IOL
'Zanu-PF sent envoys to
discuss
Mugabe'
January 16 2003 at 05:31AM
By
Brian Latham
Harare - The leader of the
opposition in Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai
of the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC), confirmed on Wednesday that he
had discussed President Robert
Mugabe's departure with a go-between sent to
him by the ruling Zanu-PF
party.
In a statement issued in Harare,
Tsvangirai contradicted denials made
by Zanu-PF leaders claiming Mugabe's
resignation was a British hoax aimed at
installing an MDC government in the
troubled country.
Tsvangirai's statement
said: "For the record, Zimbabweans and the
international community need to
know that early last month Colonel Lionel
Dyck came to see me at my home
purporting to be carrying a message from
Emmerson Mnangagwa and General
(Vitalis) Zvinavashe.
"I gave him an ear
and he stated that he was a messenger of the two
senior Zanu-PF politburo
members.
"The two wanted to hear my views
on the way forward, now that Mugabe
had, in Dyck's words, long indicated that
he wanted to retire but was being
restrained by Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe, and
could only be allowed to do so
at a time deemed appropriate by the two and
many others in Zanu-PF."
The statement
backs up Tsvangirai's claims to the Foreign Service on
Monday. The MDC
leader, in a weekend interview, said the message from
Mnangagwa and
Zvinavashe was that Mugabe would have long since retired if he
had been able
to do so.
The two implied they were
keeping him in power, Tsvangirai claimed.
He added that Dyck was not the first envoy sent by Zanu-PF. -
Foreign
Service
a..
This article was originally published on page 2 of The Cape
Times on 16
January 2003
BBC
Thursday, 16 January, 2003, 15:22
GMT
Cricket protests planned in Zimbabwe
The police will be waiting for any
protesters
Civil society groups in Zimbabwe will hold a series of
demonstrations to coincide with the staging of World Cup Cricket matches in the
country next month, they say.
Opposition groups are unhappy that Zimbabwe is being allowed to host the
matches because of the human rights record of President Robert Mugabe's
government.
 Zimbabwe cannot be classified as part of the civilised
international community  Lovemore Madhuku
Political
activist
|
Meanwhile, a judge has
overturned the victory of two candidates from Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party in June
2000 parliamentary elections because of violence and intimidation.
South Africa is hosting the Cricket World Cup but some matches will also be
played in both Zimbabwe and Kenya.
The government has accused the opposition of planning to disrupt the World
Cup Cricket matches.
On Wednesday, opposition MP Job Sikhala was arrested in connection with an
arson attack on a bus earlier this week.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) also says that another of
its MPs, Paul Madzore, was beaten up by policemen after being arrested in
connection with riots in his Harare constituency.
Dispersed
Lovemore Madhuku from the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) said the
protest marches were not aimed at cricket, "but the focus is to expose to the
international community the excesses of the Zimbabwean regime".
Properties were destroyed and burnt as part of the
intimidation Judge Rita
Makarau
|
"You cannot treat
Zimbabwe as a venue for international gatherings because Zimbabwe cannot be
classified as part of the civilised international community," he said.
The NCA has organised several protests against government policy in recent
years but they are generally easily dispersed by riot police.
Earlier this week, the England and Wales Cricket Board confirmed that England
would travel to Zimbabwe despite pressure from the UK Government to boycott the
fixture.
However, if the security situation worsens, the England team might still pull
out.
'Corrupt practices'
Overturning the election results in the constituencies of Gokwe North and
Gokwe South, judge Rita Makarau said:
"Properties were destroyed and burnt as part of the intimidation. In my view,
the evidence before me can only lead to the conclusion that free franchise was
affected in the constituency and therefore corrupt practices were committed in
the election of the respondent."
Zimbabweans are facing
famine |
Following the elections, the MDC filed legal challenges in 37 constituencies
because of violence and intimidation their members allegedly suffered.
The courts have ruled on 10 cases, overturning seven Zanu-PF victories and
dismissing three MDC challenges.
The MDC has also asked the courts to overturn Mr Mugabe's controversial
victory in presidential elections in March 2002.
PRAVDA
17:53 2003-01-16
Mugabe: The End of the
Road
Robert Gabriel Mugabe, the tyrannical dictator of Zimbabwe,
whose murderous
regime has destroyed the economic fabric of the country, has
reached the
point of no return. Having destroyed the country's agricultural
system with
his land reform programme, those people who knew how to create
wealth for
Zimbabwe have fled (or have been killed) and now the country is
destitute.
With starvation looming in the coming months, Zimbabwe is no
longer a
producer of food on a large scale. Opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai,
leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, has long claimed
that only
ZANU-PF cardholders are allowed the food aid supplies which has
kept
thousands of people from starving to death. Now he states that there is
only
enough fuel to last until the end of January, after which there is no
money
left to buy any more.
He stated that close friends of Mugabe
have said that the 78-year-old
President has warned his family to prepare for
the day when he is not in
power, although he claimed recently that he will
"never" go into exile.
Morgan Tsvangirai issued a public statement yesterday
in which he claimed
that two leading ZANU-PF members had offered him the
resignation of the
president, presumably in a scenario of a government of
national
reconciliation, formed by ZANU-PF, the MDC and with the army playing
an
important role.
The two men are believed to be Emmerson Mnagagwa,
third in the ZANU-PF party
ranks and General Vitalis Zvinavashe,
Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe
Armed Forces. As with all dictatorships,
the machinery that keeps the man in
power shows its patience so long as the
status quo does not shift too
heavily.
When the toll on the daily
lives of the average citizens becomes too heavy,
something has to give. The
machinery shifts, the leader falls, along with
his closest aides and those
who can, either lie low in retirement or
negotiate their entry into the new
regime.
The legacy of Robert Mugabe is a pitiful reminder of the
arrogance,
ignorance and butchery which is so blatantly evident when one
reads the map
of sub-Saharan Africa. He will go down in history as one of
Africa's worst
leaders. His 23 years in power have been a disgrace to his
country, to his
continent and to his people.
Timothy
BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.Ru
totallyjewish.com
Lifeline Rejected
by
Alison Swersky - Jan 17
A proposal from the mayor of Ashkelon to help
Zimbabwean Jews resettle in
the Israeli coastal city has been rejected due to
a lack of interest.
Benny Vaknin offered to help bring some of the
country's Jews to the city
after a Passover trip to South Africa last
year.
But so far just eight families out of 550 Jewish people remaining
in the
troubled country have signed up for the project, which would provide
cheap
accommodation and a community network to make the transition process
less
painful.
Michael Mensky, head of South Africa's Israel centre,
told TJ he was "very
disappointed" with the response.
He said: "People
are leaving all the time, but they are choosing to go to
other countries
apart from Israel, like Australia and South Africa, or even
staying and
refusing to accept the reality of what's happening.
"Providing a
community project in Ashkelon would only be viable if there
were at least 30
olim going at the same time. It would have to be a
communal
decision."
Explaining the rationale for the lack of interest
at a time when basic food
necessities such as bread, salt and cooking oil
cannot be found in
Zimbabwean shops, Mensky said: "The community is very
cautious of dangerous
situations.
"They are looking for a secure
location and Israel doesn't appeal. To me it
is very sad and disappointing to
see a Jewish community move from one
Diaspora to another."
Meanwhile
Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, the spiritual leader of the African
National
Congress, fears that when the acute food shortages reach President
Mugabe's
own henchman, the dictator will give them leave to raid
white
homes.
Silberhaft has offered to bring the elderly community to
South Africa for
six months to avoid potentially the worst excesses of the
dictator's
22-year-rule.
He said: "We have had little response. They
have excellent facilities in
Bulawayo and Harare and are well enough and
happy enough to want to stay. As
they are not young they are only looking at
the short term."
Business Report
Zimbabwe tobacco
production to fall by 50 percent
Sapa-AFP
January 16 2003 at
01:44PM
Harare - Production of Zimbabwe's key foreign
currency earner, tobacco, is
expected to decline by around half in comparison
with the quantity produced
last year, according to a crop report received by
AFP Thursday.
The report by the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA)
estimates this year's
tobacco crop is unlikely to exceed 85
million
kilograms, compared to 165 million kilograms in 2002.
The ZTA
attributes the drop in production to a range of factors that include
critical
shortages of items such as chemicals and fertilizer, as well as
shortages of
coal and diesel needed for curing and transporting the crop.
The
association said the uncertainty in the farming community caused by
the
government's "continuing acquisition of large-scale farms" under its
land
reform programme, was another inhibiting factor.
"Prevailing
conditions at the moment are not conducive to continued
large-scale tobacco
cropping," said the report.
According to the ZTA, tobacco usually earns
31 percent of the country's
foreign currency. -
Sapa-AFP
icnewcastle
Bodyguards ruled out for
cricket tour
Jan 16
2003
By Richard Gibson, The
Journal
England will not be
accompanied by their own security team for their
controversial World Cup
match in Zimbabwe.
The England and Wales
Cricket Board chairman David Morgan discussed
the possibility with chief
executive Tim Lamb in the build-up to Tuesday's
management board meeting at
Lord's.
They considered deploying
bodyguards as they did last winter when two
former military personnel
travelled with the squad on the tour of
India.
But the International Cricket
Council insist it is safe to play the
February 13 fixture in Harare following
a visit by their specially appointed
commission. So local security and that
of the tournament organisers will be
relied upon. Said Morgan: "It would seem
to be inappropriate for us to send
people with our squad because safety and
security in this case is being
looked after by accompanying experts in all
three host countries as a
responsibility taken on by South Africa, Zimbabwe
and Kenya.
"Having raised the point with
Tim Lamb, I am certain that aspect has
been covered and will be covered as
well as it is possible to be."
Fears have
been raised over unease in Zimbabwe escalating in the
build-up to Africa's
first World Cup. Hungry mobs have rampaged in Harare
and Bulawayo and the
civil unrest under Robert Mugabe's repressive regime
has been well
documented.
The Foreign and Commonwealth
Office have advised British subjects not
to go to Zimbabwe - but they have
made no specific recommendations to the
ECB. "Provided there is no further
deterioration in the safety and security
issue then we can fully expect to be
playing in Zimbabwe," said Morgan.
"If the
Foreign and Commonwealth advice is that is is unsafe for the
England team and
management to go we would have to pay due attention
to
that.
"But I have talked with the
Zimbabwe Cricket Union over the past 24
hours and they informed me that there
have been no changes in safety and and
security to that which the commission
had observed." Concerns have been
raised by the ECB, most notably in the form
of a letter from Lamb to the ICC
yesterday, while Morgan has been involved in
regular dialogue with ICC
president Malcolm Gray in Australia over the past
fortnight.
The ICC's response last weekend
was to form a four-man standing
committee, including Gray and chief executive
Malcolm Speed, to monitor
the
situation.
The players have stood
shoulder to shoulder with their governing body
and the Professional
Cricketers' Association, who have also been engaged in
talks with the ECB and
government.
Morgan added: "The decision
yesterday was one that I had - along with
Tim Lamb and (ECB vice-chairman)
Mike Soper - recommended to the
management
board.
"And they were
unanimous in their support and reaction.
"That we should continue to attempt to fulfil commitments to the World
Cup by
playing in Harare.
"The players have made
it very clear, as have the management, that
they are prepared to follow ECB
instructions, as their employer, in
this
case."
Morgan added: "Ongoing
discussions between the ECB and Government
continue on a week-to-week if not
day-to-day basis."
Daily News
Tsvangirai says
no pact agreed to with Zanu PF
1/16/2003 11:34:16 AM (GMT +2)
By Luke
Tamborinyoka Political Editor
MDC
president Morgan Tsvangirai yesterday confirmed meeting the
alleged Zanu PF
emissary, Colonel Lionel Dyke, in December, but did not
agree to any
transitional arrangement in which his party would join Zanu PF
in a
government of national unity.
Tsvangirai's
comments come in the wake of President Mugabe's reported
exit plan, which has
dominated both the local and international news in the
past five days. The
exit plan is said to have been hatched with the help of
the British and South
African governments.
Zanu PF has dismissed
the plan as non-existent, while Mugabe told
journalists in Lusaka on Monday
that he would not retire before the expiry
of his term in
2008.
Tsvangirai yesterday said though he
had talked to Dyke, who said he
had been sent by Speaker of Parliament
Emmerson Mnangagwa and the Zimbabwe
Defence Forces Commander, General Vitalis
Zvinavashe, he had made it clear
that the MDC would not be in a secret deal
with Zanu PF.
"When I told Dyke that we
were prepared to assist with transitional
arrangements, I made it
categorically clear that this does not mean
participating in the formation of
a government of national unity or some
underhand pact with Zanu PF," he
said.
"We will never be party to any
political arrangement that seeks to
sanitise Mugabe's violent illegitimacy,
and that includes Mugabe's
retirement plans and the so-called government of
national unity. We will
never institutionalise and expand
illegitimacy."
Tsvangirai said Dyke came
to his home early in December, purporting to
be carrying a message from
Mnangagwa, who is the Zanu PF secretary for
administration, and
Zvinavashe.
He said Dyke told him that the
two wanted to hear his views on the way
forward since Mugabe had indicated he
wanted to retire. He said he had only
told Dyke that Mugabe's departure was
long overdue and that the MDC was
prepared to assist in the necessary
transitional arrangements to enable the
country to move
forward.
"There can be no resolution to
the Zimbabwean crisis without a return
to legitimacy through a rerun of the
stolen election under free and fair
electoral conditions guaranteed and
supervised by the international
community," Tsvangirai
said.
"This regime cannot be expected or
trusted to superintend a process
towards the restoration of the people's
sovereign will."
He said the MDC had never
approached Zanu PF, but the ruling party had
sent envoys to strike political
deals with the opposition party, including
church
leaders.
"Dyke was not the only one sent
to fly a kite." Tsvangirai said the
MDC was not in the business of arranging
succession strategies for an
illegitimate regime that survived on the
subversion of democracy.
He said on 18
December 2002, he issued a statement condemning the plan
to legitimise Mugabe
through underhand dealings.
The Daily News
of 19 December 2002, broke the story of Dyke and his
involvement in an
Mugabe's supposed exit plan. In the same issue, Dyke
confirmed that Mnangagwa
and Zvinavashe had sent him to meet
Tsvangirai.
The MDC leader said Mugabe had
created the economic problems he had
failed to
solve.
"He cannot rig it, he cannot shoot
it, he cannot intimidate it, and
although he raped it, the economy continues
to deliver and land fatal blows
that Mugabe cannot block," Tsvangirai
said.
On Mugabe's reported exit plan,
Tsvangirai said: "In the spin of
denials, Zanu PF propaganda and vitriol, the
onus is on Dyke and his
principals to
explain."
He said Mugabe's world was
collapsing around him and those close to
his regime were seeking guidance
from the MDC whose victory was denied
through theft in March
2002.
ZBC
Succession story, imagination of coup plotter-
Minister Moyo
17 January 2003
THE Minister of State for
Information and Publicity in the Office of the
President and Cabinet,
Professor Jonathan Moyo says attempts to bring back
the issue of presidential
succession outside constitutional provisions are
efforts by political
opportunists to subvert and overthrow the will of
the
people.
Professor Moyo pointed out that those sponsoring the issue
have sinister
motives and will use the process to put in place instruments of
dictatorship
after the three-month transitional phase.
