THE plight of the Bushmen in Botswana is well documented. In a sign of desperation the vulnerable group a few days ago appealed to Pope Benedict XVI to support them in their struggle to return to their land, as the Vatican established diplomatic relations with Botswana earlier this month.

“We beg the Pope to help, to pray for us so that the government changes its attitude towards us and respects our rights as indigenous peoples of this land,” said a spokesman for the Bushmen this week.

Despite Botswana’s High Court having affirmed the Bushmen’s rights to live in their reserve in 2006, the government of the new president General Ian Seretse Khama continues to violate their rights.

It has given the company Gem Diamonds permission to mine diamonds on Bushmen land.

Not one Bushman has received a hunting permit since the High Court ruling, making it unlawful for the government to withhold permits. None of the Bushmen have been allowed to access borehole water on their land. Hunting and borehole water are the backbone of Bushmen life. Life is now extremely difficult for them.

The appeal to the Pope was not coincidental. On 1 July, the Pope expressed his solidarity and support for the indigenous peoples of Raposa-Serra do Sol in Brazil when he met them in the Vatican and declared “We will do everything possible to help protect your land.”

These autochthonous peoples have a right to their land. They have an emotional historical connection to these lands Their linguistic, cultural and social/organizational identity is through these lands. Infact, their existence is expressed through the lands from which they are being evicted.

The colonizing or expansionary activities of the Batswana government today threatens this group.

This is the case with the Indians of Raposa–Serra do Sol; the Dongria Kondh living in the Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa, India; the (Red) Indians of North America; the Maoris of New Zealand; the Aborigines of Australia; the Masai and Ogiek of Kenya: the Innu of Canada – the list is endless, but the plight is the same.

These groups share one common characteristic – their governments are purportedly democratic. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, U.S., and India are considered thriving democracies. Botswana and Kenya are said to be models of democracy on the African continent.

A majority of these countries also share an interesting similarity: they control the big mining companies and conglomerates.

Large mining projects in these regions take place in rural areas, where they coexist with indigenous communities, and they advance at the same time as many of these communities become poorer and poorer.

India, Canada and Australia have moved significant groups of indigenous peoples from their lands to open up areas for uranium and other mining; and have failed to compensate them.

Where the indigenous have stayed, the consequences have been dire.

Examples suffice. Traditional heads opposed uranium mining in Meghalaya (India) and members of a Special Operations Team (SOT) of Meghalaya police killed five militants of the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) last year. In the U.S., the House Committee clashed with federal agencies whom they accused of incompetence in dealing with the mess left from uranium mining on Navajo land. A study found that the cancer rate doubled among Aborigines near Ranger mine (Australia).

Botswana’s Bushmen

Closer to home, in Botswana, the plight of the Bushmen cannot be overemphasized.

A recent study of the plight of the modern Bushmen revealed some troubling statistics. 90% have been forced to abandon their traditional hunter/gatherer lifestyle and merge with pastural/urbanized.

The Botswana government and De Beers/Anglo American interests have been responsible for pushing away (colonizing) the Bushmen who, according to anthropologists, ethnologists and paleontologists, have inhabited Southern Africa for at least 40,000 years.

This is the plight of indigenous peoples, who are minorities in their own countries.

Khama, Conservation International and Sadc

Botswana President Ian Khama recently snubbed a Southern African Development Community summit to discuss problems in Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Many reasons were advanced for that snub. It has now emerged that he was attending a meeting of Conservation International in the United States at a time when the summit was going on in South Africa.

President Khama is reported to have made “prior arrangements” to attend the U.S. meeting and could not substitute it for a crisis meeting in the region.

Conservation International is an NGO and there have been concerns in Botswana as to President Khama’s eligibility to sit on an NGO board whilst also serving as a Head of State.

But, that is not the main issue. The issue is that President Khama has been responsible for the plight of the Bushmen. Infact, Khama and his predecessor, Festus Mogae, have presided over this “colonisation” of Bushmen lands and have been rewarded for it.

Former President Mogae was recently awarded a prize for “exemplary leadership” – the Mo Ibrahim prize for “good governance”.

Giving an “Achievement In Africa Leadership Award” to Mogae was an ironic twist that left the Bushmen flabbergasted. They cried: “We don’t think he should receive this award because of how he treated us when he was President of Botswana. He evicted us from our ancestral land and that has really affected our lives. He put us into poverty, HIV-AIDS and alcoholism.”

Survival International wrote: “Festus Mogae's government evicted the Bushmen from their ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 2002, and banned them from hunting and gathering.

“Bushman hunters were arrested and tortured; those protesting peacefully against the evictions were arrested and shot at; and at least one woman died of starvation and thirst when Mogae's government shut down the borders of the reserve.”

The Mo Ibrahim Prize consists of US$ 5 million over 10 years and US$ 200,000 annually for life thereafter. Interestingly, the committee awarding the prize included former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, one of the “Elders” recently denied entry in Zimbabwe.

Does good governance not demand respect for people, especially minorities? President Mogae's tenure overturned decades of respect for Bushmen land rights and makes a mockery of the Mo Ibrahim prize.

President Khama, who is a Board Member of Conservation International (the only Head of State), makes a mockery of that NGO by denying the Bushmen their rights.

Conservation International says of its mission: “We believe that the Earth's natural heritage must be maintained if future generations are to thrive spiritually, culturally, and economically. Our mission is to conserve the Earth's living heritage – our global biodiversity – and to demonstrate that human societies are able to live harmoniously with nature.”

Ironically, the natural heritage of the Bushmen is not maintained; the Bushmen do not “thrive spiritually, culturally, and economically” today and they are not “living harmoniously with nature” in Botswana.

The irony of “democracies”

This is the irony of democracies. It is inseparable from big business interests. Richard Branson (and other big businesses) is reportedly supportive of, and funds, the Group of Elders. He is the epitome of big business and has huge interests in the region. The mining conglomerates: Anglo-American etc fund research projects on “democracy” and big-business-friendly Governments go high up the “Index of Democracy” ladder every year.

Kenya, with its appalling record on violence and corruption, is heralded a thriving African democracy; never mind the failing State, with all the aid being pumped in.

Botswana, with its appalling attitude and neo-colonial attitude towards a 4,000 year legacy of the Bushmen, is considered a thriving democracy. It is the only country that still has customary (judicial) whipping of convicted criminals, including women. If that is not torture, then what is?

Corporal punishment is shunned by “modern democracies”. How come this “democracy” is rewarded for such an archaic practice?

Even women in Botswana are still whipped; hence the Setswana saying that "Ya mosimane ke e nkgwe", meaning that corporal punishment was traditionally for males only.

