The Times, UK June 15, 2006
From Jan Raath in
Harare
PHILLIP CHIYANGWA, a Bible-quoting tycoon,
makes no apologies
for spending £103,000 on a new 5.5-litre, 12-cylinder,
twin-turbo
Mercedes-Benz S600 - the only one in Africa.
He
may live in a country with the world's fastest deteriorating
economy, and a
population haunted by despair, hunger and HIV/Aids, but he
recently led
reporters from Harare's state-run Herald newspaper into an
underground
garage to demonstrate the infra-red night radar that displays
the other
vehicles in the basement on the dashboard screen and bragged about
how much
it had cost him.
"The businesses that I have demand
such a car. I am celebrating
my own success. Everything that I have, I owe
to God," Mr Chiyangwa
explained. Israel Tswarayi, a flower vendor who spends
his day dodging
police anti-hawker patrols, views Mr Chiyangwa's purchase
differently. "It's
disgusting," he says. "That money could have been used to
buy food for
everyone in Harare for a month. But he used it for one
car."
Mr Chiyangwa is one of Zimbabwe's privileged elite,
almost
entirely black and mostly connected to President Mugabe's ruling Zanu
(PF)
party, that flaunts its wealth through the cars it
drives.
Zimbabwe is effectively bankrupt. Its once-proud
export
industries have been reduced to little more than a
care-and-maintenance
level. Official hard currency to import essentials such
as antiretroviral
drugs and water-purifying chemicals for cities is almost
impossible to
acquire.
But last month the central bank
agreed to fund a loan scheme for
MPs and senators to import new cars,
allocating $350,000 (£190,000) for the
first tranche
alone.
The number of imported luxury cars in Harare would
raise
eyebrows in Epsom. The parliament's car park glitters with scores of
government-issued ministerial and privately owned Mercedes saloons and SUVs,
BMWs, Toyota Landcruisers, Jeep Cherokees and the most expensive Japanese
double-cab 4x4 pick-ups.
The same dazzling array of
vehicles assembles outside Harare's
exclusive private schools to collect
children at the end of the day, at the
capital's high-priced shopping
centres at the weekend and at outings of the
Shumbas, a golfing society of
black senior executives from the country's big
public
companies.
Harare's luxury car dealers say that business has
seldom been so
good. "We've had this showroom for 12 years, and last year's
business has
been the best," said one, who wished to remain anonymous.
"Usually, if I had
five C or E-Class Mercs in the showroom, I would sell
them in a day."
About 30 per cent of his trade is with the
Government,
corporations or non-governmental organisations. "The rest is
private - 95
per cent black and most of it is speculative business," he
said.
In a country where inflation exceeds 1,000 per cent,
"cars are a
currency", he said. "They are your most certain asset. This is
the only
country in the world where the value of vehicles appreciate after
they get
sold.
"When a new vehicle is ordered and paid
for overseas, it can
change hands four times before a single kilometre is on
the clock."
The most expensive car in the Herald's classified
column last
week was a new Mercedes- Benz E500, at Z$38 billion (about
£70,000), a snip
next to President Mugabe's five-tonne armoured 7.3-litre
S600, which is
estimated to have cost three times more than Mr Chi-yangwa's
newer model.
A full tank of petrol for a medium-size saloon
car costs about
Z$16 million. By comparison, a month's basket of basic
necessities for a
Zimbabwean family of five is
Z$49million.
"We are becoming like Nigerians," Stanley
Makombe, who runs one
of Harare's better known vehicle sales companies,
said.
"There are a very few people making big money because
government policies
leave a lot of loopholes where people can become
billionaires overnight. The
loopholes are there to make money by short
cuts." What Mr Makombe means by
"loopholes" are better understood as
scams.
"You cannot earn 10 or 20 billion Zimbabwe dollars you need to buy
these
fancy cars by means that are legal or through hard work. God knows
where
they get the foreign currency to import them," an economist, who
requested
anonymity, said.
One way is for well-connected
ruling party officials to buy foreign currency
from the central bank at
preferential exchange rates, then sell it on the
black market at nearly 400
times the price. Another wheeze revealed by
senior milling company
executives last week involves members of the ruling
elite obtaining milling
licences that allow them to buy maize, the national
staple, from the state
grain monopoly, the Grain Marketing Board, and sell
it at the official price
- 50 times more than they paid.
