Business Day
Posted to the web on: 07 July 2005
Mugabe clean-up blitz
no answer - UN
envoy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BULAWAYO
- A United Nations (UN) envoy told state officials in Zimbabwe's
second city
yesterday that demolishing slums to force the poor back to the
countryside
was not a solution to housing problems.
"Rural repatriation does not
work," envoy Anna Tibaijuka said after Home
Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi
said most of the displaced in the demolition
blitz in Bulawayo would have to
return to their rural homes as not enough
new housing would be
built.
"These people are not here because they want to be, but they are
trying to
get a living. Even in the US and Japan, people want to work in the
city,
they try to create small businesses where they can get a livelihood,
and
Zimbabwe is not an exception," she said.
Tibaijuka was in
Bulawayo as part of a fact-finding mission on the
humanitarian effect of the
seven-week campaign to demolish shacks and other
unauthorised
houses.
President Robert Mugabe has said the drive is to rid Zimbabwe of
squalor and
crime but the opposition sees it as a new campaign of
repression. Western
governments have harshly criticised the
blitz.
During the meeting that was open to the media, the envoy took
exception when
officials kept referring to the demolished shacks as "illegal
structures".
"There is no need to call them illegal structures or
squatter camps because
they are homes to other people. They are special to
other people who cannot
have special homes," she said.
The envoy, who
extended her trip by five days after spending a week in the
country, said
Zimbabwe fared well compared with other African cities in
terms of its
slums.
"Zimbabwe is not a bad situation in Africa. From our statistics,
Africa has
a slum rate of 72%, but in a study we have on Zimbabwe conducted
in 2001, it
had an illegal and slum rate of 3,4%," she said.
The
government demolitions campaign has left between 200000 and 1,5-million
people homeless, according to the UN and the opposition
respectively.
Two toddlers died in demolitions at Harare area slums last
month and four
were reportedly killed at the Porta Farm settlement, west of
the capital,
although police have denied that those four deaths
occurred.
Tibaijuka bristled when police told her that the crime rate had
dropped
since the "clean-up" operation was launched in May.
She said:
"The poor are not criminals. They work hard to achieve the little
they get
and therefore they should not be criminalised."
She said "humanitarian
and human rights aspects" were critical in carrying
out
evictions.
Government officials at the meeting that was open to the media
said they had
destroyed 5176 houses in Bulawayo but were planning to build
1003 new units.
The envoy, who arrived in Zimbabwe on June 26, is to make
a much-awaited
report on her findings to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
after her mission
ends at the weekend. Sapa-AFP
Globe and Mail, Canada
Why is Africa silent as Mugabe runs
riot?
Thursday, July 7, 2005
Zimbabwe's government calls it
Operation Murambatsvina, or Drive Out Trash.
Over the past few weeks, police
have swept through the country's cities,
torching and bulldozing
shantytowns, markets and other structures in an
"urban renewal" drive that
has left hundreds of thousands of poor people
homeless. In one of the latest
incidents, on Monday, armed paramilitary
police knocked down 100 wooden
cabins in a township of Harare, the capital,
ignoring the screams of three
children trapped inside one of them. The
children survived, but their home
was reduced to rubble.
The government of President Robert Mugabe says the
demolitions are a
"necessary evil," designed to rid the cities of unhealthy
slums and wipe out
the criminal gangs that shelter in them. Opposition
leaders say the campaign
is an attempt to punish the urban poor, who are the
most vocal about the
failings of the Mugabe regime and tend to support the
opposition in
elections.
Whatever the reason behind Drive Out Trash,
the result has been misery. Food
is short in Zimbabwe, yet the police have
torn up the garden plots that the
poor depend on for their food. This is the
middle of winter in Zimbabwe, yet
the police have driven people out of their
homes with little more than the
clothes on their backs. At least three
people have died of pneumonia, two of
them children. Two more children were
killed when they were crushed under
the collapsing walls of their home. More
than 300,000 children have been
forced to quit school after seeing their
homes destroyed.
And what is the response of the rest of Africa to this
brutality? Silence. A
spokesman said last month that it was "not proper" for
the 53-nation African
Union to interfere in the internal affairs of a
member, especially if that
member is merely trying to prevent crime and
ensure its capital "does not
turn into a slum." Ignoring calls from British
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to
act against Zimbabwe over
the demolitions, the union sidestepped the issue
altogether at its
semi-annual summit in Libya this week. The agenda for the
meeting included
gender equality, refugees, the fight against HIV-AIDS, and
health care for
women and children. Apparently the health of women and
children evicted from
their homes in the middle of winter doesn't
count.
The union's indifference to the suffering of poor Zimbabweans was
entirely
typical. Other African countries have consistently shied away from
criticizing the Mugabe regime. Mr. Mugabe, in power since 1980, has driven
his once-prosperous country into the ground. The unemployment rate is 70 per
cent, the inflation rate 144 per cent. Four million people are in urgent
need of food. If this catastrophe is a merely internal affair, then the
continental solidarity that African governments espouse is a cruel
joke.
Especially shameful is the silence of South Africa, Zimbabwe's
immediate
neighbour. Its size and democratic system of government make it
ideally
placed to put pressure on Mr. Mugabe to change his ways or step
down.
Instead, South African President Thabo Mbeki prefers quiet diplomacy
-- so
quiet, it seems, that Mr. Mugabe has barely heard it.
Other
countries and organizations can do their part to influence Mr. Mugabe.
The
United Nations has sent a special envoy to look into the demolition
campaign. The Commonwealth shunned Zimbabwe after Mr. Mugabe maintained
power in a fixed election in 2002. But in the end, it is other African
governments that bear the main responsibility for getting rid of the bad
apple in the barrel.
As they bid for debt relief and more development
aid, Africa's leaders are
claiming they have turned over a new leaf -- that
they are fighting
corruption and embracing democratic government. If that is
true, they cannot
continue to stand limply by as one of their group makes a
parody of the
pledge.
Message from ZimbabweGosh it is so weird here right now - I feel completely paralysed. We are
virtually unable to move - I am down to my last 10 litres of fuel and then
will be grounded. Everywhere there are people walking and no-one is
smiling or talking - there is an ominous hush. You can feel it everywhere -
like waiting to exhale. No-one has answers any more and we are all stunned
by what is unfolding.
We are also trapped now as we literally cannot
move from our homes, except
on foot. There is no public transport. Power
cuts are frequent and
erratic, shops are emptying rapidly - there is no
bread. So I'm thinking
what should I be doing? I feel like a rabbit caught
in the headlights. I
really don't know what else to do but be as still and
quiet as possible.
And the irony of it all is that everything is looking
just so beautiful -
those bleached out winter golds against startling
poinsettia and
bougainvilla, the sky at night is just overwhelming, but it
is very very
cold and many people have nowhere to sleep. And they are sick
and hungry.
And completely abandoned. You can be arrested now for anything
it seems -
carrying too many people in your car (but there's no petrol
anyway),
carrying forex (but you can't buy anything without it), carrying
firewood to
those in need!
Buying fruit from vendors is like scoring
heroin - all done in hushed voices
with brown paper bags chucked through the
back window of the car and a quick
exchange of cash whilst no-one is
looking. There is also no salt, or sugar
or cooking oil. And have I
stocked up my larder to overflowing ...no. So
maybe we'll just starve to
death. Perhaps I could claim refugee status. Do
I want to? What message do
I give my kids if I just turn and walk away?
I feel helpless and almost
overwhelmed. It's as much as I can manage just
to keep my own family
reasonably together, let alone help others.
It seems that finally people
outside are beginning to see what's going on
. There is a UN envoy here
and some coverage has been getting out. Can I
be brave enough? Am I willing
to maybe die? For what, exactly? That's what
I'm not quite sure about - just
why is it that my heart feels so sore?
Who and where are the heroes? Roy
Bennett who has just been released from
jail and who is willing to die if
that's what it takes, Bob Geldof who is
finally focusing people's awareness
on what's been happening in Africa for
centuries. The homeless suffering
poor have always seemed to be out there
somewhere. But now I am facing them
everyday.
There comes a point where you just cannot turn away anymore and
you begin to
feel angry. And with that anger comes energy and courage and
the will to
change things. We so badly need a leader - someone with vision
and power
and compassion.
Source: Trócaire
Date: 06 Jul 2005
Housing demolitions and food
shortages, Zimbabwe
by Niall O'Keeffe, Trócaire's Southern Africa Programme
Officer - July 2005
It is estimated that over 300,000 people have been
affected by the recent
housing demolitions in Zimbabwe. People who, up until
recently, enjoyed a
home to live in (some of whom have lived in their houses
for 20 years) have
been forced to sleep in the open - a particularly harsh
experience in the
Zimbabwean winter.
The indiscriminate campaign to
remove the inhabitants has been carried out
with indifference to the
presence of - or concern for - children and the
elderly, or to the levels of
poverty in which people have been living. Many
of the informal settlements
had government approval to remain, had water and
electricity provided by the
government, and in some case government
ministers or governors have opened
these vending sites and settlements.
The housing demolitions have mainly,
but not exclusively, taken place in
areas known for their support to the
political opposition; the operation
will benefit individuals in power who
have land interests; the result will
be a 'clean' city to present ostensibly
a normal city; and, most
importantly, it serves as an expression of power
over the people.
The housing demolitions are characteristic of a
government which has
expressed a total disinterest in the welfare of its own
people, rather it
has used its people to maintain its own position. Human
rights abuses
perpetrated by government agencies, or with their tacit
support, have taken
the form of intimidation, torture and murder. These
abuses have been
systematically planned and well executed to the extent that
there is
coercion into supporting the government.
Trócaire's
programme in Zimbabwe provides support to a local partner
organisation who,
with a trained team of 240 monitors, document cases of
human rights abuse
throughout the country. Cases documented contribute to a
monthly report on
politically motivated human rights abuses while the
monitors provide a
referral for victims of abuse to appropriate care
centres.
Selected
cases are further investigate and legal proceedings are initiated
in the
courts against the perpetrators. Additionally, the project seeks to
erode
the current environment of impunity for politically motivated
violence.
Court cases of significant political sensitivity test the
independence of
the judiciary who have, on several occasions, failed to act
independently.
The most infamous of cases, involving the newspaper The Daily
News, was a
clear expression of bias by the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe as it
ruled in
favour of the government and undermined their own position as an
independent
court, and leading to the closure of the country's main
newspaper.
Trócaire is providing support to local organisations which
have brought
cases of human rights abuse to the African Commission on Human
and People's
Rights. This African Commission has acknowledged the lack
judicial
independence in Zimbabwe and is proceeding to hear several cases of
human
rights abuse from the country.
Government food aid is withheld
from communities who do not demonstrate
their loyalty. However, the
government food supply is now depleted and
millions of people throughout the
country are facing food shortages. But to
avoid further wrath of the
international community, the Government of
Zimbabwe is concealing the extent
of the food shortages.
In a recent visit to the country, one Zimbabwean
organisation spoke of three
young children dying in one village as a result
of malnutrition. Local
authorities had warned the organisation against
publicising the situation.
While distributing food aid in villages can be
subjected to political
manipulation, Trócaire supported projects provide
food aid distributed in
schools to ensure that children receive at least one
meal per day and
through a structure that does not discriminate as all
children receive food.
While people in Zimbabwe are disillusioned with
the current government, the
constant threat of human rights abuse, coupled
with the difficulties of
finding their next meal, has served to ensure that
their disillusionment is
not converted into an opposition force of concern
to the government.
The Government of Zimbabwe seeks to prevent
international and national
development and human rights organisations from
operating in the country.
The recent NGO Bill, while presented as a standard
regularisation mechanism,
threatens to effectively ban work on human rights
in the country. Other
African countries, most notably South Africa, have
blindly accepted the
'regularisation' argument frequently put forward by the
Government of
Zimbabwe.
There is currently a considerable need for
food aid in Zimbabwe and
international pressure should be brought upon the
Government of Zimbabwe to
allow humanitarian access. The Irish Government
should highlight, amongst
the international community and particularly the
United Nations, the need to
facilitate this access. Greater support is
required for Zimbabwean
organisations who, under very difficult conditions,
seek to counter the
systematic human rights abuse perpetrated by the
Government of Zimbabwe on
its people.
Ananova
Woman 'in hiding' after blunder
A woman from
Zimbabwe is in hiding after being deported from Britain
following a blunder
by a a security firm.
A senior High Court judge angrily condemned the
deportation of the woman,
who cannot be named for legal reasons, after a
mistake was made by
Securicor, which was responsible for escorting her out
of the country.
Mr Justice Collins called on the Government to halt all
removals of failed
asylum seekers to Zimbabwe pending a further High Court
hearing.
The Government's stance on the issue was thrown into confusion
when a Home
Office official told a separate hearing that deportations had
already been
halted.
This was despite a statement from Home Secretary
Charles Clarke which said
its policy remained unchanged and all cases were
assessed on an individual
basis.
