Reuters
Sat 21 Apr
2007, 13:49 GMT
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe received farm machinery worth
$25 million from
China on Saturday in a deal to replace equipment damaged
when President
Robert Mugabe's government seized white-owned farms to
resettle landless
blacks.
Western powers have imposed economic
sanctions on Zimbabwe for what they say
are widescale rights abuses by
Mugabe's administration, forcing the
80-year-old leader to look eastward,
especially to China, for aid and
investment.
The equipment, which
included 424 tractors and 50 trucks, was part of a bid
to replace machinery
damaged in disturbances when the state seized
white-owned farms, the
government said.
Agricultural production has fallen drastically --
deepening the troubled
southern African country's economic crisis -- largely
due to lack of
equipment, funding and technical expertise among the newly
resettled
farmers.
Speaking at a ceremony to receive the machinery,
which was attended by a
Chinese delegation led by senior Communist Party
official Jia Qinglin,
Mugabe said the country's agriculture industry was now
ready to "take off".
"This is the thrust of assistance by the People's
Republic of China to the
Republic of Zimbabwe ... for us to sustain
politically our sovereign right
to be ourselves," Mugabe
said.
Critics blame Mugabe's controversial policies for Zimbabwe's deep
economic
crisis, shown by the highest inflation rate in the world -- at over
1,700
percent -- 80 percent unemployment and shortages of food, foreign
currency
and fuel.
Zimbabwe's minister of Agricultural Engineering
and Mechanisation, Joseph
Made, said the farm implements were purchased
under a $58 million loan from
the Chinese government. The southern African
country will export tobacco in
return.
"The total loan facility
granted by the People's Republic of China is $58
million. These items cost
$25 million as part of the first phase," Made
said.
Zimbabwe will
deliver 30 million kg of tobacco to China, with as much as 80
million kg of
the crop to be exported by the fifth year, Made added.
Zimbabwe has seen
a drastic reduction in tobacco output, down from a peak of
over 200 million
kg in 2000, to about 55 million kg last year.
Mugabe has denied his
policies are to blame for the country's economic
crisis and accuses the West
of sabotaging the economy as punishment for his
government's land reform
policy.
Xinhua
www.chinaview.cn 2007-04-22
00:05:22
HARARE, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Top Chinese
Political advisor Jia
Qinglin said here Saturday that China will work with
Zimbabwe to deepen
bilateral reciprocal cooperation in economy, trade and
other fields.
Jia, chairman of the National Committee of the
Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top
political advisory
body, made the remarks at a meeting with Zimbabwean
President Robert Gabriel
Mugabe.
He spoke highly of the
smooth growth of bilateral relations and
cooperation in various fields on
the basis of mutual benefit.
Jia, who arrived here Friday on an
official good-will visit as
guest of the Zimbabwean parliament, said the
Chinese side values bilateral
traditional friendship and will maintain
bilateral contacts at various
levels.
The Chinese side will
join the Zimbabwean side in implementing the
achievements made during the
Beijing summit of the Forum on China-Africa
Cooperation, especially the
eight measures on supporting the development of
African countries announced
by Chinese President Hu Jintao, said Jia.
He said China
appreciates Zimbabwe's firm adherence to the
one-China
policy.
He said the CPPCC National Committee is ready to
strengthen
exchanges with the Zimbabwean parliament to make contributions to
the
further development of bilateral friendship and
cooperation.
Mugabe reviewed the deep friendship between the
two peoples that
was forged during Zimbabwe's struggle for national
independence.
He said facts have proven that the two countries
are sincere and
cordial friends as bilateral friendship and cooperation have
been
continuously enhanced since the two countries set updiplomatic ties 27
years
ago.
After the meeting, Jia and Mugabe attended a
signing ceremony for
four bilateral cooperation documents including an
economic and technical
cooperation agreement between the two
governments.
They also attended the handover ceremony of
Chinese agricultural
machinery and equipment.
Zimbabwe is
the third leg of Jia's visit to four African
countries, which has already
taken him to Tunisia and Ghana, and will also
take him to Kenya.
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
21 April, 2007
A prayer vigil at the Zimbabwean Embassy
in London attracted over one
hundred participants on Saturday including
visiting officials from the
Christian Alliance. The event was organised by
the Zimbabwe Vigil group
which has been conducting demonstrations there
every Saturday for some years
now.
Useni Sibanda, coordinator of the
Christian Alliance in Zimbabwe told us
they had been invited to share their
experiences and ideas for the way
forward. He said the freedom to organise
such an event without police
interference and brutality is part of what they
are fighting for back home.
Several leaders from the Alliance were arrested
and tortured by police last
September as they gathered for a prayer meeting
at a church.
Sibanda explained that there is confusion on the part of the
authorities in
Zimbabwe about the role of the church. He said: "The church
duty is
primarily to deal with issues justice, issues of peace, issues of
righteousness. That's our duty as a church and we are conscious of that
mission. We have to speak things as we feel God wants us to
do."
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
21 April 2007
Scores of WOZA activists who
were arrested on Thursday for protesting at the
ZESA offices were released
on Friday afternoon. But several people are said
to have been badly beaten
including Clarah Makoni and Angeline Karuru who
had taken food to the
victims at one of the police stations. WOZA
coordinator Jenni Williams told
us both girls were severely assaulted before
they were
released.
There had been concern for 18 year old Clarah's safety as she
had been
reported missing after she returned to the police station to bring
food for
others in custody on Thursday. A WOZA statement on Saturday said
Clarah
returned home safe late Friday night.
