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There is a brewing something sinister in Zimbabwe. As the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) under the reign of long-long serving President Robert “Bob” Mugabe are using the Police and army as his prestigious bodyguards for his power.
The economic state of Zimbabwe is weak, weakest of the weak. Wiggling and broken as the civil servants and army personnel haven’t been paid in June and July 2016, as much as the people have been re-engaged in politics as the Zanu-PF elite has been eating. Lynda Masasira have been detained for speaking her mind on behalf of Woman organizations. #ThisFlag Movement Pastor and Founder Evan Mawarire have been taken to court on charges against the state, but a 100 lawyers showed up and the public demanded his release as the day went on; but after the release he fled into exile in South Africa. So the history repeats itself.
Only Morgan Tsvangirai is back home still, as his Movement for Democratic Change; are more and more fractioned. This being said while recently the former aide to Tsvangirai, Maxwell Zeb Shumba officially presented his new party at the 29th July 2016 to launch the Zimbabwean First (ZimFirst) Party. This happens as the MDC-T party are losing their backing from the people is dwindling; while the people’s faith in Mwarire is showing, as his selflessness and casting of the bitter truth is astonishing. The opposition has a political movement, but not a political party that all men and woman trusts. With the Ruling-regime total control and focus around the family of Mugabe; the ability of paying and splashing funds on Zanu-PF loyalists.
That is been showing in the Vice-President Phelekezela Mpoko living in a luxury hotel for a year and half where he paid $ 1.000 a day at the hotel and that was including meals. This happens as the most of the Zimbabweans are living fewer than 2 US. Dollars a day, to sustain food and shelter; also with the wonderful late-payment of government salaries and other difficulties to get certain import products. The land has also from January to June 2016 been importing from abroad for $1bn. and most of that for agricultural products. That means the former breadbasket of the Southern Africa; needs help to feed their own. President Mugabe must be so proud of his land-reforms.

The Zimbabwean State have in control the foreign exchange rates and control the usage of limited funds, the government at one point suspended certain imports for businesses. But at the same time, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr. John Mangudya saying recently “We are importing foreign currency to pay ourselves instead of paying for fuel and capital goods. That’s inefficiency”. Surely he is spot on, but the grand dictator doesn’t mind because when he celebrates he eats splendid cuisine on the tax-money.
As the state deteriorate, even the most harden loyalists have been attacking the long-term president even been accused of overuse and overstepping his power. The latest is the Zimbabwean Liberation War Veterans Associations (ZLWVA) Secretary-General Victor Matemadanda. Also the ZLWVA spokesperson Douglas Mahiya, these been detained for speaking their mind, which after the President the day before said the War Veterans we’re not patriotic, that meaning not speaking of the deity called Mugabe. He has gone further than that as well: “Ruhanya said Zanu PF’s advertisements calling for former Zipra and Zanla war vets to converge at Zanu PF HQ tomorrow 26/7/16 to support President Mugabe” (…) “From the adverts in state media, it appears clear that G40 led by the President has declared war on the leadership of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association led by Christopher Mutsvangwa. Waiting to hear the views of this G40 group. But the problems raised wont disappear because of this meeting; economy remains dead and the president cant provide the economic and political leadership as he remains captured by wife and a cabal benefiting from Stone Age corrupt practices against the majority poor. Elite discohesion and authoritarian erosion.” (Harare24.com, 26.07.2016).
With the darkness of bewildered state of Mugabe the bitterness of Grace Mugabe as she was shopping in Singapore as the #ZimShutDown was going on in mid-July, as the salaries we’re postphoned again for the civil servants, as the June-Pay had not arrived and seemingly not the July either. Just as today in the Zimbabwe Today reported this:
“Speaker of Parliament Advocate Jacob Mudenda called on workers to work overtime and expect not getting paid extra remuneration” (…) “Mudende said this would steer productivity and ensure companies remain afloat than for them to retrench workers because of low production” (…) “Mudenda ‘s statement is likely to steer animosity among government workers who are disgruntled over delay in payment of salaries. A majority of workers have of late clashed with their pay masters over unpaid over-time and other benefits” (Zimbabwe-Today, 25.07.2016). As this came a few days early when the industries and workers we’re expected the same fate as civil servants; work but non-pay. The government promised to rescue with an old cue: “In a media briefing after touring companies in Bulawayo, Industry minister Mike Bimha said companies in Zimbabwe were struggling due to lack of funding and cheap imports from other countries. To counter that, he said the government was working tirelessly to revive the Distressed and Marginalised Areas Fund (Dimaf). “We want to revisit the issue of Dimaf in terms of making it bigger and more accessible. I’m sure we can do that so that we can continue to have companies accessing a little bit of funding and making a difference to companies,” Bimha, who is attending the on-going Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries congress” (Nyoni, Mthandazo, 28.07.2016 – Newsday.co.zw). If this is true, then some of the men might not go without salaries, but seeing are believing… and the government have not been accountable; so why believe them now?

