http://www.dispatch.co.za/
2008/12/29
THE
New Year should bring a speedy resolution to the utterly untenable
situation
in Zimbabwe, ANC president Jacob Zuma said in his Christmas and
New Year's
Message .
"I have on various occasions expressed my growing
concern about the serious
political crises and accompanying human tragedy in
Zimbabwe," Zuma said.
He also confirmed that the ANC would celebrate its
97th anniversary, and
launch its election manifesto, in East London on
January 10 next year.
Zuma said South Africa now required a government
with experience and
political will, that fully understood what should be
done to address the
apartheid past.
"While we are proud of the strong
foundation that our long and heroic
history provides us with, the ANC is
essentially a forward looking movement
that is committed to work together
with all South Africans to speed up
change and delivery in order to improve
the lives of every citizen." He was
aware that 2008 had, in an economic
sense, been a difficult year for many
people. "Because of the economic
policies that the ANC government followed,
the international economic
recession has not impacted on us nearly as
severely as it could
have.
"Nonetheless, I am acutely aware that, sadly, jobs are being lost,
and many
South Africans are feeling the consequences of the economic
downturn," Zuma
said.
"We still have a long way to go before we can
claim that we have created a
more just society that has conquered the legacy
of apartheid. Yet we remain
committed to a developmental State with poverty
eradication and the creation
of quality jobs our top priority." - Sapa
http://www.dispatch.co.za
2008/12/29
A
UN weapons expert said that there was no evidence that ammunition flown
from
the Democratic Republic of Congo to Zimbabwe in August originated from
China.
"It's possible, but we have no clues," Jason Stearns, a
member of a panel of
UN experts that produced a report on weapons transfers
to and from war- torn
Congo, said in New York last week.
He said
media stories quoting the UN report issued last week as saying there
was
"credible information" that Zimbabwe may have received Chinese arms via
Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo were incorrect.
The
report, addressed to the United Nations Security Council, said the
experts
were aware of "large amounts of ammunition arriving in eastern Congo
without
any notification by exporters to the (UN) sanctions committee".
The
Congolese army "may also be exporting weapons and ammunition to other
countries in the region ... in violation of the original end-user agreement
with the original exporter", said the report, dated December
12.
And it pointed to four Boeing aircraft flights that took
place between
Kinshasa, Harare and Lubumbashi that "transported a total of
53 tons of
ammunition destined to the Zimbabwean army" between August 20 and
22 this
year.
"While this is not a violation of the arms embargo,
it is an indication that
the Democratic Republic of the Congo could become a
transit point for
weapons destined for other countries," the report
noted.
Separately, the report said UN experts pointed to five flights
ferrying
weapons for the Congolese army between Khartoum and the eastern
Congolese
city of Kisangani last September.
The experts "received
credible information that the weapons transported
originated in China", and
that they had written to Beijing and were awaiting
a reply, according to the
report.
China has maintained that it abides by UN
resolutions on arm sales, sells
arms only to sovereign governments and
demands end-user agreements from its
buyers banning the transfer of weapons.
- Sapa-AP
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
December
29, 2008
Zimbabwe
Notebook
Jan Raath
This miserable road to freedom is lined with the
carcases of dead donkeys.
For about 100km before the Beitbridge border post,
there are scores of them,
smashed by the roaring 40-ton juggernauts that
thunder up and down the road
from South Africa in the night. Donkeys never
move out the way. All that is
left is a hide stretched over a skeleton,
cleaned within a day by dogs and
maggots in the 40 degree
sun.
Scrawny, ragged children at the side of the road gesture with their
hands,
putting fictional food in their mouths. In the shade of a thorn tree
a woman
sits in the shade of a thorn tree next, with a naked infant in her
lap, limp
and motionless. They undress them when they are sick, to cool
their fevered
bodies.
I stop at a garage on the outskirts of the
town. Into Beitbridge each day
several thousand pour for the chance of
escape from despair, starvation,
cholera, chaos and brutality. Yesterday in
Harare I saw young men sprinting
in panic from a pick-up full of police, for
the crime of hawking fluffy red
and white Father Christmas caps at the
traffic lights.
It is Christmastime and people with a little hard
currency are heading for
the paradise of South Africa's gleaming, abundant
supermarkets to bring back
food, maybe some cheap clothing.
None of
the dozen fuel pumps has fuel. The garage is more like a refugee
camp.
Haggard-looking men lie against the wall, grimy from the sweaty backs
of
thousands of others before them. The cement forecourt is smooth and
stained
from the feet of moving, hungry multitudes.
They are waiting for a lift,
for money, for a tout to help them through the
electrified fence after they
were refused entry into South Africa.
There are rocks all over the
forecourt that battered southbound pick-ups
have used for jacks. Broken
glass, fast food trays, torn tyres, broken
vehicle parts
everywhere.
