African nations to drop Mugabe
sanctions By Basildon Peta Southern Africa Correspondent 08
February 2003
Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's President, and Olusegun
Obasanjo, the Nigerian President, are planning to drop Commonwealth sanctions
against Zimbabwe when they come up for renewal next month.
The move
would, in effect, hand President Robert Mugabe another diplomatic triumph.
France has agreed to host the embattled Zimbabwe leader at a summit later
this month.
The South African and Nigerian leaders, who met in Pretoria
yesterday, have been working to pre-empt John Howard, the Australian Prime
Minister and third member of the tri-nation Commonwealth panel on Zimbabwe,
who wants to expel Zimbabwe from the organisation over Mr Mugabe's human
rights abuses.
Mr Obasanjo will meet Mr Mugabe tomorrow to persuade the
Zimbabwean leader to implement reforms before the Commonwealth panel meeting.
Mr Mbeki and Mr Obasanjo will then argue against renewing sanctions as a way
of encouraging Mr Mugabe to implement even more reforms. This will leave Mr
Howard isolated and the view of the two African leaders will prevail,
officials say.
Mr Mbeki reportedly told Tony Blair last week that Mr
Mugabe had promised Nkosazana Zuma, South Africa's Foreign Minister, last
month to implement various reforms to ease media and political restrictions
in Zimbabwe.
A senior Zimbabwean Foreign Ministry official said: "The
foreign ministers were representing their leaders and gave Mugabe the same
message - that he must reform to make their work easier when they meet
Howard. President Obasanjo will be here to buttress that
position."
Messrs Mbeki, Obasanjo and Howard are due to meet in South
Africa next month to review their decision to suspend Zimbabwe from the
Commonwealth after Mr Mugabe was re-elected last March in elections dismissed
by Commonwealth observers as fraudulent.
Addressing a press conference
after meeting Mr Mbeki yesterday, Mr Obasanjo said only "constructive
engagement" with Mr Mugabe would help Zimbabwe out of its political and
economic crisis.
The two leaders vowed to continue with their policy of
quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe.
Mr Obasanjo said: "We must help Zimbabwe
out of its predicament and problem. We cannot do that if we become unduly and
unnecessarily critical and antagonistic to Zimbabwe. We must remain
constructively engaged with Zimbabwe.
"If there are points to be
raised with Zimbabwe, like brothers we put ourselves in a room, we lock the
door and we tell ourselves [the] truth."
* The main state witness in the
treason trial of the Zimbabwean opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had
"meddled" in foreign politics as far back as the 1980 US presidential
elections, George Bizos, Mr Tsvangirai's lawyer, said yesterday.
The
US Congress found Ari Ben Menashe lied over the fate of US hostages held in
Iran during the election race won by Ronald Reagan, Mr Bizos told the High
Court in Harare. Mr Tsvangirai is accused of trying to kill Mr Mugabe last
year.
OPINION February 8, 2003 Posted to the web
February 8, 2003
Frank Katope
At the height of the liberation
struggle for Zimbabwean independence, this border town was a war zone where
"rib and blood" were sacrificed to disengage the former Southern Rhodesia
from the yoke of colonial rule.
Hinged on the periphery of the confluence
of the Zambezi and Kafue rivers, and walled in the pillars of the lower
Zambezi valley, and its blazing heat, Chirundu, the gateway to Zimbabwe is
today a fast growing town with all unfolding trappings of a modern
place.
A multi-million Kwacha ultra modern bridge, a police station,
a truck port and modern houses make up part of the catalogue of the amenities
that have changed the face of Chirundu.
The border town which was once
dwarfed in nothing but a cluster of mountains, now stands out like a raised
dough aided to height with a pinch of yeast.
Tourism with lodges of
excellence and elegance in place is booming. Holiday-makers make a continuous
trek into tourist "zones" to catch glimpses of a wide variety of game in the
richly endowed natural habitat of the Lower Zambezi Valley.
Mtendere
Mission Hospital, one of the country's best mission hospitals, is another
jewel in the sight of the local population. Incidentally, the
health institution which is run by Italian missionaries attracts many
patients -- all because of the indelible reputation it has scored for its
quality health care coupled with amiable hospital staff who do not just cure
with medicine, but with a cheerful disposition too.
The man in-charge
of the hospital Dr Paolo Marelli, would have loved to share a lot about the
sparkling mission hospital if it were not for an urgent and important staff
meeting he was addressing at the time the writer knocked at his door for a
chat.
"There is a lot we could have shared, but please forgive me I
cannot attend to you right now because I have an urgent meeting with members
of staff. Please phone and make an appointment next time you want to come,"
Dr Marelli politely said and gave this author his E-mail address and the
hospital's phone number.
Not deterred, this author sneaked into the
wards to talk to some patients admitted there. They were all full of praises
for the institution and its management.
"I have been here for the past
one week suffering from malaria and I have noticed that the nurses are very
kind and caring," said Mr White Gomo of Kapululira village.
Mr Gomo
added, "because of nurses' tender loving care, I am now feeling fine and
ready to go back to the village."
Another patient, John Mwami vowed not
to return to his village even if he was discharged because he was eating good
food.
"Whether the hospital staff like it or not, I am not going back
home. The diet here is very good unlike in the village where I am forced to
eat nshima with okra every day," he chuckled, exposing a yellow-coated layer
of teeth which have seemingly been deprived of a thorough tooth-paste aided
oral cleansing.
The general atmosphere around the hospital spoke for
Dr Marelli -- it was a book of volumes about what men who talk less and do
more, can achieve.
Another achievement for Chirundu is the commissioning
of the Celtel network just recently. Never mind being in a village --
technology has caught up -- and ordinary villagers with the power of cash,
are getting connected.
But despite Chirundu being capped in good tidings,
there is also another side to it -- problems.
Hunger, for instance,
has taken its toll, especially that weather conditions are perpetually
agriculturally incapacitating so that it's always poor yields, year in, year
out.
The locals continue to bask in the desperation for food hand-outs
-- certainly at great cost to the Government.
Villagers have tales to
tell. Enter Kapululira village headman - Mika Bonga: "Our people are on the
verge of starvation. Although people are generally hard working on the land,
drought has frustrated them," he moans.
"It doesn't rain -- if it does
crops only reach knee- height-- then wilt," said a pitiable
headman.
The traditional ruler adds, although Government had responded
very well to calls for food aid, supplies were not enough to go round. Thus,
the endless need for food handouts was like swimming against a strong tide
with no shore in sight for secured and assured "docking".
The headman
also chided some officials responsible for the distribution process for using
underhand methods to deny people who were genuinely in need of food, their
right to the grain.
"These officials are very greedy. Instead of giving
the starving people the recommended amounts of maize, they only give them
little amounts in small buckets called meda. The Government should intervene
in this matter," Mr Mika Bonga charged.
As an anti-dote to perpetual
food shortages, the headman suggests that long term solutions be recoursed
to, to beat the biting food shortages.
This is against the backdrop of
the fact that, Chirundu is endowed with plenty of natural resources including
inexhaustible water basins like the Zambezi and Kafue rivers. All that
requires to be done is to harness the water by empowering villagers with
irrigation mechanisms to grow food all year round.
"Out grower schemes
supported by irrigation can be introduced but it's up to the Government to
come in and assist. If this is done hunger will certainly be kept at bay, and
cries for food handouts will be a thing of the past," carped the
headman.
Because agriculture has been under-developed due to lopsided
policies, villagers have resorted to over-fishing resulting in depletion of
fish resources.
Whether or not there is a fish-ban, to a common
villager it is business as usual -- a catch must be made. Even if people will
not have nshima, they are sure they will have fish.
Their diet has
become fish without nshima. That is Chirundu, a "world" of complexities on
one hand, and a jewel on the other hand.
THE key prosecution
witness in the treason trial of Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai, has a history of meddling in foreign elections, defence lawyers
said yesterday.
