HARARE (Reuters) -
The Zimbabwean government has called on schools with colonial names from British
and white minority rule to scrap them and name themselves after Zimbabwean or
other African heroes instead.
Zimbabwe's new Education, Sports and Culture Minister Aeneas Chigwedere told
teachers at the weekend that school heads must follow the example of the
southern African country's name change at independence in 1980. Zimbabwe was
formerly called Rhodesia.
School names that need changing include Queen Elizabeth, Churchill and
Roosevelt, Chigwedere said.
"If you are not happy with colonial names to which these people subjected us
to, why have you not taken the initiative to abandon these names and come up
with names of African heroes or Zimbabwean heroes?" he was quoted as saying by
the local state news agency ZIANA.
The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation said Chigwedere had challenged the head
teachers to come up with new names by the end of the year, arguing that they
could not be happy with names such as Cecil John Rhodes -- Zimbabwe's former
namesake -- who paved the way for the country's colonisation in the 1890s.
President Robert Mugabe, who came to power at independence, had led the way
by renaming towns and cities with colonial names, Chigwedere was quoted as
saying by ZIANA.
A number of roads and streets built during colonial rule or under white
Rhodesian leader Ian Smith's government have been renamed after Zimbabwean black
politicians, including Mugabe whose name is in almost every town.
Mugabe's government, which is fighting for its political life in the face of
a severe economic crisis blamed on state mismanagement, has adopted an
aggressive stance towards former colonial power Britain in the past year.
It accuses Britain of trying to recolonise Zimbabwe by sponsoring the main
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and trying to undermine its
controversial seizures of white-owned farms. The British government of Prime
Minister Tony Blair strongly denies the accusations.
HARARE,
Zimbabwe -- President Robert Mugabe plans to expel all white farmers from
Zimbabwe before next year's elections, according to a secret document
obtained by the Sunday Telegraph of London.
The secret order from Mr.
Mugabe's ZANU-PF party to self-styled war veterans outlines the political
goals of the campaign against white farmers.
Titled "Operation Give up
and Leave," it reads: "The operation should be thoroughly planned so that
farmers are systematically harassed and mentally tortured and their farms
destabilized until they give in and give up."
[Information Minister
Jonathan Moyo, asked about the Sunday Telegraph article, said yesterday he
preferred not to comment on such "idiocy" because doing so would give it
"a semblance of rationality."
["It is out of the realm of
rationality," he told Agence France-Presse.]
The document was
circulated in July, just before the recent round of invasions in Chinoyi,
Doma and Hwedza in which many farmers were evicted and farms brought to a
standstill by the forced removal of their workers.
Farmers who resist,
it says, should face the "Pamire-silencing method," a reference to Chris
Pamire, a businessman and former ZANU-PF supporter who fell out with Mr.
Mugabe and was killed in a mysterious road accident.
"You know what
happened to Pamire" has become a widely used threat.
Referring to the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change, the document states: "The
opposition should be systematically infiltrated with highly paid people
to destabilize and cause divisions and infighting."
War veterans are
promised "big rewards if the opposition and white farmers are brought to
their knees." It assures there will be "no going back on farm
seizures."
Church leaders, meanwhile, have begun a blistering attack
on Mr. Mugabe, accusing his government of allowing a breakdown of the rule
of law.
In a pastoral letter published over the weekend, the Zimbabwe
Council of Churches said the unrest had led to chaos.
"Many people
have fallen victim to this monster," said the letter. "We are witnessing
murders, rapes, beatings and abductions."
It was the strongest
denunciation by the churches since the state-sponsored violence against white
farmers and black critics of the regime began last year.
"We have
heard political leaders instigating violent actions against their opponents,"
it said. "Death threats have been publicly made. This is
unacceptable."
Whites, meanwhile, have been told they must renounce
their right to a British passport this year if they wish to
retain Zimbabwean citizenship. The announcement has left many of the
estimated 40,000 British nationals in Zimbabwe in a dilemma.
A
circular from the British Embassy warns that those who keep Zimbabwean
citizenship will lose their right to consular assistance.
Last week,
Joseph Made, the agriculture minister, said white-owned farms listed for
resettlement must be vacated by Friday. More than 90 percent of the country's
4,600 white farms are listed, and the Commercial Farmers' Union has warned
that the disruption will cause food shortages.
There is a growing fear
that violence will intensify as Mr. Mugabe, angered by the continued presence
of the whites, steps up his election campaign.
He has intensified his
anti-British rhetoric in recent days. In a speech last week, he devoted nine
of the 23 pages to the hanging of a black girl by the British
colonial authorities in 1898.
On Thursday, he declared: "Whatever
machinations the British are capable of -- and they are capable of many --
they will not shake us from our position."
----------------------------------------------------------- This
article was mailed from The Washington Times
A GROUP of about 30 Zanu PF supporters yesterday barred Morgan
Tsvangirai, the MDC president, from entering Masvingo General Hospital where
three MDC officials are hospitalised.
The group comprising mostly of
women, blocked the hospital entrance and charged towards Tsvangirai’s
motorcade. Clad in Zanu PF T-shirts, the group declared that the MDC leader
should not be allowed into the hospital premises. Tsvangirai who had been
in Masvingo since Thursday last week, deplored the action as a reflection of
the lack of democracy in Zimbabwe. Visibly disappointed Tsvangirai said: “We
had scheduled to visit the hospital where three MDC officials are
hospitalised. When we arrived at the gate, a group of Zanu PF supporters
blocked the entrance and closed the gate. We succumbed to their demands and
we drove off.” He said the incident reflects gross abuse of human
rights. “It clearly shows that there is no democracy in this country. The
action was unnecessary and was aimed at disrupting my visit. I think and feel
I had a right to see my party officials who are in hospital.” The news
that the MDC leader was in Masvingo did not go down well with Zanu PF
supporters and war veterans who later grouped and refused him entrance into
the hospital. Said Tsvangirai: “I am a free citizen of this country and,
therefore, should be allowed to move freely. “I was in Masvingo to meet
party structures so as to consolidate our support.” Meanwhile, a
spokesperson for the Zanu PF supporters who refused to be named, told The
Daily News in an interview that the party supporters had gone to the hospital
to do some charity work. “We had gone to the hospital to clean the
wards. “It was just unfortunate that Tsvangirai came when we were starting to
clean the hospital premises and we had to block him from entering.”
MATHIAS Matewu, the MDC MP
for Chipinge North yesterday condemned the burning of the homes of about 100
families settled at two farms in the Chipinge area by the land resettlement
committee in the district last week.
Matewu said: “If the government
is genuine on the land reform programme, I challenge it to take action
against this barbaric behaviour because the government made it clear in
Parliament that settlers on the farms will not be harassed.” Mutare police
said the land resettlement committee in Chipinge was responsible for burning
down the homes of the illegal settlers. The families, mainly from Shekwa and
Muswera areas in Chipinge North, occupied Horus and Holland farms in August
1999. Matewu accused the land resettlement committee of corruption in
the allocation of land in the district. He said: “What is happening here
is very disturbing because people are being asked to pay $3 000 to get 35
hectares of land. “As a result people from urban areas with money are getting
land at the expense of the landless poor in Chipinge.” Matewu said his
nephew, Johane Nyamunda approached him two weeks ago for $3 000 to buy land
from the committee. “What is surprising is that I am not consulted in the
process but I know the real people in need of land as the MP of the
area. “Right now I am facing difficulties in providing food for the people
whose homes were destroyed,” Matewu said. He said some of the families
were now living in the open. Matewu said the settlers were part of the 600
families originally settled on the abandoned farms in 1994. He claimed they
were punished for allegedly supporting the MDC. The other constituency in
Chipinge district, Chipinge South was won by Wilson Kumbula, the president of
Zanu Ndonga. The families received food aid from 1994 to 1999. Each person
was entitled to a 10kg bag of maize meal monthly. Christian Care, a
non-governmental organisation, gave them cooking oil and beans. Maria
Rupondo, in her 60s, said she was bitter with the police. Her home, which she
shared with her son, daughter and grandson, was allegedly torched by the
police on 10 August.
Clerics attack Mugabe 'monster' By Peta
Thornycroft in Harare and David Blair (Filed:
27/08/2001)
ZIMBABWEAN church leaders have launched a blistering
attack on President Mugabe, accusing his regime of inciting the "monster" of
violence and allowing a breakdown of the rule of law.
In a pastoral
letter published at the weekend, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches said the
unrest had led to chaos. "Many people have fallen victim to this monster,"
said the letter. "We are witnessing murders, rapes, beatings and
abductions."
It was the strongest denunciation by the churches since the
state-sponsored violence against white farmers and black critics of the
regime began last year. The Catholic Church has repeatedly criticised the
regime, but most churches have remained silent on Mr Mugabe's excesses until
now.
The Anglican Bishop of Harare, Norbert Kunonga, delivered a speech
in May that was strongly supportive of the President. However, the letter
from the Council of Churches, which includes the Anglicans, pointed a finger
of blame at the government.
It said: "We have heard political leaders
instigating violent actions against their opponents. Death threats have been
publicly made. This is unacceptable." The Council pinned the blame clearly on
the self-styled "war veterans" of the struggle against white rule.
The
letter said: "The situation at present is very chaotic and disorderly because
the government has allowed the war veterans to take the law into their own
hands. The laws of the land must be respected and applied impartially. Sadly,
this is not the case in Zimbabwe."
The letter's publication came on the
eve of a two-day visit to Zimbabwe by a six-member delegation from the World
Council of Churches, which is expected to issue a statement today.
Mr
Mugabe has condoned the violent occupation of almost 1,700 white-owned farms
by squatters, while his ruling Zanu-PF party has waged a brutal campaign
against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Last month alone,
human rights groups recorded 11 political murders, 61 disappearances and 288
instances of torture.
Mr Mugabe denies that his supporters have been
responsible for any violence. In an interview with a Nigerian newspaper, the
Guardian, published yesterday, he said: "We are the victims. The offenders
are the whites and the opposition, who are banded together to weaken
Zimbabwe."
The South African government has grown increasingly impatient
with Mr Mugabe. President Thabo Mbeki has spoken of his fear that
Zimbabwe's accelerating economic collapse - due partly to the seizure of
white-owned farms - is damaging his country.
Yet Mr Mugabe told the
Guardian that he would press ahead with the expropriation of white-owned
land, regardless of the consequences for his southern neighbour.
Mugabe leads 'monster,' churches say
Zimbabwe's leader blamed for violence and
chaos
Peta Thornycroft in Harare and David Blair in
London
The Daily Telegraph, with files from Reuters, Agence
France-Presse
President Robert
Mugabe
Church leaders in Zimbabwe have launched a
blistering attack on Robert Mugabe, the country's President, accusing his regime
of inciting the "monster" of violence and allowing a breakdown of the rule of
law.
In a pastoral letter published over the weekend, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches said the unrest has led
to chaos.
"Many people have fallen victim to this monster," the letter said. "We are
witnessing murders, rapes, beatings and abductions."
It was the strongest denunciation by the churches since state-sponsored
violence against white farmers and black critics of the regime began last
year.
