Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara was a guest on SW Radio Africa's Hot Seat programme. He talks about the controversial letter he recently wrote "on behalf of the Principals" to President Zuma of South Africa. He also accuses Zanu PF and the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC of being "economical with the truth" regarding the agreement around governors and sanctions. In this first of a two-part interview, Mutambara also talks about the national heroes debate, which came to the fore again after the recent death of opposition leader Gibson Sibanda.

VIOLET GONDA: My guest on the programme Hot Seat this week is Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara. Welcome on the programme Professor Mutambara.

GONDA: Thank you Professor. Now let me start with getting your comment on the death of Gibson Sibanda, who was your party’s vice president and a former workers’ union leader.

MUTAMBARA: This has been a major loss to us as a party. It has been a major loss to us as a country. Gibson Sibanda was such a stabilising force; he was such a unifier, a great Zimbabwean who put Zimbabweans before himself. A Zimbabwean who believed in self-sacrifice and in the collective good. When you look at the history of Gibson Sibanda during the liberation struggle, he was involved as the Secretary for Welfare in ZAPU, he was involved in smuggling weapons between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and consequently he was detained from 1976 to 1979 at Hwahwa in Marondera. This was a Zimbabwean who was involved in the creation of a new Zimbabwe by sacrificing his own personal safety in pursuit of national independence. After independence he was involved as a leader in the trade union movement, becoming the first vice president of the ZTCU in 1988, and then the president of the ZTCU from 1989 to 1999 as the president.

Now when the MDC was formed in 1999, he was the interim leader before Congress and then became vice president after the Congress and after the split in 2005, he continued again as vice president in our party. It was a major loss to all of us, but more importantly he was now involved in national healing and reconciliation, being part of that trio – John Nkomo, Sekai Holland and himself, trying to bring Zimbabweans together to establish a never again framework where Zimbabweans were saying let us create a new Zimbabwe where we don’t question each other’s patriotism because of political affiliation. He was a major stabilising figure in the inclusive government, a major unifier in our party. We shall miss him. He was a Zimbabwean hero, a hero of heroes, a soldier of soldiers, and a great Zimbabwean patriot.

GONDA: Now you say he was a Zimbabwean hero and I understand that your party and also the Tsvangirai-led MDC had requested that Sibanda be granted a hero status but that Zanu PF’s politburo has actually snubbed this. Can you comment on this?

MUTAMBARA: You know, when you look at that history that I’ve just described of major sacrifice in the liberation struggle, of major contributions after independence and then major contributions in the MDC and in the current inclusive government in the work of national healing and reconciliation, there’s no better definition of a hero. He is an icon in our country, he is the epitome of heroism, so we as a party wrote to President Mugabe indicating our decision that Gibson Sibanda must be declared a national hero, and the Prime Minister’s party, the MDC-T also wrote in support of that position. Unfortunately, Zanu PF, through its politburo made a decision that no, Gibson Sibanda is not worthy of a national hero, he deserved what they call State-assisted funeral status and so that’s what was granted to him.

So first and foremost, we as a political party, we as this government because I’m the deputy prime minister and the Prime Minister, he is the Prime Minister so we as the government of Zimbabwe rejected Zanu PF decision. First and foremost, the Zanu PF politburo has no locus standi, has no legal jurisdiction that empowers it to determine who is a hero in our country. So we reject the premise under which they made that determination.

Secondly, we disagree with their decision that Gibson Sibanda is not a national hero and by the way, the issue of heroes is one of the 24 agreed outstanding issues where we have said we are going to set up a platform, a board, a non-partisan arrangement where all the political parties in government and outside government, where civic society, the business community, academics have a say on who is declared a hero in our country. So we are going to now expedite the process of finalising this arrangement so that going forward we won’t have one political party deciding who is a hero and who is not. So we need to quickly implement this item where there’s agreement actually in the GPA, agreement in the inclusive government.

We do not accept a National Heroes Acre which is ostensibly a Zanu PF shrine. We have no interest in participating, in getting involved in a Zanu PF shrine so we want a proper National Heroes Acre where all Zimbabweans have a say as to who becomes a hero. So it’s very unfortunate that the Zanu PF politburo has illegally exercised their authority and said Gibson Sibanda is not a national hero. We don’t want to create political capital out of a funeral, out of a death, we don’t want polemics around a sad occasion in our nation so we are going to go ahead and work with the family of Gibson Sibanda and give him a befitting send off, a decent funeral, but we must register our disagreement with the Zanu PF position. Mugabe has no locus standi in this country to determine who is and who is not a hero.

