From Volume 7, Issue 39 of EIR Online, Published Sept. 23, 2008
Africa News Digest

Three Zimbabwe Parties Sign Power-Sharing Agreement

Sept. 17 (EIRNS)—Zimbabwe's three main political parties signed an agreement in Harare on Sept. 15 (Zanu-PF, led by President Robert Mugabe; the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai, strongly supported by the City of London-based financial cartel; and the MDC-M, a split-off from the MDC, led by Arthur Mutambara). The agreement gives executive power to Tsvangirai as prime minister, but not absolute power, while Mugabe will remain President, with reduced power.

The agreement provides that, of 31 cabinet ministers, 15 will be nominated by ZANU-PF, 13 by the MDC, and 3 by MDC-M. Mugabe will preside over the Cabinet, but Tsvangirai will preside over meetings of a Council of Ministers that is substantially the same in membership as the Cabinet.

According to David Coltart, a white MP and a member of the Mutambara faction who spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. today, a compromise so favorable to Tsvangirai was not what the Southern African Development Community (SADC) heads of state wanted. But after Parliament assembled (with SADC encouragement) and elected an MDC-Tsvangirai member as speaker, SADC opinion shifted.

All three parties were driven toward an agreement by the disastrous economic conditions facing the country which makes food aid an urgent matter. Eight years of economic warfare against the Zimbabwe government, spearheaded by the IMF and the British government, wrecked the Zimbabwe economy. Poverty has driven a wedge between the Zanu-PF and the population.

The land reform unilaterally carried out in 2000 was endorsed in the agreement among the three parties, which calls for a "comprehensive, transparent and non-partisan land audit" to eliminate any cases of multiple farm ownerships by the Zimbabwe elite.

On this issue of land reform, former Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour government reneged on the British commitment at the Lancaster House talks which led to the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980, to resolve the issue of the redistribution of land that had been given to European settlers in what was then British-ruled Rhodesia. Under British rule, the African population was confined to reserves, where the land was of inferior quality.

Coltart emphasized today that Tsvangirai will get the credit for international support and aid to Zimbabwe, and this will increase his power. He emphasized that Tsvangirai alone will reap the peace dividend, because the "international community" will provide investment and aid in proportion to the amount of power that he actually exercises. It is widely reported that London will do its best to control Zimbabwe through the leverage provided by the urgent need for food and other aid.

The agreement provides for the drafting of a new constitution within 18 months, followed by a referendum. There has been no agreement on when thereafter an election will take place. Tsvangirai wants the election to follow immediately; Mugabe's camp wants the election at the five-year interval provided for under the present constitution.

Financial Cartel Shows Contempt for Zimbabwe's Leaders

Sept. 18 (EIRNS)—The New York Times today expressed the contempt of financial circles for the Zimbabwe leaders who made a power-sharing agreement, by demanding that the sanctions against Zimbabwe be kept in force, despite the agreement. The three parties that signed the agreement on Sept. 15 had won seats in the March election. The Times' editorial states that "Washington and the European Union are right to keep their sanctions in place until it becomes clearer whether this agreement can produce real change or is just another devious maneuver."

The Harare agreement states: "The Parties hereby agree that all forms of measures and sanctions against Zimbabwe be lifted in order to facilitate a sustainable solution to the challenges that are currently facing Zimbabwe," and that, "The Parties hereby agree that no outsiders have a right to call or campaign for regime change in Zimbabwe."

High-level Zimbabwe sources commented to EIR today that the EU and U.S. policy exposes that they have a different agenda, that is not in the interests of Zimbabwe sovereignty, and the rebuilding of Zimbabwe.

London Orchestrates Elimination of Mbeki

Sept. 20 (EIRNS)—The City of London-based financial cabal launched a bare-knuckle assault over the last week against South African President Thabo Mbeki, with the intention of driving him from office. This morning the ruling African National Congress (ANC) announced, during a three-day meeting of its national executive committee, that Mbeki had been asked to resign as President, only months before the end of his second term next year. Mbeki said that he will formally tender his resignation Sept. 23.

As EIR reported early this year, after the targeting of Kenya for destabilization, and the effort led by London to turn the Presidential succession in Zimbabwe into a chaotic regime-change scenario, the cartel's primary target was South Africa, the economic powerhouse of Africa.

The absence of Mbeki, considered the architect of modern South Africa, will be felt over the entire continent. He enraged the British empire because of his consistent attack on London's campaigns to reduce all of Africa to a collection of territories instead of sovereign nation-states. His intervention at the EU summit on Africa in Lisbon last December, prevented the continent-wide endorsement of the EU free-trade policy that EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, a close associate of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, had wanted to ram through.

Mbeki consistently intervened to sabotage destabilization operations throughout Africa. In addition to Zimbabwe, he also intervened in Sudan, Ivory Coast, and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Such a crushing blow can not be explained from internal South African politics. In fact, key domestic opponents of Mbeki, including arch-rival Jacob Zuma, who replaced Mbeki as president of the ANC thanks to backing provided by networks controlled by London, were against pushing Mbeki out of the national Presidency. They feared that such a move would trigger a chaotic election period that would not be to their advantage.

Zuma, considered most likely to be the President after the next election, sometime from February through June next year, knows that the financial cartel which ran this operation considers him completely expendable. If he continues his populist campaign about improving the lot of the large, poor segment of the population, it cannot be ruled out that he will not be the next ANC presidential candidate, due to opposition from London. He has played a useful role for the London cartel in tripping up Mbeki, but the cartel has so much dirt on him that he could be gone in the blink of an eye.

The traditionally British-controlled South African judiciary played a critical role in the operation to get Mbeki. The pretext for the ANC assault on Mbeki by the nominally Zuma-allied wing which is now in control of the party, was a Sept. 12 ruling by High Court Judge Chris Nicholson, who made an unsubstantiated assertion that Mbeki "may have" colluded with prosecutors against Zuma, who as former deputy president, was fired for his involvement in a corruption scandal.

A former judge, Willem Heath, also sought to increase the pressure on Mbeki, by charging that Nicholson's findings were tantamount to prima facie evidence of violations by Mbeki of the state's prosecuting authority. Heath had been a lawyer for Zuma when he was being prosecuted for corruption.

Press outlets in South Africa, owned or controlled by London, also played a key role in ramming through the fast-moving attack on Mbeki.

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