"Zimbabweans
are preoccupied with bread and butter issues and the story of
succession is
the imagination of coup plotters," he said.
Opposition MDC leader, Mr
Morgan Tsvangirai recently announced that he was
approached on a plot to oust
President Robert Mugabe before the expiry of
his term in
2008.
According to the plot, Tsvangirai would participate in a power
sharing
arrangement as part of transitional government before holding
fresh
elections.
However all people named in the plot have distanced
themselves from the
arrangement described as nothing short of the work of the
British
intelligence.
President Mugabe has since made it clear that
stepping down would be
disrespectful to the people of Zimbabwe who gave him a
fresh mandate to
complete the agrarian reform.
Daily
News
World Vision doubles efforts
to secure food
1/16/2003 11:43:07
AM (GMT +2)
From Our Correspondent in
Bulawayo
WORLD Vision has doubled its
efforts to secure more food aid for
distribution to stave off starvation
which threatens about six million
people in
Zimbabwe.
An official with the
non-governmental organisation, which runs a
partnership with the United
States Agency for International Development,
said World Vision had
intensified efforts to procure more food for the
country's starving
masses.
Vongai Makamure, World Vision's
information officer, said in an
interview, her organisation was working out
logistics on how to spread food
distribution
country-wide.
"We began distribution of
food in February last year, and through that
programme, we are aiming to
distribute food to 1 383 888 individuals this
year," she
said.
The donations come in the form of
the staple maize-meal, beans,
cooking oil and, in some cases, maize
seed.
"The food required for our existing
programme has been procured, and
more is arriving on
schedule.
"Through co-operation and
co-ordination among our various donors, we
are able to ensure smooth
distribution in our operational areas," she
said.
Makamure said the crippling food
shortage was a cause of great concern
to the donor community, and World
Vision was making frantic efforts to
alleviate
starvation.
About six million people face
starvation as the drought, compounded by
the disruption of farming activities
under the government's controversial
land reform policies, takes its
toll.
The organisation has also
intensified its child supplementary
feeding
scheme.
"Children are given
corn-soya blend porridge once a day. All children
under the age of six in our
operational areas benefit," said Makamure.
Daily News
Moyo's actions
rapped
1/16/2003 11:44:15 AM (GMT
+2)
By Margaret
Chinowaita
MEMBERS of the public and civic
organisations have roundly condemned
Jonathan Moyo, the Minister of
Information and Publicity, for his spending
spree in South Africa while the
nation is scavenging for basic
commodities.
The Sunday Times of South
Africa reported that while in South Africa
Moyo bought large quantities of
basic commodities which are in short supply
in the
country.
Lovemore Madhuku, the National
Constitutional Assembly chairperson,
said Moyo's spending spree in South
Africa shows his insensitivity to the
problems besetting the
nation.
Madhuku said: "We are not
surprised. They do it every time: they seek
good life for themselves and
leave misery for the rest of us."
Madhuku
said it was unbelievable why Moyo decided to go on holiday in
South Africa,
where there is good governance and basic commodities are
available, a
situation he could help create for
Zimbabwe.
Madhuku said Moyo's actions
showed that he did not deserve to be in
the
government.
"Zimbabweans should know that
every time Moyo appears on television or
speaks on radio he would be having a
full stomach. We are happy with this
exposure, it will assist us mobilise
people. People must feel inspired to go
against these people," said
Madhuku.
Sibongile Ali, 27, of Harare said
it was unfair that Moyo would go on
a shopping spree in South Africa while
the rest of the people were
suffering.
Ali
said: "We wonder where he got all that foreign currency to buy the
basic
commodities.
"We also wonder how he
managed to get into the country with all those
things when everyone is denied
that chance. Or is it because he is a
minister?"
Daily News
Students fail to
get transport to school
1/16/2003
11:37:32 AM (GMT +2)
Staff
Reporter
MANY students bound for boarding
schools outside Harare returned to
their homes on Monday after failing to
find transport to their destinations
because of the deteriorating fuel
situation.
Students were seen sauntering
at various pick-up points in Harare as
there were no buses to take them to
school.
Vimbai Munatsi, a parent said: "My
son Abel failed to travel to Gutu
because of serious transport problems. I
believe the few buses able to
operate chose shorter distances because most of
them are no longer
roadworthy."
Tawanda
Marize, 16, of Mandedza High School said: "Transport to town
from
Dzivaresekwa was hard to find and by the time I reached our pick-up
point in
Rezende Street, the school bus had already
left."
Parents complained that in some
cases the transport costs had shot to
alarming
levels.
It now costs $550 compared with
$300 last year to travel from Harare
to
Marondera.
A bus driver, David Ruza said:
"Diesel was in abundance but the
problem is that spare parts are now
expensive. Many buses are off the road
as a
result."
Headmasters contacted for comment
at boarding schools outside Harare
said they were busy with preparations for
the new term and could not comment
on whether any students had failed to turn
up because of the fuel crisis.
But
secretaries at some schools said that students were still coming
in by
yesterday after failing to get transport on
Monday.
The fuel crisis had persisted
since December 1999. Despite assurances
by the government, the fuel crisis,
spawned by a critical shortage of
foreign currency has seen commuters
arriving for work late and having to
wait hours on end for transport home
after work.
The Spectator
18
January 2003
FEEDBACK
Comment on Living in a state of terror
by Peter Oborne (11/01/2003)
Congratulations on your report on
Zimbabwe which highlighted the problems
there.
I work for a British
NGO, Hope for Children. We help disadvantaged children
in the UK and
developing countries. We have a number of projects in Africa,
including
Zimbabwe.
I have been aware of the problems of food supply and famine for
some time
and it affects the projects we support. One example is a street
children's
home 40km south of Harare where there are 80 children. It has
been
increasingly difficult to obtain food, and any that is available
is
extremely expensive. I am sure you are aware that although the official
rate
is approx 80Zim$: £1 the Parallel rate now stands at between 1500
and
2000Zim$: £1. Inflation is at over 200%. To give it some
perspective,
toothpaste is over £15 a tube, a new car tyre, £350, and an ink
jet
cartridge £250.
We are still able to distribute aid, most of which
is not food. We are not
high profile and work with local NGO's. We do not
have HOPE offices and rely
on local contacts. We have a Brit Volunteer, Mark
Frain, who chooses to live
in Zimbabwe and bravely helps the children at the
centre concerned. In
recent weeks it has become much more difficult for him
to operate.
I have to add one more group of villains to your list of
those who have
chosen to turn their backs on Zimbabwe, and that is the
British press. Yes,
there has been reporting of the troubles there, but it
has been minimal.
This is also the case for the famine in Southern Africa. We
know one news
station that had reported live the famine for five days from
Zambia and
Malawi. They decided that this was enough coverage. Very little
has been
shown since this - some months ago. Isn't Pop Idol and Big Brother,
or
scandal more important?
Maybe Blair should have the
operation. It might stop all those knee jerks.
You are quite correct to say
that in many places a humanitarian disaster
could still be averted, if we
stepped in now. However, time is fast running
out, especially in Zimbabwe. At
least in Zambia there have some rains and in
certain areas crops are growing
for the first time in over two years.
However, even the rains have made the
situation worse in places since there
has been too much rain and crops have
been completely washed away! Can the
people ever win!
So why are we
talking about Zimbabwe now? Well it's because of the Cricket.
The cricket has
enabled us to get some column inches back in the newspapers
and on the radio.
In my opinion, although it sounds disgusting, all the
countries should go and
play in Zimbabwe as this will give some more
coverage to the problems there.
Sport is also the lifeblood of many young
Zimbabweans and during the last
England visit they visited this project.
During the England Cricket Team's
last visit, some of them visited this
street children's project outside of
Harare. This was a great boost to the
children and to our work and provided
good publicity for the plight of
street children and the vital work being
done to help them.
If we go to war against Iraq, the papers will have
even less room for
stories of the famine in Africa or about the 8 thousand
people that die each
day from Aids in Southern Africa. This spring will see
the unfolding of this
humanitarian disaster unless we do something now - and
the press have a
heavy responsibility to part of the fight for these people
too!
Simon Jackman
Projects Manager
HOPE
Being a South African I
always watch news from the region with interest. In
terms of Zimbabwe I feel
there are issues that are being avoided up to
government level. I essence it
was the British government which forced
Mugabe onto the people of Zimbabwe in
refusing to recognise the interim
government of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia on the
grounds it did not include the
Chinese trained communist guerrilla leaders
Mugabe and Nkomo. The only issue
concerning Rhodesia and it's transformation
into a one-man-one-vote state
which concerned the government of the UK at
that time was the fact Ian
Smiths government had put the British nose out of
joint. It was simply the
desire to avenge that which drove the British
perspective utterly
irrespective of any long-term consequences to the peoples
of Zimbabwe. Also
forgotten are the free Hawk jets given to Mugabe as an
inaugural gift by the
British government and seemingly endless personal
checks totalling millions
upon millions of pounds.
One point I'd
really like to take issue with is the comment in the broadcast
version of
this piece is the suggestion that Prime Minister Vorster
willingly cut off
Rhodesia and killed them off. The truth is that South
Africa was warned by
the same British government that if one South African
soldier set foot in
Rhodesia their oil supply would be cut off.
These are very important
points because the present tragedy in Zimbabwe
should be seen as a British
problem indeed, and should now be done about it.
They're quick to go into
Iraq aren't they? Why? I can tell you as an ex
South African soldier that
going into Iraq is the military equivalent of a
few days at the shooting
range that's why. Too busy with that to do anything
about Zimbabwe
eh?
I think it's important to deal with Mugabe before his ANC
counterparts in
South Africa get similar ideas, because South Africa is the
entire regions
only hope in history, and that's a long time sir.
As a
final word I'd like to say I admire the guts of your correspondent.
Michael
Bruin
Peter Oborne's report was excellent. I was fortunate to spend a
fortnight in
Zimbabwe in Oct 2001.
Since that time I have been writing
to government ministers and my own MP,
Parmjit Dhanda, pressing them to take
action now, before it is too late. The
economy has collapsed and I was able
to purchase Zim dollars on the street
at 6 times the official rate. I was
told that Mugabe had set price controls
on bread that were lower than
production costs. Bakers refused to bake for a
loss. I was told that Mugabe
had insisted that no business could go bankrupt
without presidential
authority. I have since been told by other Zimbabweans
that they hold the
belief that South Africa will not come to Zimbabwe's aid
because they are
benefiting so much from the collapse of Zimbabwean
industry. So much then for
the winds of change from the ANC.
I ask, what can I do? Yes, I write
letters but this feels wholly inadequate.
Especially when the response is so
limited.
Mr Blair, please, send a few of your Hercules to Zimbabwe with a
platoon or
two of troops and several hundred tons of maize. Such a small
number of
troops and resources will not affect your plans to go and play war
where
no-one wants it with Bush but it may well save millions of people
from
starving to death; kind, warm, gentle people. They may not be able to
vote
here but they have a lot of friends that do. The troops need not
be
aggressive but only defend when attacked. I'd lay my last pound that
they
never were. When the maize the troops take runs out help the NGOs with
fair
distribution based on need rather than political allegiance.
Now
that really would be an ethical foreign policy.
Danny Wingrove
I have
just watched and now read, Peter Oborne rather worrying report on
Zimbabwe.
The picture painted is rather arid and desolate if you sit on the
wrong side
of the fence. It is a hellish situation that appears to be
worsening and
would, in my opinion, only receive aid or assistance if their
where suspected
weapons of mass destruction or massive oil reserves residing
in that
country.
Mike Munday
The tragedy in Zimbabwe's politics is that the
opposition MDC didn't seem to
have an Option B. To them, the Presidential
elections of 2002 were going to
usher in a new political dispensation, minus
Mugabe. They should have known
better that Mugabe was going to steal the
elections as he did the
parliamentary elections in 2000.Surely they should
have prepared for that
eventuality, the Yugoslavia way. But from the look of
things they didn't.
In Zimbabwe, we have an opposition that is afraid to
be jailed, maimed or
killed for freedom, good governance and the rule of law.
We have an
opposition which is naive to think that Mugabe will give up power
easily. He
is a terrorist and his gambit has always been violence. He proudly
says he
has degrees in violence.
Zimbos should realise that it is only
them that can get rid of Mugabe.
Britain, US or South Africa cannot remove
Mugabe for them. The opposition
should take a lead and be prepared for
sacrifices. Just as much as Mugabe
and his cronies spent more than a decade
in jail so should Tsvangirai...only
then can we have a new political
dispensation in Zimbabwe.
Bhobho Chari
Having just watched Peter
Oborne's documentary on C4, it seems incredible to
me that a World Cup can be
staged in South Africa and Zimbabwe - more so
than just England playing
there. If ever there was a political statement of
acceptance of a country's
actions then this is it. While we heard in the
programme that some economic
sanctions were put in place we allow an
internationally televised sporting
event to raise direct revenue for
Mugabe's cause. Finally if all it takes to
stop Mugabe's regime is for South
Africa to turn off the lights in Zimbabwe
the British Government should be
putting immense pressure on these friends of
ours in South Africa to flick
the switch. The British government and the
European union should then be on
hand to help in the rebuilding of a
democratic state. Is there an active
campaign group for which one can
register support?
Jonathan Poole
At a time when Blair is demonstrating
quite a high degree of political will
with regard to Iraq, the hypocrisy and
inaction that is being displayed
towards Zimbabwe is breathtaking. It seems
patently obvious that if Britain
and the US leaned on S Africa, Zimbabwe
could be brought to heel pretty
quickly and this odious little man Mugabe
could be isolated, if not brought
to account for his actions... I won't hold
my breath but excuse me for
gagging the next time I hear Tony or his friends
talking about their moral
foreign policy.
Mike Gore
As a frequent
visitor to Zimbabwe, I have been sickened by the unfolding
events of the past
couple of years. I have sent letters of protest to Jack
Straw about his
government's total lack of interest in the plight of
Zimbabwe and his
response has been to reassure me that, "everything that can
be done is being
done". As far as I can see, 'the most that can be done' was
the Abuja
Agreement. So, along with that pivotal piece of diplomacy and our
lobbying
for Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth, this appears to be
the sum
total of what Baroness Amos calls "this government's lead" in
the
international fight against ZANU PF's reign of terror. Well let's break
out
the cigars for all concerned shall we?..........Mugabe must be laughing
his
socks off! This government's response to the crisis in Zimbabwe is an
utter
disgrace and I'm sure that Clare Short's repeated insistence that she
is
"deeply worried" by the situation in Zimbabwe will prove to be a
great
comfort to the millions of people who are facing an agonising
and
humiliating death at the hands of Mugabe's war 'veterans' and youth
militia.
Still, why should Tony Blair bother to get his hands dirty in a
tin pot
little African backwater like Zimbabwe if there's no international
kudos at
stake?
Paul Bush
Finedon, Northants
I have no doubt
that there is a great deal of truth in this article, but I
suspect that Peter
Oborne would not have conceived the idea of going to
Zimbabwe to report on
the situation, if there had not been a white minority
population living
there. I can think of several African dictators in recent
history, who have
committed greater crimes than Robert Mugabe, against their
compatriots, e.g.
Idi Amin of Uganda, Bokassa of the Central African
Republic, Sekou-Touré of
Guinea, Mobutu of Zaire (none of these countries
has a white minority
population of course), but there seemed little
condemnation of these
individuals from certain sections of the news media in
Britain.
