• Famine and despair take over the lush garden of Africa
• Condemning a generation
• Mugabe of the Caribbean
• 'Indonesia Jones' theory for Africa
• South Africa heading for political land grab, say farmers
• Bale-out plan to avert meltdown at Harare banks
• The uneasy path towards racial integration
• MDC weekly brief
• Bulawayo thieves
• Zimbabwe Court Grants Bail to 3 Journalists Accused of Defaming Mugabe
• Humanitarian Agencies Watch Forex Auction Anxiously
• Sharp Interest Rates Hit Borrowers Hard
• Cash shortage for Zimbabwe banks
• Farm Demo Turned Back
• Help Government Fight Corruption
• Australian visas for cash, skills

The Telegraph

 

Famine and despair take over the lush garden of Africa
(Filed: 12/01/2004)

Peta Thornycroft, in Darwendale, traces the seizure of 90 per cent of Zimbabwe's land and the destruction of more than 4,000 businesses in the process that has left a million black farm workers and their families without jobs or homes.

To anyone familiar with the formerly well-tended, red-soiled farms of Zimbabwe, the lands which once fed a nation, the sight of barren land is devastating.

A few patches of short, yellowing maize, enough for a small peasant family for a few months. A couple of scraggy cattle, infested with ticks, and scores of miles of broken fences on the now crumbling road towards Zambia.

	An empty tobacco grading shed. Before the invasions this would've been packed to the rafters

John Worsley-Worswick, 46, flinches as we pass one desolate former commercial farm after another. He recounts the crops, the trees, the pedigree beef herds and the dairies which once dotted the landscape.

Three years have passed since President Robert Mugabe, months before he faced parliamentary elections he nearly lost, sent his supporters on to white-owned farms.

In that time they have seized 90 per cent of the land or about 24 million acres, destroying more than 4,000 businesses in the process and leaving a million black farm workers and their families without jobs or homes.

And while land lies fallow, Zimbabwe relies on Britain, the EU and America to feed half its population.

Many farms were taken over with crops in the ground, others had fertiliser and seeds in sheds. Irrigation equipment still worked and bore hole pumps still sucked water out of the ground.

No longer. The farms of the Mashonaland West province are now in the hands of Mr Mugabe's elite. On some of Africa's richest agricultural land, they have failed more terribly than even the president and his cronies could ever have expected.

Mr Worsley-Worswick has not farmed his 1,400 acres for three years, but he will not let the matter rest. He returned to the region armed with a High Court order to force the police to evict the officially sanctioned squatters who took his land.

During a day of meetings he attempted to force the police to sign a receipt for the court order, which required them to uphold the constitution and enforce the law.

His farm, Lyndhurst, 52 miles north-west of Harare, has still not been properly "acquired" by the government. Mr Worsley-Worswick left after a mob, armed and drunk, surrounded the homestead day and night.

He said: "I can hardly bear to look at what has happened, not only here, on my farm but to all the others along the road. I estimate only about five per cent of the land around here is being used by Mugabe's settlers.

"Not only do they lack seed, because commercial farmers who grew seed crops have gone, but, most importantly, they are not farmers."

He bought Lyndhurst as a derelict piece of land in 1987 after Mr Mugabe's agriculture department declared that it had no interest in acquiring the property for resettlement.

At one time the farm had 200 acres of maize and 150 acres of tobacco and peanuts. It produced 500 top class beef cattle each year and provided a living for 300 people - permanent and casual workers and their families.

This winter after patchy but tolerable rainfall, less than two acres is planted. That is tilled by ox-drawn ploughs, while tractors lie disabled in the forlorn complex of barns where tobacco used to be cured.

The main "settler" on Mr Worsley-Worswick's farm is Biggie Matare. He was one of 35 peasants allocated plots, although only four remain. The farm school has been taken over by the government and fees are unaffordable; the clinic has collapsed. Mr Worsley-Worswick is still paying 20 families a small sum to ensure their survival.

Finally, Mr Worsley-Worswick found Biggie Matare and served court papers ordering him to get out of the homestead. It was all smiles. "We are friends now," said Mr Matare, who then asked for a "deal" so he could stay legally on the land.

"Contact my lawyer," Mr Worsley-Worswick replied tartly, but shook his adversary's hand nonetheless. There is little chance that the squatter will comply.