The judge acted after a Refugee
Legal Council (RLC) representative told him
there was evidence to suggest
asylum seekers were in danger of being
ill-treated and abused in Zimbabwe
just because they had claimed asylum in
the UK.
During the case the
judge said the woman, who was flown to Harare, was now
"in
hiding".
He said the Home Office had cancelled the removal directions
after the woman
lodged an application for judicial review with the High
Court.
But the fax sent by the Home Office to Securicor was dealt with by
a
temporary member of staff who was not fully trained and did not realise
the
significance of the fax.
"How anyone could fail to appreciate the
significance of a fax from the Home
Office telling them removal directions
had been cancelled frankly escapes
me," the judge said.
Reuters
Harare authorities scrap land sale deals - paper
Thu Jul 7,
2005 10:40 AM GMT
HARARE (Reuters) - Authorities in Harare have scrapped land
sale agreements
concluded in the past seven years because they were not
based on market
rates, state media said on Thursday.
"Harare City
Council has rescinded all land sale agreements made between
1998 and this
year and is now reselling the land at market rates to the same
buyers, where
necessary," the official Herald newspaper reported, citing
Harare Town Clerk
Nomutsa Chideya.
The paper said prices charged in many of the agreements
were too low
compared even with market rates at the time and usually were
well below the
cost of servicing the land.
The move would affect
mostly agreements entered into between the city
council and churches,
individuals and housing co-operatives, some of whose
houses were demolished
during the government's controversial clampdown on
shantytowns for failing
to meet city by-laws.
Authorities in the Zimbabwean capital were not
immediately available for
comment.
Harare has been the worst hit by
the government's crackdown on illegal
housing and building structures that
aid agencies say has left over 300,000
urban residents
homeless.
President Robert Mugabe has defended the operation as necessary
to weed out
criminal hideouts and to end illegal trading in foreign currency
and other
basic commodities.
Mail and Guardian
Millions on brink of starvation in Southern
Africa
Johannesburg, South Africa
07 July 2005
03:44
More than 10-million people in Southern Africa will
need
humanitarian assistance in the coming year because of poor agricultural
production, food agencies said on Thursday.
Following a
recent crop assessment, it was found that Lesotho,
Malawi, Zambia,
Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Swaziland are not able to grow
enough food to meet
domestic needs.
Even if there were considerable commercial
imports, serious food
shortages will persist until the next harvest in May
2006, said the Southern
African Development Community (SADC) and the United
Nations' Food and
Agriculture Organisation, and the World Food Programme
(WFP).
The agencies said large-scale food assistance across
the region
at household level is needed. They said the region also needs to
formulate
national policies on staple food prices, agricultural reform, and
trade at
national and regional level.
Together, the 13
member states of SADC produced a cereal surplus
of 2,1-million tonnes
compared with 1,1-million tonnes a year ago. Most of
the excess was produced
by South Africa, which harvested a surplus of about
5,5-million tonnes this
year.
Assessments had found that about 2,8-million tonnes of
food
would need to be commercially imported into the countries to meet the
largest part of the shortfall.
Of the total amount of
food aid required by the countries, the
WFP needs $266-million or 477 000
tonnes pledged immediately so that food
can either be purchased locally with
cash donations or shipped to the
region.
"Given the
gravity of the findings, WFP, FAO and SADC today
called on donor governments
worldwide to respond quickly and generously with
food aid donations in kind
or cash to avoid widespread hunger from
developing into a humanitarian
disaster.
"The assessment teams were struck by the scarcity
of maize at
harvest time in some countries, prompting the need for an
immediate
response," they said.
Government
representatives from each country, together with UN
and non-government
organisations, are discussing the findings at a two-day
meeting which
started on Thursday. - Sapa
News24
'Limited aid for Zim homeless'
07/07/2005 19:57 -
(SA)
Johannesburg - The Zimbabwean government has put the number of
people
displaced in its urban slum clearance campaign at 130 000 families,
and says
it will not be able to rehouse all of them.
Pritchard Zhou,
minister counsellor in the Zimbabwe embassy, said the
operation had "won
praise countrywide".
The evictions, which he said were aimed at
eradicating criminality and
giving people decent homes, had been "grossly
and deliberately distorted".
Zhou denied the operation was politically
aimed against the opposition in
Zimbabwe or that there was any
heavy-handedness involved.
He said three trillion Zimbabwean dollars had
been put aside for
reconstruction, but would not say where the money was
coming from.
Reuters
Police raise Zimbabwe crackdown death toll to 5
Thu Jul 7,
2005 5:27 PM GMT
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe police said on Thursday that
five people had
been killed in accidents during the government's two-month
crackdown on
illegal shantytowns, which has drawn criticism from rights
groups and
Western governments.
Assistant Police Commissioner Wayne
Bvudzijena said the deaths, which
included one police officer, were mishaps
and not the fault of President
Robert Mugabe's government.
"Five
people have died so far although this was not the direct result of
police
interventions as has been reported. These include a police officer
who was
crushed by rubble in Bulawayo," Bvudzijena told Reuters.
He said the five
also included two children reported killed last month after
demolished house
structures collapsed on them. He did not give details on
the other
deaths.
More than 70,000 people had been arrested since the crackdown
began in May,
but that most had been quickly released after paying
admission-of-guilt
fines for offences including illegal vending and gold
panning, he said.
On Wednesday the official Herald newspaper said police
had denied reports
that two women had been killed when they fell off a
police or army truck and
that two children were struck dead by a police
truck at a squatter camp
demolished last week outside the capital
Harare.
Rights groups Amnesty International and ActionAid said last week
at least
three people, including a pregnant woman and a child, had died at
the Porta
Farm squatter camp and that there were unconfirmed reports of
another death.
Squatters whose shacks were demolished at the compound
told United Nations
envoy Anna Tibaijuka that a woman and a child were
crushed by rubble, while
another boy was run over by a
truck.
Tibaijuka has been in the country for nearly two weeks and was due
to visit
the northern resort town of Victoria Falls after touring Zimbabwe's
second-largest city of Bulawayo.
She is due to report back to U.N.
Secretary General Kofi Annan on the
campaign, which has been widely
criticised by Western governments as a human
rights violation.
Aid
agencies say the crackdown has left over 300,000 people homeless, but
the
main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) puts the figure
much
higher at around 1.5 million.
Mugabe's government denies that the
demolitions are revenge on urban
dwellers who have backed the MDC in
elections since 2000, and insists the
campaign is simply meant to remove
shantytowns and illegal markets which had
become a haven for criminal
activity.
ZIMBABWE: Concern that transit camps will become permanent
07 Jul 2005
18:06:35 GMT
Source: IRIN
JOHANNESBURG, 7 July (IRIN) - The
creation of transit camps as a result of
the Zimbabwean government's forced
eviction campaign has a familiar ring - a
homeless people's rights NGO says
many of the suburbs in the recent eviction
drive arose as transit camps
after demolitions in previous years.
In the cleanup campaign, launched in
May, thousands of informal settlements
have been demolished and at least
375,000 people left homeless; the
authorities have claimed it was part of an
urban renewal strategy that will
eventually build 10,000 homes at a cost of
US $300 million.
The government wants people cleared from illegal
settlements to either move
directly to their place of birth in the rural
areas, or to one of two
temporary transit centres outside the capital,
Harare, and the eastern city
of Mutare. A third facility is yet to be
completed in Bulawayo in the south
of the country.
Ironically, Porta
Farm, one of the suburbs targeted by the authorities, had
come into
existence as a transit camp in 1992 after one of the first
eviction
campaigns in Harare, just before the Commonwealth Heads of State
meeting,
said Beth Chitekwe-Biti, director of Dialogue on Shelter, an NGO
affiliated
to Shack/Slum Dwellers International.
"Evicted families were relocated to
a holding camp in Dzivarasekwa, some 10
km south of Harare; the rest were to
be repatriated back to their rural
homes. The logic then was: if you could
not prove you were gainfully
employed you had no business being in Harare.
This relocation was always
meant as a temporary solution - most of the
families who had been ferried to
their rural homes came back after a few
months and re-established themselves
in Porta Farm," she
explained.
Dzivarasekwa was affected by the recent eviction campaign, as
was Hatcliffe
Extension, another suburb in Harare created for previously
evicted
communities.
According to Chitekwe-Biti, Hatcliffe Extension
residents were actually
granted leases last year, but because "they were
unable to afford services
and permanent structures, they were deemed illegal
by the authorities, as
our housing law states that no land can be allocated
to anyone if it has not
been connected to services".
She estimated
that at least 50 percent of all urban residents lived in
informal dwellings,
and commented, "Squatting is illegal in Zimbabwe. The
only form of housing
the poor can get without risking eviction and
prosecution is to squat in the
backyard [extensions] of formal settlements,
where one has access to basic
services."
In the early 1980s the government initiated housing projects
with the
assistance of international humanitarian agencies, in which land
was made
available to the poor at a nominal cost. "The families had to pay
for
services and rates ... and in some instances finance was also arranged
to
help people build permanent houses," said Chitekwe-Biti.
However,
the projects slowed down as funds from donors dried up. According
to the
NGO, there were at least 250,000 people on the waiting list for
houses in
Harare alone.
"I did a survey two years ago and found that the government
had been
allocating only 1,000 plots a year. As far as I know, no land has
been
allocated in the past two years in Harare," she noted.
Dialogue
on Shelter, which works with the Zimbabwe Homeless People's
Federation, a
network of communities, launched its own housing projects in
the late 1990s.
"We successfully negotiated with the local authorities in
the towns of
Mutare [on the Mozambican border] and Victoria Falls [on the
Zambian border]
to make land available for the poor communities," said
Chitekwe-Biti.
Funds were also raised to provide services to the
plots. However, some of
the dwellings in Victoria Falls have also been
affected by the recent
eviction campaign.
The NGO is critical of the
government's plans to build new homes in Harare.
"We have seen the models -
no poor family will be able to afford the
finishes in these homes. It costs
at least US $690 to install plumbing as
per the city council's
requirements," she pointed out.
Independent estimates show that the
majority of poor Zimbabweans earn less
than $200 a month.
Meanwhile,
Anna Tibaijuka, the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy, who is
evaluating
the impact of the controversial demolition of informal
settlements and
markets in Zimbabwe, told Zimbabwean officials on Wednesday
that rural
repatriation did not work. Tibaijuka also heads UN-HABITAT, which
promotes
every citizen's right to the city.
Sharad Shankardass, spokesman for the
special envoy, pointed out that the
slum rate in Zimbabwe was much lower
than most other African countries.
After her visit to Bulawayo, the envoy
also expressed concern that local
churches were being overwhelmed by the
demand for shelter by displaced
Zimbabweans.
|
Sokwanele - Enough is Enough -
Zimbabwe
PROMOTING NON-VIOLENT PRINCIPLES TO ACHIEVE
DEMOCRACY
|
Make poverty history - or make
dictators history?
Sokwanele Report : 7 July 2005
 Leaders of the world's richest 8 countries have gathered at
Gleneagles in Scotland to discuss two matters of global significance - how to
protect planet earth from irreversible environmental damage, and how to rescue
the African continent from debilitating and dehumanizing poverty. While
acknowledging that the two issues are inter-related, and in no way wishing to
detract from the importance of the first, our main concern here is with the
second issue.
The poverty issue has been highlighted in recent weeks by an
international campaign under the banner "Make Poverty History", which culminated
in the Live 8 concert and mass marches of last weekend. In Scotland alone a
crowd of some 225,000 people marched behind banners calling for debt relief,
more aid and improved trading terms for Africa. The Live 8 concert brought
together an impressive international ensemble of singers and bands, and it is
estimated that 5 billion people around the world watched the spectacle on
television. Enough to make the point to the world leaders gathered at their
plush resort in Scotland that there is enormous interest in the topics under
discussion, and great expectations that significant moves will be made to rescue
Africa from the debt trap.
A great deal of international lobbying has already been done in
preparation for the summit on the issue of debt relief, and a clear consensus
seems to be emerging among the most technologically advanced and wealthy nations
that Africa deserves a break. At a popular level in the West there is massive
support for debt cancellation, and some governments have already pledged to
write off all, or a significant part of, historic debts and to increase the
level of aid to the continent. There has been noticeably less offered in the way
of what in the longer term is of greater importance to the economies of Africa,
namely improved trading terms. Nonetheless there remains a considerable amount
of goodwill and a clear determination to help lift Africa out of poverty. The
discussion is already down to specifics in many cases and the economies of the
most indebted countries have been closely examined to determine where and how
debt relief should be applied.
The one country in Africa which has been conspicuously omitted from the
discussion is of course Zimbabwe. The reasons for this are obvious. The
Zimbabwean economy is in terminal decline. All the economic indices are
negative. Plummeting industrial and agricultural output, soaring inflation,
unemployment and national debt - all combine to give Zimbabwe the unenviable
reputation of having the fastest shrinking economy in the world. Surely a prime
candidate for international aid - except, as we all know, this is a man-made
crisis.