In my
view, criticism of Zimbabwe, without condemnation of other equally
obnoxious
regimes around the world, smacks of double standards against a
black
state.
With regard to the land issue in Zimbabwe, we have to ask
ourselves how did
the wealthy white farmers acquire the land they claim
belongs to them, in
the first place. Secondly, those who are opposed to the
English Cricket
team's tour of Zimbabwe, must surely oppose the holding of
the Olympic Games
in China, which is one of the world's most repressive
dictatorships, both in
China and occupied Tibet.
It seems to me that
Zimbabwe, along with Iraq and Israel, are continually
being demonised for
entirely different reasons, by certain sections of the
news media. If Peter
Oborne's article had been written by Morgan Tsvangirai
of the MDC, then that
would seem more acceptable, but such severe criticism
of a former colony,
with a sizeable white minority, by a white journalist
belonging to a right
wing journal like the 'Spectator', is rather suspect.
Susan Fox
By
chance I saw the report on famine threat in Zimbabwe. During your
interview
the minister repeated that the 'international community' has to
react as the
UK alone cannot do anything and force Mugabe to stop this
atrocity. Please
let me tell you that the international community is NOT
INFORMED about the
dreadful situation in Zimbabwe. Only very few
international magazines or
newspapers are writing about it, so the problem
is really ignored on an
international basis. Your report should be broadcast
in other European
countries. However, in my opinion, unless the population
is informed, it is
easy for governments to keep quiet and pretend not to
know anything, whereas
if it is made more public, at least some people will
cry out.
Ulrike
Winter
A broader analysis would endeavour to answer why Mugabe is
suddenly so angry
at Britain and particularly the Blair government since
1998. What stalled
the Lancaster talks? What happened to Britain,s promise to
assist land
reform? Oborne, with all his good intentions, offers a partial
analysis
(typical of most UK commentary on Zimbabwe), which has served only
to breed
silence from African governments and participated in prolonging
Mugabe,s
brutal regime, by giving credibility to his description of white
farmers as
a 'well connected ethnic minority'.
Name removed
I am
a Zimbabwean living in the UK with my family as we had lost everything
under
Mugabe's evil "policies."
Having ancestral roots in the UK has allowed us
to live and become a part of
the British way of life. I am extremely grateful
for that and have readily
adopted Her Majesty as my head of Sate.
I
cannot understand however, as Mr Oborne so often points out, why
the
government has failed to act. Yes there have been many many white
farmers
murdered, tortured and intimidated (my best friends father was
murdered) but
why has nothing been done to help the MILLIONS of people being
forced into
starvation? I cannot understand how countries can sit back and
watch this
unfold, knowing it is going to unfold?? Is this postcolonial
guilt? Is it
because Mr Blair is worried about being called a "gay racist"
(which no
doubt Mugabe will do)?
Why, why, why? I beg the world to
step in. Under Ian Smiths government the
world readily condemned and imposed
sanctions (I hasten to add no people
black or white ever starved under his
government even with sanctions) South
Africa, a country tarnished by
Apartheid does nothing....
Our only hope lies in brave people like Peter
Oborne (and I salute him) and
Peter Tatchell. Long may that type of British
spirit continue.
The Spectator now has me as a regular reader.
Stuart
Beattie
Comment on Book Review of EMPIRE by Jonathan Sumption
(11/01/2003)
"Britain surrendered her colonies at precisely the time when
it became clear
that their retention would involve not just expenditure at
historically
intolerable levels..."?
Mr Sumption, where did you get
this from? Certainly in the case of India,
the reason that the English
abandoned the Empire was mass defeatism and
nothing else.
When the
British left India, there had been no mass movement or
revolutionary movement
worth the name for the previous 17 years (the 1942
Quit India movement was a
fleabite) - certainly not in comparison to the
Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. There
were plenty of collaborators - in the elite, the
civil services, the army,
the dispossessed, the minorities who did not
participate in the "freedom
struggle". Hear the pre-independence Dr B R
Ambedkar (the Untouchable leader)
speak, the architect of the present Indian
Constitution - "the Fight for
Freedom led by the governing class, is from
the point of view of the servile
classes, a selfish, if not a sham,
struggle". A wise, courageous and skilful
governing class could and should
have exploited these elements to continue
the Raj, just as they had done for
the previous 100 years. The collapse of
the Empire diminished both Britain
and India, just as it has led to the
prominence of the United States.
The utilitarian economic advantages to
India from the Empire may or may not
be supported by statistical evidence.
What is indubitable is the brief
efflorescence of modern Indian culture, in
fine arts and literature, in
science and the humanities - in Indian languages
with an Indian idiom - was
cut short by the end of the Empire. The tawdry
imitation of Americana
peddled by the current generation can, perhaps, only
be matched in its
puerility by the obscurantism of the present dominant
Indian fundamentalist
political culture. The pax Britannica that allowed us
Indians to develop
culturally is something that every Briton should know
about and be proud of.
But the current (and previous) generation of
British leaders cannot get out
of the responsibility of having let themselves
and the future generations of
their peoples in India and Britain down!
Dr
Manish M Ghosh
Howrah, India
Comment on Thoughts on thuggery by Taki
(11/01/2003)
Taki you hypocrite,
Are you incapable of discerning a
link between your own consumption of
prohibited substances and the inevitable
impact this will have on the supply
and demand curve. To place a distinction
between crack and its subtle
sibling is a technical not moral
distinction.
Nicholas Pollock
Comment on The extreme centre by Tim
Luckhurst (11/01/2003)
I read Tim Luckhurst's article on the BBC with
interest. I too feel strongly
that the BBC is manipulating public opinion to
agree with government policy.
In particular I noted Mr Luckhurst's views on
the Scottish Parliament. I
have hated this institution from its formation,
considering it a hotbed of
political chancers and incompetents. As a Scotsman
I would sooner put my
trust in a lawyer than a Scottish politician (this
includes the exported
variety).
I originally started the website
www.pukiemon.com to comment on
the
incompetence and corruption of Scotland's political elite before
moving
abroad and turning the attention to the UK as a whole. Never before in
my
life have I had the feeling that I am no longer master of my own destiny.
I
do now; such is the influence of government today.
Garry
Sutherland
Tim Luckhurst (The Extreme Centre) makes a persuasive case
against the BBC
for its middle-of-the-road, hear-no-dissent, see-no-dissent,
and
speak-no-dissent presentation of critical issues. Lately, I too have
missed
in its broadcasts a more honest~-and less politically correct-
reporting of
facts and opinions, particularly now in the religiously and
culturally
charged environment of major world events. There is clearly a
process of
sanitization taking place by, for instance, ignoring certain
specialist
commentators, who had been in favour prior to September 11, but
are now
being avoided for holding "extreme views" on touchy subjects like
Islam.
On the other hand, one could also understand this
non-confrontational
approach by the BBC. Had the BBC catered primarily to a
Western audience,
debates of the kind Luckhurst refers to would have been
perfectly
acceptable. However, its viewers and listeners now include a global
mix of
nations and cultures, most of who depend on it more for unbiased
news,
comments, and analyses than for rational debates. Not all cultures
tolerate
debates or divergent positions on matters of religion, customs, or
politics.
Therefore, broadcasting opinions that might appear to be critical
of their
system could easily inflame emotions, and lead to riots and attacks
on
British and Western interests, placing even the lives of the
correspondents
that Luckhurst admires in jeopardy. As such, however much I
regret the
absence of stimulating debate and journalistic freedom that
Luckhurst
espouses, I can also understand, and even grudgingly applaud,
BBC,s
cross-cultural sensitivity in deciding not to offend.
Pradip
Nath
Hong Kong
Comment on Can America be serious? by Mark Steyn
(11/01/2003)
Mr Steyn would do well to spend some time in the Middle East
doing some
research before his next scathing critique of the region. Mr
Steyn's
description of Saddam Hussein as 'the Big Swinging Dong of Araby' is
an
inaccurate generalization. Mr Steyn should read Thomas Freidman's article
in
the New York Times 12/01/03, where he says "- Saddam is no longer viewed
as
any kind of folk hero, and most people, it seems, would welcome his
demise.
(The bad news is that George Bush and U.S. policy are disliked even
more.)"
It is minds like Mr Steyn's that create hatred in the Middle East
towards
countries like America - who Mr Steyn certainly does not
represent.
Rida Said
For the most part, Kim would be selling his
cut-price Dongs to groups who
are anxious to use them. The moment they do,
and the provenance is traced,
North Korea's role as quartermaster to the
world's wackos will be over
I wish he had given some reason for his
certitude. Kim HAS been selling
missile technology; at least our government
claims so. What will be
different? If technology sales aren't enough, why the
bright line when it is
a complete missile? How will you prove it was a
complete missile? How will
you prove that the nuclear warhead was made in
Korea? You won't be able to -
or need to - but why wait so long. Kim sells a
missile, with warhead, to
whomever, who uses it, and we vaporize North Korea.
That really solves the
problem of missiles out in the hands of unfriendly
folk, doesn't it?
J L Johnston
I think the answer to Mark's question
is "no", America just can't be
serious. And long may it continue! Just when
the whole corporate accounting
(you had to work in the markets to really get
the joke) routine had worn a
bit thin, the US administration came up with the
joke Iraq crisis. "The UN
should not become another League of Nations" -
which, of course, failed due
to American isolationism. Who writes their
material?
Jon Jones
Comment on JAIL IS NOT THE ANSWER
(11/01/2003)
Jail is not the answer to what? It depends on the question
you want to ask.
It is certainly the answer to this particular question: What
is the most
effective way of protecting the law-abiding majority from the
criminal
activities of a large defiant minority that has no respect whatever
for mere
"authority"?
Terence Power
The prisons would be less
"grotesquely full" if they didn't contain
non-violent criminals: dope
merchants/smokers; BBC license tax evaders;
thieves, e.g.
They would
be even less grotesquely full if the rump of violent offenders
and thieves
was divided into addicts and non-addicts. The addicts could then
be treated,
sanely, for their addictions (heroin and alcohol primarily) and
the sober
violent or crooked criminals (plus recidivist addicts) could rot
in an
expansive hell at the Queen's expense and pleasure.
James R.
Hannay
Dallas, TX, USA
Comment on Just who are They, and what are They
up to? by Matthew Parris
(11/01/2003)
It is precisely that involvement
in decision making that converts "us" to
one of "them". This fact was brought
home explicitly to me at the start of
Staff College when the Commandant told
us all that we were now one of
"them". A small remark that caused me to
ponder exactly the thought
processes Mr Parris outlined. Perhaps the
President of Colombia was thinking
the same thing when, during the grim years
of battling the Medellin Cartel
he grumbled, "I have no president to complain
to". I enjoyed the piece
although I think it was always thus, and always will
be.
So, if you call us to war, I for one will be thinking in the first
person
plural. On the subject of learning, my Grandfather went to his grave
in
France. If I could go back in time, would I tell him to stay at home? No.
We
have our eyes open but remain resolute and would be worthless
otherwise.
Sorry about the rhetoric there, your sentiment is
appreciated.
Jerry Wright
Matthew Parris asks "Do other
language-groups use the third-person plural in
this way?" Interestingly
enough, Farsi, that geographically, though not
perhaps grammatically, distant
Indo-European language does just that. As
A.K.S. Lambton put it in her
splendid Persian Grammar: "The Passive voice
can in some cases be expressed
by the 3rd person plural of the Active voice.
Certain verbs take this
construction in preference to the Passive
construction ... e.g.
ura
zadand, He was hit (they hit him)
goftand, It was said (they
said)"
Whether this is a mere grammatical oddity or a means of
disguising
responsibility for acts of violence or the origins of rumour of
course
remains open to question.
Jim Roberts
Comment on Banned
Wagon by Ross Clark (11/01/2003)
NZ farming was desubsidized by a Labour
government. It implemented right of
Thatcher policies, known as Rogernomics.
It had policies like "level playing
fields" so the sheep could do their thing
without social welfare. Then we
had ten years of a brilliant conservative
government, headed by Mr Jim
Bolger, oddly enough, a farmer! And now the
invincible Helen Clark rules New
Middle-Earth with an iron skirt and very
sensible shoes.
Nicholas Alexander
Buy New Zealand goods to show
support for abolishing agricultural subsidies
- very good. How about
attacking art subsidies as well? I don't hate art,
but I'm not a regular
gallery-goer or concert-goer, and I think art, like
farming, would be much
healthier - and reflect what people actually want -
without subsidies. And
let's abolish the license fee and privatise the BBC,
but I guess that goes
without saying.
Graham Asher
Comment on Book Review of AFTERMATH:
VIOLENCE AND THE REMAKING OF A SELF by
Jonathan Mirsky (04/01/2003)
I
liked Jonathan Mirsky's review of Susan Brison's book, however, I felt
that
Jonathan's last paragraph with its in invidious and unwarranted
comparison of
Ms. Brison's book to Anne Frank's diary was a disgrace:
"I think this is
a great book - I use those words sparingly - deeply
revealing and
fundamentally pessimistic. It is more painful and far less
sentimental than
Anne Frank's diary...."
Anne Frank didn't write a conscious essay on her
condition. Her book and
amazing display of preciosity for a fourteen year old
documented the
thoughts and feelings of a teenager during a barbarous
time.
We read it not because we want to learn about the meaning of the
Holocaust.
We read it a testimony of ordinariness in a time of extremity. We
also read
it because in spite of itself the diary is documentary evidence of
the
innocuousness of the kind of person the Nazis took to be their mortal
enemy
and made war on.
Surely this diary is out of place as a
comparison to a book about the nature
of violence written by a mature
philosophy professor.
It's time for Jonathan Mirsky to go back to writing
school.
Jackson Dyer
Comment on Diary by Simon Heffer
(11/01/2003)
I see that racist jibes continue all the go in your columns,
so long as the
race is Australian. I gave up reading Simon Heffer's piece
halfway through,
but the parts I saw were notable for citing as Australian
jokes that I first
heard in the United States, about what was presented as
the backward rural
South: of course, if you want real South, Australia seems
more fitted than
Louisiana.
Heffer's simply wrong about why you're
entreated not to throw cigarette
butts and other rubbish in the gutter. It's
because they get into the storm
water channels in a nation whose cities are
predominantly coastal, and wash
out to sea. It seems a good idea to point
this out.
Your guest writer was right about the ABC's buying some of the
good BBC
programmes. Did he notice that none of them attracts large audiences
Down
Under?
But at least your guest writer didn't miss the customary
insulting reference
to why Australia was settled. Customary, certainly; but
is it obligatory?
Paul Kunino Lynch
Congratulations to Mr Heffer for
his most perspicacious piece. His comments
about our obsession with safety
were most apposite
In the days of my youth there was a general acceptance
that if something bad
happened then often it was just an act of God, or the
person's fault for
being careless or foolish. Sadly, in today's safety
obsessed Australia
nothing bad is allowed to happen, and if it does, it is
someone else's
fault. The concepts of bad luck and personal responsibility
are now regarded
as anachronisms, the twin fruits of this pernicious belief
are the
multiplication of freedom destroying laws intended to keep us safe,
and
lawsuits so outrageous as to invite derision.