Ari Ben Menashe, a Canadian-based political lobbyist who
claims he once worked for the Israeli secret service, is alleged to have
interfered in elections in the US and in Australia in the 1980s.
Mr
Ben Menashe has been testifying for the Zimbabwe government
since Tsvangirai's trial began on Monday.
He says the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) leader held meetings with him during which he put
forward a plot to assassinate Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, before
national elections last year.
The allegations first surfaced in a
videotape of one of those meetings, which was aired on Australian television
one month before presidential elections.
Tsvangirai's legal team,
headed by the eminent Greek-South African anti-apartheid lawyer George Bizos,
has set out to show that the consultant is a notorious serial "fraudster" who
was secretly working for the Zimbabwe government.
Yesterday the lawyer
said he wanted information on the terms of a $100,000 (£60,000) contract
between Mr Ben Menashe and Mr Mugabe's government in September 2001, signed
weeks before the filmed meetings.
Mr Ben Menashe refused, maintaining
"this contract has nothing to do with the case".
He has previously
maintained he was given a $1 million contract by the government only after
news of the plot broke.
In a major blow to the defence team yesterday,
Judge Paddington Garwe disallowed many of the exhibits Tsvangirai's lawyers
were hoping to produce as evidence.
Newspaper articles incriminating
Mr Ben Menashe could not be used, the judge said, as they would require
cross-examination of the authors.
Mr Bizos told the court that the
witness had "created controversy by meddling in two other
elections".
He said that in the US presidential race in 1980, Mr Ben
Menashe made false claims over the fate of 270 US hostages in Iran.
Mr
Ben Menashe alleged then the former US president George Bush Sr had tried to
stall the release of the hostages in a bid to damage Jimmy Carter's chances
of re-election. A congressional committee later found Mr Ben Menashe had
lied.
And in Australia's 1987 elections, he alleged Labour Party
candidates took bribes to overlook illegal arms shipments passing through the
country. The party denied the allegations and Mr Ben Menashe was barred from
entering Australia.
Harare's court room has seen high drama this week,
with a perspiring Mr Ben Menashe lashing out angrily under
cross-examination.
Even Tsvangirai, who has remained studiously
expressionless throughout the proceedings, allowed himself a smile on
Thursday as he watched his lawyer's attempt to nail Mr Ben
Menashe.
The opposition leader, 50, who faces the death penalty if
convicted of high treason, has said he is "not worried" because he is not
guilty.
Two other MDC officials are standing trial with
Tsvangirai.
After an initial fanfare, reports on the trial have all but
dropped by the state broadcaster. It might be an indication that state media
- which always echoes the government line - does not know how to deal with
the revelations about Mr Ben Menashe.
The high-profile trial coincides
with the opening of the cricket World Cup, which is supposed to include six
matches in Zimbabwe.
Government opponents have pointed out the contrast
between the safe and enjoyable destination the government is seeking to show
Zimbabwe to be, and the menacing police presence surrounding the
trial.
Seven security guards were reported arrested and beaten yesterday
when they went to buy tickets for the tournament for their employer at Harare
Sports Club, where the matches are to take place, the employer, Michael
Mussa, claimed.
The seven might have walked too close to Mr Mugabe's
residence, State House, which is next door, Mr Mussa told a radio
station.
February 8, 2003 Posted to the web February 8,
2003
Harare
THE shortage of soft drinks has resurfaced in Harare
and some shops have since stopped selling them.
A survey in the city
centre yesterday showed that some supermarkets and take-aways were no longer
selling popular soft drinks like Coca-Cola and Spar Letta but more expensive
and unfamiliar brands, which are above $300.
Sole traders and
tuckshop owners are now selling soft drinks at exorbitant prices with a 300ml
bottle costing $150 and a 1 litre $400.
The retail price for a 300ml
Coca-Cola bottle is $70 while a litre costs $210.
Our survey showed
that only big supermarkets had a regular supply of soft drinks even though
the quantities were far below normal.
In most instances, the soft drinks
ran out as soon as they were delivered.
Consumers have expressed
frustration over the shortage saying they did not understand how commodities
like soft drinks could be scarce.
"It is almost sad that after queuing
for almost everything else, fuel and mealie meal included, you now can no
longer just walk into a shop and get a soft drink.
"Soft drinks are
something that should always be available because they are after all,
manufactured locally," Ms Tumiso Moyo of Harare said.
Ms Lilian Mbayiwa
of United Bottlers said the shortages could only be a result of the gaps
created in November last year.
"We had some problems with the supply of
sugar last year, which reduced our output but that has since been rectified
and production has resumed," she said.
Some inside sources at United
Bottlers however, attributed the shortages to problems with sugar
supply.
"We have been having problems with our sugar supplies and at
times only manage to produce half of what we normally
produce.
"Because we are producing less than what we normally produce, we
are mainly supplying drinks to wholesalers and supermarkets only, which
leaves a lot of other establishments in the cold," said one
source.
George Shire (Comment, February 7)
reflects the growing desperation of a regime and its sympathisers overwhelmed
by a crisis largely of their own making. Britain continues to stand by the
people of Zimbabwe. We have provided over £500m in development assistance
since independence, including £47m of humanitarian aid since September 2001.
In contrast to Mr Shire's assertions, we are feeding over 1.5 million hungry
Zimbabweans through our bilateral programme and many more through our support
for the World Food Programme. As Kofi Annan said last month, the crisis is
"caused partly by the forces of nature, and partly by mismanagement". The
challenge for the people of Zimbabwe and the international community is to
work together to find solu tions to the crisis, before it is too late. It is
tragic that the Zanu PF regime demonstrates so little will to tackle these
problems itself. Valerie Amos Minister for
Africa
· As George Shire claimed "there is no total breakdown of the rule
of law" in Zimbabwe, the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference issued
a statement saying "there are deeply disturbing signs that Zimbabwe is on
the brink of total breakdown into civil war" and calling for its expulsion
from the Commonwealth. African bishops can hardly be accused of racism and,
with journalists working in the region, may have a better picture than
any academic working in Britain. Joseph
Hanlon London
Pretoria - President Thabo
Mbeki is keeping his cards close to his chest and declining to disclose the
outcome of a meeting he had with president Robert Mugabe over land reforms
during this week's African Union (AU) summit.
During a meeting with
Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo at the Union Buildings Mbeki revealed
that he had taken the opportunity at the AU summit in the Ethiopian capital,
Addis Ababa, to confer with Mugabe.
Mbeki was only prepared to divulge
that agricultural issues were on the agenda following agricultural minister
Thoko Didiza's recent visit to Zimbabwe.
Refugees, Zimbabwean farm
labourers in South Africa and immigration issues were discussed during that
visit.
Mbeki, together with Obasanjo and Australian premier John Howard
are set to report on whether partial Commonwealth sanctions against Zimbabwe
are to be continued.
Obasanjo departs for Harare on Saturday night for
a scheduled meeting with Mugabe. He said on Friday he agreed with Mbeki's
Zimbabwean policy.
"We have to remain constructively involved and help
Zimbabwe out of its difficulties - and not criticise them incessantly," he
said.