A high toll
I have to change money here. The bridge
toll is in Zimbabwe dollars.
The US dollar has become the unofficial
national currency, but state offices
are forced to charge in Zimdollars.
When I eventually get to the toll window
at the customs and immigration
building I present a freshly printed five
hundred million dollar note I have
just exchanged. The official laughs and
waves me on. The charge is 13
million Zims. No change, there never is now.
Through a maelstrom of
vehicles, five vehicles thick from one side of the
narrow road to the
bridge. A lone woman police officer is uselessly on duty.
Miraculously, the
crush thins and we squeeze on to the two-lane bridge,
built at the turn of
the last century. It trembles alarmingly as the big
rigs rumble across. Up
to his waist in the river below, a young man casts a
net for fish. This is
the crocodile-infested Limpopo river?
The South African side is a
revelation. Traffic monitors with two-way
radios, policemen and immigration
officers bringing order to a meandering
queue of several hundred, mostly
seated, so slow is the process. It takes up
to six hours to be
cleared.
At the immigration section, a woman officer gently chides: "Come
on you
guys, stay in the line." The police are friendly, helpful. I am
astounded.
Confronted every day with this river of misery, much of it
suffering from
cholera, the hearts of the authorities are
softened.
Tears of rage
Even here the infection of fear stays with
the Zimbabweans. I attempt
conversation with a young man next to me with new
white Nikes and the
penetrating eyes of a street thief. He mumbles and turns
away. You never
know who's listening.
Finally, out of the border
complex and on to a big, new, pothole-less road.
On the other side of the
road there is a queue of vehicles 5km long, waiting
to enter Zimbabwe. Most
of them are pick-ups, each one with an industrial
trailer, stuffed tight,
piled up to three metres high, listing awkwardly
with mattresses, bicycles,
wheelbarrows and the big checked plastic bags
that are the mark of the
Zimbabwean diaspora.
But more than anything else they are stuffed with
food: big bags of
maizemeal, sugar, flour, five-litre bottles of cooking
oil. And there are
18in bars of carbolic soap - and shiny new 20-litre
plastic canisters for
carrying and storing water in the country's
cholera-infested towns.
Nearly all the vehicles have South African
vehicle registration plates.
Zimbabweans with jobs and money in South
Africa, bringing salvation to
starving, thirsty mothers, fathers, spouses
and children.
On the road to Johannesburg this relief convoy dominates
the northbound
traffic. Some of them are so overloaded the trailer axles
have snapped. The
contents are strewn at the side of the road: broken water
canisters, buckled
galvanised iron baths, spilled maizemeal.
After
about 200km of road without dead donkeys, of sanity and order, I was
overcome with rage and sorrow and wept.
http://news.yahoo.com
ACCRA (AFP) - This week's coup in
Guinea should serve as a warning as to
what may happen in Zimbabwe if
veteran leader Robert Mugabe is allowed to
cling to power as the late
Lansana Conte did in Guinea, a senior US official
said Sunday.
"I
think that (the coup in Guinea) should serve as a real warning to the
region, to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) of what might
happen if Robert Mugabe is allowed to cling to power and in fact die in
office as he seems to want to do," Jendayi Frazer, US Assistant Secretary of
State for African Affairs told reporters>
Frazer was speaking
in the Ghanaian capital Accra where she had come to
observe the presidential
elections.
She said that Ghana, where president John Kufuor is standing
down after the
maximum two four-year terms, stands in contrast to Guinea
"where you have a
president who died in office, clinging to power, much like
you have in
Zimbabwe.
"Ghana has demonstrated that in leadership, if
the population has a
democratic choice, that is the key to stability,"
Frazer said.
Lansana Conte died last week, aged 74, after ruling Guinea
with an iron hand
for 24 years. Coup leaders from the military immediately
announced the
dissolution of the government.
Robert Mugabe, a former
guerilla leader, has ruled Zimbabwe for the past 28
years. He has agreed to
set up a unity government with opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai but
SADC-brokered talks remain stalled.
In the meantime Zimbabwe has the
world's highest inflation rate, last put in
July at 231 million percent, and
faces chronic food shortages that have left
nearly half the population in
need of aid.
A cholera outbreak has also claimed about 1,200 lives in
country once
renowned for the quality of its hospital care.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=9276
December 28, 2008
By
Our Correspondent
CHIKURUBI - The dusty road to Chikurubi Maximum
Security Prison, the
notoriously filthy jail on the eastern outskirts of the
Zimbabwean capital,
is pot-holed and muddy.
To the left of Arcturus
Road, as one emerges from the suburb of Greendale,
are lush green fields of
maize; while the dominant feature to the right are
the rundown brown
concrete housing blocks where the paramilitary police
live.