With all this the recent days that #ThisFlag continues, the sanctions don’t get lifted and the IMF/World Bank doesn’t give in to the Mugabe Government. Let me end with quotes from Mugabe in an article from Daily News Zimbabwe:
“I want to warn leaders of these churches that are emerging only for the sake of money, the likes of Mawarire that Zanu-PF will not tolerate any nonsense done in the name of religion, that once you begin to interfere with our politics you are courting real trouble” (…) “keep to your religion and we will respect you. We know how to deal with our enemies who have for a long time been itching to effect regime change. We have the means to do that. I say to our people, when these other small (opposition) parties demonstrate out of anger, control yourselves in the knowledge that the police belongs to us so we will ask them to throw them in jail so they can also test life in prison” (Mugove Tafirenyika, 28.07.2016).
This comes from the man who once upon a time in Mozambique wanted to free his Zimbabweans from the tyranny of Smith-regime and was righteous in that claim. But now he does the same in his own actions against his population and calls a citizens and a pastor a enemy who deserve to spend time in jail. That he deserve apparently for asking the government, to actually govern and not only eat the tax-money. The pride of Mugabe and his reign are ending in tyranny on the level of Smith or worse as the liberator knew what he fought against; An with time turned into the same kind of leader as the ones he fought against. The injustice of the past, is the ones of the present; might not in post-colonial treatment, but in honor of feeding the Zanu-PF and the elites, the cronies of the state instead of serving the communities and citizens with decent policies and progress through transparent economic framework. Zimbabwe, the place where the Zimbabweans can trust their government for serving them and not the President alone! For the reason alone that Mugabe says the citizens who oppose his rule can try out prison, because the #ThisFlag is an enemy that the Police would control the nation in the powerful hand of Mugabe.
The sun-might set on Mugabe, but it is not his sun. Even if he has reign the land and the nation of Zimbabwe, it is not directly it’s his nation to own; he has had the power for decades and thinks now it is a God-given right to rule. Therefore the one occupying the country is his subjects, not the citizens as he speaks and his Ministers speak. They expect the citizens to work for no pay, because of the decisions and his will to stay without questioning the implications of his decrees. The Zimbabwe deserves another regime, which actually cares about the citizens, not only the president. The dawn of something new must soon reappear as this regime is becoming more and more draconian. The laws and lawmen are taking in anybody who has a smidge of questionable words against his rule. Mugabe wants the citizens to obey his rule and his Zanu-PF; not for Zimbabwe. Peace.


