Zimbabwe's clogged political drain and open diamond pipe

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Notes

Progressives in civil society writing the National People's Convention Charter in February 2008 demanded a debt audit before any multilateral or bilateral loans are serviced, and as happened similarly in Ecuador in December 2008, ‘the right of the people of Zimbabwe to refuse repayment of any odious debt accrued by a dictatorial government’. This position is supported by the local Jubilee chapter, the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development.

Trivially, but tellingly, one of the authors – Bond – was banned from giving a talk on the world economy in early February 2012 notwithstanding that the invitation came from finance minister Tendai Biti, although the following week, the police relented and allowed the lecture.

The Kariba Draft constitution was authored by lawyers including Tendai Biti (MDC-T), Welshman Ncube (MDC-M) and Patrick Chinamasa (ZANU-PF), representatives of the power-sharing government in the town of Kariba. It was made available to the public in September 15 2008, signed by ZANU-PF and the two MDC factions, as part of the power-sharing agreement. The National Constitutional Assembly opposed the Kariba Draft on several different bases, including that very little was known about the process of authoring the draft in ‘a clandestine meeting between the principal negotiators of Zimbabwe's three primary political parties’, citing also that there was the same ‘content’ weakness embedded in the Constitutional Commission proposal (2000 Constitution). More crucially, it facilitates the marginalisation of opposition movements, for example, the automatic removal of parliamentarians who have been absent for 21 consecutive meetings, which could negatively impact on those forced into hiding for various reasons.

The quotes in the section below, drawn from the Progress conference, were typed verbatim by Bond and circulated to conference participants, and are available by writing to [email protected].

Interview, February 2012.

Confidential documents from the trade union.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Interview, March 2012.