GONDA: When will this inclusive committee be implemented?

MUTAMBARA: Well it’s within a month, within a month in our implementation matrix. We have said we are going to do this within a month and be able to put in place an arrangement which is inclusive, an arrangement which is non-partisan, an arrangement where civic society has a say, an arrangement where academics, churches and other parties who are not in the inclusive government – Zapu, Mavambo, Ndonga and others, including the three parties in the inclusive government have a say so that we can have a legitimate determination of heroism in our country.

MUTAMBARA: Yes. As you know in the GPA arrangement, there were 27 outstanding issues after Maputo and of the 27, 24 have been agreed. This issue of the Heroes Acre is one of the 24 that have been agreed upon.

GONDA: Can you briefly tell us what the other 23 are? Or the main ones?

MUTAMBARA: Well I’ll just refer you to the entire discourse but to simplify your life I can talk about what has not been agreed upon and then everything else has been agreed upon. What has not been agreed upon is Gideon Gono, what has not been agreed upon is Johannes Tomana, what has not been agreed upon is Roy Bennett as his position as deputy minister for agriculture. So anything you can think of has been agreed upon so all you can do is to ask me and then we can discuss it but I’ll just remove those three and the rest is agreed, we can discuss detail.

GONDA: OK I’ll actually come back to this particular issue but I wanted to just go back to the issue of the hero’s status and the Sibanda issue. How do you respond to critics who say that the Zanu PF response goes to show the MDC formations are being treated as if you are visitors to this inclusive government and that you are being invited to a Zanu PF party?

MUTAMBARA: You know this inclusive government has always been a very difficult proposition. It was a major compromise, it is a flawed arrangement. We have said this before – it was never meant to be a walk in the park but we’ve also said that this arrangement as flawed as it is, it is the best short-term answer we have available to extricate our country from its worst situation. So when we get into challenges, when we get into problems, when we get into disagreements, we must always remember the big picture.

There is an opportunity here, in spite of the challenges we are experiencing particularly this heroes issue we are discussing, there’s an opportunity here for Zimbabweans to work together to do six things – craft a new constitution, carry out national healing, do media reforms, do electoral reforms, do political reforms, carry out economic reforms. So when you look at that arrangement in the six areas and the issues that have been agreed upon, forget the disagreements, the things that have been agreed upon, there’s potential for us, although it’s going to be slow and sluggish, there’s potential for us to do some good in our country and be able to create a new dispensation so that next time around, when we go into an election, we can have a fairly credible election where the losers congratulate the winners and the winners are able to form a legitimate, democratically elected government. So we should not throw away the baby with the bath water and let’s not get over-excited when we get into difficulties

Unfortunately for ourselves in this country, there’s no other arrangement in the penultimate, there’s no other arrangement in the meantime we can have in the country to craft a new dispensation for our politics, for our society and for our economy. We must suffer this arrangement. We must, you know, stick it out as difficult as it is and make sure we carry out the mandate. If we do 80 per cent of the things we’ve agreed upon, we’ll be able to create a new Zimbabwe.

GONDA: So Professor, how do you respond to people who say why is it so important to get buried at the Heroes Acre when it is a Zanu PF graveyard after all?

MUTAMBARA: No, but we are saying it should not be a Zanu PF graveyard; it should be a national Heroes Acre, a national institution. By Zanu PF insisting on making the decision on their own, by Zanu PF insisting in having their politburo deciding on who is a hero they are ostensibly converting it into a Zanu PF shrine so that it what we are trying to avoid. We’re trying to say let’s not allow this institution to be converted into a shrine. We want to respect the liberation war, we want to respect Zimbabweans who made contributions during the liberation struggle, Zimbabweans who are making contributions today after independence, Zimbabweans who will make contributions in the future, so there is a need for a framework in which Zimbabweans honour each other but that framework must be a shared framework. That framework must be non-partisan, that framework must be inclusive so we are trying to make sure that we have an environment which is national, which is inclusive. We do not want to have a Zanu PF shrine in our country.

