'CIVIL SOCIETY WILL CEASE TO EXIST' IN
ZIMBABWE International Association of Law Societies condemns planned NGO
legislation Mon 2 August 2004
JOHANNESBURG The International
Bar Association (IBA) calls on 'all freedom-loving people' to 'fight' against
planned legislation in Zimbabwe that obliges non governmental organisations
(NGOs) to register with the state. If introduced, 'civil society, as we know
it, will cease to exist'.
The IBA describes itself as the 'world's
largest international law association' with a membership of 16 000 individual
lawyers and 190 Law Societies, among them the Law Society of
Zimbabwe.
In a media statement the IBA refers to the announcement
by President Robert Mugabe on 20 July of a new NGO law to be passed by
parliament. It is to establish a Non-Governmental Organisations Council
tasked with 'rationalisation of the macro-management of all NGOs'.
'Non-governmental organisations', Mugabe said, 'must work for the betterment
of our country, and not against it. We cannot allow them to be conduits
or instruments of foreign interference in our national affairs.'
'Evidently', the IBA says, 'the current government regards most NGOs as
working against the country. Mugabe made no reference to the Obetterment' of
the people of Zimbabwe, who are the beneficiaries of most of the work done by
NGOs.'
'Mugabe's speech also makes it clear that NGOs are perceived
to be agents of foreign interests that have been set up to interfere in
government affairs. This is a familiar allegation which Mugabe has used to
reduce the democratic space in Zimbabwe and to limit the participation on
national issues by ordinary Zimbabweans.'
The IBA argues that
'there can be no doubt that government will seek to control which NGOs are
registered and which not. There can also be no doubt that those NGOs that
will be registered will have their operations controlled and Omanaged' by the
proposed council. Those NGOs that have traditionally sought to bring to the
fore government excesses, failures, etc are therefore not likely to be
registered.'
The statement compares the proposed Council with the
Media and Information Commission that registers media and journalists. It
says this commission 'has, in two short years, done everything possible to
shut down the independent press'.
Referring to the upcoming
polls scheduled for March 2005, the IBA says: 'The effect of the legislation
will be disastrous for Zimbabweans, particularly before an election year.
NGOs that have generally followed the conduct of elections are at high risk
of not being registered by the proposed council.'
'With the
absence of an independent daily newspaper, excesses committed by political
parties, their members and other agents are not likely to be published.
Unlawful arrests and detention at unknown places which are usually
accompanied by torture will not be reported, thus lessening the chances of
investigations and seeking redress. S The proposed legislation will virtually
cut out the free flow of information to the outside world, since monitoring
government excesses will be criminalised'. ZimOnline
HARARE
- Columns of smoke smudge the sky above a newly resettled farm, outside
Harare, coal black.
Farmer Denis Kambwe says he's burning grass
because it flushes terrified wild game out into the open. He's stoking a
fire as he talks. Every now and then sparks flash as fat drips - from the
liver and kidneys of a kudu roasting above - onto the flames.
'At least now we'll have sadza with meat for several days,' smiles Kambwe. He
then walks over to the carcass and begins skinning the buck while his dogs,
lying nearby, salivate. Asked if he is aware of the rapid depletion of the
game on his farm, he nods.
'But remember,' he says, 'this land
belongs to me now.' A self-described war veteran, Kambwe says he 'grabbed'
the property four years ago from its then owner John Bata.
Aside from a change in ownership, the land has undergone a
physical metamorphosis too. Once lush and fertile, the farm now lies
derelict. Kambwe complains it's the government's fault, because the
authorities never provided the necessary capital to buy agricultural inputs
and machinery.
As a result, Kambwe argues, he is justified in
hunting the animals because he needs meat. While cautiously cutting-up a kudu
kidney, he says that's 'okay' because the farm's creatures are his property
too. The hunting and poaching of wild animals on recently re-settled farms
has risen as beef prices climbed, caused by the shrinking of the national
herd.
