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Hlatshwayo said he could not grant an interim order
compelling police in
Masvingo to allow the NCA to hold a public meeting at
Chevron Hotel, pending
the determination of the urgent application because
doing so would have been
tantamount to granting a final order without giving
the police the chance to
answer.
The NCA last week gave the police
notice of its intention to hold a meeting
in Masvingo as part of its series
of meetings throughout the country to
discuss various issues including the
need for a new constitution for
Zimbabwe.
On Tuesday, a Masvingo
senior police officer wrote to the NCA saying the law
enforcement agency was
not going to sanction the meeting because “the time
you intend to hold your
meeting is not conducive for the public.”
Under the government’s
draconian Public Order and Security Act Zimbabweans
must seek police
permission before holding political gatherings.
The police have have
been accused of using POSA to prevent the opposition
Movement for Democratic
Change party and other government opponents from
holding public meetings with
their supporters.
NCA lawyer Ray Muzenda had told Hlatshwayo in the
court application that the
decision by the police in Masvingo to prevent the
NCA meeting impeded on the
civic body’s freedom of assembly and
association.
The civic alliance’s chairman, Lovemore Madhuku, said
the decision by the
court yesterday refusing to grant an interim order
against the police
effectively upheld the police’s ban on the
meeting.
Madhuku said: “This smacks of political decision-making by the court.
“It’s surprising that the same court which granted the
government an order
last month to stop the MDC’s “final push” without giving
the MDC a chance to
respond, says it could not grant our order because the
police had not been
given a chance to reply.”
Court Reporter
Daily News
Mugabe’s speech fails to inspire nation
THE opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and
ordinary
Zimbabweans yesterday criticised President Robert Mugabe for
skirting the
hardships facing the nation like the shortage of bank notes
during his speech
to Parliament on Tuesday.
They said while Mugabe touched on
some of the issues, he appeared to
lack a clear and focused strategy to
resolve the problems which they said he
only referred to in general terms
during his speech to mark the opening of
the fourth session of the fifth
Parliament.
But Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF applauded his speech
saying it sign-posted
the way to economic recovery and social prosperity for
Zimbabweans.
Janet Maupa, 53, from Murehwa communal lands who
was at Parliament on
Tuesday, told the Daily News: “I am not sure whether or
not our situation
will at all improve.
“The problems in the
country are too big for one person and I believe
with prayer, we will be able
to overcome our problems. I don’t think the
President is aware that we are
short of almost everything including our own
bank notes. This has never
happened before.”
A bank teller with a Harare commercial bank,
who left his work to
witness the opening of Parliament by Mugabe, said he was
disappointed by
what he said was Mugabe’s failure to acknowledge and take
full
responsibility for the fast deteriorating economic and social crisis in
the
country.
MDC Member of Parliament Ben Tumbare-Mutasa
said Mugabe’s speech
lacked focus as it dwelt on the
general.
Tumbare-Mutasa, who is legislator for Seke
constituency, said: “The
speech was not specific. He failed to really explain
the problems and
challenges being faced by the ordinary
people.
“It would have been more relevant if he had addressed
specific
economic issues such as the acute shortages of cash, the rising
inflation,
unemployment and violence because this was a different session. He
should
have demonstrated that we are in a precarious situation that needed
honest
men who accept the truth.”
MDC parliamentarians and
the opposition party’s leader Morgan
Tsvangirai abandoned their boycott of
Mugabe and attended his address to the
House on Tuesday.
Tsvangirai later said the apparent shift of position on Mugabe by his
party
was meant to create a conducive environment for dialogue between
Zimbabwe’s
two biggest political parties to find a solution to the
deepening
crisis.
Another MDC legislator, Renson Gasela,
said Mugabe had failed to give
detailed information on how his government was
going to avert starvation in
Zimbabwe.
Gasela said: “The
nation needs to be assured that next year there will
be enough to eat. The
address was too general to address the food needs
of
Zimbabweans.”
The government has appealed for 700 000
tonnes of food from
international donors after poor rains and chaotic land
reforms combined to
slash food production by 50 percent.
But
ZANU PF MP for Makoni North constituency Didymus Mutasa said:
“President
Mugabe’s speech marked a turn of attitude on everyone. The
presence of the
MDC MPs in Parliament means they want to make things work
well.
Daily News
ZANU PF candidate’s eligibility
questioned
MASVINGO – The opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC)
yesterday said it will challenge in court the eligibility of a
ZANU PF
candidate, Jacob Chademana, to stand in council elections
here.
Chademana, who is a sitting councillor, was nominated by ZANU
PF to
contest in ward eight but MDC officials yesterday claimed that he was
not a
registered voter in that ward.
MDC chairman for
Masvingo Shaky Matake told the Daily News yesterday:
“We have information
that Chademana was not on the voters’ roll and to us
one cannot be on the
roll on the nomination day.
“We have since instructed our lawyers
to take the matter to court.”
Presiding officer Ignatius
Mushangwe had to extend deadline for
nomination by almost two hours on Monday
this week to allow Chademana to
submit his papers.
Mushangwe
yesterday said: “It is true that you cannot contest in a
ward that you are
not registered as a voter but you can apply for transfer
and a special
certificate will be issued to you. These special certificates
are issued to
candidates only and this what happened in this case (Chademana
’s case).”
Council elections in Masvingo and other towns are scheduled for
30 and 31
August.