It turns out the police
told her to go away with the food because her name
was not on any lists. As
she left two plain-clothed men approached and
identified themselves as
police officers who wanted to know where Magodonga
Mahlangu and Jenni
Williams lived. They told her she was under arrest and
allowed her to phone
Mahlangu from a phone shop. She was forced into a cream
Kombi waiting nearby
with two other officers and taken to Fairbridge police
camp, approximately
20km outside of Bulawayo. WOZA said this is a place
where police officers
are taken to be "disciplined".
According to the WOZA statement, she was
made to watch other people being
tortured by plain-clothed officers until
8.30 at night. The police then took
her into the bush nearby and
interrogated her about Jenni Williams and about
WOZA's sources for funding.
Clarah insisted she could not answer their
questions, and as punishment,
they forced to crawl under an electric fence.
The statements said the
activist escaped into the bush and found her way to
the main road where a
passer-by gave her a lift back to Bulawayo in her
torn, filthy
clothing.
She was immediately taken for medical treatment because she was
vomiting and
urinating blood. According to WOZA, Clarah had been beaten in
police custody
on Thursday by Sergeant George Levison Ngwenya and Detective
Assistant
Inspector Tshuma. This aggravated earlier injuries from beatings
received in
February.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
I set out in the following table the growth in sales in
a local supermarket
over 12 months in the past year.
April 781%
May
1139%
June 992%
July 1050%
August 1283%
September 1026%
October
2285%
November 1875%
December 1895%
January 3425%
February
3298%
March 5202%
What is really scary are the results for the first
week of April - 13 081
per cent!! I know there were other influences of this
latest increase (it
was Easter) but all the same there has been another huge
jump in prices in
April. Certainly more than in March and I do not think this
supermarket
owner would claim that the volume of his sales are rising like
this!
If we add to this the outturn of the worst agricultural season in
perhaps 50
years (we have grown barely 20 per cent of our food requirements),
the near
collapse of the mining industry under the burden of completely
unrealistic
exchange rates (the official exchange rate is 1,25 per cent of
the market
rate) and a nonsensical gold price of Z$16 000 a gram when the
market price
is nearer half a million dollars a gram in the market. The
continued, even
accelerated collapse of industry and the almost complete
absence of tourists
and you get the picture of an economy in even deeper
trouble than last year.
The IMF has revised its estimates of the decline
in our GDP but even that
does not reflect what is happening right now. The
response of the government
has been catastrophic - the Governor of the
Reserve Bank has abandoned any
attempt to influence exchange rates - he
simply handed that over to the
Minister of Finance who is the most ignorant
Minister we have had in that
portfolio since independence. The Ministry of
Industry is trying to hold
prices down and we have not seen sugar for three
weeks, cooking oil has all
but disappeared and bread is selling at ten times
the controlled price. The
Statistics office simply suspended publication of
the inflation rate,
knowing full well that the rate for March - even after
they had massaged the
figures and used the fictional controlled prices for
key commodities, had
surged to new heights. My personal view is that
inflation in March was about
4000 per cent for the average consumer in
Zimbabwe.
To compound the crisis the Customs department is now demanding
payment of
import duties in hard currencies. To give you an idea of just what
that
means my son imported a second hand vehicle from the Far East a month
ago.
He paid US$8000 and Z$1,7 million for the vehicle. If he were to try and
do
that deal today he would have to pay US$6 800 in import duties - the
market
rate for that would be Z$136 million. In addition he would have had to
find
the additional currency because he could not get it from the
Bank.
The immediate effect was a huge accumulation of vehicles and goods
at the
border - people could not clear their imports, as the foreign exchange
is
simply not available. So essential imports that have been keeping
the
country going are now being strangled by the new regulations. This will
make
conditions very much more difficult for all Zimbabweans - unless of
course
you belong to the elite in power in which case you get your foreign
exchange
at less than 2 per cent of its value and a new vehicle imported from
South
Africa will cost you about US$85 - with import duty.
Does this
mean anything to the regime here - on the surface, no! On
Independence Day we
saw the usual performance from Mr. Mugabe - the MDC were
the puppets of the
western powers, our economic problems are caused by the
denial of my right to
shop in London (targeted sanctions) and our business
leaders are
"greedy".
More seriously he made no reference to the SADC initiative to
resolve our
crisis, he made no concessions to the mediation of Mr. Mbeki. He
swore ("on
his ancestors grave" - about the strongest term a Shona leader can
use) that
he would "never" allow the MDC to come to power. Quite a statement
for a man
whose sole constituency is now about 2000 individuals living the
life of
Riley in a starving nation and some 40 000 thugs on government
payroll whose
task it is to beat and bludgeon the perceived enemies of Zanu
PF in
preparation for another farcical election.
For the benefit of
those who will have read the SADC statement that Mugabe
was elected
democratically in 2002 we need to remind ourselves of that event
which was
the turning point in his relations with other genuine democracies
around the
world.
In the 2002 presidential elections the regime here used massive
violence and
intimidation in the run up to the election. Food was rationed
only to those
who supported Mugabe in rural areas. He disfranchised at least
500 000
voters prior to the election and in the election itself the
authorities
fabricated up to 800 000 votes and allowed 53 000 Zanu PF
functionaries to
vote more than once. In addition the postal ballot was
clearly manipulated
with the armed forces voting under supervision and some
400 000 potential
MDC supporters were denied the vote on the day when polling
stations closed
without registering their votes.
