| The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
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Zimbabwe's
opposition says it is taking a risk by seeking talks
with the government on
defusing the country's crisis because tough critics
might consider it had
sold out to President Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe is
grappling with a political
crisis and melt down of what was once one of
Africa's most prosperous
economies, a decay many blame on Mugabe's policies.
Talks
between his ruling Zanu-PF party and Morgan Tsvangirai's
opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) are widely viewed as crucial
to reviving the
country's fortunes. "We as a party have taken risky measures
as a way of
creating a conducive environment for dialogue," Tsvangirai said
in a
statement a day before Heroes' Day commemorating those who fought and
died in
the independence war Mugabe led in the 1970s.
Tsvangirai did
not specify what the risks were, but MDC
officials told Reuters that offering
to sit down with Zanu-PF may estrange
harder-line opponents of Mugabe's
government and give rise to charges of
selling out. Church leaders are trying
to revive stalled talks between the
two but there has been no evidence of
direct contacts. "We have chosen the
path of dialogue in the hope that this
will bring about a speedy and
peaceful resolution of the country's problems
and stop all the suffering,"
said Tsvangirai.
The former
British colony which Mugabe has ruled since
independence in 1980 is plagued
by chronic shortages of food, fuel and now
even banknotes, amid inflation at
a record 365% a year and record
unemployment at over 70%. Last week, the MDC
said in its agenda for the
talks it would stop questioning Mugabe's
legitimacy -- although it has not
dropped a court challenge to his 2002
re-election. The MDC and several
Western nations accuse Mugabe of rigging
last year's poll. The MDC wants new
electoral laws, a repeal of tough
security and media laws and the disbanding
of pro-government
militias.
"It now remains to Zanu-PF to reciprocate our
gesture of
goodwill and take concrete measures in order to find a permanent
solution to
the country's crisis," Tsvangirai said. Mugabe says the MDC is a
Western
stooge and the economy has been sabotaged by his opponents in
retaliation
for his seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to
landless
blacks. - Reuters
Zim Standard
Tractor scandal
By Henry Makiwa
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe, who initiated a tractor scheme to benefit
tobacco
growers early this year, has helped himself to one of the biggest
tractors
available under the scheme, The Standard has established.
It has
also emerged that top officials in the ruling Zanu PF party and
government
might have hijacked the tractor scheme, initially meant to
benefit mostly the
newly resettled small-scale tobacco growers.
Mugabe launched the
ambitious Tobacco Growers Trust (TGT)
mechanisation programme in April in an
effort to empower the newly resettled
and small-scale tobacco growers, and
those already growing the crop, by
providing cheaper tractors to produce next
year's crop.
Most of the first batch of the imported tractors that
have arrived
into the country since April have been allocated in
questionable
circumstances to TGT employees, Cabinet ministers, judges,
service chiefs
and workers in President Mugabe's office.
Investigations by The Standard show that among the beneficiaries of
the cheap
but powerful tractors from India, France and Brazil - besides
Mugabe - have
been Agriculture Minister Joseph Made, Justice Minister
Patrick Chinamasa,
Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, Judge President
Paddington Garwe, Zimbabwe
Defence Forces chief Vitalis Zvinavashe, Science
and Technology Minister
Olivia Muchena, Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa and
Deputy Minister Shuvai
Mahofa, among others.
According to documents in possession of The
Standard, the list of
beneficiaries of the TGT mechanisation scheme reads
like the "who's who" in
Zanu PF and includes government officials like the
Registrar General Tobaiwa
Mudede, Airforce Commander Perence Shiri, Made's
permanent secretary Ngoni
Masoka, top Zanu PF legislators Eddison Zvobgo,
Kenneth Manyonda and Nobbie
Dzinzi, former Finance minister, Simba Makoni and
University of Zimbabwe
lecturer and Hondo YeMinda apologist, Sheunesu
Mupepereki.
Though The Standard's investigations could not
establish whether all
those who received the tractors were indeed tobacco
growers, disgruntled new
farmers last week alleged that the allocations were
fraught with underhand
and sometimes corrupt tendencies.
It was,
however, established that some of the beneficiaries, including
President
Mugabe, do not grow the golden leaf which accounts for a
substantial part of
Zimbabwe's foreign currency earnings, although this was
given as a
prerequisite for one to qualify for the scheme.
Thomas Nherera, TGT
vice-chairman, who together with his boss Wilfanos
Mashingaidze, were
responsible for the allocation of some of the tractors,
dismissed the
allegations of looting as "trivial".
"All this cheap talk happens
wherever there is business. Yes, we gave
the President (Mugabe) a tractor, in
the full glare of the public on April
4. We gave him even though he does not
grow tobacco because he is our
President," Nherera said.
"But
Made runs a tobacco farm in Headlands while Garwe and Chidyausiku
are tobacco
growers of note. In fact, everyone who has received the tractors
has a
tobacco growers' identity number," said Nherera.
He said of the 741
tractors that were expected to be imported, only
224 have arrived due to the
country's shortage of foreign currency.
Said Nherera: "The simple
thing is that the demand for these tractors
far outweighs the need. So any
allegations levelled against us are baseless,
unless if it is a petty
argument that we should not give tractors to high
profile government and
ruling party officials even though they are tobacco
growers."
Nherera, according to documents in our possession, awarded himself
a
100-horsepower SAME Silver 100.6 tractor, one of the most powerful
machines
available under the scheme.
Other tractor models
available under the mechanisation programme are
the French-built Renaults and
the Indian-made Mahindras
Pindie Nyandoro, managing director of
Stanbic Bank who also benefited
from the scheme, admitted to The Standard
that she was awarded a tractor
even though she does not grow tobacco.
Nyandoro said she had acquired the
tractor on behalf of her nephews fuelling
suspicion that other "big wigs" in
commerce and industry might have used
their influence to attain the cheap
farming equipment.
Beneficiaries of the tractors pay a government-subsidised sum of
between $1
and $2 million instead of the more than $30 million they would
cost if
purchased at the going market price from their local assemblers.
Under the mechanisation programme, TGT was allowed to retain 20% of
tobacco
export earnings to buy chemicals, fertilisers and tractors for
growers and
new farmers of the crop.
Many of the new tobacco farmers, resettled
on commercial farms but
without the implements, had registered their names
for the tractors and were
surprised to find out that they had already been
snapped by the "chefs".
"The whole scheme stinks of massive
corruption. First of all, the
identity of people who have benefited has been
kept a top secret and yet the
programme, as was said by President Mugabe when
he launched it, was supposed
to be transparent," said a new farmer, who
refused to be named.
Zim Standard
Defiant Lobels sues govt
By Kumbirai
Mfunda
LOBELS Bread, which was fined $5 million alongside three
other bakers
last month for flouting a government decree to sell bread at
$250 a loaf,
has vowed not to pay the fine and instead wants to take the
government to
court.
Baking industry sources told Standard
Business that the three other
bakers had also resolved to defy the government
order arguing that the
dictated price is not tenable.
The bakers
last month more than doubled the price of bread, which in
fact was selling at
$550- instead of the stipulated $250-to $1 000 in
violation of a government
price freeze decreed in November last year.
The gazetted wholesale
price of bread is $225, while its retail price
is fixed at a ridiculous
$250.
Bakers argued that the dramatic bread price hike was
precipitated by a
rise of more than 1 000 % in the state-run Grain Marketing
Board's selling
price of wheat. The board increased the wheat price more than
12 times, from
$30 000 to $366 584 a tonne. This forced millers to increase
the price of
flour eight-fold, from $102 000 to $870 000 a tonne. Bakers
responded by
quadrupling the unofficial price of bread.