The massive stress to which the Zimbabwean economy has been subjected is
the result of bad governance, which in turn is the result of the democracy
deficit and lack of accountability of the government to its people. Were the
government accountable to the people it would not get away, at such a time of
famine and unprecedented hardship, with the profligate expenditure of
(conservatively) US$ 400 million on military hardware. Nor would it dare
undertake, as it has, an insane attack upon the informal sector that supports
over 3 million families and makes a substantial contribution to the national
economy. These crazy decisions of the executive - which in Zimbabwe's case means
one man, Robert Mugabe - were only possible within a political environment in
which that one man knew he would not have to answer for them, at least not
immediately. If there was ever any doubt about the direct causal link between
the lack of democracy and bad governance, and between bad governance and
national poverty, a case study of Zimbabwe under Mugabe's misrule should settle
that doubt once for all.
Which means that the G8 and other industrialised, first world countries
are absolutely right in not even considering Zimbabwe for debt relief at this
stage. Since the causes of Zimbabwe's economic decline are entirely political it
follows that a solution to the political crisis must be sought before any
economic assistance is offered. Specifically because the prime cause of the
misery of Zimbabwe's millions is the lack of democracy in the country, the
international community should seek first to remedy this deficit. Here we
applaud the comments made by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, on the eve
of the summit, to the effect that aid to Africa is useless if African leaders
are corrupt. "We should not be afraid to stop aid to dictators, like Zimbabwe's
Mugabe", he added.
It is extremely unfortunate for those suffering under the dictator that
the debt relief and increased aid to be offered to other African countries as a
result of the G8 meeting should not be made available to Zimbabwe at this stage,
but the victims of Mugabe's misrule would surely be the first to say that this
is the right decision. Any debt relief offered to Zimbabwe under its present
rulers would simply entrench them in power. A few more ground attack aircraft
from China or armoured personnel carriers to send into the high-density suburbs
perhaps, or another fleet of Mercedes to hand around to the dictator's cronies …
Let Zimbabweans know they are being excluded from this round of debt
relief and donor aid precisely because they are still under the yoke of this
loathsome dictator. And let them know also that when they have found the courage
to rise up and assert their stolen rights of freedom and democracy, they will
certainly be in line to receive very substantial aid and support from the West.
The United States for one has already signalled as much. This is not to call
Zimbabweans to arms but a simple recognition of the unfortunate but inescapable
reality that until the country is set fair on a course to democracy even the
most sympathetic nations will remain severely constrained in what they can do to
alleviate the suffering.
On the other hand if Zimbabwe is not to receive any immediate economic
aid does this mean the subject should be removed from the G8 agenda? On the
contrary we ask what other help its suffering citizens are entitled to expect
from this summit? We suggest five urgent priorities:
-
First and foremost emergency relief for the victims of
Mugabe's recent (and ongoing) "Operation Murambatsvina". News of this pogrom
against the poor is already circulating widely and has drawn international
condemnation. Indeed at this moment the UN Secretary-General's personal envoy,
Anna Tibaijuka, is continuing her investigation into this massive humanitarian
disaster that has rendered more than a million Zimbabweans homeless and
destroyed the livelihoods of an even greater number. Sokwanele has posted a
number of reports and photographs of this brutal assault upon the poor and we,
and others, have highlighted the wretched plight of the victims.
They are
in urgent need of emergency relief aid in the form of food, blankets, shelter,
fresh water, toilet facilities and medical care, which clearly the bankrupt
Mugabe regime has neither the means nor the will to supply. Accordingly it would
be a wonderful gesture if the G8 and other world leaders would acknowledge the
crisis and begin to mobilize resources for relief. We must emphasise that what
we have in mind here is not aid and debt cancellation, but simply emergency
relief supplies to assist, in the short term, the huge number of victims.
Furthermore as the Mugabe regime is the perpetrator of these atrocities
it is hardly to be trusted to administer relief supplies to the victims, so the
relief effort would have to be supervised by an international body of standing
such as the United Nations. Let the UN exercise its authority here to insist on
direct access to those in desperate need and the right to supervise the whole
operation.
-
 Second, we see the need for a far greater degree of honesty from the
international community in acknowledging the root causes of the present
suffering. Especially does this apply to African leaders who, to date, have gone
to great pains to avoid condemning Mugabe and his totalitarian regime. In fact
their refusal to confront the core issue here calls into question their
seriousness in committing to the values of freedom, democracy and good
governance - and hence their own eligibility to participate in any new
anti-poverty partnership with the West.
Bob Geldof who
organised the Live 8 aid concert for Africa, put it this way:
"What about
the absolute, absolute thuggery, brutality and mayhem of that mad creep Mugabe?
Why does Africa refuse to acknowledge what is happening in that country? This
man is mad. He's destroying his country; he's killing his
people."
Admittedly we wouldn't expect African leaders to use quite such
undiplomatic language (!) but this is the reality after all, and the sooner
Thabo Mbeki and other regional leaders admit it publicly the better.
Acknowledging the problem is surely the first step towards finding a
solution.
-
The next priority must be to intensify international
efforts to isolate the Mugabe regime diplomatically. The targeted sanctions
applied against the ZANU-PF leadership by the European Union, the USA,
Switzerland and a handful of Commonwealth countries, are hurting and should be
intensified and extended to cover all those who are collaborating with the
Mugabe regime in any significant way, and so prolonging the suffering of the
Zimbabwean people.
-
Closely related to the above, we note and endorse the
call of human rights activist and writer Judith Todd for total sanctions to be
applied. On June 30 Ms Todd (herself a victim of an earlier form of tyranny in
this country under Ian Smith) called for "very serious action against the
genocidal regime". She referred to the possibility of stopping all arms sales,
all sales of spare parts, bank loans and "everything that can extend the life of
the regime." As the evil monster of apartheid was undermined by the application
of an increasing range of international sanctions, so might the end of the
Mugabe regime be hastened. Every day by which that objective is brought forward
means one less day of acute suffering for millions of
Zimbabweans.
-
Finally the international community must give urgent
consideration to supporting and assisting in every way possible those
progressive forces within Zimbabwe which are working for peaceful, non-violent
change. One of the tragic consequences of prolonged misrule and the melt-down of
the economy is that millions of Zimbabweans have taken refuge beyond the borders
of the country of their birth. Refugees and asylum seekers have their own
desperate needs which must still be addressed urgently, but we are referring
here to the needs of those activists who have demonstrated exemplary courage in
leading the struggle for freedom and democracy from within Zimbabwe. Sadly they
are often lacking the resources and support which they require and deserve, and
we would call the attention of all democratic, freedom-loving peoples to this
deficit.
The international campaign to end poverty in Africa has been dubbed "Make
Poverty History". We applaud this campaign and salute all who have worked so
hard to turn such a slogan into reality. And from our unique Zimbabwean
perspective we would raise another banner to place alongside the first, reading
"Make Dictators History".
Any help the world can offer in making our dictator history would indeed
be most welcome !
* The images were sent to
Sokwanele by an activist in the UK who asked that we let Zimbabweans know that
"we are listening and we care about what is happening to innocent Zimbabweans".
Both banners were erected along a main road in Scotland, a short distance from
where the G8 leaders are meeting.
Visit our website at
www.sokwanele.com
Visit our blog: This is Zimbabwe
(Sokwanele blog)
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|
Sudan Tribune
EU parliament condemns Mugabe regime, Ethiopia
violence
Thursday July 7th, 2005 20:16.
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STRASBOURG, France, July 7,
2995 (AP) -- The European Parliament on Thursday
condemned Zimbabwe
President Robert Mugabe for what it called oppression of
his own people and
called for an immediate end to the demolitions of
shantytowns.
The
E.U. assembly also condemned the violent repression of protest rallies
in
Ethiopia last month in which police shot at demonstrators, killing at
least
36 people. The protests were sparked by the opposition's allegations
of
fraud during parliamentary elections in May.
In a resolution on Zimbabwe,
the E.U. legislators called on Mugabe to stand
down and insisted that
unrestricted access be granted to relief and
humanitarian agencies assisting
those made homeless in the demolitions of
shantytowns.
In recent
weeks, Mugabe has launched a so-called urban renewal drive aimed
at clearing
away all structures deemed illegal. Aid workers and opposition
leaders
estimate the campaign has displaced up to 1.5 million people.
"Mugabe has
been responsible for the destroying of homes and livelihoods of
as many as
1.5 million Zimbabweans. That number will rise if we don't take
rapid
action," said Liberal Democratic deputy Elizabeth Lynne.
The assembly
also urged the E.U. governments to close loopholes in existing
sanctions
against the Mugabe regime, asked them to stop returning asylum
seekers until
the situation in the country improves and requested the
appointment of a
special E.U. envoy for Zimbabwe.
It also called for the curtailment of
all economic links with Zimbabwe that
directly benefit Mugabe's government
and criticized South Africa and the
African Union for not acting against the
regime, saying South Africa had a
"special responsibility" in relation to
Zimbabwe.
On Wednesday, U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called on
Zimbabwe's
neighbors to follow the lead of the E.U. and condemn what he
called the
gratuitous and violent actions by Mugabe against his own
people.
Straw, whose country holds the E.U. presidency, said the
reputation of
African countries was at stake. Addressing the European
Parliament, he added
the 25-nation bloc would review its sanctions against
Mugabe's government,
which were first imposed in 2002.
E.U. foreign
ministers renewed sanctions against Zimbabwe for another year
in February,
expanding a visa travel ban to 120 officials. Other sanctions
include a ban
on arms sales and the freezing of Zimbabwean assets in
European
banks.
The Economist
Africa acknowledges it must help itself
Jul 7th
2005
From The Economist print edition
In return for a lot more
aid, Africa has promised to monitor itself a lot
more rigorously. That new
resolve is already being tested
WHILE the leaders of eight of the world's
richest countries gathered this
week at Gleneagles in Scotland, their
African counterparts, who run most of
the world's poorest countries,
gathered at the coastal town of Sirte, in
Libya, for their own jamboree
under the aegis of the African Union (AU).
Despite a vast gulf in media
coverage of the two meetings, they were, in
fact, tightly linked. For in the
new mood of scaling up aid to the poorest
countries, Africa's own
institutions, with the AU to the fore, are now being
expected by rich
countries to shoulder more of the burden for curing the
continent's
ills.
In the next few weeks the revamped AU, together with its
much-vaunted
offshoot, the New Partnership for Africa's Development, better
known as
Nepad, will face their first big tests of credibility. If these two
bodies
prove as feeble as their predecessors, the current wave of
Afro-optimism in
western capitals may fast turn to cynicism, as it has done
before. Indeed,
some fear that the AU, in particular, has already fallen
down on its job.
The AU, which was a relaunch in 2002 of the decrepit
old Organisation of
African Unity (OAU), and Nepad were both created out of
a fresh resolve by
African leaders to "own" more of Africa's problems
themselves rather than
rely on the usual alphabet soup of international
agencies and NGOs to feed
their starving and stop the continent's civil
wars. Nepad was set up in 2001
as the economic development arm of the OAU
(and then of the AU), made up of
all 53 of Africa's countries. This new
spirit of African ownership matches
the latest trend in the development
world, whereby donor countries and
multilateral organisations devolve as
much responsibility as possible for
anti-poverty and health programmes to
the recipient countries themselves,
rather than micro-manage them as in the
past.
So documents like the recent report of the Commission for Africa,
set up
last year by Britain's Tony Blair to "take a fresh look at Africa"
and how
to develop it, burst with enthusiasm for the AU and Nepad. In turn,
these
two bodies have explicitly promised to uphold human rights and
democracy, to
fight corruption and promote good governance. And both outfits
promise to
hold their members to account, to prod them to meet these
stringent
criteria.
The most explicit mechanism for doing so is
Nepad's African Peer Review
Mechanism (APRM). The 23 countries who have so
far joined this voluntary
scheme all offer themselves up for scrutiny by a
panel of outside experts.
Confidential reports are then handed to the
subject governments, and a
programme of action for improvements in such
things as transparency and
democratic accountability is agreed on and made
public. At least, that is
the plan. Last week, the experts handed their
verdicts to the first two
guinea pigs, Ghana and Rwanda; final reports and
action plans are due out
next month.
The implicit deal with rich
countries is that if the AU and Nepad can start
to enforce western standards
of financial transparency and democracy in
African countries, then more aid
will flow their way to foster the good
work. An early example of this
hoped-for new trust between the West and
Africa was last year's decision by
NATO countries to lend the AU logistical
help to move African soldiers
around the vast area of Darfur, Sudan's
troubled western province, as part
of a drive to encourage Africa to run its
own peacemaking and peacekeeping
show.
Cheerleaders for the AU point to other, arguably more successful,
interventions. The AU's robust refusal this year to endorse a coup in Togo,
after President Gnassingbé Eyadéma died (and his son tried to take over),
led to an election, though its fairness was disputed-and it resulted in the
same son becoming president. The AU has also been trying hard to broker a
peace between northerners and southerners in embattled Côte
d'Ivoire.
But the AU and Nepad have a pack of sceptics on their heels.
