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afrol.com, 24 October - I am not totally sure, but I think we saw the subtle hand of God last week. On Monday our High Court was scheduled to hear a contempt hearing on the Capital Radio saga and the two officers concerned were the Commissioner of Police and one of his Deputies. It was a dangerous moment, they had been scheduled to go to Court on Friday but had stayed away and the Judge gave them an ultimatum - appear on Monday or face summary judgment and up to three months in jail. They appeared and in an historic judgement the Deputy was given a sentence of 30 days in jail or a fine for disobeying an order from a Judge on Capital Radio. The punishment was not the main issue, the question was would our Judges stand up to the pressure and would the Police comply? In the final analysis the Deputy was forced to accept his role as the "fall guy" and absolved the Commissioner from all blame - not true but good enough to save him from similar judgement. However the message was clear and every policeman in the country heard it - if you obey an unlawful order - you could go to jail and the powers that be will not protect you. Like the outcome of the election, it had all the features of the footprints of God - the timing, the subtle message, the careful balance, not enough to endanger the peace, but sufficient to warn every police officer and a few others. Now Phillip Chiangwa, a Zanu PF MP from Chinhoyi who is a real Mafia type figure is calling for a commission of inquiry into the judiciary and in particular the Chief Justice. They will not get anywhere with this unless they are prepared to behave unlawfully and the armed forces support the action - both of which options seem to be out of the equation at present. Nevertheless - if you are a praying person, you should pray for the people who drive the legal system here. The Judges, the Magistrates, the Lawyers and others. Last Monday the MDC executive sat down and considered what to do about the situation in the country. We debated for nearly three hours and then finally decided that the situation was so volatile that any call for mass action at this time could explode into uncontrolled violence. The wisdom of this decision was amply demonstrated the following day when angry riots against the falling standard of life and rising prices broke out. The Police responded in their usual manner with tear gas and force and little else. MDC was blamed and Jonathan Moyo came out with the statement that the riots had nothing to do with the price of food but were the result of an MDC inspired plan to topple the government. It took three days and the army to restore order and even then they know that the volcano is still there and could explode anytime anywhere. What was interesting was the way in which the Police struggled to control even these limited outbursts of violence. We are now consulting our social partners and deciding on the timing and the form, of any mass action we will call when we feel the time is right. That time is coming and when it does it will be decisive. This coming week, the Helen Suzman Foundation of South Africa is releasing its latest political survey of Zimbabwe. We hear that this will show further massive gains for MDC in the political sphere. This will soon be tested in Marondera West where a bi-election is to be held on the 25/26th of November. We have a plan for this election and a candidate (whom we are keeping under wraps to prevent the authorities getting to him or his family until the campaign actually starts). We will then have to protect him physically until the election. Our information suggests that this constituency, which we lost by a wide margin in the main election and which is in the so-called "Zanu heartland" will be won by the MDC. We wait and see, certainly this is a very crucial test and evidence of this can be found in the fact that a significant force from the CIO and the "war vets" has been working the constituency over for the past few weeks. As you may know, any party that wins more than 5 per cent of the vote in an election in Zimbabwe is entitled to funding from the exchequer. We won 47.5 per cent of the seats in the last election (52 per cent of the actual votes) and should have received some Z$31 million in public funding within 30 days of the election result. We learned that Zanu PF had taken an "advance" from government before the election (that was illegal), but then last week we learned that our share had also been paid to Zanu PF in violation of the Act. The pretext given was that we had not complied in time with the requirements of the Act. This was absolute nonsense and when we took the matter to the Courts they gave us an order freezing the Zanu PF bank accounts until this matter is resolved. If the truth be known, they probably arrogantly expected to win all seats in the past election and simply took the entire allocation - now they have to pay back the portion that is not theirs. What incredible behavior for a sitting government that has been in power for 20 years. This past week we also announced our intention to impeach Mugabe. Immediately all the armchair lawyers and the spin-doctors of Zanu PF sang out that we have no chance of success in such a measure, as we need a two-thirds majority in Parliament. We know that and that is not our purpose, we want to bring out into the light of day - and have it put on record in Hansard (faithfully printed by a Zanu PF company that got the contract without a tender), the full facts of this governments blatant disregard for human rights and the rule of law. We also want to spell out the many ways in which the President has violated his oath of office in recent times. It will not be pleasant reading but it will be interesting stuff and will for the first time expose the skeletons in Mugabe's cupboard. At the very least it will provide weeks of entertainment for those of us who have nothing to do because of the state of the economy and will be very embarrassing for the President and his friends. After three years of trying to circumvent the law and the constitution in an attempt to grab privately owned land and other assets in Zimbabwe, the government has at last acknowledged that they will not succeed in legally. The commitment of the farmers and the nature of the law are such that the legal obstacles are just too great. So they have now launched a real land grab - they are simply walking onto farms, ignoring the courts and any court orders. They are then pegging out the land and handing it to bemused peasants and urban homeless who are expected to start farming and to become "productive" in the 6 weeks or so that remain before the rains. The government is promising inputs and mechanical assistance with land preparation and are also promising cattle stocks. They are saying to the commercial farmers who are subjected to this treatment - you can stay if you want but you have to co-exist with these "settlers" until we can get around to your rights as land owners. The Minister of Agriculture said today that he is expecting to settle 150 000 families in this way in the next few weeks and has asked for funds to provide services to these new players. The Secretary General of the UN (who has a close relationship with Mugabe) sent two very experienced people out to assess the "fast track program" and they report back to him this coming week in New York. In the words of one of these two gentlemen "you have two choices - a fast track program which will be a disaster or a program over (say) 5 years which might have a chance of success". We wait for the Secretary-Generals response with baited breath. In the meantime our message to the farm community is "hou vas" (hold fast), the noose is tightening and its a matter of when, not if, the president goes and this long night of madness will surely pass.
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