Nelson Mandela, gave a speech to a packed town hall in Munsieville just over a month later.

“We have no guns. We have only stones, boxes of matches, and petrol,” Mandela declared. “Together, hand in hand, with our boxes of matches and our necklaces, we shall liberate this country.”

That speech, along with the murder of 14-year-old Stompie Moeketsi by Mandela’s former bodyguard Jerry Richardson, has managed to chase Winnie Mandela to her grave. Despite carrying the anti-apartheid movement on her shoulders during Nelson Mandela’s 27-year imprisonment, Winnie is one of a handful public figures from the apartheid era — and the only member of the ANC — to have borne punishment for violent crimes committed at the time.

She was railroaded, tortured, and subjected to 13 months of solitary confinement by the orders of the National Party, and for her alleged role in the death of Moeketsi, she was criticised by the ANC and charged with kidnapping (though her jail term was reduced to a fine on appeal).

In the 1998 report of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Winnie was found to be “politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the (Mandela United Football Club)”.

We see this kind of division in almost every instance where a black liberation movement rises in the face of oppression: the oppressor is granted the benefit of dividing acceptable means of resistance (usually centred in peace and absolution) from unacceptable means (usually cast as violent and hateful).

In current political discourse, it shows up as a dichotomy between the methods of Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X — a superficial reading that has sanitised Dr King’s image in the white imagination to the brink of impotence, and one that demonises Malcolm X who, with personal knowledge there was no level of violence against the black body to which white men would not sink, believed violence in self-defence to be justified.

In the waning days of South Africa’s apartheid apparatus, the very same narrative wedge was used against Nelson and Winnie Mandela, with the government respectively casting them as near-messianic peacemaker and hardened terrorist long before Nelson’s release from prison.

In a recent documentary, Vic McPherson, the former director of operations for Stratcom — a government body dedicated to spreading propaganda and misinformation against anti-apartheid activists — admitted his part in not only creating his own documentary about Winnie Mandela (which prevented her from accompanying Nelson to the US after his release), but to using Stratcom’s resources toward destroying her personal image among black South Africans.

Later on, former Soweto police officer Henk Heslinga alleged that former safety minister Sydney Mufamadi instructed him to re-open the investigation into the death of Moeketsi, as well as all other cases made against Winnie Mandela, for the purpose of charging Winnie with murder. According to Heslinga, Richardson admitted during an interview that Moeketsi discovered he was an informant, and that he killed the child to cover his tracks.

Wherever the truth lies, and whoever is ultimately responsible the horrific death of Stompie Moeketsi, less than a quarter-century has passed since the end of South Africa’s apartheid regime — and yet the names of the people who committed some of the most unspeakable crimes in banal service to white supremacist rule have faded from public consciousness.

Harold Snyman, Ruben Marx, Daantjie Siebert, Gideon Nieuwouldt, and Johan Beneke were never charged for the murder of Steve Biko; Jeffrey Benzien, who admitted to torturing prisoners via electrocution and asphyxiation, remained with the police force; Riaan Bellingan currently runs a private security company in Johannesburg.

In a post-apartheid world that too often places reconciliation and forgiveness ahead of accountability for humanitarian crimes, Winnie Mandela — mother of the nation and backbone of the revolution — has yet to be forgiven. And the crimes for which she’s been convicted in the court of public opinion were, largely, orchestrated by a brutal regime that was eager to destroy her character.

Yet somehow, even while we acknowledge the evil of South Africa’s apartheid regime, the propaganda they spread about Mandela continues to define her legacy.

That speaks volumes about who is afforded the privilege of forgiveness. — MACLEAN’S

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Dr Brian Mangwiro
Zimbabwe’s new political dispensation has created a wave of optimism.
Several investment fora have been held in recent months and the mantra is “Zimbabwe is open for business”.

The messaging is consistently positive and constructive, and the investor community seems well-engaged.

With appropriate planning and execution, Zimbabwe could soon be on a sustainable path to economic vibrancy.

One critical challenge for Zimbabwe over the next two to five years is managing the issue of currency and liquidity.

We have no doubt that this will be a key driver of economic performance, both in the short and medium term.

As such, this will require careful coordination between the State, economic ministries and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

From a growth-liquidity-policy mix, tight (or expensive) liquidity regimes are contractionary and vice versa.