Mugabe claimed he won
the election by 400 000 votes and this point of view
was faithfully endorsed
by South Africa and the AU - but not be the SADC
observer mission. Other
observers rejected the result as a travesty. MDC
challenged the result in the
Courts and have yet to get a hearing. Mugabe
lost his status as a
democratically elected leader. Prior to the election
the armed forces said
they would not accept the result if Mugabe was not
elected and since then
they have been rewarded with heavy salary increments
and perks and are now
effectively running the country. Cabinet and
Parliament are largely sidelined
in the exercise of power.
If nothing is done soon to turn this situation
around we are headed for a
catastrophe - and I do not think that is too
strong a word. Already 3
million Zimbabweans are in South Africa, 80 per cent
illegally. Their
numbers are rising by the day and I would not be surprised
if another
million flee the country this winter. Just on Thursday I spoke at
a local
meeting organised by Civil Society (Transparency International) on
the
subject of corruption in local authorities. Members of the audience
who
subsequently asked pointed questions about national politics or
made
statements suggesting that what we needed was regime change, were
followed
after the meeting and beaten. I spoke to three of them yesterday and
sent
one to a medical center for attention for what looked like a broken arm,
the
others had not eaten since the day before so we fed them then gave
them
money to get out of town. They were frightened for their
lives.
Mr. Mbeki better understand that he is running out of
time.
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 21st April 2007
http://africantears.netfirms.com/thisweek.shtml
OUTSIDE
LOOKING IN
Saturday 21st April
2007
Dear Friends. Londoners have a saying, 'You have to laugh.' It
refers to
situations that could be described as tragi-comic, where laughter
is the
only recourse which will save you from downright heartbreak and
tragedy. In
other words, you have to laugh or you will weep.
Zimbabwe
is like that. Sometimes, when you listen to the ministers and top
cops
defending the indefensible, you simply don't know whether to laugh or
cry.
Is this man serious you ask yourself. Can he really mean what he's
saying or
is he so brain-dead that he no longer knows the difference between
sense and
nonsense.
Last week it was Kemba Mohadi in an interview with SW Radio Africa
that was
pure slapstick. Tears of mirth at the utter stupidity of the man as
he
denies the sickening brutality going on all over the country. He doesn't
even make excuses; he simply denies the evidence! An estimated six hundred
people beaten and bruised, two murders and parrot-like the Minister repeats
' Not true, not true.' You have to laugh!
This week it's the
Department of Statistics trying to find ways of NOT
telling us the true rate
of inflation in the country. At first, we were told
that there would be a
delay while 'the technical glitches were ironed out'.
We all know what that
means; it's called 'massaging the figures' After the
rate for February shot
up to over 1730%, it was patently obvious that the
government simply hadn't
a clue what to do about it. There was no way they
could disguise the fact
that the country was in hyper-inflation with the
rate probably nearer
2.500%. But you know what? It doesn't really matter
whether they tell us or
not. Zimbabweans don't need statistics to explain
their desperate poverty as
they struggle to put even one meal a day on the
table. It's not statistics
the people need, it's solutions.
Today I read the latest excuse from the
Dept of Statistics is that their
computers have a virus! And we all know
what the virus is called, don't we?
It's the Zanu PF virus and there is no
known cure for this deadly condition
except total eradication in free and
fair elections. This virus clearly
affects the whole body politic but
particularly the brain function where
powers of reason and logical thought
are seriously impaired, if not
destroyed forever. How else could otherwise
normal human beings talk such
blatant nonsense?
Look back over the
last seven years and remember some of the excuses these
brain dead officials
have come up with; the failure of Zesa to deliver
electricity was caused by
a naughty monkey tampering with the transformer,
it was obviously an
imperialist primate imported from Blair's Britain; the
food shortages that
were just not going to happen because the then
Agriculture Minister Made had
flown over the country and seen for himself
the flourishing harvest - of
grass! Read the Herald or listen to ZBC and you
will find dozens of similar
examples of Zanu PF idiocy. You have to laugh!
It all reminds me of my
favourite homework story. The village boy who says
he was crossing the
flooded river on his way to school when a crocodile
leapt from the raging
waters and devoured his homework. Result: the whole
class and the teacher
collapse in side-splitting mirth. But, and here's the
rub, the boy still
gets punished - and he still has to do his homework. So
these brain dead
Zanies can invent as many nonsensical excuses as they like,
no one believes
them. And in the end they will have to pay for their
criminal stupidity...
What goes around comes around!
This is my last Letter from the Diaspora.
The Litany Bird will return to her
nest next week; let's hope she finds it
as she left it.
Keep smiling through the tears, Zimbabwe. We shall
overcome.
Ndini shamwari yenyu. PH
19 April 2007
The
illegal commission running the City of Harare has come under heavy
criticism
from disgruntled city employees over alleged corruption,
mismanagement of
municipal resources and unfair labour practices.
At the same time, city
workers in the Department of Housing and Community
Services have staged
sit-ins at various offices scattered around the city
demanding that they be
given protective clothing as they risked contracting
infectious diseases
through their continued exposure while at work.
Director of the
department James Chiyangwa denied there were sit-ins when
contacted for
comment. He said the gatherings of city employees were 'merely
to receive
their protective clothing and to address other issues'.