Following an inter-agency assessment mission comprising of UNHCR, Office of Prime Minister, UNICEF and other partners, a new settlement is to be opened in Yumbe district.
KAMPALA, Uganda, July 28, 2016/APO/ —
Situation
UNICEF Humanitarian response
Health & Nutrition:
Immunisation: between 19-26th July 2016, 5,501 children (4,487 under five, 1,014 above five years) were immunised against Polio; 11,536 children (4,313 under-fives, 7,223 above 5 years but below 15 years old) were immunised against measles. UNICEF is supporting the Uganda National Expanded Programme on Immunisation and district authorities to ensure that all children who arrive at the various border points are immunised. Adjumani and Arua districts have enough vaccines to support the response. UNICEF and Ministry of Health have a target of 15,000 under-fives for polio and 30,000 children below 15 years for measles immunisation.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Child Protection:
Alongside this, Information, Education and Communication (IEC) materials for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), infant and young children feeding and immunization are being adapted and translated into the relevant local languages and will be distributed during interpersonal communication/social mobilisation activities. A social mobiliser’s message kit has been shared with all partners in order to disseminate key messages on Health, WASH, Nutrition, Child Protection & Education.

There are those day we’re the intelligence are to real or just too good to be true. Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America had apparently a conspired plan to overthrow the Transitional Government of National Unity (TGNU) of South Sudan with President Salva Kiir and FVP Dr. Riek Machar. As the letters state in 2015 and 2016; just as the forged letters from SPLM to directly attack SPLM-IO bases as Dr. Riek Machar have fled his home and government position in Juba after the clashes around 7-9 July in the capital.
It is not like US doesn’t have a history of overthrowing and instating puppets in other nations. That is part of their foreign policy of late, neither if they like it or not. It has been for better or worse, even created worse dictators then the ones they have brought down; or like in modern times created power-vacuum in the nations they have brought soldiers into; which last and last as the local forces and militias fight each other as the American armies flee for their unpopular war in the nations and also the cost at home for the American President.
But this isn’t about that, this is how the manufactured letters are setting standard and edge on diplomacy between South Sudan and United States. As the US are part of the Troika, which is United Kingdom (UK) and Norway. They we’re all putting their stakes into the leadership as they wanted to stop the civil war between Khartoum and Juba as the decades of war could stop with a peaceful transition and new government structure of the greater Sudan and the South Sudan. Still, the years after independence have bloody with power-struggle, internally displaced persons and migration to neighbour countries. This is putting an edge on the letter as Dr. Riek Machar haven’t been long in Juba, just putting his men into the Government and Cabinet. Together with stating the codes of the Peace Agreement of 2015 where the parties of SPLM-IO and SPLA/M works for unity and progress of the world’s youngest nation!

Just as the news of Gen. Taban Deng Gai of SPLM-IO have not only been asked for being fired as Minister and kicked out of the party of Dr. Riek Machar; still within hours of that he we’re sworn-in as First Vice-President of the Republic of South Sudan. That is a blow for the SPLM-IO, but the leadership of SPLM-IO should know that Gen. Taban Deng Gai had ambition; even I knew as he spoke in 2015 that he would like a greater role in South Sudan. Apparently, the offer from SPLM we’re too good to turn down.
While that was happening, the news of a CIA letter and the release of it happen online. It just had to happen as the Dr. Riek Machar is hiding in an unknown place. The CIA letter talking about planned overthrow of the government; just what a government need to pull the strings and use force against an enemy, even use the enemies as pushing away other fractions that are troubling for the government. So if that was the goal of the new TGNU of South Sudan. That would been the gift and the worthy price as they also could condemn one of their major donors of acts against sovereign will. Not only use it as a tool against accepting African Union or bigger Peacekeeper Force in the nation. Something that interferes with the SPLA already!

But take a look!
News from 2012:
“In a response to written questions from The Washington Post, the U.S. Africa Command said that it would not comment on “specific operational details.” (…) “We do, however, work closely with our African partners to facilitate access, when required, to conduct missions or operations that support and further our mutual security goals,” the command said. Surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations, it added, are “simply a tool we employ to enable host nation militaries to better understand the threat picture.” (Whitlock, 2012).
Important information about troops in Juba:
“In order to keep the Embassy open, on July 12 a small contingent of U.S. military personnel deployed to Juba to assist the Embassy in temporarily bolstering its security and assisting with the departure of non-emergency personnel. The additional U.S. troops in Juba and those dispatched to neighboring countries are there only to protect the Embassy and American citizens who are leaving South Sudan because of the conflict. Citizens of Juba can expect to see a rotation in military personnel during the week of July 18. This rotation of troops is to replace not reinforce the number of military personnel. All of the additional troops will return home when the need for additional security no longer exists”(U.S. Department of State, 2016).
Mark Toner the U.S. Spokesman said this today:
“Any suggestion that the United States has done so or will do so is false, baseless, and not in the interest of peace in South Sudan” (…) “Why would someone circulate a document like that, because I know your listeners understand it is a ridiculous and untrue assertion. I think someone is trying to hurt the historic and deep relationship between the United States and South Sudan” (Radio Tamzuj, 2016).