Thus, Government’s pro-growth push needs to be complemented by an improvement in both the cost and flow of credit.

However, the lack of an own currency and mainstream use of foreign currencies for all transactions means Zimbabwe has inadvertently imported foreign monetary policy and liquidity conditions.

It lacks any meaningful control of both.

In essence, within the classic economic-monetary policy framework mix, Zimbabwe lacks interest rate and other monetary levers to manage the domestic business cycle; either to stimulate activity via loosening monetary policy when economic activity weakens, or tighten policy when the economy is at risk of over-heating.

At this juncture, the predominant use of United States dollars means the country’s liquidity conditions are inextricably linked to global financing conditions and the actions of the US Federal Reserve Bank.

Stated differently, Zimbabwean businesses’ financing conditions depend more on the US than the RBZ.

Below are some key considerations for improving domestic financing conditions I believe will create necessary conditions for eventually launching a new Zimbabwean currency.

Think of a currency like a company share.

Why should investors, both retail and institutional buy yours? And are investors likely to be selling your company shares to buy others?

On a future projection, is there likely to be an improvement in the company revenues and earnings, and enough to entice investors to make a bet on you?

If the answers are mostly in the negative, then it’s not yet time to focus on launching a new currency. Rather focus on creating enterprise value; economic growth.

Economic activity

The administration should not prioritise launching a new currency when the economy is still in poor shape.

There are two key considerations:

(i) The huge import bill (and the subsequent trade deficit) implies that the new currency will consistently face selling pressure (in preference for forex); and

(ii) subsequent currency depreciation will likely foment inflation, which erodes the currency’s value.

By extrapolation, a stable currency regime requires a strong domestic productive base, which either reduces demand for import and/or creates external demand for Zimbabwe’s products (ie strong exports).

Thus the new Zimbabwe currency should be an outcome of economic renaissance.

Medium to long-term

Planning for the medium to long-term is indispensable.

It, therefore, follows that Government needs to develop pro-active strategic plan on which sectors are high priority for development, the strategy for execution and how this will be funded.

Such long-term strategic planning needs highly competent technical teams, must not to be restricted to past or current activities, encompass the full value chains, be well structured, detailed, collaborative and practical.

For example, lithium miners ought to consider establishment of battery manufacturing technology in Zimbabwe.

Equally, diamond mining ought to integrate the cutting process within Zimbabwe and the local textile industry needs to be revived to support better cotton pricing regimes.

This approach not only reduces over-reliance on one or a few sectors, which creates significant vulnerabilities in global cycle downturns, but also speaks to what the country aspires to be.

For example, countries like Angola, Nigeria, Venezuela and Colombia were hit particularly hard by the commodity cycle downturn of 2014-16 due to over-reliance on oil exports.

A diversified economy is critical for sustainable medium growth; one with cross-sector buffering through business cycles.

But growth needs to be financed, and credit institutions need to be strengthened and well-monitored.

Clean banking system

An independent regulator must urgently be established alongside a new regulatory framework with transparent reporting.

Balance sheet clean up can take the classic form of utilising Zimbabwe Asset Management Company, but asset disposals also need to be transparent.

Cheap valuations and strategic assets should entice investors and sustain the appetite.

The RBZ could also gently force consolidation of weak banks, including, where necessary.

This has been a common resolution framework in the post-crisis era.

It will likely be a painful exercise, especially in an environment of relatively weak confidence.

However, it is crucial and indispensable for establishing a sound financial system.

One of the critical measures of recovery from a crisis in emerging markets is growth in bank deposits, which denotes a return of public confidence in the domestic financial system.

It is often a precursor of a recovery in the credit cycle, which creates positive multipliers in the broader business cycle and a sustainable economic recovery.

The medium-term goal should be a deep and vibrant financial services industry, complementing or even rivalling that of South Africa.

Deep credit markets are often synonymous with favourable liquidity conditions for growth

Policy consistency

Policy consistency is key in areas such as property rights and bankruptcy regulation. Zimbabwe, like most emerging market, has tended to suffer from policy volatility.

Time and again, we have seen currencies significantly depreciating on poor policy design, implementation and/or weak institutions.