The Roman Catholic Church has repeatedly criticized the regime, but most
other churches have remained silent until now. Norbert Kunonga, the Anglican
Bishop of Harare, delivered a speech in May that was strongly supportive of Mr.
Mugabe.
However, the letter from the Council of Churches, which includes Anglicans,
said the government is at least partially responsible for the current
unrest.
"We have heard political leaders instigating violent actions against their
opponents," it said. "Death threats have been publicly made. This is
unacceptable."
The council pinned the blame clearly on self-styled "war veterans" of the
struggle against white rule.
"The situation at present is very chaotic and disorderly because the
government has allowed the war veterans to take the law into their own hands,"
the letter said. "The laws of the land must be respected and applied
impartially. Sadly, this is not the case in Zimbabwe."
The British Sunday Telegraph, citing a confidential party document, reported
yesterday Mr. Mugabe plans to expel all white farmers from Zimbabwe before next year's elections.
The church letter's publication came on the eve of a two-day visit to Zimbabwe by a six-member delegation from the World
Council of Churches, which is expected to issue a statement today.
Mr. Mugabe has condoned the violent occupation of almost 1,700 white-owned
farms by squatters, while his ruling Zanu-PF party has waged a brutal campaign
against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
The Sunday Telegraph reported war veterans received the secret order,
entitled Operation Give up and Leave. "The operation should be thoroughly
planned so that farmers are systematically harassed and mentally tortured and
their farms destabilized until they give in and give up," it reads.
The document was circulated in July, just before invasions in Chinoyi, Doma
and Hwedza, where many farmers were evicted and farms brought to a standstill by
the forced removal of their workers.
Farmers who resist, it says, should face the "Pamire-silencing method," a
reference to Chris Pamire, a businessman and former Zanu-PF supporter who fell
out with Mr. Mugabe and was killed in a mysterious road accident. "You know what
happened to Pamire" has become a widely used threat. Referring to the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change, the document states: "The opposition should be
systematically infiltrated with highly-paid people to destabilize and cause
divisions and infighting."
War veterans are promised "big rewards if the opposition and white farmers
are brought to their knees." It assures there will be "no going back on farm
seizures."
Human rights groups have recorded 11 political murders, 61 disappearances and
288 instances of torture in the past month alone.
Jonathan Moyom, Zimbabwe's Information
Minister, called the Telegraph report "idiocy," and said he preferred not to
comment because doing so would give it "a semblance of rationality."
Mr. Mugabe's government has also intensified its rhetoric toward Britain,
Zimbabwe's former colonial power.
Aeneas Chigwedere, Zimbabwe's Minister of
Education, Sports and Culture, has called on schools with colonial names from
British and white minority rule to rename themselves after Zimbabwean or other African heroes.
Mr. Chigwedere told teachers over the weekend school heads must follow the
example of the country's name change after it gained independence in 1980. Zimbabwe was formerly called Rhodesia. School names
that need changing include Queen Elizabeth, Churchill and Roosevelt, Mr.
Chigwedere said.
Mr. Mugabe's government accuses Britain of trying to recolonize Zimbabwe by sponsoring the main opposition Movement
for Democratic Change and trying to undermine its farm seizure program.
"We are the victims," he said yesterday in an interview in the Guardian, a
Nigerian newspaper.
Mugabe Not Ready to Retire VOA
News 27 Aug 2001
03:20 UTC
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe
says he will not retire until his government's controversial land reform program
is settled to his satisfaction - and to the satisfaction of his people. In an
interview published in Nigeria's Guardian newspaper, (see below) Mr. Mugabe said his
country is a democracy and the ruling ZANU-PF party - not outsiders - will
decide when he should step down.
Robert
Mugabe
The statement comes after recent calls from
the opposition and the international community for the president to resign. Mr.
Mugabe accused Britain of trying to gang-up on his government because of its own
colonial history and London's failure to adequately fund past land reform plans
in Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's Information Minister Jonathan Moyo tells the French
news agency that charges Mr. Mugabe has a secret plan to expel white farmers
from the country before next year's presidential election amount to "idiocy."
The story was reported Sunday by the British Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
The newspaper said a secret ZANU-PF document given to pro-government war
veterans called for white farmers to be "systematically harassed and mentally
tortured" until they give up and leave.
Zimbabwe's Information Minister said the report is the same thing as the
ghost story. Mr. Moyo was referring to a report two weeks ago by another British
paper - The Sunday Times - which alleged that Mr. Mugabe was being
haunted by the ghost of a liberation war military commander.
Sunday, August 26, 2001
'We Only Want To Take Our Destiny'
THE Guardian was given only 20 minutes but managed to engage him for 45
minutes. The original mission to Harare was for the coverage of the Zimbabwe
International Book Fair (ZIBF) but thanks to a not too rigid protocol and clear
absence of a presidential "brick wall," the type we have in Nigeria, it was
possible to interview Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. It was simply a matter
of chance taking and the reward was this interview even though the president's
aides disclosed that Mugabe agreed to speak to OGHOGHO OBAYUWANA because the
reporter was from Nigeria. The interview took place at the State House just
opposite Zimbabwe House (official residence and office of the president). The
State House is one huge expansive garden that has been in use since the days of
Ian Smith.The president's office was strictly modest, like the average Permanent
Secretary's office in Nigeria.
A simple L-shaped table complements the almost naturalistic interior. On his
right was an old fashioned mini radio/cassette player and the president was
spotting a navy blue suit and a red tie and ready with his famous
teacher-eye-glasses. He cut the picture of a lively grand father and there was
no mistaking the didactic look. Throughout the interview, Mugabe displayed
mastery for history. He had great tenacity for dates and memorable events. He
remembered Gen. Joe Garba (erstwhile foreign affairs minister) and many other
issues involving Nigeria so well. The Zimbabwean president spoke extensively on
relations with Nigeria, land and how he intends to win through the third
liberation struggle now referred to as Chimurenga. Excerpts.
The land issue is about the only issue in your country right now considering
the attention it is getting globally. What is your case against colonial Britain
and the white farmers? What is it that you are doing that is causing the stir?
I think we have to make this clear. It is the land reform. It is the land
reform programme embarked upon by my government in my country that they don't
like as if I am in government to make some people like what I have to do and it
doesn't matter to them whether my people starve or die. We have waited long for
20 years to have this dream realised. We are an independent nation yet my people
are still not free. The very thing they fought for is still not in their hand.
In our desire to empower our people we have worked out a programme. We call
it People First. For us the land is about life and death. Remember that the
liberation struggle in its varied and cumulative phases was principally about
recovering our land from British colonial settlers. During the struggle, we were
very clear that political independence was a limited instrumental triumph, which
the Zimbabwean people would use to extend frontiers of their freedom and
sovereignty over God given natural and national resources. It means the
beginning of the third Chimurenga--third liberation struggle, restoration of
equity and fairness.
So, we are pushing our agrarian reform through our national land policy and
the objective of our land reform and resettlement is to acquire not less than
8.3 million hectares from large scale commercial farming sector for
redistribution, to decongest the over-populated and over-stocked wards and
villages for the benefit of the landless people, to indigenise the large scale
commercial farming sector. We also hope to integrate small-scale farmers into
the mainstream of commercial agriculture. This is my case and from the uproar,
every true African can now see the kind of world we live in. So people were
asked to state what kind of land they wanted which their resources can match.
The settlers, the Rhodesians who don't want to become Zimbabweans, now they
realise that we were not just playing. It’s not just a political gimmick or
game. It’s a reality of reform, the land reform. So they are scared and they
think that their escape route is now Britain and Britain of course is in support
with countries like America, etc, and they think they can intimidate us. Whereas
we are Africans here and no one can exterminate us and we are not afraid of
those sanctions at all. Whereas the donor assistance is necessary but we can do
without donor funds. Yes we need them but we've got resource. We've got our
mines, we've got agriculture and we are looking at the manufacturing sector to
see whether we can actually buy factories, which have been closed for all kinds
of reasons. We want to open up our markets reasonably. There has been this link
with South African, for instance, but now thy wanted us to became mere markets,
mere warehouses for goods produced in South Africa. So the little factories that
were here started closing-- we have resisted that. Many of these trade and
economic issues, we are going to look into as now I have just appointed a
substantive minister of industry and international trade. The one who was there
decided to resign. We are also preparing for the coming planting season, with
the coming rains our farmers are expecting our inputs. We are going to give them
fertiliser plough. We have tractor units. At least two hectares will be ploughed
for each re-settled farmer. So we are looking at all those aspects and expect
that we keep going.
We are more agricultural than actually industrial. Yes we have a lot of
workers to take care of but the majority of our people are rural and this is
also the constituency that supports us.
I was actually going to ask you how you intend to cope with this
international gang up.
(Cuts in). That is why we sought African support at the O.A.U. and that's why
also President Obasanjo is trying to put together this team, which comprises
Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya on one hand and then mostly European plus
of course, Jamaica in the Caribbean to go into this question and also
demonstrate to us, to the world that the issues that Britain has been raising
and putting in front as the reason for its actions are not true and they are
trying to escape the land question. So there is a ganging up but we also have
been doing an exercise on our own, trying to explain ourselves. And we are
having countries like France, Italy and some Scandinavian countries that really
don't share the British opinion.
So how do you look forward to the meeting coming up in Abuja?
After they have met, and worked out their programme, we expect that there
will be follow-up action. Our minister of land will also have the task of
explaining the issues and also other questions which Britain is going to raise
and we are quite prepared and the answers from our own side are clear in the
spirit of democracy. Like I have said in many fora, Britain has no right to
raise these questions because as they say in the law of equity you cannot come
to equity with dirty hands. Those who come to equity must themselves have clean
hands and Britain has no clean hands with regard to us here. Its history is a
history of oppression. I was held for 11 years in prison. What for? You must
tell me why I was imprisoned by a settler government. They are responsible for
apartheid that later took place in South Africa because they gave independence
to the minority mining team in South Africa in 1910. In the next room to this
one was where we meet Harold Wilson in October 1965. He said to us he had come
to prevent U.D.I. and we asked him how he was going to do it, he said well he
had talked to Ian Smith. He didn't think Smith was going to be so favourably
disposed to UDI. But he had said he was going to. We said suppose he was stupid
enough to declare UDI, what would Britain do? He said oh the economy will
collapse and there will be an oil embargo and we were like that wasn't enough.
Why would Britain not send troops? He said oh the British public would not stand
for it. In quote, "British public would not stand for it." You see, their kith
and kin would not. They didn't want their people killed if people do get killed.
But here now I say to them if I send out my own army to drive out the war
veterans, I will be killing my people; I will not do it. That way I will handle
this question politically rather than handle it as a question of law and order
the way they want it. Anyway, we expect that the initiative of President
Obasanjo will help put the question clearly to Britain and to the international
community.
I want you to react to the talk that earlier compensation funds were
mismanaged and also that Zimbabweans who got funds at the initial stage ran to
the city instead of burying themselves in the farmlands. Besides, many people
also feel that the Lancaster House talks were not well managed; that government
in 1980 should have confiscated all lands.
