International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished:
January 28, 2008
HARARE, Zimbabwe: British property tycoon
Nicholas van Hoogstraten on Monday
denied currency and pornography charges
leveled by Zimbabwean authorities,
and said he was the victim of a
trap.
"The charges are a deliberate and malicious entrapment scheme. I
deny all of
them," he said in a statement issued by his Zimbabwean
lawyer.
He did not specify who he thought was behind the entrapment, but
said the
charges would not affect his close ties with President Robert
Mugabe's
ruling party.
"The misconception which might arise in the
press and elsewhere that I have
fallen out with the Zimbabwe authorities is
utterly false," his statement
said.
Police raided his home in
northern Harare on Thursday, saying they were
acting on a tip that the
Briton was receiving rental payments for houses,
apartments and shops he
owns in Zimbabwe in hard currency, in breach of
currency laws.
During
the raid, police said they found pornographic material featuring Van
Hoogstraten, 64, and a 22-year-old Zimbabwean woman, along with about
US$35,000 (€23,800), small amounts of other hard currencies, and 20 billion
Zimbabwe dollars in cash (about US$5,000; €3,400 at the dominant illegal
black market exchange rate).
The offenses carry the penalty of a fine and
forfeiture of money held in
violation of the nation's currency
laws.
Van Hoogstraten has been in police custody since his arrest. His
Zimbabwean
attorney, George Chikumbirike, said Van Hoogstraten was taken by
police to
the Justice Ministry earlier Monday before his scheduled
appearance in the
Harare magistrate's court. But the courthouse closed for
the day without him
being brought there.
"They appear in no hurry to
bring him to court," Chikumbirike told
reporters.
He said attorneys
were seeking a High Court order for his release, but the
tycoon was likely
to spend a fifth night in Zimbabwe's notoriously cramped
and filthy police
cells.
Arrested suspects should be brought to court within 48 hours of
arrest,
excluding weekends when courts are closed.
Police on Saturday
said Van Hoogstraten owned more than 200 properties in
Harare and the second
city of Bulawayo, and that informants had reported the
Briton demanded
rentals in hard currency including six-month payments in
advance.
Van
Hoogstraten allegedly asked one police informant for US$8,000 (€5,440)
in
advance on a property rental deal. An acute housing shortage in Zimbabwe,
facing the world's highest inflation, has led to sharp increases in property
rentals in recent months.
Witnesses in Harare say the country's
economic meltdown left some of Van
Hoogstraten's tenants in arrears on rents
that led to threats of evictions
and the seizure of furniture and other
goods by his employees in violation
of rental regulations. Complainants
included evicted tenants.
Since independence, Van Hoogstraten has
invested in property, mining,
farming and banking concerns in Zimbabwe and
has spoken openly of his
support and financial dealings with Mugabe's ruling
ZANU PF party, which has
favored him in more than two decades of investment
in the southern African
nation.
Van Hoogstraten's businesses in
Britain have stirred controversy, and he was
cleared there on a murder
conspiracy charge in the death of business rival.
By Lance Guma
28 January
2008
Officials from both factions of the MDC spent the weekend locked in
intense
discussions trying to unite the party ahead of the March 29
elections. Under
the deal Morgan Tsvangirai will lead the party, with Arthur
Mutambara being
given one of the senior positions. Although party officials
remain
tight-lipped on the arrangement, sources say an announcement will be
made
within the week. The process will however have to overcome strong
resistance
from the Tsvangirai MDC structures, particularly in Bulawayo
where key
figures feel betrayed. Senior officials who backed Tsvangirai
during the
October 2005 split say they doubt the sincerity of the other side
in any
unity deal.
MDC Shadow Home Affairs Secretary Sam Sipepa Nkomo
told Newsreel that
because of the time frame for elections they had to move
fast in tying up a
deal and this had not given their members enough time to
adjust and accept
the implications of a deal. He said this is why there are
many members who
are against uniting the party. Asked to respond to cynics
who say the
Mutambara faction will join Tsvangirai for the election and then
dump him
later after having won parliamentary seats, Nkomo admitted everyone
shared
those fears and it was, ‘the talk of the town right now.’ He however
said
the party had to take risks for the good of the country.
It
remains to be seen how the two factions resolve conflicting positions on
the
elections. Mutambara MDC spokesman Gabriel Chaibva told Newsreel last
week
that they will participate in the poll given that Mugabe’s regime had
met
all the legal requirements. This contrasted sharply with the statement
by
Tsvangirai MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa who called Mugabe’s announcement
‘an
act of madness which had put the final nail into the coffin of the
dialogue.’
A few days later Mutambara MDC Secretary General Welshman
Ncube contradicted
Chaibva by telling the weekly Zimbabwe Standard newspaper
that their
National Council is still to make a decision on participation.
The same
dilemma seems to confront the Tsvangirai MDC as their National
Council will
meet this week to decide.
Analysts say a unity deal will
make it unlikely Tsvangirai will call for a
boycott of the poll. ‘There is
now strong pressure to participate given that
the smaller faction of the
party is determined to take part and has made it
clear from the start that
they do not believe in boycotts,’ one political
commentator said. Tsvangirai
might find himself in a similar situation to
the October 2005 split where
some of his officials in the then united MDC
wanted to take part in senate
elections while he dismissed the elections as
a waste of resources. Should
the party reunite, a key decision on election
participation has to be made
and the lingering consequences of another split
will be familiar territory
for Tsvangirai.
Meanwhile Newsreel has been told off the record that the
MDC united or split
will be taking part in the elections. A senior official
who opposes
participation said the problem lay with party supporters who are
confident
Mugabe can be beaten even under the current harsh political
climate.
Opposition legislators are also said to be eager to maintain their
seats in
parliament and very reluctant to support a boycott. It’s a case of
‘damned
if you, damned if you don’t’ another commentator
said.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
Tichaona
Sibanda
28 January 2008
The MDC Vice-President Thokozani Khupe on
Monday said that SADC should now
intervene in the crisis talks on Zimbabwe
because both parties in the
negotiations have reported a deadlock to the
appointed mediator Thabo Mbeki.
‘What we are waiting for now is for
President Mbeki to report back to SADC
because they mandated him to
facilitate the talks between the MDC and
Zanu-PF,’ Khupe
said.
Speaking to Newsreel from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, Khupe
said the
crisis in the country remains a political one which Africa and its
political
institutions are capable of resolving.
‘SADC has a position
on Zimbabwe, like any other country in the grouping,
that conditions for
free and fair elections have to be set before going to
the polls. Sadly
Mugabe and Zanu-PF have reneged on the very principles set
out by SADC and
Mbeki during the last 10 months,’ said the MDC
vice-president.
Khupe is
leading a MDC delegation to the African Union summit that begins in
the
Ethiopian capital this week. With her in the delegation is Professor
Elphas
Mukonoweshuro, the MDC secretary for International Affairs, and
Nqobizitha
Mlilo the party’s political liaison officer.
The team has been lobbying
African diplomats to put pressure on Mugabe to
bring a speedy resolution to
the crisis in the country. Khupe has been
reminding diplomats of events in
Kenya, which she said were a direct product
of an election held under
disputed conditions. This, she said, led
inevitably to the dispute of the
election results.
She pointed out that this situation must be avoided in
Zimbabwe. She added
that ‘Indeed, President Mbeki has correctly highlighted
that the elections
in Zimbabwe must be held in conditions in which the
election results will
not be disputed.’ Khupe stated that the MDC is ready
at anytime for a free
and fair election, but Mugabe and Zanu-PF must
implement positions agreed at
the SADC brokered talks and introduce a new
constitution before the
elections.
SW Radio
Africa Zimbabwe news
Mail and Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
28 January 2008
12:21
The Zimbabwe government on Monday slapped down
opposition
demands for a new constitution to be adopted before a March
general
election, saying it would only be put to a referendum after the
polls.
In an article headlined "Polls first, constitution
later",
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the state-run Herald
newspaper that
"the state was not in a hurry to craft a new constitution ...
in order to
please one political grouping".
"A
constitution is a serious document that needs the
participation of all and
sundry and should, therefore, not be hurried
because someone is demanding it
as a prerequisite for national elections,"
Chinamasa was quoted as
saying.
Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC)
reacted furiously to Friday's announcement that joint
parliamentary and
presidential elections are to be staged on March
29.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has been mediating
between
the MDC and veteran Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF
party to
agree a framework for the elections after allegations that the last
polls in
2002 were rigged.
The MDC had been pushing Mbeki
to persuade his Zimbabwean
counterpart to postpone an election until after a
new constitution was put
in place -- an idea for which Mugabe has shown
little enthusiasm.
But despite its anger at Mugabe for his
pre-emptive setting of
an election date, the opposition has so far held back
from announcing a
boycott.
