ZIMBABWE: Focus on urban households and the economic crisis
[This report
does not necessarily reflect the views of the United
Nations]
JOHANNESBURG, 30 June (IRIN) - Zimbabwe's rapidly declining
economy has prompted the humanitarian community to begin preparations for an
urban vulnerability assessment to map the impact of poverty on
households.
The following IRIN Focus presents the views of five people -
a teacher, a nurse, a policeman, a businessman and a veteran of the
liberation war - in the capital, Harare. They discuss the economic crisis,
and how they try and make ends meet.
A TEACHER'S TALE
Simon
Chari (not his real name), is a 34-year-old secondary school teacher who
graduated from the University of Zimbabwe in 1993 with an honours degree in
English.
He taught in rural Rushinga in Mashonaland Central for a year
before transferring to the capital, Harare, at the beginning of 1995. He
wanted to be closer to his young wife, who worked in the city as a
receptionist for a clothing firm, but the company shut down in 2001, citing a
hostile business environment.
"The teaching profession, even though it
was among one of the lowest paid jobs then, was comfortable. My monthly
salary was slightly more than $3,000 (US $54), but I could manage to fend for
the family and buy households goods, and still manage to save," Chari told
IRIN.
"Things started to get bad from the end of 1997, when prices of
basic commodities began to rise on an ad hoc basis. I remember that the
national economy started to take a nosedive and industrial action became the
order of the day."
Chari says he bought his last major household item,
a two-plate stove, with his 1998 annual bonus.
"I'm glad I managed to
buy most of the basic household goods - a bed, a wardrobe, a television set,
a radio and a lounge suite - before the economic situation deteriorated. I
shudder to think where I would have acquired the money to buy even a simple
black and white television set, now going for more then $200,000 [US $243],
on my paltry salary."
He earns Zim $110,000 (US $133), which will rise to
$220,000 (US $267) through a series of public sector salary increases
promised by the government.
Chari, married with three children, two of
whom are in primary school, says in 2000 he was forced to let the house his
late parents left to him, as the eldest son, and he moved to a two-roomed
cottage in the high-density suburb of Mufakose where he teaches. However, the
rental he receives is shared among his five siblings and does not go very
far.
What is particularly humiliating, he says, is that one of his
students is the daughter of the owners of the house where he is
living.
"People living in cottages here are derisively referred to as
'vakomana vekuseri', which is Shona for 'backyard boys'. The daughter looks
down on me and I find it difficult to discipline her for fear of being
ejected from the cottage by her parents, especially these days when lodgings
are very difficult to get."
In October last year, Chari was suspended
by the Ministry of Education and Culture for taking part in a teachers'
strike organised by the Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe, in which he
is an active member. The union called the strike to press the government for
better salaries.
Even though he was reinstated, he awaits the decision of
a ministry disciplinary board, which he says intends to fire him along with
other teachers who participated in the strike.
The last time he was on
suspension for his union activities, with his salary frozen, he took up gold
panning on the Mazowe river in Mashonaland Central. Chari set up a hut in the
bush close to a citrus farm and dredged the nearby river for alluvial gold
that he sold to middlemen in Harare. He has since acquired a prospecting
licence and has two gold claims on the farm.
"Business is bad but I don't
have a choice. Living conditions are tough and I have to spend weeks away
from home and work, on the pretext that I am ill. One day, I returned to
discover that my wife, who gave birth about two months ago, had been detained
in hospital for a week."
But he now intends to take up gold panning full
time as his salary "cannot sustain me".
Chari accuses the government
of President Robert Mugabe for the economic downturn the country is
experiencing, arguing that only a regime-change can save Zimbabwe. He blames
Mugabe for embarking on a "hasty" land reform programme, and for clamping
down on the opposition.
"I wish that Mugabe would step down and permit
democratic elections to take place. After that, the IMF [International
Monetary Fund] and the World Bank should come back and ensure that the
foreign currency situation improves. That way, we will be able to bring up
our children in peace and comfort and mould them into future leaders," Chari
says.
A NURSE'S TALE
Anna Matema (not her real name) is a
45-year-old senior nurse at Harare Central Hospital, a public referral
hospital catering mainly for the poor living in the city's high-density
areas.