Sources
at Lobels, the country's largest bread manufacturer, said they
were under
immense pressure from shareholders who have invested funds for a
return but
due to the price command, the baking business had ceased to
be
viable.
The bread manufacturing concern first lodged its case
last month with
the magistrate's courts that later on referred the matter to
the Supreme
Court. The Supreme Court has set August 29 as the date of the
hearing.
Sources at Lobels' Simon Mazorodze Road head office said
the prominent
bakers have already engaged a lawyer to handle their landmark
case.
"We are not paying those tickets. We can't sell bread at
below cost.
We will be prejudicing our shareholders," said an
official.
"We have two laws that are at loggerheads here Š that of
directorship
and that of price controls. Both laws are legal and binding but
we have to
choose the one that is compatible to our shareholders," the source
added.
Executives of the other affected bakers said they would take
a cue
from the position taken by the Bakers' Association of Zimbabwe
(BAZ).
In July BAZ chairman, Armittage Chikwavira, said the
increases would
affect the viability of bakeries, most of whom are currently
teetering on
the brink of collapse.
When contacted for comment
on Friday, Chikwavira professed ignorance
at the legal proceedings being
instituted against government by Lobels.
"I am not aware of that.
We are talking to government over the issue
of pricing," said
Chikwavira.
Zim Standard
Travellers' cheques fail to solve cash crisis
By Caiphas Chimhete
SEVERAL banks in Harare had, by late afternoon
yesterday, not received
their allocation of the local travellers' cheques
from the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) by the close of business yesterday,
two days after they were
supposed to be in circulation, as the cash squeeze
continued, The Standard
has established.
Only three banks -
Barclays Bank of Zimbabwe Limited, Standard
Chartered Bank and Royal Bank -
were issuing the RBZ travellers cheques by
closure of financial business
yesterday.
The three commercial banks were issuing travellers'
cheques of $100
000 only, an amount that many Zimbabweans said they did not
have in their
bank accounts.
"We started with a higher
denomination so that we do not clog our
system. If we had started with a $20
000 cheque, the situation was likely to
go out of control as more people were
going to queue," said a front desk
official with Barclays Bank's head office
in Harare.
The government last week announced the introduction of
local
travellers' cheques in denominations of $100 000, $50 000, $20 000, $5
000
and $1 000 that would be accepted locally as payment for goods and
services
in an effort to eliminate the cash shortages.
However,
there were no customers at most of the bank counters where
the cheques were
available because people did not have the huge amounts of
$100 000 in their
bank accounts, defeating the whole idea of introducing
cheques in place of
cash.
An official with Zimbank said they had received the
travellers'
cheques but had not started issuing them because they were still
working on
modalities.
Other commercial banks such as Kingdom,
Stanbic and Century had not
received the travellers' cheques from the RBZ by
the time they closed
business yesterday.
With the travellers'
cheques, an account holder can use them to buy
goods and services from
supermarkets and other retail outlets in Zimbabwe.
However, the
failure by the RBZ to release enough travellers' cheques
of lower
denominations meant that those who wanted to travel during this
Heroes' and
Defence Forces' Day holidays, were unable to do so due to the
cash
shortage.
Long and winding queues were evident in almost all the
banking halls
in Harare yesterday as people tried to withdraw money for use
during the
holidays. Most banks continued to limit withdrawals to only $10
000 and many
automated teller machines (ATMs) were not working because they
did not have
cash.
As the bank notes shortage persists, the
government has engaged a
German firm, Geisecke and Devrient (G&D), to
print the $1 000 note that is
expected to be available in the country next
month.
Zim Standard
MDC happy with overtures to African leaders
By our own Staff
OPPOSITION Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)'s
secretary for
external affairs, Sekai Holland, says the party's delegation to
the recent
African Union summit in Maputo sold its objectives to the many
important
players in the Zimbabwean conflict.
"Our presence at
the summit was very important as we managed to talk
not only to AU itself but
also to a number of interested parties such as the
Commonwealth, the European
Union delegations and other civil society groups
that had held a pre-summit
conference in Maputo," said Holland, who led the
MDC delegation.
She said Mozambique was playing a very important and leading role in
the
fight for democracy in the region as it tried to showcase the role
an
opposition party can and should play in a democracy.
"Opposition parties do not usually participate in most meetings but
for
Mozambique it was a different thing altogether as Alfonso Dhlakama
leader of
Renamo, was actually there participating throughout the summit,"
she
said.
On the visit, she said: "We were main-streaming the MDC as a
political
party to the African political environment by explaining to them
what is
happening on the ground here in Zimbabwe."
"The MDC is
for dialogue and we are entering into these talks
genuinely and sincerely in
the interest of our country as two equal parties.
We will not be swallowed,"
said Holland.
Zim Standard
SADC ministers agree on regional defence pact
By our own Staff
SOUTHERN African ministers who met in Maputo last
week have agreed to
a regional defence pact that will include supporting each
other from
internal or external threats.
Defence Minister,
Sydney Sekeramayi, who attended the Maputo meeting
with the Minister of
Foreign Affairs', Stan Mudenge, said the SADC mutual
defence pact was agreed
to by all countries that attended the fourth session
of the Ministerial
Committee of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and
Security
Co-operation.
Zimbabwe has faced unprecedented criticism over human
rights' abuses
from the West and President Robert Mugabe has hinted that he
feared the
United States could attack his government.
"We agreed
that SADC should have a joint defence pact, which will mean
any attack on any
member state would require all members' assistance,"
said
Sekeramayi.
The defence pact would be signed by all SADC
heads of State and
government at their summit to be held in Tanzania next
month.
The meeting also agreed to resuscitate the SADC peace
keeping training
centre in Harare, which was closed after Denmark withdrew
funding to protest
against chaotic Mugabe's land reforms and the
deteriorating political
climate in the country.
Sekeramayi said
the centre would now be funded by a budget from the
SADC secretariat. He said
the ministers had spurned a US$20 million offer by
the US because the money
was supposed to benefit all other regional
countries except Zimbabwe.
Zim Standard
Service station workers in dire straits
By
Valentine Maponga
"THIS is the end of my life. I could not believe
that my life would
end up like this, jobless. I don't know where to get
another job," wailed
Prosper Gundani, one of the workers recently laid off by
BP Shell Zimbabwe
in a move to cut down expenditure.
After
working as a petrol attendant for the past 15 years, Gundani
could see his
dreams of a prosperous future evaporating away. His working
career had
abruptly come to an end and, with his low education level,
prospects of
finding another job in a country where the unemployment rate is
more than
70%, are very bleak.
Gundani's experience is not unique to him
alone.
Thousands of workers in the fuel industry have lost their
jobs and
thousands more risk being thrown into the streets as cash strapped
fuel
companies seek to shed excess labour in the wake of a serious and
worsening
fuel crisis.
Most of the workers who spoke to The
Standard expressed hopelessness
and despair seeing little prospect of
recovery in the industry where service
stations, their only source of
livelihood, have gone for months without fuel
to sell.
Such is
the case of Anderson Chitsike, an employee with Dixon's
Service Station along
Nelson Mandela in Harare.
"Our salaries have not yet been reviewed
and given the economic
situation we are living in, it is now very difficult
for us to commute to
and from work everyday," said Chitsike
forlornly.
"Given the situation on the ground, we are also not in a
position to
persist in demanding pay increments as we know very well that we
are not
making any profits," he said.