Once a formidable force posing
the stiffest challenge to Mugabe,
the MDC was rocked by factionalism with
the main splinter led by former
trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai following a
row over whether to contest
senate polls in 2006.
The MDC
described the decision on Friday by Mugabe to call
general elections for
March 29 an "act of madness", but stopped short of
calling for a
boycott.
"It's an act of madness and arrogance," MDC
spokesperson Nelson
Chamisa said.
Chamisa said the
announcement was a slap in the face to regional
efforts, led by Mbeki, to
mediate between the MDC and Zanu-PF party on the
framework for the joint
parliamentary and presidential polls.
"Mugabe has slapped
SADC's [Southern African Development
Community] commitment and President
Thabo Mbeki's efforts to try and
amicably solve the crisis," said
Chamisa.
"Mugabe has jumped the gun. As for the MDC, I cannot
pre-empt
our position whether we will participate or not as the national
executive
meets within a week or so to make a decision."
Mugabe announced on Friday that the troubled Southern African
country will
stage a general election on March 29 when he will seek a sixth
term in
office. -- AFP
Zim Online
by Sebastian Nyamhangambiri Tuesday 29 January
2008
HARARE – Zimbabwe on Monday began an inquiry into the
conduct of the country’s
Attorney General (AG) Sobuza Gula-Ndebele suspended
by President Robert
Mugabe last November for allegedly abusing his
office.
Harare advocate Happias Zhou, representing the AG, told ZimOnline
the
hearing that is being heard in camera at Mugabe’s instruction was
postponed
to February 11 when state witnesses will testify against
Gula-Ndebele, who
as AG is the government’s chief legal adviser and an
ex-officio member of
Cabinet.
"The case will resume on 11 February,
and I am not sure when the matter will
come to a close since we are not yet
aware of the list of the witnesses that
the state would want to bring," said
Zhou, who refused to disclose further
details on the matter.
The
three-man tribunal inquiring into the conduct of Gula-Ndebele will
advise
whether he should be removed from office.
High Court Judge Chinembiri
Bhunu is chairing the tribunal. Justice Samuel
Kudya and Harare lawyer Lloyd
Mhishi are the other members of the committee.
Gula-Ndebele was last
October briefly detained by the police and charged for
conduct inconsistent
with the duties of a public officer after he allegedly
met a fugitive former
bank executive, James Mushore.
Mushore, a former deputy managing director
at National Merchant Bank (NMB),
fled to Britain in 2004 at the height of a
Zimbabwean banking crisis that
saw several finance houses shut down by the
country's central bank. He was
arrested in October upon his return to
Zimbabwe.
Police, who are separately investigating Gula-Ndebele, say he
promised
Mushore he would not be arrested if he returned to Zimbabwe. The
Attorney
General denies the charge.
Speculation is widespread in
Harare that Gula-Ndebele, considered among the
more liberal minds in the
government, is being punished for aligning himself
with a faction of the
ruling ZANU PF party led by retired army general
Solomon Mujuru that
unsuccessfully tried to stop Mugabe standing for
re-election in elections in
March.
It has also been suggested that Gula-Ndebele, a brave former army
officer,
did not help himself when he constantly clashed with Justice
Minister
Patrick Chinamasa in a tussle over control of the AG’s department.
–
ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Nokhutula Sibanda Tuesday 29 January
2008
HARARE – British property tycoon Nicholas Van
Hoogstraten, who had been due
to appear in court on Monday, had not done so
by close of business and his
lawyers said they were trying to lodge an
urgent application at the High
Court to have him brought to
court.
“They don't appear eager to bring him to court, so we'll be making
an
application to the High Court shortly to have him brought here," said
George
Chikumbirike, who is leading Van Hoogstraten's defence
team.
The controversial businessman, who is believed to have close ties
with
Mugabe’s government, earlier in the day denied falling out with
Zimbabwean
authorities and said charges against him of flouting the
country’s tough
exchange regulations were false and malicious.
Van
Hoogstraten was arrested last week for allegedly charging rent for his
properties in Zimbabwe in foreign currency, an offence under the country’s
foreign exchange regulations.
He is also facing charges of possessing
pornographic material in violation
of Zimbabwe’s censorship
laws.
“The charges are a deliberate and malicious entrapment scheme. I
deny all of
them,” said the businessman in a statement.
He did not
say who was out to trap him or for what reasons but emphasized
there was
nothing political in the matter.
“I would like to emphasise that the
misconception that might arise in the
press or elsewhere that I have fallen
out with the Zimbabwe authorities is
utterly false,” Van
Hoogstraten.
Describing charges against him as a “minor irritation”, Van
Hoogstraten said
he was confident the courts would clear him.
The
British property tycoon, who was being held in police custody over the
weekend, is said to own over 200 residential and business properties and an
estimated 600 000 hectares of land in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwean police say
Van Hoogstraten was caught in possession of 37 586
United States dollars, 92
880 South African rands, 190 British pounds as
well as 20 billion Zimbabwean
dollars. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Thenjiwe Mabhena Tuesday 29 January
2008
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s government on Monday appointed a new
board to
resuscitate a state company that it has said will be used to seize
control
of private businesses engaging in “economic sabotage” in a bid to
topple
President Robert Mugabe.
Industry Minister Obert Mpofu, who
announced the new board of the Zimbabwe
Development Company (ZDC),
immediately tasked the board to select “a few
entities, which will need to
be (taken over and) resuscitated on a
sustainable basis.”
Mugabe’s
government accuses private firms of hiking prices, cutting output
or closing
down factories altogether as part of a Western-backed campaign of
“dirty
tricks’ meant to worsen economic hardships in Zimbabwe and cause the
Harare
administration to fall.
Business leaders deny the charges arguing that
any slow down in production
or company closure is because of the myriad
problems facing industry among
them shortage of foreign currency to import
raw materials and machine parts,
the power and fuel crises and government
price controls.
Mpofu also urged the ZDC board to pursue joint ventures
with local or
foreign private investors as it looks for ways to help turn
around Zimbabwe’s
economy.
“The economy is facing many problems . . .
it is my belief that you will go
a long way in trying to address the
challenges haunting our economy as you
discharge your duties,” Mpofu
said.
Businessman and ruling ZANU PF party loyalist, Jonathan Kadzura,
heads the
new ZDC board. Chief executive officer of the National Oil Company
of
Zimbabwe, Zvinechimwe Churu and Zimbabwe Steel Company spokesperson
Augustine Timbe are also part of the six-member board.
The ZDC was
established by an Act of Parliament in 1988 to identify business
opportunities and spearhead government investments in the economy with a
view to foster a balanced growth of the economy.
The government last
year said the ZDC would be used together with the
Zimbabwe State Trading
Corporation (ZSTC) as vehicles for acquiring
companies that the government
might want to take over for engaging in
“economic sabotage.”
This was
at the height of a government crackdown against businesses defying
orders to
reduce prices by 50 percent, in a controversial attempt by the
Harare
authorities to clamp down on galloping inflation.
The experiment ended
disastrously as shops ran out of nearly every commodity
partly because
consumers took advantage of lower prices to snatch everything
off shop
shelves with manufacturers also refusing to produce goods at a
loss.
Zimbabwe is in the grip of a severe economic recession – blamed
on
repression and wrong policies by Mugabe – and seen in hyperinflation, a
rapidly contracting GDP, the fastest for a country not at war according to
the World Bank and shortages of every essential commodity.
Mugabe, in
power since 1980 and standing for another five-year term in
March, denies
ruining Zimbabwe’s economy and instead blames the country’s
troubles on
sabotage by his Western enemies. – ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Cuthbert Nzou Tuesday 29 January
2008
HARARE – A controversial Zimbabwean church leader,
Obadiah Msindo, is set to
allocate over 100 000 housing stands around the
country in what sources say
is an ambitious drive to garner votes for
President Robert Mugabe's ruling
ZANU PF party.
Msindo, who has
openly expressed support for Mugabe, confirmed to ZimOnline
yesterday that
he was working with the government in the allocation of the
stands but
refused to disclose the source of the funds.
“It is known that I support
President Mugabe and his government. Why should
I disclose who is funding
us? I work in partnership with the government,”
said Msindo, who heads the
Destiny for Africa Network.
ZANU PF has since 2005 been parceling out
housing stands to its supporters
under the banner of housing co-operatives
at various urban farms around the
country. Most of the stands have however
remained unoccupied because they
have not been serviced.
Zimbabwe’s
main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party says
the
allocation of the stands, which is said to be rampant, was meant to
dilute
its urban support base where it enjoys massive backing.
Sources close to
the matter said Msindo was working closely with Zimbabwe’s
feared state
security Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) in the
allocation of the
stands.
The sources said beneficiaries of the stands should be registered
voters and
should be holders of ZANU PF membership cards.
“Allocation
of the stands is expected as from next week,” said the source.