Matema is a widow and mother of five, and has been a nurse for 20
years. She says she is dismayed by spiralling inflation which makes it
difficult for her to budget for groceries, transport and her children's
school fees.
"Other departments in the civil service - teachers, soldiers
and policemen, for example - think that nurses are given preferential
treatment by the government when it comes to salaries. Even though we are
[paid] slightly better than them, life is equally tough for us," she
explains.
Matema's gross monthly salary, pegged at Zim $84,000 (US $102),
is set to rise to Zim $150,000 (US $182) as a result of a recent job
evaluation exercise. Nevertheless, she does not foresee being able to make
any savings.
Last year she was forced to pull her two children out of
boarding school following sharp increases in boarding fees. They are now
enrolled in less well equipped government schools.
"Before withdrawing
them from boarding school, a big chunk of my salary went towards debts I was
incurring every month. I discovered that I was being swallowed by borrowing,
particularly from money-lending businesses that have sprouted in town. These
sharks charge you extremely high interests, and the loans are deducted from
your payslip."
Matema was forced to sell her husband's car to offset her
debts. After working as a nurse for two decades, she says she feels she has
virtually nothing to show for it.
Her 23-year-old eldest daughter
recently took up cross-border trading to help support the family. She travels
to South Africa and Botswana selling local craft and boutique
products.
Matema does not like the business since she thinks it exposes
her daughter to the risk of muggings and HIV/AIDS, but feels she has no
choice but to accept it, because it goes a long way to supplementing the
family income.
She complains of low morale among her colleagues at work.
Zimbabwe has lost a large crop of its most experienced nurses to better paid
jobs overseas, particularly the UK. "Those who remain do not give their job
maximum attention. The sick are therefore caught in the vicious cycle, hence
high mortality rates at public hospitals."
But despite the
difficulties, Matema remains optimistic about the
country's future.
"Zimbabwe is a great country. We can still reclaim
our status as Southern Africa's breadbasket and one of the strongest
economies. What we need to do is to persuade all political parties to sit
down together so as to establish an acceptable government.
"We would
only be fooling ourselves if we thought that we could go it alone. We need a
lot of friends from outside. They will bring back investment and create jobs
for our children. In addition, Zimbabweans should see themselves as part of
the same family and march into the future together," she says.
A COP'S
TALE
Constable Mapa (not his real name), aged 37, has been a policeman
for 13 years. He is married with four children and lives in a police "camp"
where the family occupies two small rooms.
Conditions are cramped and
squalid, but he says he cannot afford anything better because he earns only
Zim $47,000 (US $57) a month.
"The toilets, which are also used as
communal bathrooms, are constantly blocked because the sewage system is very
old and stretched by the growing population in the police camp. The
Department of Camps and Hostels in the Zimbabwe Republic Police is always
complaining that it does not have enough money to overhaul the system. It is
also short of plumbers," he explains.
Mapa says police officers have
become subjects of ridicule in the communities they serve. They are
derisively referred to as the "BSAPs" (broke soon after pay), an abbreviation
that once referred to the colonial British South Africa Police. As a result,
police officers have lost self-esteem and feel they are not properly
respected.
Low salaries in the police force have contributed, to a large
extent, to corruption, Mapa says. Since they cannot make ends meet, some
police officers resort to soliciting for bribes from criminals. Last year
alone, five colleagues from his station were suspended on allegations of
theft and bribery.
Most of Mapa's salary goes to moneylenders, a trend
that has emerged only in the last few years. He believes a recent
announcement of salary and allowance adjustments by the government, which
would double his pay to Zim $90,000 (US $110) a month, was a non-event as
inflation is rising far faster.
Increasing transport costs have made
it difficult for him to visit his extended family in the rural areas. Mapa
says he still feels anger and guilt over the death of his mother last year,
which he believes could have been avoided if he had been able to travel
home.
"I will always remember the death of my mother with bitterness
because of a combination of factors. Being the family breadwinner, I was
informed that she was having problems with her chest six months before she
died. I could not visit her immediately because raising the money for bus
fare to my rural home was difficult. My wife had just been discharged from
hospital and I was already struggling to pay the huge bill the hospital sent
me.
"In addition, my superiors at work were refusing to give me time
off, arguing that the political situation in the country was tense following
the presidential elections. When I finally managed to visit her, her
condition had deteriorated and, worse still, my meagre salary could not
enable me to send her to private doctors for medical attention or to buy
drugs prescribed at the local clinic," he says.
He blames both the
government and the opposition for the economic crisis, saying that Mugabe was
recycling inefficient officials, while the opposition was deliberately
sabotaging the economy in order to make Zimbabwe ungovernable.
Citing
the mass protest action this month by the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change, which resulted in industrial activity grinding to a halt, he says the
party did not care about the effects of its actions on ordinary people but
just wanted to rule.
Mapa is pessimistic about the economic future of the
country. "Whoever is going to rule this country after Mugabe, be assured that
we will continue to suffer for the next 20 years, considering the extent to
which the economy has been damaged."
A BUSINESSMAN'S
TALE
Tichaona Nyikadzino, 36, is a young businessman struggling to stay
afloat in a hostile economic environment.
He is the director of
Millennium 2000, an indigenous retail company that specialises in
distributing liquor, wire and nails, and assembles bicycles as well. He also
runs a clinic at Harare International Airport. Nyikadzino left full-time
employment with a commercial bank seven years ago to run the family business
at the invitation of his father.
His main market is the high-density
areas of the capital, Harare.
"Since 2000, the economic environment in
Zimbabwe has become increasingly hostile to business, particularly upcoming
establishments like mine. It was easier to do business before that, because,
even if we also complained then, the operating environment was predictable
and relatively stable, making it possible to plan," Nyikadzino
says.
He is concerned with bank lending rates, which he says have jumped
from less than 30 percent in 2000 to the current 100 percent. That means he
has difficulty in raising money to finance his operations, let alone
expand.
A big headache is the increasing spate of fraud cases involving
his staff. "I am losing a lot of money through high-level fraud and theft.
Whereas I had to contend with petty cash thefts several years ago, I now have
to live with the painful reality of millions being stolen by my
employees."
Nyikadzino, who says he can no longer trust his managers, has
ended up doing most of the administrative work himself. He believes the rise
in theft is because his employees cannot afford to make ends meet, while he
is working a 16-hour day to stay in business.
The country's acute
foreign currency shortage is crippling his bicycle business, since most of
the parts needed for assembling the bikes are imported. Nyikadzino has to
source foreign currency on the black market due to the shortages at the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. But since exchange rates on the black market are
unstable, his profit margins fluctuate and at times he has been forced to
sell at a loss. Nyikadzino therefore revises his retail prices almost on a
daily basis.
However, spiralling inflation has hit the pockets of his
customers too.
Nyikadzino blames the political situation for the
depression in business, saying that disruptions in agriculture since the
introduction of land reform have led to the evaporation of international
investor confidence.
"Disruptions of agricultural activities through farm
occupations drove away international confidence. Tobacco and cotton output
has drastically fallen, and we cannot get enough foreign currency because the
two were leading foreign currency earners. In addition, gold and other
minerals are experiencing viability problems," he says.
The Zimbabwe
Federation of Trade Unions, a pro-government labour body, constantly disrupts
his operations, issuing him with threats over "baseless" allegations made by
fired employees.
"It does not mean that Zimbabwe is incapable of
producing foreign currency and making the economy work again. It is just that
we have our policies wrong most of the time," he says with cautious
optimism.
A VETERAN'S TALE
Arthur Chadzingwa is a 57-year-old
veteran of Zimbabwe's war of liberation against white settler rule.
He
was a leader of the Zimbabwe People's African Union (ZAPU) youth wing when it
was formed in 1960, and was jailed for treason in the 1970s. He was a
personal advisor to the late Joshua Nkomo, the founder of ZAPU, who served as
vice-president of Zimbabwe from 1987 until his death in 1999.
Chadzingwa
served in ambassadorial postings from independence in 1980, but in 2000 lost
his influential job as the ruling ZANU-PF party's national director. He has
not been in permanent employment since.
"It is unfortunate that I lost a
stable source of income when things were beginning to deteriorate for most
people. When I look back, I find it funny that I have to depend on handouts
from well-wishers inside and outside the country. Even the mobile phone I am
using was given to me by a friend. I feel guilty that I have not been able to
send anything to my daughter since I lost my job," he told
IRIN.
Chadzingwa is a divorcee, and his 12-year-old daughter lives with
her mother in her home country, Lesotho.
He relies on odd jobs he
occasionally gets from NGOs that require research assistants, but they are
becoming scarcer. Whenever he can, he sends some groceries to his rural home
in Zimunya, from where he in turn obtains maize-meal for the staple food,
"sadza". He also receives a small pension paid out to former freedom
fighters.
"Our problem is economic and not political, but of course bad
economics makes bad politics. The economic situation is really bad and I
never thought that things would go as far as this. We have been reduced to
hand-to-mouth cases, concerned only with basics, which are difficult to
obtain," he says.
"In the 1980s and 1990s, people lived generally
comfortably. There was no culture of willy-nilly raising prices of basic
commodities then."
Chadzingwa mostly blames Western governments,
particularly Britain and the United States, for the economic downturn. He
believes they are punishing Zimbabwe for the government's land reform
programme, which since 2000 has compulsorily acquired land from white
commercial farmers for distribution to landless Zimbabweans.
"It is
payback time for the whites' kith and kin in the West. They have deliberately
caused shortages in order to fan anger and civil unrest in this country, so
that Mugabe can be removed," he alleges.
Chadzingwa says some of the
country's problems are the downstream effects of economic reforms imposed on
the government by the IMF and the World Bank during the
1990s.
However, he feels some of the blame should also go to
unscrupulous Zimbabweans who have taken advantage of the political and
economic crisis to make fast money on the burgeoning black market, and
corrupt and inefficient government and parastatal officials.
A
beneficiary of the land reform programme himself, Chadzingwa
says agricultural reforms are the basis of Zimbabwe's economic future, and
the government took too long to recognise this - hence the "chaotic" land
reform exercise.
"The government finally saw the light by empowering
people through the land. It is now the time to produce from the land. I see
us making progress through farming," he predicts.
JOHANNESBURG, 30 June (IRIN) -
The tide of statistics marking Zimbabwe's economic decline - inflation at 300
percent, 6.5 million in need of food aid, 70 percent unemployment, "the
world's fastest shrinking economy" - eventually blur into
incomprehension.
But behind the figures is the struggle by ordinary
families to put food on the table, send their children to school, and look
after elderly relatives. The hardships seem a far cry from when Zimbabwe was
the breadbasket of Southern Africa, its infrastructure and skilled workforce
the envy of the region.
According to the World Bank, Zimbabwe has been
experiencing an economic and social crisis since 1997, induced by declining
prices for its key exports, poor economic policies, a large fiscal deficit
and loss of investor confidence arising from uncertainty about domestic
policies.
A combination of two successive years of drought, the
government's fast-track land acquisition programme, the impact of HIV/AIDS
and a collapse in social services left more than half the population in need
of food aid in 2002.
Recovery has been delayed this year due to
another season of erratic rainfall. In addition, the limited availability of
seed and fertiliser as a result of foreign exchange shortages, and the newly
settled farmers not being able to utilise all their land due to a lack of
adequate capital and inputs has worsened the situation, according to a Food
and Agriculture Organisation/World Food Programme (FAO/WFP) assessment
mission. The agencies estimated that 4.4 million people in rural areas and
1.1 million in urban areas would require food assistance in
2003/04.
The urban poor have been largely overlooked in Zimbabwe's food
emergency. UN agencies and NGOs are now in the process of preparing an urban
vulnerability assessment to map and monitor poverty levels outside the rural
areas. "Food security within the urban and peri-urban areas continues to be
an issue of major concern due to the rapidly declining economy," noted the
latest Zimbabwe Humanitarian Situation report by the UN's Relief and Recovery
Unit.
"What's clear is that the urban vulnerable definitely need to be
included in humanitarian relief efforts this year. The indications are that
the coping mechanisms, which are generally more robust [than in rural areas],
are being eroded, and some of the effects we've seen in the rural areas -
children dropping out of school and child labour - we're seeing in the
towns," Chris McIvor of Save the Children Fund told IRIN.