You know land had always been a central issue in Zimbabwe after Lancaster
House when there was this understanding between Britain and us. And after the
deadlock on the issue, they said they will be able to give some assistance and
said their assistance is not going to be adequate. We said it has to be adequate
because we didn't have the capacity or even the moral duty to task our poor
peasants in order to get their land back which were never paid for and because
of that the Americans came forward and the compensation issue again was being
looked at... Now when we came back Britain was able to give only £13 million,
after that they stopped. It was a trying moment. We managed to resettle more
than 57,000 landless. We were re-settling the rural people. They didn't just
come back to the cities. There were resettlement areas that were created then
across the country, so whoever talked about this to you was misinforming you.
The people in the cities here, our rural folks are not like that. We don't
appeal to our families? We are talking about real village people and not young
people. Their children, once educated, want to come to the cities but the
villagers are there and anyway we are not like the people in South Africa who
are being doubled up... All of us here, the blacks, have roots back home-- we
are well rooted. We all as you see us say this is our home. I come from
Bulawayo; I come from Zvimba as you saw. I have my cattle grown there. I have
cattle from my grandfather on the maternal side, which is the custom sometimes,
and when the old man dies, you get something in appreciation. We are village
people, rural people, we love the soil-- we love cattle and that’s why we are
vigorous about it here. There is no one who doesn't love the soil.
How do you react to the accusation that you are intolerant of opposition and
that your country has become insecure?
(Laughs) You know what opposition usually becomes in Africa. It is not
usually different from country to country. Once an opposition had been created,
it must demonstrate that it is alive. Sometimes through acts of violence.
Through demonstrations and strikes and once you have that pattern.
Demonstrations are really an invitation in some cases to the other party to
oppose such demonstration in the streets, most times they are very young people,
the unemployed and people fresh from the universities and want to be recognised
through political acts of violence. But we can't allow that to go on. We don't
have any ... Yes if they commit crimes they'd be arrested and arraigned to the
court but that's a different process from arresting people for political reasons
and we have been very tolerant. Their white supporters are Rhodesians who fought
us in battle in the forest. Those huge characters, big belts, would come in with
the violence that is now being blown up and these are the ones who actually in
physical terms, personal terms fought our war veterans. So there is still that
history of bitterness between the two sides and they have refused to recognise
that this is now Zimbabwe. They will have it as Rhodesia. They will not accept
that there is a government and how do you get those people who continually
resist the existence of the new government and don't want to be integrated into
the country and, therefore, to be part of this united new nation as it were,
walking the same path. They don't want it and, of course, because they are
supported by Britain and you get echoes of that support from their South Africa
brethren. They are always complaining about us being the offenders and they
being on the receiving end, the victims. It’s nonsense, they are the offenders
and in fact, we are the victims in the situation. Unfortunately, in South
Africa, there too, our brothers don't have the media. They don't have the
instruments that the whites do have. The whites there are afraid of what might
happen here if we succeed in empowering our people. If we succeed here they fear
that same thing might happen in South Africa. But we are not going to stand by
merely because what we do here affects South Africa. We have our own interests,
the interests of our people to serve. Potentially, conflict situation exists in
South Africa. We didn't cry when apartheid affected us here in a big way. We
said fight justly, let our fellow comrades here fight the issue and we will
support them. So the reality is that we are not the offenders. The offenders are
the whites, the opposition who are bandied together to weaken Zimbabwe. They
don't seem to realise that unless people are united on principles like
sovereignty and the interest of their own people, ownership of their own
resources, the enemy can divide them and disrupt the process of socio-economic
development. We want to take our destiny into our hands.
I hope you will permit me to last the last questions into one.
Ah the lady, the lady is trying to interrupt you, you can do so....
After 21 years in power when are we going to have you step down. How would
you like to describe the relationship between Nigeria and Zimbabwe, I mean the
level of economic co-operation? Nigerians here also complain bitterly about
harassment and ceaseless deportation. I don't think this is the official policy
of your government considering the great role Nigeria played in your country's
independence. What are you doing about this?
When am I stepping down? I take that first. We have democracy here and my
party decides really. It is not for world policemen and outsiders. You say I
have been in office for 21 years yes. Truth is, it is the ZANU PF, which should
decide this. It is simply an internal matter. It is not my business, for
instance, to mind whether Margaret Thatcher stayed in government in Britain for
11 or 12 years. It is constitutional matter. But it is a relevant question. The
time has really come because age and other considerations are weighing hard. I
am serving my countrymen. They should decide. I am due for retirement but not
until the land issue is settled and resolved to my satisfaction and to the
satisfaction of our party and our people. Just now we are in this struggle and
it is diversionary to talk about retirement. We want all to be well and once all
is well and the people are well-settled, then we can boldly face the issue of
retirement. Then we can look back and say yes the things that we said we are
going to deliver through our revolutionary struggle, we have delivered and our
people are truly empowered.
As for relations with Nigeria, I call tell you it is excellent. I always
remind President Obasanjo that you are the master. I learnt from you the art of
fighting the white man. Nigerians has provided us with a lot of assistance and
we do also remember that during the Biafra, it withheld contributions to the OAU
became some Africa leaders were supporting Biafra and it did not pay its dues
until about 1977 when Joe Garba was foreign minister. They said now they will
pay what was owned to the OAU (about $7million). Your country decided to use the
money to train guerillas and in our struggle, that money was used to train about
6,000 while I was out there in Mozambique. Nkono and I visited the Tanzania area
called Nachiweya where we had many more trained. It was in Kaduna and other
places that out defence staff - Air force cadets- were trained. When former
President Babangida visited us, pilots trained in your country flew the
helicopters flown. We didn't do all that in order that the white man will
continue to rule us. No. Let him be master there in Britain. Here we should have
Africa. Little boys like (Tony) Blair and others, they have big countries and
they want to boss us. They want to bully us. No, we won't accept that and that's
the attitude.
We respect Nigeria. That's why I planned our country's civil service training
center after yours by the lagoon (ASCON). We set up our own near the lake. It
was only during the time of General Abacha that things were not quite smooth and
now that brother Obasanjo is back, we will like to see much more by way of
interaction, by way of trade and economic joint ventures. We used to have
business people coming here from Nigeria. We had professionals, doctors and
others coming. The question of Nigerians being harassed, I am not really aware.
Yes, people get arrested when, for instance, they engage in drug trafficking and
it could just be Nigerians, Ghanaians, Pakistanis, Zimbabweans in that field. Of
course, you are a big country. You have many more people going round and so
there are bound to be more incidents involving Nigerians but no discrimination.
Ah we wouldn't do that. We wouldn't stand for that. Nigeria of all countries
certainly not. We have tremendous respect. When it is said that there is nothing
that symbolises that historical relationship with us here. No. There will be
something. We have recognised a few leaders actually by way of street naming but
we have since listed other awards. These will come soon.
LONDON: Britain's sports minister has urged the English cricket
authorities to reconsider a planned tour of Zimbabwe this year after
Zimbabwean government banned the BBC from covering the matches.
"I
would be very concerned if our national cricket team is going there and our
national broadcaster is not allowed (to cover the tour)," sports minister
Richard Caborn told The Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
Caborn said Britain
viewed Zimbabwe's ban on the BBC "very seriously".
Zimbabwe says the
decision is consistent with a blanket ban on all BBC correspondents in the
country, because of what Harare argues is the BBC's distorted coverage of the
seizure of white farmland.
The English Cricket Board said they would hold
talks with Zimbabwe officials.
England, currently completing an Ashes
Test series against Australia, are scheduled to play five one-day
internationals in Zimbabwe in September and October.
Zimbabwe has been
plunged into political and economic crisis for the past 18 months since a
government-backed campaign of land seizures began, aimed at redressing
colonial inequities which left 70 per cent of prime agricultural land in the
hands of relatively few white farmers. ( AFP )
Zimbabwe government denies white farmer takeover
plan
The Zimbabwean government has dismissed reports that it's drafted a
plan to expel all white farmers before next year's presidential
election.
Africa correspondent Sally Sara reports that a British
newspaper has obtained a copy of a proposal to terrorise and torture white
property owners who refuse to leave.
The document, which has allegedly
been circulated to war veterans, encourages the systematic harassment of
white farmers. It outlines a plan called Operation Give Up and Leave, which
is designed to force whites off their land and out of the country. It also
suggests that veterans and government supporters should infiltrate and
destabilise the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change.
But the government says the document, which was leaked to the British
Telegraph newspaper, is out of the realm of rationality. Information Minister
Jonathan Moyo says it's idiocy to take the report
seriously.
Protesters gathered outside the Zimbabwean High
Commission
Protesters from Britain's Zimbabwean community have staged a
demonstration in London, calling for help to halt violence in their homeland.
Around 600 demonstrators gathered outside the Zimbabwean High Commission and
a delegation handed in a petition to 10 Downing Street.
I hope that Mr Blair is going to move into top gear
Jennings Rukani, Movement for Democratic Change UK Executive
They want to end
attacks on white farm owners and repression of journalists and opposition
parties under President Robert Mugabe's regime.
They are appealing to Mr Blair to exert more pressure on President Mugabe's
regime amid fears that the situation in Zimbabwe may be spiralling out of
control.
Deputy chairman of the Movement for Democratic Change UK Executive, Jennings
Rukani, called for the UK to impose sanctions.
"I hope that Mr Blair is going to move into top gear and mobilise the
international community and take a leaf from the American government which has
imposed selective sanctions against the Government of Zimbabwe," he said.
'Ineffective'
Earlier Labour MP Donald Anderson, chairman of the Commons foreign affairs
select committee, said he did not believe the government should do more.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the policies would be ineffective.
"Yes one understands the frustration, the question is, what is the most
effective way of bringing pressure on this aged despot who is terrorising his
own people," he added.
One of the protest organisers, Albert Weidemann, says the prime minister and
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw must recognise it is not solely a southern Africa
problem.
He said: "I certainly believe that Mr Straw and Tony Blair need to become
more active in terms of what they are doing to assist Zimbabwe and the southern
African continent as a whole"
Yes one understands the frustration, the question is, what is
the most effective way of bringing pressure on this aged despot who is
terrorising his own people
Donald Anderson MP, chairman of Commons foreign affairs
select committee
He added that "there are a lot of British subjects within Zimbabwe and there
are a lot of persecuted African people that are going to be streaming across the
borders should they not deploy monitors now".
"The major problem we are having is that if Mugabe calls a snap election, the
monitors are not in place."
Jailed farmers
Four journalists who were detained by the Zimbabwe authorities on Wednesday
have since been released, after being charged with spreading false news.
A report in the Daily News - Zimbabwe's only independent newspaper - had
alleged that police were involved in looting of white-owned farms in
northwestern Zimbabwe over the past week.
The journalists' detention coincided with continuing violence in the northern
town of Chinhoyi, where black squatters and pro-government militants have been
attacking white homesteads.
Lawyers for 21 detained white farmers are seeking their release on bail.
The farmers have spent 10 days in prison and the government has indicated
that it wants them severely punished.
The farmers were accused of violence and assault against squatters and ruling
party militants illegally occupying their land in the Chinhoyi corn and tobacco
district, 115 kilometres (70 miles) northwest of Harare.
At least 30 homesteads have been looted, and white families have been
evacuated from about 100 farms.