If you still believe the letters and take them as true facts. Then your conspiracy theories are too deep and your mind is already set to the fiction. There are true as stated US have toppled governments before, but this was one we’re unlikely. The question that should be asked who would earn political coinage on the letters and their rhetoric as a quest to questions the rulers right now? Who would gain political and military advantage of using a made up enemy?
If you answer those, you might be close to the real deal and the limitation of coverage on the matter. As the crisis is not over, even with the change of FVP, the answer from SPLM-IO shows there are more things to come. Hopefully not a UPDF on steroids defending SPLA and President Kiir; but that has happen before and the oil-money from South Sudan is pleasing the cow-farmer from Uganda. Peace.
Reference:
Radio Tamazuj – ‘U.S. State Department says report about CIA secret operations ‘baseless’’ (27.07.2016) link: https://radiotamazuj.org/en/article/us-state-department-says-report-about-cia-secret-operations-baseless
U.S. Department of State – ‘United States Reassures Support to South Sudan (17.07.2016) link: http://m.state.gov/md260155.htm
Whitlock, Craig – ‘U.S. expands secret intelligence operations in Africa’ (12.07.2012) link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-expands-secret-intelligence-operations-in-africa/2012/06/13/gJQAHyvAbV_story.html


Switzerland has decided to provide an additional CHF 2 million to alleviate the suffering of the local population.
BERN, Switzerland, July 27, 2016 – In South Sudan thousands of people have fled the recent hostilities between rival political factions. These new outbreaks of violence have compounded the already considerable humanitarian needs in the country. Switzerland has decided to provide an additional CHF 2 million to alleviate the suffering of the local population.
Switzerland is concerned about the fate of the civilian population of South Sudan following the outbreak of hostilities at the beginning of July 2016 in the capital Juba and other parts of the country. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) will release CHF 2 million to help the victims of this new wave of violence.
Half of this amount will be channelled to the South Sudan Common Humanitarian Fund, to which Switzerland has been contributing since 2014. The funds will help finance the operations in the SDC’s three priority sectors in this country: food security, water and the protection of civilians. The other million will be allotted to the World Food Programme (WFP) to assist efforts to fight food insecurity, which is affecting over four million people in the country.
This new outbreak of violence is exacerbating the already dramatic humanitarian situation. South Sudan suffers from extreme poverty and a civil war, which has been undermining it since December 2013.
South Sudan, which is the world’s youngest state, is one of the priority intervention zones of Swiss Humanitarian Aid, whose budget for this country in 2016 amounted to approximately CHF 18 million before this new contribution.
South Sudan is also a priority country of the FDFA’s Human Security Division (HSD), which has been working to implement the peace agreement concluded in August 2015. The HSD is also involved in the reconciliation efforts and in strengthening local government in collaboration with the traditional authorities. The budget for its peace promotion activities totals about CHF 1 million per year.