Recent examples include South Africa, Brazil, Turkey, Russia and the UK. In all these cases, currencies depreciated 20 percent plus.

Given that at least 50 to 70 percent of emerging market investment returns are tied to currency, policy consistency becomes critical for investors to take a long-term view on the economy. Zimbabwe will not be an exception.

Domestic savings

In line with the previous comment on using bank deposit growth as an indicator for return of confidence, the general public (as retail investors in an economy) need to feel secure leaving their savings in local commercial banks.

This speaks to two items: general security of savings and confidence about the future; and the need to have confidence in a currency as a store of value.

And this emphasises why solid bank balance sheets are critical, and why a Deposit Guarantee Scheme may also be required, sooner rather than later.

An improvement in, and institutionalisation of, domestic savings can help fund domestic growth, both via commercial banks, pension funds and insurance funds.

Globally, particularly in Europe and Asia, pension funds have been major co-investors in large infrastructure programs and in financing the private sector.

And no country has ever been on a sustainable development path while experiencing major net capital outflows; without locals having faith to save and invest into their own system.

Often it is the general public’s confidence in their own system that tends to attract foreign investor appetite.

The general thrust towards ‘local ownership’ of the economy starts from improving domestic savings, which would then acquire stakes in domestic wealth.

FDI and portfolio

Government has rightly embarked on a programme to engage international investors, with major deals being announced.

It is the hope of every Zimbabwean to see each and every deal being executed.

The administration should keep in mind that in a world where countries compete for capital, investors will always seek the best risk-return profile.

It is up to us as the investment target to ensure that our future growth potential is not compromised. Once again, the narrative of ‘beggars not being choosers’ does not fit here because when it comes to nation building, bad deals can haunt countries for many years.

FDI should be channelled into productive capital stock, and growth ought not to be too reliant on portfolio (capital market) inflows, which tends to be volatile. South Africa and Turkey today face a similar challenge; their growth is highly correlated to portfolio flows, and for that reason, tend to suffer to mood swings in investor sentiment.

And the reason why Eastern Europe fared better than Southern Europe (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) through the global financial crisis was because the latter’s pre-crisis boom was predominance via portfolio inflows, which quickly seized and caused a system rigor mortis once sentiment soured.

Transparency and integrity

Trust and confidence arrives on horse-back but leave in Ferrari. Building a good reputation is always much harder than losing it.

If high-profile deals are poorly structured and/or governed, and they fail, this could be a significant hit to investor sentiment and overall growth for the medium term.

Mozambique and the “Tuna bonds” fall-out is a classic example.

A soured $1 billion deal brought the entire country’s system to a halt, and today — four years on — Mozambique is still struggling to engage international investors.

The currency is rattled and the central bank has burnt through precious reserves trying to stabilise it and the economy.

Billions in potential deals have been lost due to poor structuring and governance on Tuna bonds.

Zimbabwe should learn from its neighbours and need not fall in the same traps. This requires deep, well-thought, structured national economic planning with highly competent committees, with long term views, and perhaps most importantly, on a non-partisan basis.

Trust begets more trust, and success begets even more success. There are no short cuts to long term sustainable development as Asia has demonstrated.

Reserves

A stable currency regime will require significant reserve accumulation, which will enable the Finance Ministry (through the RBZ) to perform smoothing operations.

Building a forex war-chest depends on attractive inflows through improving growth prospects, FDI and portfolio inflows.

It is all reliant on building and preserving confidence, taking into consideration all of the issues raised above.

It is critical to understand that reserves are a currency management tool, which do not necessarily insulate the currency when confidence sours.

China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Brazil, Malaysia and Mexico are recent examples of countries where despite central bank intervention, currencies continued to crater until confidence in the system was restored.

Stated differently, if not managed carefully, hard-earned reserves could end up being used to pay foreigners as they liquidate investments during crises.

Capital controls

I am not advocating a closed capital account. That is expensive and not helpful for confidence.

However, we would not advocate a completely free floating currency regime either as effective currency management is inextricably linked to structuring medium-term growth targets, and especially for a weak economy such as Zimbabwe.

Experience with Asia (ex-Japan) and Emerging Europe shows that, to obtain and maintain some competitive advantage in a highly globalised world, a dirty floating regime is necessary well into the future.