They can make the same profit simply by
driving round the block and selling
it back to the marketing board at that
price, one executive said.
Even that method can be short-circuited by
getting one of the board's clerks
to do the paperwork and pay the "miller"
without moving a single pip.
Official price controls on other commodities,
such as fuel, sugar and
fertiliser - designed to make them affordable to the
poor - are exploited in
the same way.
"As soon as you introduce price
controls the goods disappear from the
market. They get sidelined cheaply to
the political bigwigs, and then end up
on the black market at exorbitant
prices," the economist said.
"The whole system of controlled prices and
official perks for the party
bigwigs is completely unworkable, but the
system is maintained for the
bigwigs to enrich themselves," he said. "They
are stealing with the support
of the authorities."
The enrichment of
the ruling party elite in the past few years has coincided
with the
emergence of dozens of other dodges.
Another big source of income has
been through the theft of tractors, combine
harvesters, farm equipment,
hundreds of miles of irrigation piping and
anything else left behind on
sequestered white farms, where the owners have
been driven off.
A
corruption commission formed about five years ago has yet to produce a
single conviction - with good reason. In 1999, a whistle-blower in a car
racket and his wife miraculously survived a blast of automatic gunfire that
shattered their bedroom window while they slept.
Zim Online
Fri 16 June 2006
MASVINGO - A son of top ZANU PF
politician, Shuvai Mahofa, was on
Wednesday sentenced to an effective four
years in jail for murdering a man
during a wrangle over the ownership of a
former white-owned farm.
High Court Judge Yunus Omerjee convicted
Ben Mahofa, 24, Jairos
Chingaire, 33 and Ranganai Chimbunde, 27, of murder
with constructive intent
after the trio four years ago assaulted Amos Museva
with logs and clenched
fists until he died.
Museva was murdered
after he refused to surrender a plot on Lothian
farm in Masvingo province
that was coveted by Ben's sister.
The farm was in 2002 seized by
the government from its former white
owner and cut up into plots that were
allocated to various black farmers.
Although Ben's sister was given her own
piece of land she still wanted the
one allocated to Museva because it had
the farmhouse.
State prosecutors told the court
that at the beginning of January
2002, Ben and his accomplices teamed up and
went to Lothian with the
intention of forcing Museva off his plot but ended
up beating him to death.
Omerjee sentenced the trio to six years in
jail for the murder with
two years suspended for five years.
Ben's mother is the ZANU PF Member of Parliament for the party's
stronghold
Gutu South constituency. She once led the ruling party's
influential women's
league and is also a former deputy minister of youth in
President Robert
Mugabe's Cabinet.
Top ZANU PF and government officials, their
relatives and friends have
allocated themselves the choicest farms seized
from whites with some among
the ruling elite known to have at least six
farms each in open defiance of
the government's publicly stated
one-man-one-farm policy.
The murder of Museva is yet another
example of how the less powerful
have been trampled upon in the rush to get
the best of farms taken from
whites.
The controversial farm
seizure programme - that Mugabe says was
necessary to correct a colonial
land ownership system that reserved all the
best land for whites - has been
blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into its worst
food crisis after the government
failed to give back support to black
peasants resettled on former white
farms to maintain production. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Fri 16 June 2006
HARARE - A United Nations (UN) appointed
panel of experts has
recommended that crisis-sapped Zimbabwe be downgraded
to a Least Developed
Country (LDC) category, a decision local analysts said
seemed harsh but
reflected world concerns over President Robert Mugabe's
management style.
Zimbabwe is in the throes of a deep economic
crisis blamed on Mugabe's
government and is highlighted by the world's
highest inflation rate at
1193.5 percent, rising joblessness, increasing
poverty and shortages ranging
from fuel, hard cash to
electricity.
The recommendation was made by the Committee for
Development Policy,
comprising 22 UN-appointed experts, but can only be
implemented if the
decision is acceptable to Harare. Mugabe's government has
outrightly
rejected the proposal.
Analysts said while Zimbabwe
was experiencing its worst ever economic
and political crisis that has
heightened tensions in the country of 12
million people, a downgrade was
without enough justification although it was
a fair reflection of concern by
the international community over the way the
country was being
run.