Zimbabwe unveiled an oil-import deal with its staunch ally Libya yesterday
that government officials said would alleviate petrol shortages in the
country.
Pumping of the first 33 million litres of Libyan oil into Zimbabwe began last
week, state-run media reports said.
Gripped by acute petrol shortages since 1999 due to a lack of hard currency,
the Libyan oil deal would meet 70 per cent of the country's needs, Energy and
Transportation Minister Edward Chindori-Chininga told Zimbabwean state
radio.
Western countries have threatened sanctions against Zimbabwe in protest of
government efforts to seize land from white farmers without compensation, and
political violence blamed mostly on ruling party militants that have crippled
the agriculture-based economy.
Chindori-Chininga said the government was borrowing $360 million from the
Libyan Arab Foreign Bank to pay for the deal. He said the debt would be repaid
in Zimbabwe's troubled currency.
The Zimbabwean dollar trades at a pegged official rate of 55 to the US
dollar, but sells at up to 300 to the US currency on the unofficial market.
The Herald newspaper of Harare said Libya was interested in acquiring
interests in mining, manufacturing and agriculture in Zimbabwe.
Libyan President Muammar Gadaffi visited Zimbabwe last month where he
endorsed President Robert Mugabe's programme to seize white-owned farmland.
Zimbabwe's
agony under Robert Mugabe's misrule has yet to arouse the anger of Britain's
Labour establishment in the way apartheid did when Tony Blair was climbing the
slippery pole. The party line in the mid-1980s was absolute and unequivocal.
South Africa's white regime was considered so barbarous that Labour demanded a
worldwide economic blockade and the country's diplomatic isolation. That was
also the majority view in the Commonwealth, which fought battles with Margaret
Thatcher over sanctions.
That same Commonwealth takes a rather different view of Mr Mugabe, whom it
will welcome to its next conference in October. Instead of a hard line against
his sanctioning of murder and land seizures, he receives mild rebukes and
discreet pressure from his neighbours and the former colonial power. It is
clearly not working. Mr Mugabe has largely sealed his country off from the
world's media, and courageous local journalists who report the truth are pursued
with trumped-up charges.
Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, condemned Mr Mugabe's attacks on his
critics as "appalling and outrageous" last week. But he was defensive about
Britain's ability to act lest it be condemned as neo-colonialist. Why the guilt?
Britain supported economic sanctions against Ian Smith's Rhodesia for 14 years
before Mugabe won power in 1980, bringing the curtain down on Britain's last
African colony. Since independence, Britain has poured aid into Zimbabwe, which
has 40,000 UK passport holders or people with the right to British citizenship.
That includes £44m for land reform schemes that have come to nothing. Relations
soured in 1999 when Mr Mugabe tried to rig the constitution to make Britain
legally responsible for compensating dispossessed white farmers. The
International Monetary Fund ended its support and the second richest country in
sub-Sahara has been in free fall ever since.
Whitehall's hopes are pinned on Mr Mugabe's neighbours restraining him and
the world condemning him. But he snubbed a regional summit in Uganda last week
and railed against white farmers in terms that raise fresh doubts about his
state of mind. Mr Blair should ponder Mr Mugabe's words about the middle-aged
farmers his police seized for defending their homes: "They will not be treated
like special creatures. Why should they be treated as if they are next to God?
If anything, they are next to he who commands evil and resides in [the]
inferno." Is this the voice of a man who can be persuaded to see reason?
South Africa's leaders have finally acknowledged the menace. Its central bank
governor says Zimbabwe's "wheels have come off" and that its instability
threatens the whole region. The latest data show that the economy's big end has
gone as well. Maize planting is down by 54% and next year's tobacco crop will
fall by 37%. Widespread starvation and a refugee exodus seem inevitable. Mr
Mugabe's response is to play on Nigeria's willingness to mediate and do anything
to stay in power for a fifth term after next April's presidential elections.
In the meantime, 5,000 soldiers will be ordered to create what his farm
minister calls "a general mood and psychology of obedience" among despairing
rural communities. Last week's appointment of an ally as the new chief justice
further tightens his hold on power. If he opts for more terror and rigged
elections, he must pay the price. He and his henchmen should be denied their
five-star trips abroad by having their overseas assets frozen and visas
withdrawn. The opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, should be
supported and military intervention should not be ruled out. There is a recent
precedent; South Africa invaded Lesotho to restore order in 1998. Until decisive
action is taken, the whole region is a high-risk area for investors. Whatever
happens, Zanu's thugs will not inherit Zimbabwe's once fertile earth; the
locusts will. Chastising Mr Mugabe at the next Commonwealth conference will not
do. Appeasement has failed. Mr Blair must make that clear.
The recent arrest of 21 white farmers sent out shock
waves
As a foot and mouth disease outbreak caps a troubled
fortnight for Zimbabwe's white farmers, Chris McGreal, a former BBC reporter who
now works for the Guardian in Zimbabwe, finds that there is a new and strange
sympathy for whites by some of the people they once oppressed.
Robert Mugabe has achieved the remarkable feat of making quite a lot of black
Zimbabweans feel sorry for their white compatriots.
It is all the more startling when you consider that it is men like my recent
acquaintance, Victor, who are attracting sympathy.
Some Zimbabwean farmers have considered
emigration
A couple of weeks ago, he drove me to the heart of Doma - a patch of northern
Zimbabwe under siege from President Robert Mugabe's private militia, the men and
women who call themselves "war veterans" but who rarely wielded a gun.
White farmers had cleared out their families - sending the women and children
off to Harare or South Africa.
Thirty-four men remained to watch over their deserted houses.
The farmers set up patrols, staying in touch on the ubiquitous radio security
network left over from the conflict in the 1970s against the real liberation war
veterans.
But the whites were powerless to stop the organised plunder of dozens of
their homes.
'Realist'
As Victor drove me around the web of tracks linking the farms with English
and Afrikaans names, he tentatively offered the view that he was a realist a
euphemism favoured in Zimbabwe by those who do not think black people are really
up to governing countries.
These farmers are a forgetful lot.
Just a decade ago they got along with Robert Mugabe quite fine. Crop prices
were booming. The poorer farmers bought a new Mercedes. The richer ones were
snapping up planes and carving out landing strips.
The white farmers and the revolutionary leader had a cosy
little relationship in which land redistribution figured as one of those
political ideals like full employment.
Chris McGreal
Some took care to improve the conditions of their workers and families, but
by no means all, and there was no pressure from the Mugabe government to do so.
The white farmers and the revolutionary leader had a cosy little relationship
in which land redistribution figured as one of those political ideals like full
employment.
But not enough to worry Zimbabwe's farming elite.
Victor grunts at the suggestion that perhaps it might have been wise to take
the land issue a little more seriously some time ago.
After a pause he offers the thought that they would just have messed it up
earlier.
Victor's solution
Occasionally the guard slips further and he wistfully mentions that there was
a time when he knew how to deal with his enemies - shoot them.
Victor confesses that during the liberation war he was booted out of the army
because he objected to taking prisoners.
So he was despatched to serve in the Rhodesian navy, stopping gun-runners
from Zambia on Lake Kariba.
Today, the guns are all well out of sight. The farmers know that retaliation
will do them no good.
Even self-defence has its dangers, as the 21 farmers who rushed to the aid of
one of their number under siege from war veterans discovered when the were
locked up for a fortnight.
Still, Victor reflects fondly on the days when he could fight back.
Nothing rankles more with him than the proposition that he and his kind lost
the liberation war.
Victor favours the stab-in-the-back theory expounded by Ian Smith which
argues that Rhodesia was sold down the river by South Africa's Prime Minister
John Vorster, in the deluded hope that it would ease international pressure on
the apartheid regime.
Devastation
Eventually we reach the plundered homes.
The looters have done their job well. In some of the houses, there is barely
a fitting left, let alone furniture.
Some of the wreckers destroy what they cannot take smashing ovens and
windows to discourage the whites from returning.
The only things consistently deemed of no value are books left scattered
across floors.
The land invasions also affect black farm workers
One of the farmers asks if I have ever seen destruction like this?
I hesitate to disillusion him.
Well, yes. At one time or another this was pretty standard stuff in Somalia
or Zaire or Liberia or a whole host of other places.
The farmer looks at me. "But this," he says, waving his arm.
I am baffled.
"Real houses, people's things," he says.
Degrees of suffering
It is the looting, and the pathetic sight of the 21 arrested, handcuffed,
barefoot farmers with their heads shaved, and the occasional killings on the
farms, that have some black people feeling sorry for whites for the first time.
A black lawyer friend told me people believed whites had finally paid the
price for the past - a kind of forced penance that now made them true
Zimbabweans.
Perhaps.
But the whites have a long way to go before they suffer what Robert Mugabe is
putting a lot of poor black people through.
President Mugabe has defined land rights as the
central issue
All the attention on the farmers is just what Mr Mugabe wants.
It allows him to define land as the issue and whites as the problem.
But his detractors will tell you what is blindingly obvious - that this is a
struggle for power and that campaign is being waged with brutality against
blacks.
More blacks died in political killings last month than all of the white
farmers since the crisis began early last year.
But for Victor that is just further confirmation that he is a realist.
After all, he says, killing is what Africans do, is it not?
Paul
Nyakazeya SELF-STYLED commander of farm invasions, Joseph Chinotimba, has
threatened to invade the offices of independent newspapers over what he
alleges are negative stories about war veterans and of President
Mugabe.
Speaking to The Standard on Wednesday, Chinotimba said the war
veterans would close down the Financial Gazette, Daily News, Zimbabwe
Independent and The Standard if these newspapers continued to write stories
which caused divisions among the war veterans or downplayed their
contribution to society.
“Why don’t you write about the good works
that we do? We are always portrayed in the press as villains. If this
continues, we will come to your offices and teach you how to write. If you do
not comply, we will close you down indefinitely. Don’t think you can divide
us with your propaganda. In fact, you are uniting us more,” said
Chinotimba.
“We are not children who can be divided by stupid lies. There
are some reporters who would have nothing to write in the absence of war
veterans.”
Chinotimba described the war veterans as a peaceful group,
being negatively portrayed in “rubbish and untrue” stories.
This was
not the first time that the war veterans have threatened the independent
press. Last year, they announced that they had banned the Daily News and
shortly after this, the paper’s printing press was bombed by unknown people.
Up to now no suspects have been apprehended, raising speculation that the
state had a hand in the act of sabotage.
The war veterans leader is also
on record as saying war veterans would do anything, including resorting to
violence, to ensure a Zanu PF victory in next year’s presidential
election.
Asked about reported payment defaults on the electricity and
water accounts by Zanu PF at his safe house in Marlborough, Chinotimba
retorted: “Don’t you have better questions to ask? If you were near me I
would have punched you. At this rate, you are going to ask me where, when and
how I sleep with my wife. That is none of your business.”
Chinotimba
fled to the suburban Marlborough safe house to escape the wrath of Movement
for Democratic Change supporters in Glen Norah where he allegedly shot one
the opposition supporter last October.
Special note must be
taken of the impassioned appeal made in Parliament this week by the Movement
for Democratic Change MP, David Coltart, to the Attorney-General, Andrew
Chigovera, to prosecute without fear or favour and, we must add, as
expeditiously as possible, all known perpetrators of violence as well as
those who incite others to it.