Hardly a month goes
by without some new assault on our freedom all in the
name of safety, if I
drive I must wear a seatbelt, if I ride a bike I must
were a helmet. I'm not
allowed to let off fireworks and if a live in a block
of flats, the flats
must comply with onerous OHS regulations, at work
hapless employers must
ensure that procedures in place to cope with
workplace harassment, safety and
discrimination.
As a result of all this public discourse has taken on a
very hectoring and
censorious tone. We are constantly being importuned about
all kinds of
things, not to drink and drive, don,t take drugs, not to smoke,
to make sure
we wear sunscreen, each passing year brings more.
The
Australia of my youth had a carefree stoicism about it, but the
Australia I'm
now living in is a foreign country, and regrettably most
Australians are
quite happy to surrender their freedoms for supposed
security. As history and
long experience show, living in a society where the
government has total
power grants you the security of a slave, you're
guaranteed work, means of
sustenance, and shelter, but hold all these things
at the pleasure of your
master, which is no security at all.
Personal responsibility and freedom
are intimately linked, if the person
does not take responsibility for their
own lives, including their mistakes
or bad luck, then they aren't ready for
freedom, and in today's Australia
there are only too many people willing to
take that freedom away.
Geoffrey Stewart
Wollongong, N.S.W,
Australia
·
İ 2003 The
Spectator.co.uk
Daily News
Gweru hires casuals to remove garbage pile-up as strike
continues
1/16/2003 11:38:58 AM
(GMT +2)
From Our Correspondent in
Gweru
THE Gweru City Council has hired
casual workers to clean up the city
after garbage piled up with striking
council employees vowing not to return
to work until their grievances are
addressed.
The workers went on strike last
Friday after negotiations for a 110
percent salary increase
collapsed.
The council said it could only
afford a 70 percent pay rise. James
Bwerazuva, the executive mayor, said
about 20 casual workers were engaged on
Thursday to clean up the streets
which had become clogged with uncollected
garbage for more than a
week.
He said the army had also offered
trucks and additional manpower to
clean up the streets as part of its
community service.
Bwerazuva could not say
for how long the casual workers would be
engaged. Wage negotiations collapsed
last month after the council's treasury
department said the wage demands
would worsen the council's bank overdraft.
The workers are demanding a 110 percent pay rise immediately, while
the
council has offered 70 percent staggered between January and July this
year.
The council proposed to pay 40 percent this month and the remaining
30
percent in July.
Only a skeleton
staff manning critical services such as fire and
ambulances, clinics and the
water reticulation system has been reporting
for
duty.
The Gweru Residents and
Ratepayers' Association last week urged
municipal officials and the workers
to bury their differences and restore
efficient services in the
city.
"We feel short-changed because
service delivery has been grossly
compromised due to the wrangle," said
association chairman Willie Muringani.
"Sick people are being turned away from council clinics because there
is no
staff and the ambulance service has been grounded due to the
strike."
Daily
News
Letters
Passive
acceptance of chaotic state of affairs does defy
logic
1/16/2003 11:18:26 AM (GMT
+2)
So we had a lot of visitors
for the Miss Malaika pageant, just as we
had plenty of foreigners viewing the
eclipse from our side of the border not
too long ago, despite the
unprecedented amount of negative publicity even
from our perceived friends
down South! A very commendable achievement,
wouldn't you all agree with
me?
But at what cost to our own battered
economy? What have we got to show
for all the supposedly highly-successful
hosting of these two events?
We allowed
foreigners to invade our beautiful country, allowed them to
go wherever they
so desired unimpeded. But are we so sure that all these
visitors took the
right message back to their countries of
origin?
Did they carefully fail to see the
anguish on the faces of so many
brave Zimbabweans? Were they blind to the
havoc wrought on our once
productive land by our so-called successful land
redistribution exercise?
Or to the
unavailability of so many basic commodities; the
ever-increasing queues for
the scarce basics available? And did they
ultimately, too, fail to talk to
some of those who have lost their farms to
ill-prepared settlers? Or those
who have lost relatives in the lawlessness
that has been allowed to grip the
country to prevent Zanu PF losing power?
I
just hope they did this and more, for if they are to carry a
different
picture to what our government mouthpieces have so unsuccessfully
tried to
portray, then Lord help those who are now holding the reins of
power, for
instead of being feted as winners, they will have egg all over
their faces.
The truth shall set you free, someone once told me, but why are
we so fearful
of the truth?
We have heard contradictory
explanations of the same issue on ZBC and
ZTV and The Herald (check the fuel
issue and the funds which Odisappeared'),
and we have been bombarded with
useless adverts that are nauseating, to say
the least. Are we really
free?
Our passive acceptance of the
present state of affairs defies logic,
yet I would like to urge the external
community not to judge us. Many people
suffered during the war against Ian
Smith; untold horrors were perpetrated
by both sides on innocent civilians.
And even more recently, the
Matabeleland campaign bears testimony of the
scourge of war; many people
have still not fully recovered from their
experiences, just as some houses
are still smarting from the effects of the
war of liberation.
Experience has taught
us that only those who have not experienced war
can actually boast about it.
Jonathan Moyo, Patrick Chinamasa et al have
never had a bullet fired at them,
and for that they should be
eternally
grateful.
In war, that which
you hold dear is what you normally lose, and to
reverse the madness of war,
once started, is usually a very costly exercise,
which is why at this point
in time I would like to commend the MDC for not
agitating for war right now.
The civilian losses would be massive!
I am
beginning to wonder if some of the people in Zanu PF are not
using the
president to feather their own nests. Yes, using our dear
president! There
are times when I feel that he is being lied to, cheated by
a handful of
once-loyal but now highly questionable characters, as evidenced
by some of
the statements he reads out at certain
fora.
I hope he will not be remembered as
the man who single-handedly
destroyed a once vibrant economy in pursuit of
personal fame and fortune.
Timothy
Moyo
Harare
Daily News
Tickets sold out
1/16/2003 11:57:54 AM (GMT +2)
By
Tendai Madinah
TICKETS for Zimbabwe's
Cricket World Cup matches against England and
India, selling at $ 1000 each,
were sold out within hours of their
release
yesterday.
But the number of
tickets made available was kept a secret by the
Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU),
for unexplained reasons.
Many cricket fans
who intended to purchase tickets were left
disappointed amid reports that at
most, only about 2 000 tickets were put on
the market, with the remainder for
the 7 000-seater Harare Sports Club,
being reserved for the
stakeholders.
The controversial match
between Zimbabwe and England, scheduled for 13
February, was the first to be
sold out in the morning, with the India match
following suit by
mid-afternoon. The ZCU said 600 tickets were still
available for the Namibia
match.
The union yesterday apologised to
the fans who were unable to secure
tickets. It said it was looking at the
possibility of making more available
on the market from those allocated by
contractual agreement to the World
Cup
sponsors.
Tickets were being sold
at the Harare Sports Club and Takashinga
Cricket Club in
Highfields.
Fans are said to have started
queuing for the tickets as early as 5am.
Those who managed to get the tickets
were not too happy either, as they were
allowed to buy only a maximum of two
per person. This means that those who
want to go and watch the matches with
their families cannot do so.
Few fans
though were interested in tickets for the match between
Zimbabwe and Namibia,
possibly because it was no high profile match given
the status of the
latter.
They said they were mostly
interested in the England and India matches
because the two countries were
major powers in the game and they have world
class players in their
squads.
They said it was almost certain
that Zimbabwe would roll past Namibia.
India
have star players such as Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly
while England
have captain Nasser Hussein as the main
attraction.
Shingirai Ururu, who failed to
get the precious England versus
Zimbabwe ticket at Harare Sports Club rushed
to Takashinga Sports Club and
was able to land
one.
He said he wanted to watch the match
because there has been a lot of
controversy on whether the Hussein-led side
would make the trip after the
British government's accusations that there is
no rule of law in Zimbabwe.
Ururu said: "We
want to watch them and know whether we could have had
lost anything if they
had failed to come. This match would be like a
grudge
encounter."
While ZCU refused to
disclose the number of tickets on sale, they
revealed that 2 000 would be
taken up by the International Cricket
Council.
The ZCU is also obliged to give
complimentary tickets to their
sponsors, cricket clubs in the country and the
host city and some foreign
dignitaries based in
Zimbabwe.
Lovemore Banda, the ZCU
communications manager, said one problem
associated with limited tickets was
the seating capacity which has been
worsened by the new security arrangements
which have resulted in reduced
sitting
capacity.
Tickets for the other three
matches to be played at Queens Sports Club
will go on sale today in Bulawayo
at Haddon and Sly.
Meanwhile, Geoff Marsh,
the coach of the Zimbabwe cricket team, said
preparations for the World Cup
were going well. Marsh said: "The boys are
doing well. They have returned
from the Christmas and New Year's holidays
and l'm trying to tune them into a
unit."
He said he was confident that they
would perform well despite being
paired against the aristocrats of the game
Pakistan, Australia and India.
The other
teams in the group are Holland and Namibia. Marsh said the
encouraging
development was that captain Heath Streak, who had been out of
action since
September last year after sustaining a shoulder injury in a car
accident in
Kolombo, Sri Lanka, was back at training.
Marsh said: "What Streak needs now is match fitness." He will be
tested next
week when Zimbabwe takes on South Africa A in three one-day
warm-up
matches.
Daily
News
Feature
2002
remembered as year Mugabe became a full-fledged
dictator
1/16/2003 12:10:57 PM
(GMT +2)
By Luke Tamborinyoka
Political Editor
THE temporary darkness
during December's solar eclipse could be
symbolic of a dark political year in
which the Zimbabwean government made
tremendous and permanent strides into
becoming a full-fledged dictatorship.
The
eclipse, which some said was a bad omen, capped a year whose
prominence was
that President Mugabe, supposedly a people's President,
following his
"resounding" victory in March, went to lofty yet somewhat
ridiculous levels
to shut himself off from his own people.
In November, the government gazetted Statutory Instrument 299 of 2002,
which
makes it an offence to gesture at the President's long motorcade,
adding to
two repressive pieces of legislation passed earlier in the year
which make it
criminal to criticise the person and office of the
President.
While the nation continued to
wallow in abject poverty, with more than
half the population facing
starvation and millions going for days without a
square meal, Mugabe joined,
if not surpassed, some of Africa's deceased and
living dictators when he
ordered an expensive top-of-the-range, bulletproof
limousine with tinted
windows.
As governance and the economy
went into a coma, Mugabe made a
startling admission of failure last year when
he said he had developed
"headaches" and "stomach aches" because of the fuel
problems.
"Twenty-two years in government,
22 years of playing this tomfoolery.
They (fuel companies) don't suffer from
the headaches I suffer from," Mugabe
reportedly told a gathering in
Gweru.
But stomach aches and headaches are
not really the ailments associated
with amadoda sibili (real
men).
As Zimbabwe's madness reached alarming
levels, the 54-member
Commonwealth group announced the country's suspension
for 12 months, a
decision which made the notorious spin-doctors in Harare
froth at the mouth.
In August, Mugabe
assembled what he called a "War Cabinet" in which he
axed the Minister of
Finance and Economic Development, Simba Makoni, who had
earlier called for
the devaluation of the dollar.
Makoni's
dismissal had become inevitable when Mugabe referred to all
proponents of
devaluation as "saboteurs" and "enemies of the
State".
But apparently, the only war his
Cabinet and government has waged
successfully was to bring the economy to its
knees, while galloping
inflation hit an all-time high of 175,5
percent.
But probably the highlight of the
year was in March, when Mugabe was
announced as the winner of the
presidential election following a stern
challenge from MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai. The election and its outcome
were widely condemned by many local
and international observers as not
having been free and
fair.
The MDC, which is challenging the result
in the High Court, referred
to Mugabe's disputed win as the "biggest
electoral fraud in history".
The European
Union and the United States banned Mugabe and his
lieutenants from visiting
their countries after the election.
Mugabe
made a feeble and embarrassing response several months later by
imposing
travel sanctions against British Premier Tony Blair and his
ministers.
Interestingly, Blair had never visited Zimbabwe since he
assumed
office.
The list included seven
Zimbabweans working for foreign-based radio
stations, whom the government
accused of denigrating the country.
The
service chiefs, led by the Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander,
General Vitalis
Zvinavashe, had set the stage for Mugabe's victory when they
sent a tremor of
fear in the whole country by announcing a few days before
the presidential
election that they would not salute a victor without
liberation war
credentials.
Over the same polling days,
two MDC executive mayors were voted into
office in Harare and Chitungwiza,
bringing to five the number of opposition
mayors in the
country.
But the Executive Mayor of
Harare, Elias Mudzuri, was immediately
embroiled in a war with the Minister
of Local Government, Public Works and
National Housing, Ignatius Chombo, who
has meddled in the Harare City
Council affairs since Mudzuri's day one in
office.
The new council made an impressive
beginning by cleaning the city,
improving refuse collection and resurfacing
the roads, a development which
apparently left the minister green with
envy.
But the MDC was not so lucky in
Kadoma, where their woman candidate
for mayor, Editor Matamisa, lost to Zanu
PF after the ruling party deployed
its Green Bombers and the party's
machinery into the city.
God knows what
happened there!
The MDC lost its Insiza
seat to Zanu PF in a by-election punctuated by
allegations of rigging and
voter intimidation. In the run-up to the
by-election, rowdy Zanu PF youths
seized three metric tonnes of maize
belonging to the World Food Programme and
distributed it to their
supporters.
MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai and two senior officials were accused of
plotting to
assassinate Mugabe. The allegations were made by discredited Ari
Ben-Menashe
of the Canadian-based political consultancy firm, Dickens and
Madson. Menashe
turned out to have prior close links to Zanu PF and
Mugabe.
The MDC leader has denied the
allegations and the case is due to be
heard in the High Court next
month.
It was a year in which two repressive
and retrogressive laws, the
Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the
Access to Information and
Protection of
Privacy Act (AIPPA), were passed as the political, economic and
humanitarian
crisis worsened.
In a move that must have
surprised many, the new Minister of Finance
and Economic Development, Herbert
Murerwa, asked God to come to Zimbabwe's
rescue. Observers were surprised
that after presiding over a brutal regime,
a Zanu PF member could actually
acknowledge the existence of a God of peace.
In his Budget speech where he painted a gloomy picture of the economy
and
announced the closure of foreign currency bureaus and the failure of
price
controls, Murerwa quoted several verses from the Book of Jeremiah, in
a clear
appeal for Divine Intervention.
But AIPPA
and POSA are two obnoxious pieces of legislation which
violate basic freedoms
of speech, assembly and association definitely
antithetic to God's
ways.
The year began with a pitched battle
between the independent Press and
the government over AIPPA, which seeks to
curtail the independent media by
having media houses and journalists licensed
by the partisan Media and
Information Commission hand-picked by Professor
Jonathan Moyo, the
Information and Publicity Minister who, in turn, was
hand-picked by Mugabe.
The battle has
spilled into this year as many journalists are yet to
register with the
commission as they eagerly await a Supreme Court verdict
on the
constitutionality of the registration
stipulation.
Moyo was humbled early last
year when he received a battering from the
media, his colleagues in Zanu PF
and the Parliamentary Legal Committee,
which ruled most of the clauses in the
Access to Information and Protection
of Privacy Bill
unconstitutional.
