The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
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From ZWNEWS, 11 July
The saddest and scariest thing
By a special correspondent
Timothy, a Zimbabwean farmworker, hobbled to the homestead door supported by a friend. Somewhere in his mid-thirties, he looked more like 60, thin, wasted and probably suffering from AIDS. He needs money, the friend said, he has to go to see the n'anga. Timothy drew his fingers across his throat. If he didn't go now, he told the farmer, he'd die. Someone had put a spell on him.
It is the saddest and scariest thing to live in a country ravaged by AIDS. Population growth is forecast at zero percent next year, so fast are people dying. Two thousand die here from AIDS every week. Six out of Harare's seven cemeteries are now full. Attempts are being made to persuade families to bury more than one person in a single grave, to save space. What makes things worse, however, is the superstition, blind faith and tradition that stop some Zimbabweans taking responsibility for protecting themselves from the pandemic. With an estimated one in four Zimbabweans now living with HIV, spells are a useful thing to blame. And it's not just, rural poorly-educated people like Timothy who believe in them. Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi, the Polish-trained doctor who led independence war veterans in the invasions of hundreds of white-owned farms here last year, is said to have accused some of his colleagues of putting a spell on him two days before he died in June. Hunzvi is widely believed to have had AIDS, although the official line remains that he died of malaria.
Chipo, a domestic worker on the same farm, believes it's up to God whether or not she gets AIDS. She's a devout Christian, sings in the church choir, but has a little problem keeping her second husband on the straight and narrow. Give him a bit of chibuku (beer) and he starts womanising in the farm compound, though he does repent afterwards. Chipo's two brothers have died of AIDS. She knows what AIDS can do - but she stays with her husband. Meanwhile, the farmer has employed a carpenter, to keep up with the demand for coffins.
Then there are the wife-bequeathing traditions, still strong in rural Zimbabwe. The Daily News recently carried the story of the Kambwembwe family in eastern Zimbabwe. 20-year old Tembo was left three years ago to support 23 people - three widows and 20 children - after first his father and then his uncle died of AIDS. Tembo's uncle had inherited his brother's wife. To be fair, the government is making an effort to educate people. Recently, it banned traditional ceremonies in which those wanting a cure cut themselves to let "spirits" out. They were sharing blades, the government said, and spreading HIV. And it warned against people getting over-excited at last month's announcement AIDS drug prices were to go down. The drugs only put off death, but did not cure the disease, the health minister said.
But in a more sinister development, theories blaming white colonials for the AIDS virus have been allowed to creep in. Listeners to a talkshow last month on the state's tightly-controlled ZBC radio were reminded by the programme's guest, a prominent traditional healer, that the AIDS virus was developed by Rhodesian soldiers as a weapon of warfare during the 1970s. The theory is not a new one. In 1998, Mugabe's Zanu PF government said it was investigating allegations Rhodesian soldiers had developed biological weapons of warfare. The theory got the support it was looking for in the 1999 publication - by an ex-Rhodesian Army soldier - of a thriller which told how biological weapons, like AIDS, had been developed during the apartheid regime in South Africa for use by Ian Smith's soldiers. Read not as fiction but as fact, Ben Geer's "Something More Sinister" gives Mugabe's supporters an added opportunity to blame whites not just for the economic crisis pulling the country down and for last week's widely-followed industrial stayaway, but also for the pandemic robbing Zimbabwe of its youth and its hope.
MDC member’s widow tells High Court of horrifying torture details
The High Court yesterday heard horrifying stories of how alleged Zanu PF supporters in Mberengwa West tortured an MDC member’s wife, forcing her to drink their urine. Mavis Tapera, whose husband Fainos Kufazvinei Zhou of the MDC died after a severe beating by Zanu PF supporters, told High Court judge Justice Ben Hlatshwayo that suspected Zanu PF supporters ordered her to drink her urine and forced an iron rod into her private parts before they abducted her husband whom they beat to death. Tapera broke down several times as she narrated her ordeal. The court heard that Zhou died a painful death after he was allegedly assaulted and tortured by Zanu PF supporters led by Wilson Kufa Chitoro, alias Biggie Chitoro, in the run-up to last year’s parliamentary election. Tapera was giving evidence in an election petition in which Mfandaidza Hove of the MDC wants the court to nullify the victory of Zanu PF’s Joram Gumbo.