Thus, assuming the new Zimbabwe currency is launched within the next five, I would propose a closely managed currency regime into the next 20-30yrs.

Dr Brian Mangwiro wrote this article for The Sunday Mail

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Godwine Mureriwa
In fact, former President Robert Mugabe’s adamant anti-West rhetoric was fast becoming retrogressive and destructive.
Just like at Lancaster in 1979, the Third Chimurenga should end with compromise, reconciliation and re-engagement.
The essence of diplomacy is to achieve international peace and development.

Greg Denning once said history is not the past, it is consciousness of the past used for present purposes.
Truly, our past shapes our present condition and future.

As Zimbabwe celebrates 38 years of Independence, we reflect on the pre-colonial livelihoods of our ancestors and the brutality of the colonial process.

More importantly we reflect on the experiences of the protracted liberation struggle, the path towards political independence, the historic Third Chimurenga and the pain of Western aggression through sanctions. But for the first time, we reflect Independence in an era of new opportunities of global re-engagement.

In the long road to freedom, the land, which is our principal heritage, is central.

It the basis of our political freedom, the source of life, symbol of identity and basis for sustainable economic development.

Once taken from our fore-fathers, fought for by gallant sons and daughters of the soil and now in the hands of its rightful owners, the land is what independence is all about.

It is also the source of present challenges and opportunities.

Inevitably, in the new political dispensation, land tenure and use are the cornerstones for the anticipated economic prosperity.

Today the contentious question is what political-cum economic ideology should shape the broader indigenisation and empowerment policies of government in the context of the emergence of the dominant capitalist-driven globalisation.

Put simply, is it realistic for Zimbabwe to adopt a socialist approach as it opens itself for business and seeks to attract foreign investment, especially from western powers it is in the process of engaging after two decades of isolation?

I remember in the late 1990s my lecturer, the late Professor Masipula Sithole, saying to our class that in 1987 he had been asked by another Professor from the then Soviet Union “why is Zimbabwe going where we are coming from?”.

Then, the Zanu-PF Government was predominantly socialist and even attempted to establish a One Party State under Mr Robert Mugabe.

His erstwhile colleague Edgar Tekere vehemently opposed such centralisation of power and formed his ZUM, which paved the way for multi-party democracy.

Economically, in 1990 the IMF and World Bank foisted the infamous Economic Structural Adjustment Programme on Zimbabwe as an austerity measure. It proved to be disastrous.

It derailed the gains of free education, free health services, infrastructural development, subsidised goods and services, prices controls and other people-centred policies that government had implemented since 1980.

Many were retrenched and the black majority was left in abject poverty.

When government abandoned Esap in 1997, paid unbudgeted gratuities to war veterans in the same and intervened in the DRC war of 1998, the economy further took a nose dive.

The situation was compounded by the effects the illegal economic sanctions that the West collectively imposed because of these domestic and foreign policies, and more so as a response to the “socialist” land reform programme.

In particular, former American President George W Bush said “Zimbabwe has become an ‘unusual’, ‘extraordinary’ and ‘continuing’ threat to US foreign policy – capitalism.”

While China, our all-weather friend, stood by Zimbabwe, amid threats of Western military intervention as the Mugabe regime went a gear up to introduce the 51-49 policy to foreign investors (including indigenisation in the sensitive banking sector), it appeared to shut doors on friends and enemies alike.

One would be tempted to think even China was beginning to silently ask: “Why is Zimbabwe going where we are coming from?”
Zimbabwe’s has to move out the international isolation of the past two decades.

In fact, former President Robert Mugabe’s adamant anti-West rhetoric was fast becoming retrogressive and destructive.
Just like at Lancaster in 1979, the Third Chimurenga should end with compromise, reconciliation and re-engagement.
The essence of diplomacy is to achieve international peace and development.

China’s political ideology has evolved from radical Marxist/Leninist communism, to adaptive scientific socialism, and now capitalism with Chinese characteristics.

As a resource person for Chitepo School of Ideology, I was recently privileged to attend a seminar at which three Professors from the Communist Party of China (CPC) argued that China’s economic model hinges on evolving political change.

From the Confucian tradition of meritocracy, across the political spectrum leaders come through a rigorous process of “selection and election”.