'I cannot afford to buy beef and, thank God, on this farm
there's plenty,' mumbles Kambwe as he chews.
Visits by ZimOnline
to properties in several provinces - including Mashonaland Central,
Mashonaland West and Manicaland - reveal that dozens of new A2 (or
commercial) farmers are not cultivating the land allocated
to them.
A number of small- and medium-sized commercial farms,
given to black farmers under Zimbabwe's fast-track land redistribution
programme, are lying fallow..
While Kambwe seems to be in good
health, the same cannot be said for his farm. The property is clearly
neglected and grass covers fields that once bore crops. The few visible
implements and machinery are either broken, or derelict.
Cleopas
Mandebvu, acting director of the predominantly black Zimbabwe Commercial
Farmers' Union (ZCFU), says his organisation is concerned about vast tracks
of land lying idle: "We are lobbying government and are busy compiling a
report, based on our own findings, with the aim of correcting the situation.'
His organisation wants Zimbabwe to be the breadbasket of Southern
Africa again.
Mandebvu attributes land being neglected, or lying
fallow, to plots being given to new farmers without their being 'genuinely
interested' in farming. He adds they probably went into farming primarily to
earn some of the 'prestige associated with being a commercial
farmer".
Near Turnpike farm, more than 50 km south west of the
capital, 60-year-old Zini Daudi sells firewood along the main
highway.
Dressed in gumboots and overall Daudi resembles a farmer,
although he spends most of his time selling firewood. When one driver breaks
and rolls down his window Daudi jogs to the car and asks him, jokingly, how
many tonnes of firewood he needs. He then points to the farm, explains it
belongs to him and promises to deliver wood.
Daudi tells
ZimOnline he knows he should be busy preparing the soil ahead of the rainy
season. When asked why he's selling wood, he says he needs to raise capital
to buy fertilizer, among other things. 'Agricultural inputs are expensive.
Selling firewood can help me earn money.'
When asked whether he
received a loan from the state-owned Agricultural Bank of Zimbabwe
(Agribank) last season, he nods. And the money? Daudi stares at the pile of
wood at his feet and then stammers he bought a car which is now 'a
write-off.'
Agribank runs a Z$60 billion (US$ 12 million at
unofficial exchange rate) loan facility to assist new farmers under the land
reform programme. But all is not well at the bank either. It recently
initiated criminal proceedings against bank staff involved in mismanaging the
facility. Some have already been axed at the instigation of the Reserve Bank,
which unravelled a total of 186 fraud cases at the institution.
Agribank chief executive officer Sam Malaba admitted to The Financial Gazette
some workers had been advancing loans to undeserving applicants.
About a year ago a land review committee, set up by President Robertt Mugabe,
submitted a report examining the allocation of land through the government's
reform programme. It stated that 1,672 farms (or about 2.1 million hectares)
had been handed over to more than 7-and-a-half thousand applicants under the
A2 scheme.
But now Sam Moyo, the former head of the committee's
technical unit, concedes some new farmers are 'failing to utilise farms'.
Some who applied did not have the required resources, although they had
falsely claimed they did.
"They lack the capacity to operate
because they do not have the basics, like tractors and harvesters,' says
Moyo. 'Many farmers have failed to obtain money to capitalise on their
activities, while a substantial number only managed to get small
amounts."
Meanwhile high inflation of 400 % has increased the price
of inputs beyond the reach of the new farmers and interest rates have made
it prohibitive to borrow. 'This, coupled with their lack of the
requisite skills for specialized farming, has compounded the problem', notes
Moyo. He warns it may take 'a while' for them to acquire the
know-how.