Tapera said: "They came to my home at night and asked my husband to come out. One of them used his knife to tear apart my petticoat." Tapera showed Hlatshwayo the shredded petticoat. "I was wearing only my pant when they took me out of the house and started assaulting me. They beat me on the buttocks, using logs. One of them asked me whether Morgan Tsvangirai had bought me the pant that I was wearing," she said. "He then forced an iron rod into my private parts," Tapera said. "He asked me to imitate the sexual motions that I go through when I am in bed with my husband. It was painful but I was ordered to stop crying."
She said the alleged Zanu PF supporters then asked her to surrender MDC T-shirts and membership cards, but she could not do so because she did not have them. Tapera said her late husband and his brother, James, were later taken to Texas Ranch the same night on 4 July, last year. She said after a brief walk to the farm, she was ordered to go back home. "When I returned," she told the court, "the two men forced me to smoke a cigarette. They also urinated into a container and forced me to drink from it. I had no option because they threatened to force me to eat their stool if I refused." She said the family looked for Fainos and James for three days. On the fourth day a certain war veteran, identified only as Ngoni, had told them that the two were at Texas Ranch under Biggie Chitoro. "I borrowed $400 to visit my husband, who was at Hove’s home. When I reached Hove’s home my husband had just died. I observed that he had wounds all over his body as if he had been assaulted with a hot iron bar. He had injuries on his buttocks," she said. The hearing continues today.
From The Cape Argus (SA), 10 July
SA's stance on land reform is 'unchanged'
Lusaka - South African officials at the OAU summit have distanced themselves from suggestions that Pretoria supports Zimbabwe's controversial land grab from white farmers. Reports from the Zambian capital said South African authorities had endorsed a resolution praising Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's efforts to seize white farms without compensation. Reacting to the reports, Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa dismissed them "as lightning (and) thunder signifying nothing". He said South Africa's stance on Zimbabwe's land reform remained unchanged, stressing that "land redistribution in Zimbabwe should be done within the framework of the law and the constitution of that country". South Africa would support efforts of a committee to help Zimbabwe in its dialogue with the European Union on the land issue, Mamoepa said.
On Monday, African foreign ministers agreed to establish the committee consisting of South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Cameroon, Kenya and Zambia. In the resolution, drafted on Monday, African foreign ministers also accused Britain of contributing to the instability, conflict and economic despair plaguing Zimbabwe by refusing to back the land reform efforts in its former colony. It also condemned Britain for refusing to honour commitments to help fund land reform it had made before Zimbabwe's independence in 1980. The ministers said it was Britain's responsibility to resolve the issue. "The land question in Zimbabwe remains essentially a bilateral dispute between Zimbabwe and Britain." The ministers praised President Mugabe's efforts to seize farms without compensation and noted with concern "British moves to mobilise European and North American countries to isolate and vilify Zimbabwe". The resolution was expected to be formally adopted by the heads of state tomorrow.
July 11 2001 at 11:55AM |
Harare - Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, accused of acts of
terrorism that could bar him from next year's elections, will challenge his
prosecution on Thursday in a test case for freedom of speech in Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), was granted the right by the high court in May to refer his case to the
supreme court to argue that a terrorism case against him was an attack on his
right to free speech.
President Robert Mugabe's government said it had
accepted the high court ruling, and would try to convince the country's highest
court that Tsvangirai had a case to answer.
On Tuesday, Tsvangirai said
he was ready, but had no doubt the supreme court would uphold his rights and
rule as unconstitutional the law on which his prosecution was based.
"Our supreme court has a history of fairness, of protecting the rights
of all Zimbabweans, of dispensing justice and that is the reason we have been
calling for the protection of their integrity," he said. "We are going to argue
our case there... not outside."
Tsvangirai is being prosecuted for
telling MDC supporters in a speech last year that Mugabe might be overthrown
violently if he did not retire. - Reuters
July 11 2001 at 09:53AM |
Harare - Zimbabwe's police chief has vowed to dismiss members from the force
who support opposition politics, the state-owned Herald reported on Wednesday.