This enhances good governance, competence and innovation. The results are poverty eradication, job creation, local economic growth, social development and increasing environmental protection. China has moved beyond the stereotypical dichotomies of “democracy versus autocracy” of “capitalism versus Communism”.

The current socio-political and economic ideologies are synthesises of historical Chinese values and emerging global practices.
Against that backdrop, Zimbabwe’s new dispensation has been globally recognised and accepted because of the potential for home-grown reform not the circumstances of its birth.

This is why for a long-time even the West preferred “regime reformation” rather than the futile “regime change agenda” that was against their interests, singly or collectively.

This is the time to uphold meritocracy and boost productivity to sustain the gains of the liberation struggle.

Addressing the CPC last week, President Mnangagwa aptly said, “In my party we say if someone makes a slogan, we give him a post.

That must be a thing of the past.”
Perhaps it is also time to emulate the Chinese “keju system” and introduce a civil service examination system.

Godwine Mureriwa is a political analyst. He wrote this article for The Sunday Mail

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George Charamba
The multiple initiatives that President Emerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa’s administration has launched may be confusing to a citizenry already buffeted by years of debility and decline.

It is thus important to explain and place in context this flurry of initiatives, a good many of which may involve costs and foreign travel, but all of which are aimed at putting Zimbabwe on an even economic keel.

Key to understanding this broad strategy of many initiatives is appreciating that President Mnangagwa is re-framing the National Question beyond the rhetoric of liberation struggle and land reforms.

Not that both don’t matter to the whole recovery calculus.

No National Question excludes or turns its back on core considerations of national liberation, national sovereignty and the national land issue.

The three form a baseline triumvirate for the modern nation-state.

Yet the key is to restate and reframe these three core issues within a proper, scientific grasp of socio-economic conditions obtaining in Zimbabwe, and at this stage in her evolution.

As I write, such an exercise has become both necessary and urgent, all against challenges which our country Zimbabwe faces.

Economic nationalism

And as the man at the helm, President, Mnangagwa bears the responsibility of this redefinition.

President Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe-is-open-for-business mantra and punchline summarises the reframing of the National Question under current national social conditions.

His emphasis on anchoring the National Question on business and investment may have inspired his recent remark in Abidjan, Ivory Coast that Zimbabwe has shifted from “hard nationalism” to “economic nationalism”.

There is thus a new vocabulary in the air designed to refocus and redirect national effort towards a pro-business, pro-marketplace culture, but all within strictures of national interest and proper, lawful and ethical business practices.

This, in my view, summarises the re-framing exercise.

But this summary has embedded interconnections which are very easy to miss, and a lot easier to throw pot-shots at for cheap electoral politicking.

National interest, which the President has been emphasising, provides a key link with the liberation ethos. We have been free and independent for nearly 38 years.

Our sense of nationalism and liberation cannot remain as it was in 1980 when we became free.

Those distinct and clear-cut demands and magnitudes of the 1980s today coalesce into this overarching notion we call national interest.

Simply put, it means taking decisions and doing things that positively redound to our common, collective good, all the time assuming that we remain a free and sovereign nation.

Time was when the National Question amounted to a call to arms. Then it morphed to consolidating our nation through national unity which we attained in 1987.

Setting aside the massive national social investments of the 1980s and 1990s, the National Question took us back to the struggle for our land.

That, too, got settled, albeit with great acrimony and at huge national cost.

Beyond or because of land, we found ourselves back in the national trenches, thanks to the second challenge to our sovereignty by the West.

Still we deepened the National Question by raising the broader issue of resource nationalism. But there were serious setbacks and contradictions which precipitated the November 2017 16-day wonder revolution.

Today, and in the context of the new dispensation, we face a new National Question: namely the promotion of business and investment in order to re-jig that same liberation ethos.

Another country

With a past in the national liberation struggle, and given his legal grounding, President Mnangagwa is a perfect human/leadership fit for this badly needed transition whose time has come.

The measure of the transition is in how it at once unleashes the entrepreneurial energy of the nation, while defending and upholding both its interests and its sense of law and morality.

Hence the concurrent, two-track rhetoric of business opportunities on the one hand, and zero tolerance on corruption on the other.

I emphasise this duality to lay to rest a misperception that cracking down on externalisation and some such corporate malfeasances, perforce contradicts the thrust to rally businesses – both local and global – for investments in the country to recover and grow the national economy.