"The country is facing serious problems both economic and
political
but to say we now qualify to be among LDCs is a bit too harsh,"
Harare-based
economist James Jowa said. "But it has to be seen in the
context that the
world is getting very impatient with the government and the
way it is
running things here," he added.
Mugabe is criticised
for plunging the country into crisis and for
pursuing controversial policies
such as seizing white-owned farms, which has
decimated agriculture and
lately, of trying to force foreign mines to cede
51 percent of their
shareholding to the government.
Mugabe's political opponents accuse
him of using tough policing and
harsh media laws to keep dissenting voices
in check, while increasingly
relying on the military to prolong his 26-year
old rule.
Zimbabwe's economy is still second to South Africa in the
region but
has suffered from falling industrial production and declining
exports while
years of turmoil have seen infrastructure such as roads, sewer
systems
crumble.
"That (downgrading) is an overreaction to
Zimbabwe's situation," said
Eric Bloch, an economic consultant based in the
second largest city of
Bulawayo.
"Zimbabwe has problems but it
is still well developed and I think that
downgrading is unrealistic. But if
they were to say the downgrading is based
on the least constructive use of
developed resources, then yes, we could
qualify," added Bloch, who is also
an adviser to the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe.
Analysts consider
an LDC status as an admission of failure of a
country's economic policies.
Mugabe denies charges he has run down the
country and instead fingers former
colonial power Britain and America for
leading a Western plot to destabilise
the country in retaliation for his
land seizures.
There are 50
LDCs, of which 34 are from Africa. Besides Zimbabwe,
Papua New Guinea has
also been recommended for a downgrade to LDC status.
The
Brussels-based International Crisis Group last week said Zimbabwe
was fast
becoming a failed state but yesterday Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF party
accused
the think-tank of encouraging a military coup in the southern
African state.
The international political think-tank denies attempting to
instigate a coup
against Mugabe.
Supporters of the downgrade point to the
government's bulldozing of
shantytowns under Operation Murambatsvina - which
the UN says affected more
than 700 000 people - as having further
impoverished many families, most who
still do not have accommodation a year
after the demolitions.
They say Zimbabwe's domestic national income
has decreased rapidly in
recent years, hitting living standards, while the
country's human assets
have been hit by the deterioration of educational
standards and decreased
enrollment and increased dropout rates, affecting
literacy rates over the
long term.
Zimbabwe is said to be
experiencing declining nutrition, which has
adversely affected mortality
rates, especially amongst the most vulnerable
segments of the population,
children and those affected by HIV/AIDS as the
public health delivery sector
has collapsed.
"Politically this all comes down to the fact that
the world is
increasingly getting concerned with events here and it is a
warning that if
we don't change course that is where we might end up being,"
Eldred
Masunungure, chairman of the University of Zimbabwe's political
science
department said. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Fri 16 June 2006
MARIRANGWE - Forty-four year old
Claudius Chityo braves the morning
chill as he huddles along huge bags of
maize grain along the dusty Nyamweda
road in rural Mhondoro, about 100 km
south of the capital Harare.
Chityo, waits patiently for buyers of
the maize grain from Harare who
normally prowl the rural area mopping up all
the grain on offer for resale
on the black-market in the
capital.
Under Zimbabwean law, it is illegal to sell maize to
private buyers as
all the maize should be sold to the state-owned Grain
Marketing Board (GMB).
But communal farmers in Mhondoro are defying
the government ban on
private maize sales saying it makes business sense to
sell their maize
quickly to private buyers who offer higher prices than the
GMB. "Prices
change daily," says Chityo, hinting at Zimbabwe's run-away
inflation which
last May hit 1 193.5 percent.
"If I wait for
the GMB to pay me at their own time, I will lose out. I
would rather sell to
buyers who pay cash on the spot that I can use while it
still has value," he
told ZimOnline along the road.
Zimbabwe's communal farmers, also
feeling the pinch after six years of
a severe economic crisis, many blame on
President Robert Mugabe's
controversial policies, are shunning the GMB as
they sell their maize crop
to private buyers.
The trend has
raised fears that the government might fail to meet its
target of harvesting
1.8 million tonnes of maize this season.