HARARE, Feb. 7 - The key
state witness in the treason trial of Zimbabwe's main opposition leader
denied on Friday receiving money from the government for setting up a meeting
that discussed President Robert
Mugabe's ''elimination.'' Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai and two senior party
officials face a possible death sentence if convicted of plotting to kill
Mugabe and seize power in the troubled African country -- a charge they all
deny. Under cross-examination by chief
defence lawyer George Bizos, Canadian political consultant Ari-Ben Menashe
denied that part of the money his company received after signing a contract
with Zimbabwe's government in early 2002 was for secretly recording a
December 2001 meeting with Tsvangirai which discussed Mugabe's
''elimination.'' But Ben-Menashe refused
to disclose exactly how his firm earned the $100,000 payment from Mugabe's
government, citing client
confidentiality. ''I'm not at liberty to
discuss the terms of our contract with the Zimbabwe government (but) no
monies were received...in connection with this case,'' he
said. Earlier this week, Ben-Menashe
told the court that his company alerted Canadian, Zimbabwean and U.S.
authorities to the assassination plot after meeting Tsvangirai twice and
arranged the third meeting to gather video-taped
evidence. He says Mugabe's government
contracted his firm afterwards to help spruce up its international image
ahead of March 2002 presidential elections, but that the contract had nothing
to do with his role in exposing the alleged assassination
plot. The defendants say the videotape
which forms the main basis of the state's case was edited to discredit
Tsvangirai and the MDC before
the elections. Mugabe eventually won
in the polls, which both the MDC and several Western governments claimed were
fraudulent. The defence says Ben-Menashe
is an unreliable witness and on Friday said it had an affidavit signed by a
previous employee suggesting Ben-Menashe had a history of defrauding a number
of countries of money. Bizos said they
also had documentation showing that Ben-Menashe lied in a bid to influence
1980 presidential elections in the United States and a 1987 vote in
Australia. ''Mr Menashe has created
controversy by his meddling in two important elections...That, my lord, has
brought considerable notoriety to the name of Mr Menashe,'' Bizos told the
court. Mugabe says the MDC is a stooge
of the West, which he says is keen to oust him over his seizure of
white-owned commercial farms for redistribution among landless
blacks. The trial
continues.
ABOUT 2 000 passengers who were
travelling on a National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) train were yesterday
still stranded in Gweru two days after leaving Harare on their way to
Bulawayo as the parastatal's woes
continue.
The train left Harare at 9.30pm
on Wednesday and was scheduled to arrive in Bulawayo the following day at
5am.
But by midday yesterday, the train
was still at the Gweru railway station.
Although the passengers said there was no clear explanation for the cause of
their predicament, an NRZ official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said
the train had developed a mechanical problem before it reached Norton, about
40km from Harare.
According to the
passengers, the train stopped for nearly six hours in Chegutu while an NRZ
engineer attended to the unexplained problem.
"We then took off but moved at a very slow pace. We were held up again near
Munyati River where there was a derailment," said Violet Shamu,
a cross-border trader travelling to
Botswana.
When the train arrived in Gweru,
the crew allegedly switched off the engines and proceeded to Bulawayo in a
private vehicle, leaving the passengers
stranded. NRZ officials in Gweru declined to
comment yesterday, referring all questions to the parastatal's spokesperson
in Bulawayo.
At the time of going to
press, the NRZ public relations officer had not yet responded to questions
faxed to her on Thursday night.
Some of
the passengers said they had lost thousands of dollars in potential earnings
after the fruits they intended to sell in Botswana
went bad.
"I had $12 000 worth of
mangoes which I wanted to sell in Botswana. They are already getting bad and
I wonder if I will manage to recover my money," said Mirriam Chidhonza, a
cross-border trader.
"If we had extra cash
on us we would have proceeded by bus. We are stuck here because we do not
have money to spare," said Fred Divaris.
The passengers complained the coaches had no water and
sanitary facilities. "It is now a health
time bomb. There is no water and food," he
said.
The passengers said they had
resorted to buying sadza, the staple food, from vendors who were charging $1
000 for a plate.
Tendai Machiridza, who
works in Botswana feared he would be fired because he had failed to report
for duty yesterday morning.
Last weekend,
two NRZ trains collided near Dete in Matabeleland province, killing 50 people
and leaving 64 others seriously injured.
Another person died instantly barely 24 hours later after another mishap
involving an NRZ train near Bulawayo.
Meanwhile, hundreds of NRZ locomotives have been grounded for more than eight
months at the parastatal's Dabuka marshalling yard outside Gweru due to
a severe shortage of spare
parts.
ABOUT 300 MDC youths yesterday
marched to the Nigerian High Commission in Harare and handed over a petition
to the High Commissioner, Wilberforce Juta, to press President Olusegun
Obasanjo to persuade President Mugabe
to retire.
Meanwhile, Obasanjo is
expected to arrive in Harare today for talks with Mugabe and MDC leaders
ahead of the Commonwealth Troika meeting to be held in
March.
Obasanjo jets into Harare amid high
expectations that he will demand concrete proposals from Mugabe on how Harare
hopes to solve Zimbabwe's worsening political and economic
crisis.
Obasanjo has been in South Africa
since Friday, officially on a state visit to Pretoria, but apparently mainly
to strategise with President Thabo Mbeki on ways to nudge Mugabe into genuine
talks with the opposition.
Apart from
holding talks with Mugabe, the Nigerian leader is believed to be keen on a
one-on-one meeting with MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
Obasanjo, Mbeki and Australian
Prime Minister John Howard have been tasked by the Commonwealth to assess the
state of affairs in Zimbabwe.
The MDC
youths accused Mugabe and Zanu PF of embarking on a retribution exercise soon
after the presidential election during which Tsvangirai, the MDC leader,
polled over a million votes.
They said
there was rampant abuse of human rights sanctioned by
the State. In the petition, the youths said
Mugabe was to blame for the Zimbabwean crisis and must
go.
The petition reads in part: "Allow us,
Your Excellency, to unequivocally tell you that the current national crisis
cannot be separated from Robert Mugabe. In fact, Mugabe is the crisis. The
country is in a serious political crisis today because of Mugabe's management
style."
The youths said the crisis in
Zimbabwe was not about land reform, as Zanu PF officials put it, but Mugabe's
continued governance. The youths urged the
Commonwealth to expel Zimbabwe from the Club with immediate effect until the
rule of law was restored.
The youths said
the talks between the two leaders should centre on Mugabe's exit plan. Fresh
elections should be held under the supervision of international
observers. Three journalists covering the
demonstration at the Nigerian High Commission
were arrested
yesterday.
They were detained for five
hours before being released without charge.
The three are Tsvangirai Mukwazhi, formerly chief photographer of The Daily
News, Tawanda Mugwendere and Peter Muringisanwi, both of
Mighty Movies.
Meanwhile, Juta, the
Nigerian High Commissioner to Zimbabwe, says his government is concerned
about the continued arrests of opposition Members of Parliament by the
Zimbabwe government.
In an interview, Juta
said Nigeria had communicated its displeasure to the government when Job
Sikhala, MP for St Mary's, was arrested and allegedly tortured while in
police custody last month.
Juta said: "We
said the arrests of MPs were unnecessary because they were embodiments of the
people they represented in Parliament.
"Tension was rising because of these arrests and in particular that
of Engineer Elias Mudzuri, the Executive Mayor of Harare, is of great
concern to us and especially the torture of an
MP."
Juta said it was sobering though that
the government had set up an investigation panel to look into the torture of
Sikhala.
"Elected MPs are leaders;
although they are members of political parties, once they are elected we look
at them as leaders of communities," he
said.
He said Nigeria moved in quickly to
broker dialogue between the MDC and Zanu PF because of the tension that arose
from the disputed 2002 presidential
election. But he said there were no facts and
figures to back the MDC leader Tsvangirai's accusations that Nigeria was
taking sides with Zanu PF.
THE land reform programme
was chaotic enough to begin with, but with an alleged deal being struck
between the government and the Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU), the plan
seems to be sliding into even deeper
chaos.
The government is reported to be
evicting settlers from farms they occupied during the bloody farm invasions
of 2000.
Moreover, it is reported to be
inviting the original farmers to return to their properties to resume
operations.
Many such farmers are now
operating in neighbouring countries, which offered them land when Zimbabwe
was kicking them out like thieves. The gall of the government in inviting
them back is as incredible as the brutality with which they were chased
out. But there are other reports that the
government is taking over more commercial farms, not specifically to resettle
the allegedly landless peasants, but to give them to well-connected Zanu PF
supporters.
To add more chaos to the
scenario, the CFU leader, Colin Cloete, is reported as saying that there has
been no deal struck between his organisation and Joseph Made, the star player
in this tragicomedy.