Until they have the necessary inputs, and skills, farmers
like Denis Kambwe will continue simply living off their land, and 'their'
animals. ZimOnline
Dr Livingstone's statue is ours, we presume, Zambia informs
Mugabe By Jane Flanagan in Johannesburg (Filed: 01/08/2004)
A
life-sized bronze of Dr David Livingstone has stood overlooking
Victoria Falls for more than half a century. But after years of neglect by
its current owners, the Zimbabwean government, Zambia is calling for the
statue to be handed over to them.
The figure of the Victorian
explorer, leaning on his walking stick, has stood on the Zimbabwean side of
the falls and been seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors each year to one
of the seven natural wonders of the world.
Recently, however, as
political turmoil in Zimbabwe has deepened, tourists have switched in
increasing numbers to the Zambian side of the falls - while two years ago the
statue, seen as a symbol of British colonialism, was defaced by thugs of
Robert Mugabe's regime.
Now the authorities in Zambia want to cap their
success by making the figure of Africa's most celebrated explorer the
centrepiece of the town of Livingstone, where the tourist trade is
booming.
"The Zambians have a great deal of affection for Livingstone's
memory, unlike the Zimbabweans," said Siloka Mukuni, the chief of the Leya
people, who live around Livingstone. "We have changed a great many of our
colonial place names since independence, but we have kept the name of
Livingstone out of a deep respect. For Zimbabwe the statue merely represents
tourism and money. We would like the statue, but we would prefer not to fight
over it."
It was from the Zambian side of the Zambezi river in 1855 that
Dr Livingstone became the first European to sight the falls, then known
locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya - "The smoke that thunders".
Some older Leya
people claim that the statue was originally erected on their side of the
Zambezi - then the British colony of Northern Rhodesia - but was moved during
the 1950s to its present site overlooking the Devil's Cataract, on what is
now the Zimbabwean side.
"I have 80-year-old advisers who clearly
remember the statue being on our side of the river," Chief Mukuni said. "It
was there and then it was gone, reappearing in Zimbabwe."
Others say
there may have been a second statue depicting the explorer shielding his eyes
from the sun, on the Zambian side of the falls, which is now
missing.
Either way, Zambia is keen to get its hands on the bronze,
sculpted in the 1930s by Sir William Reid Dick, before next year's 100th
anniversary of the town of Livingstone, when it will also be 150 years since
the Victorian explorer first saw the falls. The Zimbabwean government has
signalled, however, that it has no intention of handing the statue
over.
Now Donald Chikumbi, a senior official at Zambia's National
Heritage Conservation Commission, has asked the Foreign Office in London and
the British High Commission in Lusaka to help get to the bottom of the
mystery. "Ideally, we would like to have the Victoria Falls statue, but
obviously we have a stronger case if we can show that it was originally in
Zambia. What is clear is that Zimbabwe does not want us to have it," he
said.
Once Africa's most popular tourist destinations, the town of
Victoria Falls has fallen out of favour in recent years. Hotel occupancy has
plunged from 70 per cent to below 30 per cent.
Victoria Falls' losses,
however, have been Livingstone's gain. A string of new hotels has sprung up
since 2000, when Mr Mugabe began his violent land-grab policy, and occupancy
rates have risen sharply.
Tendai Shoku, Zimbabwe's High Commissioner to
Zambia, said that the dispute would be resolved
"bilaterally".
"Zimbabwe and Zambia are just brothers - we are actually
one. Let not this issue separate us," he said. "The habit of bringing
confusion is for the British who even in the times of Rhodesia called us
Southern and Northern, as if we were different. We are not."
Cash crisis cripples Zim's schools Basildon Peta
August 01 2004 at 12:12PM
Some private schools in Zimbabwe, banned
from increasing school fees despite the country's 400 percent-plus inflation,
will start going into voluntary liquidation tomorrow because they have run
out of money to maintain operations.
Earlier this year President
Robert Mugabe's government shut down about 50 private schools that increased
fees, alleging they wanted to maintain "exorbitant fees" to exclude
blacks.
In fact, 90 percent of pupils in such schools are black.