Own Correspondent
Daily News
Crisis more complex than meets the eye
BOTH the loving critics and critical lovers of Zimbabwe now
generally
acknowledge that the country is in a deep crisis. Whether the
crisis is
engineered (by enemies of Zimbabwe) or is imaginary (as some would
like to
believe) is neither here nor there.
The fact of the matter is
that the crisis is not only perceived but is
directly felt by virtually
everyone and everywhere. Moreover, even if the
crisis were a matter of mere
perceptions and not the reality, people’s
perceptions are often more
significant than the reality.
In some situations, perceptions
are incongruent with the reality on
the ground. However, in today’s Zimbabwe,
both the perceptions of a crisis
and the reality of it
converge.
In short, the Zimbabwe crisis is much more than a
matter of
imagination; it is no longer an
illusion.
This is not to suggest that the crisis affects
everyone equally. Every
crisis has its gainers and losers. It is the gainers
who are apt to deny the
reality of the crisis for the simple and
self-serving, but perfectly
understandable, reason that the prolongation of
the crisis translates into a
prolongation of their enrichment or advancement
of their interests.
While the crisis has plunged the vast
multitude of Zimbabweans into
misery, it has simultaneously yielded many
benefits to a strategically
positioned minority. Of utmost significance is
that the gainers or
beneficiaries of the crisis are both state-aligned – i e
in government and
the ruling party and close associates – and in the
opposition.
In this sense, there is a convergence of interest
(strange though it
may be) in the indefinite prolongation of the crisis. Both
the opposition
and the state elite circles are fishing in troubled waters and
harvesting
handsomely.
Given this scenario, any resolution
of the crisis has to contend with
the forces that accrue benefits from it.
The Zimbabwe crisis is therefore
more multi-faceted, multi-layered and
complicated than meets the naked eye.
The vital question
therefore is: who in government, the ruling party,
the opposition and,
indeed, in civil society, is benefiting from the crisis
and has a stake in
its perpetuation?
These elements will place roadblocks of all
types in their valiant
efforts to torpedo the early resolution of the crisis
because it is in their
interest to do so.
So, at a time when
the generality of Zimbabweans are desperate for a
speedy and sustainable
resolution of the crisis, this cross-cutting elite
may be desperate to
nullify any efforts to
arrive at such a
resolution.
The logic of this is that the brighter and more
hopeful the prospects
for an amicable solution, the more determined and
forceful these forces
become to throw all sorts of spanners into the
works.
The long and short of it is that there are those with a
vested
interest in the continuation of the crisis and that these elements are
both
inside and outside the government. In a sense, the crisis unites them;
it is
a unifying factor.
The fundamental difference is that
one faction of this elite is
governing and the other is not but seeks to
govern. This is the unhappy
paradox of the Zimbabwe crisis. For this elite,
the deeper the crisis, the
higher the yields.
Early in the
last century, Italian social scientists saw society
divided into two major
groups, the elite and the non-elite. The former was
further sub-divided into
the governing and the non-governing elite, while
the non-elite comprises the
masses or the povo, in local parlance.
The gladiation for power
is essentially an elite affair, that is, a
struggle between the governing and
the non-governing elite, with the
non-elite being used in a struggle that is
really not theirs and from which
they seldom directly benefit.
Daily News
A new beginning?
MANY in Zimbabwe will
applaud the decision this week by the
opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) to extend an olive branch to
the government in the hope that the
two opposing sides can finally sit down
to end Zimbabwe’s withering political
and economic storm.
The MDC’s tactical move to end its
year-long boycott of parliamentary
addresses given by President Robert Mugabe
is all the more important because
of the poisoned climate that exists in
Zimbabwe after the government last
month detained MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai and his top leadership for no
reason other than that they sought
to lead a peaceful anti-government
protest.
We sincerely
hope that the MDC’s magnanimity in the face of
persecution of its members by
the government will be reciprocated by Mugabe
and his officials so that, in
the words of the MDC, a conducive atmosphere
is created in the country for a
“dignified exit for Mugabe from the
political scene”.
Only
foolhardy and irrational Zimbabweans – not to mention their
unmitigated
disloyalty and unpatriotism to the cause of the motherland –
still honestly
expect our Old Man and his team to come to grips with a
crisis that the
latter created and nurtured in Zimbabwe in the past
two
decades.
The time has long passed for Mugabe and his
administration to accept
the painful reality that they have done their bit
for Zimbabwe – many would
say ruined the country in the process – and that
they have to immediately
give way to a new beginning.
A new
political leadership at the helm of Zimbabwe and new ideas that
build and
bind the nation together are sorely needed to pluck this beautiful
and
economically rich land out of the deep economic and political hole which
the
present leadership has dug it into.
Yet there are obvious
hurdles and dangers that both the MDC and Mugabe
’s governing ZANU PF will
have to overcome if meaningful talks to resolve
Zimbabwe’s crisis are to take
place.
First, hawkish elements from ZANU PF spoiling for a
fight-to-the-death
against the MDC and the maintenance of the untenable
status quo will have to
be sidelined if the envisaged talks are to produce
the desired results.
In tandem, hardliners within the MDC
advocating strong-arm tactics
against the government will have to keep their
cool and give peace a chance,
aware as they should be of the many-sided
intricacies of the crisis and that
ZANU PF, even at this eleventh hour, still
holds the upper hand.
Both sides will have to tone down their
poisonous vitriol and take
concrete steps that form peace-building blocks on
the irreversible one-way
route to a new and democratic Zimbabwe which,
despite understandable
misgivings, must still define a place and role for a
departing Mugabe.