GONDA: Let us move on to the outstanding issues you mentioned earlier on, but let’s start with getting your comment on the issue of the letter you are said to have written to SADC or to the South African President to send to SADC, outlining areas of agreement and disagreement. Did you write this letter on behalf of the principals and what was the letter exactly?

MUTAMBARA: OK, let’s get the terms of reference very clear. The communication between the principals and the facilitator are confidential documents to protect the integrity of the dialogue, to protect the integrity of the GPA process, but we’ll try as much as possible to shed light to the discussions at hand. Now, between the principals and the facilitator there have been two communication pieces that have taken place on the 10th of June and also on the 5th of August.

On both occasions, I wrote on behalf of the principals, the three of us. I wrote a letter delivered on the 10th of June and I wrote another letter with attachments delivered on the 5th of August. Those documents were done in full consultation with the three of us, there were documents endorsed by the three of us. There were no other documents from the principals to the facilitator except the ones I authored on behalf of the principals. That must be understood very clearly, that the communication on the 8th of June, the communication on the 5th of August was done by the deputy prime minister on behalf of the three principals.

Now in communicating with the facilitator on behalf of the three principals we were giving information to President Zuma so that he can prepare his report which was presented at the Troika. Now the entirety of the report to the Troika by President Zuma was based on my communication with him so what people must understand is you can’t celebrate the Zuma document, the Zuma communication at the Troika and say we like what was in that letter and then at the same time, starting to question the communication I sent on behalf of the principals to the facilitator -  because the entire Zuma document was based on my communication that I did on behalf of the principals, that must be understood.

And for the record, none of the two principals has questioned or disassociated themselves from the documents I sent on their behalf. And when I say disassociate, don’t tell me Chamisa or this MDC-T official... I would want you to tell me Robert Mugabe has said you did not write on my behalf. I would want you to tell me Tsvangirai has said you did not write on my behalf and then if you have that information then I will have more to say but so far President Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai have not questioned the efficacy and the legitimacy of my communication from the principals to the facilitator.

GONDA: But Professor, before you carry on, you said earlier on that there are three outstanding issues and those are the Gono, Tomana and Roy Bennett issues but otherwise everything else has been agreed upon and that you’ve been given this 30 days to implement the 24 issues - but Mugabe for example, has reportedly said that there will be no more concessions until the sanctions are removed, so what can you say about that?

MUTAMBARA: Yah I was going to speak to that subject but I wanted to give you the framework first. Now on the issue of governors, both Zanu PF and MDC-T are spinning, to put it politely. If I wanted to be brutal, they are being economical with the truth – both these parties and I will explain why: The understanding that we have, the three of us, the principals was that we must stick to the principle which was established in Maputo. One of the key, you know, principle established in Maputo was that all agreed positions must be implemented simultaneously and concurrently. This was meant to make sure that we don’t put conditions on each other. Do this, then I’ll do the other, if you don’t do this, I won’t do the following. We wanted to remove that from our discourse and say whatever is agreed must be done simultaneously, concurrently, do not put conditions on each other. So in particular in our decision as the three principals we said look, there has been a problem on the issue of sanctions, there has been a problem on the implementation on the formula agreed upon on governors.

On sanctions, the problem – and I’ll explain it very clearly – has been that there’s an allegation that some ministers in the inclusive government have not been forthright in calling for the removal of sanctions. Others have a crime of omission where they don’t even mention the word sanctions in their official documents when they speak about the economy. Allegations to the extent that some ministers in their private conversation with western leaders are actually saying – keep sanctions in place. Allegations that some ambassadors have been saying – keep sanctions on these ministries and remove them on these other ministries.

So in other words, there’s been a challenge and a problem of sincerity and bona fide status, where among ourselves, we have been accusing each other of not being sincere on the calling off of sanctions. By the way, we do not have the capacity to remove sanctions; the three parties have no capacity to do that. What the GPA does commit us is in terms of working towards their removal, asking for their removal. All we can do as three parties, all we can do as leaders of three political parties is to call for the total, unconditional removal of the sanctions.