This was
the route along which human rights activist Jestina Mukoko and nine
other
political activists accused of plotting to overthrow President Robert
Mugabe
were driven on a rainy Christmas day last week
The high Court had ordered
that they be remanded under police guard in the
Avenues Clinic.
As
Mukoko and her co-accused sit in court at the beginning of their trial
here
today, Monday, on allegedly self-confessed allegations charges of
engaging
in banditry, they will be hoping, perhaps silently praying, that
they do not
return to Chikurubi.
When Mukoko appeared in court on Christmas Eve she
had been missing for
three full weeks. Concerned Zimbabweans feared for the
worst, especially
since the police denied any knowledge of her whereabouts
or of an
involvement in her pre-dawn kidnapping from her Norton home on
December 4.
Meanwhile, Mukoko and the other abducted rights activists
were tortured, as
their lawyers revealed last Wednesday. In a secret
location they were made
to sign confessions in which they allegedly admitted
their involvement in
plotting to militarily overthrow Mugabe's regime and to
that end
coordinating the alleged military training of MDC bandits in
neighbouring
Botswana.
The judge ordered that the accused immediately
be sent to hospital for
medical attention and that torture allegations
leveled against State agents
while the accused were detained incommunicado
should be investigated.
The Zimbabwe Times, quoting highly placed sources
within the police force,
had meanwhile revealed that Superintendent Chrispen
Makedenge officer
commanding the Law and Order Section of the Zimbabwe
Republic Police was the
officer master-minding the spate of hijackings,
including that of Mukoko.
The police have flatly refused to comply with
the court's order and instead
took the activists, mainly female detainees,
to Chikurubi.
During a visit to the notorious Chikurubi Remand Prison on
Sunday, three
days after Mukoko and others were incarcerated there, a small
group of
visitors stood outside the main entrance. A pall of uneasiness
settled over
the visitors.
There was a dark presence emanating from
inside the silent monolith that now
dared us to enter over the visitors'
hour. A young prison warden approached
the visitors where they milled around
and took down their names and details,
as well as the names of the prisoners
we had come to visit. He then
disappeared into a building adjacent to the
entrance for roughly 20 minutes.
A female warden then emerged and called
the visitors to the entrance, a
heavy steel gate topped with menacing
razor-sharp wire. Cautiously, we
walked into the visitors lobby, amazed that
such a testament to horrific
incarceration of man by man could ever be
constructed. One by one we entered
the building and were instantly assailed
by a damp air that was laced with
the stench of decay.
After we
produced our identity documents we were allowed through another
heavy gate.
Then we were thoroughly searched before we entered a third gate.
We were
again asked to write down our names and details as well as the names
of the
remand prisoners we were visiting.
A burly prison officer glanced at the
name I had scribbled on the dirty
exercise book page and remarked
matter-of-factly: "We have strict
instructions that Jestina is not allowed
visitors. You will have to see her
at court tomorrow. Sorry."
There
was a long wait. And after what seemed like eternity, the prison
warden
emerged and directed the rest of the visitors into another room where
prisoners were already lined up in talking booths.
The prisoners were
allowed to chat to their visitors for only 15-minutes,
with all
conversations being monitored and tape-recorded. The conversation
was
conducted by telephone with prisoner and visitor separated by thick
glass
partitions.
Foodstuffs had to be tasted by the visitor before being
handed over to the
prisoners. And the prison wardens would poke through the
food, to make sure
there was nothing dangerous concealed inside.
A
source said Chikurubi was divided into female and male sections, with each
section divided into five separate cell blocks each designated to hold
different categories of inmates. There was a block for remand prisoners and
another for foreign prisoners. Then there were blocks doe prisoners serving
long sentences, for prisoners who committed capital offences and another for
those who committed "special" crimes.
Our sources said Mukoko and her
co-accused were sharing a tiny and
lice-infested cell with no ventilation or
light; the only toilet provision
being a small bucket that often goes
uncollected for days in the D-Section
of the Remand Prison. D-Section of the
Female Prison is home to suspected
hardcore female criminals, many of them
facing charges of murder or
infanticide.
This has been home to the
activists since Christmas day.
The activists have slept on hard concrete
floors with no blankets and have
been kept naked, according to the prison
source. Chikurubi is perhaps the
most squalid jail in southern Africa, he
said. Sources say prisoners go
without bread for weeks. In most cases they
get only a meal of thick
porridge and overcooked vegetables once a
day.
Supplies of items such as toothpaste, soap, toilet paper, and
general
laundry have long been stopped. Inmates have to share the few
blankets
available, despite that many have Aids or are afflicted with other
serious
diseases such as tuberculosis.
Mukoko has high blood
pressure. She has been kept in leg irons since
Christmas Day to thwart any
attempted escape or rescue.
"This is how D-Class prisoners are treated,"
said our source.