"Those officers who believe they can abandon the government of the day
in order to support the opposition are misguided and they will be kicked out of
the force," Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri told the paper.
An
undisclosed number of officers have already been fired on those grounds, the
police chief said.
Chihuri is a self-declared supporter of the ruling
Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) of President Robert
Mugabe.
Police in Zimbabwe have been consistently accused of neglecting
their duties. Violent attacks on the opposition by ruling party supporters left
at least 34 people dead in the run-up to last year's general elections.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) claims another five
of its supporters were killed in politically-motivated attacks last week.
Dismissing pro-opposition supporters from the police force was acting in
"the interests of the majority", Chihuri added.
The ruling party scraped
a narrow victory over the MDC in last year's elections, winning 62 of the 120
contested seats against the MDC's 57.
Presidential elections are due
early next year in which 77-year-old President Mugabe will be standing as the
ruling party's candidate. - Sapa-AFP
The draft declaration by African foreign ministers on Sunday had also named South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Cameroon, Kenya and Zambia to a committee to support Zimbabwe in future talks with the European Union and other parties on land reform.
But Mbeki said at the closing session of the annual summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) that a milder declaration had been adopted instead.
"The (new) declaration says that Britain and Zimbabwe need to get together and continue to search for a solution (to the land problem). That supersedes the ministerial draft," Mbeki said.
"The new declaration was promoted by Nigeria which felt that there was a need to continue the mediation which it started between Zimbabwe and Britain last year," Mbeki added.
The southern African country has been wracked by violence since land invasions began last year, disrupting economic activity. President Robert Mugabe says land redistribution is necessary to address a century-old imbalance in land ownership in the country.
Harare - The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe was pressing ahead with an export
incentive scheme introduced last month to help boost the country's foreign
currency reserves, it said yesterday.
This was despite media reports
that the new scheme had been scrapped by President Robert Mugabe's Cabinet.
The Reserve Bank said the scheme would involve a currency swap
arrangement between the central bank and exporters.
It said last week
that the exporter would swap foreign currency for Zimbabwe dollars - at the
exchange rate ruling at the time of the transaction - with the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe. The Reserve Bank would give the exporter a percentage of the amount
swapped in Zimbabwe dollars as an incentive.
However, the State-owned
Herald newspaper reported on Monday that the government had scrapped the scheme
as it amounted to the devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar "through the back
door". The newspaper did not explain how the measures would amount to
devaluation.
However, it is understood that the measure which had
created problems was the one allowing the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to give an
extra percentage of the amount swapped in Zimbabwe dollars as an incentive to
the exporter.
It had been viewed as an indirect attempt by the central
bank to compensate exporters who had been clamouring for devaluation.
Mugabe has already spurned suggestions from Simba Makoni, the minister
of finance, and other Reserve Bank technocrats. to devalue the dollar
Makoni publicly said that Zimbabwe's exchange rate of US$1 to Z$55 was
discredited as no one was trading at that rate. The black market was offering
rates of US$1 to Z$175
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - A farmer and opposition activist who was trapped in
his office over the weekend while armed ruling-party militants lit fires around
the farmhouse and assaulted workers said Monday that he would only abandon the
property if the law required it.
About 60 militants occupied Iain Kay's homestead in the Marondera district
about 60 miles east of Harare on Friday. The farm is among more than 4,000
white-owned properties targeted for confiscation under a government land-reform
program to resettle landless blacks.
At least one militant had a Kalashnikov assault rifle, another had a shotgun
and others carried axes, clubs and knives, Kay said. Kay, 52, his 22-year-old
son and two neighbors barricaded themselves in the farm's office with a pistol
and a rifle for protection.
The militants, beating drums throughout the two-day siege, assaulted 18 of
Kay's workers, one seriously.
"They wanted to drive us off the farm," said Kay, an activist in the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change. He said the four men decided not to
give in and told the militants "if the law demanded it, we would leave."