MUTAMBARA: Can you give me a moment, I’ll come to that. All we control as leaders is our message; all we control as leaders is asking for all of them including the targeted ones, the personal ones affect the brand of the country. When you have the Head of State on a travel ban, the Minister of Defence on a travel ban, it affects the brand of the country, and it affects our capacity to attract investors, to attract lines of credit. So our position is that all types of sanctions, including the travel bans, must be removed because they are not serving our economy. Now the allegation I’ve described to you was that one, the other allegation on the governors was that ‘Mugabe wasn’t moving, Mugabe wasn’t implementing’.

So to encourage Mugabe to implement what was agreed upon and to encourage these ministers and in particular ministers from the former opposition, MDC-T and my party, to encourage them to speak without equivocation nor ambiguity on sanctions, as political leaders, as ministers, as ambassadors, we agreed as three principals to say the implementation of the formula on government would be carried out simultaneously, concurrently with the efforts, the collective efforts towards removal of sanctions. Now here’s the spin from ZANU where they lie. ZANU then says there will be no governors until sanctions are removed – that was never the agreement because no Zimbabwean can remove sanctions.

All a Zimbabwean can do is to ask without equivocation, to speak forthrightly on the removal, so all we are encouraging the leaders in Zimbabwe, is to speak with one voice towards removal. When they’ve done that, when they’ve done, when they’ve shown their sincerity, when they’ve shown that they’re bona fide in terms of calling for the removal of sanctions, we expect those governors to be appointed. Not when the sanctions are removed. We don’t control, we can’t remove so this is where the ZANU lie comes in. So Chinamasa is lying when he says sanctions must be removed before governors are appointed – that is not the understanding. We must work; we must speak on the removal without equivocation, with sincerity.

The MDC-T – where is their spin, where is their lie? It is when they say there was never a link, there is no link when their principal is part of the document that went to Zuma that says we as the principals are going to work collectively on the removal of sanctions and link it to the governors. So this is why we feel that we need to explain this that both parties, MDC-T and ZANU, are being economical with the truth in terms of the actual mathematical formula between sanctions and governors.

However having said that, the issue of governors has taken another dimension now because the current governors are now illegal, their terms of office have already expired. So one, we must implement our agreed position in the GPA but more importantly, if they are going to be reappointed, they must be reappointed according to the law of Zimbabwe. The law of Zimbabwe as it stands; Mugabe can’t appoint those governors without consulting the Prime Minister, so that should actually help us to make sure that this matter is resolved.

Number One – we have an agreed formula between us as parties. Secondly the governors are now illegal – if they are going to be appointed they must be appointed according to the law of Zimbabwe. The law of Zimbabwe requires the President to consult the Prime Minister and as he consults the Prime Minister we hope he is going to use the formula that we agreed upon. But let me emphasise that we also as ministers, as political players, must work towards removal, must call for the removal of sanctions. If we don’t we are actually violating the GPA. The GPA instructs us to work together towards removal. Whether they are removed or not it’s a different discussion but the question we give ourselves as political leaders, as ministers, are we doing all we can to remove sanctions, including the travel bans, that is what is required of us from the GPA.

GONDA: OK Professor I’m running out of time and I still have a few other questions to ask so if you can just shorten your answers that will be great.

GONDA: There’s all this talk about governors, sanctions but there’s not much talk, especially from government about other outstanding issues such as media reforms. When are we going to see the issuing of broadcast licences for example?

MUTAMBARA: You know you make my point and you make my day. We in Zimbabwe must concentrate on issues that matter, issues that are of substance in so far as creating conditions for freeness and fairness of our elections. We must concentrate on the non-outstanding issues, the issues that have been agreed upon. Do you know if we were to implement the 23, 24 issues that were agreed upon, we would have made so much progress. You mentioned media reforms – we are all agreed on a variety of matters on the media reforms if you look at the 24 matters, but none of these things have been done. You see we have set up a Media Commission, we have not capacitated it; we have not given it money.