Democracy in Africa

The future of democracy in Africa is threatened not by Africa’s inability to develop functional social and political systems.

It is not even threatened by the intransigence of the current crop of leadership, per se.

It is threatened by non-African business interests – big business interests – that are responsible for the movement of our peoples from their lands; and for the manipulation of our socio-political and economic systems to make way for their interests – the creation of new markets for their mass produced commodities from the West and for the exploitation of our vast resources.

The plight of all indigenous peoples can be traced back to some big business interests – a strange coincidence.

Current “targeted sanctions” against Zimbabwe are aimed at businessmen with huge interests in big business and mining and mining related companies. This is not a coincidence.

New additions to the U.S. sanctions list are mining magnates: John Bredenkamp (who the U.S. said was involved in arms trading and diamond extraction), Muller Conrad "Billy" Rautenbach (who it said was linked with mining projects that "enriched the government")

Companies designated by the Bush administration do not include Anglo-American – which is heavily involved in mining deals in the country. Surely AA should also be “propping up the regime”. This exclusion is also not a coincidence.

Unless our democracies become true democracies, for Africa, we can never extricate ourselves from the very troubling web created by big business interests.

The reality of the moment is that big business and Western governments are so intertwined that the difference is now almost non-existent.

At least for now, we hope, Botswana will not be used as a launch pad for the recolonization of Africa by big business. Paying huge monetary prizes to presidents – who are elected by the people – defeats the whole purpose of “governing for the people, by the people”. Presidents will become Chief Executive Officers who “govern for business” and ignore the plight of their people, especially those indigenous people who have an inalienable right to their lands.

info@talkzimbabwe.com

http://www.talkzimbabwe.com/news/117/ARTICLE/3813/2008-11-28.html

JOS, Nigeria, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Residents delivered more bodies to the main mosque in the central Nigerian city of Jos on Sunday, bringing the death toll from two days of clashes between Muslim and Christian gangs to around 400 people.

Rival ethnic and religious mobs have burned homes, shops, mosques and churches in fighting triggered by a disputed local election in a city at the crossroads of Nigeria's Muslim north and Christian south. It is the country's worst unrest for years.

Murtala Sani Hashim, who has been registering the dead as they are brought to the city's main mosque, told Reuters he had listed 367 bodies and more were arriving. Ten corpses wrapped in blankets, two of them infants, lay behind him.

A doctor at one of the city's main hospitals said he had received 25 corpses and 154 injured since the unrest began.

"Gunshot wounds, machete injuries, those are the two main types," Dr Aboi Madaki, director of clinical services at Jos University Teaching Hospital, told Reuters.

The overall toll was expected to be higher, with some victims already buried and others taken to other clinics.

The violence appeared to die down on Sunday. Soldiers patrolled on foot and in jeeps to enforce a 24-hour curfew imposed on the worst-hit areas. People who ventured out walked with their hands in the air to show they were unarmed.

"They are still picking up dead bodies outside. Some areas were not reachable until now," said Al Mansur, a 53-year-old farmer who said all the homes around his had been razed.

Overturned and burnt-out vehicles littered the streets while several churches, a block of houses and an Islamic school in one neighbourhood were gutted by fire.

The Red Cross said around 7,000 people had fled their homes and were sheltering in government buildings, an army barracks and religious centres. A senior police official said five neighbourhoods had been hit by unrest and 523 people detained.

SIMMERING TENSIONS

Nigeria's 140 million people are roughly equally split between Muslims and Christians and the two communities generally live peacefully side by side.

But ethnic and religious tensions in the country's central "Middle Belt" have bubbled for years, rooted in resentment from indigenous minority groups, mostly Christian or animist, towards migrants and settlers from the Hausa-speaking Muslim north.

The latest clashes between gangs of Muslim Hausas and mostly Christian youths began early on Friday and were provoked by a disputed local election after rumours spread that the ANPP party candidate backed by Hausas had lost the race to the ruling PDP.

"It's religious. They were burning mosques and churches. They used politics as a cover-up," said Suleyman Yusuf, a Muslim from the Yoruba ethnic group, two of whose friends were killed.

Yusuf was sheltering with some 4,000 men, women and children -- Christian and Muslim, and from a variety of ethnic groups -- in a national drug agency building set up by aid workers.

Hundreds were killed in ethnic-religious fighting in Jos, the capital of Plateau state, in 2001. Hundreds more died in 2004 in clashes in Yelwa, also in Plateau, leading then-President Olusegun Obasanjo to declare an emergency.

Unrest in the state has in the past triggered reprisal attacks between different ethnic and religious groups in other areas of the country.

But the security forces appear to have reacted more quickly than in the past to contain the violence in Jos, with the army sending in reinforcements from neighbouring states. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa. reuters.com/ ) (Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Bonjour et bienvenue parmi nous !!

Contribuez dès maintenant en postant un message sur ce site web concernant vos projets reliés à l'environnement ou si c'est juste pour débattre d'une question environnementale, utilisez les forums de discussion de notre page de projet. Pour inviter vos amis à joindre le projet, cliquez sur la liste des membres dans la page d'accueil et ensuite sur Inviter un membre.

POUR DEVENIR MEMBRE du projet intitulé Trouvons ENSEMBLE des solutions au réchauffement climatique, visitez : http://projects.takingitglobal.org/ecologique

Si vous préférez participer au groupe concernant le même projet, visitez: http://groups.takingitglobal.org/ecologique

Yassir
http://profiles.takingitglobal.org/yassirovich

The administrative failures also meant that the program was unable to adequately safeguard people's rights. If people trust the program, it increases the number of people who agree to be tested, gets them into treatment and fights the stigma attached to HIV.
Michaela Clayton of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA)

Related Materials: A Testing Challenge

Program for Widespread Outreach Was Underfunded, Incomplete and Ineffective
(Johannesburg) - Lesotho's drive to test all of its citizens age 12 or older for the virus that causes AIDS fell short of its goals, both in carrying out the program and in safeguarding the rights of those tested, said Human Rights Watch and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa in a new report released today.

The 60-page report, "A Testing Challenge: The Experience of Lesotho's Universal HIV Counseling and Testing Campaign," found that the Know Your Status (KYS) campaign, begun in 2005 with the goal of testing 1.3 million people, was underfunded and had tested only 25,000 people by August 2007, four months before the campaign ended. Ambitious goals to train and pay thousands of lay counselors and expand support groups for people living with HIV were largely sidelined. Supervision of counselors and post-test referrals to HIV prevention or treatment was poorly carried out. The program also took insufficient steps to ensure proper respect for such rights-related requirements as informed consent and confidentiality.