Themba Dismas sha-red the
same sentiments saying the fuel crisis was
fast killing the once vibrant
industry.
"The government is actually encouraging the black market
by allowing
private companies to import their own fuel. And as you know, the
black
market is killing virtually every industry in this country," said
Dismas.
BP Shell Zimbabwe has off-loaded more than 50% of its work
force as a
means to try and cope with the collapsing business, say
sources.
Because of the persistent fuel shortages, most employers
in the
industry are not able to pay their workers full salaries, let alone
give
them increments despite the obvious need to do so in the face of a
galloping
inflation rate and rocketing prices of basic
commodities.
"We have not had a single delivery in the past three
months and this
has affected our monthly income as a company. This has
affected our workers
heavily, as we cannot review their salaries after more
than three months
without conducting any business. Everything is at a
standstill right now; we
are now surviving on selling lubricants," said
Barrie Dixon, the owner of
Dixons' service station.
Another
service station owner who refused to be named, said the
situation was very
bad and foresees many service stations closing down
permanently by the end of
this year.
"If the situation remains like this, I do not see many
service
stations surviving. The only solution to the problem is to remove
price
controls. That way the situation might improve as suppliers will
be
encouraged to deal with us," he said.
Some service stations
around Harare are already selling petrol at $1
500 a litre and in order to
avoid being caught, they have introduced
pre-paid coupons.
Zim Standard
Hunger claims five in Matabeleland
By our own
Staff
FIVE people have died from food poisoning associated with
hunger in
Matabeleland and a middle-aged Tsholotsho man starved to death last
month as
famine stalks the country's southern provinces, police have
confirmed.
The Matabeleland provinces have recorded five deaths
since last month
which have been directly linked to the severe hunger and
starvation that has
gripped parts of Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe is
suffering from acute food shortages for the third year
running following a
devastating drought exacerbated by the government's
haphazard land reforms
that have destroyed commercial agriculture.
Although President
Robert Mugabe has boasted that no Zimbabwean would
die of hunger because his
government had mounted a massive food relief
exercise, police spokesman,
Sergeant Trust Ndlovu, confirmed that four of
the five deaths were of
children forced to feed on wild fruits and other
substitutes because of the
food shortage.
They are Propitous Mguni (4) and her sister Prospect
Mguni (7), who
died after eating wild fruits in the Switsha area of Gwanda
South.
In Gwanda North, Kwazinkosi Hlatshwayo (4) and Misheck
Ndlovu (9),
died after eating a stew of boiled melon juice and maize. Sgt
Ndlovu said
the police were treating both cases as suspected food
poisoning.
Police in Matabeleland North said Reborn Ngwenya (50),
of Jimila
communal lands in Tsholotsho, died of hunger on July 16 at his
home, about
40 km north of Tsholotsho growth point.
Tsholotsho
MP, Mtoliki Sibanda confirmed the death saying he had
visited the deceased's
home and verified the cause of the death, which
Sibanda said was "clearly due
to hunger".
"This man left five orphans behind and I am appealing
to aid
organisations and well wishers to donate food. The eldest child, a
girl is
only 19 and unemployed. The family was removed from the food aid list
in May
when organisations started scaling down supplies," said
Sibanda.
The deaths come as more and more hunger-stricken and
desperate
families resort to wild fruits, leaves, flowers and berries for
survival.
The food security situation, especially in parts of the
Matabeleland
and Midlands provinces, continues to deteriorate because some
donor agencies
have withdrawn or scaled down services.
Two more
people from the Garanyemba communal lands of Gwanda South are
also reported
to have died last month after eating a poisoned cassava fruit.
The two were
members of a family of nine that had eaten the fruit.
Food donor
agencies in the country scaled down supplies in May after
being misled by a
government farming review report that claimed that
communal farmers had
produced a bumper harvest following the March-April
"Cyclone Japhet"
rains.
Zim Standard
Nigerian attorney blasts selfish African
leaders
By Henry Makiwa
VISITING Nigerian Chief Magistrate
and women's rights activist, Oby
Nwankwo, has lashed out at African
governments for neglecting the education
of their people and concentrating on
issues of political survival.
Nwankwo, who was in Harare to attend
the Zimbabwe International Book
Fair, said African governments generally
neglected the interests of their
citizens once voted into power.
"The trend is the same wherever you go across Africa; all the leaders
want
after getting voted into power is to sustain their own comfort,"
said
Nwankwo.
"The governments are not offering a conducive
environment for the
development of the book industry. They become insensitive
and negate the
plight of their people," she said.
"I strongly
believe that the low literacy rates that are prevalent in
Africa are as a
result of the policies of political leaders. The widespread
culture of
despising studying and reading is fueled by governments bent on
clinging to
power while abusing an illiterate populace," said Nwanko.
The
widely respected women's rights' activist is the widow of renowned
Nigerian
author and publisher, Chief Victor Nwankwo, who was assassinated
last year by
unknown assailants after ruffling feathers with his
controversial
publications.
Nwankwo, who leads an organisation called the Free
Legal Services
Centre for widowed and divorced women, urged the Zimbabwean
civil society to
press on for the cause of the emancipation of
women.
She also emphasised the "great need" for women to
disentangle
themselves from male dominance.
"We hear news of a
civil strife in Zimbabwe and we can easily relate
to the scenario because we
have been through it too. Nigeria was faced with
the same predicament during
the years of military rule but activists such as
myself stood their ground to
fight the regime's clampdown on our rights,"
Nwankwo said.
"Sometimes you have to be dog-headed and 'damn the consequences' to
claim
your freedoms," she added.
Nwankwo said she was not happy with the
state of affairs in Nigeria
where the society still remained "very much
patriarchal" with women being
sidelined from developmental
processes.
Nwankwo was one of the first few women attorneys in
Nigeria when she
was invited to the bar in 1980.
She says
becoming a barrister, a status considered to be immensely
influential among
women in the Third World, stirred her into agitating
against the segregation
and discrimination of fellow Nigerian women.
"Growing up in the
Anambra State in eastern Nigeria, I saw a lot of
atrocities and injustices
being perpetrated against women during the
1967-1970 Biafra War," she
said.
"I carried the visions throughout my childhood and as an
adult
resolved to give back to impoverished women by conferring free
legal
services especially in matters of domestic disputes and
inheritance."
Besides her law practice, Nwankwo is also author of
17 works on women
rights' issues under her late husband's publishing company,
Four Dimension
Publishers.
Zim Standard
Why hawks in Zanu PF fear talks
newsfocus By
Henry Makiwa
THE potential resumption of inter-party talks between
Zanu PF party
and Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for
Democratic Party
(MDC), have apparently stung some ruling party officials who
face an
uncertain future in the event that the two parties agree to bury the
hatchet
and work towards a common goal.
Recent utterances by
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs
minister, Patrick Chinamasa and the
acres of space and air time in the State
media for him to dismiss the
mediation process points to much more than
meets the eye.
After
Zimbabwe's top church leaders met President Robert Mugabe and
MDC leader,
Morgan Tsvangirai, last month as part of their efforts to press
the country's
rival parties to resolve the political and economic crisis,
Chinamasa - a
non-constituency legislator - came out with guns blazing
branding the
clergymen as "agents of the opposition".
Chinamasa's statements,
first made public on the Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Corporation television's talk
show, Face the Nation, were clearly meant to
throw spanners into the delicate
"talks about talks" and scuttle any
mediation efforts, typical of one who
stands to lose "his place in the sun"
in the event the talks are successful,
say analysts.