The
sources said apart from the housing project, Msindo had also been asked
by
state security agents to penetrate several Pentecostal churches to
convince
their pastors to support ZANU PF.
State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa,
who is in charge of the CIO, refused
to comment on the
matter.
Analysts say Mugabe is desperate to placate a restless population
that is
battling unprecedented economic hardships, massive unemployment and
shortages of almost all essential commodities ahead of the March 29 election
date.
Msindo is currently facing allegations of rape in Zimbabwean
courts. The
controversial churchman is accused of raping his maid five times
sometime in
2004. He is denying the charge. - ZimOnline
VOA
By Blessing Zulu
Washington
28 January
2008
Zimbabwean Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa has
declared that the
government will turn its attention to a new constitution
only after
elections in March - a statement that opposition and civic
leaders have
taken as a repudiation of political
dialogue.
Chinimasa’s statement came on the heels of an announcement by
President
Robert Mugabe last week that presidential, general and local
elections will
be held March 29, rebuffing opposition demands that the
ballots be postponed
until negotiations for a political accord resolving the
country's
longstanding crisis could be completed.
Sources in the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change said the party has
been caught off
guard by unilateral decisions by Mr. Mugabe and his ruling
ZANU-PF party
following 10 months of discussions in the South
African-mediated
negotiations.
Chinamasa, chief ruling party negotiator in the talks, said
that although
ZANU_PF has rejected the opposition demand that a new
constitution be
adopted before elections are held, he considers the talks
with the
opposition to remain on course.
“As far as we are concerned
the dialogue that is being facilitated by South
Africa is still ongoing,"
Chinimasa said, maintaining that ZANU-PF is
"committed to an irreversible
process that will result in the presentation
of a draft constitution for
national consultation."
But Secretary General Welshman Ncube of the
Movement for Democratic Change
formation led by Arthur Mutambara and
Secretary General Tendai Biti of the
MDC grouping headed by Morgan
Tsvangirai said ZANU-PF is dealing in bad
faith.
Biti told reporter
Blessing Zulu of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that
Chinamasa’s pronouncement
on the constitution violated the rules of
engagement for the negotiations.
Ncube said the talks are “dead and waiting
for burial.”
Meanwhile,
National Constitutional Assembly Chairman Lovemore Madhuku urged
the two MDC
formations to declare an end to the talks and boycott the
elections.
Madhuku said ZANU-PF is insincere in saying it will pursue
the adoption of a
new constitution following the elections.
International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: January 28,
2008
HARARE, Zimbabwe: Four firefighters returning from
rescuing villagers
marooned by a flooded river drowned when their truck
slipped off a bridge
into the torrent, Zimbabwe's official media reported
Monday.
The accident happened near the town of Ruwa about 25 kilometers
(15 miles)
east of Harare late Friday, the Herald newspaper reported. Two
bodies were
recovered from the swollen Ruwa river on Sunday.
The
deaths brought to at least 31 the number of drownings countrywide in the
heaviest seasonal rains since record keeping began a century ago. Most of
the victims were swept away trying to cross raging rivers.
Police
spokesman Andrew Phiri said the driver attempted to cross a flooded
bridge
and it was believed a front wheel slipped over the edge, overturning
the
vehicle into the river. The driver survived, but his four colleagues
were
killed.
The men were returning from rescuing a group of villagers
stranded in the
upper reaches of the river nearby.
In
northeastern Zimbabwe, at least 600 villagers have been left homeless by
record the record rains that also swept away crops and
livestock.
Zimbabwe's neighbors also have been hit by floods.
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
28 January, 2008
After embarking on a “go-slow” action
since rejecting the offer of a 1,000%
pay increase by government, teachers
in Zimbabwe have finally decided to
conduct a full-on strike. The
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ)
said its members will not be
reporting for work until their demands are met.
PTUZ president, Raymond
Majongwe, blasted government officials for spending
a fortune on all the
wrong issues while the teachers simply want to be able
to report to work and
live a decent life.
Majongwe said they are demanding a minimum salary of
Z$1.7 billion per
month. This includes a monthly transport allowance of
Z$352 million and a
housing allowance of Z$240 million per month. They are
also demanding
regular salary reviews in order to keep up with inflation,
which is
unofficially estimated to be 150,000%.
Majongwe criticised
government and ruling party officials for spending
billions on less
important agendas. He pointed to a report on the state
television ZTV this
weekend that showed ZANU-PF officials in Matabeleland
South, ululating as
they unveiled 18 brand new 4x4 vehicles to be used in
the party’s election
campaign. “There is corruption in the corridors of
power,” said the
outspoken activist. He added: “Their children have the
luxury of going to
schools outside the country.”
And salaries are not the only issue. We
spoke to a teacher who described the
dire conditions under which the schools
are operating. Charles Mabwadarika,
a Harare based teacher, said there are
no books for the students to read or
to write in. The furniture in the
classrooms is old and in a state of
disrepair. Students are being crammed
into small spaces where they learn
standing up or sitting on the floor.
There is also not enough chalk for
teachers to use.
Union officials
say teachers cannot live on their current salary. Government
is not
communicating with the teachers, so it appears students at state run
schools
will not be learning for some time to come.
Meanwhile, workers at the
National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) are reported
to have been on a go-slow
for the past fortnight. Their dispute with
government is also over
salaries.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
Zimbabwe Standard
(Harare)
27 January 2008
Posted to the web 28 January
2008
Bertha Shoko
HARARE Central hospital's neonatal unit is a
death bed. Many mothers walk in
there with their children alive but leave
with corpses," a senior doctor at
the hospital said last week.
"I
tell you those who come out alive only do so by the grace of God --
nothing
to thank the specialist or nurse for."
This is how the doctor summed
up the state of affairs at the huge referral
hospital's neonatal unit, which
caters for seriously ill babies or those
with varying complications,
particularly premature and underweight babies.
Doctors say it is in this
unit that sick babies are supposed to receive
specialist care to restore
their health.
But this isn't the case anymore at Harare Central, The
Standard was told.
"My experience here in this neonatal unit has been
full of pain, anguish and
despair," said a doctor. "It has become routine to
hear the shrieks in our
corridors as mothers learn of the death of their
children.
"This is how serious it has become. I am not surprised anymore
to find at
least 10 dead children in the tray every day, at the beginning of
my shift,
because the neonatal unit at this hospital is essentially dead and
nobody
wants to do anything about fixing things in this country."
The
Standard spoke to the senior doctor while following up a report that ten
babies in incubators had died after the nationwide power cuts on Saturday a
week ago.
Upon digesting that information, doctor laughed,
startled.
After gaining his composure, he said Harare hospital had more
than 50
incubators. Only three worked - on and off. There was no way ten
babies
could have been packed into three incubators. An incubator has room
for only
one baby.
He challenged the newspaper to investigate the
story further. A can of worms
opened up. Harare Central hospital's neonatal
has a serious shortage of
essential but basic medicines. Life-saving
machines and equipment have not
been working for months, and in some cases
for years.
The neonatal unit is reportedly seriously understaffed, with
experienced
nurses and doctors quitting for greener pastures, to be replaced
by
greenhorns.
The hospital has been operating without a
neonatalogist, a specialist in
illnesses affecting new-born babies, since
2003.
"In the absence of this specialist, you have a critically ill child
and an
inexperienced nurse or doctor with absolutely no idea what is going
on and
how to save the child. This is why children are dying like flies here
at
this hospital," said a source.
It's been reported there is only
one radiologist for Harare and Parirenyatwa
hospitals and the
army.
"What it simply means is that if a child needs an urgent X-ray,
they can't
get it," one source said. "While they pick up the phone to call
the
radiologist the child will be dying slowly."
The three incubators
have reportedly outlived their life span, although they
are functional. So,
if there are ten seriously ill premature babies, seven
will die.
But
the unit has no fully functional monitoring equipment either, such as a
pulse oxy-meter (oxygen check) and Electronic Cardiograph (ECG), which helps
monitor how well the heart is functioning.
"A pulse oxy-meter helps
to determine how much oxygen is in a ill child. If
there is not enough, it's
a sign the child may not be breathing properly and
needs help," he said,
adding "Children are dying because of all these
anomalies."
Then
there are shortages of antibiotics.
"I tell you this unit as good as
dead. They must just close it because it's
a serious cost to the nation. We
tried our best to engage the health
minister (David Parirenyatwa) and he has
done nothing. He is not willing to
trade in his Mercedes Benz for three
incubators that could save hundreds of
lives."
Parirenyatwa said
yesterday: "What I will tell you officially is that Harare
Hospital's
neonatal unit is continually being looked at for upgrading. I
think the
staff there are doing the best they can."