"The administrative failures also meant that the program was unable to adequately safeguard people's rights," said Michaela Clayton of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA). "If people trust the program, it increases the number of people who agree to be tested, gets them into treatment and fights the stigma attached to HIV."

Expanding access to HIV testing is critically important to ensure that people living with HIV can get treatment and that others can avoid becoming infected. Lesotho was one of the first countries to implement a mass HIV testing program in communities across the country. Lesotho's program was noble in ambition but weak in action, Human Rights Watch and ARASA said.

"Community-based HIV testing programs have real potential for reaching people who are otherwise unlikely to test," said Joseph Amon, director of the HIV/AIDS and human rights program at Human Rights Watch. "It sounds like a simple approach, but for these programs to be truly successful, they must provide counseling, ensure confidentiality, and link people to HIV prevention and treatment services. If countries fail to incorporate human rights protections, these programs can easily lead to serious abuses."

Human Rights Watch and ARASA conducted dozens of interviews with officials, community-based counselors, health staff and other key informants in Lesotho in October 2007 and February 2008.

The two organizations highlighted five elements needed to ensure an effective, rights-based HIV testing campaign:

Potential participants should have the opportunity to make a voluntary and informed decision to test. This requires giving them sufficient information about HIV, AIDS, and HIV testing; Confidentiality of test results should be protected; People who agree to be tested should have meaningful access to follow-up services, including HIV prevention, care and treatment, regardless of the test result, so that they can get the tools and skills needed to protect their health;

Accountability mechanisms should be put in place to allow governments carrying out the programs to learn of any potential abuses expeditiously and take corrective steps; and
Laws and policies should be in place to protect people who test positive against discrimination and violence based on their HIV status.

"Human rights protections should be an integral part of any HIV testing campaign," said Amon. "In Lesotho, what we've seen is that the absence of these protections made the campaign less effective."

Human Rights Watch and ARASA noted that similar community-based testing programs are proliferating throughout the region and called upon the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to issue guidance to countries on community-based testing. WHO assisted Lesotho in drafting the KYS campaign plan and played a crucial role in incorporating plans for features designed to protect the rights of participants, but it did not ensure that the government actually carried out those protections.

"WHO and UNAIDS should play a leadership role as this new method of expanding testing is implemented," said Clayton. "They need to issue guidelines to countries and be more active in encouraging countries to put human rights safeguards into effect."

(HRW)

The Sudanese government is well-known for having little tolerance for criticism. This is part of a wider pattern of trying to silence those who support international justice and to suppress information about the human rights situation in Sudan.
Georgette Gagnon, Africa director

Harassment of Those Speaking Out Against Abuses Increasing

November 26, 2008(New York, November 26, 2008) - Sudanese authorities have arrested and detained three human rights defenders in Khartoum, two of whom remain in detention, Human Rights Watch said today. On November 24, 2008, Sudanese authorities in Khartoum summoned the three men to the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) offices, where they were detained and questioned about their human rights activities.

One, Amir Suliman, was released the same day. Abdelmoneim Aljak was released early the following morning but re-arrested on November 26, and Osman Hummaida, who is British, also remains in custody. The security service has not charged any of the men with any crime. They were questioned only regarding their human rights activities.

"The Sudanese government is well-known for having little tolerance for criticism," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "This is part of a wider pattern of trying to silence those who support justice and to suppress information about the human rights situation in Sudan."

Over the last year, the Sudanese government has increasingly targeted those who have spoken out about human rights abuses, the situation in Darfur, or international justice. This harassment intensified considerably following the May 10 attack by the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) on the capital and the announcement by the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court on July 14 requesting an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Journalists trying to publish articles about the situation in Darfur or the May 10 events and staff members of national NGOs working on these issues have been summoned and forced to censor any articles regarded as critical of the authorities.

Hummaida and Aljak work as consultants to civil society and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Suliman is chairperson of the Khartoum Centre for Human Rights and Environmental Development (KCHRED). The three were summoned by the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) political section in Khartoum North at around noon on November 24. A colleague was allowed to bring medicine for Hummaida later that afternoon.

Suliman was released at 8 p.m. and summoned again and detained briefly the following evening. Aljak was released the following day without charge, but was summoned again on November 26 and remains in the security service's custody. Hummaida is still being held without charge and has not been allowed to speak to his lawyer.

Sudanese authorities have not said on what basis the three were summoned or detained, but they are active in the Sudanese human rights movement and have participated in awareness-raising campaigns on justice and accountability, as well as highlighting the ongoing human rights situation in Sudan.

The three men were summoned by the political affairs section of NISS, which deals with civil society organizations and political parties. All three have previously been detained on several occasions because of their human rights activities.

"As well as being concerned for Osman Hummaida and Abdelmoneim Aljak's well-being, we fear that these arrests of human rights activists will not be the last," said Gagnon.

(HRW)

As part of her leading role in corporate social responsibility in Nigeria, Virgin Nigeria Airline, last saturday (22 November 2008) partner Hope Worldwide in its 10 charity walk for HIV/AIDS orphan in Lagos, Nigeria. Led by Dapo Olumide, the Chief Commercial Officer of the national carrier, several staff of the company embarked on the walk from Maryland to National Stadium, Surulere.Some of the staff also rode on bicycles, piloting the way for those that walked.

The airline and its staff, which included Mrs.Nkiru Olumide-Ojo, where commended by the wife of Lagos State governor, Mrs. Abimbola Fashola.While speaking with journalist, Olumide disclosed that the company has been playing its pivotal role in social responsibilty since the commencement of her operations on 25 June 2005. www.gistmaster.com gathered that the comapny has been involved in series of corporate activities that has direct impact on the lives of the people.Notably, the United Nations World Food Programme in 2006, where Virgin Nigeria provided the medium to raise funds towards eradicatinghunger nd malnutritionamong children,and the Sunny Kuku Foundation for sickle Cell.The comapny has also been involved in several other meaniful programmes.gistmaster.com gathered that Virgin Nigeria got involved in the walk as a result of Hope Worldwide high reputation as a serious organisation truly committed to charity.

Story & photos by Niyi Tabiti

Unemployed busybodies masquerading as Elders

By Tafataona Mahoso

WHILE former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was dancing with Laurent Nkunda’s war criminals in the DRC, Zimbabwe was confronted by three other former somebodies demanding to come here also.