Agricultural experts say
grain deliveries to GMB depots around the
country have been "very poor and
discouraging" mainly because of the
country's atrocious road network and
bureaucracy by the state grain company
in paying farmers.
Communal farmers have to deliver their maize to GMB depots at their
own cost
compared to the "illegal" grain buyers who visit communal areas to
collect
the staple grain.
In Harare, Mufaro Tamandai, emerges from heaps of
bags of maize on his
shop verandah in the poor suburb of Budiriro. "I buy
the grain from
communal farmers desperate for ready cash," Tamandai
says.
Tamandai is among individuals who go out in the rural areas
and buy
grain for resale in Harare, cashing in on the failure by the GMB to
promptly
pay farmers for grain delivered.
While the GMB is
paying Z$31 million a tonne for maize, informal
buyers like Tamandai are
willing to fork out as much as Z$37 million for the
same quantity of
maize.
Two months after the harvest season began, agricultural
experts say
only a paltry tonnage has trickled into GMB depots across the
country.
GMB chief executive officer, Rt Colonel Samuel Muvuti last
week said
the parastatal had so far received a paltry 5 000 tonnes of grain,
way below
the country's target of 1.8 million tonnes.
"We still
expect more farmers to come forward with their grain when it
has acceptable
moisture content. They are busy drying their grain," he said.
But
analysts say the poor grain deliveries to the GMB suggests that
Zimbabwe's
food shortages are, contrary to government's pronouncements, far
from
over.
Earlier this year, the United States-based Famine Early
Warning
Systems Network (FEWSNET) warned that Zimbabwe would continue to
face food
shortages despite above normal rains during the last agricultural
season.
FEWSNET said contrary to government projections, Zimbabwe
would only
harvest between a million and 1.1 million tonnes of grain this
season,
leaving the country with a serious shortfall.
The
Zimbabwe government has however ignored the warnings insisting the
country
will harvest enough to feed itself.
Agriculture Minister Joseph
Made, who has been accused in the past of
misrepresenting the country's food
security situation, recently told a
parliamentary committee on agriculture
that the country will harvest 1.8
million tonnes of maize, equal to national
annual consumption.
In a move that captured the clear panic in
government circles, the
Harare authorities stationed soldiers and police
officers on roads leading
into cities seizing maize from
individuals.
But somehow - as is so often with Zimbabwe's cunning
black-market
traders - they are still able to slip through the security
cordon carrying
tonnes of maize they offload on the illegal but thriving
black-market. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Fri 16 June 2006
HARARE - One of Zimbabwe's largest
black-owned conglomerates, TA
Holdings, says the exchange rate of the
country's embattled currency has
slid by almost 13.6 million percent over
the past 25 years, warning that the
current "imaginary" profitability of
local companies was unsustainable.
In a thinly-veiled attack of
President Robert Mugabe's mismanagement
of the once boisterous economy over
the past 25 years, TA Holdings chairman
Shingai Mutasa described as "crazy"
the manner in which the external value
of the Zimbabwe dollar had been
allowed to slide.
Mugabe and his government inherited a strong
economy at independence
in 1980, with the local unit worth more than one
United States dollar. The
American greenback was then worth 62 Zimbabwe
cents.
By 1990, one US dollar was equal to 2.63 Zimbabwe dollars
and closed
2005 with an official exchange rate of Z$84 588 to the US
dollar.
"It just seems crazy," Mutasa told shareholders in TA's
2005 annual
report released this week.
"To say it is tough for
a company to increase its earnings or profits
in real terms when the
currency, in which most of its assets are
denominated, declines against the
US dollar at an annualised 60.47 percent
or a cumulative decline of 13 643
125.81 percent over 25 years is a
self-evident proposition," he
added.
The cumulative depreciation of the Zimbabwe dollar exchange
rate is
even higher now given developments on the unofficial foreign
exchange market
where the greenback is trading at between 340 000 and 350
000 Zimbabwe
dollars.
The official exchange rate has
depreciated even further than the Z$84
588 to one US unit that was ruling at
the end of 2005. The official rate is
around 101 000 to the American
dollar.
Mutasa warned that current conditions marked by
hyperinflation and a
collapsing exchange rate were a recipe for disaster for
local companies.
Zimbabwe's inflation, at 1 193.5 percent in May,
is the highest in the
world.