The AU, they
say, has already clattered into its first serious hurdle:
Zimbabwe. AU
observers were mealy-mouthed about the flawed election there in
March, and
the organisation has refused to condemn, let alone try to stop,
President
Robert Mugabe's recent urban clearances which have left about
300,000
homeless. Mr Mugabe remains a hero for many Africans; but the AU, by
its
refusal to say or do anything about his flagrant abuse of human rights,
has
let itself down.
Equally, it has had nothing to say about the
post-electoral clampdown in
Ethiopia, where it is based. This has perplexed
some of the AU'S staunchest
supporters. Demonstrators have been shot dead,
opposition leaders detained
and the election result postponed. Wiseman
Nkuhlu, who heads Nepad's
secretariat, says "there is no justification for
that kind of thing and the
AU must deal with the Ethiopian situation." An
impression is gathering that
the AU is happy to take on smaller or more
clear-cut cases, like Darfur or
Togo, but baulks at more complex and
demanding ones, such as Zimbabwe and
Ethiopia.
Likewise with peer
review. Moeletsi Mbeki, a businessman and brother of
South Africa's
president, Thabo Mbeki, argues that it is nothing more than a
"sop to
donors". Sceptics doubt whether the upcoming reports on Ghana and
Rwanda,
the two first countries to face scrutiny, will be rigorous enough.
If the
AU and the APRM are to disprove the doubters, now is the moment.
Kenya, a
byword for corruption again, is the next country to face its peers;
a report
is due out in a few months. If rigorous and detailed, it would go a
long way
to showing that African governments can be trusted to police
themselves. In
the same spirit, critics are waiting for the AU to uphold its
own professed
principles on democracy and human rights in countries like
Zimbabwe and
Ethiopia. Otherwise it and Nepad will be rightly condemned as
the same
useless talking-shops of the bad old days. And that would once
again erode
the willingness of the latest generation of western donors to
pay more for
an Africa that shrinks from taking the tough measures needed to
put its
house in order
Supplementary Budget to Address Food Security Issues, Says
Murerwa
The Herald (Harare)
July 7, 2005
Posted to the
web July 7, 2005
Harare
THE Government will come up with a
supplementary budget to address the
issues of food security arising from the
drought, the Minister of Finance,
Cde Herbert Murerwa, said
yesterday.
He told Parliament that Government had not anticipated a
drought season this
year, hence, it had not budgeted for such an
eventuality.
Government has so far set aside $100 billion to feed 2,4
million people in
need of food aid
The minister said this while
responding to a question by Glen Norah MP Ms
Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga
(MDC) during a question-and-answer session.
The opposition lawmaker
wanted to know whether the $3 trillion that had been
earmarked for the
reconstruction exercise following the clean-up campaign
had been budgeted
for.
Cde Murerwa said the money for the reconstruction operation had not
been
budgeted for and this was going to be raised by the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe
(RBZ) through private companies while this year's budget would be
rationalised to meet the challenges.
The Government, he said, was
doing everything possible to make sure that
those who had been displaced by
the operation were accommodated.
Cde Murerwa dismissed allegations that
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth
would decline as a result of the
clean-up operation.
He was responding to another question by Harare North
MP Ms Trudy Stevenson
(MDC) who said the GDP was going to fall because the
exercise had affected
operations of the informal sector which was a
significant contributor to
GDP.
Cde Murerwa said a more organised
informal sector that would emerge after
the clean-up campaign would
contribute meaningfully to the fiscus unlike in
the past when the sector was
involved in shady deals.
The Government, he said, was confident that the
central bank would be in a
position to recover the $3 trillion, which was
disbursed under the
Productive Sector Facility (PSF) because of the nature
of the contracts
between the bank and the beneficiaries.
The minister
said the beneficiaries of the facility had offered collateral
in the event
of them failing to repay the advanced loans.
sciencedaily.com
Annan says Zimbabwe events hurt Africa
NEW YORK, July
7 (UPI) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, urging greater
involvement by
African leaders in Zimbabwe, says events there are hurting
the entire
continent's credibility.
Speaking to Financial Times prior to leaving for
Scotland to attend the
Group of Eight summit, Annan asked African leaders to
break their silence
over the forced evictions from urban centers in Zimbabwe
carried out by the
government of President Robert Mugabe.
The
secretary-general told the Times it was responsibility of Africa's
leaders
to "come out and protect the region."
Earlier, Olusegun Obasanjo,
chairman of the African Union, refused to
publicly condemn Mugabe, but
offered his "good offices" in the country, the
Times said.
Annan
noted African governments recognize the need to improve governance and
fight
corruption. But he also cautioned: "What is important and what is
lacking on
the continent is (a willingness) to comment on wrong policies in
a
neighboring country."
Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All
Rights Reserved.
Mail and Guardian
Zimbabwe evictions 'win praise
countrywide'
Mariette le Roux | Pretoria, South
Africa
07 July 2005 05:11
The Zimbabwean
government put the extent of displacement under
its urban slum-clearance
campaign at 130 000 families on Wednesday, saying
it will not re-accommodate
them all.
Minister counsellor in the Zimbabwean embassy
Pritchard Zhou
told a seminar in Pretoria the operation has "won praise
countrywide".
The evictions, which he said are aimed at
eradicating
criminality and improving living conditions, have been "grossly
and
deliberately distorted and politicised".
They are
simply targeted at "cleaning up" Zimbabwe's cities, "to
try and remove the
dirt that has become a nuisance", and to "establish an
environment conducive
to investment".
Zhou denied the operation is politically
aimed against the
country's mostly urban-based political opposition, or that
there is any
heavy-handedness involved.
Reports of deaths
and injuries are being investigated, but Zhou
said police are not involved
in such incidents "in any way".
Fatalities have occurred
during the demolition of shacks, which
he said is mostly done by occupants
themselves.
He denied reports of people falling off trucks
transporting them
to resettlement camps, and said a child crushed to death
by a vehicle during
the campaign had been left by its mother to cross a road
alone.
Zhou said Z$3-trillion have been put aside for
reconstruction,
but could not say where the money came
from.
A "significant portion" of it will be used to erect 5
000
two-roomed houses by August 17 for the most needy among those evicted.
Owners of these houses will be given a bond to extend their homes at their
own expense.
Zhou added: "Clearly there are people [among
those evicted] who
will not be able to get houses because they will be
unable to pay."
The government's focus is on acquiring land
and making available
"recently priced stands". Most people are able to
afford their own houses,
Zhou said. A lack of access to land is the real
problem.
The operation became necessary, he explained, as
illegal
businesses were damaging the economy and townships had become a
haven for
criminals.
Illegal trading, street dwelling and
loitering had reached
"unacceptable levels" and demanded a "decisive
response".
Zhou confirmed that thousands of people were
arrested, saying
this forms part of the operation's aim to "flush out
criminals".
The Zimbabwean government has put in place
"elaborate
rehabilitation measures", he said.
Temporary
camps set up for the evictees are, however, not
intended as accommodation,
but to process people before they "leave to go
somewhere
else".
One option, Zhou said, is for people to migrate to the
country's
rural areas.
"Almost everybody has a rural
home."
On "illegal" traders who have lost their livelihoods,
he said
the informal sector is not being obliterated but merely
reorganised.
"We want to make sure that whatever trading is
done is
legitimate, that people are registered and pay
taxes."
He pointed to an apparent abundance of work on farms,
saying
"there is that alternative that is available".
Zhou said illegal traders will be relocated to new sites, but
did not
specify how many of them. "Many" sites are ready for construction,
and some
have been finalised.
A total of 1 192 flea-market stalls in
Harare are ready for
occupation.
On alleged human rights
abuses in Zimbabwe, he denied there is
any harassment of citizens, adding:
"What human rights are there if people
live in these
conditions?"
He said the ultimate objective is that "our
places should look
like Europe or America".
The evictions
have already started to yield positive outcomes,
he
claimed.
Most central business districts are now decongested,
"clean and
peaceful", and crime has gone down by 25%.
"And basic commodities that have disappeared from the shelves of
most shops
[due to black-market trading] are re-emerging."
He lamented
attempts to "demonise" Zimbabwe, saying the West is
seeking to make an
example of the country.
The destruction of townships is not
an uncommon feature in the
region, and "happens in South Africa every
day".
"The objective is to ensure Zimbabwe is taught a lesson
so that
its neighbours get to learn that if you handle the land question in
the way
Zimbabwe has handled it, you will be targeted," Zhou said. --
Sapa
New Zimbabwe
Where are the Africans to speak for Zimbabwe?
By
Nobuhle Nyathi
Last updated: 07/07/2005 19:03:12
WHAT is happening in
Zimbabwe and why is it different? The Zimbabwean
government began its
"Operation Murambatsvina" (Operation Drive Out Filth)
by arresting vendors
all over the country.
By the end of the week beginning 25 May, they had
arrested 20, 000 vendors
and seized their wares. They proceeded to destroy
some of the council
designated places that vendors were operating from. This
in a country where
there is 75% formal unemployment. The informal sector
kept Zimbabweans
alive. Through it we were able to pay rent, pay school fees
for our children
and buy food.
This operation then moved into
people's dwellings, here I am not talking
about just plastic and metal
structures at Hatcliff Extension, Killarney,
Joshua Nkomo and Ngozi Mine
settlements, I am talking about cottages in
every street in what we know as
the high density suburbs, all these were
razed down. The only time we as
Zimbabweans have known anything of this kind
was during the war of
liberation when the cruel Smith regime forced people
to relocate to
"protected villages", but even that madness pales into
significance when
compared with what is happening in Zimbabwe today.
When this operation
started without any notice whatsoever, churches and
other humanitarian
organisations that wanted to assist people who had been
left suddenly
homeless in the middle of winter without any food were stopped
from
assisting the affected. Government argued that these people should go
to
their rural homes; government said that assisting these people would
encourage them to stay in cities. This is what the people's government of
Zimbabwe said. In Harare those who were "lucky" were taken to a transit
camp, Caledonia Farm. Suddenly we had a strange situation in which people
who were living in brick cottages with electricity and clean water were
reduced to sweating it out in plastic shacks. The rest were told to go to
the rural areas. There isn't much food there we are in need of food aid. We
do not even have mealie-meal in the shops, yet our President was on
television not so long ago telling the world that "We do not need the food,
why foist it down our throats. Give it to those countries that need
it."
The impression was given by government that it was only getting rid
of
illegal structures and arresting people involved in legality yet the fact
of
the matter is that in many cities vendors are licensed by their local
councils and they operate according to law in vending sites designated by
councils. As an example I will cite Unity Village and Fort Street Market in
Bulawayo. There is also the Kwame Nkrumah Avenue Flea Market in Harare, all
these and numerous other were officially opened by Mugabe's ministers and
were hailed as efficient and successful employment projects. There are
hundreds of such places in our cities yet all these have been closed because
according to government, criminal activities are taking place there. Why not
arrest the criminal and leave the place operating for the benefit of others?
The idea that the best way to deal with a criminal is to destroy where
he/she stays is as unworkable as it is impractical. If this were the way to
catch criminals, we would not have State House today for we would have long
reduced it to rubble.
Many informal settlements had been given tacit
approval by the government.
Hatcliff Extension, which went up in smoke in
May, was now accepted and
recognised as a legal settlement by Parliament.
World Bank was even funding
its water network.
In the early 1990s
when city councils were insisting that they would destroy
backyard cottages
and structures that the people had put in their homes
without council
permission, government intervened and said the councils
should let the
structures be. It was against this background that these
cottages and
structures mushroomed in people's homes. For government to turn
back on the
people today and say that these structures are now illegal and
go on to
destroy them is callousness writ large.
In fact if the idea behind the
clean-up is to rid the country of criminals
let us look for those who bombed
us in the camps of Nyadzonya and Chimoi.
Let us look for those who killed 20
000 people in Midlands and Matabeleland
during the Gukurahundi. Let us look
for those who benefited from Willowvale,
those who abused funds from the War
Victims and Compensation Fund. You do
not create employment by destroying
the informal sector. Razing down people's
houses will not bring forex to
Zimbabwe.
Make no mistake; Zanu PF is no longer a progressive liberation
movement. It
has become a repressive party that is out of its depth in this
modern world.
Its intellectually-challenged functionaries are utterly
clueless on how to
manage a modern economy. Survival in the party depends on
saying: "We are
behind the president". The huffing and puffing that Mugabe
engages in every
time he speaks about sovereignty is meant to tell the world
that: "We have
the right to oppress our people, after all we liberated
them".
The tragedy is that fellow Africans who should speak on our behalf
are
engaged in massive hand wringing. We have now been left in a tragicomic
position where dubious institutions like the World Bank now speak on our
behalf and tell Mugabe to stop the demolition of people's houses. Imperial
powers like Britain and USA now carry the torch of our freedom and dignity.
This is just not on and it stinks to high heaven. We would like it more if
Mbeki spoke for us, we would like it more if Benjamin Mkapa spoke for us, we
would like it more if Zimbabwe Broadcast Holdings, South African
Broadcasting Corporation, Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation told our story.