In separate
interviews today, disgruntled workers told CHRA that last month
senior
Municipal managers including the Town Clerk awarded themselves hefty
salaries' increments, while the majority of the workforce received nothing
in remuneration adjustments.
City employees alleged that the Town
Clerk Tendai Mahachi and Chamber
Secretary Josephine Ncube have both been
allocated new vehicles bought last
month at a cost around $2 billion yet the
majority of city employees
continue to toil for peanuts.
CHRA
reiterates its demands for elections to be held in Harare to resolve
several
outstanding issues, including the welfare of employees and the
return to
legitimate authority at Town House. The Commission is illegal!
Elections for
Harare Now!
Ends
"CHRA for Enhanced Civic Participation in Local
Government"
For details and comments please write to us on chrainfo@zol.co.zw, or visit
us at
Exploration House Corner Robert Mugabe Way and Fifth Street. You can
also
call us on 011 862 012, 011 612 860, 0912 924 151 and 011 443 578 or
visit
our website www.chra.co.zw
Precious
Shumba
Information Officer
Combined Harare Residents
Association
Mobile: 011 612 860
Tel: 04-705114
Website: www.chra.co.zw
IOL
April 21 2007 at 04:22PM
President Thabo Mbeki's having written
letters to both Zimbabwe's
ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change was welcome
news, the Democratic Alliance said on
Saturday.
"Failure to do so (writing to both) would have suggested
a partiality
which is inappropriate in the person requested to mediate
between the two
sides," the party's Douglas Gibson said.
He
said the people of Zimbabwe and the whole of the region was looking
to Mbeki
to achieve a breakthrough. The DA would back Mbeki's efforts.
"Firstly, in order to make a success of the policy that government has
embarked upon, President Mbeki must first admit that Zanu-PF has become a
dictatorship. Any one president who stays in power for 27 years is a
dictator. Secondly, South Africa must insist that President Mugabe does not
run in the 2008 elections."
Mbeki wrote to both
parties laying out the scope of the work to be
accomplished, the Zimbabwe
Independent reported earlier in April.
- Sapa
SABC
April 21,
2007, 18:30
Shocked police found 12 Zimbabwean women and two children
locked up in a
small room north of Johannesburg this morning, after
arresting a man for
kidnapping. Lungelo Dlamini, a police spokesperson and
captain, said police
started an investigation after the mother of the 17
year-old girl reported
that a 41 year-old man had got her daughter into his
vehicle under false
pretences at the Beit Bridge border.
He later
demanded R300 in taxi fare and refused to release her. After three
days the
amount for her release was increased to R3 000. Her mother
negotiated her
daughter's release and police accompanied her to a filling
station in Ivory
Park, north of Johannesburg, where she was to hand over the
money.
Police arrested the man and secured the release of the 17
year-old girl. She
then took them to a house. Dlamini said police were
shocked to find the 12
women and the two children all crammed into one
room.
"They were all hungry," said Dlamini. They were freed and taken to
a place
of safety until the case has been finalised. It is believed that
other
victims were either kidnapped or taken from the border and brought to
South
Africa and the man would extort money or demand money ranging from R1
000
upwards from families and friends who are already in the
country.
The man's Nissan bakkie with heavily tinted black windows was
also
confiscated. More charges including the contravention of Immigration
Act
will be investigated against the man, who will appear in the Newlands
Magistrate's Court on Monday. - Sapa
IOL
April
21 2007 at 10:02AM
Simon Mann, the alleged mastermind of a foiled
coup in Equatorial
Guinea, told a court yesterday that Zimbabwean security
agents coerced him
into confessing that he was the plot's
ringleader.
"The statement was dictated to me and I wrote what I
was told," the
Briton, who is serving a jail term in Harare, said at
Chikurubi Maximum
Security Prison during a hearing into his extradition to
Equatorial Guinea.
"I was taken to the airport by unknown men and
they showed me the
plane, threatening to extradite me to Equatorial Guinea
if I did not sign
the statement."
Mann, who lived in Cape Town,
and 61 other men were arrested when
their plane landed at Harare
international airport in March 2004.
They were said to
have been stopping off to pick up weapons en route
to Malabo to join an
advance team led by South African Nick du Toit, who was
himself arrested and
then sentenced to 34 years in prison in Malabo.
Mann said he and
his co-accused were in transit to the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC)
when they were arrested in Harare.
He said they needed the weapons
for a security contract they had won
in northern DRC which he said was then
occupied by armed former rebels.
"As you may know, northern DRC is
a rough place," Mann told the
makeshift court.
"There are
ex-rebels, ex-this and ex-that and they are all armed."
Mann denied
having any contacts with the opposition in Equatorial
Guinea and said he
feared he would be tortured if extradited to the west
African
country.
"I don't think they are reasonable people," he
said.
"They are torturers. I don't think they even know what a fair
trial
is."
The former officer in Britain's Special Air Service
was handed a
seven-year term for the purchase of weapons that prosecutors
said were to be
used to topple President Obiang Nguema.
The
sentence was later cut to four years.
Most of those arrested with
Mann were released from a Zimbabwean
prison in 2005 and the Briton is due to
be freed next month.
Equatorial Guinea authorities want him to face
another trial in
Malabo.
However, attorneys at the extradition
hearing argued that Mann could
not get a fair hearing in the west African
nation and faced execution there.
But state prosecutor Joseph
Jagada said Equatorial Guinea undertook to
provide an independent judge
selected by the African Union for Mann.