These were former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, ex-US President Jimmy Carter and former Mozambican First Lady Graca Machel, who is now married to Nelson Mandela.
These three claim to constitute a humanitarian mission or commission without saying how they were chosen to constitute such a mission or who commissioned them on the basis of what authority and to accomplish what task!
The very same Anglo-Saxon forces who were behind the so-called UN Special Envoys in 2005 are behind the current mission.
People will remember Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka and Jan Egeland who came here claiming to represent Annan’s office and turning out to be "CIA jackals" in the service of Anglo-American interests.
If humanitarian tragedies are that important, why don’t these "Eminent Elders" go to Afghanistan where the Anglo-Saxon powers are fully in charge and where more than four million Afghan women and children face a bleak and severe winter without food or shelter?
If Afghanistan is too far away, the elders could perhaps go to Somalia where "regime change" has made it possible for that country to go for 17 years with no legitimate central Government.
Why do they seek to divide and destabilise a stable country?
From the point of view of Africa and the Sadc region, Mrs Machel and Carter can be forgiven for not knowing what they are doing or how to do it.
Annan, however, is expected to know better because he is a well-trained and experienced diplomat. He is also an experienced African who by now should know enough about the tricks of imperialism and white racism.
Therefore, whether or not the Government of Zimbabwe eventually allows these three busybodies to come in, the people need to examine Annan’s score card.
He became secretary-general of the United Nations in 1997 because one country alone refused to renew Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s second term in that post.
The UN Security Council had voted 14 to 1 in favour of renewal of Boutros-Ghali’s term but the US stopped the renewal because he was viewed as too close to the Non-Aligned Movement to allow the UN to be used as a front for the dismantling and recolonisation of former Yugoslavia by Nato.
The same US administration was instrumental in Annan’s elevation as Mr Boutros-Ghali’s successor.
The US and Nato got their way at the UN, proceeded to dismantle Yugoslavia, waged an air war against Serbia, and created conditions for the final secession of Kosovo from Serbia.
In celebration of this US-Nato colonisation of the UN under Annan, the then Chairman of the US Foreign Relations Committee Senator Jesse Helms asked to address the Security Council and was allowed to do so on 20 January 2000.
This was the first time someone from that US Senate office had ever addressed the UN Security Council.
This is what Senator Helms told the Security Council on 20 January 2000.
"They (US citizens) know instinctively that the UN lives and breathes on the hard-earned money of the American taxpayers. And yet they have heard comments here in New York constantly calling the United States a ‘deadbeat’ . . . They see the majority of the UN members voting against America in the General Assembly.
"They have read reports of raucous cheering of UN delegates in Rome, when US efforts to amend the International Criminal Court Treaty to protect American soldiers were defeated . . . Now, I grant you, the money we (the US) spend on the UN is not charity. To the contrary, it is an investment — investment from which the American people rightly expect a return.
"They expect a reformed UN that works more efficiently, and which respects the sovereignty of the United States . . . So, as the representatives of the UN’s largest investors, the American people, we have not only a right, but a responsibility, to insist on specific reforms in exchange for their investment . . . Most Americans do not regard the United Nations as an end in and of itself — they see it as just one part of America’s diplomatic arsenal."
After Yugoslavia, Serbia and Kosovo, Annan’s most spectacular failure was Iraq.
The secretary-general failed to use the reports of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq to strengthen those powers and organisations who were opposed to the US-UK campaign to invade the country.
This failure is clearly documented in the massive collection of articles by Media Lens Media Alert, which is entitled "The Western Media and Iraq: Selected Articles".
Once Iraq was invaded in violation of the UN Charter and on the basis of lies that UN weapons inspectors and the UN secretary-general knew to be lies, Annan faced another spectacular failure.
His own representative in Iraq was killed, when insurgents against the illegal occupation of that country accused the UN mission there of being indistinguishable from the US-UK occupation forces.
The insurgents bombed the UN mission headquarters in Iraq.
Under Annan, UN offices were again attacked by patriots in Cote d’Ivoire and Lebanon, again for failure by UN representatives there to distinguish themselves from the imperialist interests of France, the US, the EU (in the case of Cote d’Ivoire) and the interests of the US and Israel (in the case of Lebanon).
Zimbabweans of course remember Annan as the UN secretary-general who, when he occupied that office, failed to stop the UK, the US, the EU, Australia and their white racist allies from imposing sanctions against Zimbabwe.
Zimbabweans also remember that President Robert Mugabe has used every UN forum since 2000 to appeal to the UN to stop the Anglo-Saxon axis from its illegal interference in the internal affairs of Zimbabwe.
We received no help from Annan.
But Annan did far worse than failing to use his office to mobilise the UN to protect Zimbabwe.
Annan’s office itself inflicted much damage on Zimbabwe when it agreed to send Tibaijuka and Egeland on missions similar to the one which he now wants to lead.
The 2005 Zanu-PF National People’s Conference in Esigodini condemned the behaviour of Annan’s so-called special envoys.
The same conference urged the Government of Zimbabwe in future to be highly sceptical of any similar envoys and missions.
The behaviour of the two envoys was shocking because it did not fit the manner and style of UN diplomats as Zimbabweans used to know them during our Second Chimurenga in the 1970s and during the best years of the Non-Aligned Movement.
This new and strange behaviour by Annan’s subordinates fits that of the people John Perkins calls "CIA jackals" in his book Confessions of an Economic Hitman. It fits the behaviour of the people whom Cuban patriots call "mules."
Mules are unsuspected people whose job is to smuggle someone’s information or agenda through well-guarded doors or borders.
CIA jackals are spies planted in NGOs, companies and multilateral and inter-governmental agencies to carry out the destabilisation missions of singular countries or blocs of countries.
They are usually called in at the third stage of imperialist intervention, when the first two stages have failed to produce results.
The whole typology of intervention and destabilisation in pursuit of regime change includes five stages, the last of which is direct military intervention as we see in Iraq today, according to John Perkins.
CIA jackals are spy-activists whose aim is to cause social, political and psychological havoc by attacking the public morale and unity of the people as demonstrated in the last two elections in Zimbabwe.
The language of Tibaijuka’s report and the language that Egeland used on the BBC after visiting Zimbabwe was not the language of UN special envoys.
It was the language of CIA jackals, intended to denigrate, provoke, insult, demoralise and divide the people of Zimbabwe.
But besides the language, there was also real conduct. Both Egeland and Tibaijuka betrayed their real agendas when they got to Bulawayo.
This means that the people who sent them believed that Bulawayo in particular and Matabeleland in general provide the soft entry points for clandestine destabilisation forces.
Bulawayo is the place where both "envoys" withdrew from the public domain into backyard and gutter projects and politics beyond the reach of the media and beyond the eyes of the public officials.
This was not accidental.
The NGOs and Embassies who have sought to sponsor divisive politics in the last 15 years have also tended to treat Bulawayo in particular and Matabeleland in general as if they were their pet projects and not local domains of a sovereign country.
Through Egeland, the British, the EU and America were trying to influence the UN to treat Zimbabwe differently from similar cases because here they had already gone ahead with Tibaijuka to condemn the urban ghetto reclamation and reconstruction programmes here as "genocide".
To remain consistent and in order not to embarrass the NGOs that they sponsored to denounce the programmes, these imperialist forces wanted the UN to install refugee tents in Zimbabwe’s cities.
Such tents would serve as photogenic propaganda sites for global mass media and all the imbedded spies and journalists here.
Crisis Zimbabwe Coalition would get a boost to its reason to exist, since Zimbabwe would then appear as a country with a massive and permanent internal refugee population.
The NGOs could be paid to induce ordinary poor people to join the tent tenants just as many were also induced to trek to Britain and South Africa and lie about needing political asylum.
But such scheming on the part of the US and UK is delusional.
The overwhelming majority of the people of Zimbabwe are pre-occupied with land redistribution, resettlement and the agrarian revolution.
How do we know this?
We know this from Zanu-PF’s 2005 Esigodini National People’s Conference which resolved to condemn the two UN envoys serving as spies for Britain, US and EU forces against Zimbabwe.
Therefore the Government of Zimbabwe is to be encouraged to insist that the UN must not make ridiculous demands on member states which are not UN demands but are the bilateral requirements of a minority of white countries such as Britain, Australia, America and some EU countries.
Likewise, unemployed busybodies like Annan, Machel, Desmond Tutu, Obasanjo and Carter must stop making absurd demands on African peoples.
Government must remember that the Anglo-Saxon powers have not yet declared a truce in their media terrorism against Zimbabwe, which has been a critical feature of their overall propaganda war.
In that war, humanitarian intervention has been used most frequently. As Ludo Martens has warned; "This sort of campaign (which applies psychological terrorism under the guise of human rights concerns) is nevertheless nothing new and should not come as a surprise to progressive people.
"Military specialists have written many books and articles about the weapon of disinformation in Nato doctrine (for instance). According to those specialists, disinformation can be a weapon as powerful as heavy artillery.
"In the words of Colonel Trinquier, French specialist in anti-communist warfare: ‘Today war is a whole consisting of actions of all kinds, political, social, economic, psychological, armed, and so on, which aim to overthrow established power in a country.’
"In every important struggle the facts brought to us by the imperialist media are a well-doctored mixture of lies, half-truths and real facts."
The so-called "Eminent African Elders" have been nominated by imperialism to try to reverse the diplomatic achievements of former South African President Cde Thabo Mbeki and Sadc in Zimbabwe.
Martens also cites a CIA specialist in the science of lying who wrote about how the US conducted its "black propaganda" against the people of Vietnam.
"Just writing that communists are bad is cheap. The art is (for the CIA to get certain forces) to commit crimes disguised as communists, that is the way to gain credibility."
In the Zimbabwean case, the US and UK have lost credibility over Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib Prison.
Their forces therefore gravitate toward those institutions, which still have some credibility.
The UN has a long relationship with the leaders of Zimbabwe. Therefore it is a most attractive target for infiltration, manipulation and even intimidation.
In fact, some of the manipulation is not even made known to UN officials.
For example, in 2005 some embedded journalists were supposed to come to Zimbabwe under the guise of covering our Senate elections when in fact their task was to take pictures and stage stories which could be manipulated and sensationalised in order to scandalise the UN humanitarian coordinator against us.
Putting homeless people in make-shift tents, as proposed by Annan’s envoy in 2005, instead of building solid houses in real communities is typical of what is notoriously known as the "misery industry" driven by NGOs.
The tents would provide the symbolic confirmation of the crisis outlined in Tibaijuka’s report but impossible to justify on the ground where the people’s pre-occupation then and now has always been how to get the inputs needed for a potentially good farming season.
Therefore, the best these retired stooges could do for the people of Zimbabwe is to get the US and the UK to lift their illegal and racist sanctions.
However, we have already said the UN and its volunteers are targeted because they are more credible that the British Foreign Office, the US State Department or the CIA.
The UN has a relationship with the people of Zimbabwe going back to their struggles against UDI and apartheid.
That good track record can be abused by a now thoroughly compromised UN system to achieve objectives contrary to those which the people were pursuing during earlier struggles.









