| The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
By Cris Chinaka
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has told his
treason trial the state's
key witness entrapped him after promising to
arrange a meeting with U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Tsvangirai, who leads the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
has denied charges of plotting to kill
President Robert Mugabe and stage a
coup ahead of the southern African
country's controversial 2002 elections.
The state's case against
Tsvangirai, who could face a death sentence if
convicted, hinges mainly on a
videotape of a meeting he held with
Canadian-based political consultant Ari
Ben-Menashe where prosecutors say
Mugabe's "elimination" was
discussed.
Wrapping up his evidence on Wednesday after 10 days in the
witness stand,
Tsvangirai said he had hired Ben-Menashe as a political
lobbyist and had
gone to a meeting in Montreal after promises that it would
be attended by
top U.S. officials.
"Mr Menashe was suggesting a higher
official to the level of Colin Powell,"
he said to a question of whether he
was expecting one particular official.
Tsvangirai said Ben-Menashe had
promised to win him U.S. political and
financial support.
In his
evidence at the beginning of the trial last year, Ben-Menashe -- who
has been
called an unreliable witness by the defence -- said there was a
U.S. official
at the Montreal meeting, but Tsvangirai's lawyers say he was
an
impostor.
Last week Tsvangirai said he was "trapped" into using the word
"elimination"
and he only meant it in the political sense, "after it had been
explained to
me that it means the president would not participate in the
elections".
On Wednesday, during cross-examination Tsvangirai maintained
that there was
no plan to assassinate Mugabe and the only thing he discussed
were
suggestions that Mugabe might accept a plan for him to retire months
before
the March 2002 polls.
Tsvangirai, a 51-year-old former trade
unionist, and his MDC have emerged as
the most potent challenge to Mugabe
since independence from Britain in 1980.
Tsvangirai says he won the March
2002 presidential elections but Mugabe was
declared the victor despite claims
of vote-rigging and electoral fraud
lodged by both the MDC and a number of
international observers.
On Wednesday, Tsvangirai said he had "no grave
dispute" with the sequence of
the videotape of the Montreal meeting as the
audible parts had helped him to
recollect what transpired, but some gaps in
the video and transcript had
distorted the spirit of the
discussions.
Mugabe, 79, has called Tsvangirai a pawn of Western powers
opposed to his
policy of seizing white-owned farms to give to landless
blacks.
The case was postponed to February 11, when Tsvangirai's lawyers
are
expected to call witnesses for the defence.
Haaretz, Israel
African and Asian nations are most at risk for
genocide, international
forum is told
By Amiram
Barkat
STOCKHOLM - The danger of genocide exists in five
countries in Africa
and Asia, according to an American expert who yesterday
addressed the
Stockholm International Convention on the Prevention of
Genocide.
Barbara Harp, of the U.S. Center for
Conflict Management, said there
was a high risk of genocide in Sudan,
Myanmar, Burundi, Rwanda and the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
She told the forum that eight other countries - Somalia, Uganda,
Algeria,
China, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Ethiopia - were also
at
risk.
Asked by Haaretz about the dangers in Israel, Harp said
that experts
at the center did not believe there was a strong likelihood that
Israel
would carry out genocide against the Palestinians. Some of the
central
indications for genocide and, in particular, the ideological basis,
did not
exist in Israel, Harp said.
"Israel behaves badly at
times, and even very badly," she said, "but
it is a normal
country."
Zimbabwe is the most likely candidate
The
question of where genocide was likely to take place in the world
today was
the main concern of the experts at the Stockholm meet. Samantha
Powers of
Harvard University and the U.S. Center for Conflict Management
said that in
her opinion, the most likely candidate was Zimbabwe. Most of
the experts
agreed that at present, the African continent was the most
likely breeding
ground for genocide.
The international forum concluded its
deliberations yesterday with a
resolution taken by the 55 participating
countries.
At Israel's request, incitement to genocide was added to
the phenomena
mentioned in the resolution on the prevention of genocide.
Israel did not
object to the Swedes' request to include Islamophobia
alongside
anti-Semitism and xenophobia in the resolution.
The
Swedish media reported yesterday that the United States and Israel
had
prevented an initiative to have the resolution include a mention of
the
International Criminal Court at The Hague as the main body designed
to
prevent genocide. Israeli delegation sources denied this.