Simply, the new ethos calls for fair, deserved reward to clean, lawful business initiatives by whomsoever.

Simply, too, the new ethos draws a cut-off point with a past where business behaviour was predatory and akin to liquidation, both of which left us anaemic.

We have to break with the bad past, and naming and shaming unorthodox business practices, apart from bidding for restitution, sends a clear signal that the past is another country.

Policy dimension

But the call for greater investments in the economy is not an open cheque. Current adversity must never breed desperation.

We are a well-endowed country, a proud people. We have interests; we ought to have plans and priorities.

The call for investments is thus predicated on key strategic national calculations meant to secure our national interest.

President Mnangagwa’s recent visit to Rwanda put all this to the fore. We need to have a national plan and strategy which is both policy-focused and spatially drawn.

The policy dimension sets out our national priorities based on our competitive edge and where we want to be in the next decade. It motivates players through a raft of incentives we offer to nudge itinerant capital towards desired areas.

Spatially speaking, we need a geographical national masterplan which locates given enterprises in certain parts of our country, consistent with our resource endowments and needs of those enterprises we hope to attract.

Above all, consistent with our wish for growth with justice, indeed for growth which lifts all our communities thereby consolidating our national cohesion.

More critically, the spatial masterplan must be backed up by efficient infrastructures which lower entry/establishment costs for business, thereby improving the ease-of-doing business.

Rwanda ensures that areas zoned for specific enterprise clusters are well enabled by way of infrastructure like roads, rail, electricity, water, information and communication technologies etc.

Equally, land is availed competitively for secure operations.

Both Rwanda and China have offered to assist in this broad planning exercise so sorely needed ahead of luring investments in the country.

This awareness and offer is a key take-away from the President’s recent itinerary. It needs to be actualised on the ground.

Open to leave?

Zimbabwe is disabled by a negative risk profile. This stems from past policy volte-faces or shifts, and from our poor debt-servicing record.

Recently, President Mnangagwa faced a difficult question: if Zimbabwe is now open for business, are its doors also open to capital when it wants to leave?

Where does the foreign currency to disinvest come from, given the current paucity of United States dollars? Can an investor repatriate his earnings in US dollars?

We have many investors whose dividends are trapped inside our country, for want of foreign currency.

From these and much more, it is not hard to see why Zimbabwe still has more to do in order to shake off the “trap-door” image that dogs it, dissuading investors and lenders alike.

Until one appreciates the cost which all this levies on efforts to recover our economy, one may never quite appreciate what President Mnangagwa is doing. Or even be able to measure how well he has done so far, or is doing presently.

All is made worse by the gathering electioneering environment in which easy judgments and facile comparisons are made by empty, juvenile opposition politicians at recycled rallies.

Situating travel

The Abidjan meeting of CEOs was critical in so far as it secured a commitment from Afreximbank to de-risk Zimbabwe by unveiling a US$1,5 billion support facility to investors intent on setting up shop in Zimbabwe.

To have a bank availing so much at such a well-targeted meeting is no small story, let alone one deserving to be greeted by a litany of cynical comments which are both uninformed and politically self-serving.

As Zimbabweans, we cannot talk down ourselves and our country, at a time when such a serious and judicious institution is vouching for us.

And Afreximbank has kept Zimbabwe afloat even when the country was at its nadir.

Its bullish rating of Zimbabwe has a lot to do with the changes it reads in the horizon, thanks to the new dispensation, and of course the identity of its key shareholders who understand us better and more, thanks to diplomatic efforts that are underway.

As such offers are made, it is important that the country’s leadership spells out clearly to investors areas deserving priority attention.

Needless to say this situates President Mnangagwa’s travels.

China visit

The just-ended State Visit to China – itself the world’s second largest economy – at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jiping resulted in a raft of key gains.

But for me, three gains stand out and above all else that was achieved during that short six-day visit.

China, which is owed millions of dollars by Zimbabwe, charitably de-linked Zimbabwe’s debt obligations and settlement plans to Zimbabwe’s eligibility for fresh loans and grants.

To this end, both its banks and its insurers are now ready to provide capital and cover to Chinese venture capital.