In a famous speech,
which is probably in the drawer of every
independent journalist, veteran
politician and chairman of the Parliamentary
Legal Committee, Eddison Zvobgo,
said of Moyo's original draft:
"The Bill, in
its original form, was vague, overbroad in scope,
ill-conceived and
dangerous. Why would the Minister, or any Minister, seek
such overwhelming
powers from this Parliament?"
The year
left its own tragic mark in the opposition MDC, where the
party's spokesman
and MP for Kuwadzana, Learnmore Jongwe, fatally stabbed
his wife, Rutendo,
for alleged infidelity. The story dominated the media for
several months and
took a further tragic twist when Jongwe died in
mysterious circumstances in
remand prison while awaiting trial for murder.
Jongwe's death shocked many people, who held the State responsible as
the
28-year-old MP died while in the hands of the government. Postmortems
carried
out by both the State and an independent pathologist hired by the
MDC showed
the MP died of excessive amounts of chloroquine, but debate still
rages on
how the poison found its way into his prison cell. Jongwe's came
after the
mysterious death of another MDC MP, George Ndlovu of Insiza
constituency,
after he was given an apple at a bipartisan workshop for
MPs.
In November, the MDC dismissed its
controversial Highfield MP,
Munyaradzi Gwisai, after he walked out of a
disciplinary hearing, after
making statements at variance with MDC
policies.
A splinter trade union, the
Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe,
led by its firebrand leader, Raymond
Majongwe, made headlines when it
spearheaded a strike by teachers pressing
for better pay and conditions.
Majongwe himself was severely beaten up and
arrested by State agents but
eventually, in a tacit admission that teachers
were underpaid, the
government buckled and struck a new pay and conditions
deal with teachers.
As the year came to an
end, there were stunning revelations of looting
by senior government and army
officials during Zimbabwe's four-year sojourn
into the jungles of the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Mugabe dismissed
the United Nations
report linking his top officials to the
plunder.
Ironically, his DRC counterpart,
Joseph Kabila, took the report
seriously and recalled his envoy to Harare and
some of the ministers
implicated in the
looting.
Mugabe left the nation astonished
when he failed to live up to the
government's promise that the human and
financial cost of the DRC adventure
would be announced at parade welcoming
home the troops. To date, no one
knows how much the nation lost in that war,
which sucked in six African
countries.
By December, it was clear Mugabe
and his
whimpering "War Cabinet" had waged a successful war against
the people of
Zimbabwe, the international community and the
economy.
The results are there for all to
see: an unprecedented inflation rate,
over six million facing starvation,
almost zero-farming activity by Joseph
Made's peasant farmers, a negative
economic growth rate, a high unemployment
rate and a battery of
repressive
legislation.
Remember, this is the former
land of milk and honey, which until
recently, was the envy of many countries
because of a stable economy, peace,
a government which appeared to care for
its citizens and where queues were
to be found at sports stadiums and
banks.
Indeed, no one could have done a
better job than Mugabe of destroying
the economy and turning Zimbabwe into a
pariah state.
Chave
Chimurenga!
Zim Independent
Mugabe exit plot
thickens
Dumisani Muleya
DESPITE energetic denials from President Mugabe
this week, speculation
surrounding the future of his presidency intensified
as more details emerged
of an exit deal put together by his closest
associates.
The latest initiative has placed Mugabe in a vulnerable
position as his
government openly admits its failure to cope with food and
fuel shortages.
Sources said this week Zanu PF secretary for
administration Emmerson
Mnangagwa and Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander
General Vitalis Zvinavashe,
implicated in the attempted palace coup against
Mugabe, were keen to exploit
widening fault lines within the ruling party to
advance their interests. The
deteriorating economic situation may have
spurred their latest initiative.
Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe were named
by opposition MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai as behind the mission by retired
army officer, Colonel Lionel
Dyck, to market their power-sharing plans which
involve a comfortable exit
package for Mugabe.
Dyck is understood
to have been in contact with key stakeholders in the plan
including the
British government. British foreign secretary Jack Straw was
said to have
been aware of the plan, hence his recent statement that London
would support
any local initiative to resolve the current crisis.
"Dyck has been
working tirelessly behind-the-scenes to establish some
consensus on the
issues at stake - and appeared to have made some headway
until mid-December
when Tsvangirai denounced his overtures," a source
following the initiative
said.
In terms of Dyck's plan, Mugabe and his family would be allowed
free passage
to live wherever they wanted, targeted sanctions would be
lifted, and an
interim government formed with Mnangagwa, Mugabe's perceived
heir apparent,
as president and Tsvangirai as deputy. A fresh presidential
election would
be held in two years.
Dyck initially claimed he was
Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe's emissary when he
met Tsvangirai on December 13,
the MDC leader says. He said Dyck reported
back to his principals after the
meeting.
But he now appears under pressure to amend his story because
Mugabe is on
the warpath. Dyck's remarks in a pro-government paper yesterday
- where he
said he was his own man on the mission to Tsvangirai - were seen
as
damage-limitation.
Tsvangirai said yesterday in an interview he
had no reason to doubt Dyck's
initial claim. He said the ball was now in
Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe's court
to explain the issue.
"I have no
reason to doubt him," he said. "There have been a lot of fishing
expeditions
by Zanu PF prior to that. The burden to clarify whether or not
they sent Dyck
is theirs. Dyck actually phoned me after the meeting and said
they (Mnangagwa
and Zvinavashe) were happy with our position (the need for a
transitional
arrangement and a fresh election)."
Despite a flurry of official
denials, including Mugabe's own in Lusaka on
Tuesday, Mnangagwa and
Zvinavashe have not yet directly refuted the claim
that Dyck was their envoy
although they have denied any knowledge of the
exit plan.
Sources
said Mnangagwa's alleged manoeuvres - which the CIO is said to be
probing -
could unleash an open succession battle in Zanu PF.
A rival faction,
which consists of potential movers and shakers, retired
General Solomon
Mujuru, Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi and former
cabinet minister and PF
Zapu supremo, Dumiso Dabengwa, was said to be
jockeying against Mnangagwa's
bid for power.
Mujuru is understood to have fallen out with Mugabe
before last year's
disputed March presidential election after he reportedly
told him to retire.
Sources say Ibbo Mandaza, the publisher and
editor-in-chief of the Daily
Mirror and Sunday Mirror - which revived the
story last weekend - played a
role. Sources said Mandaza planted the story to
test the succession waters
on Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe's
behalf.
Mnangagwa's perceived ally, Mutumwa Mawere, who controls a
business empire,
was involved in sounding out Tsvangirai on the
deal.
But Mawere denied this. "I don't get involved in such political
deals," he
said this week. "I have no standing in politics to be a factor in
this
issue."
While it is agreed Mugabe was unaware of the manoeuvring
by his closest
associates, intelligence sources have said he has privately
informed members
of his family of his desire to retire by the end of the
year.
The latest disclosures, sources say, are likely to convey the
impression of
a besieged and vulnerable
presidency.
Zim Independent
As treason trial
looms Tsvangirai tapes inaudible
Vincent Kahiya
THE out-of-court drama in the Morgan Tsvangirai
treason case has taken a new
twist after revelations that audio tapes
purportedly containing
incriminating evidence are inaudible.
The
Zimbabwe Independent heard last week that voices on the tapes, which
the
state says contain key evidence that Tsvangirai and his co-accused,
Welshman
Ncube and Renson Gasela were plotting to assassinate President
Mugabe, could
not be made out.
The state's evidence-in-chief is
contained in the audio and video tapes
provided by former Israeli secret
agent Ari Ben-Menashe of Canadian lobbyist
firm, Dickens & Madson, who it
transpired was under contract to the Zimbabwe
government.
The case
is scheduled to open at the High Court on February 3. The case
failed to take
off in November after Tsvangirai's lawyer, Innocent Chagonda
of Atherstone
& Cook, filed an urgent application seeking a postponement of
the case as
the State had not supplied the defence team with tapes and
papers spelling
out the charge.
Chagonda last week confirmed the tapes were
completely inaudible.
"We can't hear a thing on them," he
said.
The State intends to call as witnesses Ben-Menashe and his
associates Tara
Thomas and Alexander Legault. It is still not clear
whether
Ben-Menashe will take the stand to give evidence. Chagonda said
they were
preparing their defence outline on the assumption the trio were
coming to
testify.
The three MDC leaders were implicated by
Ben-Menashe last February in the
run-up to the controversial March
presidential election.
Ben-Menashe, who undertook political
consultancy work for the government,
has admitted being an admirer of Mugabe
well before the alleged plot by
Tsvangirai and his colleagues.
The
State alleges that a video shot secretly by Ben-Menashe shows
Tsvangirai
agreeing with the consultant that Mugabe should be killed before
the
presidential election. Tsvangirai and his team are alleged to have
met
Ben-Menashe in Montreal and London.
Tsvangirai's defence team,
which is being co-ordinated by Chagonda, includes
one of South Africa's most
distinguished advocates, George Bizos SC, and
advocates Eric Matinenga and
Chris Andersen.
Zim Independent
EU urged to tighten
sanctions
Mthulisi Mathuthu
A MONTH before it reviews its February 2002
sanctions regime, pressure is
already mounting on the European Union (EU) to
tighten the screws on
President Mugabe.
The EU, which slapped
President Mugabe and his circle with a travel ban
early last year, is
expected to release its new sanctions list and
conditions on February
19.
A source at the Greek Embassy in Harare this week said despite
reports that
some EU states were beginning to waver on the sanctions issue,
pressure -
both from within and outside the EU - was mounting on Brussels to
be more
firm with Mugabe, a development which could further influence
the
Commonwealth troika which reviews Zimbabwe's suspension in
March.
The Zimbabwe Independent heard this week that the MDC was lobbying
the EU to
widen the sanctions net to further incapacitate Mugabe's government
which,
despite public displays of defiance, is already feeling the
pinch.
MDC representative in Brussels, Grace Kwinjeh, this week said
her party was
pushing hard to have the EU tighten the sanctions regime and
include the
children and spouses of banned government
officials.
"The list has to be expanded to include the children and
spouses of the
others. Only Grace Mugabe is listed at the moment," she said
in an interview
from Brussels on Tuesday.
"They must also tighten
some of the loopholes Zanu PF officials have
exploited to travel all over the
world."
The British are also looking at ways of netting business
people used as
fronts by Mugabe's government to undrtake missions in Europe,
reports from
London suggest.
The MDC is keen to see the EU ban
Mugabe's emissaries from attending any
future EU gatherings on European
soil.
Sanctions activists have questioned the EU's sincerity in
permitting banned
Zanu PF officials like Paul Mangwana and Chris Kuruneri to
attend an EU/ACP
meeting in November last year.
Kwinjeh said
Mugabe, who has remained intransigent since last February,
could only be
pushed into abandoning his retributive politics and
gamesmanship through "a
tighter and more-biting" sanctions regime.
She said Mugabe was openly
flouting the Cotonou Agreement which spells out
good governance and human
rights observance as the basis for EU/ACP
co-operation.
"The MDC
is saying that they (EU) must maintain a hard line until Mugabe
agrees to the
conditions spelt out in the Cotonou Agreement, essential
elements such as the
rule of law, human rights and good governance. He has
to reform," she
said.
"As you can see, it is a year since sanctions were imposed but
Mugabe has
not changed his ways at all."
Kwinjeh said her party
was also pushing the EU to increase its humanitarian
assistance to Zimbabwe
where more than half of the population is faced with
starvation stemming
largely from Mugabe's chaotic agrarian programme which
has destroyed
commercial agriculture and displaced farm workers.
The EU has of late
been discussing the dispatch of a fact-finding mission to
Zimbabwe to
investigate Mugabe's abuse of human rights while the ACP
countries are
pushing for dialogue between Harare and the EU.
Zim Independent
Food aid recipients
set to increase
Augustine Mukaro
THE United Nations Humanitarian Situation Report on
Zimbabwe this week said
62% of the country's population, up from 58% in 2002,
would be in need of
food aid through to March when the harvest is expected to
arrive on the
market.
This means 7,2 million people will go hungry,
rising from the 6,7 million
already surviving from food hand-outs either from
the donor community or
government since last year.
The report said
850 000 urban dwellers, 929 000 current and former
commercial farm workers
and 5,4 million rural people would require food
hand-outs.
The
report said the fast-deteriorating food situation could only be
rectified
through streamlining the process of the issuance of import permits
for relief
food.
Food security in Zimbabwe was not likely to improve even after
the 2003
season's harvest because the area put under crop was way below the
national
requirements, the report said.
"Government estimates the
area put under crop as of December 2002 to be 1
548 730
hectares.
"The figure represents only 65% of the area planted in the
2001/2 season,"
the report said.
"Prospects for the 2002/03
agricultural season appear poor, moderate El Niño
events suggest that the
current weather pattern may extend well into 2004,
peaking in the first
quarter of next year, making expected rain-fed maize
yields to be very low,"
the report said.
Zim Independent
Zimbabweans forced
to go vegetarian
Blessing Zulu
ZIMBABWE could shortly become a vegetarian society
following the gazetting
of the price of pork, the only meat product still
available on supermarket
shelves.
Since the government announced the
populist price freeze, the shortages of
basic commodities has worsened
resulting in unavailability of gazetted
products - notably beef and chicken.
The only meat product that was not
controlled was pork which has now fallen
victim to government's obsession
with controls.
Statutory Instrument
(SI) 346 of 2002, Control of goods (price freeze)
issued last December has
also put rice on the controlled list, which is
being eaten as a substitute
for mealie-meal.
The price of 2kg Mahtma rice has been reduced from $1
900 to the gazetted $1
667,50. The other products that will be affected by
the price freeze include
powdered milk brands Lactogen, Cremora, Teacup,
Nestlé and Everyday.
Doug Fraser, chairman of the Zimbabwe Association of
Butchers, said
shortages of pork were now inevitable.
"This may result
in shortages for the consumer when the producer, wholesaler
and retailer fail
to supply pork for sale at the legislated prices," said
Fraser.
"The
supply of both pork and chicken is erratic due to a number of factors
and the
consumer is battling to find the once-popular meat products in
most
butcheries in the country," he said.
Fraser said controlled
prices were not viable for the industry.
"When the price control on beef
was legislated butcheries had beef stocks at
market-related prices and then
had to sell at the controlled prices, where
in most cases this led to losses
being made in all outlets," he said.
"Selling at the legislated prices
meant a loss of $74 000 per carcass was
being made," Fraser
said.
Fraser said his association was holding marathon meetings with the
concerned
authorities.
"The latest meeting was attended by the
Permanent Secretary of Trade and
Commerce, Ronald Madamombe, and the mood was
one of co-operation to ensure
that a way forward was charted to get beef back
into butcheries for the
consumer to buy," he said.
"The beef
producers, abattoir operators and retailers have been tasked to
urgently
submit costing to the ministry for consideration reflecting current
costs and
proposed prices so that the industry is viable. These will be with
the
ministry during the course of this week."
Lesley Mallett, chairman of the
Livestock and Meat Advisory Council, said
the document was now
complete.
"We are now waiting to have a meeting with the minister
(Herbert Murerwa)
who is said to be away at the moment and hand him the
document with our
proposals," said Mallett.
Meanwhile, Murombo
Mudhumo, Bakers Inn managing director, said they too had
asked the Ministry
of Industry and International Trade to revise the price
of bread
upwards.
"Negotiations have been under way with the concerned ministry,"
said
Mudhumo.