Chikurubi maximum prison is literally synonymous with
brutality and death
going back to pre-Independence days. Originally
conceived as a maximum
security place for the incarceration of dangerous
hard-core criminals, it is
now a symbol of terror that President Robert
Mugabe gladly uses to control
opponents and critics of his
regime.
Guards at Chikurubi routinely beat prisoners, many of them held
without
charge.
Conditions can hardly be improving. With Zimbabwe's
economy in a free fall
and inflation estimated at 231 million percent in
July, the Zimbabwe
government has no money to feed its citizens, let alone
prisoners.
At least 20 have succumbed to cholera at Chikurubi, according
to our source,
but the cases have reportedly been kept under wraps.
http://www.nehandaradio.com
29 December 2008
The MDC
in the UK and Ireland has called on Zimbabweans in the diaspora to
join in a
massive demonstration set for January to among other things demand
the right
to work for destitute Zimbabweans in the UK.
Fellow
Zimbabweans,
As the situation in Zimbabwe gets worse and worse everyday,
so is the
situation for some of us in this country of plenty. Like the
situation in
Zimbabwe our motherland, we have been hoping and hoping
everyday that change
is coming, hoping that we will be given Access to Work,
Skills Training and
Work Placements but to no avail.
We can no longer
standby and see our country being wiped away from mother
earth, just as we
can no longer allow ourselves to starve because we cannot
be allowed to
work. We can no longer allow Mugabe and Zanu pf to rule
Zimbabwe illegally,
just like we can no longer allow our education and
skills to die a natural
death.
We are a disciplined people who can study, work and make a
difference in
this country. We do not want to live on benefits as we are not
used to
handouts. Our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe need handouts because
the
country's infrastructure has been completely destroyed by Matibili
Mugabe
and his junta.
We can no longer remain silent while our
brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe
continue to die of murder, starvation and
disease neither shall we remain
silent when most of us are being forced into
destitution and criminality by
the UK government. We can no longer continue
to listern to voices of support
for our fight for change and the removal of
the Mugabe regime.
We now demand ACTION from the International community
to save lives in
Zimbabwe and also demand ACTION to save Zimbabweans in the
UK and IRELAND
from destitution. We demand for empowerment from the British
government so
that we will be able to rebuild Zimbabwe. Our education and
skills are being
put to waste and yet we are the ones who will spearhead the
rebuilding of
our country.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is time for us to
unite. Let us stop preaching
words of disunity and start fighting as one
people. Together we shall bring
CHANGE to the people in Zimbabwe and to our
situation in this country. The
British people through the London Citizens
and the affiliated organisations
are calling on their government to act now.
We have a duty to support their
call.
We are calling for a MOTHER of
all DEMONSTRATIONS on Tuesday 13th January
2009 in London. Let us all meet
at St Margaret Church Westminster Abbey at
Parliament Square where we will
procced to 10 Downing street and handover
our CVs to Prime Minister Gordon
Brown to demonstrate that we are able to
work and are ready for further
skills training in preparation of rebuilding
Zimbabwe.
We are urging
every Zimbabwean to attend. The programme begins at 10.00am
and ends at
2.00pm. The Archbishop of York John Sentamu will be one of the
may
dignitaries to support our cause.
Finally, I kindly ask all our members
to forward their CVs by 7th January
2009 to my email address mdcorg.secretary@googlemail.com
. Your CVs will be
treated in strict confidence and handed over to the Prime
Minister as a
dossier; our seriousness on this subject will be judged by the
number of CVs
we will gather and also by the turnout on the day of
demonstrations.
Thanking you for your co-operation in
advance.
Fighting for Change.
Jaison Andrew Matewu, Organising
Secretary, MDC UK & IRELAND.
http://www.voanews.com
The Following
is an Editorial Reflecting the Views of the US Government
27 December 2008
The hopelessness of the
current political situation in Zimbabwe should be
clear to all by now. Three
months after signing a power sharing agreement
with Morgan Tsvangirai and
Arthur Mutambara of the Movement for Democratic
Change, Robert Mugabe shows
no sign of cooperating in the process or
negotiating in good faith, and his
proclamations otherwise are exposed for
what they are: a
charade.
There is no real hope for power sharing with Mugabe, who was
recently quoted
saying that Zimbabwe belongs to him. The people of Zimbabwe
deserve better,
and it is time for him to go.
The United States
supported the agreement when it was reached in September,
hopeful that it
would provide the positive engagement needed to bring a
peaceful political
settlement to the long-troubled Southern African nation.
Mr. Mugabe would
continue as president with Mr. Tsvangirai serving as prime
minister.
Based on the outcome of the March national elections, the
MDC and another
opposition party would hold 16 of 31 cabinet ministries.
U.S. officials
pledged that if a deal were struck, they would consider
lifting economic
sanctions imposed on Mr. Mugabe's regime and help Zimbabwe
put its troubled
economic house in order.