The
court was currently studying complaints of genocide in five
countries, its
chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, told the gathering. He
said one of the
countries was Congo, but refused to reveal the other names.
Israeli
delegates expressed satisfaction with the international
forum's outcome. The
fact that there was no criticism of Israel at such a
large international
gathering was unusual, Foreign Ministry official Nimrod
Barkan
said.
Ministry officials also praised the Swedes for not inviting
prominent
pro-Palestinian speakers such as Arab League Secretary-General Amr
Moussa.
Israel was especially pleased that Prof. Yehuda Bauer, the
academic
adviser to the forum, and Dr. Yigael Carmon had been invited as
genocide
experts.
A call by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to
set up a special UN
supervisory mechanism to prevent genocide was not
included in the final
resolution, which spoke in general terms of examining
the various options to
prevent genocide, including the one raised by
Annan.
New Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe judge quits, goes into exile
By Staff
Reporter
29/01/04
A TOP Zimbabwe judge whose judgements in favour of the
Associated Newspapers
of Zimbabwe (ANZ) were ignored by the government has
been driven into exile,
it has been learnt.
Justice Michael Majuru,
the Judge President of the Administrative Court quit
the bench two weeks ago
after the government threatened him with an
investigation following claims
that he was biased towards the ANZ,
publishers of The Daily News and The
Daily News on Sunday.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said Majuru had
cited illness in his
resignation letter faxed from South Africa, but a
relative of the judge who
spoke to newzimbabwe.com from America said the
judge had been put under
undue pressure and feared his career could be
wrecked by a pre-determined
investigation.
"If you are a judge and
your judgements are routinely ignored then you know
your services are
unwanted and you are blocking someone's will in the
corridors of power. It
was best for him to leave with his reputation
intact," said the relative who
cannot be named.
Majuru follows in the footsteps of several senior judges
who have left the
country, either after being forced out or being targeted by
the government
with spurious claims of bias. These include former Chief
Justice Anthony
Gubbay, Justice Fergus Blackie and Justice James Devittie.
Most are now
serving on Australian and British immigration courts, assisting
in the
handling of asylum claims.
Majuru's problems with the
government began late October when he authorised
the then banned Daily News
to publish after it had been denied a licence by
the government appointed
Media and Information Commission (MIC).
Majuru found that the MIC was in
fact improperly constituted and was
therefore, not in a position to refuse an
application by The Daily News for
an operating licence after the Supreme
Court had rejected to hear the paper'
s constitutional challenge on disputed
media legislation.
He also ordered the MIC to approve ANZ's registration
by 30 November last
year after ensuring it is properly reconstituted in line
with the Access to
Information and the Protection of Privacy Act. The Act is
being challenged
in the Supreme Court.
"We order that the applicant be
issued with a certificate of registration by
the respondent," said the judge.
"The Daily News appeal succeeds given the
findings of bias that we have made.
This is a unanimous decision."
The paper's lawyers had argued that the
head of the media commission,
Tafataona Mahoso, was biased against the paper,
as reflected in his
statements to the media and the articles he wrote in a
column in the
state-run Sunday Mail.
But a day after the ruling, the
police raided The Daily News offices again,
with information minister
dismissing the judge's ruling as "academic".
Following another Daily News
appeal to the same court, the state-controlled
Herald newspaper came up with
sensational claims that Justice Majuru had
been overheard saying he would
again rule in favour of The Daily News,
forcing him to recuse himself from
the case.
The case was then heard by another Administrative Court judge,
Justice Selo
Nare who on 19 December again gave the Daily News the green
light to
publish. He merely upheld Majuru's earlier ruling.
But
information minister Jonathan Moyo railed against both Nare and
Majuru,
calling their judgements "scandalous", "political" and
"unacceptable". The
government again ignored Nare's judgement and the police
kept The Daily News
offices sealed.
Still in December, The Daily News
petitioned the court again and Nare still
ruled in favour of the paper but
received threats through a letter delivered
to his chambers. The letter
accused him of bias "against our good
government" and of having been "bought
to sell out our mother country."
It warned a ruling in favour of The
Daily News "will result in serious
suffering by you personally and members of
your family."