"Our caution stems from our belief
that should the expression of our
growth result from high inflation and a
collapsing exchange rate, it is a
chimerical benefit and, for our country,
unsustainable," warned Mutasa.
Mugabe however denies mismanaging
Zimbabwe's economy and instead
claims that its problems are because of
sabotage by Western powers after he
seized white-owned farms for
redistribution to landless blacks. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
HARARE - Opposition legislator David Coltart, who
unsuccessfully tried
to mediate between the two factions of the splintered
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party, on Thursday announced he was
joining the
smaller of the two opposition factions led by Arthur
Mutambara.
Coltart, said to be a key fund-raiser for the
opposition, had remained
sitting on the fence for the past seven months,
turning down executive
positions offered by both Mutambara's faction and the
larger wing of the MDC
led by founding leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai.
The legislator said he had decided to join Mutambara's
faction,
expected by many analysts to play a minor role on Zimbabwe's
political
chessboard at least in the short-to-medium-term, because it was
committed to
non-violence.
He told journalists in Bulawayo: "I
have been encouraged by
(Mutambara's) group's stated commitment to adopt a
zero tolerance .. to any
future acts of violence within the MDC and their
commitment to engaging in
peaceful, constitutional and most importantly
nonviolent forms of mass
action designed to get the ZANU PF regime to agree
to a new constitution,
free and fair elections."
The MDC split
last October after Tsvangirai failed to agree with his
then deputy Gibson
Sibanda and other top leaders on whether to contest
elections for a new
House of Senate.
Tsvangirai opposed participation in the poll
saying there was no point
in fighting an election that was sure to be stolen
by the government. He
also argued that the Senate was a waste of resources
that could be better
used to fight hunger stalking Zimbabwe.
Sibanda, backed by secretary general Welshman Ncube and others
insisted that
the MDC should contest the election after its national council
voted for the
party to do so. They also argued that it was unwise to boycott
the poll and
surrender political space to the government.
But political analysts
say the senate wrangle only brought out in the
open deep-seated disagreement
among the MDC leaders over what strategy to
adopt against a government that
remains undoubtedly unpopular with the
electorate but fully in control of
all levers of state.
Tsvangirai has since said he will mobilise
Zimbabweans into the
streets in Ukraine-style uprising to force Mugabe to
step aside for a
transitional government that would be tasked to write a new
constitution and
organise fresh elections under international
supervision.
But analysts say this is much easier said than done
especially after
the MDC was weakened by last year's split. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Fri 16
June 2006
GABORONE - Civil society organisations in Botswana have
urged the
Southern African Development Community (SADC) to adopt a more
robust
approach to end Zimbabwe's six-year old crisis, saying regional
leaders
could no longer continue treating the crisis in that country as a
purely
internal matter.
Speaking at a solidarity church service
at the Anglican Church
Cathedral in Gaborone, Alice Mogwe, the director of a
Botswana human rights
group, Ditshwanelo, said SADC leaders must do more to
help oppressed
Zimbabweans.
"The Zimbabwe situation is no
longer a domestic issue, but a regional
problem. It is high time the region
and its leaders tackled this problem
head on," she said.
The
church service was organised by civic groups in Botswana to
highlight the
deteriorating political and economic situation in Zimbabwe.
SADC
leaders have in the past tried without success to broker a
peaceful
resolution of the six-year old Zimbabwe crisis.
But most of them
have effectively ganged up to defend President Robert
Mugabe who is accused
of serious human rights violations and failure to
uphold
democracy.
Zimbabwe has been in crisis since 2000 after Mugabe's
ruling ZANU PF
party won a controversial election against the main
opposition Movement for
Democratic Change party amid serious charges of
election rigging and
violence. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Fri 16 June
2006
JOHANNESBURG - The International Crisis Group (ICG) has
rejected
claims by Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU PF party that it was encouraging a
coup in
the crisis-hit southern African country.
In an article
carried in the Thursday edition of the official Herald
newspaper, former
foreign affairs minister and ZANU PF spokesman Nathan
Shamuyarira was quoted
as having said the Brussels-based international
political think-tank was
encouraging a military coup against President
Robert Mugabe's government and
that it had also sponsored violence in the
splintered opposition Movement
for Democratic Change party.