Police were called Friday but did nothing until district political leaders
persuaded the militants to withdraw late Sunday, neighbors said. On Monday, Kay
said, militants prohibited workers from moving tractors out of his yard to
resume work.
At least 36 people have died and thousands more have been left homeless in
political violence since the land occupations began in March 2000. Human rights
groups say most of the victims were opposition supporters.
In the past year, Kay has been assaulted and hospitalized twice.
The land occupations triggered political violence surrounding parliamentary
elections last June. The violence has continued ahead of presidential polls
scheduled for early next year.
The government has described the occupations as a justified protest against
the disproportionate ownership of the most fertile farm land by the white
descendants of colonial-era settlers.
The opposition says President Robert Mugabe encouraged the occupations and
stepped up plans to confiscate farms to bolster flagging support for the ruling
party in its traditional rural strongholds.
Mugabe's party won a slender majority of 62 of the 120 elected parliamentary
seats in the June polls, after controlling all but three seats in the previous
parliament.
Kay's wife, Kerry, head of a white farmers' charity for black AIDS orphans,
said the district was emotionally drained by the weekend standoff.
"There is no law here. We will keep working for peaceful change. All this is
being perpetrated by a small group of evil people trying to stay in power,"
Kerry Kay said. White Farmers Freed in Zimbabwe
Right About Risks; Wrong About Remedy
EDITORIAL
July 11, 2001
Posted to the web July 11, 2001
Johannesburg
"What about Zimbabwe?" has become the rallying cry for critics of President Thabo Mbeki's campaign for the Millennium Africa Recovery Programme (MAP).
How, they ask, can he gallivant around the globe declaring that African leaders are prepared to hold each other accountable to standards of democracy and human rights while refusing to intervene to halt abuses of power in Zimbabwe that threaten SA's economy and security.
Mbeki's detractors are right about the risks but wrong about the remedy. Threats of mass violence in Zimbabwe causing millions of refugees continue to spook South Africans, foreign investors, and others with stakes.
Yet none who have urged intervention have offered a plausible plan to restore law and order that would not exacerbate SA's race and class divisions or irreparably harm the Southern African Development Community.
Mbeki, meanwhile, has rightly chosen to focus national and global attention on next year's presidential poll in Zimbabwe.
"Power to the People" is a slogan Mbeki can use effectively at home and with other African leaders. Yet unless the current lawlessness and economic chaos are curtailed, free and fair elections and external funding for effective land reform and development will be impossible.
The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) signalled its concern this week by naming a committee consisting of the leading proponents of MAP SA, Nigeria and Algeria with Zambia, Kenya and Cameroon, to seek European Union (EU) help to fast-track Zimbabwean land reform. Yet this step must not detract from SA's complementary but wider bid to back free and fair elections.
At Mbeki's recent series of meetings with western leaders, all voiced their support for SA's handling of the Zimbabwean problem and, in an extraordinary show of confidence, seem willing to follow Pretoria's lead.
When Mbeki and other OAU leaders seek western aid for Africa's revival at the July 20-22 Group of Eight summit in Genoa, Zimbabwe is sure to be an issue.
To signal SA's willingness to provide leadership, Mbeki ought to appoint a special envoy for Zimbabwe with a small team of advisers who will work with Mugabe's government, the OAU committee and the EU, the main bilateral and multilateral donors, and representatives of local and international civil society, in order to ensure that all commitments are met. Ensuring free and fair elections and lawful land reform will entail a far bigger international presence in Zimbabwe, and international financial commitments, than either Mugabe or the donors have accepted.
Managing such a process is never easy, but it has been done effectively. President Robert Mugabe's capacity to resist such an initiative should not be exaggerated. With evidence of collapsing political support everywhere apparent, we now hear he may fear prosecution if forced from office.
Yet Mugabe is not Yugoslavia's former strongman Slobodan Milosevic, and in Africa former autocrats have been allowed comfortable, secure retirements. If Mugabe does accept defeat graciously, finding a safe haven should be no problem. First, however, SA must lead an international effort to moderate Mugabe's behaviour in ways that will serve democracy in Zimbabwe, SA's security and the dream of an African renaissance.
Stremlau is head of international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand.