Ronnie Kasrils speaks out against Israel's apartheid policies, March 5, 2009.

By Patrick Bond, Durban

March 26, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- ‘I don’t have the stomach or the taste to serve any more at this level,’ said the normally ebullient minister of intelligence Ronnie Kasrils, as he quit after 14 years of service to the South African government. It was late September 2008, just after Thabo Mbeki was replaced in palace coup.

Kasrils’ intelligence service was by then an international laughing stock, with spy-versus-spy intrigue spilling out wide across the political landscape. His own troops were locked in unending, ungovernable, internecine battles against each other’s factions, using hoax emails, other disinformation and extraordinary political contortions unknown in even the ugliest Stalinist traditions of the African National Congress (ANC). Recall that Mbeki’s police chief Jackie Selebi was also the head of Interpol, and to have the mafia penetrate such high levels made South African security farcical at best.

Johannesburg protest in support of the "Zimbabwe 6", March 20, 2012.

By Lisa Macdonald

March 22, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/Green Left Weekly -- Six Zimbabwean activists who were convicted for watching a video of the Arab Spring in February 2011 won a partial victory on March 21 when they were given suspended jail sentences of two years, ordered to each do 420 hours of community service and pay a fine of US$500 each.

The six activists were convicted in the Harare Magistrates Court on March 19 of trumped-up charges of “conspiracy to commit public violence”. They had faced up to 10 years’ imprisonment, a sentence demanded by the state prosecutor, Edmore Nyazamba.

Munyaradzi Gwisai, a political activist and former member of parliament, left court in Harare on March 19 after being convicted of plotting to overthrow the government. Photo by Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Associated Press.

STOP PRESS: March 21, 2012 -- The final verdict is two years' jail, suspended for five years (on condition that no similar "offence" is committed), 420 hours of community service (about six weeks Mon.-Fri.) and an US$500 fine each. The sentence is designed to be a chain on their ankles, but clearly the state does not feel confident to smash them. That is certainly a victory for the mass showings at the courts in Harare, and the international solidarity campaign that included the sending of protests messages from around the world and the holding of pickets and demonstrations. Viva, viva comrades there for resisting the intimidation, and also for the many forms of international solidarity. Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal would like to thanks its many readers of their participation in the campaign.

* * *

By Ashley Fataar

Supporters of the activists facing unlawful imprisonment.

The following statement was issued by the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU). Readers of Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal are urged to phone, email or send protest messages demanding the release of the six Zimbabwe activists to the Zimbabwe embassy or consulate in their countries. Solidarity actions are being organised in South Africa. Please send copies of protest messages sent to socialismfrombelow@gmail.com (copy to ashley_fataar@yahoo.co.uk and shanthabloemen@gmail.com).

Text messages can be sent to:

Home affairs (police) minister Kembo Mohadi: +263 712 605 424 (mobile)

State security (C.I.O.) minister Didymus Mutasa: +263 0712 200 532 (mobile)

Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena +263 712 801 172

Action is support of the charged Zimbabwean activists, Fremantle, Western Australia. Six Zimbabwean socialists are charged with “inciting public violence” (which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment).  Munyaradzi Gwisai, director of the Labor Law Centre, Tafadzwa Choto and Tatenda Mombeyarara, trade unionist Edison Chakuma, debt rights activist Hopewell Gumbo and student leader Welcome Zimuto were arrested on February 19 while meeting to watch video footage of democracy protests in Egypt and Tunisia (David Mpatsi, one of the 45 activists originally charged with treason for attending the film screening, died following a rapid deterioration in his health while he was imprisoned and denied medical treatment). The following letter explains the latest developments. For more background to the case, click HERE.

February 16, 2012 -- Yesterday Magistrate Kudakwashe Jarabini dismissed the defendants' application for the discharge of charges of conspiring to commit public violence. Their lawyer, Alex Muchadehama had applied for discharge at the close of the state's case on the basis that the state had failed to produce sufficient evidence to require the defendants to put up a defence.

August 14, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The following petition is being circulated in Australia. Please feel free to adapt the text for use in your country (e.g. insert details of your local Zimbabwe embassy and your own government's foreign ministry. For more detail on the case, see http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/171. You can download a postcard version to send direct to Zimbabwe HERE.

International solidarity activities in February and March condemning the arrests were an important contribution to having the original charges of "treason" dropped and the comrades released on bail. But the campaign isn't over and the comrades are asking for any solidarity that can be extended to them on or before August 22. 

* * *

To: Her Excellency Ms Jacqueline Nomhle Zwambila
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary for Zimbabwe
7 Timbarra Crescent,
O'Malley  2606
ACT, Australia
Fax: (02) 6290 1680

CC: Minister for Foreign Affairs (Australia)
PO Box 6022, Parliament House,
Canberra 2600, Australia
Fax: (02) 6273 4112

By the National Coordinating Committee, International Socialist Organisation Zimbabwe

June 7, 2011 -- The Zimbabwean state has dropped the most serious charges against six activists who faced the death penalty for treason. (Click here for background articles.) They now face the lesser charge of “subverting a constitutional government”—but this still carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Their trial begins on 18 July.