A truly honest and impartial mediator, who is
trusted by both
belligerents, will have to be found to bring the two sides to
a negotiating
table and to read the riot act, if necessary, to those who step
out of line
in the hope of benefiting in whatever form from Zimbabwe’s
chaos.
No doubt, many in the MDC will only be too aware that
ZANU PF’s
history shows the ruling party too often as being unwilling to
accommodate
the genuine interests of its rivals, preferring to bludgeon them
into
submission and then swallowing them to make the peace of the dead.
Daily News
From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 23 July
Leading firms 'handle loot of farm squatters'
Chiredzi - Two South African
corporate giants are under fire for allegedly
handling large consignments of
produce stolen from Zimbabwe's white farmers
by supporters of President
Robert Mugabe. The mining group Anglo American, a
London-listed FTSE 100
company, and the sugar company Tongaat Hulett are
both accused of processing
sugar cane stolen from white farmers who are
under threat of dispossession
under Zimbabwe's chaotic "land reform".
Farmers in south-eastern Zimbabwe say
Mr Mugabe's "settlers" are routinely
stealing their crop and sending the cane
to mills owned by an Anglo American
subsidiary, Hippo Valley Estates, and by
Triangle Ltd, owned by Tongaat
Hulett. The farmers claim they have repeatedly
reported the theft to the two
companies and to the police in Chiredzi, 300
miles south-east of Harare, who
they claim refuse to take action. "We are
victims of the government's
madness over land, and now British and South
African companies are
processing cane stolen from us," said Peter Henning,
63, a farmer whose land
has been "listed" for nationalisation. In their
defence, the companies say
it is pointless to let the cane just rot, and say
they are bound by
Zimbabwean law to process the produce.
The crux
of the issue is that when farms are "listed" for government
take-over, a
lengthy legal process is triggered before the Zimbabwean
government can claim
the deeds. The government says just 300 white-owned
farms out of 6,000 listed
have been processed to finality. But in the
meantime, Mr Mugabe's supporters
are helping themselves to the fruit of the
land regardless, farmers claim.
None of the 50-odd white-owned, 240-acre
sugar cane farms adjacent to Hippo
Valley Estates has been legally taken
over, but white farmers say they cannot
harvest their crop because their
workers are kept away by the threat of
physical violence. In its defence,
Anglo American says it is an innocent
party caught in the middle of the land
tug-of-war, and denied that it was
using the legal tussle for its own
profitable ends. "We are stuck in the
middle of a very difficult legal
dispute," said its external relations
director, Edward Bickham. "We are
obliged to accept cane under Zimbabwean
law, because it goes off if you
don't." Anglo American added that it had not
paid for cane if ownership was
disputed, but had asked the courts to
determine who should receive payment.
It also said the sums involved were not
millions of pounds, and that Hippo
Valley had sent letters of support to
farmers trying to have their farms
delisted for takeover.
Hippo
Valley had provided sanctuary to 10 evicted commercial farmers and
their
families, and fuel to others, it added - although farmers said they
had been
charged commercial rates in both cases. "This is a complex matter,
and we
will resolve it through the courts," said Anglo American's Zimbabwe
chairman,
Godfrey Gomwe. Triangle's managing director, Simon Cleasby, who
takes the
same position, said it was against the law to refuse cane
delivered by a
"licensed grower". But a barrister in Zimbabwe, Adrian de
Bourbon, said the
"licensed growers" were the white farmers, not the
settlers, and added that
the law allowed mills to decline to accept cane if
they had "reasonable
cause". "The disputed ownership of the cane is a
reasonable cause," he said.
Eric Le Vieux, 38, another farmer involved, said
the two companies had been
sent letters from lawyers insisting that trade in
the stolen cane stop. "They
have said we can see them in court," Mr Le Vieux
said. "The system has
brought chaos to Zimbabwe." Crops and livestock have
been stolen from
hundreds of former white farmers violently evicted from
their homes in the
last three years. But according to the pressure group
Justice for
Agriculture, the sugar cane saga is the first in which
corporates are accused
of handling stolen produce. Its spokesman, John
Worsley-Worswick, said:
"Farmers and their workers in the Chiredzi area have
been beaten, arrested,
lost their homes and livelihoods and their future
prospects."
From The Economist Intelligence Unit, 23 July
Printing cash isn't going to help
The government's July 18th injection of Z$12bn
(US$14.6m) into Zimbabwe's
financial system - and the announcement that a
Z$1,000 banknote is to be
printed for the first time - is likely to create as
many problems as it
solves. There is no doubt that the shortage of banknotes
is creating
increasing difficulties for Zimbabweans. Banks are unable to
supply notes to
their customers; ATMs work only in the city centres; and
there are long
queues at the banks and building societies as people wait for
cash to be
deposited by other customers before they can withdraw money.
However, with
inflation already running at 365%, the move will have little
impact on cash
availability. It is also likely to exacerbate inflation, which
has risen
from 199% at the end of 2002. Huge food - and fuel - price
increases are
imminent. As it is, it is virtually impossible to buy petrol or
diesel at
filling stations at the office price of Z$440 (5.3 US cents) a
litre. With
the exception of commuter bus operators, which are allowed to buy
diesel at
the official price when it is available, people are either paying
a
black-market price in Zimbabwe dollars or using foreign currency to pay
an
importer. The government has agreed in principle to allow the
oil
multinationals to import fuel and sell it at market prices, but the
scheme
has still be finalised. When it is, petrol prices will treble,
with
far-reaching knock- on effects for the rate of price
rises.