That proved to be wishful
thinking, however. Mr. Mugabe has failed to
negotiate in good faith,
insisting on control of key ministries in a way
that would make Mr.
Tsvangirai prime minister in name only. While the
president shifted and
stalled at the bargaining table, government supporters
continued to harass,
arrest, and even forceably abduct opposition and human
rights activists.
Zimbabwe's devastated economy collapsed further and a
cholera outbreak
overwhelmed what was left of the country's health care
system, to date
killing more than 1,100 people.
Nor do the Zimbabwean people suffer their
president's depredations alone.
Refugees fleeing their nation's plight have
swarmed into neighboring
nations, straining local resources. Cholera has
crossed the borders and
caused health emergencies in all the neighboring
countries. It is no wonder
that the leaders of Botswana and Kenya are among
Mr. Mugabe's most vocal
critics. Others in the international community, and
in particular the
nations of Africa, need to join in the international
chorus calling for Mr.
Mugabe to release Zimbabwe from the misery he has
caused.
http://www.irishtimes.com
Monday,
December 29, 2008
AFRICA: A year-end bright note in Ghana cannot make up for a saga of
failure, war and bullying, writes Rob Crilly from Nairobi
ROBERT
MUGABE ends the year much as he began it, with demands for him to
step aside
growing while Zimbabwe's economic and political crises threaten
to
destabilise the whole of southern Africa.
Yet the leader they call the
Old Crocodile still has his jaws clamped around
Zimbabwe. He may have come
second best in elections and agreed to a
powersharing deal but somehow he
still looks far from vulnerable.
Meanwhile the country he fought to free
is dying around him. At last count
600 people had succumbed to cholera.
Children with the distended bellies of
severe malnutrition are a common
sight in a place once seen as the
breadbasket of Africa.
Not for the
first time the continent's year has been defined by the failure
of its
political leaders coupled with disinterest from the wider world, and
flawed
elections.
In short, it was a year of missed opportunities, says François
Grignon,
Africa director of the International Crisis Group.
"The
international community failed to support a new prime minister in
Somalia,
peacekeepers in Darfur didn't stop things getting worse there, and
in the
eastern Democratic Republic of Congo we had the signing of the Goma
peace
deal in January, only for that to fall apart," he says.
"Nowhere was it
more obvious than in Zimbabwe with the failure to impose the
outcome of the
elections . . . on Mugabe."
For a while it looked like things might be
different. With both Mugabe and
Morgan Tsvangirai claiming victory in this
year's elections, the two leaders
agreed to divvy up ministries and create
the post of prime minister for the
opposition.
Then it all stalled.
The year ends with relationships soured, hostilities
renewed and hundreds
dying from a medieval disease.
There was a miserable familiarity to the
stories that dominated headlines
elsewhere: war in Congo, absence of peace
in Darfur, Somalia slipping back
into anarchy, and the spectre of famine
stalking a hungry land.
Only Kenya's bloody mix of ethnic and political
violence came out of the
blue. As results filtered in from the December 27th
poll, something strange
happened. Constituencies that had been voting all
day for the opposition
leader Raila Odinga were suddenly declared for
President Mwai Kibaki.
By the time President Kibaki was hurriedly sworn
in for a second term, his
country - supposedly a haven of stability and an
engine of growth - was in
flames.
More than 1,500 people died and as
many as 600,000 were forced from their
homes as political rivals used tribal
hatred to mobilise gangs wielding
sticks, knives and golf clubs.
It
took Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the UN, to bring the two
sides
together and forge a powersharing deal that installed Odinga in the
new post
of prime minister. For now the fighting has stopped and the "grand
coalition" has managed to paper over the ethnic and land
disputes.
But hundreds of thousands of people have yet to return home,
and another
leader who was supposed to herald a new dawn - free from graft
and sleaze -
has found it impossible to give up power at the ballot
box.
The media spotlight meandered across the continent, picking out
oft-forgotten conflicts for their 15 minutes before moving on.
The
eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo flared close to war
in
October. General Laurent Nkunda marched his rebel troops down the
volcanic
hills close to the regional capital of Goma to demand talks with
the
government. His muscle-flexing was enough to send a quarter of a million
people on the run. Scores of women were raped as rival soldiers went on the
rampage.
So too the suffering continued in Darfur, even as Sudanese
President Omar al
Bashir promised peace. His Antonov planes bombed rebel
targets in July just
a day after he toured Darfur's regional capitals
releasing doves at every
stop. Now he must wait to see whether judges at the
International Criminal
Court will indict him for war crimes and genocide -
or whether his words of
peace will be enough to get him off the
hook.
In a year of chances not taken, it seems that perhaps only
Somalia's pirates
are bucking the trend. The ragtag gangs in speedboats have
taken every
opportunity to hijack tankers and freighters that dare risk the
journey
through the Gulf of Aden, collecting millions of dollars in
ransoms.