We have one new newspaper – News Day – where are the other newspapers? Where are the new TV stations? Where are the new radio stations? ZEC, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, where is money for Zimbabwe Electoral Commission? Where are the reforms on our electoral laws? Where is the clean voters’ roll, the electronic voters’ roll? So I’m agreeing with you that if we could concentrate on matters of substance, if we could concentrate on areas of agreement and make sure we put our money where our mouth is, we concentrate on implementation, we can go a long way in terms of creating conditions for freeness and fairness of our elections, we can go a long way to improve the material conditions of our people and go a long way in terms of creating a peaceful, prosperous and democratic Zimbabwe. So I will do my part as a leader, I will talk to my colleagues to make sure we do those things we have agreed upon…

GONDA: But Professor, if I can interrupt you, we’ve talked about this before. The last time we spoke you said exactly the same things and you are not answering my question. Where are all these things? Why are you not concentrating on these matters of substance? Why is it every single time when I ask you this question you say you will go back and talk to your colleagues? What are you doing in government right now? Why is this not happening?

MUTAMBARA: We are doing just that. The reason why I am agreeing with you is, I’ve not been going on top of the mountain discussing Roy Bennett, Gono and Tomana. I’ve not done that although it is important that we resolve that issue. I’m only discussing these governors and sanctions because your radio station published a falsehood and a defamatory article maligning me - otherwise my concentration is on core business of the economy, is on these matters you are asking me now about. But you people in the media, you fuel this nonsense of conflict, this nonsense of non-issues whereas there are more important things that some of us are concentrating on the ground and these are issues to do with the constitution, with national healing, with the media, with electoral reforms, with the economy, that’s what we are doing on a daily basis but once in a while we are forced to discuss non-matters because people are grandstanding. They are trying to appeal to their different constituencies and the short answer to your question is ‘we have a shortage of leaders in the country’. OK?

There’s a dearth of leadership, there’s mediocrity masquerading as leadership in our country. We want people who can concentrate on cooperation. Look at England – Nick Clegg and David Cameron – after crafting their inclusive government, I’ve never seen Nick Clegg attacking David Cameron and vice versa. They are concentrating on the four issues – the economy, electoral reforms, nuclear weapons and Europe. The issues they agreed upon and they said five years, in five years there will be no vote of no confidence in parliament. Why? Because they are emphasising cooperation and stability in their country. I want to see the same over here, where people say no to competition, and no to insults, let us concentrate on working together, cooperation and national interest.

GONDA: Professor if I may go back to what you’ve just said just now where you said you were maligned by our radio station and you also accuse the media of getting it wrong and dealing with the issues that are not really important, but coming from the media point of view, this is supposed to be a new government and should be behaving differently but Zimbabweans are being denied access to information. For example, we have been trying to get an interview with the Prime Minister since he became Prime Minister and we have not been able to get him. Just to find out what he is thinking about the progress of the GNU, and information is generally not readily available from the partners in this inclusive government. Why don’t you even tell Zimbabweans just the basics or issue statements as government? Why are we not seeing this so that you won’t be quoted wrongly?

MUTAMBARA: You are saying a good point. That is why I am here talking to you and trying to answer all the issues. I’ll speak to the Prime Minister’s office and see whether we can organise an interview between yourselves and the Prime Minister. We believe in accountability, we believe in transparency, we believe in the new dispensation where government is there to serve, what we call serve and leadership where we are supposed to be answerable to the people and also open ourselves to the media. That is why I decided to share with you and be able to answer the issues you are raising, try to make sure…

MUTAMBARA: No we don’t want secrecy, that’s why I tried to answer everything today. The only thing I didn’t do was to actually give you the letter we wrote to President Zuma and the documents but I’ve answered in detail the connection between sanctions and governors; I’ve answered to you that yes, the documents were written by me on behalf of Mr Tsvangirai and President Mugabe and none of them have denied that. So I’ve opened up to you but sometimes we can’t share documents directly because when we do that we undermine the negotiating process, we undermine the legitimacy and integrity of the processes but we will try to be as informative as possible and as I’ve just done, I think I’ve answered every matter on the letters and also on the link between sanctions and governors and indicated to you where ZANU is spinning and indicated to you where MDC-T is spinning. My party and myself are the only ones who are not spinning on this matter.

GONDA: Join us next week when we will bring you the concluding discussion with the deputy prime minister. Professor Arthur Mutambara will explain why the 30 day deadline announced by the SADC Troika to implement the outstanding issues in the GPA is ‘meaningless’. He also comments on reports of internal divisions in his party. Is Secretary General Welshman Ncube challenging Mutambara’s leadership and to what extent has the party been affected by the reported mass defections to the larger MDC-T?

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