Coltart cited the case of Didymus
Mutasa’s alleged threats, which have become the senior Zanu PF leader’s war
cry, that a coup could take place if the MDC won the forthcoming Presidential
election. Identical threats were made last year by other influential members
of the ruling party, including war veterans’ leader Andrew Ndlovu, who warned
that if the MDC formed the next government in the event of it winning the
parliamentary election, either a coup would be staged or Zanu PF would go
back to war. These are, without doubt, highly treasonable utterances which
ought to have resulted in the instant arrest and prosecution of the
utterers. But because the people concerned belong to Zanu PF, neither the
police nor the Attorney-General’s Office have moved against them. The same
goes for the alleged killers of MDC activists Tichaona Chiminya and Talent
Mabika, who have remained free to orchestrate more violence against innocent
villagers despite being named in court where a judge subsequently ordered
their arrest and prosecution. Although in making the appeal on Wednesday,
Coltart, the MP for Bulawayo South, directed his remarks at the
Attorney-General as a matter of protocol, the reality of the matter is that
he was appealing to the government. Coltart’s voice on this vital issue,
which is so fundamental to peace and stability, is only the latest
echo. On occasions too numerous to recount, others both in and outside
this country have made equally impassioned calls upon the government,
as personified by President Mugabe, to desist from its selective approach
to the administration of justice, turning a blind eye to offenders from
within the ranks of the ruling Zanu PF. The government has consistently
and studiously ignored those appeals with the contemptuous arrogance that has
become the trademark of its style of governance. In the forlorn hope that a
miracle might happen this time around to make the government listen, we would
like to warn that continuing to ignore these appeals could have very
unfortunate and far-reaching consequences for all of us, not least for the
ruling party itself. A bitter foretaste of what this could do on a much more
catastrophic scale for the entire country can be gleaned from the senseless
destruction of our commercial agriculture, which is the backbone of the
country’s economy. For a country where serious shortages of food grain have
been forecast by experts in both the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation and the region’s own Early Warning Unit, the recent front-page
picture showing cattle feasting on a fine crop of wheat graphically
illustrates the frightening catastrophe we are hurtling towards. The open
defiance by the police in Masvingo to comply with the order by magistrate
Shortgame Muchaiona requiring that they bring to court 50 drunken young
soldiers they had arrested and fined a paltry $60 is another illustration of
the ultimate disaster that this country is turning into. The soldiers had
allegedly destroyed property valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars and
assaulted innocent patrons in nightclubs, causing grievous bodily harm to
some of them. It was the magistrate’s learned opinion that they ought to have
been charged with more serious offences. And yet, there it is: the police
have just ignored the order and no one, not even the Attorney-General,
appears the least concerned about the effect of this defiance on the rule of
law in the country and on personal and property security in general. But,
more chillingly, the growing lawlessness should worry the government as it
threatens, directly, its own hold on power. What happened at Victoria Falls
this week, where the so-called war veterans and ordinary Zanu PF supporters
beat up the town’s acting mayor and councillors for daring to remonstrate
against their lawlessness, is a sign that the chickens have now come home to
roost. The mayor and his councillors are all Zanu PF members. If these war
veterans can beat up a whole Zanu PF council, including its mayor, what
guarantees are there that they could not in future beat up the whole Zanu PF
government, including the President? The so-called war veterans have tasted
absolute power, which we know can corrupt absolutely. It is not too
far-fetched to imagine them going for the government’s jugular.
Street protest: Peter Tatchell
demonstrating in London against violence in Zimbabwe. Photograph: Peter
Tarry
THE
European Union is expected to freeze development aid to Zimbabwe next month in
protest at Robert Mugabe's oppressive policies, write Simon Taylor and Tom
Walker.
Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, is expected to lead calls to suspend aid
at a meeting of EU foreign ministers hosted by Belgium on September 7-8.
Diplomats said approval was "inevitable" because of the worsening situation. "We
are running out of options," said one official.
Zimbabwe is scheduled to receive £64.8m in aid over the next five years. The
EU has been paying about £18m to Harare each year, but this has fallen to £7m
since the present crisis. It also used to benefit from a concession to export
50,000 tons of beef a year to the EU at subsidised prices, but this was stopped
after "war veterans" spread foot and mouth disease by moving cattle.
In June the EU gave the ruling Zanu-PF government 60 days to stop violence,
protect the press and allow EU monitors to watch next year's election. All
requests were ignored.
Campaigners in London yesterday delivered a petition to Downing Street
calling for an end to farm violence.
The Foreign Office said Britain wanted action to counter accusations by
Mugabe that the United Kingdom was continuing to act as a colonial power.
OHANNESBURG: The South African government is
preparing for a possible wave of refugees from Zimbabwe should violence and
economic uncertainty worsen in the neighbouring country, a daily newspaper
reported on Saturday.
The government is reviewing contingency plans for a
possible mass influx that would include the setting up of army tents in an
area along the border between the countries, government officials told The
Star newspaper.
Zimbabwean government efforts to seize land from white
farmers without compensation, and political violence blamed mostly on ruling
party militants have crippled the agriculture-based economy and threaten to
destabilise the country.
South African government officials said that
if the Zimbabwe situation deteriorates further, not only white farmers will
be seeking refuge here, the report said.
Recently, there has been a
marked increase in the number Zimbabweans crossing illegally into South
Africa. Every week, the government sends a so-called deportation train to
Zimbabwe full of people who entered illegally, home affairs director-general
Billy Masetlha told The Star.
About 4 million people who left their
impoverished homelands elsewhere in Africa are believed to be living
illegally in South Africa, in hopes of a better life in the continent's
wealthiest country.
Most of them are from neighbouring Mozambique and
Zimbabwe, where job opportunities are scarce.
Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe has been using the seizure of white-owned farms and vilifying
the country's minority white population to bolster his popularity at a time
of severe economic crisis ahead of next year's election.
Feeding the
flames: Robert Mugabe has escalated his anti-white campaign despite anger at the
policies against farmers such as Jim Steele of Chinoyi,
above Photographs: Howard Burditt and EPA
Mugabe ready to advance
election as famine looms
R
W Johnson, Johannesburg
THE Zimbabwean
presidential election in which Robert Mugabe expects to win another four years
of uncontested power could be brought forward three months to the start of next
year, sources in his Zanu-PF party said.
Reports of the possible change in the electoral timetable came as opposition
sources in the capital, Harare, warned that Mugabe was planning an ultra-racist
re-election strategy in which all white farmers would be expelled from the land
and he would proclaim himself president for life.
The election was originally expected to be held on April 1, but the country's
rapidly deteriorating economic situation has made Mugabe's henchmen eager to get
voting out of the way lest civil unrest set in.
Anger at the government's isolationist policies is also expected to rise if
the European Union agrees next month, as expected, to freeze £65m of aid to
Zimbabwe in protest at its human rights situation.
It was claimed last night that the latest round of violence on Zimbabwe's
farms may have been inspired by a Zanu-PF document circulated last month calling
for systematic harassment and expulsion of all whites from the country before
the elections.
Sources close to the MDC, the first party to have challenged Mugabe during 20
years of independence, said that the Zimbabwean leader appeared to be losing all
sense of rationality. The Zanu-PF party was splitting, they said, and even
trusted elements of the secret police service, the Central Intelligence
Organisation (CIO), were threatening to defect to the opposition.
Officers within the CIO claimed to have received instructions to begin
fomenting unrest throughout the white farming areas, orders which they
considered untenable.
Mugabe's Zanu-PF Youth thugs have recently concentrated their efforts on the
Chinhoyi area, 70 miles northwest of Harare, once the country's breadbasket, but
now a wasteland of looted farms and unharvested fields. The CIO has been told to
spread the violence throughout the country, but senior officers have balked at
the prospect.
There are hopes within the ruling party that moderates and the more
rational-minded leaders with business connections might realise the ultimate
folly of Mugabe's reckless gamble.
Splinter groups are said to be forming around Emmerson Mnangagwa, the speaker
of the parliament, and also alongside Eddison Zvogbu, the former legal affairs
minister, who has already attracted Mugabe's ire and been excluded from his
inner circle.
"Both could be trusted," said the MDC source. "But whether they can really
take on Mugabe, in this current madness of his, remains to be seen."
It is the agricultural sector - the backbone of the economy - that holds the
key to Mugabe's fate. As bread prices have quadrupled this year alone, Joseph
Made, the agriculture minister, has admitted the country could face a shortfall
of 500,000 tonnes of the staple, maize, by next March.
John Robertson, a leading independent economist, warned that the country
could face famine before the end of the year. No amount of propaganda can hide
the fact that the black majority is suffering terribly because of Mugabe's
clampdown on white farms, the most recent of which took place in Chinoyi, when
21 farmers were arrested after clashes on their land with squatters.
Thousands of farm workers have been driven off the land and are to be found,
distressed and confused, living on roadside verges.
Yet despite growing criticism abroad, Mugabe is as unrepentant as ever and
intends this week to take his anti-white crusade onto the international stage.
At the third United Nations world conference against racism, which begins in
the South African city of Durban on Friday, Zimbabwe will join other African
nations in demanding reparations from former colonial powers for their role in
the slave trade. Patrick Chinamasa, the justice minister, has demanded that
Britain and America "apologise unreservedly for their crimes against humanity".
Mugabe is not alone in raising the issue of slavery. A legal team under
Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor, has set up a group demanding
compensation of around £360,000 for every slave from insurance companies that
used to cover slave-owners against losses.
Keep up the pressure: If
you live outside Zimbabwe, please keep lobbying your MP, Euro MP, Congressman,
Senator or Assembly Member. The gratifying response over recent weeks is
definitely having an effect, but the pressure needs to be maintained. Ask your
representatives to a) press for targeted personal sanctions against those in the
Zimbabwe government who are responsible for the horrific human rights abuses in
Zimbabwe, and b) work with Zimbabwe's neighbouring countries to increase the
pressure on the Zimbabwe government to restore the rule of law. Letters, emails,
faxes, phone calls - repeated at reasonable intervals - are all effective in
getting this simple message across - "It is time to do the right
thing".
In this issue
:
Scepticism over Libyan
fuel deal - Star
'Mugabe isolated in SADC'
- CNN
Tourists accosted -
ZWNEWS
Clerics attack monster of
violence - DTel
One cheer for Tony -
UKInd
Donald Woods and Geoff
Nyarota - CTribune
From The Star (SA), 26
August
Zim economists wary of Libyan fuel
deal
Harare - Deliveries of Libyan petrol, diesel and jet fuel to
fuel-starved Zimbabwe have begun following the signing of an agreement between
the two governments which will satisfy 70 percent of fuel demand, it was
reported here on Saturday. In the first detail since Libyan leader Moamer
Gaddafi, on a visit here last month, agreed to come to President Robert Mugabe's
aid, the state-controlled daily Herald newspaper said the state-owned Libyan
Arab Foreign Bank would pay a $90-million quarterly revolving line of credit to
finance Zimbabwe's fuel imports. "This translates to $1-million per day and
$360-million for the 12 months," The Herald said.