"The million
dollar question is, how this can be done? I would imagine it would be a mix
of ensuring that for those that can afford it there is enough maize in the
shops, as part of a joint exercise between the private sector and the
government, and a social safety net programme for the most vulnerable, but it
would be a complex exercise."
Among the challenges would be the
identification and targeting of beneficiaries in communities with much less
cohesion than rural areas, the issue of government price controls on the
staple maize meal, and the distribution monopoly of the Grain Marketing
Board.
The last vulnerability assessment undertaken in the capital,
Harare, was in May 2001 by the US-funded Famine Early Warning Network and the
Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ).
At that time, the assessment team
calculated the Food Poverty Line (FPL), the minimum expenditure to ensure
that each member of a four-person household received 2,100 calories, as Zim
$2,650 (US $48). Roughly 10 percent to 20 percent of households in Harare
fell below the FPL. The CCZ priced a low-income "food basket" for a family of
four at Zim $11,000 (US $200). Between 60 to 70 percent of households could
not afford to meet those costs, the assessment report said.
The
poorest households in May 2001 were regarded as those earning less than Zim
$4,000 (US $73) per month. They, characteristically, had only one
income source, either because there was only one able-bodied person of
working age in the household, or because of a lack of capital to start up an
informal sector activity. Some households in this group included formal
sector workers at the lowest salary levels, such as security guards,
shop assistants and factory workers.
They often had only two meals per
day and most of their calories came from maize meal, with a small amount from
cooking oil, sugar and, occasionally, dried fish. The households typically
said that they could not afford health care or transport.
"Households
were clear about the types of shocks that cause them problems. Everyone
complained about inflation and the fact that they are constantly battling to
keep up with rising prices. Associated with this were specific complaints
about devaluation, increases in owners' rates (on housing) and electricity
costs, and rising bus fares," the assessment report found.
"For those
working in the formal sector, the threat of retrenchment and unemployment is
a constant worry. In the informal sector, households fear a crackdown by the
local authorities on 'illegal' businesses, which can result in businesses
losing goods, tools and/or capital. Households in both the formal and
informal sectors are vulnerable to the illness or death of, or divorce from,
the main income earner, and this tends to result in a major drop in standard
of living.
"AIDS is a particular threat in this regard. Large, unexpected
expenditures (such as on funerals or medicines) also cause major problems for
poor households, often forcing them into debt," the report
noted.
Since the 2001 assessment, there has been a significant
deterioration in the economy. The large-scale commercial farming sector now
produces only about one-tenth of its output in the 1990s, the FAO/WFP mission
report said, which has had serious knock-on effects for the
agriculture-dependent country.
Most basic products and services are in
short supply - bank notes, fuel, electricity, and the foreign exchange to
allow the country to import the goods and inputs it needs. Production of the
main staple, maize, is estimated at 803,000 mt this season, 61 percent up on
last year, but 46 percent lower than in 2000/01, said the FAO/WFP
report.
In May this year inflation reached 300 percent. The government
had projected that it would fall to 90 percent. According to the CCZ, the
cost of a food basket for a family of four has jumped to Zim $125,000 (US
$151 after devaluation), but an estimated 80 percent of formal sector workers
earn less than Zim $20,000 (US $24) a month.
The government introduced
price controls in November 2001 in a bid to protect consumers from rising
costs on basic commodities. In November 2002 price controls were extended to
cover a wider range of goods, despite protest from manufacturers who
complained that they could not cover their production costs. The authorities,
however, were unable to enforce the regulations, and the result was a boom in
the black market and shortages in official retail outlets.
Under the
National Economic Revival Programme introduced earlier this year, price
controls have been eased and an unofficial devaluation allowed. New minimum
wages are to be introduced, along with periodic utility cost adjustments. The
measures are expected to further fuel inflation in the short term.
At
the beginning of June, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
suspended Zimbabwe's voting rights over differences with the government on
economic policy and arrears in debt repayments.
"The Zimbabwean
authorities introduced some policy measures since early 2003 to arrest the
decline in economic activity, including a devaluation of the exchange rate of
the Zimbabwean dollar from Zim $55 to Zim $824 per US dollar for most
transactions, adjustments in fuel and electricity tariffs, rolling back price
controls, and raising interest rates moderately," an IMF statement said.