We stopped to give the former farm workers a rare commodity, maize seed. "They will plant this afternoon, in time to catch the end of the season," Mr Worsley-Worswick said.

Nearby, stands the farmhouse, still strewn with family possessions. There are books packed in boxes, but the furniture is still in place. Looking around, it is possible to see new leaks in the roof, sagging ceilings, and curtains drawn across windows of children's bedrooms.

Mr Worsley-Worswick longs to return. "It's too late this season," he said sadly. "Maybe next year will be better, and we can come home."

• Zimbabwean police have arrested Philip Chiyangwa, a senior member of the ruling Zanu-PF party, on charges that he tried to prevent the arrest of two company directors accused of defrauding investors of more than £50 million.

      Seated behind his office desk, Rhys Rolfe had the face of a frightened
man.

      The current devastating drought threatening to wipe out his vast
plantations of maize is a huge worry for the South African farmer. But he
did not hide the fact that new land expropriation laws planned by the South
African government were an even bigger worry. He was starting to wonder
whether his family has a future in farming.

      The South African President, Thabo Mbeki, launched his recent
re-election bid amid an outcry from the white farmers who fear he has
ordered Zimbabwe-style land policies to bolster his chances of winning a
second term.

      The farmers said that they were outraged by amendments to the land
restitution law, which come into force next month as Mr Mbeki's re-election
campaign gathers momentum.

      The amendments, which Mr Mbeki's government said are meant to expedite
land reform and reverse the legacy of apartheid, will empower his Minister
of Land Affairs to expropriate land without a court order and without the
landowners' agreement. Critics have attacked the amendments as a carbon copy
of Zimbabwe's Land Acquisition Act, which deprives farmers of legal recourse
once their land has been confiscated.

      Ian Grant, a farmer, said: "Once the role of the judiciary in
adjudicating disputes is removed and politicians are given the power to
expropriate land, then you are firmly on the Robert Mugabe route."

      In interviews with The Independent in the fertile Free State Province,
not a single farmer disagreed with the need for land reform to address the
inequities of land ownership dating from the apartheid era. But they all
vehemently opposed the new laws.

      Mr Rolfe's wife, Norma, shared her husband's pessimism when we talked
at their homestead tucked in the middle of their vast expanse of land. She
said: "We thought we were caretakers of these resources for our children and
other future generations. We no longer see it that way."

      Mr Rolfe, 59, owns 6,000 hectares of land. His family has farmed at
their Huntersflay Plantations since 1903. The land was legitimately bought
by his ancestors, but he admitted it was not right for him to cling to his
holdings amid the cries for redistribution.

      "It's simply not right that a few white people own 80 per cent of the
fertile land in a country with 40 million or so blacks," Mr Rolfe said.
"There has to be transformation. It's a question of how.

      "The government's idea of just letting a minister take land at the
stroke of a pen is just not on," he added.

      After the end of apartheid in 1994, the government pledged to transfer
30 per cent of white-owned land to blacks in five years' time. But 10 years
later, only two per cent has been transferred. More than nine of every 10
hectares of commercial farmland remains in the hands of about 50,000 white
farmers. Since 1991 more than 1,500 white farmers have been killed, although
the government attributes this to crime.

      Mr Rolfe is prepared to give up some of his land but he emphasised he
will not "give anything for nothing".

      Unlike the Mugabe regime, Mr Mbeki's government has promised to pay
fair compensation for expropriated land. But Mr Rolfe believed that was
highly unlikely. The power of the courts to adjudicate disputes and the
rights of the farmer to negotiate the acquisition of his land were not
guaranteed. He did not want to lose the right to negotiate the details of
the amount of land and which land to give up.

      He certainly did not think the government was serious about creating
viable black farmers. He said it had not done much to prepare successful
black farmers as evidenced by lack of training programmes.

      "The idea of just dumping people on land without equipping them to do
the job is crazy," he said. "Farming requires the necessary skills."

      His neighbouring farmer, Chris Botha, 29, believed it was no
coincidence that the new laws were being effected ahead of Mr Mbeki's bid
for re-election. He did not believe the government arguments that the whole
idea is to speed up land reform and restitution.

      "It's all political," he said. "The whole idea unsettles me."

      He too warned that the financial implications of transformation are
vast and said the government had not made available the adequate resources.
"Farming is a more complex business than owning a cafe," Mr Botha said.