"If we continue to sell bread for $65 our businesses
will collapse. The cost
of importing flour is prohibitive. We are proposing
that a loaf of bread be
sold for $145," he
said.
Zim Independent
Libya puts beef deal
on ice
Augustine Mukaro
LIBYA has frozen a deal to buy beef from Zimbabwe
after the livestock
industry failed to satisfy supply terms as agreed due to
a shortage of
slaughter stock.
The mothballing of the 5,1 million
kg annual quota comes at a time when the
Libyans are understood to be keen to
relinquish control over farms mortgaged
to service the US$360 million fuel
deal between the two countries.
John Mapondera, whose company Farirai
Quality Foods clinched the supply
deal, this week said his consortium would
resume exports of beef in the next
two weeks.
"There will be some
feedback on the deal by next week," Mapondera said. "In
fact, in about two
weeks we should be sending our first consignment of the
year to
Libya."
Exports kicked off in November with Farirai Quality Foods
sending its first
consignment to Libya since 2001 when the deal was
mooted.
But diplomatic sources said the deal was doomed as Zimbabwe
no longer had
the capacity to meet demand.
Sources said Zimbabwe's
capacity to meet the export quota and even the local
market have been greatly
hampered by disturbances in the commercial farming
sector, which saw the mass
slaughter of breeding stock between 2000 and
2002.
Government
price controls on beef, introduced last year, have resulted in
serious
shortages on the local market.
The Cattle Producers Association (CPA)
said with 95% of commercial farms
having been listed for acquisition and over
60% of them having received
Section 8 Orders, there was a lot of uncertainty
in the industry.
"Many farmers were forced to destock because of
grazing restrictions imposed
by settlers and, as a result, the commercial
herd has been severely
reduced," the CPA said.
The CPA said
although all recognised beef exports were currently suspended
as a result of
a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in 2001, the market
required the
higher-quality grades of beef supplied by the
commercial
sector.
"As the commercial beef herd shrinks in
Zimbabwe, so does the ability to
meet export market commitments," the CPA
said.
The CPA said apart from the quality factor, the actual supply
of beef to the
market was quickly diminishing because the small-scale sector,
which has a
traditional off-take of less than 5% compared to 20% or more in
the
commercial sector.
Sources in the industry said the country's
capacity has been further
undermined by the loss of over 15 000 cattle over
the past three months due
to the drought.
"The national breeding
herd has dwindled by over 67%, falling from over 1,2
million to 400 000,"
sources said.
Zim Independent
Mbeki's silent
diplomacy slammed
Blessing Zulu
ZIMBABWE's appalling record of human rights
abuses has again become the
centre of international attention, this time
drawing into its vortex South
Africa which has been rapped for not doing
enough about the
increasingly-oppressive Mugabe regime.
In its annual
report, Human Rights Watch said President Thabo Mbeki's silent
diplomacy on
Mugabe was not working and was only exacerbating the
situation.
"South African President Thabo Mbeki offered only muted
criticism of
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe despite his persistent
violations of
civil and political liberties and disturbing reports
of
politically-motivated diversion of food in time of famine," the report
said.
African leaders who still feel it is taboo to criticise their
colleagues
were also castigated.
"Meanwhile, oppressive
governments continued to deny basic freedoms and new
or renewed conflicts led
to greater repression, increased human rights abuse
and large numbers of
refugees and displaced persons without any effective
African response," the
report said.
The New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development
(Nepad) which has a
mechanism for peer review, was not being used
effectively, it said.
"In the context of the strong Nepad and African
Union commitments to
promoting and protecting human rights, African leaders'
customary silence
was all the more discouraging," the report
said.
With reference to Zimbabwe's presidential poll, it said:
"African leaders,
including Mbeki and Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo,
two of Nepad's
architects and champions, failed to speak out against the
violence inflicted
on MDC supporters."
Zim Independent
CIO in disarray
without director-general
Dumisani Muleya
THE Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) is
gripped with uncertainty as
President Robert Mugabe drags his heels on the
appointment of a new
director-general to reform the run-down spy
outfit.
Official sources said frustration and disgruntlement are running
high in the
state security agency because officers are anxious to know their
fate.
Relations between CIO bosses and officers are said to have
chilled by a few
degrees of late due to the growing uncertainty. Some
officers are still
expecting Zimbabwe's representative to the United Nations,
Tichaona Jokonya,
to come and lead the organisation while the current number
two wants to take
over permanently.
Jokonya, who is based in New
York, was however said to have recently
jeopardised his chances of
appointment after making remarks about Zimbabwe
at a diplomatic briefing
which were seen as negative in Harare.
Details of his diplomatic gaffe
were not immediately available.
While CIO deputy-director general
Brigadier Happyton Bonyongwe was said to
be eager to take charge of the CIO,
Mugabe seems not to be in a hurry to
replace former director-general
Brigadier Elisha Muzonzini, who was recently
posted to Kenya as High
Commissioner. He left for Nairobi on December 1.
No one has been
appointed to act either.
Bonyongwe - who together with Muzonzini were
appointed to the CIO in 1998 -
was said to have been disillusioned because he
expected to act as DG and
then take over at the helm.
Sources said
this could have led him to go on leave earlier this month to
ponder his
future. He is expected back in office on February 1. Currently
Internal
Branch director Mernard Muzariri is acting as CIO chief.
Muzariri,
who is State Security minister Nicholas Goche's blue-eyed boy, is
expected to
be Jokonya's deputy if the veteran diplomat eventually comes
home. Close
Se-curity Unit (CSU) head, Simbi To-nde, has also been linked to
the
post.
Speculation within the CIO over a pending restructuring
exercise was
contributing to the pervasive aura of uncertainty, insiders
said.
Mugabe is expected to make changes designed to enhance CIO
operations and
efficiency. There could in the process be a reshuffling of
directors at
divisional levels as well as purges of officers described as
incompetent,
mediocre and corrupt.
Key CIO departments such as the
CSU counter-intelligence division, external
branch, economics,
administration, and the director-general's pool could be
revamped in the
shake-up.
Former Economics di-rector Justin Mupamhanga was recently
shifted to the
Ministry of Energy and Power Development as permanent
secretary. Other
prominent divisional directors who include John Andrew
Maringa, Thomas John
Meke, Tobias Chaunoita, and Godfrey Madzorera, are still
in office but could
be reshuffled.
Zim Independent
Govt intensifies
repression
Augustine Mukaro
POLITICAL repression is rising in Zim-babwe as
government intensifies
itscrackdown on opposition members and dissenting
civic groups.
Barely 48 hours after the release frompolice custody of
opposition
Movementfor Democratic Change (MDC) mayor of Harare, Elias Mudzuri
and 23
others who were arrested over the weekend for attending a residents'
meeting
in the capital, police picked up another MDC official and civic
activists
for unspecified reasons.
Job Sikhala, MP for St Mary's, and
Gabriel Shumba, NGO Human Rights Forum
research lawyer, were held at Harare
Central and Matapi police stations
respectively.
Police spokesman
Wayne Bvudzijena said he was not sure why the two were
arrested.
Civic
group, Crisis in Zimbabwe, said it was "deeply concerned about the
current
acts of suppression".
On Tuesday night police arrested Combi-ned Harare
Residents Association
CEOBarnabas Mangodza and three otherCHRA officials for
holding
consultativemeetings with Kuwadzana residents. Thethree said they
were
assaulted by Zanu PF militias before being handed over to the
police.
Another MDC MP, Paul Madzore, who was arrested over the weekend
for
allegedly organising a protest march against Mudzuri's arrest, was
also
reportedly beaten up while in police custody.
MDC spokesman, Paul
ThembaNyathi said the crackdown sho-wed the government
was beco-ming
increasingly repressive as the economic crisis deepens.
"Mugabe's regime
is deter-mined to suffocate the oppo-sition and muzzle
voices of democracy,"
he said.
A number of MDC officials,including leader Morgan Tsva-ngirai,
have been
arraigned on charges ranging from treason to insulting Mugabe and
his
ministers.
Nyathi said in the past 18 months, 42 senior members of
the opposition party
have been arrested and appeared in court.
"Of all
the cases that have been finalised in the courts, our officials
have
eitherbeen acquitted or the cases have been thrown out for lack
of
evidence," Nyathi said.
"We are well aware that the police now
takeorders from Zanu PF on who to
arrest amongst our members," he
said
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister Patrick Chinamasa
could
not be reached for comment.
High Court president Justice Garwe
this week warned police against abuse of
their powers by arresting people
without grounds for prosecution. He said
police should investigate their
cases before arresting people instead of
arresting in order to investigate as
that was against civilised notions of
the criminal justice
system.
Meanwhile, police this week quiz-zed Willy Muponda, publisher of
the
Gweru-based Sun newspaper, over registration of his company and
journalists.
"The police officers harassed me and asked whether I had
registered," he
said. "They demanded the receipt of the $500 000 registration
fee that
should have been paid to the Media and Information
Commission."
He said police accused him of being anti-government and
warned they would
"deal with him". Under the new media law, unregistered
media groups and
journalists are not allowed to operate in
Zimbabwe.
Zim Independent
Building society in
dire straits
Staff Writer
THERE was panic on the money market yesterday
after news leaked that First
National Building Society (FNBS) was in dire
straits, the Zimbabwe
Independent has heard.
Market sources said FNBS
managing director Sam Ruturi and his financial
director have been suspended
after questions arose over apparent
mismanagement of $3 billion in
depositors' funds at the institution.
A member of the Loans Review
Committee, Morgan Moyo, is understood to have
taken over the society as
acting managing director in the meantime. Efforts
to get comment from Moyo or
other senior members of the institution were
unsuccessful. But insiders said
there was "a big problem at the building
society".
The Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe was said to have intervened with a $2 billion
bail-out
package. - Staff Writer.
Zim
Independent
Assault on mayors exposes control-freaks in Zanu
PF
Blessing Zulu/Augustine Mukaro
ATTEMPTS by Local
Government minister Ignatius Chombo to throw spanners in
the works of the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) mayors
represents a bid by
the government to divert public attention from its own
poor
record.
Chombo has been digging trenches across MDC mayors' courses of
policy
implementation through directives leading to constant
collisions.
Mayors' failure to adhere to the directives has resulted in
them being
labelled arrogant and has seen government appointing committees to
"help in
the running" of the cities.
In the firing line have been the
executive mayor of Harare, Engineer Elias
Mudzuri, and Chegutu's Francis
Dhlakama.
Over the past month Chombo has appointed committees to help run
the City of
Harare and Chegutu.
The Harare committee is billed to
start work in February. He has also turned
down Harare and Bulawayo's
applications for borrowing powers to access the
billions needed on the open
market for development of the city's
infrastructure.
The
well-orchestrated move to make life difficult for Mudzuri has also
been
played out in the government-controlled Herald, the Sunday Mail and
ZBC.
The relationship between Mudzuri and the public media was perhaps
succinctly
captured in his letter to the Herald recently, warning of possible
legal
action against the paper if it did not withdraw allegations of failure
to
run the city it had carried in its pages.
"Instead of giving the
public the facts as they stand, you chose to play to
the gallery by
attempting to whip up public outrage and outcry and openly
invited minister
Chombo to enter the fray with a hatchet," Mudzuri said.
Co-ordinator of
Crisis in Zimbabwe and human rights activist Brian Kagoro
said the impasse
between Chombo and Mudzuri demonstrated the policy
flip-flops in Zanu
PF.
"In the mid '80s the country was misled into a one-party state and
this
called for the centralisation of power," said Kagoro.
"Consistent
with this trait, the person of the president and local
governance was also
designed around the same concept, the minister wielded a
lot of power. The
1990s economic failures exposed the weaknesses of a
centralised
system.
"The policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank brought
about the concept of participatory decision-making and this
forced the
government to decentralise power and introduce executive mayors,"
he said.
Kagoro said the spirit of participation was however not pursued
by the
government.
"Harare City Council progressively slid into
frightening debt primarily
because Zanu PF-appointed mayors and commissioners
felt obligated to defer
to party positions on crucial issues and this was
evidenced in the party
preference in awarding of tenders to Zanu PF-linked
individuals," he said.
The Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA)
said government's constant
intervention in the affairs of local authorities,
particularly those being
run by opposition mayors, were desperate attempts to
usurp power.
"When Zanu PF introduced the executive mayorship in 1996 it
was a move to
tighten their control on local governance, bringing in their
top
functionaries" the CHRA said.
It said executive mayors were given
sweeping powers with government never
anticipating mayoral positions would be
won by the opposition.
The coming in of MDC saw the scales being tilted
in the opposition's favour
thereby threatening the power base of the ruling
party.
"Government would not just let go of its power and is now
resorting to dirty
tricks to justify its desire to regain control of cities
through the back
door," CHRA said.
Analysts said government had
realised the erosion of its power base as the
opposition took over the
running of urban councils, hence the move to
appoint governors to check the
powers of mayors.
Civic organisations have condemned the idea arguing the
appointment of
governors would result in serious duplication of
duties.
The introduction of governors would either mean that they would
be
completely useless or would make the work of the mayors as top
authorities
of cities impossible.
Governors Peter Chanetsa of
Mashonaland West and Elliot Manyika of
Mashonaland Central have over-shadowed
mayors or provincial administrators
in their respective constituencies
because of interference.
NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku said Chombo's
meddling in the city councils
shows that Zanu PF was an anti-democratic force
that is not prepared to
uphold multi-party democracy.
"They want to
destroy the opposition so that in an election at whatever
political level,
they would win it," Madhuku said.
From Independence in 1980, ceremonial
mayors ran cities with the
government-appointed town clerks holding more
power and being administrative
heads.
Solomon Tawengwa, President
Robert Mugabe's blue-eyed boy, was the first
executive mayor of Harare in
1996 after the amendment of the Urban Councils
Act. This trend was to be
followed by other major cities but the problem
remained that the ruling party
wanted to impose its own candidates.
This was amply demonstrated in
Mutare where Zanu PF tried to impose its
candidate Shadreck Beta who was
trounced by the incumbent Lawrence Mudewe
who won the election as an
independent.
The inception of the executive mayors strengthened the
resolve to establish
residents' associations, notably in Harare and
Chitungwiza.
The residents' associations challenged the authority of some
of the
decisions made by the executive mayors.
The Tawengwa executive
was accused by the CHRA of engaging in under-hand
deals such as the awarding
of tenders to Zanu PF cronies. The
less-than-transparent allocation of land
for the construction of garages and
the redundant Machipisa Bus Terminus in
Highfield exposed the rot in the
executive mayorship.
Though the
government was reluctant to fire the Tawengwa executive
initially, they were
forced to take this drastic measure when the situation
went out of
control.
Tawengwa, a model product of the Zanu PF system of governance,
observers
say, was sacrificed to save the face of the executive which stood
accused of
fostering inefficiency in the capital.
There was a
three-week-long water crisis which crippled operations in some
parts of
Harare and its environs. Business operations, clinics and schools
were badly
affected.
Evidence that the government never wanted to lose its
stranglehold on the
running of the capital could be found when Tawengwa was
in 1999 replaced by
a pliant commission which derived its power from the
Local Government
minister.
The commission, led by Elijah Chanakira,
gave the government absolute
control since the commissioners were not
answerable or did not try to engage
the residents in the day-to-day running
of the city.