However, little detail was given on how Mugabe's regime, in the
midst of a disastrous economic crisis that has exhausted foreign currency
reserves, would pay for the fuel. The Herald said the state-owned National Oil
Company of Zimbabwe would pay in local currency into a trust account held at the
Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe, also state-owned, on behalf of the Libyan bank and
an unnamed syndicate of lenders. "The deal was in exchange of
investments/ownership with the government in oil storage facilities, investments
into oil blending activities and downstream distribution networks such as
service stations," the Herald said.
Thirty-three million litres of assorted products had arrived at
the Mozambique port of Beira on Sunday last week and was being pumped through
the pipeline into Zimbabwe, it said. Distribution would begin next week. The
southern African country has been stricken by fuel shortages since December 1999
when international oil companies shut off supplies because Noczim failed to meet
payments to them. Economists say the fuel drought has accelerated economic
decline, while the queues in which people had to wait sometimes days for fuel
were seen as visible catalysts of resentment against Mugabe and his regime.
Political analysts say that the ending of the fuel queues has been a major part
of the 77-year-old dictator's strategy for re-election in presidential elections
due by March next year.
Scepticism over the deal was immediately voiced by economists.
"It could well be that the deal will meet 70 percent of needs, especially as
consumption is well down because of the general economic slowdown," said one
senior economist who asked not to be named. "I would assume that we are not
going to get the fuel queues, unless the guys are unable to pay. How are we
going to go on paying? You can bet it's not cheap fuel. The whole deal is so
opaque. They are not giving any detail. The (Zimbabwe) government has been
talking about bartering exports, but tobacco and minerals are so badly down
already. Suddenly we will discover in six month's time the Libyans own Noczim,"
he said. "What has been revealed about repayment was almost identical to the
agreement reached in March last year with a Kuwaiti oil dealer, he said. "And
that collapsed after not very long."
From CNN, 26
August
Zimbabwe opposition says Mugabe
isolated in region
Harare - Zimbabwe's main opposition party said on Sunday that
the embattled government was feeling isolated in southern Africa and was
resorting to crude propaganda to back its controversial policies. A statement
issued by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) also dismissed a report in
Zimbabwe's state-owned Sunday Mail that the MDC had formed a loose alliance with
South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance led by Tony Leon. >The MDC and
the Democratic Alliance have denied this claim in the past. The Sunday Mail also
said the MDC was courting the support of Zimbabwe's small but financially
powerful Jewish community and had asked Israel's Mossad spy organization to help
it train MDC youths in intelligence.
"These funny stories are emanating from (the ruling) Zanu PF's
increasingly desperate and paranoid propaganda desk..." MDC information
secretary Learnmore Jongwe said in the statement. Jongwe said (President Robert)
Mugabe's Zanu PF had tried over the last two years to win the support of
governments in the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) for
"its bloody overstay in office disguised as a land reform programme." He was
referring to Mugabe's backing for the seizure of mainly white-owned commercial
farmland for redistribution to landless blacks, which has exacerbated the
country's deepening economic crisis.
But Jongwe said South African President Thabo Mbeki's African
National Congress (ANC) government - which he said Mugabe saw as a strategic
partner - had decided to stay neutral on Zimbabwe. "The campaign to woo SADC to
render blind support to Zanu PF's bloody reign on power is now fast collapsing
like the Berlin Wall," he said. "SADC governments have now come to realize that
they are dealing with...political cowards who are afraid of going through
democratic elections and who are absolutely clueless on how Zimbabwe's economic
crisis can be contained," Jongwe said. "The cheap Zanu PF propaganda is now to
portray the ANC government as living under a non-existent MDC/Democratic
Alliance relationship," he added.
The Zimbabwean government has offered no response to stinging
criticism by the South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni last week of
the way it had been seizing farmland and silencing its opponents. "The wheels
have come off there," Mboweni told an investment conference on Wednesday,
abandoning South Africa's largely quiet diplomacy towards Zimbabwe. Mugabe, 77
and Zimbabwe's sole ruler since the former Rhodesia gained independence from
Britain, faces a strong challenge from the MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai in
presidential elections due by April.
From ZWNEWS, 27
August
Dutch and Belgian Tourists
accosted
Four Dutch and one Belgian tourist were accosted by two
self-styled War Veterans on Sentinel Ranch, Beit Bridge on Friday, as they
reached they final destination after a gruelling 800km journey on foot from
Binga. They were held at knife-point for 5 hours with the ranch's camp manager
and her husband, Maria and Shane McAdam, until police arrived and were able to
defuse the situation.
The five tourists departed from Binga on 2 July with 8 donkeys
and walked the length of the country through communal lands and farms. Their
task was to move the donkeys from Binga to Beit Bridge for Dr Peta Jones, who is
promoting communal based tourism using donkeys in the area.
"We have been walking for 47 days, and except for one small
incident at a predominantly Zanu PF village, we have had nothing but extreme
kindness from villagers, headmen and police the whole way," said one of the
tourists, who wished not to be named. "It is ironic that the day we get to our
final destination, we are harassed by a drunken War Veteran whose main complaint
was that the farm owners had not informed him of our impending arrival. He was
also concerned that we might try to cross the Limpopo river without paying him
his tout's fee. We had no intention of crossing the river, but he refused to
believe us." Another Dutch member of the group, suffering from tick bite fever,
said, "It was a terrifying experience. We could not talk sense to the man. When
Mrs McAdam phoned the police he took the phone and started shouting into the
mouthpiece that he would kill us all. He was screaming at them, telling them
that by the time ZRP got here we would all be dead! We were very
frightened."
Director of Sentinel Ranch, Digby Bristow, said the War
Veteran, Samson Mulalazi, and his accomplice, known only as Victor, were
drinking at the farm store when the tourists arrived to ask for directions to
the manager's house. "Instead of getting the assistance they were expecting,
they were interrogated and shouted at by an enraged Mulalazi. He demanded their
passports and when they refused he marched them off to the Sentinel homestead
and demanded to know why his permission had not been sought to allow these
people onto HIS land." After three hours of exhausting aggressive racist
diatribe, Shane McAdam managed to persuade Mulalazi and his accomplice to
accompany him and one of the tourists (who was in possession of the passports)
back to the store where they would wait for the police. "I had to defuse the
situation," said McAdam. "I had one thing in mind and that was to get him away
from my wife, children and guests before any of them came to harm."
Bristow's wife, Vanessa, stated that she and Dr Jones had the
previous week travelled around Maramani and Masera informing the Headmen and
other officials of the groups' expected arrival. "We spoke to Headman Makhado in
Masera and the leader of the War Veterans in Maramani, Johnson Mbedzi, to ask
for their assistance should it be needed when the group arrived in the area.
They were extremely supportive. They were very interested in Dr Jones' proposals
for community-based donkey tourism." The area has been identified for inclusion
in the Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area, which once established, will
create huge tourism opportunities for this impoverished community. "It boiled
down to the fact that the man had had too much to drink and had a misconception
of just how important he was,' said Mrs Bristow.
From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 27
August
Clerics attack Mugabe
'monster'
Harare/London - Zimbabwean church leaders have launched a
blistering attack on President Mugabe, accusing his regime of inciting the
"monster" of violence and allowing a breakdown of the rule of law. In a pastoral
letter published at the weekend, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches said the
unrest had led to chaos. "Many people have fallen victim to this monster," said
the letter. "We are witnessing murders, rapes, beatings and abductions." It was
the strongest denunciation by the churches since the state-sponsored violence
against white farmers and black critics of the regime began last year. The
Catholic Church has repeatedly criticised the regime, but most churches have
remained silent on Mr Mugabe's excesses until now.
The Anglican Bishop of Harare, Norbert Kunonga, delivered a
speech in May that was strongly supportive of the President. However, the letter
from the Council of Churches, which includes the Anglicans, pointed a finger of
blame at the government. It said: "We have heard political leaders instigating
violent actions against their opponents. Death threats have been publicly made.
This is unacceptable." The Council pinned the blame clearly on the self-styled
"war veterans" of the struggle against white rule. The letter said: "The
situation at present is very chaotic and disorderly because the government has
allowed the war veterans to take the law into their own hands. The laws of the
land must be respected and applied impartially. Sadly, this is not the case in
Zimbabwe."
The letter's publication came on the eve of a two-day visit to
Zimbabwe by a six-member delegation from the World Council of Churches, which is
expected to issue a statement today. Mr Mugabe has condoned the violent
occupation of almost 1,700 white-owned farms by squatters, while his ruling Zanu
PF party has waged a brutal campaign against the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change. Last month alone, human rights groups recorded 11 political
murders, 61 disappearances and 288 instances of torture. Mr Mugabe denies that
his supporters have been responsible for any violence. In an interview with a
Nigerian newspaper, the Guardian, published yesterday, he said: "We are the
victims. The offenders are the whites and the opposition, who are banded
together to weaken Zimbabwe."
The South African government has grown increasingly impatient with Mr Mugabe.
President Thabo Mbeki has spoken of his fear that Zimbabwe's accelerating
economic collapse - due partly to the seizure of white-owned farms - is damaging
his country. Yet Mr Mugabe told the Guardian that he would press ahead with the
expropriation of white-owned land, regardless of the consequences for his
southern neighbour.
From The Independent (UK), 27
August
Blair plans to discuss Zimbabwe at
summit
Tony Blair is "likely to discuss" Zimbabwe at the Commonwealth
Heads of Government Meeting in Australia in October, the Foreign Office said
yesterday. It will be the first time the Prime Minister has broken his public
silence over the deteriorating position in the country. Pressure has been
mounting, both in Britain and abroad, for Mr Blair to use his influence to help
opposition party members and white farmers who are under attack from the
governing Zanu PF party in the former British colony. Britain's policy since
Labour's re-election has been to maintain a low profile over Zimbabwe and allow
Nigerian and South African leaders to lead mediation efforts.
However, threats last week from the regime against Basildon
Peta, The Independent's correspondent in Harare, prompted the Foreign Secretary,
Jack Straw, to break the Government's silence and condemn them. Mr Peta's
appearance at the top of an alleged hit list of Zimbabwean journalists and
reports yesterday of the re-emergence of a campaign by ruling party militants to
force all white farmers to leave the country prompted the Labour MP for
Vauxhall, Kate Hoey, to call on Mr Blair to "get much tougher" with President
Robert Mugabe's regime.
Supporters of the Zimbabwean opposition, who protested outside
the country's high commission in London on Saturday, criticised Britain for
failing to intervene. The Tories also attacked the Government, saying it was
"paralysed". Francis Maude, the shadow Foreign Secretary, said: "It is an
embarrassment that Britain is unable to say anything about Mugabe." Mr Straw and
other Commonwealth foreign ministers will meet their Zimbabwean counterpart,
Stan Mudenge, in Abuja, Nigeria next month. The 6 September meeting - the first
high-level encounter between Britain and Zimbabwe for a year – is widely seen as
a prelude to the Commonwealth summit in Brisbane, Australia, at the end of
October. Mr Blair has pledged to focus on Africa during his second term in
office. He was most recently in contact with President Mugabe last month when he
answered a surprising letter from the Zimbabwean leader, congratulating him on
Labour's second term. But if the Government shows strong interest in Zimbabwe it
may play into the hands of Mr Mugabe, who has a propensity for rounding on
"British imperialism".
British ministers have expressed concern that Zimbabwe's
decision to ban the BBC has been extended to sports correspondents wishing to
cover a cricket tour planned for October. Richard Caborn, the Sport minister,
said the England cricket team should reconsider taking part in the fixture if
BBC journalists were banned from covering it. Mr Caborn telephoned Tim Lamb, the
chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, on Saturday to discuss
the ban. Mr Lamb has approached the Zimbabwean cricket authorities to ask them
to use their influence to reinstate the BBC
reporters.
Comment from The Chicago Tribune, 26
August
Clarence Page
Washington - News from faraway places takes on a riveting
closeness when it happens to someone you know.
My world suddenly
got very small when I heard two recent news items about two Africans I knew. One
died, the other was arrested.
Donald Woods died in London after a long fight
with cancer on Aug. 19. He was 67.
Four days earlier, Geoffrey Nyarota, 50, editor
of the Daily News, Zimbabwe's only independent news daily, was arrested along
with three staff members for practicing what Americans would call good
journalism. One was a white South African who found out that his worst enemies
were not black. The other is a black Zimbabwean whose worst enemies are not
white.
I have been proud to know both men as role models. Despite our
vastly different backgrounds, we belong to the same misunderstood minority
group: We are journalists.
You may remember Woods from the 1987 film "Cry
Freedom." Directed by Richard Attenborough, the film starred Kevin Kline as
Woods and Denzel Washington As "Black Consciousness" movement leader Steve
Biko. As editor of a 30,000-circulation newspaper in coastal East London, South
Africa, Woods' attacks against apartheid, his country's now-defunct system of
racial segregation, made him the nation's most famous charismatic and
controversial journalist. A fifth-generation South African, he grew up the way
most whites of his generation did, as a believer in apartheid. As a law student,
he changed his mind and later turned to journalism.
In the mid-1970s, he tried without success to persuade
government officials to talk to Biko. Instead, Biko was arrested by security
police in September, 1977. He was beaten unconscious and driven naked and in
chains about 700 miles to the prison where he died. He was 30 years
old.
Woods' outraged crusade after that death led to his being "banned" for
five years, which confined him to his home and prohibited him from writing or
being in the company of more than one other person. Shots were fired at his
house. He eventually fled with his family to London.
Woods lived long enough to return to his homeland as an honored
man, after apartheid fell. Now we have to turn next door to Zimbabwe, which
shifted to black-majority rule a decade before South Africa, to see President
Robert Mugabe shattering the hopes he once cultivated for his region's
post-colonial future.
The story that brought the hammer down on Nyarota and the
Daily News was a report that police vehicles were spotted ferrying party
militants in what the newspaper called "well-orchestrated acts of lawlessness"
in the looting of some white-owned farms. Mugabe has persistently denied that
his government backs the raids against white farmers that have been led by
veterans of the country's revolutionary war: Of course, he has not condemned the
raids, either. At 77 and losing popularity after 21 years as he faces next
year's elections, Mugabe finds white farmers make a convenient scapegoat for his
government's failures.
When I reached Nyarota by telephone, he told me had been kept
the whole time in a room by himself at the central police station.
"Any minute spent
in that particular station is psychological torture," he said. A judge
invalidated the charges and the journalists were released by 10 p.m. the
following evening. But new charges of "publishing subversive statements" were
lodged against them later.
He didn't have time to say much more. He had
another edition to put out. His newspaper's printing presses were bombed in
January after the government called it, inaccurately, an opposition mouthpiece.
No arrests were made. Undaunted, the paper went to smaller editions and a
reduced print run by using private printers.
I met Nyarota in July when I visited Zimbabwe as part of a
delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists. Despite the government's
charges, his paper is nobody's mouthpiece. Like South Africa's President Thabo
Mbeki and Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Daily News is only calling on
Mugabe to play fair.
So is the U.S. Senate. It passed the Zimbabwe Democracy Act on
Aug. 2. Headed to the House, it orders "travel and economic sanctions" against
those responsible for the violence, intimidation and breakdown of the rule of
law in Zimbabwe "and their associates and families." That's a good
measure for starters. Like Idi Amin, Slobodan Milsovenic, Mugabe needs a nudge
from the civilized world. The United States was slow to get on the right side of
history in confronting South Africa's apartheid regime. We must not make the
same mistake with Zimbabwe.
Clarence Page is a member of the Tribune’s Editorial
Board
Monday, 27 August, 2001, 16:50 GMT 17:50 UK -BBC Regional leaders to discuss
Zimbabwe
The Zimbawean President Robert Mugabe and his counterparts from
Malawi and Mozambique are meeting in the Mozambican city of Beira to discuss
the land crisis in Zimbabwe.
Ahead of the meeting, the Malawian
President Bakili Muluzi, who heads the Southern Africa Development Community,
SADC, said their main purpose was to try to find a lasting solution to
Zimbabwe's long-running land crisis.
He said the violence surrounding the
land redistribution policy was a worry to regional leaders.
Earlier
this month the regional body called for a task force to
visit Zimbabwe.
Several people have been killed following the forced
occupation of white-owned farms by black militants.
The army of Zimbabwe's despotic
ruler will help to fell trees in 85m acres of Congo. But the people of both
nations are unlikely to see any benefits from the £200m deal
One of the world's last great rainforests is to be laid waste
by loggers working for Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, and his ruling
clique. Associates of the increasingly despotic 77-year-old are planning the
biggest ever logging operation in the precious tropical rainforests of the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The 85 million acres (almost 1.5 times the
area of the United Kingdom) that Mugabe hopes to exploit are the heart of an
area recently designated one of the most important forests on the planet by the
United Nations. Mugabe has already been attacked for the corruption of his
regime and its brutal repression of political dissent. He faces American
sanctions and growing international censure for his increasingly violent brand
of authoritarian government. Now he faces the wrath of environmentalists too.
'The long-term impacts on local people's livelihoods and on rare wildlife such
as the gorilla will be devastating,' said Patrick Alley, director of the human
rights and environmental campaign group Global Witness. 'This is forest the
world can ill afford to lose.'
The rights have been conceded by the Democratic Republic of
Congo's government to representatives of the Zimbabwean president in return for
military aid against rebels in the east of the country. The war in the DRC has
killed an estimated 2.5 million people in the last three years. The logging
operation is to be run by the Zimbabwean army and Forestry Commission and is
expected to bring in profits of £200m over the two to three years it will take
to clear the concessions of the most valuable timber. Little of the logging
money is expected to reach the Zimbabwean people, though their army's
involvement in Congo is bankrupting the country. Inflation is running at 70 per
cent, unemployment is at 60 per cent and millions live in poverty. Instead ,the
logging revenues are likely to be shared by a small clique of senior generals
and politicians. The funds will also swell the war chest of the Zanu PF party,
Mugabe's primary political vehicle, which has led the recent violent crackdown
on the growing democratic opposition. Zanu PF need funds to expand its brutal
campaign against the challengers to Mugabe's power in the run-up to next year's
presidential elections.
The effect of such a huge logging operation will be
devastating. Congo has nearly half of Africa's, and 6 per cent of the world's,
tropical rainforest. Until recently poor communications and the continuing
conflict had largely spared the area from the attention of commercial tropical
timber firms. But a German company has been granted a 2.6 million-hectare
concession by the desperately poor Congolese government and a series of deals
with Malaysian and Chinese companies have also been concluded. Mugabe's
concession has been granted to Socebo, a Zimbabwe-registered company whose board
includes senior Zanu PF and military figures. The deal was negotiated in 1999.
Socebo was established last year. Its publicity claims that the company 'aims to
be the world leader in trading tropical hardwoods_ Sustainable forestry
management is our business'. It is based in Kinshasa and is a subsidiary of
another firm called Cosleg (Pvt) Ltd. Cosleg is itself a joint venture between
Operation for Sovereign Legitimacy (Osleg), a company largely controlled by the
Zimbabwean military, and Comiex-Congo, a Kinshasa-based firm partly owned by the
family of Joseph Kabila, the President of the DRC.
Two previous projects - a cobalt mining enterprise and a
diamond extraction venture - have been disappointments for the Zimbabweans. The
cobalt proved less profitable than predicted, and Oryx Diamonds was unable to
float on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Index following
recent measures aimed at banning the trade in so-called 'conflict diamonds'.
However, several other ventures have been very lucrative. Analysts believe the
vastly profitable opportunities to extract valuable gemstones, minerals, metals
and timber from Congo have drawn regional powers into the war there. At least
six countries have bartered military support for one or other side in the
conflict for the right to exploit some of the country's vast resources. One
United Nations committee, set up to investigate what has been dubbed 'The New
Scramble for Africa', alleged that Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, such as Mugabe's
Zimbabwe, all hope to exploit the conflict for their own financial gain. The
armies of Angola and Namibia are also involved in the war. Last week leaders
from all the warring factions met in Botswana in a bid to negotiate an end to
the fighting. They have agreed to meet again in October, but few are optimistic
that the war will be ended soon.
'Zimbabwe's logging deal provides a strong motive for Mugabe to
keep his troops committed,' said Alley, whose organisation will publish a report
on Mugabe's logging operation next week. 'That could threaten the whole peace
process, and is yet another example of the way in which natural resources are
fuelling conflict across Africa and the world.' Zimbabwe's involvement in Congo,
which has cost an estimated £300m so far, started three years ago when Laurent
Kabila, the former President who was then leader of the rebels and whose son
Joseph is the current Congo leader, requested Mugabe's assistance in ousting
President Mobutu Sese Seko. A spokesman at the Zimbabwean High Commission said
they knew nothing about any logging in Democratic Republic of Congo and had no
comment to make.
From The Sunday Times (SA), 26
August
Farmworkers next in the line of
Mugabe's fire
Farmworkers are now bearing the brunt of renewed and
intensified attacks on white-owned farms by militant mobs of self-styled
veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war. By the end of this week, about 18 000
workers had been displaced from their homes by the violence which engulfed
white-owned farms a fortnight ago. This is in addition to the estimated 45 000
farm workers who have lost their jobs since farmers scaled back production as a
result of the illegal farm invasions which began last year.
The farmworkers, who are mostly of Zambian, Mozambican and
Malawian descent, have been at the wrong end of President Robert Mugabe's
rhetoric since they voted overwhelmingly against his Zanu PF in last year's
parliamentary elections. Mugabe has repeatedly called them "totemless people",
meaning they have no culture. Although they have been victimised by war
veterans, the latest attacks are the first serious onslaught against them. Fears
have now been expressed that hundreds of thousands of children of displaced
farmworkers could go without an education for the remainder of this school year.
War veterans and beneficiaries of the government's resettlement programme are
reported to have started stripping farm schools to make houses on occupied
farms.
War veterans this week swooped on a dozen farms in the Hwedza
district of Mashonaland East Province, 150km southeast of Harare, booting 4 000
workers off farms and forcing farmers to abandon operations. This upheaval came
barely two weeks after militant mobs evicted about 14 000 workers from farms in
the Chinhoyi district in Mugabe's home province of Mashonaland West. The pitched
battles in Chinhoyi forced over 100 white families to flee their homes, which
were later looted and vandalised. Twenty-one farmers were arrested in the
ensuing pandemonium and charged with public violence. They have since been
released on bail.