But it is not all doom and gloom.
In a year that began
with the fallout from a rigged election, 2008 ends with
an unexpected boost
to democracy.
After two terms as president of Ghana, John Kufour did
exactly what he was
supposed to do. He simply stepped aside, becoming one of
only a handful of
African leaders to retire.
Mugabe take
note.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=9272
December 28, 2008
HARARE - About 5,5
million people in Zimbabwe are reported to be facing
starvation as critical
food shortages continue to worsen, with the United
Nations calling for
increased international help for the country which is
also battling a deadly
cholera epidemic.
Since independence, Zimbabwe has always been a net
exporter of food but now
aid agencies say the situation is desperate, with
many starving as the
economy continues to implode.
No deaths from
starvation have been officially reported but relief agencies
say the
situation will worsen if food aid is not sent in quickly.
In some areas,
thousands have resorted to eating tree roots simply to stay
alive, but even
the bland roots are now in scarce supply.
Special rapporteur on the right
to food, Olivier De Schutter, said in a
statement issued in Geneva last week
that there was "just not enough food"
in Zimbabwe which was once the bread
basket of Africa.
"An estimated 5.5 million people may need food
assistance," he said.
Half of Zimbabwe's 11 million people are on the
brink of starvation,
according to de Schutter. Many have fled the country to
neighbouring
countries, fleeing mainly economic hardships and political
repression.
Many of those exiled Zimbabweans clogged the borders last
week, returning
home with truckloads of food for their starving
families.
Estimates by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) say
Zimbabwe
will need to import at least 1 million metric tonnes of maize and
wheat to
avert starvation and replenish its reserves.
So far, some 5
million have registered with the government for emergency
food aid.
Interventions by government to mitigate the food crisis, including
the much
trumpeted Basic Commodities Supply Side Intervention (BACOSSI) have
since
flopped as a result of partisan distribution and worsening cash
shortages.
An aid worker in the worst affected food insecure areas in
Zimbabwe told The
Zimbabwe Times they have had to introduce a feeding scheme
for children.
The UN's World Food Programme reported that in the southern
provinces of the
Midlands and Masvingo, hundreds of thousands of children
were already taking
a supplementary meal a day. For some of these children,
that is the only
meal they are assured of each day.
Last month
Zimbabwe's former Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo admitted that
the
country was to import tons of maize seed immediately from neighbouring
South
Africa to avert the looming food shortages. South Africa has withheld
a R300
million aid package to buy agriculture inputs in Zimbabwe as leverage
for
the consummation of the power-sharing agreement, but was moving to
release
the funds.
For a long period Zimbabwe denied that the country could face
food
shortages. President Mugabe also took long to admit that a cholera
epidemic
was ravaging the country, and only declared a state of emergency
after 700
had already succumbed to the disease. So far over 1 200 have
perished and
over 24 000 have been infected with the deadly disease. Between
Saturday,
December 20, and last Tuesday UNICEF airlifted 140 metric tonnes
of medical
supplies into Zimbabwe to fight the cholera epidemic.
Many
victims are dying because they are taking medication without any
food.
The government has promised that no-one will starve.
But the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has already warned President
Mugabe's
Zanu-PF not to use food aid to try to get votes in looming
elections, which
President Mugabe said will be held next year following
indications that the
power-sharing talks were leading nowhere.
Drought-prone southern Zimbabwe
normally receives very little rainfall, but
last year, poor harvests came as
a result of a combination of lack of inputs
and heavy rains that ravaged
southern Zimbabwe.
The lack of food has also been attributed to
additional factors such as the
government's chaotic land reform
programme.
In urban areas, consumers without foreign exchange are facing
massive bread
and other food shortages as a result of strict price controls
imposed by the
government.
However, most goods are readily available
for holders of free funds, who can
use their foreign exchange to buy from
supermarkets licensed to sell in
foreign currency.
For the majority
of Zimbabweans who have no access to foreign exchange,
putting food on the
table is a daily challenge.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
December
29, 2008
The simple but
brilliant elephant pump can save so many lives
Douglas Alexander
A billion
people around the world face a stark choice - to drink potentially
lethal
water or nothing. Sometimes when faced with these huge facts, we can
feel
that there is nothing we can do to change them.
When I first heard the
remarkable story of Pump Aid, I was reminded of
something Margaret Mead, the
American anthropologist, once said: "Never
doubt that a small group of
thoughtful, committed citizens can change the
world. Indeed, it's the only
thing that ever has."
Pump Aid is the story of three thoughtful,
committed Zimbabwean teachers who
saw several students die after drinking
contaminated water, and believed
that they could make a difference. Ten
years later, Ian Thorpe, Amos
Chitungo and Tendai Mawunga's organisation has
provided clean drinking water
to one million people across Zimbabwe and
Malawi via their brilliantly
simple elephant pump. Brilliant because it can
lift water from 50m, and
produce a litre of water a second - enough to
drink, cook with and even grow
crops.