The Chanakira Commission has also been accused of providing
"jobs for the
boys" and of rewarding Zanu PF functionaries by giving them
tenders. The
companies have been failing to deliver and this has led to the
further
deterioration of services in the metropolis.
The government
had to be prodded by the residents to hold the overdue
council elections. The
Supreme Court ordered the Registrar-General's Office
in early December 2001
to hold mayoral and council elections for Harare on
or before February 11
2002.
The ruling was made after an urgent application by CHRA compelling
the
government to hold the elections that had been thrice
postponed.
The government's refusal to hold the elections became clear
when after the
Supreme Court ruling government Information tsar Jonathan Moyo
said the
government would explore other legal options "to ensure that the
right thing
is done".
Dr Reginald Matchaba-Hove, a human rights
activist and chairman of the
Zimbabwe Election Support Network, said the
onslaught on Mudzuri was
calculated to demoralise voters ahead of the
by-elections in two Harare
constituents.
"These developments are
certainly not healthy in a democracy," said
Matchaba-Hove.
"This is an
attempt to circumvent the democratic process. It may be designed
to
demoralise voters in Highfield and Kuwadzana by giving them the
impression
that irrespective of their vote, their will could be changed by
a
presidential or ministerial decree. This is timed to create apathy and
this
is why it is timed to coincide with the by-elections," he
said.
The reasons why the executive mayors were appointed was also to
reverse the
trend of inadequacies of central planning and to ensure local
participation
in local governance and the need to make towns
self-sufficient.
Analysts said these were good principles but corruption
by Zanu PF-appointed
individuals in awarding tenders to people with no
capacity to deliver
undermined the whole process.
"The whole process
was reduced to the appointment of fat-cats who
concentrated on building
mansions and ignoring what concerned the
residents," said Kagoro.
He
castigated Chombo for abusing his ministerial powers.
"Chombo not only
misappreciates his power in terms of the Urban Councils
Act, but also
misappreciates the fundamental and constitutional democracy of
a
participatory decision-making process. Chombo is acting like a feudal
monarch
who claims to know what is good for the people and Mudzuri on the
other hand
is representing the wishes of the electorate. The question now is
whether the
monarch or the electorate will win," said Kagoro.
Zim Independent - Comment
Succession
reports shake Mugabe's citadel
DENIALS were flying thick and fast this week as
President Robert Mugabe and
his spokesmen responded to stories about his
possible retirement. The
denials are predictably worthless but the truth may
be more difficult to
ascertain.
What we do know is that retired Lt-Col
Lionel Dyck, whose services in
suppressing insurgency the regime found
indispensable in Matabeleland and
Mozambique, approached Morgan Tsvangirai
last month purporting to be
carrying a message from Emmerson Mnangagwa and
General Vitalis Zvinavashe.
They were keen, the MDC leader said, to ascertain
his views on the way
forward in the event of Mugabe stepping down. Despite
the president's
apparent wish to go, the two were anxious that this should
only happen at a
time deemed appropriate by them and other Zanu PF
luminaries.
Tsvangirai made it clear that while he was happy to
participate in
transitional arrangements he was not prepared to do any opaque
deals that
would see a handful of MDC members join a government of national
unity.
This has been the MDC's position since the presidential election.
There were
reports before the election that certain generals wanted to
obtain
assurances about Mugabe's immunity from prosecution in the event
of
Tsvangirai taking over. And South African diplomacy has since last
March
been aimed at getting Zanu PF and the MDC to sit around a table
together,
although Pretoria has said the Dyck overture is not a product of
its current
efforts. The British have also said they are not a part of the
initiative as
Tsvangirai at first suggested.
But despite Mugabe's
claim in Zambia this week that it would be
"counter-revolutionary" of
him
to go when he had just been re-elected, he is rapidly becoming as
redundant
as his terminology. It is clear to even the thickest heads in Zanu
PF that
their leader has absolutely no clue how to tackle the formidable
problems the
country now faces as a result of sustained economic sabotage by
the president
himself and his inner circle.
Blaming imaginary enemies for the country's
problems during an election
campaign may garner votes but it doesn't put
sadza on the table. Statements
about the fuel and food supply situation
emanating from Mugabe and his
ministers in recent weeks confirm they have run
out of ideas. Promises of an
agricultural bonanza from resettled farmers or
vast commodity deals with Far
Eastern countries have proved a
chimera.
Without the means to procure food or fuel, Mugabe has become a
liability to
those around him. That is the telling evidence that emerges from
the Dyck
mission. We can understand Mnangagwa's need to dismiss the growing
number of
reports about plans for life without Mugabe. He is dangerously
exposed.
While there may be nothing new in the latest batch - Tsavangirai
referred to
the Dyck mission in a statement on December 18 - they add to the
sense of
vulnerability now swirling around the Mugabe
presidency.
Cracks in the wall of the Zvimba fortress are matched only by
the cracks in
Mugabe's voice as his emotions got the better of him when he
spoke this week
of his eventual burial in Zimbabwe at a ceremony to honour
Kenneth Kaunda in
Lusaka. It was not intimations of mortality that moved him
so much as the
persistent reports of his impending political
demise!
While some of the speculation around arrangements being made for
asylum in
Malaysia and elsewhere may be part of the "wishful thinking"
Nathan
Shamuyarira referred to, it is at the same time enormously
destabilising to
the regime as it enters its endgame.
Whatever claims
Mugabe makes about being the legitimate president, the fact
is he secured his
return by electoral manipulation and intimidation.
Nobody - inside Zimbabwe
or beyond - doubts that. Simply repeating the
mantra that he heads a
legitimate government doesn't of itself confer
legitimacy. Nor do the
dishonest echoes of those leaders fearing
their own democratic
opposition.
Nearly one year on from the poll, Zimbabwe is poorer, more
dependent upon
the generosity of donors, and less able to make its way in the
world than it
was before. The "prize" of land acquisition, for which all
rational policy
was sacrificed, has turned into a desert. Half the population
is in danger
of starvation.
The only people capable of rescuing the
president from himself have been
forced out of office. He is now surrounded
by opportunists and political
vultures feeding on the nation's
carcass.
Mugabe today cuts a lonely and rather pathetic figure. Railing
against his
enemies at the ceremony to honour Kaunda on Tuesday, he found
himself being
told to concentrate on present-day concerns.
"Yesterday
it was the fight against colonialism," Kaunda said. "Today it is
HIV/Aids,
not white or black."
When even his closest friends and supporters believe
it is time for him to
make way for new blood and fresh thinking, he should
seriously ponder their
advice. Otherwise every passing week will reveal new
schemes to ease him out
by those he trusts
most.
Zim Independent - Eric Bloch
Column
Proactivity essential for economic
recovery
GOVERNMENT apparently remains oblivious
to the fact that when an economy is
sinking into a quagmire, piecemeal and
reactive measures targeted at
selected elements of the economic morass,
without concurrently addressing
other contributors to the economic mire,
cannot restore the economy to good
health.
The reverse is usually the
case, for actions embarked upon in isolation from
other equally necessary
actions will invariably prove to be
counter-productive. Any positives which
can result from those steps which
are taken are negated by the consequences
of not taking others that are
equally or even more necessary. Even the
soundest of measures to achieve
transformation of the economy cannot succeed
if undermined by the absence of
others that are required.
Yet
government pursues reversal of symptoms instead of causes, and even that
only
very selectively. This is very evident with the near panic reactions to
the
prevailing hyperinflation. Instead of evaluating what are the
underlying
reasons fuelling that spiralling rise in the cost of living,
government
blandly makes assumptions, and then prescribes draconian measures
without
considering whether they will be effective, whether they will have
any
negative repercussions, and whether or not they should be accompanied by
any
other actions to assure their success or to negate possible
adverse
consequences.
Prime examples of the foolhardiness of this
approach within the last two
months are the mishandling of the foreign
exchange circumstances that
afflict Zimbabwe, and the associated ineffective
attempts to bring inflation
under control. Government continues to ignore
calls for currency devaluation
in order to restore viability to exporters,
which would bring about greater
exports and resultant greater inflows of the
desperately needed foreign
exchange.
Instead, government has very
willingly and readily duped itself that there
would not be a significant
scarcity of foreign exchange if it closed down
the parallel market and the
bureaux de change, whilst making a token gesture
to exporters of inadequate
increase in mal-administered export incentives.
The expected inflows to the
Reserve Bank by destroying bureaux de change
have not materialised.
Similarly, increasing the mandatory surrender of
export earnings to the
Reserve Bank from 40% to 50%, and intensified
regulation of usage of the
remaining 50%, have not resulted in greater
availability of foreign
currency.
Instead, many enterprises have been brought to the threshold of
collapse,
for being denied access to foreign exchange has removed from them
the
wherewithal for continued operation. Unemployment has been intensified,
and
much downstream economic benefits destroyed. Moreover, many
affected
businesses have been driven to funding imports at higher cost
than
previously by recourse to a much reduced parallel market, or to
reduced
levels of operations, forcing massive price escalations in order to
recover
increased unit costs. The intensified regulations have not eased
the
availability of foreign exchange. They have done naught but worsen it,
and
increased inflation.
A major contributor to the soaring inflation
(alongside excessive state
borrowings, massive corruption and declining
productivity) has been, and is,
the high cost of foreign exchange necessarily
sourced by importers in
unofficial markets due to inability to obtain it
within the regulated
system. The ill-considered new regime of intensified
governance of foreign
exchange has rendered its inflows much reduced, and has
fuelled inflation.
And, with vastly increasing shortages of numerous
commodities, the black
market is thriving, reinforced also by goods which
producers cannot viably
sell at controlled prices, and hence the inflation
rises and rises.
The control of some prices has been in effect for
approximately 15 months.
Since then many basic products have been in almost
continuous short supply.
The populace has been unable to obtain bread, sugar,
soap, beef, poultry and
much else, other than at highly-inflated prices and,
therefore, real
inflation (as distinct from the officially computed rate) has
surged
upwards.
Government has become increasingly conscious of the
growing disquiet of the
distressed masses. Unable or unwilling to acknowledge
the actual causes of
the rampant inflation, let alone to do anything
constructive to reverse it,
government resorted yet again to failed policies,
announcing a near total
price freeze. Whilst enforceable in the formal
economy, it cannot be within
the informal sector, so the consequence of this
repeated folly has merely
increased shortages, and caused the black market to
raise prices on the
limited quantities available.
Understandably,
commerce and industry have been extraordinarily concerned at
its subjugation
to near destruction and has urged government to consider the
error of its
ways and to divert those ways to more constructive paths.
Government's
response, made known in the state-controlled media, was a
freeze of salaries
and wages. But that is yet again a negative economic
policy, it not being
introduced as an element of a comprehensive programme.
Insofar as
employers are concerned, the stabilisation of their labour costs
does not
restore viability to their operations, for it occurs after many had
already
agreed and implemented salary and wage increases which they cannot
lawfully
recover as prices have been frozen. Insofar as the employees are
concerned,
the measure is equally disastrous, for the price freeze does not
protect them
from cost escalations within the only market in which
necessities are
available, being the black market.
For several years there has been talk
of a social contract to bring
inflation down to acceptable levels. A social
contract has much to commend
it. It successfully restored the German economy
to good health after its
collapse in 1922. It was a key element to the New
Deal recovery of the US
economy engineered by President Roosevelt in 1932. It
brought about economic
normality and growth to Bolivia in 1981. Such a
contract is one entered into
between government, commerce and industry, and
labour, for a simultaneous
freeze or controlled rise of salaries and wages,
prices and government
charges.
However, it cannot succeed if it is
applied by some of the parties, and not
by others. It must be all embracing.
And it cannot succeed if it is not
negotiated and implemented within a
conducive economic environment, brought
about by requisite interactive
economic policies in respect of all facets of
the
economy.
Regrettably, instead of a willingly concluded social contract by
all the
required parties, government seeks to impose those conditions, as
would be
in such an agreement, upon some of the parties. It strives to
prevent
commerce and industry from increasing prices, although the frozen
price
levels are, for most commodities, already below break-even levels
and
therefore many enterprises must die.
It also strives to preclude
labour from receiving any increase in
remuneration, notwithstanding that
labour continues to suffer inflation. And
it does not bind itself or its
parastatals to freeze their charges. During
the period of price controls, and
of subsequent price freeze, Zimpost, Air
Zimbabwe, CAAZ and other parastatals
have increased their charges. From
January 1 government has increased some
taxes, such as its substantial
increase in the taxable deemed value of
employee usage of employer-owned
motor vehicles, and the tax threshold and
bands for individuals have not
been adjusted in alignment with inflation, but
only to a lesser extent.
Clearly, that which is sauce for the goose (the
private sector) is not sauce
for the gander (the public sector).
Concurrently, government has taken none
of the other actions necessary to
contain inflation. It has not facilitated
a stabilisation of exchange rates
at realistic levels, nor has it
meaningfully facilitated exports. It does
nothing of substance to curb its
own expenditure.
It is doing nothing
to protect Zimbabwe from food shortages caused by a
destroyed agricultural
sector, thereby ensuring ongoing rising costs of
food. And it is doing
nothing meaningful to contain corruption. If the
economy is to recover,
government must implement a dynamic, innovative,
proactive economic programme
which addresses all facets of the economy,
instead of piecemeal, reactive
measures to those economic elements most
pronouncedly politically
sensitive.
Zim Independent -
Muckraker
Incident, fracas, or
misunderstanding?
The Sunday Times last
weekend carried a story which claimed there was an
incident on New Year's Eve
at the Hotel Mercure in Johannesburg when a
security guard was called to the
room of Information minister Jonathan Moyo'
s wife Betty after one of their
children reported a fight taking place.
Betty Moyo subsequently called in
the police who gave the party a warning,
according to the report. Police
quoted a receptionist as saying they should
"rush to Room 806 (one of two the
Moyos were hiring) because of the fighting
which might damage hotel
property". The Daily News reproduced the story
under the heading "Moyo beats
up wife".
Betty Moyo has described the report as "false and malicious".
She admits
there was a "misunderstanding" among some of the guests who were
partying
with them in Room 806. But it was not true that she sought police
protection
or that the "fracas" involved her husband beating her up, as
reported in the
Daily News.
"In fact, at no time was my husband in
Room 806 during the party or the
entire period of our stay at the hotel," Mrs
Moyo said.
The Sunday Times, whose reporters were booked into a room
across the
corridor, said they uncovered a trail of debris in the Moyos'
suite
including uneaten food and empty beer bottles. Two trolleys were needed
to
remove the garbage, we were told.
The Moyos meanwhile had allegedly
loaded up a Pajero, a Merc and a bakkie
with goodies to take back to
famine-plagued Zimbabwe.
What interested us in the reporting of this
episode was the way in which the
Herald spun the episode to make it look as
if the minister was the victim of
a plot. Having conceded that the Sunday
Times is owned by Cyril Ramaphosa's
Johnnic, the Herald still insisted Moyo
was a target of the "apartheid
press".
A "prominent journalist" - but
not so prominent that he could be named - was
quoted as saying the stakeout
at the Mercure would only have been warranted
if the minister was having an
affair, pushing drugs, holding clandestine
meetings or was a fugitive from
the law. Only in a subsequent report did the
Herald mention the incident in
the hotel room that alerted staff - and
thereby presumably the press - to the
presence of a controversial Zimbabwean
minister who appeared to be partying
while his country starved.