If convicted on allegations
of terrorism and leading the 2004 coup
plot, the death penalty would not be
applied, Jagada told the court.
Mann is a friend and associate of
Mark Thatcher, the son of former
British prime minister Margaret
Thatcher.
In a South African court, Thatcher earlier pleaded guilty
to
unwittingly helping to bankroll the coup attempt. He was fined and
received
a suspended sentence.
The hearing was delayed for
several hours by a power outage. Mann
appeared frail, officials said.
Prosecutors said the hearing was convened in
the jail for security reasons
and was expected to continue for several
days. - AFP,
Sapa-AP
This article was originally published on page 6 of Cape
Argus on April
21, 2007
iafrica.com
Germano Vera
Cruz
Fri, 20 Apr 2007
Mawise Gumba was confident that he would have little
trouble finding work in
his old profession as a maths teacher when he turned
his back on his native
Zimbabwe and crossed the border into
Mozambique.
But like so many of the estimated three million Zimbabweans
who have fled
the chaos of President Robert Mugabe, he found that his
qualifications
counted for little in a country that was once seen as a poor
relation.
"I've had a pretty hard time of it so far: hunger, thirst,
sleeping in the
street - the whole lot," says the 38-year-old who now has to
hawk
traditional sculptures and paintings from a street stall in the capital
Maputo.
"I thought that I would be easily able to get work as a
teacher but when I
got here I found that it was impossible because of my
lack of Portuguese so
I had to set up this stall."
Zimbabweans were
best educated in Africa
Zimbabwe was considered one of Africa's
post-colonial success stories in the
first two decades after independence
from Britain in 1980, with Mugabe
credited with producing one of the
continent's best-educated populations.
In contrast, Mozambique spent the
1980s mired in civil war that continues to
stunt the growth of the former
Portuguese colony which had gained
independence five years earlier than its
western neighbour.
But a programme of land reforms launched in 2000,
involving the often
violent expropriation of white-owned farms, precipitated
a downward spiral
in the economy of Zimbabwe. It now has the highest
inflation rate in the
world at 1,730 percent and 80 percent of the
population is living in
poverty.
"I left when I decided that for as
long as Mugabe stays in power, the
situation is only going to get worse,"
says Gumba.
Staying behind in bid to topple Mugabe
While Gumba
came to a decision to quit his homeland a couple of years,
journalist Mike
Mpani wanted to stay and try and bring about the 83-year-old
Mugabe's
downfall.
But Mpani, an active supporter of Zimbabwe's main opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change, eventually fled at the start of the year
when he began to
worry about his personal security.
"Towards the end
of last year, by taking part in a public protest, and
through my articles,
my membership of the MDC became clear.
"After that, both myself and a
number of other MDC supporters were arrested
and beaten by Mugabe's men.
They threatened that we would end up dead if we
continued campaigning for
our party."
The political climate has become even more repressive in the
last few weeks
with the authorities announcing a ban on political protests
in February and
then crushing a planned mass prayer rally, assaulting MDC
leader Morgan
Tsvangirai and other opposition activists in the
process.
Accompanied by a fellow activist, Mpani travelled across
Zimbabwe by bus and
crossed the border into the central Mozambican province
of Manica before
eventually making it to the capital, without a cent to his
name.
"When we arrived in Maputo, we had nothing. After two days, we went
to the
UNHCR (the United Nations' refugee agency).
"They told us that
they couldn't do anything for us. But even so, they gave
us some money to
buy some food and to catch the bus to wherever we want."
No refugee
status in Mozambique
Mozambique, in common with all the countries in
southern Africa, does not
accord refugee status to those who flee
Zimbabwe.
"Since the end of the year, nearly a thousand Zimbabweans,
especially in
Manica province, have come to see us and asked for refugee
status."
"But that's not possible at the moment", a source at the
national migration
office told AFP, speaking on condition of
anonymity.
"All that we can do is to to advise them to go to the
immigration services
to see if there is another way to regularise their
stay," added Alberto de
Deus, director of Mozambique's national refugee
support institute (INAR).
The UNHCR, which drew up a special emergency
plan to deal with Zimbabwean
refugees, estimates that around 5000 of them
need help in Mozambique but
admits that it is largely impotent.
"At
the end of last year, we wrote to the Mozambican government asking it to
change their stance but we have not received any response so far," said
Victoria Akyeampong, the UN agency's local representative.
"Many
Zimbabweans come to us for help ... We give them enough money to buy
food
for a couple of weeks and to travel where they want to go. It's all we
can
do."
Mpani has used the money to rent out a small room in Maputo but he
has no
intention of hanging around in Mozambique for the
long-term.
"I am giving some English courses, while waiting for something
better. I am
going to try and get to South Africa. I have some family over
there."
AFP
The Zimbabwean
(21-04-07)
By Nowell Marufu
The Zimbabwean can reveal that several
hundreds of ex-National Railways of
Zimbabwe (NRZ)employees are living in
abject poverty and a life of near
destitution in Zimbabwe and South Africa
after their voluntary early
retirement funds (VER) were looted by the
senior ZANU PF hierarchy.
The looted funds, amounting to more than US$5
million, were illegally
diverted to the construction a private business
project, the
Bulawayo-Beitbridge Railway line , in which some of the most
notable key
shareholders are the late Vice President Joshua Nkomo,Minister
of State
Security, Didymus Mutasa, and Zimbabwe President Robert
Mugabe.