At the same time, huge increases in the price of maizemeal,
the food staple,
and wheat are imminent. In the black market, the price of
bread has more
than doubled in the past month, while coal prices have also
doubled. All of
which suggests that inflation will be well above 400% by
August, or possibly
even the end of this month. Economists are divided over
how long it will
take the rate of price increases to reach four- digits, but
even the
optimists expect inflation to reach 700-750% by year- end.
Devaluation is
also very much on the agenda - despite official denials.
Towards the end of
July business and government will meet to discuss further
devaluation from
the current rate of Z$824:US$1 to around Z$1,400:US$1.
Representatives of
Zimbabwe's main export industry, tobacco, says that the
sector needs a rate
of at least Z$1,600:US$1, as farmers are getting Z$4m for
every hectare of
tobacco they produce--half their production costs. By
October, when the next
crop is planted, costs will have reached Z$10m a
hectare. Without rapid--and
substantial--devaluation tobacco production,
already running at one-third of
its peak levels, will fall further from an
estimated 90m kg in 2003 to 60m
kg in 2004. All of this is grist to the mill
of the South African and US
presidents, who discussed the Zimbabwe "issue"
early in July. The greater
the economic pressure on Mugabe, their argument
runs, the easier it will be
to get the intransigent 79-year-old to step down
and head off for political
asylum. However, that assumes a much greater
recognition of economic reality
in Harare than is, in fact, the case. Being
in, or close, to government is
paying handsome dividends for a large number
of senior officials in the
ruling Zanu PF. Corruption and crony capitalism is
serving them very well -
why should they want to change a winning streak?
From The Zimbabwe Standard, 20 July
Panicking Zanu PF 'chefs' strip country of assets
Kumbirai Mafunda
Panicking high ranking
officials of the ruling Zanu PF party are allegedly
systematically stripping
down the country of most of its valuable assets as
they realise that
President Robert Mugabe's reign is coming to an end, it
emerged last week.
Economic experts said the entire country was being
methodically plundered by
high-ranking Zanu PF and government officials who
plan to eventually flee the
country and retire in comfort with their
offshore holdings. In separate
interviews with Standard Business, government
critics said some Members of
Parliament and Cabinet ministers were on a
massive looting spree. "Asset
stripping is a process when regimes are
preparing to depart from government.
It is a key aspect of a failed
government and is taking place on a day-to-day
basis," said Tendai Biti of
the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). "It is
a process in which public
assets are transferred to private hands, the
private hands being the very
same cronies that have been controlling the
public sector," charged Biti,
the MDC's secretary for economic affairs. The
black Zanu PF cronies have
graduated from petty middle-class businessmen to
real bourgeoisie owners of
the means of production," he added. He said asset
stripping was taking place
in various forms with the government's haphazard
land grab exercise
providing new scope for the scam.
Biti said
recent reports of Zanu PF officials owning vast tracts of land at
the expense
of the landless was testimony to the asset stripping exercise.
He said
certain quarters with government links had muscled in on strategic
national
utilities. "Asset stripping is taking place in many forms. We saw
that with
the land reform programme where we have Zanu PF MPs, government
ministers and
governors owning about seven farms each," Biti said. Biti, the
MDC legislator
for Harare East, said another form of asset stripping had
emerged in the form
of forced asset transfers, especially those belonging to
state enterprises.
Government ministers and ruling part legislators have
recently acquired
significant stakes in public and private quoted companies
as part of the
government's privatisation process. "There is a strategic and
deliberate
attempt within the ruling elite to amass as much wealth cutting
across as
many sectors of the economy as possible. They are establishing a
monopoly
that guarantees control even in the event that they lose political
power,"
said one independent economic commentator.
A civil society
spokesperson said senior Zanu PF officials had already taken
positions in the
ownership of the media, telecommunications, banking, real
estate and farming.
"In farming they have literally taken over the entire
agro-industry," he
said. "They understand that transition or political
change is inevitable so
they want to underwrite and predetermine the course
of that political
change." The spokesperson said civic organisations were
currently compiling a
dossier of some of the underhand deals and forced
sales of shares to make
reports to Transparency International Zimbabwe
(TIZ). TIZ chairman, John
Makumbe, said corrupt Zanu PF officials were
finding safe havens for offshore
banking in neighbouring SADC countries such
as South Africa, Namibia and
Botswana where they have non-resident accounts.
Other state assets had
already been sold to Libya and companies such as its
Tamoil, a Libyan firm
involved in fuel deals with Zimbabwe. "Nobody actually
knows what has been
sold to Libya, the number of farms and the percentage of
shares Libya holds
in Zimbabwean firms is a mystery," Makumbe said. Zanu PF
refused to comment
on the allegations levelled against its members. Party
secretary for
information, Nathan Shamuyarira, said he had nothing to say
Reuters
Zimbabwe appeals for food aid
By Stella
Mapenzauswa
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's government
has finally
appealed for food aid to stave off looming starvation among its
people, the
United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says.
Zimbabwe
ranks as the worst-hit among six southern African countries that
experienced
severe food shortages in 2002-03 due to a combination of
drought, floods and
economic mismanagement.
WFP representative in Zimbabwe Kevin Farrell told
reporters Mugabe's
government had indicated Zimbabwe faced a maize deficit of
711,000 tonnes
after harvesting about 900,000 to augment opening stocks of
284,000 tonnes
held by the state Grain Marketing Board (GMB).