"However, the authorities have not adopted the comprehensive and consistent
policies needed to address Zimbabwe's serious economic problems."
JOHANNESBURG, 30 June (IRIN) - Anna Matema (not
her real name) is a 45-year-old senior nurse at Harare Central Hospital, a
public referral hospital catering mainly for the poor living in the city's
high-density areas.
Matema is a widow and mother of five, and has been
a nurse for 20 years. She says she is dismayed by spiralling inflation which
makes it difficult for her to budget for groceries, transport and her
children's school fees.
"Other departments in the civil service -
teachers, soldiers and policemen, for example - think that nurses are given
preferential treatment by the government when it comes to salaries. Even
though we are [paid] slightly better than them, life is equally tough for
us," she explains.
Matema's gross monthly salary, pegged at Zim $84,000
(US $102), is set to rise to Zim $150,000 (US $182) as a result of a recent
job evaluation exercise. Nevertheless, she does not forsee being able to make
any savings.
Last year she was forced to pull her two children out of
boarding school following sharp increases in boarding fees. They are now
enrolled in less well equipped government schools.
"Before withdrawing
them from boarding school, a big chunk of my salary went towards debts I was
incurring every month. I discovered that I was being swallowed by borrowing,
particularly from money-lending businesses that have sprouted in town. These
sharks charge you extremely high interests, and the loans are deducted from
your payslip."
Matema was forced to sell her husband's car to offset her
debts. After working as a nurse for two decades, she says she feels she has
virtually nothing to show for it.
Her 23-year-old eldest daughter
recently took up cross-border trading to help support the family. She travels
to South Africa and Botswana selling local craft and boutique
products.
Matema does not like the business since she thinks it exposes
her daughter to the risk of muggings and HIV/AIDS, but feels she has no
choice but to accept it, because it goes a long way to supplementing the
family income.
She complains of low morale among her colleagues at work.
Zimbabwe has lost a large crop of its most experienced nurses to better paid
jobs overseas, particularly the UK. "Those who remain do not give their job
maximum attention. The sick are therefore caught in the vicious cycle, hence
high mortality rates at public hospitals."
But despite the
difficulties, Matema remains optimistic about the
country's future.
"Zimbabwe is a great country. We can still reclaim
our status as Southern Africa's breadbasket and one of the strongest
economies. What we need to do is to persuade all political parties to sit
down together so as to establish an acceptable government.
"We would
only be fooling ourselves if we thought that we could go it alone. We need a
lot of friends from outside. They will bring back investment and create jobs
for our children. In addition, Zimbabweans should see themselves as part of
the same family and march into the future together," she says.
ZIMBABWE: New measles campaign to net more children
JOHANNESBURG, 30 June
(IRIN) - Thousands of children in Zimbabwe, who were not covered in last
year's measles immunisation campaign, are expected to benefit from a
follow-up programme set to kick off on 21 July, the UN Children's Fund
(UNICEF) said on Monday.
The UN agency has made available US $257 million
to the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare to cover 16 districts across the
country.
In July 2002 a 10-day immunisation campaign reached only 80
percent of its target of 2 million children under the age of five, UNICEF
health consultant Eugen Manyora told IRIN.
"Last year there was a
shortage of resources such as syringes and needles. Also, a resource-strapped
awareness campaign can be attributed to the programme's failure to meet its
goal."
It was possible that the original target of 2 million children,
based on 1992 census data, was over-estimated and population growth may
actually have declined since then as a result of the socio-economic crisis
the country was facing, Manyora added.
"While mortality among children
has dramatically declined, morbidity continues to be a problem," Manyora
commented.
Measles is the leading killer disease among children in
Zimbabwe
There
have been times of joy and times of depression There have been times of
action and times of patience We have done the correct things and the
incorrect things We have lost hope and lost faith But still time rolls on
with no remorse Like the wind swirls dry foliage so time distorts
reality Blowing experience and opportunity all around us In apparent
meaningless motions Yet what one calls coincidence, miracles, chance and
fate, Is only the correct strength of wind Acting in that irregular
sporadic manner of time Delivering the opportunities we need To gain the
experience we require To assist us in the navigation of time.