This is a fundamental shift in Chinese policy, but one requiring reciprocation by a new, serious Zimbabwe which honours its debt obligations and makes itself attractive to foreign direct investments.

This breakthrough came on the back of a Joint Commission which thrashed out sticky issues between the two nations, and of course from the amazingly warm chemistry that developed between President Xi and President Mnangagwa.

The ball is now in Zimbabwe’s court.

Dollarising such a major policy shift by a mega-economy makes costs of travel to China paltry.

Strategic partnership

The second key gain came by way of the Chinese initiative to upgrade Zimbabwe-China bilateral status to that of Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

This is quite a departure from the nebulous “all-weather friend” status which, though sweet to repeat in the political mouth, materially and concretely amounted to little in the marketplace.

Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Status in effect bilaterally confers on Zimbabwe preferred status as a destination for Chinese investment capital, aid, skills and other initiatives.

We are now well positioned to tap from both the $100 billion facility announced by China in South Africa a few years ago, and of course from China’s more recent Belt-and-Road Initiative to network the world into one commercial village.

The Forum ob China-Africa Co-operation slated for Shaghai in September 2018, and to which President Mnangagwa is already invited, should allow us to take hard-headed stock.

Key outcomes

Beyond the flow of people, skills and capital, Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Status is a major step towards breaking the jinx of isolation from which Zimbabwe has suffered for nearly a decade since its Land Reform Programme.

Sinosure’s decision to provide cover to Zimbabwe-bound Chinese investment capital, complemented by a decision by a Chinese bank to open shop in Zimbabwe, are key outcomes from the State Visit.

More telling is the preparedness of China to accept trade settlements in Chinese currency, a decision which has far-reaching positive implications for economic interaction between Zimbabwe and China.

Additionally, the decision by CCCC, China’s largest global infrastructure company, to open shop in Zimbabwe is a major milestone and statement of confidence whose tractive value to otherwise dissonant China can hardly be overemphasised.

This is a ringing third-party endorsement for Zimbabwe.

Alongside other infrastructure construction companies, not least those focusing on the long-delayed Kunzvi Dam, on Hwange 7&8 sure to start shortly, on Robert Mugabe International Airport, on road dualisation, on rail expansion and transnational linkages, on construction of Parliament and new Government Complex, “Quad C” will underpin President Mnangagwa’s vision to turn Zimbabwe into a modern-infrastructured, middle-income economy by 2030, a mere 12 years hence.

The third key gain to come out of President Mnangagwa’s State Visit relates to the Chinese offer of an unlimited market to our agricultural produce.

With a population of 1,3 billion, China’s appetite and belly are hard to encompass, much harder to fill.

They need citrus and other fruits from Zimbabwe. They need cotton from Zimbabwe. They need soya from Zimbabwe. They need our meats. They are already buying our tobacco and motivating our tobacco farmers.

What is staggering is that the offer of this vast market comes with substantial commitment to support our agriculture for greater productivity.

China has already availed more money for dam construction. China is offering support for us to turn the more than 10 000 water bodies across the country into irrigation propositions.

Above all, China is ready with inputs and skills, the former coming to us not as exports in finished goods, but as major investments in fertiliser, gas and agricultural equipment manufacturing.

In respect of cotton, the President was able to motivate several Chinese companies that want to sponsor vast cotton fields for feedstock for textile companies which will be set up here to manufacture for global markets.

The Chinese have done as much in Egypt and in Ethiopia.

Special mention

Deliberately, I have shied away from highlighting deals clinched with private companies. Those concerned are better placed to speak to them.

But there is one requiring special mention.

A day before his departure, President Mnangagwa met the owner of Afrochine, the chrome processor already operating just after Selous as one goes to Chegutu.

The investor now wants to develop three other furnaces including one in Mutorashanga and another in Shurugwi.

But these are “smalls” in his investment plans.

The big one for this economy is a steel plant, fashioned after one already operating in Indonesia which employs 20 000 people.

In his own words, Zimbabwe has all the ingredients for such a plant: abundant chrome, abundant iron ore, nickel and abundant and untapped coal for an independent power plant so necessary for such a big, power gulping investment.

But he has been knocking on Government offices for the past three years, to no avail. Still, he didn’t give up on us.

In that 30-minute meeting, the investor was able to walk away with concrete commitments on all his requirements, opening the way for an early start to the project.