The Minister of Land,
Agriculture and Rural Resettlement spoke recently of a new "understanding"
between the government and the CFU.
A
Memorandum of Understanding between the two has been circulated, but the CFU
leader, Cloete, has said a discussion on such a document did take place, but
there has been no signing.
Its major
thrust is an undertaking by the CFU to assist the new farmers with
implements. Cloete says the government's sincerity in these discussions has
bred scepticism, and it will be a long time
before any understanding on the way forward
is reached.
The suspicion is that
Made's feverish activity in pursuit of this understanding with the CFU is
targeted at the looming review of Zimbabwe's one-year suspension from the
Commonwealth and the sanctions imposed by the European Union for the
government's hefty catalogue of human rights abuses and the conduct of the
presidential election last year.
Nigerian
High Commissioner Wilberforce Juta announced earlier this week that his
president, Olusegun Obasanjo, is due in Harare today for talks with President
Mugabe and the MDC, whose leader is facing treason
charges.
Juta, in an interview, was
critical of the government's handling of the case of Job Sikhala, the St
Mary's MP, who was allegedly tortured by the police before being brought to
court on a charge later thrown out by
the magistrate.
The high commissioner's
remarks provided a refreshing difference from his government's quite often
blind loyalty to the Mugabe government.
Perhaps this is a new era of even-handedness in Nigeria's handling of the
Zimbabwe imbroglio.
Certainly, it is to be
hoped that Obasanjo will treat with more care and consideration the
government's expected assertion that there has been a solid understanding
between itself and the commercial farmers.
With Juta's apparent recognition of the government's torture of MPs and other
innocent citizens, it is to be hoped that Obasanjo will approach his talks
with Mugabe with a heightened sense of
mission.
The Sikhala torture incident
vindicated all the allegations made against this government since the brutal
torture of Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto in 1999. This is not a government
that can be easily let off the hook where matters of good governance and the
observance of human rights are being considered. Its flagrant disregard for
internationally acceptable human rights norms cannot be
condoned.
Both Obasanjo and South Africa's
Thabo Mbeki must now know that while Mugabe may have a distinguished record
as an African freedom fighter, his record as the president of a free African
country is appalling.
To a very disturbing
extent many of the people for whose freedom he and many others sacrificed so
much are yet to enjoy true liberty.
The launch of the African
Union (AU) and its New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), the
peace processes in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the
elections in Zimbabwe and Lesotho, and the World Summit on Sustainable
Development rank as the main highlights of an eventful year in the Southern
African Development Community (Sadc).
The
AU, rising out of the completed mission of the Organisation of African Unity
(OAU) to achieve political independence across the African continent, was
appropriately launched in South Africa less than a decade after the end of
apartheid and the first democratic
elections.
Following the achievement of
political independence as envisaged by the founding fathers of the OAU in
1963, it was now necessary to refocus the continental body. The OAU was
transformed into the AU, with the even tougher mandate of bringing about
Africa's economic development, positioning Africa as a global player and
delivering its population from the manacles
of poverty.
Nepad is the development
framework of the AU, presented as a long-term vision of an African-owned and
African-led development programme. It is a pledge by African leaders to
eradicate poverty and place the continent on a path of sustainable
development, as well as facilitating the active participation of countries,
both individually and collectively, in the global economy. Nepad's long-term
objectives as stated in its Programme of Action: The Strategy for Achieving
Sustainable Development in the 21st Century,
are to eradicate poverty in Africa and promote the role of women in
all socio-economic and political
activities.
Among the specific targets of
Nepad is the achievement of international development goals such as reducing
the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by half between 1990 and
2015.
The AU foresees stronger regional
groupings to consolidate the continent's place in global affairs, and it is
expected that the current restructuring of Sadc will better position it to
play a more effective supporting role for member
countries.
The transformation of Sadc
institutions began last year with the clustering of sectors previously
co-ordinated by member states into four directorates for central management
at the Sadc headquarters in Botswana. Originally scheduled for completion in
December 2002, the process has been extended by one year to December 2003 to
allow more time for tasks such as the Regional Indicative Development Plan.
This plan, to be presented to Sadc Council of Ministers this month, will
outline strategic priorities for
the region.
In Angola, the guns have
finally fallen silent, and while it is never part of
African tradition to celebrate the death of a
person, the demise of long-time guerrilla fighter Jonas Savimbi in early 2002
marked a major turning point for southern Africa in general
and Angola in
particular.
Following the departure of
their leader of more than three decades, his rebel movement agreed to a long
overdue peace agreement, signed on 4 April with the government of President
José Eduardo dos Santos.
The government
has since embarked on what appears to be a successful demobilisation
exercise, reintegrating former guerrilla forces into
the society.
While peace appears to
have returned to Angola, it may be premature for any celebrations in its
northern neighbour, the DRC. The peace process has been a stop-and-go affair,
with agreements signed between government and some rival groups leading to
the withdrawal of government-allied troops from Angola, Namibia and
Zimbabwe.
However, reports from South
Africa, where negotiators were engaged in last-minute talks to keep up the
momentum gained early in the year, say a power-sharing agreement has finally
been signed. While all foreign troops have officially pulled out of the DRC,
events in the war-prone country have been further complicated by the
unenthusiastic attitude of the United Nations, which has been slow to deploy
a credible peacekeeping force.
On the back
of positive developments in Angola and DRC, the Sadc summit, held
in Luanda in October, had every reason to mark
the cessation of hostilities in the
region.
Tanzanian President Benjamin
Mkapa, summed it up in closing the summit when he
said: "Together we must face the challenge to
keep the guns silent in the entire Sadc region for
good."
And with such a promising turn of
events in the region, the summit, chaired by host President Dos Santos,
focused on other emerging challenges, notably the anticipated drought in the
region.
About 14 million people in
Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe are at high risk
of starvation in the period to March 2003. Southern Africa is threatened by
the worst drought in almost a decade. In July, Sadc launched a joint appeal
for food aid, as well as playing an advisory role on the emergent issue of
food grown from genetically modified (GM)
organisms.
Member countries were advised
to assess their own situation before accepting or rejecting GM food, which
comes mainly from the United States. Most countries which rejected GM food,
eventually accepted it with conditions such as making sure that all grain is
milled before distribution to avoid contamination of local varieties. Zambia
has remained steadfast that it will not feed its people on GM food, only
accepting it for the thousands of refugees it plays host
to.
Food security, HIV/Aids and poverty
are some of the socio-economic challenges that are transboundary in nature
and thus require a collective approach at the regional and continental
levels. These developments may have put into context the point South African
President Thabo Mbeki has been making that poverty is the biggest facilitator
of HIV/Aids. And if poverty exacerbates the spread of Aids, then hunger would
just be the last stroke.
The drought has
hit southern Africa at a critical moment, when the region is battling with
the disaster posed by HIV/Aids. Preliminary research has shown that hungry
HIV-positive people are more likely to succumb to opportunistic infections
faster than those with a balanced diet.
For most of southern Africa, the events and processes in 2002
have established the conditions necessary for planned socio-economic
and political endeavours, and the tone has been set for
2003.
THE maize crop in most parts of the
country is under severe moisture stress with some crops beyond recovery as
the poor rainfall situation persists.
Zimbabwe is already facing serious food shortages because of poor rains in
the past two seasons and if this year's crop wilts beyond
recovery, starvation is expected to
worsen.
While the national maize
production would be low this year due to the poor rains, a reduction in
hectarage caused by shortages of inputs and the land reform programme, is
expected to contribute to the food crisis.
The food situation in the country was worsened by the chaotic land reform
programme which saw many commercial farmers failing to plant any crops in the
past three years. In its latest Fortnightly
Crop and Livestock Report, the Agriculture Research and Extension (Arex) said
that while the maize crop was at a stage which required rains, the crop was
stressed due to poor rains.
In Mashonaland
West, the maize crop is reported to be under serious moisture stress in
districts like Zvimba and Kadoma where some crops have reached permanent
wilting point.