The suggestion that the Moyos were
self-catering in an unprete-ntious
hotel - part of RTG in Zimbabwe - was
interesting given the volume of the
goods reportedly shipped back home, as
was the allegation that what would be
regarded anywhere else as routine
investigative reporting was part of a
British espionage plot aimed at
embarrassing the minister.
There is another factor here. Moyo has made
disparaging remarks about South
Africa and South Africans. This is a case of
"the biter bit". His reference
to the Mandela squatter camps was tactless and
undiplomatic. He should not
be surprised when these things come back to haunt
him. As for the claim that
the Sunday Times report was "an abuse of
journalistic privilege", does Aippa
now have extra-territorial
reach?
Despite hotel-room misadventures allegedly involving their boss,
Moyo's
office, as one would expect, is replete with pretension and
self-importance.
A foreign correspondent calling on Monday asked whether the
minister would
have any comment on reports in the foreign press of an exit
plan for "Mr
Mugabe".
"It's Comrade Mugabe," he was pompously
informed.
"Okay, well could I speak to Mr Moyo about it?" he naively
enquired.
"Mr Moyo is the Minister of Labour," he was told.
"Oh
sorry, could I speak to Professor Moyo."
"No, he's on
leave."
Meanwhile, could we please have Betty Moyo's number. She claims
she was not
consulted before the hotel story was published. We would like the
number so
we can speak to her about how to obtain forex.
The Daily
Mirror, following its exposure of a rather imaginative "plot" by
the
Americans to destabilise Zimbabwe by altering its weather pattern, is
now
claiming that several MDC MPs have worked in London to earn extra
cash.
Tafadzwa Musekiwa was reportedly selling curios in the British
capital.
A number of other MPs such as Giles Mutsekwa, Fidelis Mashu and
Munyaradzi
Gwisai had worked in London last year, Musekiwa admitted when he
called the
Mirror from outside the country. He declined to say where he was,
but Job
Sikhala said the Zengeza MP was in Malaysia, not London. The Mirror
carried
a Sunday Mail-type cartoon of Musekiwa selling curios on the streets
of
London.
The revelation that the MPs had "at one time done some work
in London" came
as the Zimbabwe Independent disclosed that President Mugabe
had spent two
weeks on holiday in Thailand. He was said to be promoting
Zimbabwean trade
and tourism. A retinue of hangers-on accompanied him on his
Far Eastern
tour.
This raises a useful point. Why is it okay for
Mugabe to sell curios in
Thailand and not for MDC MPs to do the same in
London? The difference is of
course that MDC MPs had to find the funds for
their trips abroad while the
country paid for Mugabe's and his parasitic
party. And are MDC MPs the only
ones to visit the UK? Do Zanu PF MPs not go
there? Don't we recall Kumbirai
Kangai and Olivia Muchena popping over for a
visit before restrictions
became a little tighter?
Despite ranting and
raving against Tony Blair's government by Zanu PF,
Britain remains the
destination of choice for many of its MPs not
blacklisted. A cursory check by
the Mirror would have soon established that
fact.
Members of the
public have called Muckraker to confirm our report last week
of poor service
at garages belonging to lobbyists claiming that the oil
distribution sector
needs to be transformed - meaning into their hands. A
lady lining up at FSI
Highlands said there was a procession of vehicles in a
parallel lane being
given privileged treatment at the pumps. When she
complained to management
she was told to be careful. They were connected to
"people in high places",
they boasted.
Another motorist called to say this was the pattern across
the city at
certain petrol stations linked to the "crisis committee" set up
by Saviour
Kasukuwere to direct business his way!
The Herald carried a
report last Saturday saying "Tanzanian citizens" had
sent Christmas and New
Year's greetings to Zimbabweans wishing them success
in the land reform
programme. They commended President Mugabe for the "just
economic war he is
leading and for being an illuminating son of our Mother
Africa".
The
illuminating son was at the time lying on a beach under the illuminating
sun
of Thailand when the message was received 11 days late. The Herald didn'
t
say why the Zimbabwe High Commissioner in Dar-es-Salaam, Chipo Zindoga,
who
embarrassed speakers at a World Bank meeting in the Tanzanian capital
last
year with her excitable and silly interventions, should wait all this
time
before sending on the best wishes of Tanzanian citizens. Nor were
we told
which Tanzanian citizens sent the message. Was it the whole country
or just a
group of them? Or was it just two or three as we suspect?
They referred
to "Africans taking charge of the commanding heights of their
economies in
order to raise the standards of living of all the indigenous
people".
Evidently they had never been to Zimbabwe. The last time Tanzanians
sent us
something, it proved inedible!
This story reminds us of the aborigines in
Australia who expressed their
unwavering support for President Mugabe ahead
of the Commonwealth summit in
Coolum last year. They were never identified
and we never heard from them
again!
Columnist Chinondidyachii Mararike
appears to have forgotten something. In
his latest diatribe he asks the
following questions: "What do you call
leaders who take their country to war
without the approval of parliament?
What do you call leaders who act on their
own dictates rather than the
express will of the electorate? What do you call
governments that send their
troops to far-flung locations for the sake of
their leaders' kudos?"
He supplies the answer to his rhetorical question:
"Dictators."
Exactly Chino. The Congo, August 1998.
We were
interested to learn that the individual who police have apprehended
in
connection with the murder of an Australian tourist was not in any way
linked
to politics, according to police commissioner Augustine Chihuri.
This
contradicts reports appearing in the state media, invariably eager to
expose
a plot against the government, suggesting the killing could have been
the
work of people keen to tarnish Zimbabwe's image ahead of the World
Cup
Cricket matches. Minister of Home Affairs Kembo Mohadi even referred
to
these reports on ZTV although he was careful not to subscribe to
them.
Would the government media not be better advised to hold their
over-active
tongues when there is next a murder inquiry? At least they
wouldn't look
quite so stupid as they do now!
Jonathan Moyo said last
Sunday that "some liberals" were trying to "fool us
again claiming that sport
and politics do not mix as if there is anyone who
still does not know that
sport is politics".
There is one person apparently. Speaking in Zambia on
Tuesday President
Mugabe said there should be no such mixing. "They should
not mix sport and
politics," he said.
"For sport, people come from
different backgrounds and so you can't bring in
politics."
Different
hymn sheets?
Finally we will be bringing you a series of movie posters
with a difference.
The one below this week has a topical feel. But which
one's the Dummy - or
is it Mummy?
Zim Independent
Sandawana Column -
In search of fuel
Sandawana
AFTER much battling in Harare's queues to
obtain the increasingly scarce
fuel, Sandawana has decided he might just
leave the capital and settle in
one of the country's border towns. He could
live with shortages of upfu,
chingwa, etc but fuel? Mmm. The point to
consider is whether to move north,
east, west or south. Needless to say,
exploratory missions have been held in
all directions.
We
start with the most unlikely, south. Apart from Sandawana's natural
dislike
for the Seth Efricans, the Beitbridge heat is a big
disincentive.
While petrol is not badly priced in comparison with
other destinations (R4,
or about 600 Zimkwacha a litre), the hassles one
receives from the Seth
Efricans and Gershom's boys (more about this later)
makes it even more of an
unlikely choice.
To the west is the more
lacklustre town of Plumtree. Sandawana did not go
that far but established
from his Bulawayo friends, who regularly go to
Francistown for fuel when the
situation gets more desperate, that petrol
there is about P2 (about 400 or so
Zimkwacha).
Proceeding clockwise, the next option is north and this
offers three
possible stations, Victoria Falls, Kariba and Chirundu. Eeni
mini money
more, literally - Zambian petrol costs the equivalent of 1 000
Zimkwacha.
Sandawana forgets how much it costs in the original kwacha but
at that
price, one may as well stay in Harare and source it at the same price
from
the zvigubhu boys.
Sandawana's exploratory missions lastly
took him east to Mutare. This is
where the fuel arrives in Zimbabwe and
surely there should be plenty of it?
Wrong. Apparently the big fish of Mutare
make regular trips to Chimoio just
across the Mozambican border to import
fuel.
Petrol there costs 11 500 meticais or 11,5 mille, what should
be about 600
Zimkwacha. But because the Mozambicans have wised up to this,
when you do
finally change your Zimkwacha to meticais, the price can be
anything up to 1
200 Zimkwacha per litre.
So whit whither wilt?
Sandawana invites some advice. But didn't all these
neighbours once upon a
time strive to obtain their fuel from Zimbabwe?
They did and that's
because fuel was heavily subsidised and still remains
so, if you can get it.
Some corridors that Sandawana has walked in are abuzz
with word that
government might have finally seen the light and will
accordingly adjust
prices in line with reality. What's holding them back of
course is the
reality that this will send inflation ablaze.
Pasi
naPasi
Hats off to Gershom Pasi for extricating himself from one of
those two
gormless buildings along Fourth Street. Sandawana forgets whether
he was in
Kaguvi or Mukwati but it doesn't matter because both are so dull
and
uninspiring. Perhaps it explains why most of our ministries' policies
are
similarly unimaginative.
Unfortunately it seems Pasi was just
desperate to get himself and some of
the big tax chefs out of the two columns
and into the more exciting CBD. For
the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority is no
different from the old Department of
Customs and Excise, if the Beitbridge
border post is anything to go by. It
seems this was just one of those regular
name and uniform changing exercises
that we have become accustomed
to.
It took Sandawana seven hours to be cleared through the
Beitbridge post
recently. The Department of Immigration was much more
efficient than Zimra,
and they have not publicly claimed to be a newly
re-organised,
ultra-efficient entity.
As a fairly literate being,
Sandawana proceeded to where returning residents
where supposed to go. A
security guard tells you to go and join the queue
outside. An hour later,
Sandawana finally reached a Zimra officer who looked
at his declaration forms
and told him to go to the same desk from where he
had been turned away.
Apparently, this was a queue to tell you which queue
you should stand in.
That's the new Zimra efficiency for you.
Another three hours passed
and upon finally getting to an officer, a sigh of
relief. After fiddling
around with the computer and looking confused, the
officer hands over a
printout stating how much duty is to be paid. But
before he can pay a cent,
Sandawana is told that the officer only assesses
declared goods for duty
purposes and that is all. Payment is to be done at a
different counter.
Another queue of course.
You would think there would be more zeal in
receiving the payment, which all
has to be in cash by the way. But no,
another two hours. Then you've got to
go back to your car or bus, which you
have also left in a queue, to wait for
your goods to be inspected. Another
hour.
At last the inspector arrives and doesn't even check your
goods! Only asks
if you will not leave him money for a drink. So much for
Zimra. Pasi naPasi.
Zim Independent
Editor's
Memo
Officials duck and dive
Iden
Wetherell
LAST Friday the Zimbabwe Independent carried as
its lead story news that
President Mugabe was holidaying in Thailand while
Zimbabwe was going through
its worst economic crisis ever.
There are
shortages of basic foodstuffs, some withdrawn from shop shelves
because
producers can't afford to go on selling at a loss under the
government's
damaging price-controls regime, others because commercial farms
are no longer
able to supply the cities.
Then there are shortages of imported items
such as fuel. Even emergency food
aid in rural areas is well below what is
needed to prevent widespread
starvation this year.
Generally, the
country is experiencing an economic meltdown as the
government's foolish
experiments with Kampuchean socialism take their toll
on all sectors of the
economy. Over 300 000 jobs in the formal sector could
go this year with a
similar number of farm workers finding themselves on the
redundant
list.
As Mugabe concluded his tropical retreat, Information minister
Jonathan Moyo
penned a piece for the Sunday Mail reflecting what
psychologists would
describe as symptomatic of a bad case of
denial.
"What country is without an economic crisis today?" Moyo
asked. The fuel
queues, company closures, shortages of basic goods, growing
unemployment and
skyrocketing prices "are facts which, taken on their own, do
not at all
constitute the worst economic crisis ever faced by our country and
they are
not symptoms we are experiencing for the first time since
Independence", he
wrote.
Moyo attributed the shortages of maize
meal to the 2002 drought. The reasons
for this were known "only to God", he
disingenuously suggested. Nobody
blamed Tony Blair for mad cow disease or
floods in the UK, he claimed.
In fact the British government was
widely blamed for not reacting
sufficiently swiftly to the mad cow crisis.
But the difference is of course
that Britain's healthy and well-managed
economy was able to take the strain
of tourism cancellations and flood
damage. Zimbabwe's economy, battered and
bruised by the depredations of the
political elite Moyo represents, was
unable to withstand the 2002 drought and
is wholly unprepared for its likely
successor this year.
Zimbabwe
withstood the 1992/3 drought reasonably well. While there were food
imports,
there were also sufficient reserves and continuity of production to
carry the
country through. The national transportation infrastructure was
also in
better shape.
As we contemplate the 2003 drought, agricultural
production is down 50%
and - unlike 1992 - the country is not earning the
forex needed to import
food and fuel. The situation in fact couldn't be more
different.
In revealing remarks, Moyo referred to "the emergence of a
cadre across the
professions and in politics which seems to believe in the
foolishness that
it's okay to destroy one's country in order to save it". He
also referred to
civil servants who are in a position to act by using their
know-how but "are
folding their arms and watching, if not benefiting from it
all. A weak state
is a breeding ground for inefficiency and corruption," he
pointed out.
This all looks suspiciously like an admission that
things are not going as
swimmingly well as we have been led to believe.
Indeed, Moyo's call for
"sacrifice" and his warning that "we must be prepared
to experience some
hardships and to even suffer some serious setbacks" is not
indicative of a
government confident of its prospects.
As we
prepared our report on Mugabe's holiday last week we sought the
comment of
the Office of the President. The president's movements, even when
he is on
holiday, are a matter of legitimate public interest. After all, he
doesn't
stop spending taxpayers' money just because he's on leave.
Moyo had a
lot to say last month when the Daily News carried a report
suggesting Mugabe
had arrived in Stellenbosch for the ANC's conference. The
newspaper was
accused of not verifying its information. But we found last
Thursday that
officials in the President's Office were not only unwilling to
cooperate in
confirming the information we had - most of it accurate as it
turned out -
they were also unwilling to be professional. No sooner had they
got wind of
our story than they rushed to plant a statement in the
government press in
order to anticipate ours.
This is not the first time an enquiry from
this paper, fulfilling a
professional obligation to seek comment from the
officials responsible, has
sent alarm bells ringing in Munhumutapa Building
as staff scramble to plant
a suitably-spun message in the
Herald!
These officials, let us remind ourselves, are paid from
public funds to be
professional and helpful in keeping the public informed.
That is a duty they
manifestly fail to fulfil while not hesitating to lecture
the press on
ethics and obligations. Let's remember that next time one of
them opens his
mouth.
Which reminds me, George Charamba claimed in a
statement last Friday that
the president, "in view of the costs of travel"
(since when has that ever
been a concern?), had decided while on holiday to
pursue "the useful
contacts" he made on his last visit to Bangkok. He was
expected to "pass
through Singapore and Malaysia" on his way home, also
following up on
business contacts, we were told.
Why have the
results of those meetings not been made known if they were of
national - as
distinct from private - significance? And what happened to the
stop-offs in
Singapore and Malaysia? Did they take place and what were
the
results?
Charamba doesn't seem as anxious to tell us the
outcome of these talks as he
was to occupy space in the Herald last Friday to
assure us that the
president was aware of the costs of
travel!