Zim Online
Wed
7 December 2005
HARARE - Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU PF party will not
discuss President
Robert Mugabe's succession at its annual conference
beginning on Friday this
week, a top official of the party told ZimOnline
last night.
ZANU PF secretary for administration Diydmus Mutasa
said the issue of
Mugabe's successor - the cause of a silent but vicious
power struggle in the
ruling party - was not on the agenda sheet because it
was not an "issue at
this moment in time".
Mutasa, who plays a
key role in compiling the agenda for the
conference, said: "It is not on the
agenda because it is not an issue at
this moment in time."
Pressed further Mutasa, who is a close confidante of Mugabe and is
also
State Security Minister, would only say: "We have our way of doing
things".
The 81-year old Mugabe, in office
since Zimbabwe's independence from
Britain 25 years ago, had in past years
kept Zimbabweans guessing about when
he would retire.
But the
ageing President has in the last two years made it clear he
wants to step
down at the expiry of his current term in 2008, a development
that has
ignited fierce jockeying between two rival camps in ZANU PF each
pushing to
position its favoured candidate for the top job when and if
Mugabe
retires.
One camp is led by powerful former army general, Solomon
Mujuru, while
the other is led by feared former parliamentary speaker
Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The rivalry between the two camps spilled over
last December when
former government information minister and propaganda
chief Jonathan Moyo
and six provincial chairmen of ZANU PF supporting
Mnangagwa attempted to
block the appointment of Joyce Mujuru (Solomon's
wife) as party and state
second vice-president.
The plot fell
through with the chairmen suspended from ZANU PF for
four years each while
Moyo was eventually fired from the party and the
government.
Joyce was subsequently appointed ZANU PF and state vice president, a
development that not only brought her closer to the top job but that also
appeared to suggest that the battle for Mugabe's succession may have been
settled.
ZANU PF insiders say this is far from the truth with
Mnangagwa's camp
said to be regrouping for one last onslaught which, if it
fails to bring the
biggest prize, would see the man once touted as Mugabe's
heir apparent
breaking away to form his own political party.
Mnangagwa has however repeatedly denied he plans to break away from
ZANU PF
and has specifically said he is not linked to the new United
People's
Movement party that is being formed by Moyo.
Meanwhile, Mujuru is
said to have used his wife only as a decoy in a
sly bid to outmaneuver
Mnangagwa but is otherwise backing former finance
minister Simba Makoni to
take over as ZANU PF and possibly Zimbabwe's
president if Mugabe steps
down.
"ZANU PF will not discuss the succession issue at Esigodini
because we
never discuss such issues at such public platforms," a member of
the party's
inner politburo cabinet said last night.
The
politburo member, who did not want to be named, added: "But this
is not to
say the succession issue has been resolved. Mnangagwa, who wants
to be the
next president of Zimbabwe, is not finished yet while Mujuru still
has to
push his real candidate, Makoni, to the fore."
ZANU PF will among
other key issues discuss Zimbabwe's comatose
economy, the government's
chaotic land reform programme and social service
provision in the country. -
ZimOnline.
Zim Online
Wed 7 December 2005
HARARE - United Nations (UN)
Emergency Relief Co-ordinator Jan Egeland
on Tuesday described Zimbabwe's
humanitarian crisis as "very serious and
worrying" and said President Robert
Mugabe's controversial home demolition
campaign that left thousands of
people without shelter had worsened the
situation.
The UN
envoy, who has visited families living in the open after their
homes were
demolished by the government, said a burgeoning HIV/AIDS epidemic
was also
compounding the crisis with millions of orphans needing urgent
help.
Egeland told journalists in Harare: "The humanitarian
situation in
Zimbabwe is very serious and prospects are also very worrying,
the number of
people needing assistance is big and growing."
Turning onto Mugabe's urban slum clearing campaign, the UN envoy
called the
exercise "the worst possible thing at the worst possible time
(that) created
a lot of problems as far as humanitarian conditions are
concerned."