The NRZ, through a programme funded by the World Bank, was to
reduce its
workforce from 17 000 to 11 000 between the years 1990 and
2000.
Government was involved because the funds to manage the the VER
exercise
were coming from the World Bank.
A total of 6 000 workers
applied to go on voluntary early retirement after
having been invited to do
so by the NRZ Board of Management.
The three representatives of the World
Bank to monitor the fund were Mr
Thomas Johnston (Credit Controller), Mr
Yash Pal Kedia ( a committee
member), and Mr Roger Edgeton (the
Actuary).
"Everything went well until the whole process was later
designated to one
Abedinigo Sibanda who became the actuary after these three
had left after
seeing to the initiation of the whole process," said Mr
Josphat Steven Moyo,
the Chairperson of the VER Associoation.
Moyo
says that they were tricked into applying for voluntary early
retirement on
the basis that they would be duly compensated; only to have
Sibanda changing
the payment formula.
Sibanda designed a two- pronged payment formula that
saw some workers
getting more than others.
Moyo , now living in exile
in South africa, alleges that relatives of
ministers and other senior
officials in the ZANU PF government were rewarded
larger payouts in
comparison to those who were without the 'right
connections'.
"We
were supposed to get a lump sum payment of 1/3 at first, with the 2/3
coming
in as monthly payments.
"But through a hastily crafted statutory
instrument , our 2/3 monthly
commutations were stopped in 1998; and as a
result we are now living in
poverty,"said Moyo.
Moyo goes on to
further state that all efforts to track down their monies
were replied with
threats from the dreaded spy agency,the Central
Intelligence Organisation
(CIO) and senior ZANU PF officials.
"The VER Association even took the
NRZ Board and the government to court
over the issue, but we lost the case ,
(Judgement No HB47/2001) ,because of
the partisan nature of the High Court
judge presiding over the case and his
assessors, who were all known to be
ZANU PF loyalists," added Moyo.
Moyo indicated that they were now
enlisting the services of human right
organisations based in South Africa to
appeal to the World Bank to ensure
that they got their monies.
One of
the organisations that was approached by Moyo and other affected
ex-NRZ
employees is the Pretoria-based Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF).
"ZEF is
appalled by such corrupt behaviour of a governmental parastatal like
the
NRZ.It is corruption among other things that has caused our economy to
deteriorate at such an alarming rate.
"Every employee or ex-employee
is entitled to their severance or retirement
packages and denying them this
package is an abuse of their socio-economic
rights,"said ZEF Executive
Director, Gabriel Shumba.
"We are appealing to the World Bank to see that
we get our retirement
packages, and that our monthly retirement benefits be
restored from the day
they were stopped.
"There is a great need for
the USA, European Union, Britain, and the United
Nations to intervene to
bring harmony to the politically and economically
beleagured Zimabweans who
are suffering as result of the corrupt Harare
administration,"said Amen
Ndhlovu, another ex-NRZemployee based in
Johannesburg.-Nowell Marufu
The Zimbabwean
(21-04-07)
BULAWAYO:
ZIMBABWE police officers are no longer having off
days during weekends
amid reports that they got surprise salary adjustments
this month to
mollify them in the face of rising political tensions and
violent
incidences in the country.
The salary adjustments for the
security forces are efforts to calm
discontent among junior officers who have
not been spared from the
harsh effects of Zimbabwe's unprecedented economic
meltdown.
Police officers are now working seven days a week with 'no off'
and
'half days' on Sundays and Saturdays respectively as usual
during
normal circumstances amid revelations that new leave applications
are
also being denied.
Police sources say this is part of moves to
step up efforts to have
the police on standby against rising violent
disturbances. This comes
against reports that the police are now authorized
to use live
ammunition in response to violence.
According to reports,
this followed concerns in the government that
police have been over-stretched
by recent disturbances and are
ill-prepared to deal with violent opposition
protests.
The Home Affairs Minister, Kembo Mohadi and Wayne Bvudzijena,
the
police commissioner refused to comment.
This follows reports that
about 2500 Angolan paramilitary police,
feared in their own country for their
brutality, are to be deployed in
the country to boost numbers of the police
force. But the government
denies the allegations saying they are in the
country for an exchange
programme.
Analysts credit soldiers and police
with keeping President Robert
Mugabe and the ruling Zanu-PF party in power as
they are always ready
to crush public discontent in the face of an
unprecedented economic
crisis.
Analysts also rule out the possibility
of well paid security force
staging a coup against President Mugabe despite
warning that the
worsening economic crises running havoc ion their salaries
could force
them to openly revolt or refuse to defend the government in the
event
of a civil rebellion-CAJ News.
action.org
Saturday, April 21,
2007
Every single day courageous and faithful Christians in Zimbabwe are
suffering and dying through their resistance of the brutal reign of
president Robert Mugabe. You would never know this is true from the lack of
interest or response of conservative Christians in America. Of all the
causes that are taken up by the Christian Right I have not heard a single
voice lifted on behalf of the church in Zimbabwe and their struggle to
resist the reign of terror led by President Mugabe.
In January, eight
high-profile Christian leaders were arrested by security
forces as they, and
hundreds of supporters, opened a new office of the
Zimbabwe Christian
Alliance, an international agency that promotes
non-violent resistance to
Mugabe's rule. But Mugabe's government continues
to crack down on this
resistance as the nation faces total economic and
social collapse.