http://www.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=994&cat=10

Wall St. crash to cost NY 225 000 jobs


Reuters


Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:38:00 +0000


WALL Street's painful downsizing could cost 225,000 New Yorkers their jobs over the next two years as it recent era of outsize profits may have ended and it adapts to less leverage, the state comptroller said on Monday.

The securities industry could clip a total of 38,000 workers by next October, and another 10,000 employees could be axed in related fields, such as banking, insurance, and real estate, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli forecast in a new report.

Wall Street seems to have overpaid its employees in the first six months of this year, DiNapoli said adding that total compensation ate up "an unsustainable" 97 percent of net revenues. In contrast, the ratio averaged only 53 percent from 1990 to 2006.

And unlike previous cycles in this traditionally boom-and-bust industry, Wall Street might not revisit its recent mistakes, at least for awhile, because the federal bank bailout includes some new curbs while the new Democratic Obama administration views stiffer regulations as a must.

Further, the new bank holding company model adopted by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley after rival Lehman Brothers was allowed to sink into bankruptcy, comes with regulations that did not apply to these titans when they were investment banks.

"The challenge is that we know that Wall Street is going to look different than before we went into this," DiNapoli said,

The end of the leverage generation could transform investment banking, withering mergers and acquisitions. It also might herald a era of lower but more stable profits, he said.

Wall Street likely will employ fewer people -- and reward them less generously, DiNapoli added, predicting that the past few years of "outsize" profits would not be matched again.

The securities industry lost 16,000 jobs last month on a year-over-year basis, the state Labor Department said last week. Because these workers are paid so generously, an average of almost $400,000 last year, these jobs spur hiring in many other sectors, from shops to advertising firms.

That intensifies the pain of Wall Street's breakdown, as each of this industry's jobs could cause two workers to be laid off in New York City and 1.3 employees to be cut in the state, the Democratic comptroller explained.

Securities company executives, moreover, should not reap bonuses because it's "inappropriate to reward poor performance," DiNapoli said, noting that broker/dealer desks of New York Stock Exchange member firms lost almost $21 billion in the first six months of this year.