"Take this as a mere threat at your own peril," said the
letter purporting
to be from a hitherto unknown group calling itself "War
liberators and sons
and daughters of the soil."
Nare and Majuru are
not the only judges who have suffered as the government
sought to undermine
them. High Court Judge Benjamin Paradza was arrested in
chambers and detained
in police cells on allegations of corruption. He
appealed to the Supreme
Court, which ruled that his arrest was
unconstitutional.
The Star
What if Mugabe was a white man?
January 29,
2004
I refer to your article "Tutu lambastes SA's stance on
Zimbabwe",
which appeared in The Star on December 16.
Our
government says it cannot put too much pressure on Mugabe because
Zimbabwe is
a sovereign state. Tutu says apartheid South Africa too was a
sovereign state
and where would we be today if other countries had chosen a
similar
stance?
He also argues that "human rights are human rights and are
of
universal validity. There are no peculiarly African human
rights".
I don't know how many people fully grasp what Tutu is
saying here, but
I hear silent messages in the background.
I
hear him say that Mbeki would have acted differently if Mugabe
was
white.
I hear him say that when black Zimbabweans cross into
South Africa,
they are hoping that we have already heard about their plight
and expect us
to welcome them with open arms. Instead, we call them many ugly
names. We
complain they are taking our jobs. On the streets, they live in
constant
fear because our police round them up and dump them at the notorious
Lindela
camp to be shipped back.
In contrast, their fellow white
countrymen obtain citizenship within
days of arrival in this country. In
fact, it is home from home for them.
A similar scenario involving
black and white Mozambicans occurred in
the '80s. The whites were embraced.
As for the black man, you can guess what
happened to him.
Truth
is, you are much safer from police if your are a murderer than
if you are
black and foreign. Police seem to turn a blind eye to crime.
Their main
target on the streets is black foreign nationals.
This, in
turn, encourages violence against foreigners among the black
locals because
we assume that if police can do it, it must be acceptable.
Can we
imagine what it would have been like if countries like Angola,
Botswana,
Ghana and Zimbabwe - just to mention a few - had agreed to deport
black South
Africans into the jaws of BJ Vorster and PW Botha?
The reality is
that Zimbabwe is in flames. As is typical of a house on
fire, you cannot
successfully extinguish the fire if you are inside because
you will be
overwhelmed by the fumes. You have to be on the outside, and
this is exactly
where South Africa is.
When action was taken against Charles
Taylor, I thought Africa had
come of age, but I was terribly wrong. When one
remembers the Matebeleland
killings, one finds it increasingly difficult to
understand why Mugabe's
case is different.
I hear we can learn a
lot from him. I beg to differ. We must be
careful. We must not be perceived
as protecting him.
Unfortunately, this is the widely held
perception right now. We must
be seen to be helping to restore order and
stability but, at the same time,
giving moral support to people on the
ground.
We do not know who is going to call the shots in that
country 10 years
from now. It could be someone we have dumped at
Lindela.
The question is: how many Bin Ladens are we creating for
ourselves?
Where would be without the sober mind of
Tutu?
Alston Nkolokosa
Sandton
Fox News
What's Wrong with Africa?
Wednesday, January 28,
2004
By Marian L. Tupy
Driving from the far reaches of Western Cape to
Cape Town during a recent
holiday in South Africa, I switched on the car
radio to listen to the news.
That morning, the news included only three items
that did not concern
cricket or rugby. The stories, however, illuminated what
I think are among
the most important problems facing Africa: misguided
foreign policy,
corruption and disrespect for human rights.
Foreign
Policy
According to the broadcast, the South African government
"acknowledged"
Saddam Hussein's capture by American forces, but "ventured no
opinion." The
announcement was a sample of the way the South Africa
Broadcasting
Corporation would report on Saddam's detention for days to come.
According
to the SABC, the Iraqi "president" refused to cooperate with his
American
"captors" and so on.
There is legitimate disagreement among
people in the United States and
elsewhere about the wisdom of expending
America's blood and treasure in the
deserts of Iraq. Nonetheless, most people
welcomed the demise of one of the
world's most bloodthirsty and corrupt
dictators and, unlike many African
governments--including South
Africa's--those people "ventured" an opinion.