In parts of Mashonaland
East, especially Mudzi and Seke, Matabeleland South and Midlands, the maize
crop is reported to be severely moisture stressed, with some crops getting to
the writeoff stage.
However, the crop is
reported to be recovering in Kariba, parts of Manicaland, Masvingo and
Mashonaland East, due to rains received in the past two
weeks.
"If the rains continue the late
crop planted in Hurungwe district and parts of Mashonaland Central could
improve but some of the crop is beyond recovery in Mashonaland Central," Arex
said.
Mashonaland West province, which is
normally among the highest maize producers in the country has been seriously
affected by reduced plantings at 56 percent of normal due to the erratic
rains at the start of the season, shortage of inputs and inadequate draught
power.
The total area planted to maize in
the whole country to date is 91 percent of 1990's average and 86 percent of
area planted to maize in the last season.
In 1963, I was a journalism student at
the Africa Literature Centre in Kitwe, Zambia (Northern Rhodesia), together
with Tarisayi Ziyambi, who became Zimbabwe's Deputy Minister of Justice,
Legal and Parliamentary Affairs at independence in
1980.
The centre was housed on the
premises of the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation which sponsored it. The place
was a hive of activity. It hosted political, social, labour, health and
religious conferences, seminars and discussions for Zambia and the
region.
It was there that I and other
students were introduced to the fiery nationalist and freedom fighter,
Kenneth Kaunda, who was later to become the president of
Zambia.
What first struck me about Kaunda
was his hair, which was combed straight into the air, and his humility. He
shook our hands and talked to each of us, asking about the situation back
home in Southern Rhodesia.
I don't
remember much about what he said, but that brief meeting left a lasting
impression on both myself and Ziyambi. It made us focus more on politics than
on any other subject, both in our conversations and
writing.
From that time up to now, Kaunda
has remained my hero, despite his very human weaknesses and failures, which
he is always the first to admit.
The fact
that he succoured Zimbabwe's freedom fighters at great risk to himself and
his country made him a real Pan-African
hero.
Of course, when I returned home from
Zambia I never missed an opportunity to impress my friends in the youth wing
of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (Zapu) that I had "discussed the
Rhodesian situation with Kenneth
Kaunda".
With the passage of time I had
all but forgotten about my hero until I read about him in the Zimbabwe
Independent of 17 January, 2003. The paper reported that the government of
Zambia had bestowed upon him the Order of the Eagle of Zambia: First Division
and Grand Commander of the Eagle of Zambia for his role in the emancipation
of that country.
At the ceremony, the
host, President Levy Mwanawasa, described Kaunda as "a true Pan-Africanist
who believed that Zambia could not enjoy true emancipation if the rest of the
region remained under the yoke
of colonialism".
Kaunda truly deserves
this honour. We in Zimbabwe did the right thing in naming the former Railway
Avenue in Harare after him. I am sure we can do more to honour this son of
Africa to whom we owe our independence to a
great extent.
His statesmanship was
further displayed by his frank advice to our own President, Robert Mugabe,
who was present at the ceremony. Kaunda told Mugabe to bury the hatchet and
get on with economic development instead of fighting "colonial
ghosts".
He quoted from the Bible saying:
"Vengeance is for the Lord."
It is a
well-known fact that Kaunda views Mugabe as a liability to Africa and is said
to have been asking regional leaders to exert pressure on him to
quit.
What was the reaction of Mugabe to
this sound advice? As Zimbabweans know only
too well, our President does not take too kindly to advice. He thinks that he
knows it all and nobody can tell him anything. Soon after independence
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere warned him, from his own bitter experience, not to
tamper with the superb agricultural infrastructure which he
inherited.
Did he listen? No, sir! He
totally ignored Nyerere's advice. Instead, our well-educated, well-spoken and
immaculately dressed President, who oozes Western sophistication and
rationalism, followed in the footsteps of that Ugandan buffoon of a
president, Idi Amin Dada, and went ahead to destroy the much envied
commercial agricultural sector. Now the people are starving from his arrogant
and hateful actions.
South African
President Thabo Mbeki, through his ill-fated quiet diplomacy, has bent over
backwards to try and advise Mugabe to no avail. One can, therefore, believe
rumours that he is now working towards easing the Zimbabwean President out of
power and putting him to pasture in some
Asian country.
Does one have to ask how
Mugabe reacted to Kaunda's advice?
In his
predictable cocky and arrogant manner, he all but told the well-meaning
Kaunda to go to hell.
He responded by
saying Zimbabwe's problems were British Prime Minister Tony Blair's fault. He
also told reporters later that it would be "foolhardy and
counter-revolutionary" for him to quit
power.
In his apparent disillusion, Mugabe
is oblivious of the fact that to most Zimbabweans, his quitting would be a
most revolutionary and patriotic act. Maybe, one day he might also be
honoured by his countrymen as Kaunda was honoured. If he and his fossilised
cohorts insist on continuing their fight with colonial ghosts, Zimbabweans,
including their relatives and children, will spit on their graves for totally
destroying their beloved country.
That
is, of course, if they don't do something worse to them in
their lifetime. Zimbabwe is truly in a
crisis situation. Even the Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, General
Vitalis Zvinavashe, has admitted that categorically. The sad fact is that the
President and his loyal followers don't seem to realise this
fact.
They think that if they shout
anti-imperialist rhetoric enough things will somehow change for the better.
At home and abroad, our President now sounds like a scratched old gramophone
record stuck on "Blair . . . the . . . British . . . Blair . . . the British
. . . colonialism . . . the British . . . colonialism . . . the British" ad
nauseam.
I have to admit here that I am
terribly mistaken. The President and his followers are not mistaken. They
know very well that colonialism, the British and the West are not the cause
of our present crisis. But, as in most countries where the leaders are
self-seeking and corrupt, racism, imperialism, colonialism and anti-Western
propaganda are used as smokescreens to hide their plunder and inadequacies.
As in Zimbabwe, probing and objective journalists are persona non grata.
Violence is also a ready tool against all forms of dissent. This is what
Kaunda meant when he said Mugabe was fighting "colonial
ghosts".
To be pitied are our rather
confused business leaders. They timidly kow-tow to the government and
dutifully submit economic reform programme after economic reform
programme.
When are they going to wake up
and realise that the exit of Mugabe and the present Zanu PF leadership is the
only solution to the problem? They caused the crisis and have no idea of how
to get out of it.
Our situation is like
that of a man I once read about. His blood had been so contaminated by some
toxins that he was on the verge of death. In order to save his life some
doctors accomplished an unusual medical feat. They drained all the
contaminated blood from his body and pumped new blood into him. This is what
needs to happen to Zimbabwe. The old contaminated blood should be flushed out
and new blood brought in. There can be no half measures and speed is
essential if the patient is to be saved. Those who say Mugabe should serve
his full term don't appreciate the crisis we are in. They are, in fact,
daydreaming.
The question is, who are the
daring surgeons who are going to perform this delicate and complicated
operation, especially as the toxic old blood refuses to be flushed out, but
clings to the arteries and veins like stubborn
glue?
If force is used, the patient will
definitely die. So, it will take some courageous and loving patriots to
perform this kind of operation. Some doctors have lost their lives after
being contaminated by their
patient's blood.
Care must, therefore,
be taken to make sure that those fighting for change will not be contaminated
by the toxins of hatred and violence which are the hallmark of the Zanu PF
government.
The once mighty Save River is now
but a shadow of its former self most of the year, owing to heavy siltation
over the decades.
But it is still an
awe-inspiring sight when in flood, people who live next to it at Birchenough
Bridge, one of Zimbabwe's best-known
landmarks, say.
The Save is Zimbabwe's
longest internal river, rising about 60 kilometres south-west of Marondera,
the capital of Mashonaland
East Province.
From there, it courses
south-eastward for some 400km, with smaller but powerful rivers like the
Macheke, Odzi, Devure and others pouring into it until the Runde River joins
it at the border with Mozambique, and then on to the Indian
Ocean.