Zimbabweans struggle to survive with an inflationary rate
of 1,700% as well
as widespread unemployment and profound poverty. More than
3/4ths of the
people live in poverty, unemployment is at 80%, and hordes of
people are
escaping to South Africa as refugees. Mugabe has led the nation
since 1980
and every call for political and social reform has been met with
more force
and resistance. Other African leaders are complicit in allowing
this to
happen, including the president of neighboring South Africa.
Thankfully,
the Lutheran World Federation has called on the international
community to
respond. And the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, with 75
million
members in 216 countries, has also urged action by a pan-African
Union to
act to end this oppression. I support the actions of the World
Alliance of
Reformed Churches as a Reformed Christian.
While the Christian Right
struggles to "rescue" America it almost
universally ignores the plight of
the poor and oppressed around the world,
as well as in our own country.
Evangelicals are rarely heard from when
issues like Mugabe and Zimbabwe rise
to international attention. Why? Could
it be that what I have called our
"America-centric" mindset is in fact a
form of worldliness? Could it be that
we simply don't care about profoundly
Christian concerns beyond our own land
unless they represent efforts to win
individual souls to Christ through our
flawed approaches to mission?
Look, I believe the free-market is needed
to help Africa lift itself up
economically and to experience and practice
real freedom. But the
free-market will not work when the leadership is
corrupt and the economy is
a disaster because of oppressive governments. The
problem is simple--most of
the world doesn't care enough to do anything
about Zimbabwe. While we fight
a war in Iraq, ostensibly to build freedom
and to protect our own national
interests and what we believe to be peace in
the Middle East, we treat
places like Zimbabwe as unimportant at the very
best. To my mind, something
is very wrong with this picture. Evangelicals
need to join their Catholic
and mainline Lutheran and Reformed brothers and
sisters in resisting Mugabe
and fighting for true reform in Zimbabwe. If we
will not defend the helpless
and the weakest then our witness will be
blunted and our prophetic edge, if
we still have one left, will be lost
entirely.
Pray for Zimbabwean Christians. Better yet, do something about
Zimbabwe if
you have an opportunity. Your brothers and sisters need you to
truly love
them. Talking about politics is easy, doing something that saves
lives and
cultures is what really matters. Consider James 2:12-26. I don't
hear much
serious preaching on James in our conservative churches. I fear
that I know
why. We are American Christians first, and kingdom Christians
second, if at
all. We love the message of faith, but we shun works of mercy
and compassion
when it costs us something. Something is very wrong with this
picture.
John H. Armstrong is founder and director of ACT 3, a ministry
aimed at
"encouraging the church, through its leadership, to pursue
doctrinal and
ethical reformation and to foster spiritual awakening."
Sunday Times, Kenya
HERBET-Jean Awuor
The peoples of the African
continent have been given very good reasons to
feel proud and honoured to
have a leader like you. Thankfully, the South
Africa your party, African
National Congress (ANC) inherited from the
obnoxious white minority
government of Frederick De Klerk, back in 1994, is
a very different
one.
There is economic prosperity everywhere; millions of South Africans
have
received economic empowerment, many have received housing, racial
relations
have improved markedly, your government has allowed for a very
vibrant and
effective Opposition and South Africa has now taken its position
as a key
voice on the continent and even beyond.
These, we must
admit, are as a result of good, workable policies that have,
in themselves,
allowed for stability and a big source of attraction to
foreign investment.
Little wonder that South Africa, despite all that it has
gone through in
past decades and eras, has become our continent's most
viable economy, as
well as a power-house of prosperity and a beacon of hope
for the
rest.
Mr President, 42 million South Africans, and another 800 million
brethren of
yours around the continent, will never forget the mighty role
you played in
helping to bring the FIFA World Cup to Africa.
Come
2010, the world will converge in your country and history will be made
for
Africa as a whole, when several cities in your country and environs will
not
only be opportuned to show-case the legendary African hospitality, but,
also
show to hundreds of thousands of guests, as well as to some six billion
members of the world community, that excitement, good organisation, good and
modern infrastructure, profits and corporate success can come from Africa.
Your party, the ANC is one of Africa's oldest and most enduring movements.
But, more importantly, it's about one of the few if not the only, political
party on the continent that was, and has remained, driven by a manifesto and
an ideology.
Maybe, the ANC's many years, first as a movement for
black African freedom
fighters, and second, as a legalised political party,
has helped you and
your party to gain one thing that the majority of parties
around Africa
badly lack: namely experience. Yet, no one can deny this other
fact that
good leadership is key to what the ANC has been able to achieve
for all
South Africans- black, white and mixed race.
South Africa,
and the ANC in particular, has been blessed with a succession
of good,
committed and visionary leaders, such as, your predecessors,
President
Nelson Mandela and Frederick De Klerk, Govan Mbeki your father,
Oliver
Tambo, Steve Biko, Winnie Madikezela, Jacob Zuma, Cyril Ramapozah.
These
great men and women, including you. Mr President, and many others, had
given
their all, their freedom, their lives, riches and comfort, in order
that
South Africa should be free; in order that Africa as a whole should be
rid
of a big blight, if not a major wound, in its long history: that of
apartheid - a wicked system that consigned the majority of the population to
second class status.
Mr President, the leadership provided by the ANC
is exemplary, because it
remains one of the few ruling parties on the
continent that has not been
accused of hounding the Opposition or
incarcerating or beating people up for
lawfully opposing government
policy.