As the 10th Parliament of Uganda is starting and the vetting of Members of Parliament are touring the National Army Leadership Institute (NALI) at Kyankwanzi as they have the retreat to make sure the National Resistance Movement MPs and Cabinet are acting right. Especially the policies that is right for the Executive and his Elite. But other than that he had the Key speech today and said some questionable things again.
“Even to negotiate credible and durable trade deals with the USA, the EU, China, India, Japan, Russia, Brazil, etc., we need Pan-Africanism. It is only through the EAC (160 million people) and the whole of Africa (1.25 billion people) that the other foreign countries or trading blocs can listen to our voice in the long run. It is, however, not correct for the regulators not to take action against the Chinese and Indian retailers who unfairly compete against our retailers. Those foreigners should not operate at that terminal level. They should be re-directed to manufacturing in particular and other areas like construction. Retailing should be preserved for the Ugandans or, possibly, the other African immigrants as well” (Museveni, 2016).
Well, it got me thinking about another Ugandan president back in the day; that apparently President Museveni we’re proud to bring down together with the Tanzanian Army and Milton Obote, but that is forgotten saga in his head. As President Idi Amin said this:
“For instance, between 1962 and 1968, the government of Uganda sponsored as many as 417 Asians for training as engineers. Today, however, only 20 of the 417 Asians work for the government. Within the same period, the government sponsored 217 Asians to train as doctors, but to date not more than 15 doctors of these are working for the govt. Finally, within the same period, the government sponsored 96 Asians to undertake law courses, but of these only 18 are now serving in the government” (…) “I am further informed that some of these Asians who were sponsored to take courses abroad refused to return to Uganda after thy qualified, which means that thy have contributed absolutely nothing in return for the training benefits which they received from this government” (…) “it is painful in that about 70 years have elapsed since the first Asians came to Uganda, but despite that length of time the Asian community has continued to live in a world of its own” (Semuwemba, 2016).

Not only the former friendly Ugandan dictator had his say on the matter in the past, even the former Kenyan President Daniel Arap-Moi said this in 1982:
“Instead of Indians using their advanced knowledge in business to help Africans improve their profit margins” (…) “Asians in this country are ruining the country’s economy by smuggling currency out of this country and even hoarding essential goods and selling them through the backdoors” (…) “I am not discriminating against anybody, but I am against people who are out to enrich themselves through false means. From now on, anybody found hoarding or smuggling will be punished severely. If he is an Asian, he will be deported immediately regardless of whether he is a citizen or not, and if he is an African, he will have his licence canceled” (New York Times, 1982).
So now the Mzee is sounding in the same regard as Daniel Arap-Moi and Idi Amin Dada; with his new cabinet with Democratic Party MP, Uganda People’s Congress MP and Uganda Federal Alliance MP; the similarities to Democratic Republic of Congo former dictatorial President Mobutu Sese Seko comes to mind. He is really stealing from all the totalitarian leaders of East Africa. It is magnificent how he kept it up. While speaking progress and democratic values while contemplating that the Asian’s are the problem for doing their retail instead of Ugandan citizens, even if the Asian’s happen to be Ugandan; just another heritage than the Pan-African he speaks of.

Ironic that he said this a bit also today:
“We in the NRM, therefore, have never accepted the shallow social science of the Western countries that fetishized capitalism and elevated that useful social system, but one with limitations and weaknesses nevertheless, to the high pedestal of a deity (God-like). The position that capitalism was the only useful social system in the modern era, was wrong. The dramatic rise of the Chinese economy, in terms of GDP size, to the second biggest economy in the world today is proof of the correctness of our position. By mixing both the capitalist and socialist stimuli to the Chinese economy, the Chinese Communist Party has lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty and registered gigantic steps for the growth and transformation of the economy” (Museveni, 2016).
Well, here is lie from the Executive as didn’t follow whole heartedly the Marxist or Communist paradigm or socio-economical structure as after the regime change by the rebellion of Museveni; he easily traded his ideal of the communist paradigm.
“Six years after Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Movement took power, Uganda has made remarkable strides in overcoming as grim a legacy as any African government has known. Improved security has been an important factor in allowing the country to rebuild. Economic policy has helped, too. The past six years has seen economic growth averaging more than 5 percent per year, as idled land and vacant factories were brought back into use. The economy has also achieved lower price inflation. Now, in 1992, Uganda is at a crossroads. Economic growth is slowing, and inflation is beginning to rise. Uganda is highly indebted to foreign lenders. Further increases in capacity utilization will be a costly means to grow and cannot represent a strategy for sustained economic growth. Infrastructure remains inadequate in transport and communications. The preferred road is clear: public and private investments are needed to continue the reconstruction” (Warnock & Conway, 1999).