BEWARE OF SHRINKING BONUSES

Bonuses now could plunge in half, the way they did in the early 2000s, after the end of the Internet speculative fever and the deadly September 11 air attacks in 2001, DiNapoli said.

That might bring these payments down to $16 billion. This will also hurt Wall Street's lower-level employees, who just like investment bankers and top traders, often rely heavily on bonuses. "New York will feel a lot of pain from a shrunken bonus pool," DiNapoli said.

The state and city could lose $6.5 billion in tax revenues from Wall Street over two years. New York City gets 12 percent of its tax revenues from this industry, while the state gets 20 percent.

DiNapoli also warned that job "losses could be greater if the economic downturn is deeper and longer than currently forecast."

Wall Street's job force peaked at 200,300 in December 2000. As of last month, this sector employed 171,400 people, according to the state Labor Department.

New York City lost 232,1000 private-sector jobs in the recession that stretched from 2001 to 2003.

(Reporting by Joan Gralla; Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio





http://www.talkzimbabwe.com/news/120/ARTICLE/3794/2008-11-25.html

ABUJA—The Federal Government yesterday said that it is planning to criminalize discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS viruses in the country.

The Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Michael Kaase Andoakaa (SAN) who dropped the hint yesterday said that a legislation is in the pipeline recommending one year jail term or one million fine for anybody that is convicted of discriminating against anybody with HIVAIDS viruses.

He spoke yesterday in Abuja during the closing ceremony of the 44th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights hosted by the Nigerian Government.

His words: “It is my joy to announce to you that last Wednesday while this session was on in Abuja , the Federal Executive Council (FEC) had approved a legislation making discriminations against persons with HIV AIDs an offence punishable with one million fine or one year jail term.

“We have already sent a bill to the National Assembly to that effect. It is an executive bill,” he said.

Speaking on the session which was came to an end yesterday, Andoakaa (SAN) said: “as a nation, we are determined to provide added impetus in strengthening the hands of this administration in its crusade to entrench respect for the rule of law as the cornerstone of our democratic governance

“In this respect, let me assure you that Nigeria will continue to respect its international human rights obligations and to support institutions such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights who hold the mandate to advance the cause of human rights on our continent,” he said.

THE VANGUARD

Annan visit, the Carter factor

By Stephen T. Maimbodei

I have read Graham Hancock’s "Lords of Poverty: the Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the International Aid Business" many times since 1992 and love it for laying bare the rotten innards of the international aid business.

It is a world of vultures; where the poor are big business for the rich and powerful from the glittering cities of the Western world.

Africa’s natural disasters and civil strife are also a boon.

Real and imagined humanitarian crises have propelled them to dizzying heights of influence and prominence.

And once again the people of Zimbabwe are being short-changed by sons and daughters of this continent working in cahoots with powerful Western governments and their media.

As usual, President Mugabe is to blame, and what is new about that?

The intended visit by the trio of the so-called "Elders" comprising former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, former US president Jimmy Carter and former Mozambican and South African First Lady Graca Machel, which has already taken the lime light from the beneficiaries of the "humanitarian assistance", makes one wonder what the bigger picture is.

It all has to do with Western policy towards Zanu-PF, which never changes even as we expect a new US administration to take over next year.

When I listened to Carter and Annan desperately trying to paint sordid pictures of Zimbabwe, I felt very sad and went back to Hancock.

The challenges faced by ordinary people in this country cannot be trivialised to this level, and neither can they be dealt with in a one-day meeting with principals of the power sharing deal.

Concerned people need to be on sight to see what the West’s so-called "travel bans" have done to the dignity of the Zimbabwean people.

That the so-called "Elders" desperately wanted this visit despite advice from Government is cause for concern.

Both Annan and Graca Machel are Africans whose countries are members of regional blocs, Sadc and the African Union, to which Zimbabwe belongs. Sadc is yet to complete its mandate of ensuring that the power-sharing deal is implemented, with the assistance of the AU.

So, what agenda is the "Elders" mission, which is now being implemented from neighbouring South Africa, meant to achieve?

Zimbabwe’s revolution cannot also be reduced to fuzzy terms such as "governance, rule of law and human rights" whose shelf life and credibility are questionable.

Machel knows Zimbabwe’s situation too well to believe that a 28-year journey could have completed the unfinished business centred on land.

Frelimo and Zanla fought side by side as comrades-in-arms for land and self-determination.

Why is it also that the visit looks like the "Elders" are passing a vote of no confidence not only on talks facilitator former President Thabo Mbeki, but also on Africa’s regional bodies?

And why also set such a dangerous precedent — bypassing the continent’s recognised bodies?

At whose bidding is this raucous visit being made? What is amazing is that before the dawn of the multi-billion-dollar aid industry, the UN, with assistance from organisations like the International Committee of the Red Cross, were able to handle humanitarian crises in any part of the world without sending such circuses as this one.

Annan knows this since he worked for the UN for many years before becoming its top diplomat.

Why this peculiar approach towards Zimbabwe?

Thus Annan’s claims that they would now assess the humanitarian crisis from neighbouring South Africa are nothing but a smoke screen to the real issue behind the visit.

If the mission was humanitarian, why the consultations with some regional leaders?

What value do the consultations add to the humanitarian situation if the very countries cannot directly assist the people of Zimbabwe?

Why also has Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga been so quick to condemn Zimbabwe, while at the same time calling for a peacekeeping force to be deployed?

What peace is there to keep in a country whose humanitarian crisis Annan describes as "intolerable"?

A peacekeeping force for food and cholera? Sounds more like declaring war on "terror".

How different is this mission from the UN-sponsored fact-finding mission by Anna Tibaijuka who lives under the pall of a human catastrophe in Nairobi called Kibera?

With this kind of aiding and abetting, how far again is Zimbabwe from another UNSC-sponsored resolution?

However, The Herald columnist Nathaniel Manheru implied it in last Saturday’s instalment.

The missing link in the whole saga is former American Democrat President Jimmy Carter.

The 84-year-old Nobel laureate told the media that it was a "novel experience" for him since he had never before been denied a visa.

He probably needs to know that thousands of well meaning Zimbabweans are denied entry visas into the United States every day.

Carter, President from 1977 to 1981, hails from America’s Deep South.

He was defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980, and was widely criticised for the poor state of the economy and also viewed by some as weak in handling foreign policy.

Apart from the 1979 Lancaster House Conference taking place during his presidency, it was also during that same year that the Iranian revolution took place and Americans were taken hostage in Teheran.

It was also during the Carter administration that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Zimbabwe, Iran and Afghanistan! These are still hot spots on the international scene and the United States is fully involved in all of them.