Sections of the river are reported
to have been navigable up to the 1930s, before siltation set in and gradually
turned vast stretches into seeming desert during the dry
months. Rainos Muusha is an elderly villager
who lives a stone's throw away from the river at Birchenough Bridge, the
growth point next to the bridge.
Relaxing
in the cool veranda of his modern home on a scorching day recently, Muusha,
75, recalled: "The Save used to be a formidable river all year round before
it began silting up decades ago. It is now a pale shadow of its former self
most of the year because of siltation caused by wrong agricultural practices
in the river's catchment area.
"But in a
good rainy season it is a huge river and not to be
trifled with." He said the river was last
in flood in 2000.
"The river down here is
usually almost dry by August, but authorities sometimes release water from
the Osborne Dam north of Mutare for the irrigation schemes further down the
river," he said.
Muusha, a former
headmaster at the nearby Devuli Primary School, said the siltation of the
Save River was caused mainly by people who refused to take advice from the
colonial government's agricultural extension workers, for political
reasons.
He said: "Don't forget that some
of these people were forced out of their former areas by the colonial
settlers and moved to marginal areas throughout the Save catchment area. That
is why some of them cultivated crops near the river and its tributaries. They
kept a lot of livestock and this contributed to soil
erosion."
Overcrowding in communal lands
was a major contributory factor. The
resistance was mainly to the Land Husbandry Act of 1951, which, among other
things, forced them to dig contour ridges to arrest
soil erosion.
According to surveys
carried out in the early 1990s, the majority of the people in the catchment
area that is, the area of land bounded by watersheds draining into the Save
River and its tributaries were into cultivation and livestock
rearing.
Most of the catchment area, which
spans more than 20 districts, is communal land and an average of about 65
tonnes of soil a hectare were eroded annually, surveys
showed.
The Birchenough Bridge growth
point itself is typical of many others in the country dusty, mostly a line of
shops, tuckshops and bottle stores competing for the increasingly elusive and
valueless Zimbabwean dollar.
There is no
industry to speak of. A line of shabby plastic
and wood stalls has sprouted at the bus terminus, where vendors peddle
handicrafts, fruit and vegetables, among other
items.
One of the vendors said: "The
council wants us to remove our stalls, but we will not. Where do they want us
to go? How do they think we are going to survive in these tough
times?"
The growth point lies alongside
the Mutare-Masvingo highway and takes its name from the nearby Birchenough
Bridge, which was completed in 1935.
The
bridge is named after Sir Henry Birchenough, who was born in England in 1853.
He died in 1937.
He was president of the
British South African Company from 1925 to 1937. His and his wife's ashes are
interred in one of the pillars of
the bridge.
Tourists regularly visited
the bridge up until the liberation war intensified in the late 1970s, making
such travel unsafe. They returned in numbers after independence in 1980,
visiting the bridge and savouring the delights of the Eastern
Highlands.
Muusha said some of the more
daring or reckless tourists used to climb to the top of the steel arch
bridge, about 70 metres above the roadway and nearly 100 metres over the
now-silted riverbed.
"This called for a
lot of courage," he said. "But none of the people in this area dared to try
it. It was too dangerous."
Today the
tourists are as rare as the hippopotamuses which used to thrive in area but
have moved to other places up and down the river where there are pools to
splash in.
Tourism, which was one of the
fastest-growing industries, is now in the doldrums. The tourists have
generally shunned Zimbabwe because of the political violence, human rights
abuses and the government's often-violent land reform
programme.
The Birchenough Bridge area, as
was the case down most of the length and breadth of the then mighty river,
used to teem with wildlife.
Muusha said:
"There used to be crocodiles too in this area, but they are now rare. But I
heard that a child was attacked further downstream early this year. She is
said to have survived."
And legend has it
that even lions described as mhondoro or ancestral lions roamed along the
river and its environs.
This is captured
in the popular traditional song, "Mhondoro dzinonwa kuna Zambezi, mhondoro
dzinonwa kunaSave." (The ancestral lions drink in the Zambezi River, the
ancestral lions drink in the Save River.)
Gladys Rushwaya, 41, remembers the Save River being a hive of activity around
the Birchenough Bridge area when she was a young
girl.
She said: "Fishing took place all
over the river and there were lots of wild animals, especially hippos and
crocodiles.
"There were no trees or reeds
in the river in this area in those days. They only started growing because of
the sand. But don't be fooled by the sand this is still a big river in the
rainy season."
When this writer visited
the Birchenough area more than 10 years ago, the siltation looked just as bad
as it did recently.
A soldier guarding one
end of the bridge barred a Daily News photographer from taking pictures of
the bridge, or of the river from
the bridge.
He said: "You will have to
get written permission from the police."
Various parts of the Save catchment area in the communal lands and the river
itself have been rehabilitated through the co-ordinated efforts of different
players, including government departments, non-governmental organisations,
communal land communities and commercial
farmers.
For example, in 1991 commercial
farmers in the Mid-Save area in Chipinge commercial farmers erected fences
along and across river banks. Some of the fences were even
electrified.
Those parts of the river were
indeed rehabilitated, but the fences created conflict with villagers as they
effectively denied them and their livestock access to the
river.
One of the suggestions made in the
past on the rehabilitation of the Save River was to excavate the millions of
tonnes of sand choking the river, which was clearly unworkable and would be
very, very costly.
Perhaps the only
practical way to save the Save River would be to enforce good agricultural
practices in the catchment area as well as establish more community-based
rehabilitation projects.
How can anyone
be so blind to the injustice all around
us?
2/8/2003 6:54:35 AM (GMT
+2)
THIS letter is directed to L
Makombe whose Leader Page article (The Daily News, 20 January 2003) was not
only insulting to the people of Zimbabwe who have suffered at the hands of
the cruel Zanu PF regime, but also lacked insight, research and
humanity.
Firstly, to say there is
democracy in Zimbabwe is to redefine the term democracy to suit Zimbabwe's
needs. I was amused to learn that your very imaginative mind still believes
that the rule of law that is synonymous with democracy is still in existence
in Zimbabwe.
You made a very interesting
point about the opposition members being released on bail and allowed to
continue demonising our learned President and his cronies while on
bail.
Have you ever sat down and weighed
the merits of the charges brought against these members of the
opposition?
Are you aware that the first
citizen of Harare was arrested for doing his job; that Dr Lovemore Madhuku
and his National Constitutional Assembly members were arrested and tortured
for exercising their democratic right to freedom of expression; the
Honourable MP Job Sikhala was arrested and tortured so much that he had to be
admitted to hospital; the late Learnmore Jongwe died while in the hands of
the State that was supposed to protect him? The list is
endless.
On the other hand, members of the
ruling party are never arrested when they make treasonable statements on
television in the presence of the law enforcing
agents.
For instance, our learned
President has boasted about his many degrees in violence; our minister of
green bombers has said on national TV he would personally make sure
the opposition MDC is dealt with ruthlessly.
Not to mention the one with the reckless mouth always bleating on TV and
radio utterances that would attract charges under the Public Order and
Security Act or the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy
Act.
You also challenge Tichaona Sibanda
to come and show you where genocide is taking place and show you rape
victims. Makombe, you are such a heartless person,
sir.
In the run-up to the presidential
election and the recent by-elections people have been murdered, tortured,
raped, maimed and or displaced by the Taliban PF. I speak from first-hand
information. If I were not afraid you might be one of those guys in dark
glasses, I would gladly show you evidence of this madness Sibanda was talking
about.
You are also worried about the
MDC's so-called economic sabotage plan.
Here I question your integrity as a fundi or an intellectual. If you are one
at all, are you so blind not to see that all the economic problems we are
going through are a result of corruption, an unsound economic policy and
destructive policies that the government has been implementing and following
the past 22 years?
The sanctions are not
MDC-made but Zanu PF-engineered. Let them restore the rule of law and just
laws in the country and see if sanctions will still be called for or
implemented.