Their bail conditions have also been relaxed—they have to report to the police once a month instead of three times a week.

The six, including former MP Munyaradzi Gwisai, were among more than 40 people arrested on February 19 for watching a video about the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.

Keep up the international pressure and solidarity to get all of the charges dropped.

Prisoners now released on bail! March 21 demonstrations remain urgent

March 18, 2011 -- Solidarity with Zimbabwean Political prisoners -- Thanks in part to donations from supporters abroad, friends and family raised the $12,000 US needed to get the six prisoners released on bail on March 17. They are now back with their loved ones -- but will be in court on March 21, standing trial for treason.

The international day of action in solidarity with the Zimbabwean activists remains as urgent as ever. Now the demand is even simpler: Drop all charges now!

Updates on Twitter from Shantha Bloeman -- wife of Munyaradzi Gwasai, one of the prisoners -- give supporters outside Zimbabwe a glimpse of this week's developments from the inside. A few entries:

* * *

By Ashley Fataar 

By Patrick Bond

February 27, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The late South African anti-apartheid poet-activist Dennis Brutus occasionally used “Seattle”, the name of a city in the northwestern United States, as a verb. We should “seattle Copenhagen”, he said in late 2009, to prevent the global North from doing a climate deal in their interests, against Africa’s.

46 arrested activists charged with treason, tortured

February 25, 2011 -- It has now been confirmed that detained labour movement activist and leading member of the International Socialist Organization Zimbabwe Munyaradzi Gwisai (pictured) and 45 other activists detained by the Zimbabwe state on February 19 have been charged with treason. If found guilty of treason, the activists risk a sentence of death or life imprisonment. They are being tortured to extract bogus confessions. The arrests followed a raid on a closed meeting that was discussing the implications of the revolutions in the Arab world. Gwisai is director of the Labor Law Centre and former Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) MP.

Robert Mugabe (centre) and GNU partners Morgan Tsvangirai (left) and Arthur Mutambara.

[The following article appears in the December 2010 edition of the International Socialist Organisation of Zimbabwe's magazine Socialist Worker. You can download the latest edition of Socialist Worker (PDF)  HERE or read it on screen below the article.]

By T. Sando

November 30, 2010 -- Socialist Worker (Zimbabwe) -- Several significant events in the political and constitutional framework of Zimbabwe have occurred in recent months. First, are the controversies surrounding the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (COPAC) outreach exercise carried out from June 2010 to date. Second is the crisis in the Government of National Unity (GNU) following various unilateral state executive appointments by President Robert Gabriel Mugabe.

A mid-2011 election announced by Mugabe promises a return to outright violence and poll thievery.

[You can listen to talks presented to the "Progress in Zimbabwe" conference, and read summaries of the presentations, at the conference website here.]

By Patrick Bond, Bulawayo

November 12, 2010 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – If leaders of a small African country stand up with confidence to imperialist aggression, especially from the US and Britain, it would ordinarily strike any fair observer as extremely compelling. Especially when the nightmare of racist colonialism in that country is still be to exorcised, whites hold a disproportionate share of economic power and state’s rulers appear serious about changing those factors.

[The following article first appeared in AfricaFile's At Issue Ezine, vol. 12 (May-October 2010), edited by John S. Saul, which examines the development of the southern African liberation movement-led countries. It has been posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission.]

By Richard Saunders

By Leo Zeilig

June 28, 2010 – Zimbabwe’s economy has been in free fall. Between 2000 and 2005, the economy contracted by more than 40 per cent. Today GDP per capita is estimated to be the same as it was in 1953. Before the replacement of the Zimbabwe dollar with the US dollar and the South African rand in 2009, the country had the highest inflation rate in the world, soaring to 165,000 per cent in February 2008.

By Patrick Bond, Durban

June 25, 2010 -- South Africa's soccer-loving critics have long predicted the problems now growing worse here because of its World Cup hosting duties:

• loss of large chunks of government’s sovereignty to the world soccer body FIFA;

• rapidly worsening income inequality;

• future economic calamities as debt payments come due;

• dramatic increases in greenhouse gas emissions (more than twice Germany’s in 2006); and

• humiliation and despondency as the country’s soccer team Bafana Bafana (ranked #90 going into the games) became the first host to expire before the competition’s second round.

Soon, it seems, we may also add to this list a problem that terrifies progressives here and everywhere: another dose of xenophobia from both state and society.

The crucial question in coming weeks is whether, instead of offering some kind of resistance from below, as exemplified by the Durban Social Forum network’s 1000-strong rally against FIFA on June 16 at City Hall, Durban, will society’s sore losers adopt right-wing populist sentiments, and frame the foreigner?

SWAPO's Sam Nujoma.

By Henning Melber

This paper explores some aspects of the narrow translation of a liberation movement -- an agency of transformation -- into an exclusivist apparatus claiming to represent the interest of all people and a total monopoly in advocating the public interest. It thereby tries to explain to some extent the dominant party syndrome under liberation movements, which have been in power since Independence.[1]

[The following is the editorial in the latest edition of AfricaFile's At Issue Ezine, vol. 12 (May-October 2010), which examines the development of the southern African liberation movement-led countries. It has been posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission.]

By John S. Saul