Why then are we missing the plot? And why do we call something a visit when it is not?

Is it also a coincidence that Carter, one of the few US presidents to leave office with one of the lowest approval ratings is doing a Zimbabwe mission when Bush is exiting office with the lowest approval ratings, over the economy and foreign policy?

The Carter administration was party to the Lancaster House Conference in 1979 and Zimbabwe gained independence the year Carter was defeated by the Republicans.

Carter has also so far been the only US president — serving or former — to visit Zimbabwe (in 1986).

However, it was a visit full of controversy.

Carter walked out of the US Fourth of July commemoration after then minister of Youth, Sport and Culture Cde David Karimanzira attacked US policies. From that time relations between Zimbabwe and the United States nose-dived and the Reagan administration cut aid to Zimbabwe.

Nevertheless, Zimbabwe remained under Carter’s spotlight through his Carter Centre. In its February 1993 issue, the NGO’s newsletter Africa Demos described Zimbabwe as a "directed democracy", meaning "although it had a political system in which formal institutions and practices of constitutional democracy were present, in practice, however, the extensive powers of the ruler, party or regime severely limited contestation by individuals, organised groups, legislative assemblies and the judiciary".

However, the July/August edition described Zimbabwe as a "moderate democracy", meaning that "formal commitments to a democratic transition were accompanied by only measured, cautious and preliminary steps toward institutionalisation or pluralism. "Promises reflected a sense of democratic purpose, but needs were not yet commensurate with pledges".

Only the Lord knows how Zimbabwe’s political system could transform so dramatically in so short a period. Carter’s value to the delegation actually lies in what happened at the 1979 Lancaster House Conference.

Former Commonwealth secretary general Sir Shridath Ramphal (1975-1990) revealed the extent of the Carter administration’s role in brokering a deal between the Patriotic Front and the Smith regime in an interview with Gugulethu Moyo and Mark Ashurst.

Sir Shridath was adviser to the Patriotic Front led by President Mugabe and late Vice President Joshua Nkomo at the Lancaster House talks.

Said Sir Shridath: "I made the suggestion that we must find a way to get a guarantee of support from the British government [and] internationally, of funds that would allow them to compulsorily acquire enough land to begin the process of land resettlement. And I said to them: ‘I invited the American ambassador to meet with me’.

"I said to him: ‘If you don’t help now, Lancaster House will break up. All that we have achieved will be lost and that will only strengthen the hand of apartheid South Africa.’ Kingman [Brewster, the American ambassador] said: ‘I am with you. I think this is the right approach. I have to talk to Washington. Give me 24 hours’.

"He came back the next day. He had spoken to Cyrus Vance [the American Secretary of State] who had spoken to President Carter and they had authorised Brewster to say to me, and through me to the Patriotic Front, that they would support the establishment of an agricultural development fund and they would make a substantial contribution to it, that they would recognise the right of the government after the elections to use this fund to help to defray any compensation, that the fund would be a responsibility they would accept, providing it was matched by the British government and had an international character.

"That was the American response. It could not have been more positive. He left me with no doubt that it would be very substantial. I said: ‘That’s fine you telling me, but you have to say this to the Patriotic Front.’ The next day, the [American] deputy ambassador came to my home and I told Mugabe and Nkomo what the ambassador had told me.

"He confirmed to them that this was the position of the American government and that they would inform the British government. He recommended that on the basis, the Patriotic Front should return to the conference…"

Twenty-eight years later, it is disturbing that successive US administrations make it look like land is no longer an issue and would rather use "governance" as the central issue to the Zimbabwe question.

So, has Carter come to fulfil that 1979 promise in full, and help the Obama administration in the process?

After the falsehoods and demonisation peddled for so long about the Land Reform Programme, what will Carter tell President Mugabe?

Will he continue to claim, despite the humanitarian problems, the real issue is about elections?

However, why hide behind the Mandela name when all we know is that this is nothing but another regime change strategy fully sponsored and supported by America, Britain and their allies?





http://www.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=948&cat=10

Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS GYCA Akwa Ibom State Chapter, Nigeria cordially invite you to a 1-day Peer Education Session on HIV/AIDS tagged: "Young People... take the lead, stop AIDS! "to
commemorate the forth-coming World AIDS Day.

This event is holding at Esther Akpan Christian Foundation, 11 Ukpong Ebet Street, Opposite Phenson Street, Abak Road Housing, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State on Saturday 29th November, 2008 by 9:30am.

You will learn new and interesting things about HIV/AIDS and interact with other young leaders in attendance.

Please endeavour to attend on time and invite a friend too!

For more information, call me on 08069387465 or e-mail: aniekanekah@gmail.com

Understanding multiple fronts of regime change

AFRICAN FOCUS By Tafataona P. Mahoso

FROM the point of view of the ordinary citizen of Zimbabwe, the population is experiencing semi-genocidal conditions similar to those experienced at the height of the war of liberation between 1975 and the end of 1979, but this time without civil war.

The semi-genocidal conditions include: the closure of a significant number of schools and colleges; the closure of a significant number of hospitals and clinics; food shortages and escalating prices of those foods which are available; hardening attitudes and denials of reality across political divides (despite everyone’s desire for unity and peace); and a general state of shock.

The last symptom, the general state of shock, has been defined by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, as follows: "A state of shock . . . is a moment when there is a gap between fast-moving events and the information that exists to explain them . . . [The predominance of] raw reality, unprocessed by story, narrative, or anything that could bridge the gap between reality and understanding . . . Without a story, we are . . . intensely vulnerable to those people who are ready to take advantage of the chaos for their own ends. As soon as we have a new narrative that offers a perspective on the shocking events, we become re-oriented and the world begins to make sense once again."

On November 20 2008, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Dr Gideon Gono, held a Press conference at which he tried to explain to the public the shocking experiences which people have endured at the banks, in supermarkets and elsewhere, shocking experiences which are caused by hyperinflation which shows itself in the form of shortages of cash, escalating prices, dollarisation and the destruction of the national currency.

Dr Gono suggested that the shocking developments which people had experienced for a long time now are related to the illegal sanctions imposed on the country by the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union and their allies related to regime change politics; and related to psychological war as well as corruption and greed.

As we have tried to demonstrate in previous installments, the imposition of illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe devastated society and the economy by increasing opportunities for illegal activity. Under illegal sanctions it becomes difficult to separate illegal activities that are motivated by regime change-related espionage and destabilisation from those caused by sheer greed, from those caused through incompetence and ignorance.