Sokwanele
Zimbabwe has long been
touted as Africa’s paradise and at first glance it
is. Local business
executives like to say “third world does not mean third
rate in the various
conferences that dot the annual business cycle” There
are harrowing tales
coming out the country though that make it sound like
fiction from the stone
age. There are stories of modern households cooking
on firewood, the steady
hum of generators becoming a way of life in a few of
the houses in the
affluent areas, while darkness is a norm in the rest of
the country. School
regularly talk about losing dozens of teacher at a time
and so it goes on.
None of the stories are more harrowing than those that
come of the medical
arena. In the immediate post independence period for
about ten years,
Zimbabwe was the envy of Africa. Today all that has
changed.
An
emergency takes place on a Sunday morning. The inefficient cell phone
network means that the definition of an emergency has to change. A person
who is about to collapse should ideally give a couple of hours notice
otherwise they might die where they fall. The reason is simple: emergencies
are not allowed anymore by the crumbling telecommunications system. A busy
signal is far more likely to occur than the sighting of a soccer ball on a
soccer pitch. When eventually, a report is made, whoever rushes to the scene
of the accident has to hasten slowly because of the gaping potholes, fit to
hide a baby giraffe, that now pock mark the streets of Harare, once the
sunshine city of Africa. If you summon an ambulance, you’d better have cash
on you otherwise ask to use the neighbour’s car. More often than not, the
relatives of the victim do not have the cash because it is simply not
available in the country and the next door neighbour does not have fuel
because he parked his car a while back. There is no fuel in the country
except for company cars.
By some miracle, the family and the patient
make it to the hospital. By this
time after several frustrating tries, it
has been established that the only
hospital with a working generator is a
private one. There happens to be a
country wide power outage and the
government hospitals have run out of fuel
for their generators. This is real
life. So, on the advice of a relative or
a doctor friend, it is off to the
private hospital. On admission, the family
is immediately required to pay
over a billion Zimbabwe dollars. That is more
or less the monthly salary for
a middle manager in a company that pays its
staff well. For some reason,
emergencies target people who earn half that
amount and so the mother of the
patient pleads before a stoic hospital
administrator who is employed to run
a business. Human nature prevails and a
promise to make good on the money in
the morning or some sort of surety by
end of day is elicited. The favourite
form of surety is foreign currency
which the family will of course pop over
to the bank and fetch. Alas it is a
Sunday and besides neither the mattress
at home nor the bank has any foreign
currency in it! An hour or so later,
the nurse emerges from the emergency
room to announce that the patient needs
to move to Intensive care and the
administrator whips out his scientific
calculator (otherwise he cannot fit
in all the zeros) and he immediately
announces a further charge of $5
billion. The mother of the patient
collapses on the spot while the uncle
takes over. Phone calls are made to
friends, relatives and bosses in that
order. The school fees for the
children and the grocery shopping and rent
will have to wait. The children,
school and landlord will have to understand
that the family was faced with
an emergency.
The hospital gives the family time to decide whether to
risk transferring
the patient to a government hospital because suddenly the
power is back on
or to stay. They call the ambulance people and they are
told the ambulance
will not make an appearance without someone having gone
to their offices
round the block to pay a cash sum of $300 million and the
family must secure
a doctor to receive the patient on arrival. The family do
not know any
doctors, they do not have the numbers of any doctor and the
doctors are on
strike for higher wages anyway! The mother collapses again
and the family
scold her for adding to every one’s stress. Nerves are frayed
and this is
taking place at reception in full view of the public. Private
grief is not
allowed in Zimbabwe. Public humiliation is. Human nature takes
over and a
junior doctor calls a mate who remembers his hippocratic oath and
agrees to
leave the school of medicine pub and receive this
patient.
Money is borrowed and the ambulance duly arrives. At the
government hospital
the admissions lady, miserable at having been given the
job to dwell with
‘township people,’ takes her time and asking questions in
English like “next
of kin” words that the poor people cannot understand. She
sighs audibly,
mutters under her breath and takes her sweet time attending
to them, taking
their $5000 million admission fee and sending them on their
way half an hour
later.
This is normal in today’s Zimbabwe. We have
not spoken about the cost of
prescription medicine, the state of the
government hospitals and the
unavailability of drugs. Just a day in the life
of a person who has to rush
a relative to hospital. We did not get the
patients comments. They died
before we could talk to them after writhing in
pain for hours.
This entry was written by Noktula on Monday, January
28th, 2008 at 1:43 pm.
---------
One Response to “Zimbabwe -
Africa’s paradise?”
1.. Kalulu
January 28th, 2008 14:08
1
In 1980, when Mugabe came to power, Rhodesia had a GDP per capita that
was
comparable to that of Malaysia. Today, Malaysia is hailed around the
world
as one of East Asia’s great economic success stories, and is a newly
industrialized country that manufactures goods of all sorts. Yet, in 1980,
Rhodesia had economic policies that were more business-friendly than those
of Malaysia, and a civil service that was far more honest and efficient than
Malaysia’s. Both nations are former British colonies, and have a public
service modeled on that of Britain.
And yet we find the Zimbabwe of
today to be nothing more than a mess, an
economic shambles, a tinpot 3rd
world disaster, a lost opportunity thanks to
this Mr Robert Gabriel Mugabe
esq. This could have been the paradise of
Africa….
The Herald (Harare)
Published by the government of Zimbabwe
26 January 2008
Posted to the
web 28 January 2008
Harare
Zesa Holdings is battling to restore
power to the remaining generator at
Hwange Power Station amid reports of
increased load-shedding countrywide.
In a telephone interview yesterday,
Zesa Holdings chief executive officer
Engineer Ben Rafemoyo said following
the blackout that affected most parts
of Southern Africa last week, the
power utility had managed to rectify
problems that affected the Kariba Power
Station and one of the generators at
the Hwange Thermal Power
Station.
"The Kariba Power Station is back on the grid. However, we
have managed to
synchronise one of the two generators at Hwange Power
Station and we are
working flat out on the other generator," said Eng
Rafemoyo. He also
acknowledged that the load-shedding exercise had since
been increased due to
this problem. Eng Rafemoyo said the power utility was
not back on full
throttle after last week's nationwide blackout and said the
problem was
compounded by the fact that most companies were back from their
festive
break and were using more power hence the increased
load-shedding.
He said the country was failing to receive 200 megawatts
from Mozambique due
to vandalism of equipment, which was still being
repaired. Meanwhile, parts
of Pumula suburb in Bulawayo have gone for four
days without electricity.
Residents said a transformer between Pumula East
and Pumula South "exploded"
on Monday.
A Zesa Holdings official in
Bulawayo said residents were not reporting
electrical faults on time.
"People take time to report faults because they
still think it is still part
of 'the big blackout'. They should report
electrical problems timeously so
that they can be attended to by our
personnel," he said.
By Tererai Karimakwenda
28 January, 2008
A
Zimbabwean youth group has added its voice to the list of organisations
campaigning for Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to be allowed to vote in the
March elections. Based in South Africa, the Zimbabwe Revolutionary Youth
Movement (ZRYM) plans to present a petition with thousands of signatures to
the Zimbabwe High Commissioner, Simon Khaya Moyo, during a demonstration on
Tuesday.
ZRYM president Simon “Dreadman” Mudekwa dubbed the event
“the mother of all
demos,” because they expect to make their point loud and
clear and ensure
that Moyo gets their petition. He said every embassy has
the obligation to
protect and serve its citizens and Khaya Moyo should
respect their petition.
“No diaspora vote, no embassies!” said Mudekwa. The
passionate youth
organiser said that they would make sure the police
delivered the petition
if Khaya Moyo refuses to come out.
The
campaign for a Diaspora vote has taken on a global dimension with
Zimbabweans in several countries organising events demanding their right to
vote. In the U.K. the Zimbabwe Vigil group has been active in this regard.
The Zimbabwe Diaspora Forum of North America are organising a demonstration
in Washington, D.C.
The South African demo was postponed from last
week after the authorities in
Zimbabwe detained opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai ahead of an MDC rally
that had been banned in Harare. South
African police were called in by Khaya
Moyo, who claimed that he had fears
the demonstration would turn violent.
Police responded by surrounding the
embassy on Thursday. Mudekwa explained
that the same police would be
escorting them during the demonstration
Tuesday.
Mudekwa said their
group had two specific demands- elections under a new
Constitution and the
Diaspora vote. He urged Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to
visit their website
and sign the petition because there is strength in
numbers. Their site can
be found at zimdiasporavote.blogspot.com.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe
news
From The Sunday Mail, 27 January
By Hebert Zharare recently in Vumba
Government is
mooting plans to hold special Lower and Upper House of
Assembly sittings on
open ground or hire extra space from nearby buildings
as the current
Parliament of Zimbabwe building is too small to accommodate
the larger
number of legislators expected after the March harmonised polls.