The widespread coverage of Chinamasa's remarks in the
State owned
media, controlled with a hawk's eye by junior information
minister Jonathan
Moyo, also points to a wider conspiracy within the
governing party to stifle
the talks.
Moyo, another legislator
directly appointed by Mugabe, was once a
staunch critic of the Zanu PF regime
before the late 1990s when he suddenly
made a remarkable volte-face. His
surprising conversion to become an
unyielding Mugabe supporter is seen as
suspect with some analysts saying he
chose the governing party only when his
fortunes outside Zimbabwe were
waning.
Moyo has been linked with
alleged embezzlement charges at the Ford
Foundation in Kenya where he worked
for some time and at the South
Africa-based Wits University. If he is chucked
out of the ruling elite in
Zimbabwe, some say, he fears this would leave him
in the open for the
aggrieved organisations to seek his
prosecution.
It is only natural, the analysts say, that Moyo and
Chinamasa and a
few other "hawks" within Zanu PF would want the talks to fail
so that the
status quo is maintained and their positions remain relatively
secure.
Said Andrew Nongogo of Transparency International: "Certain
elements
within the ruling party feel threatened by the talks and are
definitely
dissatisfied.
"But the bottom line is that for this
country to move, either
backwards or forward, we need to break this political
deadlock and extricate
ourselves from the impasse. That is why all sane
people are encouraging the
talks."
Nongogo added: "The talks
just have to take place ... Zanu PF cannot
solve the economic crisis on their
own because it has lost international
support, while on the other hand the
MDC have failed to kick Zanu PF out of
power through their mass
actions."
Fledgling talks between the MDC and Zanu PF were
scuppered last year
when Tsvangirai filed a petition in the Harare High Court
challenging
Mugabe's victory in the 2002 presidential poll, widely condemned
as flawed.
The opposition wanted the issue of Mugabe's legitimacy
discussed in
the talks, forcing Zanu-PF negotiators to break off their
participation.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, South African
leader Thabo Mbeki
and Bakili Muluzi of Malawi also vainly held separate
talks in May this year
with Mugabe and Tsvangirai to try to resuscitate
inter-party dialogue.
Mugabe, however, has ruled out any talks
unless the MDC recognises his
legitimacy as president. Tsvangirai, on the
other hand, has in the past
insisted that the courts should rule on the
matter.
Political analyst Enerst Mudzengi, said: "Despite the
apparent acts of
violence, rape, intimidation, harassment and various forms
of torture that
have ravaged the nation, some within Zanu PF feel comfortable
because they
are safe that way.
"But such is the behaviour of
politicians and political parties
because their business is to conquer and
amass power. It is important
therefore for all right-minded Zimbabweans of
influence to propagate the
resumption of talks that will bring back democracy
and ensure the economic
development of our country in a wholesome and
sustainable manner."
But University of Zimbabwe lecturer, Heneri
Dzinotyiweyi, dismissed
notions that Chinamasa and Moyo were against the
talks solely because they
wanted to ensure their political
survival.
"The problem with us Zimbabweans is that we tend to read
too much in
whatever we hear in a critical voice and attach conspiracies to
it," said
Dzinotyiwei, who heads the Zimbabwe Intergrated Party.
"That the likes of Chinamasa are harbouring ambitions of political
survival
are peripheral issues and should not be used to diverge from the
real matters
of importance. Though such elements could indeed exist, why
don't we focus on
attaining a common goal that will save our country from
the current
quagmire?" asked Dzinotyiweyi.
Zim Standard
Silly to think everybody can farm
AS
a retired farmer I would like to share a piece from "Out of the
Earth" with
other farmers, particularly members of the Commercial Farmers
Union and
delegates and guests to the CFU Congress. It was set in America
about fifty
years ago.
"One of the silliest and most superficial and cynical
assertions ever
made in the history of this country was the now happily dated
assertion that
'anybody can farm'.
"Never, certainly, has there
been a saying so completely devoid of
truth in this country or elsewhere
throughout the world. A good farmer has
to know more about more things than
any man in any profession now practiced.
The belief that 'anybody could farm'
has cost us billions of dollars in
taxes.
"One of the greatest
satisfactions of the farmer's life is his
ruggedness and his independence.
When that is lost and he takes orders from
the bureaucrat, ('war vet?') the
very core of his pride and satisfaction has
rotted away and we shall arrive
at an agriculture as poor as that of the
collective farms of Soviet Russia
where the farmer is no better than a slave
who lives at a slave's level of
food and shelter, and where the State
perpetually threatens the farmer with
imprisonment, exile or worse
"There are no short cuts, economic or
medical or scientific, where the
laws of the universe are involved. One works
with nature, whether in terms
of soil or of human character, or one is
destroyed. That, I think, is a law
which it would be well for all of us -
economists, politicians, farmers,
Marxists, businessmen and all others - to
keep perpetually in mind. It would
be well for man to contemplate daily the
principal fact of his brief
existence - the fact of his colossal physical
insignificance."
If at all possible, could all "economists,
politicians, farmers,
Marxists, business men and all others," please give a
little thought to this
passage.
The little bit about "work with
nature in terms of human character, or
one is destroyed" is possibly the most
exciting component, right now.
Retired Farmer
Harare
Zim Standard
For whom the toll bell
rings
Zimbabwean drivers will soon have to pay to travel
to certain
parts of the country if the government introduces tollgates as
envisaged.
Toll gates, the world over, are a means for
governments to raise
money to service roads, build new ones and repair
bridges. Drivers who use
the roads, which are normally highways and freeways,
have to pay to pass
through the gates.
The beauty of
toll
gates is that they are really the fastest and most
efficient way
to raise money and if run professionally, they will help lift
the burden on
overburdened taxpayers, especially here in
Zimbabwe.
An irate source has however questioned the
sincerity of our
government in launching the tollgates.
According to a report in the daily horror, Secretary for
Transport and
Communications, Colonel Christian Katsande, says a survey is
already under
way along the Harare-Bulawayo Road to "get views from
motorists on their
expectations on the toll-gates".
What we know for certain is
that the survey is not a referendum
to determine the acceptability of the
project. No, that decision has already
been made.
So what
is the survey supposed to find out from motorists?
Given our
experience with this government, where even funds
meant for people suffering
from deadly diseases like Aids, or donations to
victims of disasters are
routinely siphoned and stolen, this looks like just
another conduit through
which public funds will be purloined.
But perhaps Zimbabweans
can draw comfort from the fact that if
the proposed tollgates become yet
another stillborn idea, it won't be the
first.
Other
grandiose projects, not least among them the much-talked
about Chitungwiza
commuter railway line, remain a pipe dream years after
they were
mooted.
Marriage - Israeli style
The
Israeli parliament has rushed through arguably one of the
most racist laws in
modern history.
According to Ali Halimeh (remember him?),
Israel's Knesset
recently passed a new law that prevents Palestinians who
marry Israelis from
living in that country or obtaining Israeli
citizenship.
There was a harrowing case on DsTV the other day
that amply
demonstrates the absurdity of this new piece of Israeli
legislation.
It featured a recently married couple, a young
Israeli Arab man
and his Palestinian wife.
The couple, who
met while studying in the US, can now neither
live in Israel nor Palestine
together because of the law and circumstances
beyond their
control.
They were refused permission to live in Israel under
the new law
and he cannot abandon his job and home in Israel for a new life
in the poor
State of Palestine - that Middle East enclave that is still one
of the most
dangerous places to live in the world.