Harare - The US embassy in Zimbabwe Monday condemned "racial
slurs" by two state-run newspapers in their criticism of US secretary of
state Colin Powell.
In a statement the embassy registered its
"profound disgust" with the Herald and Sunday Mail, which last week attacked
Powell over his recent call for Zimbabweans to work towards constitutional
change to pave the way towards a transitional government.
"The Embassy
of the United States of America ... registers its profound disgust at the use
of racial slurs with respect to Secretary of State Colin Powell," the
statement said.
In an article published in the New York Times and widely
quoted, Powell promised US aid to the country "with the president (Robert
Mugabe) gone". State media here hit back with fierce criticism of the US
official.
One editorial in The Herald accused Powell of being an "Uncle
Tom" - a reference to the virtually servile black hero of the American novel
"Uncle Tom's Cabin - who "dances to the tune of his masters".
Another
claimed that the article had not been written by Powell, but by US assistant
secretary of state for Africa, Walter Kansteiner, who is a staunch critic of
the Zimbabwe government.
Harare accuses the US government, along with the
EU and former colonial power Britain, of trying to undermine the country's
sovereignty.
The US does not recognise Mugabe's election in presidential
polls last year, which Western observer groups said were flawed.
Herald
Reporter Thirteen National Constitutional Assembly members facing charges
of contravening sections of the Public Order and Security Act were
yesterday further remanded by a Harare magistrate.
Ms Caroline-Anne
Chigumira remanded them to September 12.
Last Chigumbu (26), Godwin
Maravanyika (32), Mike Maravanyika (28), Shadreck Makuyana (21), Tovaitei
Karumazondo (35), Nqobizita Sibanda, Danisa Nyathi (29), Charles Mathe (28),
Bongani Mlothswa (21) Artwell Sibanda (24), Ophias Kambini (35), Giyani Dube
(23) and a 16-year-old juvenile are out of custody on $10 000 bail
each.
The State case is that on March 6 at around 8am, the gang was
transported from MDC safe houses in and around Harare to NCA offices along
Herbert Chitepo Avenue in the city.
Some of them were allegedly
ferried from as far as Bulawayo and Chipinge to stage an illegal
demonstration.
They were later addressed by NCA chairperson Lovemore
Madhuku who allegedly urged them to revolt against the constitutionally
elected President Mugabe.
Madhuku allegedly distributed MDC banners and
T-shirts for the demonstration and ordered them to re-organise at Africa
Unity Square in Harare.
At 2pm on the same day, the 13 were part of a
group of about 200 people who converged at Africa Unity Square and later
marched along Nelson Mandela chanting anti-Government slogans.
They
also allegedly displayed banners demanding for a new constitution and blocked
roads disturbing the flow of traffic and movement of people.
In a
separate case five MDC supporters appeared before the same magistrate facing
charges of public violence.
Victor Musekiwa (31), Rutsito Shingirayi
(28), Karikega Matanhire (31), Pheneas Koma (23) and Chris Bunjira (36) were
not asked to plead and were remanded to September 12.
JIM LEHRER: Now, Zimbabwe is
another... you recently, in fact, called for the ouster of President Mugabe.
Is anything being done about that or was that just a call for his
departure?
COLIN POWELL: We've been very tough, frankly, on
Zimbabwe since the beginning of the administration. Early in my tenure as
secretary of state, when I gave a speech in South Africa, I called for reform
in President Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, and unfortunately, the situation
has just continued to deteriorate. And so we believe that change is
appropriate there, too, to help the people of Zimbabwe.
It used
to be a country that exported food to the region; now it is an importer of
food. And the political situation has deteriorated. The human rights
situation has deteriorated. And we're working with our European friends, but
especially with our African friends in the region, to bring a greater
pressure to bear on President Mugabe. And I'm sure this will be a subject of
considerable discussion during the president's trip next week.
JIM
LEHRER: So there is not a separate standard for Africa versus the rest of the
world?