      Farmer Prosper Bailey described the new land law as "bizarre". He
claimed that there was government land that had not yet been transferred to
blacks. "This is all timed for the election," he said.

      Mr Mbeki's government said that the critics who accuse South Africa of
following the Robert Mugabe model are narrow minded. According to the Land
Affairs Minister, Thoko Didiza, the new amendments are meant to avoid the
violent land seizures that have rocked Zimbabwe.

      Mr Mbeki's government has promised not to use the new expropriation
law to settle scores or to order arbitrary confiscations. But the political
opposition and the farmers were not convinced.

      Andreas Botha, the spokesman for the official opposition on
agriculture matters, said that by undermining the doctrine of separation of
powers between the executive, the judiciary and parliament, Mr Mbeki has put
South Africa "on a slippery slope".

      Mr Mbeki has been in office since taking over from Nelson Mandela in
1999. Although he has managed the economy well, critics say he has been slow
on improving social services.

      In launching his re-election yesterday, he promised jobs and a better
life for the millions of South Africans still mired in poverty a decade
after apartheid ended.

A glance around the Jock and Saddle pub gives a telling glimpse of the
uneasy path that Zimbabweans are treading towards racial integration.

The local watering hole is located at the city's only race course which, as
it turns out, hasn't survived recent upheavals over land.

Although an exclusively white club at first, the Saddle's fairer patrons now
converse in low tones while seated, demurely, at one side of the
horseshoe-shaped bar. On the opposite side blacks -- nouveau riche farmers,
traders and young professionals -- cluster around their drinks.

There is neither "across-the-colour-line" camaraderie nor obvious tension.
But the manner in which the two groups ignore each other nonetheless
contributes to an unsettling atmosphere.

Figures in one group appear to be delighting in their newfound confidence
while those opposite seemingly contemplate their disempowerment.

In short, it's as if members of Zimbabwe's white minority are cornered --
not only in pubs, or at specific events, but countrywide: pushed by a
government that's found an easy scapegoat for its failures.

With much of the world's attention focused on farm occupations, it could be
argued that relations between blacks and whites elsewhere in the country
have gone relatively unobserved.

Ironically, the troubles of whites seem to have empowered sections of the
black middle class. The ambitious are picking up the pieces left by
emigrating whites, to snap up properties, buy luxury cars and frequent
previously exclusive venues. This, in turn, is propelling much of the
dwindling white population into new enclaves.

Some blacks say this means they're finally getting a slice of the pie.

"What the whites have failed to swallow is the hard truth that blacks have
regained their status as human beings, not as second-class citizens," says
journalist Njabulo Ncube.

He quickly adds that this statement isn't to be construed as support for the
vilification of whites or the manner in which their farms have been seized
since 2000. "The underlying issue is not race, but bread and butter."

Race relations in the workplace have been amongst the most fractious. This
sector was previously the domain of white-owned multinationals which used
cheap black labour to build the then Rhodesia's industrial capacity. A
hundred years later, many blacks say they're hardly valued as equals.

David Coltart, a prominent lawyer and opposition member of parliament,
contends that race relations are good at grass roots level, with the
political and economic difficulties of the past three years having drawn
people together.

It's amongst the monied elite that strains begin to show, he says: "At the
level of the rich housewife elite, there has been a lot more race tension."

Interpreting a survey conducted by the Johannesburg-based Helen Suzman
Foundation two years ago, Professor Lawrence Schlemmer of the South African
Institute of Race Relations says while the situation might be reasonable at
street level, things are less positive among intellectuals and
professionals.

This is true of both Zimbabwe and South Africa, he adds. "(It) is a fairly
universal pattern and it is usually explained by the fact that
upwardly-mobile, middle class people are very competitive and status
conscious. Hence they develop hostilities to competing middle classes."

Schlemmer says there's been very little racial integration at a social level
and relatively little intermarriage in the two countries. This, he says, is
substantially due to the fact that class and lifestyle groups stick
together -- although not necessarily along racial lines.

"There has been just as little real integration between white middle class
English and poor Afrikaners in South Africa, but a great deal of integration
between middle class Afrikaners and middle class English."

"The lack of racial integration is at least as much due to socio--economic
status factors as it is to race."

The Helen Suzman Foundation study concluded that the major issues in both
Zimbabwe and South Africa are inequality and how politicians respond to it,
rather than race.

Schlemmer says race relations often become inflamed when people are
mobilised around an issue of scarcity, like land, either by political party
activists or by certain kinds of NGO's or community-based movements.

That kind of mobilisation has occurred in Zimbabwe. Coltart says the last
four years have seen an upsurge in hate speech, with race being used as a
weapon. As one of two white opposition members in parliament, he's had
first-hand experience of this.

"In Parliament I'm subjected to an unbelievable torrent of racial abuse," he
says. "If that type of racism was reversed, it would be universally
condemned."

And, the effect of such intimidation reaches beyond the individual. Coltart
says many of his white acquaintances are afraid to be associated with him,
fearing the worst: "Anyone who thinks the white community is one homogenous
unit that plots has no grip on reality."

A report released last month by an independent research group, the Media
Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, recognises this upsurge in hate-speech.

Entitled "Media under Siege", it says the state-owned media is using the
same strategy as government-controlled radio in Rwanda during the 1994
genocide, which actively stoked the inter-ethnic violence that led to the
deaths of about 800 000 people.

The report is the first to draw parallels between the propaganda war, run by
information minister Jonathan Moyo, and hundreds of deaths, numerous torture
cases and the destruction of homes in four years of state-driven
lawlessness.

Through its monopoly of the airwaves, the state media airs a constant deluge
of news bulletins, commentaries, talk shows and jingles that heap praise on
President Robert Mugabe while scorning and ridiculing the British
government, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, whites and other
groups.

Local whites hardly feature on TV or radio, save perhaps as racist employers
or greedy farmers. African television dramas as well as Afro-American
comedies are the preferred entertainment.

The troubles burdening prominent activist Judith Todd, the daughter of
Rhodesia's liberal prime minister, Sir Garfield Todd, have also been
interpreted by many in Zimbabwe as a racial broadside.

Todd, who spent most of her life fighting the injustices of Rhodesia
alongside Mugabe and other nationalists, left Zimbabwe last month. This
followed her failure to regain Zimbabwean citizenship of which she was
stripped, along with up to two million other nationals who have the
misfortune of having one or both parents born in another country.

As many of these people are white, the policy has inevitably been
interpreted as having racial overtones.

For Todd, the episode has a familiar ring. She was deprived of her
citizenship by the white regime of Ian Smith in 1972 for supporting black
majority rule, and was forced into exile for seven years. Todd's late father
was also denied citizenship and the vote in 2001.

"Ian Smith created Robert Mugabe and they continue -- each of them
unwittingly -- to justify the other's existence," she says. -- IPS

Bulawayo thieves

I would like to give some information which may help Bulawayo residents
avoid being robbed. There are a number of gangs which are operating in
Bulawayo and it may be of some help to know how they work. These people are
stealing millions every day. They normally work in gangs of a few up to
about fifteen people. In most cases the robberies are carefully carried out
with good planning and teamwork. Most are men in their twenties and thirties
but there are older men involved. Many of them are novices in for the quick
buck and they work under the guidance of the professionals. There is
normally one or more vehicles as a backup and these vehicles are normally
involved in the actual crime. They act as get away cars and help move the
men around(most of the criminals are men). Number plates can change as the
criminals often use different ones for the same vehicle. There is a white
mazda 323, grey golf  a Nissan and a few other vehicles used on a regular
basis. Crimes normally start at favoured hunting grounds. Good ones are the
banks, the city hall, the main streets in the city centre and shopping
centres. Basically they are out for money so they need to find places where
there is a lot of activity and where people with money will frequent. The
next trick is to hang out in or out the bank, or around a car park or watch
money changers clients. Then the thieves will loiter around. You can often
pick them out. They will seem to be doing nothing, look at their giveaway
eyes, and often they will communicate with their accomplices. If you give
them too much attention they will move off. When walking they may have a
jaunty stride and sometimes are closely shaved on their heads if they have
been in prison. Having money they may also have reasonably expensive shoes
and clothes. Their trick is to see who is carrying money - a likely bag,
brief case etc. Once the victim is chosen communication takes place between
those watching and those in the waiting car. The criminals will then follow
the victim. If the victim stops there are two options. One favourite is to
distract the person while someone else comes in from the other side and gets
the bag. If the bag is in the car and hidden they would see that you never
took it with when you left and break in. Another trick is that they stab
your tyres and then while you stop to fix it they break in the other side.
When leaving a bank etc always look in your mirror to see if you are being
followed - don't worry they want your money not your car. If they know you
have seen them they will back off. In car parks they often walk around
looking in windows while you are not around. They then sidle up and using
scissors quickly break in - grab whatever and move off. If you do catch them
in the act there is the getaway car and some who may act as pedestrians who
will ask questions etc to delay you from following the thieves. They rarely
run and disperse rapidly after a theft. Most of them are not armed with more
than scissors and are not good fighters. The police in Bulawayo have a hard
time keeping up with what is going on and have their own methods of dealing
with the criminals. However they need our help as they are not coping. There
may also be influential people giving protection to some of the gangs. I
will not go there for obvious reasons. I hope that this information will
save at least one person from being robbed and losing their ID, papers
money etc like many of us have.