Claimed impacts on liberating the Economy through IMF’s SAP:
“Two principal reforms mandated by the IMF arrangements were trade liberalization and the progressive reduction of export taxation. But as the external review points out, “Liberalization of cash crops had only limited beneficiaries.” This was the case because only a small number of rural households grow coffee. Liberalization had little impact on rural incomes over the period of adjustment- rural per capita private incomes increased just 4% over the period from 1988/89 to 1994/95” (…) “The IMF also mandated the privatization of state-owned industries, a process that has met particular criticism in Uganda. The Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network (SAPRIN), which was launched jointly with the World Bank, national governments, and Northern and Southern NGOs in 1997, has reported that the privatization process in Uganda has gone too fast and has been flawed from the start. A report by Ugandan NGOs who participated in SAPRIN found that “The privatization process in Uganda has benefitted the government and corporate interests more than the Ugandan people. . . The privatization process was rushed, and as a result, workers suffered. Some 350,000 people were retrenched and, with the private sector not expanding fast enough, unemployment sharply increased. Those laid off were not prepared for life in the private sector, with no training being provided.”(Naiman & Watkins, 1999).
So not only being anxious today about Asian retailers; today the Executive Museveni claimed there rewards of liberating the economy, which is not so very communist and even more capitalistic of NRM! Together with the liberation escalated the unemployed, which has happen to this day. And isn’t inspiring to read contemplating the recent numbers of unemployed and how this man still tries to ‘inspire’ MPs and Kyankwanzi. There is just something wrong with that picture.

The thing that should be inspiring today, not only sound-bite of Amin and Moi, but the lie:
““We in the NRM, therefore, have never accepted the shallow social science of the Western countries that fetishized capitalism and elevated that useful social system, but one with limitations and weaknesses nevertheless, to the high pedestal of a deity (God-like)” (Museveni, 2016). When the IMF said this in 1999: “Two principal reforms mandated by the IMF arrangements were trade liberalization and the progressive reduction of export taxation” (…) “The privatization process in Uganda has benefitted the government and corporate interests more than the Ugandan people” (Naiman & Watkins, 1999).
So if you see this little detail, you see the deceit of Museveni to his own Elite and MPs. As he claims the mixed economy, but the IMF with their Structural Adjustment Program that Museveni accepted and agreed on. This was far from God-like more State-liberated economy through neo-liberal ideas that the IMF and World Bank wanted so that the Ugandan Government could get their donor-funded loans that the NRM needed.
So hope you learned something of the nature of Museveni today and his actions of the past or his nature of deception. There are certainly some who is not surprised, but as I have said before. President Museveni rewrites the history to his liking and today he did it again, just with a twist. Peace.
Reference:
Museveni, Yoweri Kaguta – ‘Re-focusing on the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Ideological Orientation’ (26.07.2016) link: https://www.yowerikmuseveni.com/statements/keynote-address-joint-political-leadership-nrm-central-executive-committee-cabinet-and
Naiman, Robert & Watkins, Neil – ‘A Survey of the Impacts of IMF Structural Adjustment in Africa: Growth, Social Spending, and Debt Relief’ (April 1999).
New York Times – ‘KENYAN SAYS ASIAN MERCHANTS RUIN ECONOMY’ (07.02.1982) link: http://www.nytimes.com/1982/02/07/world/kenyan-says-asian-merchants-ruin-economy.html
Semuwemba – ‘AMIN’S SPEECH BEFORE HE EXPELLED THE ASIANS WAS AWESOME!’ (27.11.2014) link: https://semuwemba.com/2014/11/27/amins-speech-before-he-expelled-the-asians-was-awesome/
Warnock, Frank and Conway, Patrick – ‘Post-Conflict Recovery in Uganda’ (1999)