But they are not interested. Instead it is left to Blair, Bush, BBC, CNN to
tell our story.
Africans keep silent. Through their silence they urge
Mugabe on and give the
misleading impression that there is wisdom in
encouraging Mugabe's brutality
so as to spite the West.
What is the
rage and lunacy that leads respected people to act as Mugabe's
cheer leaders
while he unleashes Armageddon on a defenceless population?
Nobuhle Nyathi is
a regular contributor to our guest column and writes from
Bulawayo,
Zimbabwe
FinGaz
Zimbabwe snubs AU
Njabulo Ncube
7/7/2005 9:28:46 AM (GMT +2)
AN embarrassing diplomatic stand-off
between the Zimbabwean government
and the African Union (AU) loomed large
this week after Harare snubbed an
envoy seconded by the continental body to
assess the effects of the
government's crackdown on
shantytowns.
The debacle has set the ZANU PF government, which has
constantly
counted on the AU and other regional bodies for endorsement and
to fend off
international censure, on a collision course with a continental
body that
could be breaking with the past in its quest for debt and other
concessions
from the wealthy G8 and European Union states.
Bahama
Tom Nyandunga, a member of the AU Commission on Human and
People's Rights
and a special rapporteur for refugees, asylum-seekers and
the displaced, was
this week shuttling between his hotel room and the
Ministry of Foreign
Affairs in pursuit of accreditation for his mission,
which is increasingly
in doubt and could be aborted.
"I am in my hotel room waiting for
accreditation and instructions from
my AU superiors," said Nyanduga, who is
staying in Harare's Ambassador
Hotel.
Throughout the week,
officials in the Foreign Affairs Ministry
maintained that they could not
accommodate Nyanduga on their schedule, which
they claimed was crammed
because of UN special envoy Anna Tibaijuka who has
been in the country since
June 31 on a similar fact-finding mission.
Tibaijuka has been taken on
a guided tour of the country to assess the
impact of the government's
six-week demolition campaign.
Although government officials have
branded Nyanduga's visit
"unprocedural and in breach of protocol",
diplomatic sources claimed
yesterday that authorities in Harare had been
informed of the envoy's
mission before he jetted into the capital last
Thursday.
Nyanduga yesterday declined to comment on the government's
statements,
saying he could only do so after completing his
mission.
Government sources said Harare wanted Nyanduga withdrawn with
immediate effect and a new emissary appointed after all protocol had been
observed.
The envoy's tour of duty in Zimbabwe was at the behest of
AU
Commission chairman Alpha Konare.
The government's stand-off
with the AU follows last year's highly
publicised furore over a damning
rights report on Zimbabwe, prepared by the
African Union's Commission on
Human and People's Rights, was tabled at the
AU summit in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, last year.
Although the government protested that it had not
had sight of the
report - which condemned political repression and rising
human rights abuses
in Zimbabwe - prior to its tabling, the report was
adopted by the AU's
executive council in Abuja, Nigeria, last
February.
Analysts said this week the government was wary of Nyanduga,
a member
of the commission which produced the damning report and feared an
equally
scathing attack on its Operation Restore Order, which has rendered
hundreds
of thousands of people homeless at the height of Zimbabwe's
winter.
Although the continental body has since the start of the
Zimbabwean
crisis in 2000 displayed habitual reluctance to confront
President Robert
Mugabe over the goings-on in Harare, diplomatic sources
accredited here said
the government's refusal to give Nyanduga the
greenlight to assess the
impact of the clean-up exercise had greatly
strained relations between the
AU and Zimbabwe.
Official comment
was not immediately available from the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.
AU Commission chairman Konare was expected to meet President Mugabe on
the
sidelines of the AU summit in Sirte, Libya, over the stalemate involving
the
envoy, according to diplomats in Harare.
Nigerian President Olusegun
Obasanjo was also expected to meet the
Zimbabwean leader.
The
government's clean-up operation has incurred the wrath of the
United States,
Britain, the Commonwealth and the European Union. Just this
week, Australia
and New Zealand mooted new tough sanctions against Zimbabwe
over the
controversial clean-up exercise.
The G8 leaders meeting in Scotland
have also blasted the exercise,
which the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change claims has rendered 1.5
million people homeless, a charge President
Mugabe refuted at the AU meeting
yesterday.-
FinGaz
US shocked at clean-up
Njabulo Ncube
7/7/2005 9:29:28 AM (GMT +2)
A TWO-MEMBER United States
Congressional staff delegation visiting
Zimbabwe yesterday hinted Washington
would not change its policy over
Zimbabwe in the wake of the government's
on-going clean-up operation, which
it described as a gross violation of
human rights.
Gregory Simpkins and Pearl-Alice Marsh, professional
staff members of
the US House of Representatives International Relations
Committee (HIRC),
said the goings-on in Zimbabwe had disappointed
Washington, which had been
slightly encouraged by the peaceful March
parliamentary polls.
The two delegates arrived in Harare on July 2 and
were due to leave
the capital yesterday evening after meeting Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
governor Gideon Gono and State Security Minister Didymus
Mutasa. They said
it was very unlikely the US would soften its stance on
Harare, whose leaders
have been slapped with travel sanctions.
"Although the elections in March were not perfect, they were peaceful,
so we
were beginning to feel very optimistic about the government, that we
were
going to open some avenues for dialogue and come up with something
positive," said Marsh in an interview with The Financial Gazette
yesterday.
"But Operation Restore Order has been one of the most
disheartening
things I have seen in my life. The motive behind it is
inexplicable. I can't
understand why you drive old women, women with
HIV/AIDS and even orphans
with HIV/AIDS out of their homes . . . just to let
them suffer," said Marsh.
Simpkins, who together with Marsh is
responsible for advising the HIRC
and members of the US Congress on all
issues related to Africa, added his
voice to Washington's disappointment
with President Mugabe's policies.
"We do understand the government
wants to clean-up the urban areas but
the way it is doing it is
unbelievable. It's cruel and shocking. This
(Zimbabwe) was an oasis of
development in the region where we had Angola and
the Democratic Republic of
the Congo (DRC) and other countries that were
suffering from lack of
development. We had hoped this would be a model for
other countries to
industrialise, to have working markets but it seems since
then the situation
has devolved, gone backwards and countries that were
behind you eight years
ago are now moving forward ahead of Zimbabwe. It does
not make any sense,"
said Simpkins who was last in Zimbabwe in 1997.
Marsh, who revealed
that she was a great granddaughter of descendants
of slaves, said blacks in
the US expected President Mugabe to be the least
person to be vindictive
against his fellow blacks in towns.
She added: "It's not surprising
when white racists treat black people
this way but it is not understandable
to see a black leader who should love
and care for his own treat black
people this way."
The delegation was in the country to assess the
current political,
economic and health conditions as well as important
bilateral issues between
the US and Zimbabwe.
FinGaz
Zimbabwe's rich get richer
Hama Saburi
7/7/2005 9:33:28 AM (GMT +2)
ZIMBABWE'S nouveau riche are amassing
more wealth regardless of the
hostile economic conditions - the worst to hit
the southern African state -
while the poor are getting poorer by the
day.
While a family of six needed $1.2 million to see it through
the month
in June last year, the budget, comprising of mostly basics, has
ballooned to
$4.2 million.
The $4.2 million estimate given by the
local consumer watchdog - the
Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) - is
however misleading in that it is
still to take into account a massive
three-fold rise in fuel prices that
will certainly trigger a wave of other
price increases.
It has been tough for the poor, in particular, given
that the minimum
wage in the private sector is just over $1 million
vis-à-vis a poverty datum
line (PDL) set at $3.5 million as of April this
year. Put simply, incomes
are only 30 percent of the PDL used in the
assessment of poverty.
"In other words, earnings are now worth
nothing," said Godfrey
Kanyenze, an economist with the Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions, who also
noted that while the ordinary people were bracing for
tougher times ahead,
the rich were splashing billions of dollars on luxury
vehicles.
"This is not sustainable. That is why lowly paid workers are
ending up
finding ways of redistributing income that may not necessarily be
legal -
that is, crime," said Kanyenze, adding: "Now they (the rich) are
coming up
with security arrangements at their homes simply because it's now
catching
up with them. It is no longer safe to live in low-density areas -
and
poverty is the root cause of all these problems."
Analysts said
the rich - though few and far between - were taking
every little opportunity
available to fatten their pockets and bank
balances. The opportunities
included dealing in scarce commodities and
foreign currency.
The
analysts said it was sad that not much of the new money went
towards
cushioning the less privileged, who were wallowing in abject
poverty.
Businesses, meanwhile, are slashing their social
responsibility
budgets, which had taken some of the pressure off the
country's heavily
levied taxpayer, citing reduced economic activity that has
raised the
spectre of retrenchments.
In the absence of donor
funding, the government, for years under
pressure to adopt sound fiscal
practices and avoid living beyond its means,
is unlikely to increase
spending on social services.
Life, thus, might just get worse for the
poor.
A ravaging drought that hit the country last season,
necessitating
food imports, is draining the little foreign exchange
available. Add to that
the government's controversial clean-up campaign that
has left thousands of
families homeless and you have a cocktail for more
suffering.
Analysts say the blitz on people's homes has increased the
number of
the destitute, making the battle to ease the plight of the poor
more
difficult for the government.
"The easier way out of poverty
is to empower those who are
marginalised through the redistribution of
national assets such as land.
Unfortunately, with our land redistribution,
people are sitting on pockets
of land which they cannot fully utilise
because of lack of resources," said
Kanyenze.
Observers said the
country's well-to-do citizens had stocked up on
most of the basic
commodities to last them the period of shortages and had
even earned large
discounts on the huge volumes purchased.
The same school of thought
argued that the same class of people was in
charge of the distribution of
the scarce commodities that are now selling at
twice or three times the
normal retail price.
With demand now far outstripping supply, there was
real temptation to
divert the much sought-after products onto the illegal
black market where
the premium was much more attractive, they said.
True to these economic dictates, most basic commodities such as milk,
bread,
sugar and cooking oil, have vanished from the supermarket shelves and
are
now only obtainable on the parallel market, where they are fetching
"obscene
prices".
For example petrol, whose price went up to $10 000 per litre a
week
ago, is selling for as much as $70 000 per litre on the black
market.
"The rich can easily get these scarce products. A lot of people
have
to buy these products outside the country, but how many can afford
that? And
even with these shortages, it is still the rich people who are
buying the
little that is available, and that is assuming they had not
stocked up on
these products," said the CCZ spokesman Tonderai
Mukeredzi.
"The CCZ is lobbying for a review of the minimum wage to
suit our
basket . . . at least that way consumers can afford the basics,"
said
Mukeredzi, who concurred that the relentless cost increases had busted
family budgets, with many now considering it a luxury to have three square
meals a day.
As the authorities grapple with the problem of
stemming the economic
decay, a number of policies that could have benefited
the poor have
literally been put on the backburner.
For example,
the much-vaunted indigenisation of the economy is now
moving at a snail's
pace, with focus now basically on survival.
It is mainly in the mining
sector where the emotive indigenisation
issue is still alive, although most
of the empowerment deals are still in
the pipeline.
For instance,
the empowerment partner in Zimbabwe Platinum Mines
Limited is still to raise
the foreign currency for the 15 percent stake that
has been on offer for the
past couple of years.
Anglo American Corporation Zimbabwe is also yet
to announce its
empowerment partner in the multi-billion-dollar Unki
platinum project.
FinGaz
Stocks, Zim dollar lower
Staff
Reporter
7/7/2005 9:30:26 AM (GMT +2)
STOCKS continued to
drift lower yesterday, weighed down by firming
money market rates and
growing concern over company profitability, while
rising demand drove the
Zimbabwe dollar to fresh lows of $10 150 against the
United States greenback
on the official currency market.
Only $3.7 billion worth of stock
was traded on Tuesday, and traders
said they anticipate volumes to remain
thin ahead of inflation data for June
expected from the Central Statistical
Office early next week.
Many already expect inflation to come in
higher, but a
weaker-than-expected report will likely renew market calls for
some reaction
from the central bank, still sticking to a year-end target of
50-80 percent
despite the recent 180 percent rise in fuel prices and a
sudden surge in
state spending.
Yesterday, shares opened weaker and
analysts said any new buying would
likely be toned down as investors paused
to weigh their options in an
environment clouded by growing unease over
future corporate earnings amid an
increasingly dim outlook for the wider
economy.
The main index continued Monday's losses with a 1.03 percent
decline
on Tuesday to 2 746 964 points, investors discounting a small stream
of
corporate activity that included a vote from Kingdom Holdings
shareholders
for a share consolidations and a rights offer announcement from
NMB. Kingdom
shed $1 to $599 in morning trade yesterday, while NMB stood
still at $300.
On the foreign currency market, bankers once again said
they saw the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe allowing the local dollar to weaken
against key
currencies towards what they believe to be a "fair value" - at
least $17 000
versus the greenback.