Simple because the pump uses
nothing more complicated than rope and washers,
so it can be fixed by the
people who use it. Once a village's application
for an elephant pump is
successful, Pump Aid provides materials and
expertise, and villagers help to
construct the pump. This means that 95 per
cent of the pumps are working at
any one time.
Pump Aid wants to help people beyond Zimbabwe and Malawi,
and establish
clean water supplies for eight million of the poorest people
across Africa.
There can be no greater cause - because dirty water kills. At
any one time,
half of all hospital beds in developing countries are filled
with people
suffering from water-borne diseases. Women in Africa spend, on
average, a
quarter of their day walking to fetch water. Girls often help,
and that
means they do not have the time to go to school.
This
tragedy of wasted potential was brought home for me when I visited the
village of Kedida Gamela in Ethiopia in October. Because the rains had
failed, women were forced to walk for five hours a day to reach the nearest
source of water, a muddy watering hole, shared by animals and people
alike.
While I was in Kedida Gamela, rain fell for the first time in
months. It
began to form huge, dirty puddles, from which I knew those
villagers would
be forced to drink, inviting disease that could kill them or
their children.
Millions of people face the same daily dilemma. An elephant
pump would
transform their lives.
Douglas Alexander is Secretary of
State for international Development. Pump
Aid is supported by the Times
Christmas Appeal. Make a donation at
timesonline.co.uk/timesappeal
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
December
29, 2008
Martin Fletcher
It was an audacious plan, and had it worked,
Zimbabwe might still be a
prosperous country, not a failed state. Thirty
years ago James Callaghan's
Government worked secretly with African leaders
to end the war in Rhodesia
and to help Joshua Nkomo, not Robert Mugabe, to
become leader of a newly
independent Zimbabwe.
The corpulent Mr Nkomo
was corrupt, but not nearly as dangerous as Mr
Mugabe, David Owen, Mr
Callaghan's Foreign Secretary, told The Times shortly
before the release of
Cabinet papers under the 30-year rule.
"Better a crook than a zealot," Mr
Owen, now Lord Owen, said.
The plan collapsed primarily because Ian
Smith, Rhodesia's beleaguered Prime
Minister, refused to step down. Eighteen
months later Mr Mugabe became
Zimbabwe's first prime minister. Within two
more years his North
Korean-trained 5th Brigade was slaughtering Mr Nkomo's
supporters, and three
decades later he has reduced Zimbabwe to penury and
starvation.
Lord Owen held several meetings with Mr Nkomo in 1978, when
Mr Nkomo was
leader of the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (Zapu) and
co-leader of the
Patriotic Front, an alliance of Zapu and Mr Mugabe's
Zimbabwe African
National Union (Zanu) that was fighting an increasingly
bloody and
successful guerrilla war against Mr Smith's regime.
Mr Nkomo
gained Lord Owen's approval for a peace plan backed by Nigeria,
Zambia and,
Mr Nkomo claimed, Angola. It envisaged Mr Smith stepping down
and Mr Nkomo
becoming head of a transitional government that would hold
elections within
a year under the supervision of a British resident
commissioner and a UN
peacekeeping mission.
It was designed to give Mr Nkomo an electoral
advantage over Mr Mugabe by
making him acting prime minister, even though he
belonged to the minority
Ndebele tribe.
Mr Nkomo also hoped to
include Mr Mugabe in the transitional government and
to split Zanu by
excluding hardliners who opposed the plan.
Mr Callaghan's Government had
no illusions about Mr Nkomo. "He was in it to
feather his own nest," Lord
Owen said. However, it considered Mr Mugabe a
fanatical Maoist with little
time for democracy. Lord Owen, who commissioned
a report from MI6 on Mr
Mugabe's character and beliefs, said: "His obduracy
was so great and his
zealotry so fierce that I felt you could not ignore the
Maoist elements
within him."
On August 13, 1978, Mr Nkomo put the plan to Mr Smith at a
secret meeting in
Lusaka, Zambia's capital. Mr Nkomo would have argued that
Mr Smith's forces
were losing the war, that white generals were growing
rebellious, and that
Zapu would protect white Rhodesian interests better
than Mr Mugabe.
Mr Smith stalled, then leaked details of the meeting. Mr
Mugabe, Julius
Nyerere, the President of Tanzanzia, and others denounced the
plan. Then, on
September 3, Mr Nkomo's guerrillas shot down an Air Rhodesia
Viscount,
killing 35 passengers. In a BBC interview Mr Nkomo not only
claimed
responsibility, but appeared to chuckle. Instantly "he became a
pariah in
terms of white opinion in Rhodesia, just as much as Mugabe was",
Lord Owen
said.