The
appeal comes about a fortnight after WFP urged the government to
request
donor aid for some 5.5 million people seen needing emergency food in
the
current marketing season.
"We now have the appeal in hand and
certainly it has been a bit of a while
in coming...We are trying to resource
350,000 tonnes on top of the
carry-over that we have of a little over 100,000
tonnes," Farrell said.
The remaining shortfall was to be partly covered
by bilateral donations from
Britain and the U.S.
"In the meantime we
are faced with this immediate problem looming at the end
of August, beginning
of September, the real risk that we're going to run out
of
supplies.
"We are appealing to donors for pledges to be made soon so that
we can
minimise that pipeline break. As the year progresses clearly the
overall
food security...both in the rural and urban areas is getting
more
difficult," Farrell said.
WFP said in June it would take at least
three months after a donor pledge
was made for food to arrive in the
country.
A cause for concern was that the GMB had not indicated whether
it had any
plans to independently import significant quantities of food in
the coming
few months.
"The general situation is more difficult than
last year because of this
unknown quantity, which is how much is going to be
able to come in
commercially. It's going to be difficult to fill that deficit
without some
involvement of the private sector," Farrell said.
The GMB
has a monopoly on all imports and exports of maize and wheat, but
Farrell
said Mugabe's government had indicated it would now allow some form
of
private sector participation in maize imports to ease shortages.
SABC
Zimbabwe political tension eases
July 24,
2003, 15:30
Political tension between the Zimbabwe
government and the
opposition eased this week after reconciliatory gestures
from both sides,
but officials said today the parties have not yet resumed
substantive talks.
Zimbabwe is grappling with a deep
political and economic crisis
blamed by many on President Robert Mugabe's
government. The crisis has
worsened since Mugabe's controversial re-election
last year in a poll
rejected as fraudulent by Morgan Tsvangirai, the
opposition leader.
President Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun
Obasanjo, the Nigerian
President, have been trying to get Mugabe and
Tsvangirai's parties to the
negotiating table to ease apolitical crisis
manifesting itself in often
violent electoral contests, isolation by Western
powers and withdrawal of
international aid.
In what many
hailed as positive gestures, this week, for the
first time in three years,
opposition lawmakers did not boycott Mugabe's
speech on Tuesday marking the
opening of parliament. Even Tsvangirai, who is
on trial for allegedly trying
to have Mugabe assassinated, attended the
session.
The
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which holds just over
a third of the
150 seats in parliament, said it had decided to attend to
create an
environment for political dialogue. Mugabe made no mention of
this
possibility in his speech.
Although Mugabe issued his
usual warning to his political
opponents that anyone who tried to destabilise
his government would face the
"full wrath of the law", analysts said by his
fiery standards his speech was
very restrained.
The
79-year-old former guerrilla leader, who dismisses
Tsvangirai as a "pathetic
puppet", did not call the opposition any names in
the main speech and in a
subsequent statement at a state banquet for
legislators.
Instead, he said parliament should be treated as an "honourable
house" for
all political players, and that the MDC MPs' presence during his
address
augured well for the country.
The tightly controlled state
broadcaster ZBC has since Tuesday
put a positive spin on what it calls a
"sign of thawing of relations and
that talks are possible". But the chief
spokesperson for Mugabe's ZANU-PF
party said "substantive negotiations" could
only take place when the MDC
drops its legal challenge and recognises
Mugabe's government.
Mugabe's government walked out of
political talks with
Tsvangirai's MDC in April 2002 after the opposition went
to court to
challenge the election result, saying the South African and
Nigerian
mediation efforts must wait until the courts have ruled on the
case.
The election petition has been set for hearing in
November.
The MDC said this week it was working to resume
talks with
ZANU-PF and that Tsvangirai had strengthened a negotiating team
led by
Welshman Ncube, MDC secretary-general, in readiness. - Reuters
Business Day
Zimbabwe's leaders need to rise above zero-sum
game
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
As
SA showed in its transition, reconciliation and rebuilding require a
broader
vision backed by the people
THE recent public display of warmth and mutual
support between presidents
George Bush and Thabo Mbeki, although carefully
crafted, indicated the
importance of the need for a stable and constructive
relationship between
the US and its key ally in southern Africa.
Even
on the thorniest question of Zimbabwe, the two presidents demonstrated
a
public bonhomie. There are three reasons why they would agree that the
US
would follow SA's lead in resolving the Zimbabwe crisis.
First,
although both, in Mbeki's words, were "absolutely of one mind about
the
urgent need to address the political and economic challenges of
Zimbabwe",
the presidents avoided dwelling on those issues that potentially
divide SA
and the US.
These include the efficacy (or not) of quiet diplomacy
towards Zimbabwe, and
the war against Iraq. Instead they clearly sought to
stress the many policy
areas that unite SA and the US, including combating
the threat of terrorism,
and the need to expedite free trade, tackle HIV/AIDS
and support good
governance through the New Partnership for Africa's
Development.
Second, the US does not, at least compared to SA, have much
at stake in
Zimbabwe. Washington is, as Bush put it, willing to support Mbeki
as "the
point man" and "honest broker" towards SA's troubled
neighbour.
Washington's focus is (unsurprisingly) on the war against
terror and on
stabilising the Middle East, as well as forging a modus vivendi
with Mbeki
on such bigger strategic, global issues.