Bids rose from the previous
auction's US$162 million to US$168
million, pushing the Zimbabwe dollar down
to $10 150.
FinGaz
Bennett flies to SA for treatment
Njabulo
Ncube
7/7/2005 9:32:01 AM (GMT +2)
ROY Bennett, the former
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
legislator for Chimanimani released
from prison after eight months in jail
for contempt of parliament, has left
the country for what he termed an
intensive recuperation programme in South
Africa.
Speaking before his departure for Johannesburg, Bennett
hinted he
would be suing the government and some people for his "illegal"
incarceration as well as for theft of livestock and agricultural produce at
his Charleswood Estate, a prime property in Manicaland expropriated by the
state.
According to party insiders, the MDC legislator, who was
released from
Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison last week, needed specialist
treatment as
he had contracted various diseases in the lice-infested jail,
whose
conditions have long been the source of complaints by human rights
groups.
Bennett, who left Harare on Tuesday afternoon aboard a South
Africa
Airways flight to Johannesburg, said he would be in South Africa for
six
weeks.
The former legislator, who earned time in prison for
contempt of
parliament after shoving Patrick Chinamasa, the Justice, Legal
and
Parliamentary Affairs Minister, during an emotive debate on the Stock
Theft
Amendment Bill, said he was not feeling well and needed specialist
treatment, which was not available in Zimbabwe.
"I am going away
for six weeks to seek treatment in South Africa after
what I went through in
prison," said Bennett, who cut a frail figure - a far
cry from his familiar
rotund figure - when he walked out of Chikurubi Prison
on June 28.
A debate in parliament on stock theft on May 18 2004 started it all
for
Bennett, a renowned commercial farmer in Manicaland.
Chinamasa accused
Bennett's ancestors during debate of being "thieves
and murderers" to
justify government's seizure of his Charleswood Estate.
The combative
minister said then that Bennett would never be allowed
to set foot on his
property again. An incensed Bennett charged at Chinamasa
and floored him.
Didymus Mutasa, then Anti-Corruption and Monopolies
Minister, also joined
the fracas, which could have turned the chamber into a
free for
all.
Bennett was found guilty of contempt of parliament by the special
privileges committee. It recommended that he be sentenced to one-year
imprisonment. ZANU PF's majority in parliament carried the day and the House
adopted the recommendation.
Bennett said this week he would forge
ahead with his bid to reclaim
his Charleswood farm and get compensation for
the produce, especially coffee
and livestock, seized from the property by
ZANU PF supporters.
"My farm (Charleswood) was an EPZ (Export
Processing Zone). The
government had no right to take it in the manner it
did. As for the cattle
and the coffee, someone somewhere in government has
to pay," said the former
MDC legislator.
FinGaz
RG bids to bar MDC electoral fraud expert
Njabulo Ncube
7/7/2005 9:32:26 AM (GMT +2)
MOVEMENT for
Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai's court
challenge against
President Robert Mugabe's 2002 presidential victory has
taken a new twist,
after it emerged that the Attorney-General (AG)'s Office
is opposed to the
MDC's plans to include an expert on electoral fraud on its
legal
team.
Although lawyers representing the MDC leader had managed to
strike a
deal with the AG's Office, which is acting on behalf of
Registrar-General
Tobaiwa Mudede, to have Roland Topper Whitehead attend the
ballot
inspection, the director of the AG's civil division, Loyce
Matanda-Moyo,
said her department would seek to bar Whitehead from the
proceedings at the
Harare High Court next Monday.
Another sub-plot
to the case, which has seen little progress in the
past three years, looks
set to be played out after Tsvangirai's lawyer,
Bryant Elliot of Coghlan,
Welsh and Guest, warned the AG's Office against
barring Whitehead.
The scheduled opening and inspection of the ballot boxes follow
several
months of delays by Mudede in releasing the required materials. The
High
Court had to intervene two months ago to force the registrar-general to
comply.
Elliot wrote to Matanda-Moyo on Tuesday, saying Whitehead
would be
part of the inspection team but would not handle any election
material, in
terms of a compromise proposal agreed to by both parties at a
meeting with
the Registrar of the High Court on June 23 2005.
"At
that meeting, Ms Mudenda, who was present on behalf of the civil
division,
agreed with Mr (David) Coltart's compromise proposal that Mr
Whitehead be
present at the inspection but not handle the election material.
The proposal
was made after debate and in a spirit of compromise in order to
move
forward. Ms Mudenda, on behalf of your client, expressly agreed with
this
compromise proposal.
"We hereby demand that your client strictly
complies with the terms of
the court order dated May 27 2005. It was agreed
at the meeting with the
Registrar (of the High Court) on June 23 2005 that
the inspection would
commence on Monday July 11 2005 at 10am. We confirm
that in accordance with
the court order, Mr Whitehead will be our client's
authorised representative
at that inspection.
"If your client or
his representatives in any way obstructs this
inspection, our client will
bring further contempt of court proceedings
against him," Elliot
wrote.
Earlier this year, High Court Judge Justice Yunus Omerjee found
Mudede
to be in contempt of court after he delayed releasing ballots of the
hotly
disputed 2002 presidential poll to the court. He was fined $5 million,
while
the court also handed down a 60-day prison term, which was wholly
suspended
provided Mudede released the ballots within 10 days of the
ruling.
Matanda-Moyo had written to Tsvangirai's lawyers saying the
AG's
office would seek an order barring Whitehead from the inspection on the
grounds that he was not an expert as claimed.
"After carefully
scrutinising Mr Whitehead's qualifications and
experience, we have concluded
that Mr Whitehead is not an expert in
examining electoral material. The fact
that Mr Whitehead is out (of)
employment does not entitle him to examine
election materials as he is not
an expert in the field.
"Our
instructions remain the same and our client is going to challenge
the
expertise of Mr Whitehead and also seek an order barring the presence of
Mr
Whitehead at any proceedings relating to election materials,"
Matanda-Moyo
wrote.
The MDC legal department insisted yesterday it was up for the
fight
and would not yield on Whitehead, a computer expert who has previously
prepared a dossier on alleged ghost voters and other irregularities on
Zimbabwe's voters' roll.
No comment could be obtained from the AG's
Office.
President Mugabe garnered 1 658 212 votes against Tsvangirai's
1 262
403 in the March 2002 presidential election.
FinGaz
World anger mounts over clean-up
Njabulo
Ncube
7/7/2005 9:34:06 AM (GMT +2)
EVER since the Zimbabwe
government chose to take the country on the
inexorable path to oblivion -
first with the violent seizure of white-owned
farms and then with a series
of bloody elections - international pressure
has often risen to a crescendo
when a major international summit gets
underway, only to die down along with
the last word of a communiqué that
scarcely mentions the tiny southern
African nation.
However, the current outcry over the government's
demolition of shanty
towns at the height of winter has seen institutions
such as the African
Union (AU) - which normally defers to President Robert
Mugabe - falling out
of step with Harare.
If reports over the past
week are anything to go by, the AU, which
angered Harare by dispatching its
own envoy to assess the effects of the
government's campaign "outside of
procedure" and South Africa's Thabo Mbeki-
who met opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai over the weekend, could finally
be waking up to smell the coffee
that has long been brewing in crisis-ridden
Harare.
More
international indignation over the Zimbabwe government's
controversial
crackdown on shanty towns and informal traders was expressed
by the usual
suspects - apart from the United States and Britain - Australia
and New
Zealand.
The two countries' foreign affairs ministers issued a joint
statement
urging the G8 meeting in Scotland to extend Harare's isolation in
almost all
spheres of international relations, including sports.
Canberra and Wellington announced this week that their respective
Foreign
Affairs Ministries had cobbled up a joint action plan on Zimbabwe
which
outlines stringent measures which they hope could tighten the noose
around
Harare's bruised neck.
Both countries already have the ZANU PF
government on a set of
targeted sanctions which, among other things, prevent
several of its
officials from entering their ports.
The latest
action comprises a new range of measures aimed at
increasing pressure on
President Mugabe's government to cease what the two
states described as
Harare's "abhorrent and egregious" destruction of homes,
livelihoods and
basic human rights.
With President Mugabe showing little signs of
halting the "clean-up"
campaign, Australia and New Zealand said they had
drawn up seven tough
measures their governments want implemented to
pressurise Harare to respect
democracy and the human rights of an estimated
half a million people
rendered homeless and jobless by the
operation.
In a statement issued this week, Alexander Downer, the
Australian
Foreign Affairs Minister and his New Zealand counterpart, Phil
Goff, said
tough action was needed against Zimbabwe, which they described as
a "rogue'
state".
"The continued failure of the Zimbabwe government
to respect democracy
and human rights needs to be addressed firmly by the
international
community," said the two foreign affairs ministers.
The two nations said as part of decisive action against Harare, they
would
make joint presentations to the International Cricket Council (ICC)
urging
the world cricket governing body to alter the rules to allow teams to
boycott tours to countries such as Zimbabwe where serious human rights
abuses are said to be occurring.
The New Zealand cricket team's
tour to Harare and Bulawayo next month
is already shrouded in controversy,
with Goff in the forefront of calls for
his country's cricketing board to
cancel the trip, alleging gross human
rights abuses. However, the New
Zealand cricket board faces stiff sanctions
from the International Cricket
Council if the team fails to fulfil the
fixtures in Zimbabwe.
Goff
has also indicated Wellington will not allow Zimbabwe to fulfil a
reserve
fixture in December, saying the Harare cricketers would certainly be
denied
visas.
New Zealand and Australia said they were pushing for a sporting
ban on
all Zimbabwe representative teams "with like-minded countries". The
two
countries have implored the G8 meeting, which started yesterday and runs
until tomorrow, to "address the Zimbabwe issue".
They have also
warned they will make urgent representations to the UN
Commissioner for
Human Rights and members of the Security Council to urge
the UN to
investigate past and present human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
The MDC
accuses ZANU PF of using unorthodox means to win the past
three elections,
among them intimidation and alleged brutal assaults of
perceived opposition
supporters and stuffing of ballot boxes, charges the
ruling party has
vehemently denied.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC whose party
estimates that
about 1.5 million people have been rendered homeless by the
demolitions, met
President Mbeki on Sunday to ask him to exert pressure on
the veteran ZANU
PF leader to halt the alleged human rights abuses against
urbanites, the
majority of whom have voted for the MDC since its formation
in 1999.
"Zimbabwe is an albatross to all African leaders and therefore
we want
to see a strong message at the G8 meeting that the regime has gone
beyond
acceptable behaviour of any government that it be called to order,"
Tsvangirai told a Press conference in Johannesburg on Monday, a day after
meeting Mbeki.
"African leaders should be at the forefront of
criticising what is
taking place in Zimbabwe for their credibility to be
enhanced at the G8
meeting and at all other forum," said the opposition
leader who was also due
to meet with Nigerian President Olusegun
Obasanjo.
The AU is understood to be exerting immense pressure on
Harare, with
diplomats based in Harare indicating that the continental body
was at pains
to read the actions of President Mugabe in the wake of the
destruction of
structures of the urban dwellers presently reeling from
abject poverty due
to a deteriorating economic environment.
Some AU
leaders, who are meeting in Sirte, Libya, are understood to be
annoyed by
the Zimbabwean leader's actions and would attempt to sway him
from his
"vindictive path."
However, there is no mention of Zimbabwe on the
agenda of this week's
53-member AU summit, in what some critics said was in
keeping with the AU's
habitual deference to President Mugabe.
Analysts who spoke to this newspaper pointed at attempts by the AU to
hurriedly dispatch to Zimbabwe one of its senior representatives to assess
the impact of the demolitions without following laid down protocol as a sign
that patience could be finally wearing thin within the continental
body.
"We know the AU is usually docile on matters involving its
African
brothers especially Zimbabwe. In fact Zimbabwe is not on the agenda
of the
AU summit taking place in Libya but the latest action to sneak in a
senior
person to spy on Operation Restore Order speaks louder than words. AU
leaders are not happy. Mugabe's actions are unacceptable even by the crude
African standards," said an African diplomat based in Harare.
"There is pressure from the West and within Africa itself. The action
against urban dwellers is unacceptable, coming after the rejection of ZANU
PF in urban areas. This smacks of revenge," the diplomat, speaking on
condition of anonymity, added.
Australia and New Zealand also said
they would also support continued
moves to expel Zimbabwe from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Other actions would entail joint
Australia/New Zealand demands to
Southern Africa Development Community
(SADC) members, including South
Africa, to exert diplomatic pressure on
Zimbabwe to conform to international
human rights standards.
Both
have proposed to the UN Security Council that the actions of the
Zimbabwe
government be referred to the International Criminal Court.
The
heightening of international pressure comes as Anna Kajumalo
Tibaijuka, UN
secretary general Koffi Annan's special envoy; inexplicable
extended her
fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe at the weekend, ostensibly to
cover parts
of the Midlands and Matabeleland.
There are unconfirmed reports that
the UN had instructed the emissary
to look beyond the surface and "not be
led by the nose by government
spin-doctors".