Illegal regime change as the overall objective of the British and their external allies and internal proxies remains confusing because it requires the use of any and all forms of destabilisation short of military invasion. As Ludo Martens pointed out, quoting the French specialist Colonel Trinquier: "Today war is a whole consisting of actions of all kinds, political, social, economic, psychological, armed . . . which aim to overthrow established power in a country"

This is the meaning of regime change. But underneath that umbrella of regime change, there are various fronts: psychological war or propaganda; information warfare; and financial warfare.

While the New Labour government of Britain has been the most open about the desire for a military invasion, the US State Department has been more open about financial warfare and psychological war.

The speech which former US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell gave at Africa University in Mutare on November 2 2005 was entitled "Plain Talk About the Zimbabwean Economy" and it served to launch the planning phase of the financial warfare, four years after the passage of the US sanctions law called the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (Zidera). When the planning of the financial warfare was in place towards the end of 2007, Ambassador Dell gave another speech in Bulawayo in which he set a hyperinflation target of 1 800 000 percent by the end of 2007 which he said would bring down the economy and the Government of Zimbabwe.

The psychological war was revealed by former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner to The Washington Times on August 20 2002 and reported in The Herald in Zimbabwe on August 22.

In that revelation, Walter Kansteiner named so-called independent journalists and independent media, "civil" society organisations and non-governmental organisations as well as selected governments in the Sadc region, as partners with the US State Department in the psychological and political war against Zimbabwe.

But the two fronts of the regime change onslaught which have not been explained are information and financial warfare.

In his paper called Financial Warfare Professor Michel Chossudovsky describes financial warfare as: "The worldwide scramble to appropriate wealth through financial manipulation. This manipulation of market forces by powerful actors constitutes a form of financial and economic warfare. No need to recolonise lost territory or send in invading armies. In the late 20th Century, the outright conquest of nations, meaning the control over productive assets, labour, natural resources and institutions can be carried out in an impersonal fashion from the corporate boardroom: commands are dispatched from a computer terminal, or a cellphone. The relevant data are instantly relayed to major financial markets — often resulting in immediate disruptions in the functioning of national economies."

But the vehicles and instruments used go beyond just finance and the financial sector. So do the concepts.

It is, therefore, important to note that the phenomena which the RBZ Governor described at his Press conference on November 20 2008 included both financial and information warfare. It was also clear that the explanations of these phenomena and events given by the regime change forces were aimed at psychological warfare, that is to turn the population affected by financial and information warfare against the RBZ and the entire social and political order behind the Governor.

It is, therefore, important to define information warfare before explaining how it operates with and sometimes as financial warfare. The US Information Warfare Site (IWS) defines information warfare as: "any action to deny, exploit, corrupt or destroy the enemy’s information and its functions; protecting ourselves against those actions; and exploiting our own military information functions . . . US information warriors would be able to disable important enemy command and control or civilian infrastructure systems with little, if any, loss of life".

The US IWS then gives many illustrations of actions which constitute information warfare. Two examples are quite telling: Stock or commodity exchanges, electric power grids and municipal air traffic control systems and . . . air traffic control or navigation systems could be manipulated or disrupted, with accompanying economic or societal disruption, physical destruction or loss of life.

Computer intruders might steal and disclose confidential, personal, medical or financial information, as a tool for blackmail, extortion, or to cause widespread social disruption or embarrassment.

Now, if we look at the daily needs and aspirations of the majority of the citizens of Zimbabwe and the policies of the Government of Zimbabwe in response to those needs and aspirations of the people, we can identify the following social objectives which the financial warfare, the information warfare and the psychological warfare together aim to defeat.

First, both the Government and the people want a stable currency, stable prices and affordable goods produced locally and imported from abroad.

Second, both the Government and the people want to be able to punish those who seek to defeat their objectives regarding the economy and the living conditions of the people. But under the conditions of economic liberalisation introduced at the time of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme and worsened by the imposition of sanctions, it is difficult to maintain stability and to identify those who are engaged in acts of economic and financial destabilisation — let alone to punish them.

The Government and the people find, for instance, that a barrage of rates have been created, and are constantly thrown at them, and used to justify acts that fuel hyperinflation. For instance, when we use the following terms casually we are most likely describing the information war features of the overall economic war against ourselves:

l Old Mutual Implied Rate

l the transfer rate

l the RTGS rate

l the official Government rate

l the parallel market rate

l the inter-bank rate

l the Zimbabwe dollar cash price

l the foreign currency cash price

l the foreign currency transfer rate

l the bank cheque price

l the personal cheque price

l the parallel market price.

Most of these rates and prices have been used to defeat the official Government rate and the inter-bank rate.

If we now return to the US definition of information warfare, we notice that the unleashing of all these supposed rates, as if they constitute reality, has had many destructive effects on the people.

It has denied many the use of their cheque books, because they are heavily penalised for using cheques. As the RBZ Governor pointed out, even the use of guaranteed bank cheques was recently rendered impossible because a score or so bank managers went on to guarantee and write bank cheques for which there were no funds. But the overall impact of all these contradictory rates has been to drive hyperinflation against the Zimbabwe dollar until the nation as a whole is now being denied the right to use its own currency.

In the end, most people do not know what to believe about the value of goods, the value of their money (in local or foreign currency), the value of their stocks, the value of their labour or the value of their produce.

The purpose of all the various types of warfare, intended to substitute or precede military intervention, is made clear in Chapter 2 of the IWS documents which chapter is called The Conduct of Information Warfare and International Law. The authors conclude that: ". . . manipulating an adversary nation to the extent that its citizens or leaders become unhinged from reality, especially when the effects cannot be known or controlled, may be no less wrongful than to force another nation into starvation or cannibalism. The potentially dangerous results of perception manipulation are more than theoretical . . . The use of propaganda, video morphing, or deceptive broadcasts to the extent that they spur unrestrained civil war or even genocide, may be thus illegal".

But these methods were used in Venezuela in late 2002; in Yugoslavia in 1999; in Iraq in 2003; and in Rwanda in 1994. They have been used in Zimbabwe.

The document produced for ZWNEWS by the so-called Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum and other NGOs was premised on the assumption that the combination of psychological war, financial and information warfare had made the Zimbabwean people and their leaders sufficiently "unhinged" or "freaked up" enough to precipitate a genocidal war far worse than Rwanda 1994. The document was called Is Zimbabwe on the Brink of Genocide? The researchers concluded that genocide was imminent in Zimbabwe and would happen by January 2003!

The fact that this has not happened despite all the attempts is reason to pay tribute to the people and leaders of our nation who have rejected illegal regime change.