The UN says the controversial urban renewal
exercise left 700 000
people without shelter or means of livelihood after
their homes and informal
business kiosks were demolished by the
government.
But Egeland said he had received assurances during a
meeting with
Mugabe earlier in the day that Harare would co-operate with the
UN to assist
those in need of help.
The UN envoy, who also said
the world body's secretary general Kofi
Annan was considering visiting
Zimbabwe next year, said his meeting with
Mugabe had been frank and open,
although there had been some disagreement on
how to help those needing
assistance.
Zimbabwe initially rejected UN offers of assistance to
build temporary
shelter for people affected by Murambatsvina, only to make
an about-turn
last month. Subject to funding, the UN will construct 2 500
housing units
during the first phase of the programme.
The UN's
World Food Programme will have increased the number of
recipients of its
food aid in Zimbabwe to 3.3 million by January up from 2.5
million expected
to be fed by the organisation by end of this month. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wed 7
December 2005
HARARE - President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday told
Zimbabwe's Parliament
that his government is embarking on a new
Stalinist-style command
agriculture programme to boost farm output and end
food shortages gripping
the country for the past five years.
The programme, first mentioned by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor
Gideon
Gono several months ago, would see selected farms required to produce
specific quantities of strategic crops such as maize, wheat and
tobacco.
Mugabe said the new Operation Food Security (also known in
vernacular
languages as Operation Maguta/Inala) would see at least 300 000
hectares of
irrigated land to produce the main staple maize while
communities would be
mobilised to produce several more crops to ensure
Zimbabwe is once again
able to feed itself as well as export excess
food.
In a 35-minute long state of the nation address to
Parliament, Mugabe
said: "To enhance agricultural production and meet
national requirements of
1.8 million metric tonnes of cereals, targeted
production has been
introduced through Operation Food Security/Maguta/ Inala
by government.
"The major objectives of the programme are to boost
the country's food
security and consolidate national strategic (food)
reserves. Further,
government's strategy to ensure food security and surplus
for export
(includes having) at least 300 000 hectares of maize put under
irrigation."
Zimbabwe has grappled hunger since 2000 after Mugabe's
controversial
seizure of productive farmland from whites for redistribution
to blacks
destabilised the mainstay agricultural sector, knocking food
output down by
about 60 percent.
For example, an estimated four
million of the 12 million Zimbabweans
require more than a million tonnes of
food aid between now and the next
harvest around March/April 2006 or they
will starve.
But sceptical agricultural experts have warned that
command
agriculture is not the solution to Zimbabwe's food problems, saying
the
cash-strapped government did not have the financial resources or skills
to
successfully manage crop fields across the country.
Mugabe -
who denies his land reforms caused hunger in Zimbabwe - is
better served
stopping a fresh wave of farm invasions by his supporters that
is disrupting
farming operations on the few large-scale producing farms
still in white
hands, the experts say.
The veteran President should also ensure
that his government provides
inputs and skills training for black villagers
resettled on former white
farms so that they could produce food for the
country, they said.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's bickering main opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party, in a surprise show of unity from
the party
lately, boycotted Mugabe's address in Parliament.
A
spokesman for the MDC, Nelson Chamisa, said the action was a
symbolic
gesture to show that the party did not condone Mugabe's
controversial
management of Zimbabwe.
Chamisa said: "We could not attend as
Mugabe is a disputed leader of
Zimbabwe. He has been making fatal decisions
for Zimbabweans such as the
re-introduction of the Senate which milks out
the already over burdened
taxpayer. We could not associate with the dictator
while the populace is
wallowing in abject poverty." - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wed 7 December
2005
HARARE - The government has seized a farm used by SOS
Children's
Villages Association of Zimbabwe to grow food for children at its
various
orphanages across the country.
Arcadia farm near
Bindura town, about 60km north of Harare, was also
used as a training school
for orphans and abandoned children where they were
taught various self-help
skills they could use to earn a living on leaving
the care of
SOS.
There are about 14 tenant farmers at the farm all of them once
orphaned or abandoned children who were raised by the SOS and taught how to
farm. They have no alternative land if evicted from the 573.45-hectare
farm.
State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa, who is also in charge
of land
redistribution, was not available for comment on the matter
yesterday.
But a senior member of the Trustees of SOS Children's
Villages
Association, who declined to be named, told ZimOnline last night
that they
were in talks with senior government officials in a bid to
persuade them to
let the association keep the farm.
"Our farm
which housed a training centre was taken over by the
government but senior
officials are dealing with the issue at a higher
level. At the moment we do
not want to scuttle negotiations with the
government," the official
said.
The seizure of the SOS farm is sure to make it more difficult
for the
organisation to look after Zimbabwe's orphans, who are increasing at
an
alarming rate as a burgeoning HIV/AIDS epidemic kills at least 2 000
people
in the country every week.
AIDS experts estimate that
about 1.3 million children in the country
under the age of 15 years have
lost one or both parents while an estimated
12 000 children live on the
streets in Harare and other cities. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wed 7 December 2005
HARARE - There was drama at
Parliament Building in Harare on Tuesday
after over-zealous state secret
agents barred Zimbabwe Foreign Affairs
Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi from
entering the building for President
Robert Mugabe's state of the nation
address saying they did not know him.
Mumbengegwi, who was
appointed minister earlier this year, is not a
familiar face to most of
Mugabe's feared secret agents after spending many
years outside the country
serving in various diplomatic assignments.
The foreign minister was
only saved from further embarrassment by
Mugabe's chief of protocol
Munyaradzi Kajese, who chastised the feared
secret agents for holding up the
minister.
In a similar incident involving Mugabe's secret police,
another secret
agent on Tuesday caused a stir in the second biggest city of
Bulawayo after
he tried to bulldoze his way into a private meeting held by
visiting United
Nations (UN) envoy Jan Egeland with civic and church
leaders.
The Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) officer pushed
and shoved
a UN security officer who had refused to allow him to attend the
meeting at
the Holiday Inn in the city to discuss the plight of thousands of
people
displaced by the government's controversial housing demolitions last
May.
"Church meetings should not be secret, why should you bar us
from
getting in? We want to hear what is being said.
"We know
there is Pius Ncube here, a man known for vilifying Zimbabwe
and our
government and we know he is busy lying to the envoy, so open up
now," said
the CIO agent pushing his way.
But the security officer refused to
budge resulting in a mini-fracas
as the CIO agent pushed and shoved
him.
Zimbabwe's dreaded secret agents, who are accused by human
rights
groups and the opposition of unleashing terror on the government's
opponents, routinely barge into private meetings in a bid to intimidate
perceived opponents of the government.
ZimOnline could not
immediately establish yesterday whether Pius
Ncube, a fierce critic of
President Robert Mugabe's government, was part of
the delegation that met
the UN envoy. The Zimbabwe government frequently
attacks Ncube accusing him
of spearheading an anti-Mugabe crusade.
Addressing journalists
after the meeting, Egeland said he was touched
by the plight of people he
had had seen in Bulawayo following the housing
demolitions.
"There is a great challenge for us and what is most apparent is that
there
is a crisis in so far as health and food provision is concerned. It is
my
hope that we will work hand in hand with the government to address this
crisis," he said.
At least 700 000 people were rendered
homeless after Mugabe sanctioned
the demolition of thousands of houses and
backyard shacks in an operation he
said was necessary to restore order in
urban areas. Another 2.4 million
people were also directly affected by the
clean-up campaign, according to a
UN report. - ZimOnline
News
Release
Zimbabweans protest on UN
International Human Rights Day
Exiled Zimbabweans are to
demonstrate outside the Zimbabwe Embassy in
The UN Emergency Relief
Co-ordinator, Jan Egeland, has been visiting
Mr Egeland said “Conditions
are very bad, the needs are tremendous”.
He has promised UN assistance but the
The demonstration coincides
with the regular
Protest from
Photo
Opportunities:
Drumming, singing, dancing.
Interview
Opportunities with refugees, including torture
victims.
Contacts: Rose Benton
07970 996 003
Ephraim Tapa 07940 793
090
The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of human rights by the current regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in October 2002 will continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk
VOA
By Peta Thornycroft
Harare
07 December
2005
U.N.'s top relief coordinator Jan Egeland says Zimbabwe's
humanitarian
situation is very serious and the need for international
assistance is big
and growing. Peta Thornycroft reports for VOA from Harare
where Mr.
Egeland ended on Tuesday a three-day face-mending
visit.
Mr. Egeland was on a mission to Zimbabwe on behalf of UN
Secretary-General
Kofi Annan.
President Robert Mugabe invited Mr.
Annan to visit Zimbabwe following a
U.N. report, which condemned the
government's mass eviction of people in
urban areas in May and June which
affected about 2.4 million people.
Mr. Egeland said the United Nations
needed a better relationship with the
government in order to help people
overcome growing hardships.
"The humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe is
very serious," Mr. Egeland said.
"The prospects are also very worrying. The
need for international assistance
is big and growing. The people of Zimbabwe
are suffering under several big
problems. The aids pandemic is taking
three-thousand lives every week, there
is a million aids orphans, there is
now chronic food insecurity, there is a
lack of social services including
lack of health services."
Mr. Egeland said lack of housing was
exacerbated by the government's forced
demolition of hundreds of thousands
of homes in urban areas and the eviction
of their
inhabitants.
Strained relations between the United Nations and Zimbabwe
eased somewhat
when Harare agreed last week to accept food aid for millions
of people
facing hunger. Zimbabwe also agreed to allow the United Nations
to help
build some shelters for people displaced by the
evictions..
Zimbawe is in a deep economic crisis, with seven out of 10
people
unemployed, inflation running at more than 400 percent and the
agriculture
sector, once the source of the country's export wealth, unable
to feed the
population.
The Telegraph
By Peta
Thornycroft in Harare
(Filed: 07/12/2005)
Zimbabwe's
high-living cricket administrators were arrested late on Monday
and will be
charged under tough exchange control laws. After years of player
walkouts,
race rows and allegations of massive corruption, the two men at
the centre
of the disintegration of the game in Zimbabwe are finally behind
bars - for
the moment.
Peter Chingoka, 51, the long-serving chairman of Zimbabwe
Cricket, and Ozias
Bvute, 34, whom he appointed as managing director in
January, handed
themselves in to the Harare Central Police Station after a
week on the run.
Chief Supt Oliver Mandikapa said: "They are under arrest and
will be charged
under the exchange control act and should appear in court
soon." The two
head men of Zimbabwe Cricket are accused by players and
senior colleagues of
funding lavish lifestyles on the proceeds of
international cricket receipts.
A month ago, Bvute, who knows nothing
about cricket according to top
players, allegedly bought himself a
ranch-style house close to where
President Robert Mugabe is building his
palatial retirement home 15 miles
north of Harare.
Both men are
accused by players and colleagues of hiring scores of relatives
and friends
to work for Zimbabwe Cricket and of allegedly syphoning off
funds to import
luxury vehicles for resale in Zimbabwe.
Chingoka, a familiar face at
Harare's top bars and restaurants, had been
warned by associates for two
years that cricket would collapse unless he
stopped manufacturing race rows
and reined in expenditure.
The arrest of the two clears the way for
Zimbabwe Cricket's vice-chairman,
retired judge Ahmed Ebrahim, to call a
board meeting today to dismiss both
men and appoint a temporary management
committee. He is also expected to
hire a forensic auditor to examine local
and overseas bank accounts and the
company's books.
Heath Streak, the
former captain, was sacked last year when he criticised
Chingoka's
administration and selection processes. This led to a walkout by
most of the
top white players, heralding the start of Zimbabwe's dramatic
loss of
form.
The team's new captain, Tatenda Taibu, who is 22, walked out last
month and
was forthright when giving his reasons. "I will only play for
Zimbabwe if Mr
Chingoka and Mr Bvute go," he said last weekend before
leaving to take up a
month's contract in Bangladesh.
The players also
rebelled when the popular West Indian coach Phil Simmons
was sacked in
September. He will be reinstated today and scores of new
employees hired by
Bvute will receive their marching orders.
"We don't know if salaries will
be paid because we don't know if there is
any money in the Zimbabwe Cricket
accounts," an official at the headquarters
said
yesterday.
Indications so far are that the two men will have to explain
to the police
how about $22 million (£12.6 million) of Zimbabwe Cricket's
income has been
spent since January.
Khaleej Times
(AP)
7
December 2005
HARARE - A rebel group has outlined its bid to oust
the Zimbabwean cricket
administration and secure funding for the national
team.
About 40 people gathered at the Harare Sports Club on Monday in
an emergency
meeting designed to overthrow Zimbabwe Cricket chairman Peter
Chingoka and
managing director Osias Bvute.
"There was no sign of the
two, but they might still appear on Wednesday for
our next meeting to try
and stop it as we move forward" Justice Ahmed
Ebrahim told The Associated
Press of Chingoka and Bvute.
Former captain Tatenda Taibu, dismissed
national coach Phil Simmons, senior
players, six provincial chairmen or vice
chairmen, and five national
directors were among those who attended the
meeting.
The players reaffirmed their pledge to refuse to play for
Zimbabwe if
Chingoka and Bvute stayed on.
Ebrahim said it was agreed
to ask TV companies, sponsors and others
providing finance to trace any
funds sent to ZC in recent years.
"I realise they won't do that
immediately until they feel they can recognize
our authority," Ebrahim said.
"But we are anxious to get a forensic audit
and at the same time to create
goodwill with backers."
Pretoria News
December 7, 2005 Edition
1
Disciplinary action awaits customs and immigration officials at Beit
Bridge,
the Limpopo river border crossing between South Africa and Zimbabwe,
SABC
radio news reported yesterday.
This week queues have built up at
the checkpoint, reputedly Africa's most
busy road border, owing to a
shortage of staff to process travellers'
documents.
Limpopo home
affairs manager Victor Mabunda reportedly said those involved
in corruption,
or absconding from their posts, would face disciplinary
action.
National Home Affairs spokesman Monageng Mokgojwa said that
at the weekend
four staffers had booked off sick and two were on leave. A
normal shift
employed 15 people at a time. - Sapa
New Zimbabwe
EDITOR'S MEMO: MDUDUZI MATHUTHU
Last updated: 12/07/2005
11:12:22
I HAVE watched the implosion of the Movement for Democratic
Change
(MDC) with great sadness. It's enough to make one want to walk out
and have
a tattoo!
In the past six years, the MDC under Morgan
Tsvangirai's leadership,
has put up a commendable fight to rescue Zimbabwe
from Robert Mugabe's
dictatorship.
The fight has not been easy.
Scores of MDC supporters have been killed
in pursuit of a New Zimbabwe. Top
MDC leaders have been arrested countless
times, and they have all been
acquitted -- which explains something about
policing and the justice system
in Zimbabwe.
In the six years that the MDC has existed, Zimbabweans
of all tribal
backgrounds appeared ready to turn the clock on Zanu PF's
divisive,
faction-driven politics which had for two decades restrained the
nation's
march towards a one-nation agenda.
While reporting for
The Daily News, I had the opportunity to meet and
travel with Tsvangirai in
rural Matabeleland. He struck me as a "people's
man", a man who understood
and appreciated the suffering of Zimbabwe's rural
poor. He spoke in ordinary
language on ordinary subjects to ordinary
audiences. They loved
him.
While seeking to unite the nation, Tsvangirai appeared not to
have
lost a sense of the past. I remember after a rally in Tsholotsho,
Tsvangirai
stopped at the site of a mass grave where 12 members of the same
family were
executed by Mugabe's North Korean-trained Five Brigade.
Tsvangirai spoke
movingly and vowed that such scenes should never be
repeated in a New
Zimbabwe.
For someone who witnessed the MDC
campaign juggernaut so close and
knew the principals very well, current
events in the MDC are just
mind-numbing.
What happened to the
dream of a New Zimbabwe? What happened to the
MDC's promise to "Chinja
Maitiro/Guqula Izenzo"? What happened to the unity,
and democratic purpose
of the party?
Trying to pick the warring MDC factions apart and
apportioning blame
to one group or the other has been the political game so
far. There has been
a discomforting nurturing of extremist views. The middle
ground has all been
obliterated. The principle is now a simple "it's either
you are with us or
with them", or rather more accurately, "it's either you
are with us or with
the enemy".
Instead of seeing a change in
"maitiro/izenzo", the MDC seems to have
plagiarised wholesale from Zanu PF's
political handbook. Members of
Parliament can now be assaulted at MDC
meetings, constituency T-Shirts for
MDC MPs can be set on fire by
toyi-toying youths in front of the leader of
the opposition. Slogans like
"Job Sikhala - mudenga - roverai pasi - hezo
vo - Bgwa!" pose a chilling
reminder of "pasi naTsvangirai" slogans which
only yesterday were being
chanted by Mugabe and his supporters.
The level of intolerance and
rejection of opposing views in the MDC is
shocking. What is even
heart-breaking is that this "black and white" view of
Zimbabwean politics
has now percolated down to ordinary Zimbabweans who are
in fact victims of
their leaders' short comings.
Internet chatrooms have become
mini-war zones where ideas are killed
with chilling vulgarities and tribal
slurs. A once united block of
opposition supporters is now dangerously
divided. Friendships have broken
down, partnerships abandoned and reason
discarded. It's all a cocktail that
looks set to prolong Zanu PF's hold on
power.
Yet one thing is inescapable. The entire MDC leadership has
betrayed
the people, the living and those who died in its name. After six
years
during which one presidential and two parliamentary elections were
lost, the
evidence suggests there is nothing particularly exceptional about
the
current leadership of the opposition.
The childish and
"schoolboy-in-playground with ball-in-hand" manner in
which the MDC leaders
have all acted over this affair raises profound
questions about the
leadership we have.
Whatever faction emerges triumphant from this
messy affair, people
should not lose perspective. Winning factional politics
and winning national
politics is like day and night.
What
Zimbabweans must demand from their leaders is quality and
delivery. The
Conservative party in the UK has just elected its fourth
leader in eight
years. Because they are not in power, they are perpetually
searching for the
best leader, and the party's supporters are not scared to
ring the changes
because they are not married to any one leader but
Conservative politics,
principles and systems.
Taking the MDC -- whatever faction wins the
internal power game --
into an election with a reformed Zanu PF has the
danger of placing a change
of government beyond this
generation.
What the MDC supporters should be demanding is
leadership renewal. The
party needs a clean break. New leadership, untainted
by the current
politics, should be something that the party's supporters up
and down the
country should be seriously considering. There are principled
Zimbabweans at
home and abroad who can take the mettle of bringing a New
Zimbabwe, Strive
Masiyiwa being a brilliant example.
Opposition
supporters and pro-democracy activists should also be
asking themselves if
the daily mudslinging and tribal slurs is good for
opposition politics. They
should be much more demanding of their leaders and
much more open minded or
they would indefinitely postpone the arrival of the
New
Zimbabwe.
The struggle for democratic change - which we thought was
at the heart
of the MDC agenda - is suffering quick retrogression. Mugabe is
smiling.
New Zimbabwe.com will support, as we have done over the
last two
years, a progressive opposition movement. But we will not back a
shambles
and fail to ask questions -- simply because a majority appears to
be caught
up in that shambles.
Zimbabwean voters must raise
their standards of leaders to beat
authoritarianism, both in government and
the opposition.