Since you took office as president eight years ago, you have led
a
constitutional government, and like your predecessor, the great elder
statesman himself, Dr Mandela, you have wisely avoided the temptation of
using the big majority gained by your party to try to change the
constitution, and all South Africans, minority and majority alike, have been
the better for it.
Remarkably, too, the ANC dominated government,
which you lead, has
consciously refused to function within a
winner-takes-all atmosphere, in the
interest of stability and national
unity, and most importantly your
government has consciously avoided
exploiting deep-seated racial and ethnic
differences or inequalities still
embedded in South African society for
selfish political ends.
For so
long, apartheid regimes in the country had dwelt on it making South
Africa
hell on earth, as a result. Today, many leaders across Africa are
still
adopting such tactics in order to strengthen their power bases and to
remain
in power, and their countries have been thrown into long-running
conflicts.
Interestingly, land re-distribution policy being pursued
by your government
has forced many of your country's 4.5 million white
citizens to flee in
anger or fear, now has it triggered any form of open
resentment among the
black majority; but, still, it is ongoing.
The
truth and reconciliation commission, which your government set up in
1999 to
look into the atrocities and excesses of the past, proved so
effective as a
tool of national healing that other countries, such as
Nigeria, Sierra
Leone, Cote D'Ivoir and Liberia, followed suit.
Indeed, the report card
for South Africa, and particularly for the ANC-led
government, since the
introduction of majority rule in 1994 has been very
good, not least in the
domestic front.
Looking at how much South Africa has achieved so far,
those in Europe and
America, who think the black man is less capable of
governing himself than
he was two centuries ago, are always confronted by a
living example of the
African success story, and why not?
The crusade
your government has launched against corruption has not spared
some of the
most powerful sons and daughters of the land, including top
people in the
governing party, like your former deputy, Jacob Zuma. Your
courageous
efforts in that regard has been replicated by some of your
counterparts
across the continent, such as, Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo,
Zambia's Levi
Muanawasa and Malawi's Binguwa Mutharika. It is unfortunate,
however, that
here in Kenya, we are still struggling to tame the dragon! No
one can be in
any doubt, Mr President; of the kind of legacy you would wish
to leave
behind for your country and the wider continent, when you conclude
your
second and final presidential term in two years time.
Surely, you will
want to be remembered, Mr President, not just as someone
who gave his all
for the sake of his country, South Africa, but, you will
also want to be
remembered as the man who stood for justice and for equality
elsewhere in
Africa. For that reason, the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe,
12 million
in all, are urging you to intervene to end theirs and their
country's
downward spiral. Your friend and colleague, President Robert
Mugabe, is
driving his people into the ground, and everyone reckons that you
and your
government are about the only ones that can make him listen to the
belated
cries of his people.
Mr President, you are grossly wrong to continue to
argue that what is taking
place between Mr Mugabe and the opposition is
merely an internal matter. It's
also wrong for you, Mr. President, to regard
President Mugabe alone as the
Zimbabwean freedom fighter who had helped end
white minority rule in his
country and proceeded to give his unqualified
backing to the ANC in its own
bloody war against the white (Pretoria)
regime.
Ordinary Zimbabweans had also been part and parcel of the
liberation
struggles, and many gave up lives and families, and came under
constant
bombardment from the South African airforce and army, in solidarity
with
their brothers and sisters on the other side of the border.
It's
in the interest of the people of Zimbabwe that you and the rest of the
government of South Africa think along these lines: that President Mugabe's
quarrel with Western governments is one thing, and his problem with the
domestic opposition, another. Besides, your colleagues in SADC have chosen
you as the one to meditate peace between the government of Zimbabwe and the
opposition.
But, as you set to begin your new task, please, consider
these: that someone
must have to take responsibility for the economic and
political mayhem that
has hit Zimbabwe since 2001, a land redistribution
policy that has
transformed that country from the region's bread basket to
an impoverished,
grain -begging one; three, the fall of life expectancy
among the general
population to about 37 years; four, rise in infant and
maternal mortality;
five; the dislocation or displacement of 700,000
inhabitants of Harare, the
capital and opposition stronghold via a mass
demolition of their dwellings;
six, the repeated use of the police and other
security agencies, as well as
ruling party militants, to brutalise, harass
and physically batter members
of the opposition and lastly, the highest
inflation rate in the world.
Surely, nobody, including you, Mr President,
will tolerate such madness,
such disrespect for human rights and such
disregard for basic freedoms
inside South Africa. The time to do something,
President Mbeki, is now,
before Zimbabwe implodes and a humanitarian
disaster thrust upon the region
in a degree never before seen. To be
sincere, Rwanda's case could be just a
tip of the iceberg!
If one way
of resolving the crisis in Zimbabwe is getting the president out
of the way
for the good of the millions of Zimbabweans, then, you, Mr
President, should
lead the way in telling him to go, in the interest of his
people.
Let
free and fair elections happen in that country, next year, and if
President
Mugabe, at 86 will prove as an obstacle to that taking place, you
Mr
President should take the lead; do the right thing by garnering the
government of South Africa, the SADC countries, as well as the rest of the
African union, to launch an economic and diplomatic boycott of the ZANU PF
government.
President Mugabe's personal interests and wild fantasies
cannot be allowed
to supersede those of the millions of ordinary men, women
and children of
Zimbabwe who are currently bearing the brutal brunt of poor
governance and
senile fantasies.
The writer is a Policy Advisor based
in Nairobi.
herbertjean.awuor@gmail.com