President Mugabe,
whose government ordered the demolitions under the
guise of rooting out
black market trade in scarce foreign currency and basic
commodities, has
also been condemned for his government's actions by the
Commonwealth, the
European Union, the United States of America and Britain,
all of which have
placed the combative Zimbabwean leader under limited
sanctions.
The
ZANU PF government, undeterred by international criticism, has
instead
pledged an unbudgeted $3 trillion for a massive reconstruction
programme to
accommodate the homeless citizens.
However, critics say the gesture is
meant to undercut the universal
outrage that has greeted the
crackdown.
FinGaz
Heads you lose, tails you lose
Rangarirai
Mberi
7/7/2005 9:32:52 AM (GMT +2)
YOU can just picture
them - company executives - huddled together in
some dimly lit boardroom
watching a PowerPoint presentation from some
know-it-all "consultant"
claiming to have figured out where the economy is
heading.
Zimbabwe has just staggered into the last half of the year, but the
future
has never been foggier. For businesspeople and ordinary Zimbabweans,
trying
to plan ahead and forecast where the economy will be by year-end has
become
impossible.
Consultants have for years been paid for telling business
executives
just what they want to hear - "just do the right thing and your
profits will
obviously shoot through the roof". But making a plan that can
remain
relevant over the long term is something executives now only speak of
with
nostalgia.
Now perhaps the best thing business can do is to
ditch snooty
suit-and-tie consultants for cheaper backyard fortune tellers
who can throw
a few bones and predict what more shockers the Zimbabwe
government will brew
over the next six months.
The first half of
the year has been very unusual for Zimbabwe and its
battered
citizens.
A serious drought slashed crop output and the government was
forced to
admit, after months of denial, that it needed foreign aid to feed
its
people. Conservative official estimates said the country needed at least
US$420 million for grain imports.
Then there came the March 31
general election. ZANU PF campaigned on
an "anti-Blair" platform; the vote
was more than a mere parliamentary
election, but a chance for patriots to
send a strong message to British
Prime Minister Tony Blair and his
imperialist minions.
The opposition campaigned under a "food and jobs"
banner, hoping to
capitalise on the deepening poverty.
ZANU PF won
comfortably, presumably because, in Zimbabwe, "anti-Blair"
sentiment is much
stronger than the need for "food and jobs".
Then on May 18, police
raided flea markets in Harare, saying they were
the cause of Zimbabwe's
foreign currency crisis.
In the few weeks that followed, the police
were laying waste to
thousands of homes and industries, hundreds of
thousands of people were
being made homeless, the United Nations and the
African Union were sending
in investigators, "Operation Murambatsvina" was
being wound up and Zimbabwe
was spending $3 trillion to build two million
houses.
As the half-year reached its close, the battle was being lost
on the
inflation front, with the rate rising in May at its fastest pace
since
January 2004. The fuel crisis worsened, while its price went up 180
percent,
further damaging the inflation outlook.
An International
Monetary Fund (IMF) team arrived in Zimbabwe. They
came, they saw and they
shook their heads.
With all the carnage of the first half, people
employed to make
forecasts for businesses at the half-year are having a hard
time of it. They
have to guess, close their eyes and hope the coming half
will not be half as
unpredictable as the first.
Entering the last
half, business remains uncertain over a range of
fundamental issues. How
fast will inflation rise? How high will the Reserve
Bank lift rates in
response? How low will the dollar be allowed to slide?
What will Finance
Minister Herbert Murerwa do in his half-year fiscal review
later this month?
Will he raise taxes to boost depleted revenues? Slash them
to give hard-up
workers temporary relief? Will he quit?
Observers say two factors in
the coming weeks will be key to
determining where the economy could be
headed in the coming six months.
Zimbabwe might become the first
country ever to be expelled from the
IMF, unless the fund's board decides to
give the lone efforts of the central
bank another chance to save a seemingly
incurable situation.
Zimbabwe has not been under an IMF programme for
six years, but
expulsion from the fund would end any leftover investor
interest in the
country and break whatever resolve might be remaining among
those who
believe "the economy will never collapse".
At the United
Nations, Anna Tibaijuka, the world body's special envoy
to Zimbabwe, will
make a report to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. It is
distinctly possible
Tibaijuka will prepare a generally favourable report on
Zimbabwe's clean-up
operation, but it is unlikely her report will smell of
roses
either.
If Tibaijuka issues a critical report, Zimbabwe's many
international
foes will jump on it and turn up the heat on the country,
delaying any
possible recovery.
But even if she reports positively,
the effects of "Operation
Murambatsvina" will remain with Zimbabwe long
after her report is forgotten.
FinGaz
Comment
At the deep
end!
7/7/2005 9:51:15 AM (GMT +2)
IT is panic
stations. Zimbabwe's protracted fuel crisis has, to all
intents and
purposes, ground the wheels of industry and commerce to a halt.
Admittedly the country has in the past experienced fuel shortages.
That was
when we used to call them challenges. But now, the nation has a
deep-seated
crisis on its hands because the pendulum has swung too far the
other way. If
there is any semblance of normalcy, it is either a false
impression or
because Zimbabweans have lost the ability to be shocked!
The fuel
crisis has had the net effect of worsening an already shabby
and debilitated
economy, which unfortunately is the government's true
memorial. The
untenable situation exposes the isolation of Zimbabwe as
probably the only
major Southern African Development Community member state
with serious fuel
shortages under which the economy can easily implode.
The nation is at
the very deep end. Nothing is insulated because the
crippling crisis is like
a poison-tipped arrow aimed right at the economy's
failing heart. Industry
is laden with gloom as company closures loom and
thousands of jobs are
threatened. Once again it is the ordinary people -
whose rights are the last
thing anyone remembers when a system crumbles
spawning ever-shrinking
accountability - that are feeling the sharpest edge
of the knife in this
crisis. Sadly, there does not seem to be any solution
in sight.
The
fuel crisis in Zimbabwe is as tricky as it gets, coming as it does
against a
backcloth of an unprecedented foreign currency crunch, and a
collapsing
export sector. It is however also important to note that the
problem is
emblematic of everything wrong with government's Band Aid
approach to
serious issues - an approach which at best brings nothing but
stop-gap
measures and at worst no solution at all. This suggests that the
government
should now go back to the drawing board and adopt a more
assertive approach
in dealing with the fuel crisis.
First, a cost benefit analysis of the
relevance of the monolith that
is the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe is
long overdue. Pertinent issues to
address revolve around whether Zimbabwe
needs the parastatal, which has
failed to rise to the occasion and where
billions of public funds have in
the past silted up the pockets of corrupt
officials? Should it be retained
in its current form or should it be
transformed into a regulator whose
responsibility would only be to ensure
that there are no malpractices in the
fuel industry?
Secondly,
there is the issue of institutionalised corruption in the
fuel sector. We
have here in mind the uncouth fuel importers, most of whom
have always been
bent on deception and are not ashamed of betraying or
sabotaging their
country at its most desperate hour. Late last year the
country was plunged
into yet another fuel crisis when they abused the
foreign currency allocated
to them by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe through
the auction system. A
smoking gun was found in the incriminating figures
released by the central
bank, which showed that, on average, the fuel
importers had been allocated
more than what the country required per month.
Still the country experienced
fuel shortages though for a short time. The
economic disruptions brought
about by the short-lived but costly fuel
problems however came at a
particularly irksome moment for the sickly
economy as have the current
shortages.
And there is no telling whether this abuse, just like the
case with
self-centred politicians that have turned the land reform
programme into a
despicable land grab orgy, has been nipped in the bud. It
is therefore time
to grasp the nettle and get to the bottom of the mess as
regards fuel
imports by making public the identities of the owners of the
fuel companies
implicated in abusing the scarce foreign currency and how
these companies
got their dealerships. It should just not end there. The
culprits should be
brought to justice, their licences revoked and companies
liquidated. This
will, if we might add, provide President Robert Mugabe who
has taken great
umbrage to pervasive corruption - if his public statements
and elaborate
tones are anything to by - with a perfect opportunity to take
the
anti-corruption crusade to its full expression.
And last but
not least, the belated huge fuel price hike effected last
week should be
seen as the first step in the quest for a long term solution
to the nagging
fuel crisis. Although this should have been done a long time
ago, were it
not for government's populist policies, it should nonetheless
be viewed as a
welcome victory for pragmatism. For a long time government
refused to listen
to the voice of reason when there was a chorus for
staggered fuel price
increases to bring them in line with international
prices as far back as the
early 1990s. Suffice to say that this was just a
case of postponing the
inevitable. Always hamstrung by political expediency,
government ignored the
influence of realities and continued digging in its
heels on the issue of
fuel price hikes. And Zimbabwe is now about to count
the cost of such
shortsightedness. Will the fragile economy be able to
absorb the sudden
shocks wrought by an increase of the magnitude seen last
week? That is the
question.
FinGaz
...and now to the Notebook
7/7/2005 9:46:49
AM (GMT +2)
Sorry!
Last week CZ was away with his
Notebook. And this was a subject of a
scandalous speculation among several
of his colleagues in this thankless
profession. Some said this is July so CZ
was on strike for a pay rise.
Others said he had gone to join
fellow sell-outs in the diaspora.
Others even talked of him having
disappeared the way most lesser patriots
are rumoured to have disappeared in
the past . . . a lot of speculation
indeed but the worst was that CZ's
Notebook was missing because the author
was busy taking the UN Envoy around!
Criminal isn't it? CZ is a patriot and
a half and he will never work with
foreigners against the wishes of his own
people!
Anyway, the truth
is that CZ was just out of town on an otherwise
innocuous mission and as
fate would have it, technology failed him. You
know, relying too much on
these mod cons can be a problem!
Shown the door?
So we are
told that the war vet on a mission finally decided to throw
in the towel . .
. obviously with a heavy sack-cloth of embarrassment ...
after those
deafening obloquies from all the civilised citizens of this
country about
the fellow's animal-like behaviour? Fine and dandy. Hopefully
it is true
that the demons that had always been riding on the man's back
decided to go
on vacation, giving him a chance to balance his deeds and
misdeeds and
realise that as a human being, his sums were in the negative .
. . he was a
pervert too criminal to deserve that office? CZ has this
curious feeling
that the man had to be shown the door! Don't you feel so
too?
Whatever the case might be, CZ will always violently argue that
henceforth
the man does not deserve to be anywhere near any other public
office because
he is too dangerous.
CZ still waits to hear our big-mouthed women NGOs
making a lot of
noise about this case. Placards with such messages as:
"Tougher Rape Laws
Please! Stop Child-Abusers! Castrate Rapists!" Anything
will do. The matter
is still far from being settled. Or is it?
Hanging
News from Malawi points to the fact that our in-law Bingu wa
Mutharika
could soon find himself supervising criminally underpaid workers
at his
Bennet Farm in Kadoma as an impeachment motion has been moved in
Parliament.
Yes, the thugs - the "ruling" UDF parliamentarians - made so
much noise in
the otherwise august House that the Speaker collapsed and was
rushed to
hospital and the House had to adjourn indefinitely. The
Speaker-man has
since died . . . sorry! The only consolation being that he
has gone to his
heavenly reward.
So we wait and see what will
happen next.
Remember wa Mutharika was handpicked by former President
Bakili
Muluzi - hence his wa Muluzi nickname - before he decided to forsake
Muluzi
and his UDF to abuse the horse and cart constitutional loopholes to
remain
in office . . . unlike our own Munyaradzi Gwisai's mischief. Now the
UDF and
the main opposition Malawi Congress Party have teamed up against
him.
Hopefully some juju and more constitutional loopholes will work to his
advantage!
Unschooled
Last week Zimbabwe belatedly
"celebrated" the Education for All
initiative under the theme "Send my
Friend to School" when actually more
than 300 000 schoolchildren had dropped
out of school because of the ongoing
(winding-up) Tsunami.
Would CZ
be branded less patriotic if he would suggest that the event,
which took
place in Gwanda last Friday, deserved to be held under the theme
"Take my
Friend from School?" Whole families and over-extended African
families have
been dumped in some "protected" villages the same way Mr Ian
Douglas Smith
did during those years. Some of the schoolchildren that had
registered for
their exams in schools in their neighbourhood are suddenly
hundreds of
kilometres away thanks to the vindictive wisdom of the owners of
this
country!
Queuembabwe
Know what? Because of the queues that
are almost everywhere . . .
fuel, sugar, cooking oil, bread, margarine,
transport, cash, lodger cards,
common sense, madness . . . anything . . .
some Zimbos have decided to be
patriotic enough as to go to the extent to
renaming their beloved country
Queuembabwe as their small contribution
toward the national effort to boost
forex inflows through tourism. They
rabidly argue that the queues that have
become part of our quotidian
existence are in their own way good enough to
attract tourists even from our
former Western source markets . . . remember
it is only in this country that
such queues are so attractively found . . .
so can any Zimbo show good cause
why this good country cannot exploit this
"God-given" extra tourist
attraction? Reports reaching CZ point to the fact
that tourism authorities
are actually busy trying to package and sell this
newly found "natural"
attraction to our Chinese friends. "Majestic Vic
Falls, Awe-inspiring Great
Zimbabwe and Breath-taking Queues . . . the
British don't have
them!"
