Rebuilding Foundations Caring for People
Meet the remarkable former Zimbabwean farmer turned land restitution activist Ben Freeth, whose victory in a SADC Tribunal court case contesting Zimbabwe’s violent land grab triggered the Mugabe/Zuma axis’s abolition of the highest court for 400 million Southern African Development Community citizens. In this powerful interview with BizNews editor Alec Hogg, unbowed Freeth explains how a recently promulgated South African law has parallels with Zimbabwe’s initially ignored 1992 Act which was the foundation for events that transformed his country from bread basket to basket case.
Looming Zimbabwe ‘uprising’ echoes overthrow of Mugabe as calls mount to oust Mnangagwa
Zimbabweans are bracing for a repeat of the events of November 2017 de facto coup that led to the ousting of Robert Mugabe who had ruled the country for 37 years. President Mnangagwa’s second and last term in office is hanging by a thread after former freedom fighters backing his deputy, Constantino Chiwenga, called for an “uprising” on 31 March, demanding Mnangagwa’s resignation. Former finance minister Tendai Biti is on record calling for a transitional government to extricate the country from economic collapse and implement key democratic reforms before fresh elections are held.
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Zimbabwe’s Agenda 2030: Legal manoeuvring or political power play? The fight for democracy unfolds
Musa Kika, a Zimbabwean human rights and constitutional lawyer and jurist, writes: “Law has no inherent value, but its value is in compliance and honouring its sanctity — the idea that what is contracted is upheld and the contract’s rules are not shifted to suit sectarian interests. This too, goes for constitutions. The piercing reality in Zimbabwe is that law has lost its currency to guardrail … against the destructive political manoeuvres…. If man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, human rights should be protected by the rule of law.”
Commentator Tendai Ruben Mbofana accepted as member of the prestigious George Ayittey Society
Zimbabwean commentator Tendai Ruben Mbofana has been accepted as a member of the prestigious George Ayittey Society, a distinguished network of African scholars committed to advancing individual liberty, democratic governance and economic empowerment across the continent. This Africa-centered intellectual society is named in honor of the great free-market proponent, Ghanaian-economist Dr. George Ayittey. Dr Ayittey believed in an Africa that works, where politicians do not sign away the rights to their people’s natural resources and economic future in exchange for expensive loans.
Trump dismantles Voice of America | VOA Broadcasts Studio 7 News in Zimbabwe
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to cut funding to the federally funded news organisation Voice of America (VOA). The primarily radio service was established during World War II to counter Nazi propaganda and now reaches hundreds of millions of people worldwide every week. This includes the popular VOA Studio 7 which has long been a crucial alternative news source for Zimbabweans, where state-controlled media largely dominates. The station has provided important coverage of political developments, governance, and social issues impacting the country’s citizens.
World Food Programme to close office in southern Africa after Trump aid cuts
The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) is closing its southern Africa office in the wake of President Trump’s aid cuts. In a statement, a spokesperson said the office in Johannesburg would close and the WFP would consolidate its southern and east Africa operations into one regional office in Nairobi, Kenya. The WFP provides food assistance to more than 150 million people in 120 countries, including Zimbabwe. The WFP did not say how much funding it had lost from USAid, but it received $4.4bn (£3.5bn) in assistance from the US last year, about half its total annual budget.
Catholic bishops warn Zimbabwe ‘doomed’ if corruption left unchecked
Catholic bishops have warned that Zimbabwe is “doomed” if authorities fail to arrest rampant corruption, while also urging the government to focus on “bread and butter issues” instead of the preoccupation with extending President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term of office. Rising poverty across the country is “not accidental,” the bishops said in a scorching March 3 pastoral letter, but a result of poor management of the country’s resources. They expressed deep concern that businesses are closing and many people are losing their jobs.
UAE becomes Zimbabwe’s biggest export partner
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has overtaken China to become Zimbabwe’s biggest export partner and since 2022 has ploughed US$1.4 billion into everything from gold trading to real estate. Gulf states are increasingly using their petrodollars to build influence in Africa, as China pares back loans to the continent, Europe scales back its presence and the US becomes more domestically focused. This is viewed as a lifeline for Zimbabwe’s ailing economy. The UAE has become the country that routinely pledges the most foreign direct investment into the continent.
Mnangagwa is a failure and must go now, his 2030 agenda is illegal and treacherous’— say war veterans
A group of veterans of the 1970s war of liberation have come out guns blazing demanding President Mnangagwa’s immediate exit for reneging on the founding virtues of the struggle for independence and for his failed leadership, which has resulted in massive levels of corruption, cronyism and nepotism. “This man and those around him have failed us, they have failed all Zimbabweans, who believed that the [defacto coup] of 2017 would bring an end to nepotism and privatisation of the nation and its people,” said their leader, Blessed Geza. “This is not the Zimbabwe we envisioned when we took up arms.”
