A Zimbabwe court will on Monday start mass trial of 88 villagers for demanding the return of their property stolen by President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF militia during the run-up to the internationally condemned June 2008 presidential run-off election.
On the same day another Nyanga court will hear a civil claim in which 16 villagers all from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) are demanding US$853 for the grain and livestock forcibly taken from them during the violent election.
The MDC says it lost more than 200 of its members during the state-sponsored violence.
The two cases serve as a litmus test for the transitional government’s reconciliation efforts. The transitional government set up a National Healing Reconciliation and Integration organ to deal with issues of transitional justice but the selective application of the law has further poisoned the political landscape.

See how Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has illegally benefited from the often violent land seizures.

visit:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/6231765/Robert-Mugabe-has-built-up-10000-acre-farm-of-seized-land.html

There have been many schools of thought on whether Zimbabwe’s inclusive government formed in February by president Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and deputy prime minister Arthur Mutambara, had achieved or failed to bring the much relief sought out by locals.
I this installment, as someone who is in Zimbabwe, and having the privilege to have been at the centre of information dissemination being a journalist thought it wise to analyse the situation.

Southern African leaders have called on the international community to lift all sanctions on Zimbabwe to pave way for the full implementation of the country’s power-sharing agreement.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) said at the end of a regional meeting on Tuesday that the sanctions may impede efforts to improve Zimbabwe’s political situation.

Joseph Kabila, the Congolese president, said in the final communique that there was progress in the implementation of Zimbabwe’s political accord but its completion could be hampered by continuing sanctions.

“Considering the positive evolution of the situation, considering the progress that has been made, we believe it is now high time that the sanctions are lifted,” said Kabila, who took over as chairman of SADC during the summit in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Zimbabwe’s three leaders President Robert Mugabe, Prime Morgan Tsvangirai and deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara have failed to reach an agreement on the outstanding issues scapering the performance of an inclusive government.

Formed in February this year, the inclusive government faces collapse following this deadlock. The three have been discussing, with the help of South African president Jacob Zuma at a hotel in Harare. 

The United Nations (UN) has said the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe was worse than war-torn Iraq and remains “serious”.

Zimbabwe, ravaged by the world’s deadliest cholera outbreak last year that killed more than 4000 people, poses ‘a significant challenge’ with outbreaks of the water-borne disease and starvation.

“Although Zimbabwe is not facing armed conflict, humanitarian threats such as food shortages and outbreak of diseases such as cholera pose a
significant challenge. The recent epidemic resulted in 98 592 cumulative cases, including 4 288 deaths between August 2008 and July 2009,” said UN head in Zimbabwe, Agostinho Zacarias, at the inaugural World Humanitarian Day ceremony in Harare on Wednesday.

President Robert Mugabe has accused Britain of causing the late vice president Joseph Msika’s death through years of incarceration during the liberation struggle.
He accused Britain of attempting to re-colonise Zimbabwe.
Mugabe passed a thinly veiled attack on his partners in the inclusive government to desist from seeking help from the former colonial master.

PRETORIA, Aug 7 (Reuters) – The United States on Friday described as “outrageous” and a “travesty” the conviction of six journalists in Gambia for sedition and defamation and demanded their immediate release.

“It violates not only accepted international norms, but the imperatives of governance of the 21st century. This action is a travesty, given Gambia’s current leadership of the African Union’s Human Rights Commission,” said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.
Read more…
http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed1/idUSN0741347020090807

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai Thursday paid condolences to the family of the late Vice President Joseph Msika,
who died in Harare on Wednesday describing as a “voice of reason”.

VP Msika, a nationalist leader and arguably the most senior PF ZAPU member that entered into a unity government with President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF in 1987, was one of the moderate previous government officials who clashed with his counterparts especially at the height of the land invasions.
“He has left a legacy. He was one of the senior people in politics who had the voice of reason,” Tsvangirai told mourners at the veteran nationalist’s home in the eastern suburbs.

Soldiers have intensified illegal mining of diamonds in Chiadzwa, a few weeks after a visiting Kimberly Process Certification Scheme team recommended the demilitarization of the fields.

According to a report released last week by Mutare based Centre for Research and Development (CRD) soldiers trading in diamonds were enjoying “brisk” business.
Zimbabwe’s military leaders have refused to abide by the Kimberly process recommendations, insisting that withdrawing soldiers from Chiadzwa would open the fields to illegal miners.
But the CRD reportnoted that soldiers, fearing that the government could withdraw them from Chiadzwa in line with the Kimberly process recommendations, had intensified mining and illicit trade in diamonds to maximise on fortunes.