So the
newly married Palestinian woman has to commute from her
home to the border
with Israel for the daylong visit every time she feels
the urge to meet her
husband!
Halimeh says the new law also applies to the
children of mixed
marriages. From the age of 12, children from such marriage
will too be
denied citizenship and the right to live in
Israel.
Halimeh, incidentally, was at one time the longest
serving dean
of diplomatic corps in Harare.
The ebullient
diplomat - very popular with the local media - is
now in Ireland where he
heads the State of Palestine's larger mission that
looks after its interests
in a number of European countries.
Bob is my
friend
The noose has been relaxed a bit on the neck of
Nicholas van
Hoogstraten, the British property tycoon and a self-confessed
admirer of
Uncle Bob Mugabe.
Van Hoogstraten, who has
admitted bankrolling the governing Zanu
PF party over the years to safeguard
his business and farming interests in
Zimbabwe, had his conviction of
manslaughter of a business rival quashed by
a British court
recently.
He had been jailed 10 years last year for
manslaughter after he
was convicted of paying two hitmen to harass Mohammed
Raja, a business rival
who was suing him.
The two men, in
a typical case of taking instructions too far,
decided to do away with the
meddling Raja once and for all and shot him at
his home.
The appeal court at Old Bailey ruled that the 10-year sentence
on Van
Hoogenstraten was "unsafe" and called for a new trial.
The
eccentric billionaire, reputed to be worth a whooping 500
million pounds
sterling (you can add as many zeroes as you like to reach the
Zimkwacha
equivalent), is notorious in UK for attacking trespassers on his
properties,
known in that country as jaywalkers.
Memos are
flying
Woodpecker has been reliably told that real editors
might soon
become an endangered species at one of the media establishments
that
recently introduced a struggling weekly newspaper.
Woodpecker's sources say the few remaining editors at the media
house are
being regularly bombarded with memos "from higher up" to pull up
their socks
or "go and sell tomatoes in Manica Road", as one journalism
lecturer of
yesteryear used to say.
An extremely reliable source told
Woodpecker - over a drink, of
course - that the guns are already out for one
senior staffer who was
recruited ostensibly to assume the top office of one
of the publications but
who has since fallen out of
favour.
An editor, himself shown the door for
"insubordination", says
messengers fall over each other in the newspaper's
corridors delivering one
memo after another to almost all the senior
staffers, except of course, a
trio that are supposed to be "the
untouchables".
One editor was written a memo for being half
an hour late for
work, while another was removed from office, his official
car impounded and
is still fighting to keep his cellphone.
(woodpecker@standard.mweb.co.zw)
Zim Standard
Are Zimbabweans unfit for liberty?
Sundaytalk
with Pius Wakatama
POOR Patrick Chinamasa. He is the minister of
justice but does not
want to see justice done in Zimbabwe. Or is it that the
poor man does not
know what justice is all about? His criticism of the
church's initiative to
bring Zanu PF and MDC to the negotiating table proves
that he does not want
peace and prosperity to prevail in our suffering
country.
For a long time the church has been castigated for
silently watching
as evil triumphed and the people suffered. The church
acknowledged its error
and its leaders are now trying to bring about the much
wanted dialogue, as
honest brokers, between our feuding political
parties.
The majority of people I have talked to seem to think that
if there is
dialogue between the ruling Zanu PF and the opposition MDC all
our problems
would be solved. Unfortunately, I am not of that
view.
I feel that the blame for the crisis we are in lies squarely
with
President Robert Mugabe and his party, Zanu PF. It is also they who have
the
power to unilaterally change their evil ways and bring justice and peace
to
our country. They don't need the MDC to do this.
Last week I
explained my position at great length in this column so I
will not belabour
the point.
Despite my scepticism about the efficacy of dialogue
between the
political parties, I feel that if anyone is qualified to
interfere and help
bring peace and prosperity to Zimbabwe, it is the
country's church leaders.
Chinamasa does not think so. He scathingly attacked
the highest leaders of
God's church in Zimbabwe and accused them of being
partisan.
In other words, he is saying that they have a hidden
agenda and can
not be trusted to be honest brokers. In yet other words, he is
accusing them
of injustice.
What Chinamasa construes to be
partisanship is the fact that the
churches have in the recent past publicly
denounced and condemned
politically motivated violence against innocent law
abiding citizens. By
calling this partisanship, the minister is in fact
admitting that his party
and his government are responsible for that
violence.
Zimbabweans, most of whom profess to be Christians must
treat
Chinamasa's diatribe against our church leaders with the contempt
it
deserves. Why does he not want dedicated and selfless servants of God to
be
involved in trying to bring about justice and peace to our bleeding
country.
One would think that as a minister of justice he should
have been the
first person to welcome the initiative by church leaders.
Instead, he is
dead against it. Is it then not logical to conclude that it is
he and others
of his ilk who have brought our beloved country to the sorry
state that it
is in today.
What is surprising is that President
Mugabe and Nathan Shamuyarira,
Zanu PF secretary for Information and
Publicity as well as party chairman,
John Nkomo, have all welcomed the
church's initiative. Does this mean he
proposes to pass a vote of no
confidence in these leaders since he is
questioning their wisdom by his
public comments.
You and I have a good idea why Chinamasa and his
fellow Mafikizolos
don't want the status quo to change. First, they are
benefiting from their
positions of power at the expense of the people of
Zimbabwe despite not
being elected by them. Secondly, they have perpetrated
such sins upon
Zimbabweans that they are afraid that if things change and
real justice
reigns, that same justice will come after them with a vengeance
which they
will not be able to escape.
How did our country get
into the mess that it is in today? The answer
is simple. Our problems stem
from the fact that we have in political
leadership, power hungry people of
inferior quality whose only purpose in
getting into politics is self
aggrandisement. Service to the people is not
on their agenda, let alone their
vocabularies. The way of peace they know
not and their only method of
communication is through violence. Imagine
someone like Joseph
Chinotimba,"the self-appointed "commander of the farm
invasions" standing as
a genuine candidate for parliament. The people of
Highfield have to be
commended for denying him their vote. We have more than
enough of his kind in
parliament as it is.
In the Bible, the prophet Micah has some
damning words for these
selfish and violent leaders. He says:" Woe unto them
who scheme iniquity,
who work evil on their beds! When morning comes they do
it, for it is in the
power of their hands. They covet fields and then seize
them, and houses take
them away. They rob a man and his house, a man and his
inheritance.
Therefore, thus saith the Lord, 'Behold, I am planning against
this family a
calamity from which you cannot remove your necks,' and you will
not walk
haughtily for it will be an evil time'."Micah 2:1 - 3.
Zimbabweans are known (or should I say were known) the world over for
their
intelligence, hard work, resourcefulness, good sense and
humaneness
(hunhu/ubuntu) which is the cornerstone of their culture. Despite
this,
Zimbabwe is today led by people who have transformed it into a
violent
pariah which survives on begging even from lesser endowed countries.
Her
children are daily suffering from the indignity of being chased away,
like
vermin, from countries near and far where they are flocking in
their
thousands to escape the hunger and political violence at
home.
What happened? Where did we go wrong? We went wrong when we
failed to
realise that people get the government they deserve.
After independence and even before, the many qualified and honest good
men
and women were enjoying relative prosperity and a modicum of peace. They
were
so satisfied with their good living that they trustingly left the
running of
the country to "those who had fought in the war."
