Danmark vil øge støtten til udemokratisk Zimbabwe

Danmark, med udviklingsminister Christian Friis Bach i spidsen, vil fordoble støtten til Zimbabwe og kanalisere dele af denne støtte igennem Robert Mugabes regering. ”Det er en anerkendelse af de fremskridt, der er sket, siden samlingsregeringen trådte til og især over de seneste måneder. Vi vil gerne give et klart signal om, at det kan betale sig at gennemføre demokratiske reformer”, udtalte Christian Friis Bach til Information forleden.

I juni sidste år sagde udviklingsminsteren ellers, i et svar til udviklingsorganisationen Afrika Kontakt, at han var ”dybt bekymret over menneskerettighedssituationen i [Zimbabwe] med politisk motiveret vold og intimidering”. Hvad har ændret sig så drastisk siden da, for at Danmark nu vil til at føre en politik, der er et klart brud med vestlig politik siden valget i 2008, der var præget af massiv politisk motiveret vold mod Mugabes politiske modstandere?

Hver dag er en kampdag for Zimbabwes kvinder

Her på Kvindernes Internationale Kampdag – den 8. marts – skal vi både huske at fejre de sejre, som kvindebevægelsen har vundet i Danmark, samt kæmpe imod den diskrimination der stadigvæk findes.

Men vi skal også fokusere på situationen udenfor Danmark, hvor kvinder til dagligt slås med væsentligt større problemer som ekstrem fattigdom, diskrimination, og politisk motiveret vold.

Kvindernes Internationale Kampdag startede netop som en socialistisk inspireret politisk kampagnedag, hvor man demonstrerede og kæmpede for lige rettigheder for kvinder.

Zimbabwe er et af de lande, hvor man stadigvæk i høj grad har brug for en kampdag for kvinder.

Mugabes modstandere chikaneres før folkeafstemning og valg i Zimbabwe

Ifølge det zimbabweanske civilsamfund, samt internationale NGO’er som blandt andet Amnesty International og Freedom House, stiger volden op til landets folkeafstemning i marts og parlamentsvalg senere på året.

Der var en udbredt grad af vold før og under det seneste valg i 2008, begået af Mugabes støtter herunder hæren, hvor blandt andet Amnesty International dokumenterede tusindevis af tilfælde af vold, drab, tortur og forsvindinger imod oppositionstilhængere, og Freedom House rapporterede at valgene til præsidentembedet og landets parlament var alt andet end frie og fair.

Danish Development Minister ”deeply worried” about the situation in Zimbabwe

“We are following developments in Zimbabwe very closely,” Danish Minister for Development Cooperation, Christian Friis Bach, said in a reply to Danish NGO Africa Contact. “I am deeply worried about the human rights situation in Zimbabwe with its politically motivated violence and intimidation.  It is vital that the planned referendum on a new constitution happens before a general election is called. Together with well-planned democratic processes, this will lessen the risk of a repeat of the events of 2008.”

The 2008-elections in Zimbabwe were marred by violence, murder and torture of supporters of Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Zimbabwe: valg, vold, og kampen for en demokratisk forfatning

Det kommende valg i Zimbabwe ser ud til at ende i vold og hetz mod præsident Mugabes politiske rivaler, som landets foregående valg har gjort det. Et valg hvor ”de fleste internationale observatører ikke mener at forudsætningerne for frie og retfærdige valg er til stede”, fastslår en ny rapport fra International Crisis Group.

Alligevel håber Zimbabweanere på at deres forhold vil ændre sig til det bedre efter valget. For 30% af befolkningen i Zimbabwe er underernærede, middellevealderen er på 42 år, og Zimbabwe rangerer som nummer 173 ud af 187 – lige under Afghanistan – på FN’s Human Development Index, som bruger sundhed, vidensniveau, og levestandard som parametre.

Rape and torture is still being used as a political weapon in Zimbabwe

“The main issue for many women in Zimbabwe is politically motivated violence. And it is not just rape that we are talking about. We are talking about beating and violent sexual assault of women, just because they vote for a party of their choice,” says Zimbabwean women’s rights activist and filmmaker Kudakwashe Chitsike from the Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU). She has been in Copenhagen to talk about politically motivated violence against women in Zimbabwe.

Kudakwashe Chitsike is speaking of the thousands of women who were systematically and deliberately raped and tortured in the run-up to the 2008 elections in Zimbabwe by men loyal to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF. The rapes are an attempt to break the back of Mugabe’s political opponents by intimidating them and their husbands and families into not participating in the political process.

May Day: Solidarity with Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Western Sahara

The international workers’ day is celebrated around the world on May 1, is a national holiday in over eighty countries, and is celebrated unofficially in many others. The celebrations on May 1 are symbolic of solidarity with the underprivileged and the fight for better conditions nationally and, not least, internationally, inspired as they are by the demands for an eight-hour workday in America on May 1 1886, where 400.000 workers went on strike. And there is no shortage of worthy causes for such solidarity.

In Denmark, Africa Contact  used the May 1 celebrations to focus on the politically motivated violence against women in Zimbabwe by holding a so-called ‘solidarity event’ at Blaagaards Plads and Fælledparken in Copenhagen where the largest May 1 celebrations in Denmark take place.

Action against political violence against women in Zimbabwe

The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), a Zimbabwean NGO that campaigns for a democratic and people-driven constitutional process in Zimbabwe, has announced the launch of a regional campaign, “Act Now Against Political Violence”. The campaign will focus on the use of politically motivated violence with impunity against women in Zimbabwe, especially the systematic political use of rape by the Zimbabwean police and military, as well as by ZANU-PF’s youth league, on members of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The regional campaign will be launched in Braamfontain on Friday 10 December, a week after the campaign was originally launched in Zimbabwe by the NCA and the trade union and student’s movements. Lovemore Madhuku, the NCA’s Chairperson, will deliver the key note address.

NANGO: Zimbabwean civil society must stand together and pressurize the government

“If we loose our credibility as civil society we are gone. And much of civil society in Zimbabwe has failed to pressure ZANU-PF”. Cephas Zinumwe, NANGO‘s Chief Executive Officer, is talking to Africa Contact on a cold November morning in Copenhagen. He is in Denmark to discuss and highlight the decreased political space in vulnerable states such as Zimbabwe.

Cephas is worried that parts of civil society in Zimbabwe are failing to live up to their role as society’s political watchdog. The mission of civil society is after all to take the moral high ground and leave the compromises to the politicians. But the distinction between civil society and party-politics is becoming increasingly muddled in Zimbabwe, as it tends to do in countries such as Zimbabwe where most of the money flows through the top echelons of the state, and where the state and government are entwined.

Zimbabwe’s blood diamonds

The Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) was established in 2002 by NGOs and the Diamond Industry to ensure the curbing of the sale of blood diamonds after the blood diamond-fuelled conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia and elsewhere, and the subsequent concerns within civil society and the diamond industry of consumer concerns and human rights abuses. It’s members represent 75 countries, covering over 99% of global diamond production. The KPCS has seemed increasingly inhibited and incapable of action, however, especially in regards to Zimbabwe. An annual KPCS meeting on June 24 2010 ended unresolved as to the alleged corruption and human rights violations in the Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe. Marange was discovered in 2006 and is believed to have one of the richest diamond deposits in the world – the value of diamonds smuggled out of Marange is estimated to have been worth $400 million in 2007 alone.