You also call on us to try
and find the better devil between President Mugabe and President George W
Bush. Every sane Zimbabwean will opt for Bush. He has democracy in his
country and he defends the interests of Americans and not his personal ego.
Bush did not rig the elections and he does not use taxpayers' money to
undermine democracy and suppress the
opposition.
If I am to make a wild guess,
you are an aspiring Zanu PF candidate for a parliamentary seat or you
probably want Mugabe to consider you for the spin doctor's
post.
However, any normal Zimbabwean would
think you are insane which, of course, is your democratic
right.
By Sandra Nyaira in London and
Precious Shumba in Harare
THE
investigation by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and
Communication into the strike by Air Zimbabwe engineers is said to have
uncovered gross corruption at the national airline involving the abuse of
travel allowances in foreign currency.
In
separate interviews, engineers, senior management and other sources familiar
with the parliamentary probe, revealed yesterday that certain unnamed Zanu PF
and government officials, deliberately created chaos at the airline during
the strike to facilitate the plunder of scarce foreign currency earned by the
beleaguered airline.
The entire Air
Zimbabwe management and board appeared before the portfolio committee two
weeks ago.
The committee heard that before
the South African technicians (SAT) were recruited at the end of last year,
senior airline managers took turns to fly empty aircraft to South Africa and
Ethiopia for service.
They allegedly
claimed huge travel allowances in foreign
currency. Silas Mangono, the committee
chairman and MP for Masvingo Central, said the probe was still underway. He
refused to disclose the details, which he said had to tabled before
Parliament first.
"We are in the process
of investigating Air Zimbabwe," said Mangono.
Evidence submitted by the engineers forms the basis of the
probe. The committee is expected to visit Air
Zimbabwe offices on Monday to hold meetings with management, visit the
workshops and view its aircraft.
Sources
said the committee heard that an employee claimed duty travel allowance for
visiting South Africa to investigate a case in which an employee had
allegedly misappropriated US$20 (Z$1 100).
Another named employee reportedly travels across the world to handle small
matters involving the airline, claiming thousands of dollars in
scarce foreign currency. The airline's
board and management reportedly admitted to the committee that they sourced
foreign currency on the parallel market to meet expenses that require 70
percent of expenditure to be in foreign currency and 30 percent in local
currency.
Engineers have previously
claimed the airline faced serious shortages of spare parts due to foreign
currency shortages and the illegal sale of the spare parts to foreign
airlines. The engineers' representatives
presented to the committee a full list of the stolen spares and the names of
the culprits who sold them.
Management let
the strike by the engineers go on for over five months and subsequently hired
SAT engineers at a cost of US$59 (Z$3 245) an hour compared to US$0,87
(Z$47,85) for Zimbabwean engineers doing the same
job.
The engineers showed the probe team
documents indicating that the airline paid the SAT engineers about US$286 000
(Z$15,73 million) for repairing and conducting a C-Check on a B767 in South
Africa.
The SAT engineers left without
completing the task at Air Zimbabwe. They specialise in Airbuses and not
Boeings, which Air Zimbabwe flies.
The
airline has been facing viability problems which have resulted in threats to
confiscate its leased aircraft after failing to pay an outstanding debt to
the United States Export/Import Bank dating back to December
2000.
Air Zimbabwe has three Boeing 737s,
two Boeing 767s and one British Aerospace (BAe) 146
aircraft.
Two of the planes were
reportedly grounded during the strike, owing to the management's reluctance
to accept the engineers' demands for salary increases ranging between $200
000 and $400 000.
The strike ended on 15
January after the government directed the engineers' reinstatement reportedly
on the orders of President Mugabe, after his flight had been delayed by the
industrial action.
The engineers accuse
management of being insensitive to their needs and failure to appreciate the
demands of the aviation industry.
Aviation
experts at the national airline yesterday said the engineers' representatives
presented their grievances to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on
Transport and Communication on 13 January.
The source said they cited to the committee the qualifications of some heads
of departments.
Allegations are that none
of the board members has aviation
industry experience. Livingstone Gwata, Air
Zimbabwe's board chairman, was not available for comment
yesterday.
Innocent people may die as a result of this cricket
match Kate Hoey - 8 February 2003
Dear Nasser,
It is
not easy being captain of the England cricket team. You have had
a three-month tour Down Under with disappointing results and have faced
the challenges admirably. Your team have been mauled and, at times,
humiliated by some truly great Aussie performances. After each dismal England
display you have taken the media jibes on the chin and faced the cameras
with dignity.
Of course there have been injuries to more than half the
team, which haven't helped, and at times you must have despaired. We all
despaired!
Here at home we have also been taking a battering.
Firefighters and tube drivers on strike. Congestion charges being forced upon
the already over-taxed motorist and Prime Minister Tony Blair dashing
headlong into a war that no one wants. It would all have been easier to bear
if the England cricketers had done well.
I know that you take your
responsibilities as England captain very seriously. That is as it should be.
You care deeply about English cricket and its future. From my time as sports
minister, I know how supportive you were of all the various projects which
the England and Wales Cricket Board have introduced over the past few years
to enhance the opportunities for young people to play cricket. You have
helped to ensure that many young people from ethnic minority backgrounds all
over England will aspire to play for their country.
Back in December
you may have read my article in The Telegraph where I criticised the
Government for their lack of leadership and action against the brutal Mugabe
regime. I called on the Prime Minister to tell us that he would not play
cricket in a country where tyranny rules and ethnic cleansing is the norm.
Clare Short, our forthright Secretary of State for International Development,
made her views clear that the team shouldn't go but it took another couple of
weeks before the Government formally gave you the advice for which you had
repeatedly asked.
The advice was half-hearted. Indeed the spin machine
was on full throttle, stating that the ECB had been told last July that the
match against Zimbabwe should not go ahead. This was nonsense - no one
believed it and the ECB's chief executive, Tim Lamb, was able to state that
the match would be played.
In the midst of a tour you are all fairly
insulated from the real world, leading a highly pressurised life around
training, playing and rest. There isn't much time for thought and
contemplation, especially to keep up with world news. However, you did pick
up one or two facts about Zimbabwe. From the first time you spoke about the
dilemma it was clear you were worried and that this worry was more than just
about the safety of your team.
No doubt you had heard about the
widespread use of food as a political weapon, which has left millions
starving because they voted for President Mugabe's opponents. You had
probably seen the well-documented evidence of the increasing use of torture
and know that the BBC are banned and that journalists cannot report
freely.
Since you arrived in South Africa you will have seen pictures of
the scenes at the opening of the trial of opposition leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai. Ambassadors attempting to view the trial were assaulted,
confirming the total control Mugabe exercises over the police. The death last
week of Edison Mukwasi, the opposition party's former youth chairman - as a
direct result of the horrendous torture he was subjected to after handing
out leaflets at the Zimbabwe-Pakistan cricket match in November - is a
warning of what could happen to anyone daring to protest should you go ahead
and play a game of cricket next Thursday.
Like us here, the team must
wonder why they are in this mess. The ECB seem to be all over the place. They
have shown no leadership whatsoever and have never looked like they knew what
they were doing or why. Fortunately you have missed the many interviews with
Lamb and David Morgan, the ECB chairman, on radio and television here. It
came across as if they thought the only reason for playing in Zimbabwe was
purely financial. I wouldn't be surprised if, like me, you think that
sporting competitions are about more than money.
The Government, too,
have nothing to feel proud about. The recent reaction by the Prime Minister
to President Chirac's invitation to Mugabe to visit France has sacrificed
moral principles to gain French acquiescence over military action in
Iraq.
So Nasser, as you and the team make your decision about whether to
travel to Harare, rest assured that the British public know that you have
been let down by your governing body and by your Government. We also know you
will be perfectly safe should you go but, as you have said yourself, many
Zimbabwean citizens will not be. None of you could live with knowing that
because of a cricket match, however indirectly, innocent men or women
died.