For them it was
more important to make money and better themselves
materially rather than get
involved in politics which they deemed to be
"dirty". Even when the vile head
of violence and corruption began to show
its ugly face, the cream of our
society avoided being involved in any manner
of protest. I remember very well
when one of my friends, a professional,
visited me after he had read one of
my early articles in The Daily News,
accusing the government of sponsoring
violence and tolerating corruption. He
said: "Shamwari siyana nezvekushora
hurumende izvi. Iwe neni
takazvisevenzera, Ngatidye mari yedu murunyararo.
Unofira yanhingi." (My
friend, stop your criticism of the government. You and
I worked hard for
what we have. Let us enjoy that in peace otherwise you will
die for others)
This was the typical attitude of the 'good and
honest' men and women
in our society. They were, and still are, materialists
and not idealists,
self-centred and not sacrificial, cowardly and not
courageous. Because they
were not willing to pay the price of responsible
leadership they and all of
us are now paying plenty in the destruction of our
cherished freedoms.
The renowned political economist, John Stuart
Mill once observed, "A
people may prefer a free government: but from
indolence , or carelessness,
or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are
unequal to the exertions
necessary for preserving it: if they will not fight
for it when directly
attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used
to cheat them out of
it; if by momentary discouragement or temporary panic,
of a fit of
enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their
liberties at
the feet of even a great man, or trust him with powers which
enable him to
subvert their institutions - in those cases they are more or
less unfit for
liberty."
Surely, as Zimbabweans, we are not
unfit for liberty - or are we?
He who has ears to hear, let him
hear.
Zim Standard
Govt makes price control U-turn
By Kumbirai
Mafunda
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's government has made a U-turn over
price
controls barely two months after saying the practice would be
abandoned.
Government in May announced that it was dumping price
controls on
commodity prices following a vigorous lobby from industry and
commerce and
the disappearance of most foodstuffs from supermarket
shelves.
This was after two years of price regulations aimed at
stemming
shortages and curtailing profiteering through the fixing of retail
costs of
most basic household goods,especially foodstuffs.
In
November, the government fortified its price regime by proclaiming
a
six-month price freeze. Mugabe has now called for the strengthening of
price
monitoring mechanisms.
However, the price controls imposed two
years ago have proved
unsustainable. The widespread shortages of virtually
all basic goods and the
emergence of a thriving side and parallel market,
bear testimony to the
fact. In addition, price controls resulted in the
production of lower
quality goods, or smaller volumes, at exorbitant
prices.
Hardly three months after the annulment of price controls,
the
government has begun to crack its whip on companies that are
adjusting
prices owing to escalating costs.
First to have the
riot act read to them were bakers who had
unilaterally hiked the price of
bread from $550 to $1 000 a loaf following a
more than 1 000% increase in the
GMB's selling price of wheat. GMB raised
the price of wheat from $30 100 to
$366 584 a tonne.
Bakers argued the price increases were necessary
if they were to
remain viable but government immediately responded by
outlawing the hike and
ordering them to charge the gazetted price of $225 for
every loaf.
Fertiliser manufacturers, who in the last few weeks
increased the
price of the chemicals by 300% citing a sharp increase in the
price of
phosphates and nitrates-essential inputs in the manufacturing
process-have
also been the target of government's harangue.
A
bag of compound D that cost $7 500 in June now costs between $25 000
and $35
000, prompting Mugabe's socialist driven government to immediately
call for a
price freeze.
"We are still talking with government but nothing has
come through
yet. The cost of inputs, which includes labour and imported
chemicals, has
gone up," said TA Holdings' spokesperson, Busisa
Moyo.
Economic commentators said the government's clampdown on what
it
regarded as the "errant" and unnecessary rising of prices, was a
futile
exercise given Zimbabwe's runaway inflation and the shortages of
spares,
inputs and hard currency.
Danny Meyer, Surgimed chief
executive officer and a past president of
the Zimbabwe National Chamber of
Commerce (ZNCC), said the government's
heavy-handed approach would only
prolong the prevailing agony.
"There is no focus at the moment on
finding solutions. They are only
trying to attack symptoms. That is not
sustainable because inflation is like
cancer, it eats away the economy just
like the body. Government has to
attend to fundamental problems causing the
hyperinflationary environment,"
Meyer said.
Eddie Cross, an MDC
economic adviser, said the government's regime of
price controls was a result
of its mismanagement of the economy.
"They are trying to hold back
the consequences of mismanaging the
economy and trying to force firms to
absorb the cost of their mismanagement.
They will lose this war unless they
address economic fundamentals like
inflation," said Cross.
Zim Standard
IMF slams GMB monopoly
By our own
Staff
THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has hit out at the
government
for the continued monopoly of the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) on
the
commercial importation of grain.
The IMF said Zimbabwe
should do away with the parochial marketing of
grain products and allow for
other players to move in and improve supply.
The government in 2001
gave the GMB sole importation, marketing and
distribution rights on all
cereal commodities in Zimbabwe. The move was
meant to cut away middlemen
blamed for the rising cost of foodstuffs and for
exporting grain at a time
when Zimbabwe was experiencing severe food
shortages.
The ban
has however failed to improve the availability of scarce basic
foods such as
maize, wheat and rice.
"Directors stressed that structural
policies, focused on increasing
agricultural production and raising
productivity throughout the economy,
will be critical to help lay the
foundation for a resumption of economic
growth," said the IMF. "Priorities
include the elimination of price controls
which, together with less
regulation and government intervention in the
economy, will improve economic
efficiency and facilitate a reflow of
activity back to the formal
markets.
"Efforts to raise productivity in the agricultural sector,
in
collaboration with the World Bank and the UNDP, and which should include
the
elimination of the Grain Marketing Board monopoly, will be critical
to
improving the domestic food supply, increasing exports and
reducing
poverty," the IMF added.
The IMF's call was welcomed by
the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) which says the government
has blocked several attempts it has
made in the past to import food for
critically affected areas of Zimbabwe.
MDC shadow minister of
agriculture and former GMB boss, Renson Gasela,
called the GMB monopoly an
"expensive" venture.
"We want to put pressure to remove that
monopoly because it is
expensive, even for the taxpayer," said
Gasela.
"Why don't they decontrol wheat and maize and let millers
buy directly
from farmers? The cost will be less to consumers," he
added.
Farmers are now reluctant to sell their maize and wheat crop
to the
GMB because the parastatal, which is reported to owe $301bn, is unable
to
pay them on time.
Last week, the United Nations World Food
Programme (WFP) also
complained about the GMBmonopoly saying food insecurity
in Zimbabwe was
worsening because of its failure to import sufficient
grain.
At its 60th annual congress held in Harare on Wednesday,
the
Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said the 2003/4 maize crop would be
affected
by a shortage of suitable seed because production was curbed due to
farming
disruptions.
"An increase in maize is not likely while
the crop is controlled and
there is a shortage of inputs like fuel,
fertiliser and most importantly,
seed. Lack of seed will be a major limiting
factor on maize production this
coming season," said Gordon Craig, chairman
of the Zimbabwe Grain Producers'
Association.
Zim Standard
Time to restore hope in agriculture
IN the wake of what is happening in the country right now, it is the
feeling
of most Zimbabweans that order and normality be urgently restored
not just in
agriculture, but in the entire political and economic system. It
is time that
fellow Zimbabweans, black or white, be regarded not as
opponents but as
partners in the rebuilding of the country.
The chaotic situation on
the farms and elsewhere in the country must
not be allowed to continue.
Zimbabweans have had enough. We have to get our
house in order.
The country cannot develop or return to some kind of normalcy in a
situation
of confrontation and civil strife.