The next year the war ended and Zimbabwe gained
independence, but the
Lancaster House agreement contained no advantages for
Mr Nkomo. In 1980 Zanu
trounced Zapu in elections marked by violence and
intimidation, and Mr
Mugabe took charge.
At first he courted whites,
and Lord Owen thought he had misjudged the man.
Then he launched his
"genocide" against Mr Nkomo's supporters and Zimbabwe's
long slide began.
"People often ask why we went overboard for Robert
Mugabe," Lord Owen said.
"The answer is that we didn't."
Comments
Nobody will ever
take responsibility for the rampaging cock-up that is
Zimbabwe.
The only
certainty is that suffering & Death will continue.
Denial and
softlysoftly words from around the world will remain the order of
the
day.
Zimbabweans are learning hate & contempt for humanity.
Criss
Cross, Harare, Zimbabwe
Britain and the rest of the world are back
tracking as usual,
don't blame Ian Smith. The Western world said give the
country to the
majority! so no matter who came in Mugabe or Nkoma the end
result like all
the African countries are on a downward spiral. South Africa
is next.
H Smith, Hamilton, New Zealand
"People often ask why we
went overboard for Robert Mugabe," Lord Owen said.
"The answer is that we
didn't."
But they allowed Robert Mugabe to get in, even though there was
evidence of
massive coercion by Mugabe's guerillas in the 1980
election.
David Ashton, Bathurst, Australia
http://www.zimdiaspora.com
I wonder what bigger disaster
is there in removing Mugabe by force than
there is in leaving him doing what
he sees fit as he destroys the economy
beyond repair,ubducts innocent and
peaceful activists, blocks the peace
process and never listens to anyone.
What amount of wrongs do we need to
convince the world that Mugabe is bad
beyond discriptions, that Mugabe is an
inhuman dictator?
It is over ten
years now and people have lost their lives in Zimbabwe just
like they would
lose their lives in countries at war. For the sake of peace,
everyone agrees
that we should not resort to violence (or even if we would
have opted in
favour of it, how and where would we find the weapons?)We keep
going round
in circles and by now Mugabe knows that there is nothing we or
the world are
going to do exept cheap talk.
Some people believe that it is better to live
one day as a lion than to live
a thousand years as a lamb but we are a peace
loving people and we rather
not lose one soul by means of violence in
pursuit of democracy. Zimbabweans
have reached an era where they think; if
there is no remedy, why worry.
Everything has been tried to make Mugabe at
least understand but he seems
like an alien from a different planet,
humanity is not in his vocabulary.
Mugabe has to end his wrath to begin
repentance; there is no way through to
forgiveness without
repentance.
Hope is not a conviction that something will turn out well but
the certainty
that something makes sense not regarding the way it turns out.
Zimbabweans
all over the universe are hopfull, they are hopeful of a country
where they
will not fear to tread. They are tired of all the nonsense and
they now do
not care how this is achieved as long as it is achieved, like a
tired bird
in air, it lands on any tree.
We are locked in a situation by
people who fear change because of their fear
of the new, because they are so
useless, they never changed over the years,
they view the world as they did
fifty years ago and they want everyone to do
the same.
Mugabe has become
a fanatic, a fanatic who cannot change his mind and
definitely will not
change the world. He knows best how to carry it through.
In addressing his
few subjects, he just tells them that the British are
coming to invade and
everyone sees a saviour in him. But Mugabe is not the
type of person we
expect to give us change in order to experience peace of
mind, because we
never will acquire change through Mugabe but we just do not
have to change
direction for a long time so we might end up where we are
heading.
The
best way to find your self is to lose oneself in serving others. If you
are
a leader, you have to remember this, but tough for Mugabe, he only
thought
of himself and his friends and visualised Zimbabwe in them. No more
important duty could be expected of Mugabe when he entered this great
political theatre than the loyalty to his best convictions, loyalty only to
his friends and family. Zimbabwe has been run like a family business ever
since.
The peace process is now like woven busket, someone is doing and
on the
other side someone is undoing.Everytime they agree on something,
there
emerge some disagreements somewhere.
We keep asking then, how far,
how long and how soon will this nightmare
stop? All generations are fed up.
We all know that a society grows when
elders plant trees whose shade they
know they shall never sit. But Mugabe
and junta want to go away with the
shade, they have actually gone away with
it, we have to plant our own, and
still Mugabe should not be removed
violently.
Now all of a sudden, the
ZRP are charging Jestina Mukoko for trying to
overthrow Mugabe, overthrow
with what?, where have they found her? They have
constantly said they did
not know where she was. This has really come to a
point where all the
weakness in Mugabe's politics becomes a sickness.
How on this earth can a few
individuals want to play hide and seek with
people's lives and just get away
with everything? This has to stop; we do
not want to count a sin twice
because it will not seem a crime. By Lovemore
mazivisa