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

January 12, 2004
Posted to the web January 12, 2004

Johannesburg

The lack of local currency in the Zimbabwean market ahead of the country's
first auction of foreign exchange on Monday has caused some anxiety among
humanitarian aid agencies.

The World Food Programme (WFP) reported that in the past week local currency
has only been available at the official Central Bank exchange rate, and NGOs
have been unable to make payments to staff and other service providers.

Financial aid coming into Zimbabwe will also face the impact of Zimbabwe's
new official exchange rate, set at Zim $4,196 to US $1 by Monday's auction.
The new foreign exchange rate is much lower than the value of the US dollar
on the parallel market, where it trades at Zim $6,000.

The new rate emerged from the first auction of foreign exchange conducted by
Zimbabwean authorities in their attempt to control the gap between the
official and informal parallel foreign exchange markets. The auction system
replaces the state's fixed exchange rate.

There has been widespread concern over how the new system - should it bring
about sharp fluctuations in the exchange rate - would impact on humanitarian
aid coming into the country. Zimbabwean newspapers and NGOs report that
ahead of the auction on Monday, panicking dealers began selling foreign
exchange, causing the value of US dollar to plunge by almost Zim $1,000 in
the parallel market.

Under the new system, which is reportedly modelled on the one used in
Zambia, exporters can sell 25 percent of their foreign exchange earnings at
a monthly auction. While traders can retain 50 percent of their foreign
exchange in foreign currency accounts, they will have to surrender the
remainder to the Reserve Bank at the current official exchange rate.

A spokesperson for an NGO operating in Zimbabwe, who declined to be named,
confirmed they had been experiencing problems related to the shortage of
local currency. The country has been experiencing a severe shortage of
foreign currency with which to buy fuel, food and medicine.

Zimbabwean economist John Robertson said exporters would be hard hit by the
new exchange rate, but expressed the hope that the foreign exchange
auctions, which are likely to take place at least three times a week, would
increase the value of the US dollar to at least Zim $7,000 to Zim $8,000 by
mid-year.

WFP has been attempting to ease the food crisis in the country amid an
increasingly problematic economic situation, and had planned to provide over
59,000 mt of food to 3.5 million people in January.

However, due to the shortage of resources and commodities, the organisation
would only be able to provide about 34,000 mt. As a result, it had decided
to revert to a ration of 10 kg of cereal and 1.5 kg of corn-soya blend to an
estimated 1.6 million of the most vulnerable people. A further one million
vulnerable people would only receive 10 kg of cereals each.

The Herald (Harare)

January 12, 2004
Posted to the web January 12, 2004

Harare

RISING interest rates are making it difficult for most borrowers to service
their loans timeously thereby putting their creditworthiness under scrutiny.

It also emerged last week that several banks were busy closing current
accounts for clients who were failing to pay the adjusted interest rates.

Others had their current accounts converted to savings accounts.

The Reserve Bank governor, Dr Gideon Gono, indicated, in his monetary policy
statement last December, that market forces would determine non-productive
sector interest rates.

However, the development has created chaos among individuals and companies
who had borrowed money at low rates as banks continue to hike interest rates
willy-nilly with some of them now charging as much as 500 percent.

A survey carried out by The Herald Business in the capital this week
established that many individuals who had borrowed money from commercial
banks for different purposes were struggling to repay their loans.

Corporate entities who were borrowing for speculative purposes have not been
spared either as the spiralling inflation and interest rates have started
placing constraints on their now "slim" revenue bases.

Banks, who earn considerable income from interest charged, are effecting
prevailing interest rates on account holders who borrowed at relatively low
rates.

A farmer who had sourced about $200 million from a merchant bank to finance
some of his inputs at rates of less than 100 percent said his bank had
informed him that his debt now stood at $650 million.

"I had calculated that from my early harvest I would have comfortably
managed to pay off the loan at about $300 million but this new figure is
just going to ruin me," said the distraught farmer.

Some individuals who had borrowed money to buy property, clothes or pay for
school fees, hospital bills and other requirements are now caught up in the
vicious rise in interests rates, which rose to over 450 percent during the
past few weeks.

Panic has gripped the market with some people frantically endeavouring to
offload some of their assets such as vehicles and household properties to
settle their debts, which had ballooned to unimaginative levels.

One account holder said his monthly installment on his overdraft facility
had shot up to $36 000 at the blink of an eye from $12 000 he used to pay.

However, bank officials said it was within their legal right to regularly
adjust interest rates depending on the money supply situation.

"The conditions of offer for any loans are clearly stipulated on the forms
that clients sign when they open bank accounts. It is incumbent upon the
clients to read the minute details on the forms before signing because there
is a clause that gives the bank the right to regularly adjust interest
rates," said the official.

Cash shortage for Zimbabwe banks

Economists fear a run on Zimbabwe's banks Zimbabwe's banks are in crisis, as the central bank struggles to curb rampant speculation in shares and property. Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) rules have sent interest rates soaring, choking off the flow of borrowed money into the markets. This has left many borrowers unable to pay their debts, hitting the fragile balance sheets of domestic lenders. Now, one-third of banks are reportedly unable to honour cheques, and six banks are suspended from daily clearing. To stave off the threat of a wholesale loss of confidence among depositors and investors, with catastrophic results for the wider economy, analysts now say the RBZ may have to back down. Negative interest The current crisis results from attempts by new RBZ governor Gideon Gono - who took office last month - to close a loophole in interest-rate policy. Although inflation reached a high of 620% in November, legal restrictions have kept interest rates at or below 100%. This resulted in a negative real interest rates of 500% and above, making it hugely favourable to borrow money and invest it in any asset - most favourably property and shares, but also everything from cars to whisky. In order to calm down this speculative bubble, Mr Gono has allowed banks to charge higher rates, with some now charging 500% and above. But this in turn has left many debtors unable to service their obligations, and banks with gaping holes in their balance sheets. Dollar dithers The resulting liquidity crunch has produced a surge in the Zimbabwean dollar, as banks dumped their holdings of foreign currency in order to meet their local obligations. In the past three weeks, the Zimbabwean dollar has risen on the black market from 7,000 to the US dollar to about 4,500. Mr Gono has this week launched an auction system for legitimate official foreign exchange trading, which he hopes will help bring the official rate more into line with the black market. Restrictions on participation will probably prevent the official auctions from providing a true valuation of the Zimbabwean dollar, although analysts expect the rate to fall from its current fix of 824 in the US dollar to below 3,000. Postponing the inevitable? Ultimately, says David Cowan of the Economist Intelligence Unit, Mr Gono may have to reverse his interest-rate policy in order to stave off a full-fledged run on Zimbabwe's banks. At best, this may reinstate the speculative bubble that was in place before Mr Gono's arrival. "But it's the first crack in the wall," says Mr Cowan. If property or share prices fail to reignite despite a new lowering of interest rates, the effects could be very widely spread. Negative real interest rates leave banks unable to attract sufficient levels of deposits, meaning that they will at some point run out of money to lend unless something significant changes. And with Zimbabwe currently being suspended from the International Monetary Fund, there is no prospect of money coming in from outside to prop up the system.

The Namibian (Windhoek)

January 12, 2004
Posted to the web January 12, 2004

Tangeni Amupadhi
Windhoek

POLICE yesterday blockaded the entrance to Ongombo West, forcing a trade
union to abort its first planned Zimbabwe-style farm occupation.

About 500 marchers were left fuming, and some leaders gathered afterwards to
review tactics for any future attempt at land invasion.

The only success scored by yesterday's campaigners at farm Ongombo West, 50
kilometres north-east of Windhoek, was that they read and then handed a
petition over to Andreas Wiese, son of the farm owners, demanding that he
reinstate workers evicted last year and allow them to live on the farm.

The protesters gave Wiese 72 hours to comply with this demand.

Alfred Angula, Secretary General of the Namibia Farmworkers' Union
(Nafwu) -who, vowed on Friday that the protesters would get onto the farm -
told The Namibian yesterday: "There has been some adjustment to the plan. We
will now allow [Wiese] the chance to reconsider".