August 2002 was supposed to the
official cut-off point for the fast
track resettlement programme. And yet a
year down the road, we still see
more lists in newspapers of farm properties
being designated and others
being redesignated for compulsory acquisition by
the government.
It is difficult, if not impossible, for any farmer
to put a crop in
the ground in an atmosphere not only fraught with
uncertainty, but also
surrounded by an unpredictable and menacing government
that can no longer be
trusted to adhere to its own laws, regulations and
policies. Such is the
tragic circumstances under which farmers must try and
sustain this vital
industry.
We will be the first to admit that
without the revolution that took
place, it would have been virtually
impossible to restructure and reorganise
agriculture in this country in the
image of all Zimbabweans regardless of
race, tribe or creed. But now that
this has largely been achieved, it is
time to move on and restore order into
the chaotic situation.
Perhaps to be fair, one could say there was
no other way other than
President Mugabe's drastic method of redressing past
imbalances, albeit for
the wrong motives.
But he did what he did
and that is now the reality that we have to
live with whether we like it or
not. Whether or not it can be reversed is
now an academic argument. What
needs to be done now is to ensure that the
policy of 'one man one farm' is
strictly adhered to so that order returns to
the farms and the remaining
white Zimbabwean farmers are left in peace to
farm like any other
farmer.
It is important that the farms that were taken by greedy
individuals
who now own multiple farms be repossessed and made available not
only for
resettlement but to white commercial farmers who have the experience
and the
skills. After all, these are a tried and tested breed of Zimbabwean
farmers
with an excellent track record garnered over many years. Why reinvent
the
wheel when skills and innovation is right in our midst?
We
strongly believe that the fusion of the old and new farmers will
generate
incandescent energy which will be to the benefit of all
Zimbabweans. Is it
not a shame on our part that a once buoyant agriculture
sector can be so
destroyed to the extent that we are now importing goods and
services from
Zambia and Mozambique - countries which used to import almost
everything from
us?
Indeed, many of the new farmers throughout the country may now
have
realised that farming is not the easy route to instant wealth as
the
politicians may have led them to believe. Farm work is back-breaking
and
arduous, certainly not a field for the idle and indolent.
Farmers work long, ungodly hours and must be passionate and
knowledgeable
about what they do. In addition, vast resources are needed to
sustain a
successful farming operation. There is no doubt many of the new
farmers now
know that not everyone can be a farmer.
It is precisely why vast
tracts of farm land are lying fallow because
the new farmers to whom they
were allocated have neither the means nor the
capacity to farm. It is
nonsense to say 'land is the economy', when the
logical imperative should be
the effective and efficient use of this finite
resource. Zimbabwe
agriculturally-based economy has been damaged beyond
repair by these mindless
Zanu PF populist slogans.
Not that we expected any better, but it
was nonsensical for Joseph
Made, the Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural
Resettlement to say that
the Commercial Farmers' Union has become irrelevant
to Zimbabwe's
agriculture.
How does an organisation to which all
credit must go for the country's
success as a food producer of note suddenly
become irrelevant solely for
political expediency? CFU, we must state, has,
as every Zimbabwean
organisation, a vested interest in the success of this
country.
Any democratic system is where the majority rules and in
which
minority rights are protected.
There are intrinsic
differences of opinion in our Zimbabwean society
and this is as it should be.
If you hold a different opinion from
government, it does not make one
irrelevant. It just means that we must
continue to live with our differences
and continue to be useful and relevant
to the development of the
country.
Zimbabweans are in the throes of an unprecedented crisis
and what is
more important than anything else is to close ranks and get
involved in all
forms of dialogue which must lead to new understanding on the
need to
rebuild the country. All the people of this country - farmers,
workers,
employers, ordinary Zimbabweans - are yearning to reorganise their
lives
after more than three years of endless harassment and despair. And the
last
thing they need is a government that constantly puts spanners in the
works
rather than tackling the root causes of their problems.
No
doubt there has been much pain and property losses in the process
of the
reorganisation of agriculture, commerce and industry during the past
three
years. But that pain cannot continue forever. Instability and
uncertainty in
the farming sector will continue to adversely affect industry
and commerce
which rely on agriculture for raw materials and markets.
Instability in
agriculture has affected virtually every Zimbabwean.
It is suicidal
for Zimbabwe to continue on this destructive path.
It is in this
regard that we add our voice, as representatives of the
Zimbabwean general
public, to the chorus of those who are urging the
government even at this
late hour to abandon its destructive policies, not
only in the agricultural
sector, but in the entire economy.
Zim Standard
Well, now we all know
overthetop By Brian
Latham
Readers of the troubled central African nation's Horrid
newspaper were
this week relieved to learn that white farmers are to blame
for the economic
crisis that has brought carnage and calamity to their
country.
For three long years troubled central Africans believed
their
government was responsible for the havoc that sees millions starving
and
hundreds of thousands unemployed.
Not so, says an eminent
Cabinet minister. Actually racism destroyed
the economy.
Quite
so.
Of course, the Minister did not explain how food supplies
had
diminished to dangerous levels after the same racist farmers had
been
evicted, killed, tortured and threatened off their farms.
Nor did he explain how roles had been reversed, with the troubled
central
African nation now importing food from the very neighbours that
previously
benefited from its exports.
Instead, the Minister said these racist
white men had grown flowers
instead of food and banked the money in foreign
countries.
Leaving aside for the moment that it was their money,
the Minister
needs to be reminded that farmers grew food and flowers and the
country did
rather well as a result. No one starved, though millions now do.
There was
no shortage of basic necessities - let alone cash - but now
almost
everything is in short supply.
Still, the muddled
Minister managed to mewl about the mischief farmers
are making, presumably by
asking for compensation and other such troublesome
matters like taking him to
court.
For their part, troubled central Africans know only that
everything
started to go wrong when the Zany party decided to move racist
white men off
their farms. And not being stupid, the troubled central
Africans know that
not all the evicted farmers were racist, but that the Zany
party seemed
unable to make a distinction - mainly because doing so would
have been
inconvenient.
All the Zany party really wanted was to
stop the people working for
crazy white racists from voting for the More
Drink Coming party. The rest -
the sudden arrival of 300 000 jobless former
farm workers, the collapse of
the economy, the millions of hungry people -
was incidental to that one
important goal.
But they can't say
that, can they? Instead the troubled central
African basket case (but former
breadbasket) is subjected to endless Zany
(and zany) logic defending tyranny
and blaming racist farmers, racist Brits,
racist Yanks and racist Euros for
the fact that there's no money in the bank
and no food in the pantry. They
blame sanctions when there are none - and
that's a point that can't be
hammered home enough. The only sanctions that
exist are targeted specifically
against members of the Zany party, not the
troubled people or the troubled
country.
But back to those farmers. They've never been very good at
doing
themselves favours, and they still aren't. And now they find
themselves
unable to win. On one hand they find themselves castigated and
spat upon for
trying to deal with the Zany party - and on the other hand the
Zany party
denigrates them for; well, trying to deal with the Zany
party.
What they should have done from the start is fight, but it's
too late
to start again. The damage is done and it'll take the troubled
central
African banana republic (while it still has bananas) a decade to put
the
farms right. And it certainly won't be done by the Zany
party.
Until that happens, the troubled central African country
will just
have to continue going cap in hand to those racist Western nations
for more
food - while its ministry of misinformation dreams up ever more
wonderful
excuses for the failure of its alleged land reform programme.