COLIN POWELL: No. In fact, if you look at the Millennium
Challenge Account and you look at the other things we are doing - the Middle
East Partnership Initiative, the HIV AIDS program that the president has put
in place - we believe that there should be one standard for the world,
whether it's the Muslim part of the world or the African part of the world or
any part of the world, and that is people should be free to pursue
their dreams - that the democratic system, not necessarily an
American-imposed Jeffersonian, democratic system, but a system of governing
where people are free to choose their leaders in an open process. We still
believe that that is a political system that is most in tune with the needs
and aspirations of people around the world today.
And yes, we
believe that the free market economic system, if practiced correctly, with an
economic system based on the rule of law and a willingness to participate in
a globalizing economic system throughout the world, is the best way to
proceed. But it requires investment in these countries. It requires them to
invest in democracy in a free economic system, and it requires those of us
with money - the United States and other nations around the world, the
developed world - to invest in these countries that are moving down the right
path toward the future. And that's what the Millennium Challenge Account
Initiative is all about.
Great Limpopo Park to Be Marketed at AU
Summit: Zimbabwean Official Ministers of environment and tourism from
Mozambique, South African and Zimbabwe will use the African Union (AU) Summit
to be held in Mozambique on July 4-12 to market the Great Limpopo
Transfrontier Park (GLTP), Zimbabwean Minister of Environment and Tourism
Francis Nhema said in Harare on Monday.
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Ministers of environment and tourism from Mozambique, South African and
Zimbabwe will use the African Union (AU) Summit to be held in Mozambique on
July 4-12 to market the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP), Zimbabwean
Minister of Environment and Tourism Francis Nhema said in Harare on
Monday.
Nhema said he and his Mozambican and South African
counterpartswould use the occasion to market the 90,000 square km park, which
straggles the three countries.
"We are going to have a side
conference at the AU Summit to market the GLTP, particularly to the heads of
state gathered for the occasion," he said.
"This will be part of
marketing and awareness campaign for the park. We will stage a number of
events to capitalize on the numberof people attending the summit," he
said.
He said they would also talk about the Southern African
development Community Protocol on Wildlife Management as they planned to have
a number of animals translocated from the Gruger National Park to the GLTP
during the summit.
Nhema added that an ad-hoc marketing
committee comprising the three member countries had been formed to spearhead
the marketing of the park.
The GLTP, which was launched in July
last year, comprises Zimbabwe's stunning geological splendor of Gonarezhou
National Park, South Africa's world-famous Kruger National Park with its
extra-ordinary abundance of wildlife, established infrastructure and
tourism-base and Mozambique's superb Gaza.
The three countries
dismantled their national parks borders last year to create the world's
largest animal park.
The mega-conservation park is expected to
unlock great potential for tourism revival and investment in Zimbabwe and the
whole of the Southern African region.
It is expected to earn the
three countries huge revenues from visiting tourism and create massive
employment activities.
Given recent comments by President Thabo Mbeki, it
is difficult to resist the temptation to describe his reported unhappiness
with African Union (AU) Commission chair Amara Essy as
un-African.
But, like the journalists Mbeki castigates for their
reporting on corruption, the President's motivation is clearly in the
interests of this continent. Essy's performance since being appointed on an
interim basis at the AU launch in Durban last year has not exactly lit up the
world and it has been suggested that Mbeki and other African leaders might be
hatching a replacement.
And that is good news for those who
would see this continent succeed (and bad for the astonishing legion of
Afro-sceptics, many of whom sadly live right here in this
country).
It is good news because it suggests a shift in mindset
among African leaders who have long been inclined to turn a blind eye to the
failings of their continental colleagues.
Encouragingly, that
shift would suggest that the fine ideals of the New Partnership for Africa's
Development (Nepad), of which Mbeki was a leading architect, are beginning to
take hold. Fundamental to Nepad's credibility is, of course, the success of
its peer review mechanism.
It is also heartening, therefore, to see
Nepad discussing the setting up of an international convention to prohibit
African leaders who loot public funds from lodging them in foreign banks.
This is being proposed as part of an ambitious continental programme designed
to both put a squeeze on corrupt African leaders and to encourage the
development of the African economy.
As such it is once more an
indication that African leaders are serious about getting rid of the rotten
apples in their midst and moving away from the begging bowl mentality of the
past.
Now if only they would turn their attentions to that other
rascal in their midst, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.