Scores of headmasters were arrested and jailed and the schools reopened after
agreeing not to increase their fees.
But the order for schools
to charge what are clearly sub-economic fees has not worked, even by the
admission of Mugabe's own tightly controlled media.
90
percent of pupils in such schools are black The state-owned Herald
newspaper reported that Zimbabwe's most elite private schools, Eaglesvale
primary and secondary, would go into voluntary liquidation tomorrow as they
had run out of money.
"The schools could be the first casualties of
the determined policy by the ministry of education, sport and culture this
term to limit school fees at private schools at levels well below half the
budgeted costs," said the Herald.
It said Eaglesvale could stay
open only if more parents made donations this week to fill the gap between
the fee fixed by the ministry and the actual cost of educating a pupil at
present standards. But the donations plan is not working well
either.
The Independent Foreign Service established that as a way
of circumventing Mugabe's ban on school-fee increases, parents at
private schools had decided to contribute money in the form of donations to
maintain the schools. The donations were an indirect way of topping up the
inadequate fees.
Some private boarding schools had warned
parents they could no longer feed their pupils as they had no money to buy
food.
The Herald said most private schools believed that donation
levels had to include more than 80 percent of parents with enrolled children
for a school to remain viable. Even if the donations were forthcoming, the
schools would still have to drastically cut costs and drop standards, the
paper said.
The Herald said private schools did not make any
profit or pay any dividends, and in recent years had been budgeting tightly
since surpluses or reserves would be eroded rapidly by inflation. Governors
and trustees at private schools are not paid and do not generally even
receive expenses.
George Theron of Eaglesvale School said in a
letter to parents that the board members and trustees would be committing a
crime if they continued operating the school knowing it could not pay its
debts. They would be personally liable for such debts. The school thus had to
go into voluntary liquidation.
After parents at Eaglesvale
started paying donations to maintain standards, the Mugabe government alleged
that authorities were using coercion to get the donations and warned the
school of serious consequences.
This created further problems for
the school, forcing its board of governors to opt for closure. Many pupils
will therefore be forced out of school when the private schools
close.
The Herald said private schools offered parents smaller
classes for their children, which drove up the staff costs, and also a wide
range of extra activities.
The newspaper quoted pupils as saying
they had been told to bring back school property such as textbooks so that
the school could take stock of all its property before it closed
down.
It is understood that many other private schools face the
same fate if the Mugabe government does not allow them to charge realistic
fees.
HARARE, Aug. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Human
development in Zimbabwe has declined by 12 percent in the past five years,
leading to a 21 percent increase in poverty and 26 years decline in life
expectancy during the same period, according to Zimbabwe's Sunday Mail on
Sunday.
It said that the findings in the Zimbabwe Human
Development Report 2003 recently launched by Zimbabwean Minister of Public
Service, Labor and Social Welfare Paul Mangwana show that the negative impact
of the AIDS pandemic has to a large extent, causedby a fall in human
development, life expectancy and incomes.
Human development
is measured by assessing performance based onincome, health expectancy and
educational attainment, which has been declining between 1995 and
2001.
The fall in human development resulted in the increase of
poverty, with Matabeleland North province experiencing the highestincrease
of poverty.
Life expectancy also fell in all provinces by an
average of 26 years.
A newly born Zimbabwean baby in 2001 is
expected to survive 14 years less than a child born in 1995.
A four percent fall in real expenditure between 1995 and 2001
also contributed to the general fall in human development.
Surprisingly, provinces that registered highest income levels were observed
to have the highest poverty levels.
High incomes were
associated with transactional and commercial sex. The fact that poverty
causes susceptibility and vulnerabilityto HIV and AIDS is no longer
disputed.
Six border provinces - Matabeleland North,
Matabeleland South, Manicaland, Masvingo, Mashonaland East and Mashonaland
Central in that order - registered increases in real incomes mainly because
of a lot of cross-border trading.
There was a lot of foreign
currency dealing and cross-border trading at the border posts, hence the
increase in incomes.
Matabeleland, which recorded the highest
incomes, is known as the hub of tourism and there is a lot of foreign
currency exchanged at parallel market rates. Enditem
Harare - Zimbabwe's main opposition party accused police Sunday
of harassing its leader to hinder his political activities before crucial
elections early next year.
Police on Saturday searched the northern
Harare home of Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai,
looking for weapons allegedly kept there.
None were found in the
search, said opposition spokesperson William Bango.
Under sweeping
security laws, police also refused to authorise a meeting Tsvangirai had been
scheduled to address on Saturday in the Bikita district in southern Zimbabwe,
Bango said.
Another opposition meeting called by Tsvangirai in Hwedza
district east of Harare on Tuesday was called off after police cited security
concerns.
Police deny harassing Tsvangirai and say the opposition was
asked to postpone the Hwedza meeting because a rally for the ruling party
was scheduled nearby in the volatile district at the same time.
Police
spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena said officers raided Tsvangirai's home on
Saturday on suspicion he was hiding firearms said to have been used in a July
2 clash with ruling party supporters at Mvurwi, 100km north of
Harare.
"We received information some of the firearms could have been
hidden at his home," Bvudzijena said.
The opposition insists
Tsvangirai's July 2 meeting with opposition politicians was disrupted by a
group of about 200 ruling party militants who arrived in Mvurwi in a convoy
of vehicles and were armed with axes, clubs, stones and tear
gas.
Tsvangirai took shelter from a hail of stones in his
armour-protected car and was not injured. Witnesses said two tear gas
canisters were discharged.
Bango said Tsvangirai's staff do not carry any
firearms, grenades or tear gas.
"Mr Tsvangirai is surprised that he is
being targeted for investigation when he was a victim of political violence,"
Bango said.
Tsvangirai believes police are targeting him "to frustrate
his political work" before parliamentary elections in March, Bango
said.
Tsvangirai is still facing treason charges that he plotted the
assassination of President Robert Mugabe in 2001.
The trial ended in
February, with a verdict expected within six months. But on Thursday, the
Harare High Court postponed the verdict indefinitely for administrative
reasons, court officials said after two High Court assessors requested more
time to study court transcripts.
Tsvangirai denies the charges, which
carry a possible death sentence, and says the case was a political ploy
against him.
Tsvangirai was charged with treason before 2002 presidential
elections Mugabe narrowly won. The opposition leader surrendered his passport
and was forced to report regularly to police while on bail.
Harare- Zimbabwe's information minister Jonathan
Moyo was allocated more than one farm despite his angry denials, official
documents show.
This is against the policy espoused by President Robert
Mugabe that all beneficiaries of his controversial land reform programme only
receive one farm each.
Mugabe has vowed to recover the seized farms,
although his ministers have roundly ignored his call that they surrender
their multiple farms.
According to a report in the weekly Zimbabwe
Independent, documents from the agriculture ministry indicate that Moyo, who
has been named together with other ministers as multiple farm owners, was
given Paterson Farm in Mazowe and Lot 2 of Dete in Hwange.
He was also
linked to other farms in Matabeleland and Little Connemara
in Nyanga.
He has however denied ownership of all but one farm,
Paterson. A letter dated November 30, 2001, and signed by agriculture
minister Joseph Made, also named as a multiple farm owner, shows Moyo was
allocated Paterson Farm.
The farm was described in the offer letter,
whose reference was "offer of state land holding, Model 2 Phase 11", as state
and not private land.
The letter said Made, then minister of lands,
agriculture, and rural resettlement, which allocated Moyo the farm under the
Agricultural Land Resettlement Act, "reserves the right to cancel/withdraw
this offer if it is established that you failed to disclose essential
information when you completed your application or when you were interviewed,
such as the ownership or lease of other state
land".
Purchase
Despite the description of Paterson Farm as state
land, documents show that Moyo later went on to buy the property for a mere
Z$6 million from Made's ministry.
The payment followed a letter
written by the department of agriculture's permanent secretary, Ngoni Masoka,
on April 29 2002 to Moyo informing him about the cost of the land and
improvements.
Documents say "Prof JN Moyo" was also offered Lot 2 of Dete
in Hwange which was estimated to be 3 165.16 hectares.
A letter signed
by Made confirmed that Moyo was given the farm which was also described as
state land.
However, Moyo has said the farm belonged to a Jackie Mayers,
his cousin. Moyo has also denied he owned another farm in Matabeleland,
saying it belonged to his mother.
A number of ministers and
high-ranking Zanu-PF and government officials have been accused of using
their influence to grab several farms and using proxies to hide
Herald
Reporter THE Government has gazetted new regulations that will require those
born in the country but whose parents and forebears originated from countries
within the region to fill in special renunciation forms to restore their
Zimbabwean citizenship.
According to the gazette released last Friday,
any citizen from the Southern African Development Community who wishes to
restore his or her Zimbabwean citizenship will now have to fill in forms for
special renunciation which are being issued by the Registrar General's
Office. The new changes follow the amendment of section 9 of the Citizenship
of Zimbabwe Act by the Government early in May.
Once completed, the
renunciation forms would be taken by the RG's Office to the appropriate
embassy for endorsement.
The changes would help the RG's Office to deal
effectively with problems arising from dual citizenship within the southern
African region.
Forms were being distributed countrywide for easy access
by those who need to renounce or restore their citizenship.
When the
Citizenship Act was amended many people living in the country but whose
ancestors were originally from within the region complained that
the regulations were too rigid and did not take their plight into
account.
WINDHOEK. NAMIBIA'S Polytechnic - the second highest
institution of learning in the country - has found itself in a controversial
row over lectures provided there that negatively portray and demonise
President Mugabe.
The lectures, given last month, have drawn sharp
criticism from some students who felt that the polytechnic was using Western
media propaganda material to indoctrinate students at the
institution.
Given by the Department of Commu-nication, English
Communication - first opportunity examination June 2004 - the modules are
based on texts lifted from Western media reports and those of
non-governmental organisations that constantly demonise President Mugabe and
portray him as a "dictator".
The text that came under Question 4 of the
examination describes how the Government of Zimbabwe uses "food aid as a
political weapon to starve people who are not members of President Mugabe's
ruling Zanu-PF.
The text claims that the "coping strategies" of those
badly affected will run out early in the year and people "will start to
die".
It went on to give flimsy reasons why European countries would not
"rush to Zimbabwe's aid while (President) Mugabe is still in
power".
It then quoted Denmark's European Affairs Minister Bertel Haarder
as saying: "We would like to strongly react against the fact that the
Zimbabwean Government is using our aid and our food to put political and
economic pressure on its own people.
"They use our aid as a tool in
the domestic fight against the opposition to survive, and that is not
acceptable."
The text went on: "The elections may be over but, according
to one human rights observer who returned from Zimbabwe, the use of
starvation as a political weapon is continuing in some of the most hard-hit
areas.
"The human rights worker - who asked not to be named for fear of
reprisals against witnesses - described widespread use of starvation
against opposition communities."
One of the witnesses quoted in the
text said "20 families in his community had been denied the right to buy food
from the Government's Grain Marketing Board warehouses because of their
support of the opposition.
"They have also been denied the right to work.
So they cannot eat and they cannot earn money," the witness was quoted as
claiming.
The texts were prepared by the Department of Communication, and
the first examiner was one Ms E S Hill.
The second examiners were Ms J
Hunter, Dr S Krishnamurthy, Mr A L Vueba, Mr W Ngozo, Mr C Petersen, Ms G
Theron and Ms L Willemse. Dr T Elyssa was the moderator.
Angry
students at the polytechnic said they were very disturbed by the material
used and the way the Government of President Mugabe was portrayed.
They
said Question 3 was so scathing in its condemnation and demonisation
of President Mugabe and his Government that it had to be withdrawn
immediately after they had answered.
"We have had this Western media
propaganda before," said one student, "but little did we know that such
propaganda will filter through our institutions of learning. Where are we
heading to? What are we trying to achieve?
"Those allegations have never
been proven. Are Zimbabweans marked on their faces so the Government could
tell immediately that this one belongs to the ruling party and this one to
the opposition?
"I have never been to Zimbabwe, but I find it extremely
impractical that such measures could be used. Do people in Zimbabwe buy with
party membership cards?"
Some of the questions that students had to
answer after reading the text are: "Why do donors no longer want to help
suffering Zimbabweans?"; "Describe how food aid is used as a political tool
by Mugabe's regime."; "How does Mugabe's regime maintain the monopoly of
feeding its supporters?"; "How are the children in Zimbabwe affected by the
current state of affairs?"; and "In what ways have Zimbabweans been
punished?"
The students said that such questions had coded anti-President
Mugabe antics and could not meet any criteria to pass through as tutorial
material in any serious institution of higher learning.
"We see our
institution being drawn into the anti-Mugabe crusade and regime change," said
one furious student. "We had to demonise President Mugabe because we wanted
to pass the examinations. But is that fair? We are not here to be
brainwashed.
"I would like the polytechnic to release all the answers,
particularly those of Question 3. It is shocking to see how President Mugabe
was demonised in such answers. The more one demonises him, the more marks one
gets. So much for our polytechnic."
The rector of the polytechnic, Dr
Tjama Tjivikua, said that although the questions were based on a political
journalistic statement, they were purely meant to be an academic exercise in
English.
He said that he had discussed the questions with the lecturers
concerned and discovered that it was more a question of "insensitivity than
criticism" on their part.
"The passage was chosen because it is
written in English and it falls within the framework of reference for our
students who read newspapers daily and obtain information about any country
in the Sadc (Southern African Development Community) region, which is of
interest to them," he said.
He said that the passage dealt with famine in
Zimbabwe caused by El Nino and drought and why donors were not coming to
Zimbabwe's aid.
But neither El Nino nor drought ever featured in the
text, as the rector maintained.
"As is academic tradition
internationally, faculty and staff have the freedom to decide what is best
for students and we have always exercised great responsibility in utilising
this freedom," he said.
"Care is taken to ensure that the extracts fall
within the purview of copyright laws and copyright is obtained before
publication. Void of political indoctrination, students are trained to make
oral presentations on controversial topics in order to make them think and
argue," he said.
But the students dispute this argument, saying that
lifting texts from newspapers that insult our leaders was
wrong.
"Granted, they have the freedom to choose what is best for
students, but what they have chosen for us in this case is horrible. Is
Mugabe bad just because Britain says so? What if you have a story written in
English by a white man describing how blacks are inferior to whites or why
racism is good, will they use it just because it is in English or just
because they have the right to choose what is best for students? If a text is
in bad taste, it is just in bad taste and should not be used," a student
said.
"It is Europe, particularly Britain, which is using its money to
effect 'regime change' in Zimbabwe. It will be a sad day in the history of
our Polytechnic that, at the end of the day, we shall have contributed to
that nonsense of Britain."
Said Dr Tjivikua: "I assure all that it was
not the Polytechnic's intention to criticise or to project negatively a
government, country or to hurt anyone's feelings or to provoke any
anger.
"I tender an apology for the unintended harm. We shall try to be
more sensitive and objective in the future. I tender our humble and
sincere apology, and express our highest esteem and best wishes to the
High Commission, the Government and the People of the Republic of Zimbabwe."
--- Namibia Today/SNNi.