As a result,
whereas the US has to move toward peace between Israel and
Palestine, in
Colin Powell's words, "with great speed and deliberateness",
Zimbabwe can be
traded to maintain or improve relations with SA. This is
realpolitik (and
double-standards) par excellence.
Third, both apparently agree that the
crisis has mainly to be solved by
Zimbabweans themselves, with outside
assistance where necessary. Despite
claims that progress is being made in
talks between the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) and ruling
Zanu (PF) about ways of ending the
political crisis, herein lies the
rub.
Judging from SA's experience, four conditions are necessary for
peaceful
conflict resolution:
First, there must be external consensus
a united regional and international
community urging the parties to the
negotiating table and, if necessary,
using strong-arm tactics (such as in
SA's transition: restricting of
military support for the African National
Congress (ANC) and the tightening
of sanctions against the apart- heid
regime) to do so. Such consensus does
not exist over Zimbabwe, with the
southern African region apparently, though
perhaps decreasingly, at odds on
how to proceed. The European Union and
despite Bush's new rhetoric the US
have until now moved to adopt sanctions,
not Africa's "constructive
engagement", as the means of urging political
change.
It is not enough
to say Zimbabweans need to sort out their own problems
while their country
degenerates to the status of a collapsed state. As
Kosovo and Rwanda have
shown, it is best to avoid humanitarian catastrophe
before the situation
demands international intervention.
Also, it would have been more useful
if Bush and Mbeki could have agreed on
a road map for peace and
reconstruction in Zimbabwe, rather than just vague,
uncontroversial yet
meaningless generalities about the need for democracy:
after all, would any
international leader oppose the desire for a thriving
democracy? The
difficult part, as Bush knows from Iraq, is finding a way to
achieve
this.
Instead, by way of example, a first step on such a road map could
have been
a calling for a Zimbabwe Peace, Democracy and Reconstruction
Summit. Held
under the aegis of the African Union (AU) involving the top
leadership of
Zanu (PF) and the MDC, and chaired by Mbeki it could outline a
number of
clear deliverables.
These would include fresh elections
under international/regional
supervision; the restoration of full human and
civil rights; rule of law;
security of tenure and so on. There could be
related sets of multiparty and
civil society conferences built into this
approach, interventions fully
backed by the AU and the donor
community.
Second, there is a need for internal consensus in terms of
agreeing on the
imperative for negotiations that there is more, put simply,
to be gained
from compromise than from a continued standoff. This is not so
in Zimbabwe,
where to date there exists at best only a process about
negotiations rather
than a negotiation process.
Hence opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai's angry retort to Mbeki's claim
that "Zanu (PF) and
the MDC are, indeed, discussing". The MDC leader said
such "false and
mischievous" statements were only buying time for President
Robert Mugabe
since "there has been absolutely no political engagement"
between the two
protagonists since April last year.
Tsvangirai's rebuke is excusable only
given the extreme levels of state
violence and intimidation meted out to his
supporters. His frustration may
also be a function of attempts to bypass him
in the negotiations, confirmed
by faceless "senior diplomatic sources" from
SA, in spite of his status as
official leader of the opposition and the man,
at least judging from the
last election, that many (if not the majority of)
Zimbabweans would like to
have as their president.
Just as a
suspension of the armed struggle by the ANC and the release of
political
prisoners by the National Party government were crucial to the
successful
commencement of a negotiation process in SA, it is unrealistic to
expect the
MDC to commit to formal, open talks with or without Tsvangirai
without the
normalisation of domestic political activity.
Third, there has to be
clear method, timeframes and signposts on the road to
political transition.
Yet currently southern African shuttlediplomacy with
Harare does not amount
to more than diplomatic grandstanding, notably by
Mugabe.
Finally, the
need for established method demands prescient, generous
leadership, notably
in terms of devising strategies to strengthen your
opposition to enable them
to deliver their constituency.
Mugabe has preferred, however, to weaken
the MDC by violence and tie it down
in various judicial processes including
the Tsvangirai treason trial, to the
point that there is both little trust
and goodwill, so that aims and
strategies can only become
radicalised.
Far from possessing leaders with vision such as Nelson
Mandela, FW de Klerk
and Mbeki, Zimbabwe is especially blighted with those
who see negotiations
as a zero-sum game.
The success of SA's
transition illustrates pivotally that no progress can be
made without the
support of the majority of citizens.
Crucially, no amount of diplomatic
eggshell dancing can ultimately avoid
asking the same question of Zimbabweans
themselves, whatever regional or
international leaders may
think.
Mills and Hughes are respectively the national director and
parliamentary
research fellow of the SA Institute of International
Affairs.
ZIMBABWE: NGOs fear clampdown
IRINnews Africa, Thu 24 Jul
2003
Activists feel the legislation will be used to further impede
their
work
JOHANNESBURG, - Civil rights groups in Zimbabwe are
concerned that
their operations could be further curtailed following reports
that the
government is to amend legislation governing NGOs.
"In
order to ensure that the operations of Non-Governmental
Organisations are
consistent with, and supportive of, government policies
and programmes, the
Non-Governmental Organisations Bill will amend the
current act and broaden
the definition of NGOs to include trusts," the local
Daily News reported
President Robert Mugabe as saying at the opening of
parliament this
week.
Rights activists and NGOs allege that the legislation is the
latest
attempt by the government to crack down on dissent in the country.
Over the
past two years the government and rights organisations have been
at
loggerheads, with the authorities accusing NGOs of furthering
foreign
interests.