In an
exclusive interview in Vumba last week, the Clerk of the Parliament of
Zimbabwe, Mr Austin Zvoma, said the increase in the number of
parliamentarians in the Lower and Upper Houses from the current 150 to 210
and 66 to 93 respectively, presented serious challenges in various ways. "We
might have to consider having special sessions outside the building, but
that is the prerogative of the President (Mugabe) obviously advised by the
parliamentary authorities like the President of the Senate to address the
practical reality. In terms of the Constitution he (President Mugabe)
determines where Parliament sits and so on those occasions, it may be
possible to look at facilities outside Parliament.
"The real
problem that is more than the plenary session of the two Houses
separately
is the facilities for committee meetings. There we have a serious
problem
because this is where most of the work of Parliament is done. The
reforms
meetings will be open and so it means we have serious constraints."
Both
formations of the opposition MDC endorsed unanimously the Constitution
Amendment Number 18 Act, that ushered in a number of changes, among them the
increase of MPs in the Lower House from 130 contested ones to 210 and 66
senators to 93, among an array of other amendments to the country’s
electoral systems. Mr Zvoma said that the major problems come on the
official opening of Parliament and other events such as the State of the
Nation address by the head of Government (President Mugabe) and during
Budget presentations.
"That is when we have maximum attendance
and also some other days when there
will be some important debate in the
House of Assembly. But since these ones
are exceptions, they do not
constitute a general pattern of attendance, so
we are not really worried by
that temporary problem until the new building
(parliament) is completed.
Quizzed on what was going to happen as the
current House of Assembly was too
small for such a huge figure added to
scores of Zimbabweans who throng the
House during special events, Mr Zvoma
said a number of options were in
place. Said Mr Zvoma: "This is another
challenge we have to find ways of
addressing and one possible way is of
looking at renting other buildings
near Parliament if they are available.
The building of a new parliament is
not something for the long-term future;
it is, in fact, starting this year.
"The building contractor is already on
site and in the 2008 Budget, the
funds were allocated. They might not be
adequate for the first phase, but
the projection is that as long as the
resources are available, the project
should take between two and half to
three years. It might take longer
because it is a big project."
28 January 2008
The Chief Secretary to the
Office of the President and Cabinet Dr Misheck
Sibanda on Friday announced
in the Government Gazette that Cde Mugabe had
signed into law the Local
Government Laws Amendment Act which sailed through
Parliament this month.
The amendments effectively remove the post of
Executive Mayor to a
ceremonial one.
The post of Executive Mayor was created in 1995 following
a repeal of the
Act that established the UCA 29:15. The Combined Harare
Residents
Association (CHRA) deplores the move by government. CHRA views it
as
baseless political strategy targeted at entrenching the power of the
regime
in local authorities. The opposition has over the years been
controlling or
winning mayoral seats in most urban areas. They have failed
to perform
largely due to continued interference from the Local Government
ministry.
The Minister of Local government, Public works and urban
development, Dr I
Chombo has even fired some of these Mayors on alleged
charges of
incompetence.
The continued interference from central
government has made it difficult for
local authorities to operate
independently. They did not have the liberty of
borrowing powers and were
not positively supported by the Local government
ministry. The removal of
the post of Executive Mayor will not improve the
collapsed social services
delivery. CHRA makes the following
recommendations:
Reform of the
Urban Councils Act as opposed to piecemeal amendments which do
not improve
local governance systems in Zimbabwe. The act in its current
form is subject
to manipulation for party political interests.
Free and fair local
governance elections that will usher in a leadership
chosen by the people,
accountable to the people and sensitive to their
needs.
Government
must provide direct and indirect funding to local authorities to
help them
provide quality municipal services. In South Africa local
authorities
receive grants from the national budget.
CHRA also urges the
constitutionalisation of local governance.
CHRA continues albeit
governments intransigence, to offer advice to
Parliamentary portfolio
committees and the Local government ministry on
quality and transparent
local government systems. CHRA has been training and
capacitating residents
to demand their rights. CHRA also distributes
information on the goings on
in local governance issues.
Farai Barnabas Mangodza
Chief Executive
Officer
Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA)
145 Robert Mugabe
Way
Exploration House, Third Floor
Harare
ceo@chra.co.zw
www.chra.co.zw
Landline: 00263- 4-
705114
Contacts: Mobile: 0912638401, 011443578, 011862012 or email info@chra.co.zw,
programs@chra.co.zw and admin@chra.co.zw
Zim Online
by Mutumwa Mawere Tuesday 29 January
2008
JOHANNESBURG - It is now a reality that the
harmonised polls will be held on
29 March 2008.
Only last year this
time, the conventional wisdom in many opposition circles
was that President
Robert Mugabe would not secure the mandate of his party
as a candidate when
his term expired let alone him being democratically
endorsed as candidate of
the party for the 2008 elections.
Many experts advanced the notion that
Mugabe would not last the year as the
head of state and ZANU PF will
disintegrate into tribal factions.
A combination of internal party
contradictions and confusion was meant to
facilitate the exit of Mugabe from
the political scene.
A proposition was then advanced that Mugabe had lost
his grip on the party
to the extent that his proposal to shorten the
parliamentary term from 2010
to 2008 and the harmonisation of the
presidential, parliamentary and local
elections would be opposed by his
party’s central committee.
Some of Zimbabwe’s best minds were occupied
with scenarios of the impending
post-Mugabe era and many options were
explored excluding the prospect of
Mugabe being relevant in 2008 and
beyond.
It is reasonable to ask the question why intellectuals and policy
analysts
including the MDC failed to read the politics of ZANU
PF.
What has been striking is the naivety of the political players and
there
could be no better demonstration of such infantile approach to
political
discourse than the manner in which the SADC mediated talks were
handled and
concluded with the constructive support of the opposition who
now seek to
cry foul after the event.
There was an acceptance in many
circles that ZANU PF was fast disintegrating
and the perceived factions in
the party would constructively assist the
opposition to oust
Mugabe.
This assistance would come in the form of a spirited opposition
to the
harmonisation project and Mugabe’s candidature.
In the face of
this inevitability and recognizing the dangers of Zimbabweans
going to the
polls to elect a President against a background of an economic
meltdown,
Mugabe had no choice but to reflect not only on his prospects for
electoral
success but also the implications on his party whose legitimacy is
now
premised more on fear than hope.
Mugabe’s reaction was predictable and
his assessment of the situation was
spot on. He mooted the idea of
harmonising the presidential and
parliamentary elections and initially even
his own colleagues in ZANU PF did
not comprehend the rationale for such a
move.
It was evident then as it is now that if the choice about who
should lead
Zimbabwe for the next five years was informed by hope, then ZANU
PF would
not be on the radar screen.
It would be unthinkable for any
rational citizen to condemn his/her future
to the politics of fear by
electing a party that chooses to distance itself
from its own record in
government and instead selectively chooses to
position itself as an
opposition party.
ZANU PF has accepted the notion that if you cannot beat
them join them and
it is now evident that the election manifesto of any
opposition party has
been stolen by the ruling party who will go into the
election campaigning
for change while offering nothing new.
I have no
doubt that even Mugabe is acutely aware that Zimbabweans are
afraid of the
future and are not free to make the choices that any free
citizen would be
expected to make in any democratic society.
What are the real choices
available to Zimbabweans in 2008?
Like any strategist, Mugabe has
successfully executed a scheme that many of
his adversaries thought would
not see the light of day.
The presumed factions in ZANU PF vanished into
thin air and not only was he
democratically endorsed at the extraordinary
congress held in December but
he managed to convince not only his party but
his political nemesis, both
MDC factions, to support the constitutional
amendment paving the way for the
term of parliament to be cut so as to make
the landmark election a
referendum not only for him but for the party as
would have been the case if
he had taken the gamble to contest the elections
under the old constitution.
There is no doubt that Mugabe is going into
this election with a party whose
political fortune is inextricably linked to
his own but more fundamentally
that he has exposed the naivety of his
political enemies who failed to
appreciate the real agenda that motivated
ZANU PF to accept SADC’s
intervention.
Mugabe can legitimately argue
that he is not what the Western countries
perceive him to be.
He has
allowed the opposition that never acknowledged his legitimacy to be
part of
the kamikaze (suicidal) politics while at the same time presenting
ZANU PF
as a democratic party that respects the sovereignty of citizens to
write
their own constitution and determine their own destiny.
The MDC is now
more challenged intellectually and politically having been
part of a process
whose outcome has clearly been poisonous to its own
survival.
For the
MDC to argue that its actions are informed by democratic values when
its
residual argument after the Mbeki facilitated talks is that ZANU PF and
MDC
should replace the citizens of Zimbabwe in the task of writing a new
constitution does not make any sense even to a kindergarten
politician.
If the MDC thought that a new constitution was a deal breaker
then surely
they should have raised this issue at the outset. Mugabe’s
position on the
face of it appears to be more reasonable and in line with
the founding
principles of the post-colonial state.
The position
taken by Morgan Tsvangirai that negotiations should have
produced a new
constitution is not even supported by his colleagues in the
non-state
space.
What ZANU PF can now take to the electorate is a position that
when MDC was
tested in the context of the negotiations it has exposed itself
on key and
fundamental issues that should help in defining the party’s
democratic
credentials.
ZANU-PF’s arguments are now similar to the
National Constitutional Assembly
that has argued for the past eight years
that a constitution is a serious
document requiring the participation of
citizens and this can only be done
in a fair and transparent
manner.
Political games produce their own heroes/heroines but in the
final analysis
we have to ask whether it is fair and just for the future of
13 million
Zimbabweans to be condemned by the actions of the few who see in
politics
career advancement and opportunity maximisation.
As
Zimbabweans brace themselves for the elections, the excitement that
should
accompany such an endeavour has already evaporated and the choices
available
may not have anything to do with advancing the interests of the
national
democratic revolution but the interests of the political actors of
the
day.
ZANU-PF has positioned itself as an anti-imperialist political
institution
that is under siege and, therefore, any electoral outcome that
will displace
it will necessarily be regarded as constituting a negation of
the founding
principles of the post-colonial state.
Accepting this
premise, it is evident that the stakes will be escalated to a
situation in
which citizens will be placed with no real choice but to
surrender to the
status quo ante.
ZANU-PF will argue that there is no better person to
lead the fight against
imperialism and neo-colonialism than Mugabe.
Accordingly, anyone who is
against imperialism would have no other choice
but to support ZANU-PF not
because such a choice will advance any national
interest.
Mugabe has been at the helm for the past 28 years and in normal
circumstances he would be running on his record of achievements but
regrettably he will be running on his liberation credentials.
Nation
building is a far more complex project than liberation politics.
Whereas
Mugabe led the struggle against colonialism informed by the
injustice of the
system, unfortunately nation building has to be informed by
positive
values.
Any modern state that is progressive requires the participation
of citizens
in shaping its destiny and fear has never been credited as an
instrument for
nation building.
What motivated the liberation
struggle was the desire by the majority to
create a new civilisation based
on freedom, justice and equality.
One would have to ask whether it is the
case that the last 28 years have
advanced the interests of Zimbabwe in
reducing the frontiers of poverty and
expanding the envelope of
opportunities, justice, freedom and equality.
If the choices were to be
informed by objective principles, I am convinced
that it would be patently
obvious that Zimbabweans have been robbed of their
future by a few wise men
and women.
While ZANU-PF’s engine is driven by the purported hatred of
the colonial
system, MDC appears to be equally driven by a hatred of Mugabe
and less by
the policies and programmes of ZANU-PF.
Mugabe has
demonstrated that ZANU-PF is solidly behind him notwithstanding
the constant
rumours about factionalism in the party. Unlike the opposition
forces,
Mugabe is the undisputed leader even in the face of acknowledged
moral and
economic management deficits.
Tsvangirai has been placed in a political
corner and it is not clear how he
will wiggle himself out of it without
undermining and compromising his
constituency.
While the MDC is still
trying to figure out what to do, the ZANU-PF machine
is in full gear. The
destination is known and there is little doubt about
who will be in charge
after the ritual of elections.
The choices for the MDC are difficult. If
they participate in an election
managed and controlled by ZANU-PF, the
outcome is as inevitable as the
outcome of the Mbeki-led talks.
The
winner is not only predictable but the actions of the loser after the
elections are also predictable.
It is evident that the politics of
fear has produced an atmosphere in which
it is difficult to attract good
Zimbabwean minds to intervene in the
political space and ZANU-PF must take
responsibility for this.
Many of the proponents of the Third Way who have
invested in an alternative
political paradigm without Mugabe have largely
misread the situation.
It all started with the abortive Tsholotsho
project, and then an investment
was made on Solomon Mujuru and it fizzled
out and finally out of desperation
an investment was made on Simba
Makoni.
It is now evident that Makoni was not part of the deal but a few
wise men
devised a scheme to politically embarrass Makoni as an incentive
for him to
join the race for which he like many Zimbabweans are afraid to
join as long
as Mugabe is at the helm.
The track record of ZANU-PF
dealing with citizens who naively thought that
the road to State House is
smooth is all too familiar to give people like
Makoni the courage to enter a
political lion’s den.
Predictably, Makoni whose career has largely been
shaped by ZANU-PF declined
to associate himself with an ill-conceived
political project leaving its
promoters in a state of shock.
However,
the promoters of Makoni’s candidature are not different from the
promoters
of Mnangagwa and Mujuru. Only time will tell whether they will
shift
attention to another unsuspecting Zimbabwean.
What kind of system would
produce this kind of spectacle whereby 13 million
citizens become so
helpless and leaderless?
Surely, the promoters of Makoni must have known
his weaknesses and that
anyone who dreams to occupy the State House before
the incumbent is dead
would be committing political suicide and inviting
violence and possibly
prison time.
The mere fact that the opposition
appears to be in disarray confirms that
the politics of fear does work and
has, indeed, triumphed in Zimbabwe.
Citizens are afraid and if well
placed individuals like Makoni would rather
be condemned into silence while
the future of the country is daily being
mortgaged then we can only say:
“Cry the beloved country”.
The future of Zimbabwe will not become better
if hard choices are not made
now and preferably before the
elections.
It will be difficult to advance an argument after the
elections that Mugabe
is not legitimate and also to suggest that the
constitution that the MDC has
already approved should not be presented to
the people of Zimbabwe for them
to approve it.
It has been argued
that even the members of MDC have accepted that
Tsvangirai’s political fate
will be sealed in March and, thereafter, a new
dispensation will be
negotiated between the opposition legislators and
ZANU-PF that will lead to
a constitution.
Such a process will naturally be led by ZANU-PF and
Mugabe will then
presumably bow out at the 2009 party congress that is
expected to elect a
new leadership for the party and possibly the
government.
What Mugabe has managed to do is to place the fortunes of
ZANU-PF ahead of
the nation. If you vote for ZANU-PF, then surely you must
accept that no
change is change.
Anyone who loves Zimbabwe would
agree that change must visit Zimbabwe sooner
rather than later because if
the status quo remains the risk of a whole
generation being sacrificed to
satisfy the egos of the few is high.
When the future of a country is at
stake, it behoves on everyone to step
back and reflect on what needs to
happen in Zimbabwe for hope to take centre
stage as a value driver in nation
building.
The triumph of the politics of fear produces the worst in
mankind and
intimidates citizens from being part of the change they want to
see.
* Mutumwa Mawere is a Zimbabwean-born South African businessman
based in
Johannesburg
VOA
By Carole Gombakomba
Washington
28
January 2008
Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party has started
holding primary elections to
select candidates for the general elections the
government has called for
March 29.
Though a report on the
delimitation of new constituencies prepared by the
Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission has yet to be officially gazetted, provincial
leaders of the
ruling party who met in Harare on Monday were expected to
shortly release
results for the primaries held in some of the country's 210
constituencies.
A constitutional amendment passed last year added 60
house seats and 27
senate seats - but because 30 seats previously appointed
by President Robert
Mugabe have become elective seats, in effect 90 new
constituencies have been
created.
The state-controlled Herald
newspaper quoted Chen Chemutengwende, chairman
of the ruling party in
Mashonaland Central province, as saying his province
has "almost completed"
its primaries. The selection process was said to have
been wrapped up in the
Mashonaland West districts of Kariba, Karoi and
Chinhoi.
Some
primaries were marred by violence with intra-party clashes reported in
Chinhoyi.
Despite such reports saying primaries are well under way,
senior ZANU-PF
official Richard Ndlovu, politburo member and deputy
secretary for the
commissariat, told reporter Carole Gombakomba of VOA's
Studio 7 for Zimbabwe
that the party is merely taking down the names of
potential candidates, not
holding actual primaries.
Political
commentator Chido Makunike said that although ZANU-PF is ahead of
the
opposition in selecting candidates, the ruling party has its own set of
problems.
VOA
By Patience Rusere
Washington
28 January
2008
Zimbabwean opposition officials mounted a diplomatic
offensive this week in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, ahead of an African Union
summit hoping to persuade
AU leaders to bring pressure to bear on President
Robert Mugabe to
politically compromise in the spirit of the South
African-mediated crisis
talks many now say have failed.
Vice
President Thokozani Khupe of the Movement for Democratic Change faction
led
by MDC founder Morgan Tsvangirai said representatives of the formation
are
briefing AU delegations on what the opposition describes as a
"unilateral"
decision by Mr. Mugabe to call elections March 29 over strong
opposition
objections.
The opposition and civil society leaders urged that the
elections not be
held until well after the conclusion of the talks mediated
by South African
President Thabo MBeki - who went to Harare earlier this
month to personally
urge Mr. Mugabe to compromise on the issue of the
election date and the
introduction of a new constitution. But Mr. Mugabe
refused to budge and
shortly announced the March election
date.