The real axis of
evil
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
By
Mark Palmer
Originally published August 10, 2003
AS AMERICAN
Marines move gingerly into Monrovia, basic questions are raised
about the
level of America's interest and commitment in Liberia.
In January 2002, when
President Bush defined the "axis of evil" as the
dictatorships of Iraq, Iran
and North Korea, he did not even mention Charles
Taylor of Liberia. But this
one-time warlord and escapee from an American
prison is part of the real axis
of evil -- the larger group of 44 dictators
in an arc that runs unbroken west
from North Korea and China through the
Middle East and south to sub-Saharan
Africa, according to Freedom in the
World 2003, a Freedom House
survey.
Focusing just on today's chaos in a single country obscures this
larger
reality and the fundamental U.S. interests at stake. For collectively,
these
44 men (no women) are overwhelmingly the largest threat to American
and
global security and prosperity, and they do work together. Until they
are
all ousted, we will know no permanent peace.
In Africa, Moammar
Gadhafi, the Libyan dictator, has supported nearly every
tyrant on the
continent. His government trained and befriended Mr. Taylor
and his partner
in crime, Foday Sankoh, leader of the notorious
Revolutionary United Front of
Sierra Leone. Mr. Sankoh, infamous for his
policy of mutilations, died July
29 in custody after being indicted for
crimes against humanity.
By
financing slaughter in West Africa, Colonel Gadhafi opened
lucrative
weapons-trafficking routes and gained profits from the diamonds
mined by Mr.
Taylor's and Mr. Sankoh's child soldiers in Sierra
Leone.
According to The Washington Post, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida
terrorist
network has also tapped into Sierra Leone's blood-diamond wealth
through
Colonel Gadhafi and the West African branch of the dictators' club.
Helped
by such allies, Mr. Taylor and Africa's other dictators regularly send
their
thuggish armies across international borders with impunity,
fueling
genocidal conflicts that slaughtered well over a million people in
1994
alone, including in Rwanda.
Non-African dictators also have a
hand in prolonging the continent's
remaining tyrannies.
While Robert
G. Mugabe drives white farmers off their land and turns it over
to his family
and cronies in Zimbabwe, effectively emptying southern
Africa's breadbasket,
China's dictator, Jiang Zemin, provides agricultural
equipment for use on
illegally seized farms.
Mr. Mugabe refers to China as "the No. 1 friend"
of Zimbabwe. Kim Il Sung's
North Korean regime provided training and
equipment for Mr. Mugabe's
massacres in Matabeleland province in the 1980s,
where he resorted to ethnic
terror in a bid to consolidate his power. And
today, his son, Kim Jong Il,
is perhaps the largest source of trainers for
African dictators' security
forces.
But what's to be done? Surely the
United States can't be expected to send in
military forces across all of
Africa.
In sub-Saharan Africa, there are 29 free or partly free nations
and just 11
countries that are run by dictators, according to Freedom House's
ratings.
Compared to the hundreds of years of horrors, the past decade is
an
extraordinary period of progress.
But the remaining 11 dictators
still commit atrocities of such appalling
savagery and scale that democrats
everywhere must substantially increase the
effort to finish the job in
Africa.
We must create within the community of democracies an Africa
Caucus so that
the group of 29 free and partly free countries, with the
assistance of
non-African democracies, can help with still-fragile
transitions (and
incipient backsliding) among their members and also realize
their collective
strength by insisting that the last 11 dictators leave
power.
We need to create special tribunals, such as the International
Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda, which is trying cases stemming from the
genocide in
that country, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which
indicted Mr.
Sankoh and 11 others for crimes against humanity.
Nations
with particular histories in Africa need to revise their priorities
and play
a more aggressive role in ousting the 11 least wanted. French
policy is in
particular need of a radical shake-up, but Britain, Portugal,
Belgium,
Germany, Spain, the United States and others also have special
histories and
responsibilities. A minimal application of force may be needed
in some cases
and can work. Liberia is such a case today.
Perhaps most fundamental is
for non-African nations and Africans themselves
to begin to believe, as any
other people, that Africans have as much right
to democracy and the reasons
and capacity for it. There is a terribly
enervating condescension among many
non-Africans with a view that we must
treat Africa as a sort of child, a
patient, a charity case.
The result is toleration of dictators, a focus
not on the cause but on the
effect -- not on getting the right governance but
on debt forgiveness,
refugee relief or conflict prevention.
Africa's
longest-serving autocrat, Daniel T. arap Moi, was ousted from power
in Kenya
last year. Mr. Taylor must be out soon. Let's keep up the momentum
of at
least one every year. With just 10 to go, Africa would be a
dictator-free
zone within a decade.
Mark Palmer, the U.S. ambassador to Hungary
from 1986 to 1990, is vice
chairman of the board of Freedom House and author
of Breaking the Real Axis
of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators By
2025, to be published by
Rowman and Littlefield.
Copyright ©
2003, The Baltimore Sun
Sunday Times (SA)
Tearful white farmers gather at the end of the
road
© The Telegraph, London
Zimbabwe's commercial
farmers held their 60th annual congress Wednesday, but
it was a day of
heartache and tears for the dwindling band, some of whom now
depend on
charity to survive.
As another appeal went out for international donors
to replenish emergency
food stocks, President Robert Mugabe renewed expired
notices of acquisition
on 152 farms, including five prime ranches in the
Matabeleland province
belonging to SA's Oppenheimer mining
dynasty.
"Zimbabwe continues on its downward path to economic ruin
with no relief in
sight," Doug Taylor-Freeme, the vice-president of the
farmers' union, told
the meeting, adding that agricultural production had
fallen more than 50% in
the past year.
One farmer, Bruce Stobart,
40, who survived the three-year campaign against
the mainly white commercial
farmers only to succumb a month ago, said: "I
went into every deal available
to stay on my farm, but when a mob arrived at
my house and ate my son's pet
rabbits, we had to go, and now there is
nothing I can do."
To try
to stay on his farm in Mazowe, he gave two-thirds of his land to
Mugabe's
supporters. Last summer he ploughed for them, planted their crops
and gave
them technical help.
But it wasn't enough. Stobart, his wife and
three children fled after
supporters of the ruling Zanu-PF party surged
towards the family home. They
are now living in rented accommodation in
Harare, planning to emigrate to
New Zealand next January.
Stobart
has about 60ha of wheat and barley still growing on his land, which
will be
ready for harvest in November.
"The woman who has taken my farm, Mrs
Omega Hungwe, said I can reap my
crops, providing I give her a quarter of
what I get paid. Then she says I
must never go back home again," he
said.
"I suppose I will go to court over this, for what it is worth,
but I know it
is the end of the line."
Until three years ago,
agricultural produce accounted for 40% of Zimbabwe's
exports. Tobacco
production is down more than 60%, and Zimbabwe will grow
less than 10% of its
normal wheat production this year.
"It is catastrophic," said Alan
Stockil, a farmer in charge of a national
evaluation committee. "Zimbabwe
will continue to slide until agriculture
recovers. That is why we are
gathering data for compensation for farmers.
Many are too heartbroken to do
so, but we are pushing them."
Out of 4 000 productive white
commercial farmers three years ago, fewer than
400 remain . About 300 000
black workers and their families working and
living on former white
commercial farms are in abject poverty, according to
the union's president,
Colin Cloete. They were left out of the land reform
programme and are
jobless, homeless and hungry.
Sapa reports the Zimbabwean government
attacked the farmers' criticism of
the land reform , saying the farmers are
now irrelevant.