"We are not shocked by the news and, in fact,
this has been on the
cards since the early 1990s. However, this is the first
time that it looks
like the legislation may actually come before parliament.
This signals to
civil society that the government is running scared, afraid
of criticism.
Our major concern is that our work, especially in rural areas,
will be
further impeded. Already members of civil rights groups cannot go
into
certain areas to conduct interviews regarding human rights
violations,"
Crisis in Zimbabwe spokeswoman Everjoice Win told
IRIN.
Last year NGOs resisted a government order to register under
the
Private Voluntary Organisations Act, saying they were operating as
trusts
and were, therefore, not governed by the legislation.
"If
the bill is approved by parliament, the government will have
unfettered
access to the operations of NGOs. Authorities will have the right
to
investigate who our funders are and, if they choose, may even deregister
some
of the groups," Win said.
But, one analyst told IRIN, if the move
was indeed an attempt to
muzzle opposition, the government may find itself
faced with several legal
challenges.
"It is really an exercise
in futility since there are several groups
registered as trusts and as
private companies. Existing legislation
prohibits any government
interference," senior political science lecturer at
the University of
Zimbabwe John Makumbe said.
Meanwhile, the government also
announced plans to introduce
legislation giving workers part-ownership in
local industries as part of a
black empowerment drive. But critics say the
initiative was politically
motivated and aimed to convince domestic investors
to remain in Zimbabwe.
It is estimated that foreign investors
pulled out Zim $17.3 billion
(US $20 million) from the Zimbabwe Stock
Exchange (ZSE) in the first six
months of this year, more than five times the
amount of funds withdrawn by
foreign businesses last year.
"The
promise of greater shares in the economy is directed at those who
already
have money. So, black economic empowerment will not make any
significant
difference, especially since the economy is in free-fall,"
Makumbe
said.
JUSTICE FOR AGRICULTURE PR COMMUNIQUE - July 24, 2003
Email: justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet:
www.justiceforagriculture.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
AGRIZIM.
The Way Forward.
LAND.
"And then suddenly there was no more free
and virgin land to destroy.
That's all there was; there wasn't any more. And
slowly, imperceptibly, the
fact of that disaster began to make itself felt in
the economy of a whole
great nation. The shortage began to make itself felt
in a living standard
slipping slowly downward....
People didn't know
about what was going on. Neither farmers nor city
people. I knew perhaps
better than most because I had seen over the whole
of the world what had
happened to nations when their agriculture grew sick
and their soil
impoverished. What happened was first ECONOMIC SICKNESS and
finally DEATH,
not only of agriculture but eventually of the nation and
its
CIVILIZATION.
I knew in my heart that we as a nation were already
much farther along the
path to DESTRUCTION than most people knew. What we
needed was a new kind of
pioneer, not the sort which cut down the forests and
burned off the
prairies and raped the land, but who created forests and
healed and
restored the richness of the country God have given
us......."
- Louis Bromfield - Pleasant Valley - 1946 -
The current
state of affairs appear to have happened before. "The more
things change the
more things stay the same?"
The effects of the use of this POLITICAL
WEAPON are likely to have the same
effect that Bromfield has
related.
Why?
Because the POLITICAL WEAPON here is
LAND.
Who will pay the price?
The CIVILIZATION.
Has it
started to pay yet?
Has it paid enough to want to stand up yet?
JUSTICE FOR AGRICULTURE
COMPENSATION/RESTITUTION COMMUNIQUE - July 24,
2003
Email: justice@telco.co.zw;
justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet:
www.justiceforagriculture.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
LOSS
DOCUMENT FACILITATORS
The issue of compensation/restitution to farmers
for what they have lost as
a result of the fast track resettlement programme
is very clear. The farmer
has the right to claim according to the law of
Zimbabwe and International
law.
Before farmers can initiate this
process there are certain responsibilities
that they have to be aware of and
conform to.
· Farmers can only be compensated or restituted if they
submit a claim for
what they have lost.
· Certain formats and
procedures exist that have to be followed in order to
document and present
the facts.
· The Valuation Certificate from the Valuators Consortium is
vital and will
form part of the final document and could represent
approximately 40% of
the total amount claimable by farmers in that other
disturbance losses
(consequential losses) could constitute the greater part
of the claim.
To assist farmers to fill in their claims in the prescribed
format we have
trained 18 facilitators around the country. They started
facilitating and
compiling documents on the 1st July 2003.
All farmers
are urged to have their documentation completed by the end of
November 2003.
This will assist us in processing the information and in
preparation of the
initial steps in the International arena by the 1st
February 2004.
The
sooner negotiations take place the sooner compensation/restitution
could be
achieved. The first phase of this is the correct documentation of
losses and
claims and their quantification and verification.
The following are a
list of numbers you can dial in the various centres.
Bulawayo 091 236
317
Chiredzi 011 609 823, 011 425 056, 031 2675, 031 2638, 031
3337.
Kadoma 011 208 767, 068 245 74, 068 235 15
Harare 04 499 783, 04 494
837, 04 883 399, 091 234 876, 04 735 217
Marondera 011 611 298, 079 239
23.
Mutare 020 63651.
If farmers have no facilitators in their areas;
we will be hosting our next
training course at St Lucia Park in Harare on the
30th July 2003. It will
be a one-day course and lunch and teas are
included.
This whole exercise depends on the co-operation and
determination of
farmers and must be community driven. Your community must
select the
facilitators they can work with and have confidence and trust in.
This
will ensure that the interests of farmers are presented in a
professional
format and with the necessary confidentiality.
For more
details on the course please contact me at 011 207 860 or the
JAG
office.
JAG OPEN LETTER FORUM
Email: justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet:
www.justiceforagriculture.com
Please
send any material for publication in the Open Letter Forum to
justice@telco.co.zw with "For Open Letter
Forum" in the subject
line.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
1:
Dear John
1 I presume letter number 1 of Open Letter Forum 119
was written by Ben
Freeth? Should I be concerned that he would not put his
name to this letter
or was it an oversight?
2 Thank you for the
opportunity to allow open debate on the issue of CFU
without bias or
prejudice. I think it has allowed a second opinion to
appear. And what a
wonderful surprise to see that Willy actually believes
that some good men
stand for CFU!!
3 I was always really concerned about the voting
procedure and form that
the "new" CFU took with their last restructuring.
Like the changes that
took place in the national constitution from 1986 to
1992, I believed that
we were putting too much power into the hands of a few
men. But in exactly
the same way as the EGM in March 2003 for ZTA, I watched
a whole generation
of farmers vote unanimously for the changes, just
accepting what their
leadership was asking for. And so today, we all live
with the changes that
were made....
or do we??
That is the
challenge that we as future farmers should be looking at. Is
the current
constitution right for us? Should we be accepting the Status
Quo? Should we
not be making the changes necessary to ensure the survival
of our farmers and
their children??
I look forward to seeing you at this afternoon's farmers
meeting.
Yours sincerely
Jean
Simon
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
2:
My dear Jean,
I am pleased to hear that you are now gently
amused.
Regrettably I am no longer in that category.
I have been
informed that Vice President Crawford has now asked Mr. Cloete
to stand again
as President - I know not why as yet.
Yesterday I sought spiritual
guidance and was advised by a priest that the
CFU is an Evil Organization and
that I would never achieve anything by
trying to alter its ways, from now on.
I did try many more than three
times, as have many others and now will take
spiritual guidance in favour
of your challenge, and will now move
on.
Yours,
Willy
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
3: Ben Freeth
BLACK AND WHITE
The importance of doing things in
black and white cannot be over-emphasised
enough. What is in black and white
will stand over time where mere words
(dialogue?) will not.
· When I
pay my bills I produce a cheque book (black and white) and receive
a receipt
(black and white).
· When I rent a house I sign a lease agreement (black
and white).
· When I travel across the border I produce a passport (black
and white).
· When I buy a car I get a registration book to show
ownership (black and
white).
· When I vote for responsible Government
I place my cross in the right box
(black and white).
· When I buy a
farm I get title deeds to prove it is mine (black and
white).
· When I
borrow money I produce my collateral (black and white).
When my legal
rights are usurped or my property is stolen and I lose what
is mine, my fall
back is the courts so that I can pay my bills, stay in my
home, get insurance
money for my car, travel out of the country, regain my
farm or develop it
through the bank (black and white). There will be those
(in the ?????) who
will do everything they can to persuade me not to go
black and white because
they know the power of black and white.
If I do not carefully document
all my losses and the incidents where my
legal rights have been usurped
before asserting them I will have no chance
of recouping those losses so that
my rights can triumph over the wrongs.
If I do not assert those rights, quite
frankly I do not deserve to keep
them.
It's over to you. Get with
it. GO BLACK AND WHITE. BE PART OF
JAG.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All
letters published on the open Letter Forum are the views and opinions
of the
submitters, and do not represent the official viewpoint of Justice
for
Agriculture.
The People Take On the Great Leader in New Play
The Daily News
(Harare)
July 24, 2003
Posted to the web July 24,
2003
SUPER Patriots And Morons, a play about His Excellency, the
Super Patriot,
who has ruled his small African nation as a dictator since it
attained
independence from the colonialists will be shown in 10 provinces
in
Zimbabwe.
The play will kick off tomorrow in all the provinces.
Each province has its
own cast and for the past 16 days Rooftop Promotions
has been conducting
rehearsals for the actors and
actresses.
Also in attendance and helping with the rehearsals
were seasoned actors
O'Brian Mudyiwenyama, Jasen Mphepho, Mackay Tickeys and
Daves Guzha.
Super Patriots And Morons will also be staged in Harare at
the Mannenberg on
29 July.
His Excellency, the Super Patriot, has
ruled his small African nation with
an iron hand and has successfully muzzled
the Press, cowed the judiciary,
and is intolerant of the opposition that he
sees as a front of the
neo-imperialists.
All this, in the determined
pursuit of perpetuating his personal rule. The
country is his, in the true
sense of the word.
When this crumbles, bastardising the country's
socio-economic fabric, the
Super Patriot's world starts giving in, thus
triggering a series of logical
questions from the populace.
Led by a
pregnant woman Shami, the people, who see the Super Patriot as the
source of
their pathetic predicament resolve to take the Dear Leader
head
on.
The ground is set for a dramatic confrontation. The Super
Patriot with every
state machinery at his disposal to defend his personal
rule, and the people
with nothing to lose but their misery.
It is a
case of the people versus the powerful Great Leader.
What is at stake is
their respective existence. Both sides have no room for
compromise in this
battle for the ultimate survival. He who wins lives.
Produced by Daves
Guzha and directed by Calle Kjellgren, the play which will
take place in
Harare features Daves Guzha, Mackay Tickeys, O'Brian
Mudyiwenyama, Jasen
Mpepho and Eyahra Mathazia.