African NGOs this past weekend called on AU heads of state - who
will meet
in summit on Thursday - to call on President Mugabe to ensure that
the
elections are free and fair and to uphold human rights in his
country.
Khupe said she and other MDC officials expect to have a meeting
some time
this week with Ghanaian President John Kufuor, who currently holds
the AU
chair.
Khupe told reporter Patience Rusere of VOA's Studio 7
for Zimbabwe that she
and her MDC colleagues have received a more
sympathetic hearing from
officials of AU member countries than at previous
summits of the pan-African
organization.
zimbabwejournalists.com
28th Jan 2008 22:13 GMT
By Chenjerai Chitsaru
SOME will say it is
downright indecent to bring up President Robert Mugabe's
presidency in an
analysis of the death of the former Indonesian dictator,
Suharto.
Others, fortunately, might argue this is a perfectly
legitimate field of
speculation and analysis: both men had reached their
eighties, although
Suharto had been forced out of office ten years ago; both
men had ruled for
a long time - in Shunarto's case for 32 years, in our case
going on 28
years.
If Mugabe wins this year's presidential election,
the arrangement seems to
be that he would serve for only two years, before
retiring. By then, he will
be 86 years old.
Suharto's daughter asked
the people of Indonesia to forgive her father...for
what? For one of the
most brutal dictatorships in the 20th century and the
massacre of thousands
of his own citizens,
Here is a summary of Suharto's rule:
Mr. Suharto
was driven from office in 1998 by widespread rioting, economic
paralysis and
political chaos. His rule was not without accomplishment; he
led Indonesia
to stability and nurtured economic growth.
But these successes were
ultimately overshadowed by his pervasive and
large-scale corruption;
repressive, militarized rule; and a convulsion of
mass bloodletting when he
seized power in the late 1960s that took at least
500,000 lives.
It's
rare for an African leader, dead or alive, to apologise for their
misrule.
But Thabo Mbeki may have scored a "first" in apologising to his
people for
the blackouts in South Africa, now said to be threatening the
viability of
the mining industry.
We have had blackouts for a number of years, but
have not been honoured with
a direct apology from the head of state himself:
it's as if we had asked for
the blackouts, or somehow deserved them, because
we are inflicting the pain
on ourselves by condoning the theft of oil from
transformers or the cables.
It would be mischievous to draw comparisons
between the two men's tenures as
president. Mugabe, after all, was a
liberation hero supreme. He may not have
marched triumphantly into the city
of Salisbury, at the head of hundreds of
freedom fighters in 1980, but he
did hold that much-praised rally at
Zimbabwe Grounds in Highfield.
Of
course, detractors might inevitably point to Gukurahundi as his blackest
mark - 20 000 were killed in that atrocity. Although he acknowlewdged it as
"a moment of madness", there are many who point to the absence of real
penance.
It is not by any means cruel to speculate on how the world,
let alone many
Zimbabaweans, will view Mugabe's final exit from power. After
all, it is the
view of many of his critics - and perhaps even some of his
sympathisers -
that he is clinging to power for fear of reprisals for his
misrule.
There has been speculation that "exit packages" have been mooted
for him: in
each case, the package has included an amnesty for him and his
family or his
close comrades-in-arms.
In so many words, Mugabe has
sneered at these packages, insisting he will be
in the saddle until he
himself decides he has done enough for his country.
There is probably a
similar declaration by Suharto before he hinself or his
supporters insisted
that it was time to leave, while he could still do so on
his own
terms.
There was so much agitation against his continued rule, it is
speculated
that if he had not quit when he did, he would have ended up very
badly - a
bullet-riddled body in some square or palace in Jakarta, or a
plane wreckage
in a jungle.
It is not morbid for Zimbabweans to
speculate on Mugabe's fate after he has
left the politicfal scene. To insist
that he has nothing to answer for would
be highly self-deluding. His
declaration of the Gukurahundi massacre
constituting a "moment of madness"
could easily be interpreted as a
confession of some sort.
Then there
is the widespread violence during the land reform fiasco and the
election
campaign in 2000, whose most notable victims were Talent Mabika and
Tichaona
Chiminya. It is reasonable to believe that their relatives would
demand
compensation or some sort of gesture of repentance.
After Suharto's
death, one of his victims was interviewed. The man had spent
years in jail
for what the Suharto regime must have believed were the
equivalent of
treason or subversion against the state.
He said what he wished for was
for the government to address the human
rights of the people
urgently.
Clearly, this victim of the Suharto brutality still believes
the state of
human rights in Indonesia, while nowhere near the level of that
during the
dictator's time, still leaves much to be desired.
In
Zimbabwe, there is an attitude by the government towards human rights
which
puts all criticism in the context of its obsession with "regime
change" and
the West. All citizens who raise the widespread abuse of their
human rights
are invariably tagged as Western puppets.
But there is much evidence that
Zanu PF's concepts of human rights are still
mired in the primitive and
self-serving dogma cobbled together in the
liberation camps in Mozambique.
For a long time to come, the party will view
almost every piece of
legislation with particular attention to its capacity
to safeguard the
continued political domination of the country by the party.
It has been
said before by Zanu PF's critics but it bears repeating:
whatever reforms
the party may agree to will be judged only on their effect
on weakening the
party's determination to be the only political force in the
country.
Mugabe's determination to cling to power can be partly
explained on this
strategy. He seems to believe only he has the ruthlessness
to hold the party
together, particularly in the face of an opposition party
capable of
convincing the people that there is an alternative to Zanu PF, a
party so
unlike the ruling party the people feel their desires can be
addressed
without them having to prostrate themselves in front of an effigy
of The
Dear Leader.
Unless other Zanu PF leaders convince Mugabe that
the Suharto syndrome could
overwhelm him as it did the Indonesian dictator,
then Zimbabwe could be
facing a crisis even worse than it has confronted so
far.
The beginning of change could be the elections scheduled for next
March. The
reaction of the opposition to Mugabe's announcement of an
election date
without regard to agreements reached during the Sadc-inspired
interparty
talks could persuade the MDC that it would be a sign of
spinelessness to
take part in elections which they could not win in a
million years.
The alternative could be a more militant stance against
Zanu PF, which is
itself divided into a number of factions capable of
affecting the overall
results of a truly free and fair
election.
Suharto ruled unchallenged for 32 years, but when the bottom
fell out of his
seemingly solid and invincible hold on power, it was swift -
or there would
not have been a reason for his daughter to apologise for his
sins.
What she feared and probably still fears is the likelihood of
reprisals
against Suharto's family, since Providence has exacted its revenge
on him.
There are people who feel deprived of what they see as their
legitimate
right to mete punishment to Suharto. That is how most people feel
about
dictators, everywhere in the world.
The Herald (Harare)
Published by the government of Zimbabwe
26 January 2008
Posted to the
web 28 January 2008
Harare
The Real Time Transfer Gross Settlement
system has since Monday been
experiencing intermittent problems and was
completely down from mid-morning
yesterday.
Bankers' Association of
Zimbabwe president Dr John Mangudya said last night
the problems emanated
from the TelOne link and the installation by banks and
building societies of
the new electronic security system introduced by the
Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe this week.
"These are connectivity issues. We have been
facing the problem since Monday
but today, the TelOne line has been down
since morning," said Dr Mangudya.
"Banks are also working on installing
the new security system recently
introduced by the Reserve Bank and this has
compounded the problem." Dr
Mangudya said banks were looking at "temporary
options" to avoid further
inconvenience to the public while the problem was
being rectified. "We are
in a meeting at the moment looking at temporary
measures that could be put
in place to avoid further inconveniences to
members of the public," said Dr
Mangudya, who heads CBZ
Bank..
Several inter-bank transactions were failing to get through while
some took
days, more than normal transfer period of 24 hours.
TelOne
acting managing director Mr Hampton Mhlanga confirmed the disruption
of the
connection system saying their link station had run out of diesel.
"We
had some prolonged power cuts and our link station at the Chenoi which
links
the system ran out of diesel. Since we do not have reserves, we had to
empty
fuel from other repeater stations to Chenoi. We are hoping the
situation
will get back to normal very soon," said Mr Mhlanga last night.
The system
was still down last night.
Zimbabwe
Standard (Harare)
ANALYSIS
27 January 2008
Posted to the web 28
January 2008
Ndamu Sandu
THE Zimbabwe Stock Exchange has
become the place for Zimbabweans to make
billions of dollars these
days.
In the past month alone, those who picked the right counters -- Old
Mutual,
Kingdom Meikles Africa Ltd, and Econet - have reaped massive profits
and
smiled all the way to the bank.
Among brokers, there is talk
nowadays about new trillionaires emerging in
the past few months, thanks to
the boom on the stock market.