Unfair as it may seem the only umpire in this decision will be
your conscience.
Thriving on controversies Saadi
Thawfeeq - 8 February 2003
Has the International Cricket Council
(ICC) bungled again? By deciding to play some matches of cricket's eighth
World Cup in troubled Zimbabwe and Kenya, international cricket's ruling body
finds itself in quite a pickle, days before the commencement of the game's
biggest event in South Africa.
The question that is being asked in South
Africa where the majority of matches will be played, is why the ICC scheduled
matches in Zimbabwe and Kenya knowing what the political climate in those
countries were at the time the matches were allocated.
Didn't they
know that an unstable dictator ruled Zimbabwe where people's human rights are
violated on a regular basis? To get England and Australia to play their World
Cup matches there was asking for trouble. The ICC would have known a year ago
that the people of Zimbabwe would be starving in there hundreds of thousands
by now and that the instability could only have grown worse. They should have
known that Zimbabwe in its present state would not be a good place to stage
international events.
Kenya's problems are much smaller in comparison to
Zimbabwe. An Asian country like Sri Lanka does not have problems playing
there. Whereas India also feels at home to Zimbabwe and has not made any loud
noises over it.
The issues concerns the white countries whose rule in the
African continent in time immemorial has left an indelible mark on the
coloured people who now hold the whiphand. New Zealand is one of those
countries who are not willing to play in Kenya.
The Kiwis have a
history of having suicide bombers scaring the wits out of them whenever they
are on a cricket tour.
They have first hand experience of it in Sri Lanka
in 1987 during the Pettah bus station bomb blast when they were forced to
abort the tour with two of the series of three Tests unplayed and, again in
1992 when the Navy commander was killed by a suicide bomber yards outside
their hotel at Galle Face. On that occasion five members of the New Zealand
squad left, unable to stomach what had taken place before their very eyes,
and were replaced. The tour however survived after much persuasion.
So
New Zealand's concern coming on top several international terrorist attacks
against Western interests which has already claimed a number of lives, is not
surprising.
The original idea was to call the tournament an 'African
World Cup' and sharing some of the joy and prestige of hosting it with
neighbours. But picking Zimbabwe as a co-host could predictably diminish the
success of the tournament and damage South Africa.
Instead of gaining
the good public relations for Africa, the ICC have simply succeeded
indirectly in broadcasting Africa's failures and problems to the world,
because every cricketing nation on earth is now hotly debating the question
of playing in Zimbabwe who have been allocated six of the World Cup matches.
The World Cup venues should never have been an issue at all had the ICC given
some forethought before finalising them.
Failure to do so has resulted in
another black mark for the ICC who some weeks back had their hands full
trying to thrash out the players contracts problems over advertising rights
with countries India and Sri Lanka who got their players to sign the World
Cup contracts only after the January 15 deadline. It seems that the ICC
thrives on controversies. Not a major tournament passes without them being
embroiled deeply in controversy.
The players contracts issues also flared
up during the ICC run Champions trophy tournament in Colombo last year and
was settled in the eleventh hour with India finally agreeing to play. The
issue is not going to end there. It will flare up again before the next mini
World Cup and World Cup because ICC's commitments with the four principle
sponsors are till the end of the 2007 World Cup.
The question that
arises out of this situation is whether the ICC is to be blamed for this
issue or the respective Cricket Boards? It seems although the ICC has been
held largely responsible; the crux of the matter lies with the Cricket Boards
for their failure to inform the players of the consequences before committing
themselves with the ICC. That way a lot of unnecessary heartburn could have
been avoided.
February 7, 2003 Posted to the web February 8,
2003
Chris Mhike Business Reporter
THE government has
stubbornly continued to pursue the price controls policy, in defiance of
numerous calls from business people, economists and academics, for a shift in
the prevailing pricing regime.
Only last week, the Ministry of Industry
and International Trade published a voluminous Statutory Instrument (SI)
wherein the relevant minister ordered a price freeze for an even wider range
of goods.
The 100-page order, cited as the Control of Goods (Price
Freeze) (Amendment) Order, 2003 (SI 42 of 2003) would, with immediate effect,
result in the imposition of static prices on an array of goods and products
in all sorts of categories, for a period of six months running from the
effective date.
The effective date for purposes of the price freeze order
would be 15 November 2002. Products and services whose prices were frozen
last week included tea and coffee products, edible oils, dairy products,
poultry feeds, other foodstuffs, liquor, kitchenware, detergents,
disinfectants, construction goods, stationery, pharmaceutical products, coal
and coke products, and road freight charges.
Many of the prices listed
in the price freeze order, for various products, were extremely low. Much as
the frozen prices could be welcome for consumers, the majority of whom are
poverty-stricken, those prices, on the other hand, clearly appeared to be way
below realistic levels for manufacturers and distributors.
For
instance, the retail price for a 500 millilitre packet of fresh milk was set
at $17,86, while the same amount of milk of the Chimombe brand would cost
$16,04. The "frozen" price for 500ml of Lacto would be $18,34.
A 50kg
packet of sugar would, if the official prices were to be observed, be sold at
a retail price of $205. A 10kg packet of the product would cost
only $107,40.
These were the prices applicable some two years ago, but
inflation has risen in that period from 57 percent in January 2001 to 198,9
percent by the end of December 2002. Economists have repeatedly pointed out
that the sort of pricing structure reflected in SI42/2003 does not make
business sense, and it threatens the continued viability of
business.
Simiso Nzima, an economist, said: "The problem with the current
price controls is that they seek to control prices of products at the end of
the manufacturing process without factoring in other costs of
production."
James Makamba, a businessman, recently said: "Price control
monitors or inspectors have a tendency to penalise retailers who are at the
end of the manufacturing and supply chain, leaving the supplier or
manufacturer untouched."
Makamba said in the case of the value chain
for beef, for instance: "The process of enforcing price controls must begin
with the cattle producers and abattoirs, if the retailer is to fall in
line."
Many other authorities, including Eric Bloch, John Robertson,
Phineas Kadenge, David Mupamhazi and Tony Hawkins, have in the past also
voiced their concern at the unsustainability of price controls in any
economy.
The other fundamental problem besides viability concerns,
arising from price controls, has been the shortage of products on the shelves
at official markets.
Since the introduction of price controls two
years ago, basic commodities have virtually disappeared from supermarkets and
other retail outlets.
The shortages could in certain instances, such as
the supply of milk, bread and maize-meal, be attributed to the disastrous
effects of the chaotic land-grab programme, but the impact of price controls
on those and other basic products remains trite.
Even Herbert Murerwa,
the Minister of Finance, admitted at the presentation of the 2003 Budget last
November, that price controls had unleashed havoc onto the economy and the
day-to-day welfare of business and the population, as articulated by key
players in the economy.
Murerwa said then: "Efforts to protect the
consumer from spiralling prices are being undermined by price controls that
focus mostly on the final product, ignoring developments affecting inputs in
the production process."
"This has affected production viability and the
sustainability of the controlled price levels."
His ministry, however,
published a Price Freeze Order (SI 302/ 2002), just a day after the
admission.
At least three other such orders were subsequently imposed.
Further, the recently signed Tripartite Prices and Incomes Stabilisation
Protocol harboured the price controls policy, and another document set
for ratification in due course, the Government and Business Partnership on
Key Economic Issues, also entrenches the same harmful policy.
Makamba
urged government to reconsider the suitability of price controls while Nzima
warned that if government remained insolent, the repercussions of its
arrogance could be more devastating to the economy in the
near future.
Nzima said: "If price controls continue, both
manufacturing and retail companies could soon be forced to either go to the
black market for input materials and foreign currency, or they could be left
with no choice but to wind down operations."
Extensive reliance on the
parallel market by formal industry would worsen the foreign currency and
general money supply situation and propel the closure of companies as the
economic climate became harsher. The move would increase unemployment,
believed to be between 70 and 80 percent.