Henceforth, we are Queuembabweans and it is so sad that we are
going
to change from being Zimbos to Queuembos. Happy Queuemboz!
CZ
is a perennial survivor. Try him!
FinGaz
New fuel rules on the cards?
Staff
Reporter
7/7/2005 9:36:25 AM (GMT +2)
A DEEPENING fuel
crisis that has virtually crippled industry and the
public transport system
has given birth to calls for relaxation of rules
governing importation of
the precious liquid.
Industry experts said high-ranking government
officials were toying
around with the idea of loosening fuel importation
rules because it was now
apparent that the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe
and a special purpose
vehicle formed for oil procurement had failed to cope
owing to acute foreign
currency shortages.
They said the energy
ministry, conspicuous by its silence in the face
of a degenerating crisis,
might be forced to allow Zimbabweans in the
diaspora to bring in fuel and
distribute it through the underutilised formal
channels.
The same
might also apply to exporters, who are allowed to retain part
of their
receipts in foreign currency accounts, said the sources.
"It is not
going to be easy though, given the distortions that could
emerge if this
issue is not handled properly," said a source.
Zimbabwe, which requires
at least US$40 million monthly to meet its
fuel needs, is experiencing
serious shortages of the resource despite a
massive 300 percent increase in
the price of petrol, diesel and paraffin
announced last week.
The
country is struggling to attract sufficient foreign exchange in
the form of
foreign direct investment and aid after the withdrawal of
balance of
payments support by the International Monetary Fund in the late
1990s and
the land seizures of 2000 which alienated Western donors.
Some analysts
said this week that changing the current distribution
system might pose
major headaches for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).
The energy ministry
may also have problems supervising the importers and
curbing the black
market, they said.
Gideon Gono, the governor of the RBZ, has said that
most of the 120
players in the fuel sector are dubious and that the number
needs to be
trimmed to not more than 20.
FinGaz
Diplomatic fight over woman
Mavis
Makuni
7/7/2005 9:49:28 AM (GMT +2)
THREE men fighting
over a woman? On the diplomatic front? An unlikely
story to be sure, but
that's exactly what happened about a week ago when
United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special envoy, Anna Kajumalo
Tibaijuka, was
about to arrive in Zimbabwe.
Tibaijuka's brief was to assess the
effects of the government's
nationwide clean-up operation which has caused
an outcry both locally and
internationally because of the untold and
unnecessary human suffering it has
engendered. The man-made disaster
unfolded against a background of
cacophonous official rhetoric designed to
convey the impression that
throwing hundreds of thousands of jobless,
poverty-stricken, terminally ill
and starving people out of whatever shelter
they had and condemning them to
the mercy of the elements was the action of
a caring and revolutionary
people's government.
But it would seem
that even the most fervent proponents of this
head-in-the-sand approach
could see that no one was buying the story or else
why would the United
Nations secretary-general still want to send someone to
assess the situation
on the spot. To make matters worse, Tony Blair, the man
who seems to have
the power to cause the most exasperation and jitters in
official circles
each time he opens his mouth, had commented on Operation
Restore
Order/Murambatsvina. He had welcomed Tibaijuka's appointment as
Annan's
special envoy to Zimbabwe and expressed hope that she would come up
with a
good report. Blair is also reported to have claimed to know the lady
envoy
personally. That did it.
Up into the fray stepped Ambassador Tichaona
Jokonya and his deputy
Bright Matonga, the heirs to the propaganda throne
unceremoniously vacated
by Jonathan Moyo in February when he and the ruling
party parted ways. The
new minister of information and publicity may claim
to have a different
vision and agenda but he seems reluctant to give up one
of the last vestiges
of the Moyo era - paranoid propaganda that seeks to
expose an anti-Zimbabwe
conspiracy each time our endless national crises
spark negative
international reactions.
In lengthy monologoues on
television, Jokonya and Matonga accused the
British premier for the
umpteenth time of interference in Zimbabwe's
internal affairs and leading,
along with George Bush, a campaign for regime
change in Zimbabwe. Jokonya
ridiculed Blair for announcing that he knew
Tibaijuka personally, saying
what a "terrible thing" this was to say about
someone who was supposed to
undertake her assignment impartially. Then, in
apparent self-contradiction
and without a hint of irony , Jokonya let it be
known that he knew Tibaijuka
even better than Blair and he knew she would do
a good job. So there, you
have it, a clear case of selective logic and
do-as-I say-not-as-I-do. In
their tug-of-war with Blair, Jokonya and Matonga
were anxious to claim
Tibaijuka as a sympathiser on their side.
When Jokonya was appointed to
take over the information and publicity
portfolio in President Mugabe's
"development cabinet" hopes were high that
he would adopt a more realistic
and rational approach in place of Moyo's
reliance on hate-filled bombast,
belligerence and subterfuge to defend the
indefensible. It was during Moyo's
era that propaganda techniques such as
exaggeration and repetition were
taken to extremes. As a result we ended up
with outright fabrications which
were then forced down the nation's throat
ad nauseam.
One of these
unlikely tales is the illogical claim that Blair is
responsible for all
Zimbabwe's problems and he should therefore be denounced
whenever officials
are unable or unwilling to tell the truth about the
endless self-inflicted
crises bedeviling the country. Needless to say, these
neither won Zimbabwe a
single friend nor advanced its cause an inch.
It came as a great shock
therefore to discover that Jokonya, a former
diplomat who is supposed to
have more class and tact, is prepared to inherit
some of Moyo's
idiosyncrasies, especially with respect to the tired
anti-Blair mantra. It
has been recited so often for so long that the most
pertinent question to
ask is how one man can so outclass the entire
Zimbabwean government that so
much time and energy has to be spent on trying
to contain him. I had frankly
hoped that Jokonya's diplomatic instincts
would convince him to advise
against this rather crude and counterproductive
approach which has
unwittingly made Blair the politician with the highest
profile and most
recognisable name in Zimbabwe. When Blair speaks, Zimbabwe
not only listens
but goes into hysterics.
It was difficult to understand why Minister
Jokonya and his deputy
were so alarmed by the suggestion that the UN
secretary-general's envoy
would produce a "good" report unless their idea of
good is at variance with
what everyone else expects. Every objective person
hopes Tibaijuka will tell
it like it is. The most important reason why it is
unacceptable to try to
paint a rosy picture of this truly horrific situation
is that it involves
human beings who will simply not disappear into thin
air. They need help to
survive and to rebuild their lives.
It is
all very well to extol the government's benevolence in embarking
on
Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle after spending a night in a warm and
comfortable bed without confronting the question of where hundreds of
thousands of displaced fellow human beings will sleep tonight. These are
people who must be as deeply traumatised by witnessing the destructive force
used in the clean-up exercise as those caught up in the fury unleashed by
mother nature in natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis or flooding.
Instead of attacking Blair, Jokonya's ministry should be telling us what
psychological services the government is providing to help these victims
come to terms with their loss and grief. Remember most of these people have
lost all they have accumulated in a lifetime.
Jokonya, who on the
day he attacked Blair praised the African Union
for its arrogant statement
that it would not comment on the clean-up
exercise because that would be
tantamount to meddling in Zimbabwe's internal
affairs, has not explained how
this hands-off approach will benefit the
victims of the mass destruction of
accommodation and livelihoods. The
Ministry of Information should help us to
understand what purpose the AU
serves if the excellencies who have
proclaimed themselves life presidents
and emperors can be praised for
turning a blind eye and walking by on the
other side while hundreds of
thousands of people in a member country are
reduced to living in the open
like animals in a game reserve.
People of good will everywhere must
come to the rescue of these
victims who, in practical terms, are no
different from the victims of the
tsunami in Asia some months ago. For this
help to be forthcoming, the truth
must be told and not swept under the
carpet. Honourable Special Envoy
Tibaijuka should ignore the antics around
her and focus on the victims and
their needs.
FinGaz
Empowerment Act overtaken by time
7/7/2005
9:53:38 AM (GMT +2)
CERTAIN reports emanating from the public media
that are ascribed to
the Minister of State for Indigenisation and
Empowerment indicate that
government might soon introduce, through
Parliament, a new law to be called
the Empowerment Act.
There
has not been a bold and clear explanation from the
powers-that-be on why
this decision has been arrived at, but indications are
that government
intends to place the issues of indigenisation and
empowerment on the
permanent national agenda.
The issue of indigenisation and empowerment
- commonly known in other
countries as affirmative action - has been topical
since the day we attained
our independence but the perplexing thing is why
government has only lately
reawakened and realised the need for a formal
affirmative action policy?
Before I delve into the full discussion, I
shall attempt to explore
the historical foundations of the policy of
affirmative action. This
significant subject is easily traceable to the
American Civil Rights
Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Its fundamental
purpose was to seek a
recognition for and assert the role of Afro-Americans
in matters of
nation-building because for centuries they had laboured under
the yoke of
slavery and oppression.
In the United States, the
sonorous and vigorous political agitation by
these revolutionaries
necessitated the launch of a formal affirmative action
policy through which
some members of the formerly oppressed and marginalised
black population
were catapulted to positions of influence, which process
allowed them to
play a role in business, education, sport and other national
activities from
whence they had been side-lined.
Affirmative action,or empowerment or
indigenisation, whatever one
might want to call it can come about either
through formal or informal
recognition by governments.
In the
Zimbabwean context, the process and its implementation came
naturally
because of the post-independence nation-building demands. It was a
spontaneous and overdue demand by indigenous Zimbabweans, young and old, who
wanted to play a role in the running of their economy and other national
affairs.
In the post-independence era, the cruel legacy of
colonialism had
continued to manifest its vestiges as most sectors of the
economy remained
under foreign control and of particular reference are the
financial,
manufacturing, mining and agricultural sectors.
Towards
the early 1980s and 1990s, Zimbabweans began to discover the
slackened pace
at which economic transformation was moving and as such
hushed and at times
loud noises were made by individuals and groups who
demanded a controlling
stake in the national economy.
Indeed government responded and put into
place policies that allowed
indigenous people to access those sectors of the
economy that predominantly
remained under white control.
Some
notable groups that came to the fore and tenaciously and at times
with
uncouth methods coerced government into liberalisation, and former
white
capitalists into surrendering sizeable portions of their controlling
stakes
were the Affirmative Action Group, the Indigenous Business
Development
Centre, and other similarly named organisations.
As can be noted, these
came into being not because of formal
acknowledgement by relevant
authorities of the issues of indigenisation and
empowerment, but because
economic transformation had taken unnecessarily
long to be addressed by
government.
During the early 1990s - years that coincided with the
introduction of
ESAP - majestic inroads were systematically and gradually
made thereby
marking the most important period during the empowerment of the
indigenous
people.
The financial sector is a typical example of one
of those significant
areas of the economy that were penetrated by indigenous
people, culminating
in a number of banks, insurance companies and other
related organisations
falling under the control of black
Zimbabweans.
In leaps and bounds local black people also took control
of the
manufacturing sector. The mining industry, one of the major
components of
our economy, still lags behind because local people have for
unknown reasons
failed to claim a stake in it.
One sector that had
for some time remained under white control is that
of agriculture but
government obliterated white control through the
controversial land reform
programme that commenced in the year 2000 and is
still on-going.
The sudden influx of indigenous people in the agricultural sector,
most of
whom have no capacity and capability in matters of agriculture,
proved to be
another significant turning point in the pro-transformation
agenda.
While there is nothing wrong in passing legislation, laws must only
come
about because they are relevant and also as a response to genuine need
to
regulate and promote development.
The law-making process must not be
necessitated by political
expediencyand populist endeavours nor should it be
a result of a superficial
business-like attitude.
At the stage at
which our nation finds itself in, during the course of
its development
especially the gigantic role that the previously
disadvantaged and
marginalised black people are playing in the Zimbabwean
economy, there might
be no need to go to Parliament to introduce belatedly
this kind of a
law.
The South African scenario is distinguishable from ours in that
early
into their democratic dispensation, a government-initiated formal
affirmative action policy was introduced. The Black Economic Empowerment
Charter and the subsequent Employment Equity Act which called for the
introduction of black people into strategic employment and business
positions signified another possible dimension in tackling the touchy issue
of empowerment.
As regards our own scenario and as already has been
observed, a
legislative solution to the issue of black empowerment might be
very
belated. It might only signify government's spectacular show of
ignorance as
well as a gross misunderstanding of where we are coming from
with the issue
of black empowerment.
This is not the time to abuse
Parliament by wasting its time in
debating and promulgating laws that have
clearly been overtaken by time. The
law, as it gets into the society, must
only come because it is desirable,
indispensable and introduces meaningful
and positive changes into the
community.
lVote Muza is a legal
practitioner with Gutu and Chikowero law firm.
He can be contated on e-mail:
gutulaw@mweb.co.zw