Wiese has come under pressure to take back six workers, a court order for
whose eviction he obtained before having them dumped by the roadside about a
kilometre from Ongombo West last month.

Angula said farm owners were taking advantage of the Government's "slow pace
of land reform" by "ill-treating and dumping workers into corridors along
national roads".

On Friday Angula said: "If we are denied access there are a lot of ways to
deal with issues. Nobody will scare us as long as we know the cause we are
fighting for is a just cause. He must give us access so that we can solve
this problem".

Angula said yesterday's march and presentation of the petition to Wiese
proved that the union had "tried all avenues".

A decision would be made on Wednesday about what course to pursue from here
on in, Angula said.

Several demonstrators, including union leaders, said they were expecting
confrontation with the farm owners and Police if they tried forcing their
way onto the property.

Police sent in reinforcements over the weekend, an estimated 40 officers.

In addition, farm Ongombo West is believed to have hired private security
guards to prevent trespassers getting onto the farm.

Paths to the farmhouse are signposted in red: 'Private, no entry'.

Yesterday Wiese was accompanied by two unidentified men in Government-issue
overalls.

Police Deputy Commissioner Hophni Hamufungu did not have any comment to make
on the pair's identity, but some of the campaigners suspected they were
members of the security forces.

Wiese declined to comment yesterday, but accepted the petition without
promising anything.

Several trade union and Swapo leaders who gathered under a tree in the
riverbed, which is now home to Wiese's ex-workers, vented their annoyance
with senior Government politicians for threatening to prevent farm
occupations.

They argued that some white farmers continued to mistreat their workers in
the belief that they would be protected so long as they used the pretext
that they were upholding law and order.

"The law is not on the side of the farm workers. It protects capital," said
one unionist.

Union leaders referred to previous evictions at Kalkpan and Omitara, in the
Omaheke Region, characterising their unmet grievances as a ticking time
bomb.

The Herald (Harare)

January 12, 2004
Posted to the web January 12, 2004

Harare

REPORTS over the past few weeks on the goings on within the financial
services sector, notably asset management companies, make depressing and
startling reading.

A bunch of ravenous, selfish people, including fresh-faced youths bent at
getting rich quickly and living large, have allegedly mismanaged billions of
dollars belonging to investors to further their own nests.

Some senior managers of some companies, we are told, were paid billions of
dollars in kickbacks or as hush money for their companies to invest money
with some badly run asset management companies.

It was corruption on the grandest scale.

Never before or since has Zimbabwe been up against cases of corruption that
depict the total lack of conscience, patriotism or the sheer greed of some
people more than the cases that are now being probed. The figures that are
being mentioned in some of these cases are simply frightening.

At a time when the Government is struggling to raise a few billions of
dollars to ensure the success of the land reform programme by providing new
farmers with tillage and inputs, a few individuals are playing the fool with
billions of dollars. At a time when the Government is struggling to obtain
foreign currency, a few unscrupulous dealers are fuelling the parallel
market.

If this is not economic sabotage, what is?

The tragedy is that while these crooks are having a ball and bleeding the
country white, blame is apportioned where - going by what is emerging now -
it is least due: President Mugabe and the Government.

Now the writing is on the wall, the axe is out and the Government and
law-enforcement agents are going after economic saboteurs like animated
windmills.

Woe betides anybody, regardless of fancied political stamina, who tries to
stand in the way of this laudable anti-graft crusade. A parliamentarian,
magistrate, prosecutor and well-known lawyer who dared the tide this weekend
spent a night behind bars.

That the Government means business is beyond debate. There are no sacred
cows and no one is above the law.

We hope that the Government and law-enforcement agents will continue with
the good work that we have seen over the past few weeks.

It will profit the entire nation if those who have been fleecing it are
brought to book. Action and more action is what we wish to see. Where the
hammer is deserved, we expect to see it descending, where heads should roll,
we expect to see them rolling.

Already there are allegations that a magistrate, a lawyer and a prosecutor
have been roped in and were by yesterday still in custody for the alleged
irregular granting of bail to a key figure in the Trust Bank saga.

Nothing frustrates the police in their work more than this sort of conduct
on the part of judicial officials.

Accordingly, we propose that this case be thoroughly investigated and an
example set, lest our law enforcement agents be demoralised.