But the stock brokers remain tight-lipped
about their identities, citing the
confidentiality clauses guiding their
always hush-hush type of work.
But while the super rich are emerging, for
commoners trading on the stock
exchange has remained largely a
pipedream.
It costs what an analyst termed "an arm and a leg" for them to
dabble on the
stock market: a minimum of $1 billion to buy
shares.
"This figure is beyond my reach," said a high school teacher.
"Even if I
were to raise the money, I cannot lock it up for a
month."
If he were to buy Kingdom Meikles Africa Limited at Wednesday's
closing
price of $13 million, the $1 billion would buy only 76 shares,
without
factoring in transaction costs
Analysts say the low-income
earners are the major casualty in the
hyperinflationary environment, as they
cannot invest in profitable
investment alternatives.
"The first
casualty of hyperinflation is skewed income generation that
gravitates
towards the rich," said Dr Daniel Ndlela, an independent economic
consultant.
He says there is a stock market rush as it is the only
avenue left for
preserving the real value of people's assets or the assets
of corporations.
Witness Chinyama, group economist at Kingdom Financial
Holdings Limited,
said the stock market was moving in line with inflation
while the money
market was trailing behind as a form of investment
alternative.
"There are negative real interest rates on the money
market... if you are
looking at alternative investments, anything not based
on interest rate,
like the equities market, is better," said
Chinyama.
Under normal circumstances, the money market rates should be
above inflation
to give returns to an investor. But with trailblazing
inflation which the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates to have
passed the 150 000
percent mark as at January, and ridiculous rates on the
money market below
400 percent per annum, the money market has not been a
favourite with
investors.
Chinyama said the investment alternative
has been dislocated by financial
disintermediation - a situation whereby
money is staying outside the banking
sector, rendering monetary policy
ineffective.
He says property revaluations and re-rating of counters are
a means to keep
pace with inflation.
Emmanuel Munyukwi, ZSE chief
executive officer, defended the share prices,
saying notwithstanding the
re-rating of certain counters, the assets were
relatively
cheap.
"There has been re-rating of certain counters, and that is why
some
counters' prices are going up but in terms of value the assets are
cheap,"
he said.
Others see a premium over and above inflation as the
driving force behind a
surge in share prices.
"There are people who
are saying I have an asset and you have to pay a
premium if you want it,"
said Washington Mehlomakhulu, an analyst with
Highveld Financial
Services.
Mehlomakhulu described rates on the money markets as a
"joke".
"The only way to keep people money in banks is when interest
rates reflect
what is happening on the inflation front," he
said.
Analysts say with the collapsing economy which has shown no signs
of
abetting,spective investors were scouring for avenues they could make a
good
return.
"As long as people are still looking for ways of locking
value, the stock
market will be vibrant. People will dispose of their shares
and others are
prepared to pay a premium," Mehlomakhulu said.
Ndlela
says there is nothing sinister about a burst of prices on the stock
market,
insisting "it's the only avenue where you can be assured that the
money is
safe in terms of not losing value."
Others see a flurry of activities
spurred by the availability of cheap funds
on the market. They say
businesses that got funds under the Basic
Commodities Supply Side
Intervention (BACOSSI) were struggling to get raw
materials while farmers
who obtained money under the Agricultural Sector
Productivity Enhancement
Facility (ASPEF) cannot access inputs to adequately
prepare for the
season.
"You get BACOSSI but can't access raw materials and in the end
you invest on
the stock market to maximize your returns," said a stock
market analyst.
ASPEF and BACOSSI are cheap funds introduced by the
central bank for farmers
and businesses respectively. ASPEF was introduced
in 2005 while BACOSSI was
born last year for businesses to restock after the
June price blitz that
nearly paralysed the sector.
For the ordinary
citizen, living in a harsh environment, chances of
re-launching their
livelihoods through stock market proceeds fade in the
horizon as they
grapple with the basics in an environment unprecedented in a
country outside
a war situation.
"The poor are outside the ring, which belongs to those
who have a
concentration of assets... you watch while others are making
money," said
Ndlela.
The Nation
(Nairobi)
29 January 2008
Posted to the web 28 January
2008
Kitsepile Nyathi
Harare
The worsening economic meltdown in
Zimbabwe, which is driving thousands of
people to neighbouring South Africa,
coupled with the rainbow nation's own
growing challenges of an escalating
crime rate is fueling a new wave of
xenophobic attacks on
foreigners.
It is estimated that over three million Zimbabweans have
found refugee in
South Africa and thousands more continue to pour into the
more economically
stable neighbour in search of jobs and
food.
The growing number of immigrants are in addition to the already
large
immigrant population in South Africa from countries such as Somalia,
Ethopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and
Mozambique.
Inevitably this has inflamed emotions among locals who feel
the foreigners
especially Zimbabweans whose population swells everyday take
away their jobs
and are fuelling the already high crime rates as they resort
to stealing and
violent crimes such as armed robbery to earn a
living.
The burning down of shacks belonging to the refugees and even
public
lynchings have become a common occurrence especially in poor
neighbourhoods.
The growing problem of xenophobia is already of major
concern to the African
Commission on People's and Human Rights (ACPHR),
which says it will soon
send a fact finding mission to South
Africa.
But organisations representing Zimbabwean exiles feel that if
decisive
action is not taken now the attacks on foreigners escaping civil
strife in
their own countries might spiral out control.
"It seems no
one is taking heed of our advice," said Mr Daniel Shumba of the
Johannesburg
based Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF).
"We have done everything in our power
by alerting the African Union and the
South African government but violent
attacks on foreigners especially
Zimbabweans and Mozambicans are worsening
each passing day."
Majority rule
Since its transition into
majority rule in 1994, the new South Africa
because of the historical
economic imbalances has always struggled to shed
off its unenviable
reputation as the capital of violent crime in the world.
But human rights
activists warn that it is becoming more common for
frustrated locals who can
not get decent jobs promised by the new
dispensation to vent their anger on
businesses owned by refugee Somali
businesspeople in their
areas.
They say there is now a new trend of xenophobic attacks that seem
to be
targeted at Zimbabwean and Mozambican economic refugees who are now
becoming
the scapegoats for the unsustainable crime rate.
Last week,
violent attacks drove away hundreds of Mozambicans and
Zimbabweans from an
informal settlement near Pretoria, South Africa Africa's
administrative
capital.
According to various South African media sources four people
have died so
far and several others injured in the violence that started a
month ago.
Businesses and shacks belonging to the locals were looted and
destroyed by
locals who accused them of being behind rising crime in the
neighbourhood.
"The situation is becoming dangerous that is why I have
decided to bring
back my wife and children," said Mr Jonathan Zireva of
Harare. Mr Zireva who
claims to be a supporter of Zimbabwe's main opposition
party, the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) has been operating a spaza
(tuckshop) in the
sprawling settlement of Soshanguve near Pretoria for the
past three years
after he was retrenched by a Harare based
company.
"I went to South Africa after I was retrenched by the state
owned Grain
Marketing Board for supporting the MDC and I have no hope of
ever securing a
job in Zimbabwe again.
"With what we have been
experiencing in the past few days it's like jumping
from a frying pan to a
fire.
"We no longer feel safe in South Africa but I do not have any other
choice
but to go back because there is no hope for me in Zimbabwe
anymore."
In his 2007 report to the ACHPR 42nd session, the commission's
Special
Rapporteur for Refugees, Assylum Seekers, Internally Displaced
Persons and
Immigrants, Mr Tom Nyanduga said he had already written to the
Southern
African government seeking permission to carry out a fact finding
mission
about the treatment of refugees in South Africa.
"We are
concerned about the ill-treatment of asylum seekers, especially from
Zimbabwe, Somalia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo," Mr
Nyanduga said.
"I look forward to engaging the South African
authorities on the matter and
also to investigate other issues that have
been brought to the attention of
the commission."
The Human Rights
Institute of South Africa (HURISA) has led calls for an
investigation into
what it calls the "xhebhobic" treatment of refugees
especially Zimbabweans
in South Africa and Botswana.
"Zimbabwe is near collapse of basic
necessities such as food, bread, flour,
petrol, paraffin, soap and
medication," HURISA said in a statement to the
ACHPR.
"This has
resulted in massive exodus of Zimbabwean people seeking
humanitarian
assistance in the neighbouring states such as Botswana, South
Africa, Zambia
and Mozambique."
But since Botswana and South Africa's economies and
democratic profiles are
rated highest in the region they face challenges and
take the bulk of the
Zimbabwean migration problems, said HURISA.
It
added: "However, the South Africa and Botswana governments are not
handling
the Zimbabwean humanitarian crisis in the spirit of "ubuntu" that
is in an
African brotherhood manner and solidarity. Zimbabwean people are
met with
hostility and xenophobic treatment."