Food for stomach

I referred to the above encounter to raise a key component in President Mnangagwa’s challenge in reframing the National Question.

He has to deal with a bureaucracy notorious for its slothfulness, disarticulation and arthritic pace and manner of doing business. Besides, a bureaucracy which has picked the dubious fame of predatoriness.

What the hard nationalistic rhetoric did to us was to mould a bureaucracy full of centurions whose self-view was to guard idle subsoil assets from intending investors, all against begriming poverty.

The out-turn has been paradoxical: a highly mineralised country which is frigid to investors, amidst deepening poverty and social malaise.

Until now our resources were hermetically sealed – a subject for idle, rumbustious boast – ever guarded by a highly efficient “army” of “ragged trousered” nationalists who had no compunction in letting Zimbabweans starve while “feeding” them with the twin alibi and sweet lie of “indigenisation” and “empowerment”.

For that reason, the old dispensation gave Zimbabweans lots of food for thought but hardly any for the stomach, to use the late Achebe’s acerbic phrase.

It is this bureaucratic temperament which has not only put off investors, but has bred a corrupt, anti-business outlook for which we have paid dearly.

And which, too, accounts for the extant overflow of cynicism around any national initiative, threatening to blight all that the current President seeks to do; so that there is no Emerson Mnangagwa – only a Mugabe look-alike.

There is no gainful venture to drum up investments; only another wasteful jaunt recalling years and behaviors gone by!

Swings and roundabouts

There is a dire need for institutional reforms, for new mindsets if this nation has to regain belief in itself again.

Today this frigid beast – the bureaucracy – has to stir, and then be made to function nimbly and honestly.

If not, all will be lost, including the mega-deals just concluded with China.

There are key institutional reforms which beg. There are new mores sorely needed; indeed a new work ethic which must be invented and infused within the bureaucracy.

The President’s emphasis on the rapid results initiative, with its 100-day execution and accountability cycles, is a good start which must gain irrevocable traction.

His zero-tolerance on corruption is a necessary complement.

Above all, there is dire need for institutional reforms – stated thrice –  around institutions that handle and interface with foreign investors and foreign investment projects.

I am very clear about one thing: current ministries – both by structure and temperament – cannot be the panacea to this age-old challenge.

We need a new institutional framework, arguably akin to what we saw and met in Rwanda.

There, one supremely executive and overriding institution deals with investors, deals with them from start to finish, all in 24 hours!

This corporatised executive authority led by a CEO who is at par with Cabinet ministers, and who reports directly to Cabinet, passes for a one-stop shop which decides on everything an investor requires to speedily set up shop: from land, policies, laws, by-laws, registration, incentives right down to environmental impact assessments.

It commandeers utilities for various inputs needed by an investor, including factory shells.

Above all, it takes decisions on tax breaks and holidays, including flexibly extending them to allow for enterprise growth.

The guiding philosophy is straightforward: what we miss on the swings, we gain on the roundabouts; what we can’t get now, we get later, or eventually.

There is no Zimra; there is no Finance, Harare City Council or some such hackneyed bureaucratic contraption which shames Whitehall.

Only all these functions melded into one efficient unit that is on the go go.

Bigger picture

This is the new African environment within which Zimbabwe competes for FDI; indeed the new, competitive environment within which she reframes the National Question.

She must believe in herself, making much out of her resource endowments the Almighty has been so generous to give.

She must believe in herself, restoring faith in her leadership, even though broken and betrayed in the past.

Nations go through lows, hit troughs. But the key is to pick themselves up in order to recover.

We cannot do so on gratuitous cynicism deriving from past failures. We can’t do so by concentrating on “smalls” of big national visions and initiatives.

Or by disguising yesterday’s rhetoric of nationalist paranoia into today’s fastidious demand that our leadership remains with us at home, so in suicidal solidarity, we all sink deeper into the slough of despondency as a nation. We have to look at the bigger picture, articulate bigger visions, court bigger players. In China and other nations and concerns of goodwill, we have an opportunity for a fresh start.

Let’s give ourselves another chance.

Mr George Charamba is the Presidential Press Secretary, and Secretary for Information, Media and Broadcasting Services in the Republic of Zimbabwe. He wrote this article for The Sunday Mail

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