So, why do some African
countries pick meaningless fights with the United
States and engage in
grandstanding on issues that win them no friends and
make many Americans
question whether Africa is worth caring for?
The case of South Africa is
illustrative. Over the past 10 years, relations
between South Africa and the
United States cooled considerably. Nelson
Mandela, for example, claimed that
President Bush "cannot think properly"
and "wants a holocaust." During his
address to the Non-Aligned Movement in
2000, South African President Mbeki
singled out the United States as a
country of increasing racism and
xenophobia. During the U.N. Conference
Against Racism in Durban, the
anti-American and anti-Israeli hysteria ran so
high that the United States
pulled out. The list goes on.
South African anti-Americanism has deep roots
in the ideological background
of the African National Congress, which
President Mbeki heads. But it serves
no useful purpose today. The ANC should
recognize that it no longer is a
Marxist revolutionary movement, but a
governing party, which should act in
the best interest of South Africa.
Making Americans mad is hardly the wisest
of policies, especially because
President Mbeki's plan for African renewal
(NEPAD) depends, in large part, on
American investment.
Concomitant with growing anti-Americanism is the
increasingly
interventionist South African foreign policy. The ANC government
has
recently made commitments to spend over 100 billion rands ($16 billion)
on
upgrading the South African armed forces. Considering how poor most
South
Africans are, that expenditure is a waste--especially when one
considers
that South Africa faces no foreign threat.
Greater military
spending is, however, essential for Mbeki's vision of
himself as the leader
of Africa. Because the United States has (wisely)
decided to stay away from
African conflicts, Mbeki assumes that it is his
responsibility to bring an
end to African civil wars. But if U.S. taxpayers
are unwilling to pick up the
tab for solving the perpetual conflicts in
Africa, why should South Africans
do so? Has anyone asked them if they want
to pay for peacekeeping in Burundi
and Congo? Let us hope that 20 years
from now we will not look at misguided
foreign policy as a contribution to
South Africa's economic
collapse.
Corruption
The second item on the news show was the following
bizarre story: A
policeman on patrol in Johannesburg noticed a fully loaded
police car, which
he then followed into an industrial suburb. When the car
stopped, he
approached it and was shot in the chest. The heroic policeman
somehow
managed to return fire and killed his assailant. The assailant turned
out to
be a high-ranking police officer who supplemented his income by
stealing
sheep from surrounding farms and selling them in the city.
That
story reminded me of the jubilation of Kenyans after the long rule of
Daniel
Arap Moi --a corrupt dictator--which came to an end in 2002. As many
Kenyans
remarked, their neighborhoods became much "safer" because policemen
were
called back into their barracks. They weren't harassing the populace. A
year
later, I participated in a conference in Mombasa, Kenya. One of
the
participants came from Uganda. She told me how difficult it was for her
to
get to the conference--policemen routinely stop travelers along the road
and
demand bribes. They are, in effect, Africa's highwaymen.
Of course,
corruption among Africa's officials is endemic. A reason why
Americans should
be suspicious of President Bush's decision to spend $15
billion on fighting
AIDS in Africa is ... corruption. Consider a South
African estimate that
approximately 50 percent of all drugs delivered to the
country's
government-run hospitals are stolen.
Politicians are the most corrupt members
of African societies. Joseph Mobutu
of Zaire-- who changed his name to the
more widely recognized Mobutu Sese
Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (which
translates to "the earthy, the
peppery, all-powerful warrior who, by his
endurance and will to win, goes
from contest to contest leaving fire in his
wake") -- stole about $8
billion. Famously, he enlarged the airport in his
hometown to accommodate
landings by Concordes-- which he leased from Air
France-all the while his
people starved. Nigeria's Sani Abacha stashed away
$4 billion. Zimbabwe's
Robert Mugabe just moved into a $6 million villa in
Harare, even though 50
percent of his countrymen face famine. The list is
inexhaustible.
Human Rights
According to the last item on the newscast,
the Nigerian government declared
that it would arrest or "kill" anyone who
tried to kidnap Charles Taylor.
Taylor, who resides in Nigeria, is the former
strongman of Liberia and a man
responsible for much bloodshed in that
country. He has also been indicted by
the U.N. Special Court for Sierra
Leone, which accused him of "the greatest
responsibility for war crimes,
crimes against humanity and serious
violations of international humanitarian
law" in Sierra Leone's 10-year
civil war. An international warrant for his
arrest carries with it a $2
million reward.
The Nigerian attitude
epitomizes the way African leaders, even those who
commit gross abuses of
human rights, continue to be gently treated. Take the
supposedly reformist
government of Mwai Kibaki in Kenya. One of the first
things Kibaki did after
coming to power was to declare that Daniel Arap Moi,
a corrupt dictator, who
ruled Kenya for two decades, would be left alone.
Mengistu Haile Mariam,
otherwise known as the "Butcher of Addis Ababa,"
lives happily in Zimbabwe
under the protection of Robert Mugabe. Famously,
Idi Amin and Mobutu Sese
Seko escaped, or were allowed to escape,
punishment.
The exception to the
rule is Frederick Chiluba of Zambia. Having replaced
Kenneth Kaunda by
promising to stamp out corruption, Chiluba proceeded to
embezzle millions of
dollars during his 10-year rule. As he famously
declared only two weeks after
coming to power, "power is sweet." Chiluba
currently faces corruption charges
in Lusaka. But, the case stands. African
leaders, treated with utter
deference while in power, seldom have to answer
for their actions when they
are out of power. That too has to change.
Marian L. Tupy is assistant
director of the Project on Global Economic
Liberty at the Cato
Institute.
Financial Times
ECB trapped by Zim tour muddle
By Ben
Hunt
Published: January 28 2004 20:22 | Last Updated: January 28 2004
20:22
The England and Wales Cricket Board, like former UK
foreign secretary
Robin Cook before it, is fast discovering that the
introduction of an
ethical foreign policy is as likely to lead to a muddy
quagmire as a field
of dreams.
We will not know for certain
until next month if England are to tour
Zimbabwe in November, but it seems
almost inevitable that the ECB will
decline to play cricket in a country
facing a humanitarian catastrophe
caused by its own government. But the ECB's
arrival at the right conclusion
cannot mask the mistakes that have led it
there and left English cricket
with its weak international standing further
undermined.
There is no doubt that the ECB is unenviably caught
between the rock
of government and public opinion and a hard place in the
world cricket
community that insists that sport be divorced from politics.
But its
difficulty has been exacerbated by its inability to navigate the
narrow
water between the two.
The problem essentially lies with
an agreement that ECB chairman David
Morgan made with the Zimbabwe Cricket
Union last year following England's
refusal to play a World Cup fixture in
Harare. Morgan persuaded ZCU
president Peter Chingoka not to retaliate by
cancelling Zimbabwe's 2003 tour
of England, which would have left the ECB
facing a financial black hole. He
assured his counterpart that, provided the
situation did not change, the
reciprocal 2004 tour would not be cancelled on
grounds other than security.
There is no reason to doubt that
Morgan's intentions were anything
other than honourable, but few believed
that the tour could proceed with
Mugabe still in power, and it was only a
matter of time before the ECB began
to seek an escape route. Last week it
appeared to have engineered that with
the proposal by ECB board member Des
Wilson of a new framework for decisions
over tours that would include
criteria such as human rights and government
policy.
The ECB
board meets today to decide whether to accept that policy, and
had planned to
follow it with a final decision on Zimbabwe. But faced with a
fierce
international backlash that threatened a multi-million pound lawsuit
and the
distant, but nonetheless real, possibility of reciprocal tour
postponements
by other nations, it has postponed the decision until
next
month.
Belatedly, the ECB is now considering the full
ramifications of the
decision facing it. The options with which it might
extricate itself from
the hole it is in include making a compensation payment
to Zimbabwe of $1m
(£555,000), moving the tour's fixtures to a third country
or simply
postponing it.
How much better it would have been for
England to have recognised the
impossibility of its position last year and
taken the decision to postpone
all cricketing contact with Zimbabwe, rather
than making an agreement it
must have known would be difficult to adhere
to.
But having eschewed that opportunity, surely it would have
been
preferable to negotiate a solution privately with the ZCU, rather
than
presenting it with what is effectively a fait accompli. By bringing
the
issue into the open the ECB has left Chingoka with a severely
impaired
ability to reach a compromise.
The ECB must move on
from this deeply damaging affair and rebuild its
international reputation.
Yet it may find that doing so with the same
executive cast that has presided
over the muddle of the past 12 months is
extremely difficult.
Daily News
Nyambuya wants to grab my farm: Bennet
Date:29-Jan, 2004
CHIMANIMANI Member of Parliament Roy Bennet
has accused Mike Nyambuya,
the newly appointed Governor of Manicaland, of
spearheading a violent
campaign to remove him from his farm and to wipe out
the opposition from the
province.
The Daily News understands
that Nyambuya declined to attend a Mutare
City Council all-stakeholders’
meeting last week in order to address senior
ZANU PF officials in
Chimanimani.
Bennet, of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
claims that it
was at this meeting, held at Chimanimani Hotel that Nyambuya
told the senior
ruling party officials of his intention to remove Bennet from
the province
and to deal decisively with all opposition members in the
province.
“All hell broke loose on Thursday when Nyambuya called
for a meeting
at Chimanimani Hotel. He openly told ZANU PF activists at that
meeting that
he wanted to remove me violently and wanted me out of the
province urgently.
“Nyambuya has been on a mission to use his
military experience to
violently remove me from my farm and from the
province. Early this month he
drove a group of war veterans, CIOs (State
security agents), soldiers and
ARDA (Agricultural Rural Development
Authority) workers onto my farm and
they are still camped there,” said
Bennet.
Bennet said following Thursday’s meeting chaired by
Nyambuya, a group
of 15 ZANU PF youths terrorised suspected MDC activists,
who included David
Munengwa, the MDC district chairman for Chimanimani,
Jasper Gabaza, Douglas
Gebe and Takesure Chironzo.
Property
worth about $4 million was destroyed during the alleged
violent incidences
and MDC members were harassed.
Nyambuya, a retired army
lieutenant-general, would yesterday neither
deny nor confirm Bennet’s
allegations.
“Bennet can continue saying whatever he wants and he
can go on
dreaming. I won’t stop him from talking nonsense,” said
Nyambuya.
Last year President Robert Mugabe challenged the
Manicaland provincial
leadership to ensure that Bennet and another farmer,
only identified as De
Klerk, were removed from the province.
Despite a High Court ruling last year barring the government from
taking over
Bennet’s farm, several government officials and ruling party
supporters have
either illegally camped or stayed on the farm.
Early this month,
Nyambuya is alleged to have driven members of the
army and government
supporters on a violent looting spree at Bennet’s
Charleswood Estate in
Chimanimani.
According to Bennet, a mob of about 100 people which
included senior
army officers and officials from the State-run ARDA, invaded
his estate.
The group allegedly fired shots to intimidate farm
workers before
looting.
Several workers had to be rushed to
hospital after they were beaten up
by the soldiers and a farm worker is
believed to have been shot in the
melee.
Bennet said the
invaders claimed that they were acting on the
instructions of the new
governor, retired Lieutenant-General Nyambuya.
“Zanu PF is using
violence and intimidation because it is aware that
there is resistance on the
part of Chimanimani people because the
constituency relies on my estate for a
living and they have benefited so
much from the projects that I have
initiated,” said Bennet.
Over 90 percent of prime commercial farms
belonging to white farmers
have been acquired by the government since 2000,
when Mugabe embarked on a
controversial and often violent land reform
exercise, purportedly to
redistribute land among landless
blacks.
Farming organisations have warned of serious famine next
year
following the failure by most newly resettled farmers to plant enough
crops
due to a crippling shortage of seed, fertiliser and other
agricultural
inputs.
Staff Reporter
Daily News
ANZ case postponed
Date:29-Jan,
2004
CHIEF Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku yesterday said he would
make a
provisional ruling in the next few days on the legal position of
Associated
Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), publishers of The Daily News and The
Daily
News on Sunday.
The chief justice made the order in
chambers when he postponed to 18
February the case between ANZ and the Media
and Information Commission (MIC)
and another case between the two parties
which was set for Monday next week.
On Monday, the full Supreme
Court bench, sitting as a constitutional
court, was supposed to make its
determination as to whether or not the ANZ
was in compliance with the Supreme
Court ruling of 11 September 2003.
ANZ lawyer Mordecai Mahlangu
told The Daily News that if they filed
their papers concerning the company’s
legal position by Friday, Chidyausiku
would any time thereafter deliver his
ruling on the status of ANZ, which
will determine whether or not The Daily
News and its sister paper should
continue publishing before 18
February.
“The Chief Justice ruled that the two appeals from the
Administrative
Court be consolidated and put into one case,” he
said.
“These consolidated cases will be heard on 18 February. What
he did
not deal with is the restraining order which we expect to be delivered
any
time after our submissions.”
Mahlangu said during their
deliberations before Chidyausiku, MIC
lawyer Johannes Tomana indicated that
the MIC was withdrawing its two
appeals pending before the High Court but he
was still to receive the notice
of withdrawal from Tomana to be certain it
had been withdrawn.
On Monday, the MIC wanted the appeals before
the court consolidated
into one case, an order directing the registrar of the
court to expedite the
hearing of the matter and an interdict stopping the
publication of The Daily
News and The Daily News on Sunday.
But
Chidyausiku denied the MIC appeal to bar the publication of the
two
papers.
ANZ challenged the constitutionality of some sections of
the Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act in the Supreme
Court.
But on 11 September 2003, the Supreme Court, sitting as
a
constitutional court, ruled that it would not hear the matter because
the
ANZ had approached the court with “dirty hands”.
Staff
Reporter
Daily News
Hungwe summons Masvingo mayor
Date:29-Jan,
2004
MASVINGO – Masvingo provincial governor Josaya Hungwe on
Tuesday
summoned Masvingo’s executive mayor, Alois Chaimiti, and two other
council
officials to his office to explain why they had hiked rates and
tariffs in
the city.
The Masvingo City Council this year
unveiled a $16 billion budget
which saw rates and tariffs going up by 400
percent.
Hungwe confirmed yesterday he had quizzed the city fathers
after
receiving several complaints from residents over the new
rates.
Said Hungwe: “I just wanted to know why they have increased
these
tariffs because people have been approaching my office complaining that
they
are no longer able to pay the money. They have to tell us how they came
up
with these figures.”
Masvingo executive mayor Alois Chaimiti
yesterday confirmed that
Hungwe had called him to his office over the issue
of rates.
“We were called to the governor’s office to explain our
budget and we
told him that because of the economic environment, that was the
best we
could do,” said Chaimiti.
“We want to be able to
continue providing good services to our
residents – that is why we increased
the rates.”
The council, dominated by the opposition MDC has vowed
not to bow down
to pressure from Hungwe arguing that the budget was done
after consultations
with residents.
A Masvingo councillor who
spoke on condition he was not named said the
governor was imposing himself on
the council.
“The governor just wants us to be dismissed by
residents after failing
to provide them with services. According to the Urban
Councils Act, the
governor has no powers to intervene,” he said.
Last week, a group of about 50 people took to the streets protesting
against
the new rates.
Own Correspondent
Daily News
Can Dialogue Save Zimbabwe or is Armed Struggle
Inevitable?
Date:26-Jan, 2004
Some people
interpret human rights to mean you must curb the power of
the state, which is
the wrong view. You must curb the abuse of power by the
state.’ South
Africa’s transport minister and former minister of justice
Dullah Omar made
this comment in an interview this week. He is being
honoured with an award
for his lifelong contribution to human rights.
This year South
Africa celebrates 10 years of democracy which will
culminate in festivities
on 27 April, marking the date of the first
elections in which citizens of all
skin colours could cast their vote.
Voters will also go to the polls to elect
a president in the next few months
in the country’s third democratic
elections.
South Africa’s transformation has been hailed as a
miracle. Despite
wide-spread fears, the country did not slide into anarchy.
While blood was
shed, these incidents remained isolated and did not lead to
full-scale civil
war. Internal and external pressures played their part, but
essentially,
South Africa’s democracy grew out of a long series of
negotiations.
Instruments were put in place to ensure that the power of the
state could be
curbed and that human rights would forever be protected by the
country’s
constitution.
Circumstances today are different
than 14 years ago when then-state
President FW de Klerk un-banned the African
National Congress, setting in
motion the transformation process.
Internationally and regionally, no
country argued for the upholding of the
apartheid regime. Thus it can’t be
argued that what worked in South Africa
must necessarily work in Zimbabwe.
For one, there is no international
consensus, particularly not among African
countries, on the need for a change
in Zimbabwe’s leadership.
Where certain parallels between South
Africa and Zimbabwe can be
made – or, perhaps more appropriately, where
Zimbabwe might be able to draw
from South Africa’s experience – is in the
combination of particular
elements, specifically in the roles played by the
armed struggle, the courts
and international pressure.
The
treason trial against the leader of the opposition Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC) has resumed in the Harare High Court and the MDC’s
legal
challenge against the outcome of the presidential elections in 2002
remains
in the courts. The case against three journalists of the Zimbabwe
Independent
newspaper on criminal defamation charges may also be tried in
the coming
months. Against the backdrop of all these legal battles, the call
for more
protests and even for more violent measures to force a change of
government
have frequently been made by civil society and ordinary citizens.
The MDC has
always argued that its legal challenges are part of its strategy
to push for
change within the legal framework of the country’s laws and
constitution. It
is also a strategy the government has used: passing often
draconic laws in
order to be able to strike against opposition voices while
maintaining that
it is operating within the law.
Many in and outside Zimbabwe have
argued that the ‘legal way’ is
futile given the manipulation of the courts by
government. A case can be
made, however, for continuing on this path. Just as
the apartheid government
used the laws and the courts to build its apartheid
framework, some
opponents were able to strike blows against the system in the
courts of law.
Others have further argued that armed struggle is inevitable,
just as the
ANC and other liberation movements in South Africa at one point
concluded
that the time for armed insurrection had come. This poses the
question: is
there an alternative to violence?
Ivor Jenkins
of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa recently
tried to answer that
question. Zimbabwe’s economy is crumbling, hunger is on
the rise and
shortages of basic food items continue. Repression in this
context leads to
despair and anger, Jenkins writes. In response to the
launching of the
Zimbabwe Freedom Movement, a new revolutionary group, he
quoted Paul Themba
Nyathi of the MDC: ‘violence becomes an option when all
other avenues are
closed.’
Jenkins relates this to apartheid South Africa and the
ANC’s military
wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (‘spear of the nation’). ‘Umkhonto we
Sizwe and the
African Resistance Movement emerged where all normal democratic
discourse
was closed. It provoked much the same reaction among informed
commentators
at the time: while repudiating the use of violence, and
objecting to the
violence of the South African state, most warned that this
would be the way
of the future if change did not occur.’
He
continues: ‘This is the implication of the MDC commentary, and has
been the
frequent comment of many Zimbabwean civic leaders over the past
three years.
In South Africa, the failure of the apartheid state to address
the legitimate
demands of ordinary citizens and the thwarting of normal
peaceful action led
to a long and violent process, and eventually to
mutually hurting
stalemate...The push for dialogue was the final answer to
the
stalemate.’
There have been assurances (and denials followed by
more assurances)
that dialogue is taking place in Zimbabwe, that negotiations
could still
become a reality. However, given the continued repression of
opposition
voices, the hope that these negotiations could not only take place
but lead
to a peaceful transition is diminished. Jenkins argues: ‘While there
should
be calls for all to repudiate violence, these should be allied
explicitly to
demands that ‘open space’ is created. This means that normal
democratic
activity and processes should be allowed by the Zimbabwean
government. A
free press, the right to peaceful protest, demobilisation of
militia forces
and an absolute end to partisan use of state resources are
essential.’
Many commentators, analysts and politicians have
argued that
unconditional dialogue must take place. The court challenges and
the calls
for increased protest action are not contradictory to this desire
for
dialogue. Jenkins echoes the view held by those who want change in
Zimbabwe
but hope for one that will occur with little or no bloodshed and one
that
will bring lasting change. ‘An inclusive process of dialogue leading
to
constitutional, electoral and economic reform, must be the final
way
forward.’ This has been said before, but at the start of a new year, must
be
said again. Without inclusive negotiations, Zimbabwe is likely to
continue
to sink into the economic, political and social
morass.
.. This column is provided by the International Bar
Association. An
organisation that represents the Law Societies and Bar
Associations around
the world, and works to uphold the rule of law. For
further information,
visit the website www.ibanet.org