Clement Sungayi, general secretary of the 300 000-member
General Agriculture and Plantations Workers' Union of Zimbabwe, confirmed that
thousands of farmworkers were now destitute. Sungayi said the majority of those
displaced in Hwedza were camped along the main road to Harare in the hope of
getting help from sympathetic motorists. "They are camping along the road
because they have nowhere to go," said Sungayi. "Most of them are of foreign
descent, born and bred on farms, and have no rural homes to go to." Sungayi said
his union would dispatch officials on a fact-finding mission to the district to
assess the situation on the ground before making strong representations to the
government.
Sungayi said the farm workers had already been overlooked in
the government's resettlement programme: "We were in the process of appealing to
government to include farm workers in its resettlement programme and the next
thing they are chased away from the farms. That now leaves us with two battles
to fight: finding shelter for them and then ensuring that they benefit from the
land reforms." Economic analyst John Robertson accused the government of being
indifferent to the plight of farmworkers and cautioned that the land reform
programme would displace more people than those targeted for resettlement. "The
colonial government brought these people in from neighbouring countries as cheap
labour and did not permit them to work in towns. "As farmworkers they had no
rights at all and Mugabe's government is not treating them differently either,"
he said.
From The Sunday Telegraph (UK), 26
August
Mugabe's secret plan to evict all
whites
Harare/London - President Robert Mugabe plans to expel all
white farmers from Zimbabwe before next year's elections, according to a secret
document obtained by The Telegraph. The revelation came as Richard Caborn, the
minister for sport, urged the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to
reconsider its October tour of Zimbabwe after the BBC was banned from the event.
The secret order from Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF party to self-styled war veterans
outlines the political goals of the campaign against white farmers.
Entitled Operation Give up and Leave, it reads: "The operation
should be thoroughly planned so that farmers are systematically harassed and
mentally tortured and their farms destabilised until they give in and give up."
The document was circulated in July, just before the recent round of invasions
in Chinoyi, Doma and Hwedza in which many farmers were evicted and farms brought
to a standstill by the forced removal of their workers. Farmers who resist, it
says, should face the "Pamire-silencing method", a reference to Chris Pamire, a
businessman and former Zanu PF supporter who fell out with Mr Mugabe and was
killed in a mysterious road accident. "You know what happened to Pamire" has
become a widely used threat.
Referring to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, the
document states: "The opposition should be systematically infiltrated with
highly-paid people to destabilise and cause divisions and infighting." War
veterans are promised "big rewards if the opposition and white farmers are
brought to their knees". It assures them there will be "no going back on farm
seizures". Whites have now been told they must renounce their right to a British
passport this year if they wish to retain Zimbabwean citizenship. The
announcement has left many of the estimated 40,000 British nationals in Zimbabwe
in a dilemma. A circular from the British High Commission warns that those who
do will lose their right to consular assistance.
Last week Joseph Made, the agriculture minister, said
white-owned farms listed for resettlement must be vacated by Friday. More than
90 per cent of the country's 4,600 white farms are listed and the Commercial
Farmers' Union has warned that the disruption will cause food shortages. There
is a growing fear that violence will intensify as Mr Mugabe, angered by the
continued presence of the whites, steps up his election campaign. He has
intensified his anti-British rhetoric in recent days. In a speech last week, he
devoted nine of the 23 pages to the hanging of a black girl by the British
colonial authorities in 1898. On Thursday, he declared: "Whatever machinations
the British are capable of - and they are capable of many - they will not shake
us from our position."
Meanwhile, in an interview with The Telegraph, Mr Caborn said
the Government viewed Zimbabwe's ban on the BBC "very seriously". The purpose of
the tour, he said, was in doubt and the decision to participate should be
reconsidered. "I would be very concerned if our national cricket team is going
there and our national broadcaster is not allowed to televise the event." Prof
Jonathan Moyo, the information minister, said on Friday that the BBC's
accreditation to cover a series of one-day matches had been suspended until
further notice. Zimbabwe is unhappy at the BBC's coverage of the violence
against white farmers and has expelled its correspondents. Prof Moyo's
announcement undermined the main reason for the visit, which was to bolster
Zimbabwe cricket and give the country's sport impartial international exposure.
John Read, the ECB spokesman, said: "We will be consulting the Zimbabwe Cricket
Union and the Foreign Office."
From The Sunday Times (UK), 26
August
Mugabe ready to advance election as
famine looms
Johannesburg - The Zimbabwean presidential election in which
Robert Mugabe expects to win another four years of uncontested power could be
brought forward three months to the start of next year, sources in his Zanu PF
party said. Reports of the possible change in the electoral timetable came as
opposition sources in the capital, Harare, warned that Mugabe was planning an
ultra-racist re-election strategy in which all white farmers would be expelled
from the land and he would proclaim himself president for life. The election was
originally expected to be held on April 1, but the country's rapidly
deteriorating economic situation has made Mugabe's henchmen eager to get voting
out of the way lest civil unrest set in. Anger at the government's isolationist
policies is also expected to rise if the European Union agrees next month, as
expected, to freeze £65m of aid to Zimbabwe in protest at its human rights
situation.
It was claimed last night that the latest round of violence on
Zimbabwe's farms may have been inspired by a Zanu PF document circulated last
month calling for systematic harassment and expulsion of all whites from the
country before the elections. Sources close to the MDC, the first party to have
challenged Mugabe during 20 years of independence, said that the Zimbabwean
leader appeared to be losing all sense of rationality. The Zanu PF party was
splitting, they said, and even trusted elements of the secret police service,
the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), were threatening to defect to the
opposition.
Officers within the CIO claimed to have received instructions
to begin fomenting unrest throughout the white farming areas, orders which they
considered untenable. Mugabe's Zanu PF Youth thugs have recently concentrated
their efforts on the Chinhoyi area, 70 miles northwest of Harare, once the
country's breadbasket, but now a wasteland of looted farms and unharvested
fields. The CIO has been told to spread the violence throughout the country, but
senior officers have balked at the prospect.
There are hopes within the ruling party that moderates and the
more rational-minded leaders with business connections might realise the
ultimate folly of Mugabe's reckless gamble. Splinter groups are said to be
forming around Emmerson Mnangagwa, the speaker of the parliament, and also
alongside Eddison Zvogbu, the former legal affairs minister, who has already
attracted Mugabe's ire and been excluded from his inner circle. "Both could be
trusted," said the MDC source. "But whether they can really take on Mugabe, in
this current madness of his, remains to be seen."
It is the agricultural sector - the backbone of the economy -
that holds the key to Mugabe's fate. As bread prices have quadrupled this year
alone, Joseph Made, the agriculture minister, has admitted the country could
face a shortfall of 500,000 tonnes of the staple, maize, by next March. John
Robertson, a leading independent economist, warned that the country could face
famine before the end of the year. No amount of propaganda can hide the fact
that the black majority is suffering terribly because of Mugabe's clampdown on
white farms, the most recent of which took place in Chinoyi, when 21 farmers
were arrested after clashes on their land with squatters. Thousands of farm
workers have been driven off the land and are to be found, distressed and
confused, living on roadside verges.
Yet despite growing criticism abroad, Mugabe is as unrepentant
as ever and intends this week to take his anti-white crusade onto the
international stage. At the third United Nations world conference against
racism, which begins in the South African city of Durban on Friday, Zimbabwe
will join other African nations in demanding reparations from former colonial
powers for their role in the slave trade. Patrick Chinamasa, the justice
minister, has demanded that Britain and America "apologise unreservedly for
their crimes against humanity". Mugabe is not alone in raising the issue of
slavery. A legal team under Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor, has set
up a group demanding compensation of around £360,000 for every slave from
insurance companies that used to cover slave-owners against losses.
From The Zimbabwe Standard, 26
August
Zanu PF supporters burn
church
Last week, as the orgy of violence intensified in Makoni West,
Zanu PF youths and war veterans burnt down a church building in which they
suspected supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change to be hiding. The
constituency has been rocked by violence ahead of a by-election scheduled for 8
and 9 September to fill the parliamentary seat left vacant by the death of
former defence minister, Moven Mahachi. The supporters burnt the church to
cinders after failing to locate suspected MDC supporters at Adams Farm on which
the church is situated.
Witnesses said the group of assailants was tracking down MDC
supporters who live in the Mushangwe Resettlement area. After failing to locate
the supporters on their hit list, they crossed into Adams Farm, which is
adjacent to the resettlement area where the MDC supporters allegedly work. Zanu
PF supporters were reportedly incensed when they failed to find the MDC members
at the farm and when they saw posters of opposition candidate, Remius Makuwaza,
plastered around the farm. Suspecting that the MDC supporters were hiding in the
church, the Zanu PF members torched the church, destroying a piano and other
property within.
Rusape police could not be reached for comment as their phones
went unanswered. Phones at the church’s district headquarters in Rusape also
went unanswered. "They (Zanu PF supporters) had been beating up MDC supporters
in Villages A and E. They had some sort of list of people they suspected of
being MDC supporters. They crossed to the farm after failing to find some of the
people in the villages," said one witness. Makuwaza confirmed receiving reports
of the attack on his supporters and of the burning of the church. "They were
beating up people in the villages which are in the constituency and were hungry
for more blood and so they went to the farm," said Makuwaza. "They were so angry
at seeing my posters at the farm that they burnt down the church. People
shouldn’t get so desperate as to burn churches. Munyoro claims to be a Christian
yet his supporters are busy burning down churches. How does he reconcile the two
– his being a Christian and the burning down of churches?," said Makuwaza.
Gibson Munyoro, the Zanu PF candidate, denied that his
supporters had burnt down the church. He told The Standard yesterday: "I am
hearing it for the first time. We are having a peaceful campaign here. It was
probably the MDC that burnt down the church in order to discredit us. I am a
Christian and I could never have sanctioned such an act," said Munyoro. Makuwaza
said the burning of the church was part of a wider terror campaign by Zanu PF
which had already seen Zanu PF youths and war veterans turning the schools and
shopping centres in the constituency into torture bases for MDC supporters. He
said torture bases had been set up at Chiunya Shopping Centre, Chiwetu Rest
Camp, St Theresa, Maoresa Shopping centre, Tsanzaguru, Gwangwadza, Chiundu
School, St Beads Dewedzo School and Mavhudzi.
Said Makuwaza: "We cannot campaign freely with all this
violence. Our supporters are being kidnapped at night and tortured at Zanu PF
bases. Our supporters are being forced to defect to Zanu PF and are forcibly
given positions. The war veterans are setting road blocks everywhere, a police
function. This is not a fair way of campaigning." Munyoro said he could not stop
his supporters from setting up bases: "Who am I to stop the people if they are
organising themselves? They are doing it in a peaceful manner and there is
nothing wrong with that," he said.
HARARE (Reuters) -
The Zimbabwean government has called on schools with colonial names from British
and white minority rule to scrap them and name themselves after Zimbabwean or
other African heroes instead.