Dismissing the claims as unfounded,
ICG president Gareth Evans said:
"My old foreign ministerial colleague
Nathan Shamuyarira seems to have lost
the plot. As bad as this government
is, we have never called for its violent
overthrow, and our reports and
briefings on Zimbabwe make that perfectly
clear".
The ICG is an
independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation,
with around 115
full-time staff members on five continents, working through
field-based
analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly
conflict.
It regularly produces analytical reports containing
practical
recommendations targeted at key international
decision-takers.
In its latest report on Zimbabwe, the think-tank
warned that the
southern African country was facing an increased prospect of
descending into
violence and anarchy as a potentially explosive presidential
election draws
nearer in 2008, while the battered economy hurtles towards
total collapse. -
ZimOnline
Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria and
Jonathan Watts in Shanghai
Thursday June 15, 2006
The
Guardian
China today threw Zimbabwe's disintegrating economy a
lifeline with energy
and mining deals worth £700m.
The largest deal will
see China set up coal mines and build three coal-fired
thermal power
stations, providing relief for the state power company which
cuts power for
seven hours a day to factories, businesses and homes.
Neither China nor
Zimbabwe indicated how the investment would be repaid, but
the deal will
give Beijing access to Zimbabwe's wide variety of precious
minerals,
including the world's second largest deposits of platinum as well
as gold,
chrome, coal, nickel and diamonds.
As the deal was announced in Harare,
China continued to ramp up its role as
a global player by hosting a summit
of states encompassing almost half the
world's population and some of
Washington's most prominent opponents.
The Chinese president, Hu Jintao,
said the Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation - which brought together the
leaders of 10 nations in and
around central Asia - is designed to promote
peace and stability in a region
that has become an increasingly important
source of oil and gas.
But the group's potential role as a counterweight
to the US was underlined
by the presence of the Iranian president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, who received
a warm welcome in Shanghai despite his country's
standoff with international
nuclear inspectors over Tehran's uranium
enrichment programme.
The countries gathered in Shanghai control almost a
quarter of the world's
oil supplies and are building a series of pipelines
across the region. A
pipeline is being planned from Iran to China that would
cross Pakistan,
whose president, Pervez Musharraf, yesterday requested to be
admitted as a
full member of the SCO.
In Zimbabwe's rapidly devaluing
currency the new Chinese deals are worth
Z$143 trillion (£700m) at the
official rate of exchange or Z$310 trillion at
the more realistic parallel
(black market) exchange rate.
The Chinese firm China Machine Building
International has built thermal
power plants in Nigeria and Sudan and has
been involved in mining ventures
in Gabon.
"It is a welcome
investment for the Mugabe government but it will only begin
to produce
much-needed electrical power in several years time," said Harare
economist
John Robertson. "Until then we will remain in the dark."
Another
agreement will see a joint venture between Zimbabwe's state mining
development corporation and China's Star Communications to mine chrome, with
funding from the China Development Bank.
Zimbabwe also plans to
import Chinese equipment for telecommunications,
road-building, irrigation
and farming. Robert Mugabe's government already
relies on China for imports
of aircraft and weapons that it can no longer
buy from western countries
because of international embargoes. Last year
Zimbabwe bought three
passenger planes, six military trainer jets and nearly
400 commuter buses
from China.
Thirsty for oil and raw materials, China has invested
billions into
resource-rich African countries. China's trade with Africa
jumped by 39% to
$32.17bn (£17bn) in the first 10 months of last year,
according to official
Chinese trade statistics. Analysts said the surge was
fuelled by China's
increased imports of African oil.
Africa is also
buying almost as much in Chinese-made goods, the figures
show. Highlighting
China's dramatic economic expansion into Africa, the
Chinese premier, Wen
Jiabao, embarks today on a tour of seven African
nations - Egypt, Ghana, the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, South
Africa, Tanzania and
Uganda.
IOL
June 15 2006 at
02:44PM
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC)
will be "trashed" if it attempts to overthrow the government of
President
Robert Mugabe, a ruling party spokesperson was quoted as saying
Thursday.
Nathan Shamuyarira accused Brussels-based International
Crisis Group
(ICG), which last week warned that Zimbabwe was on its way to
becoming a
failed state, of urging the opposition to organise a coup, said
the official
Herald newspaper.
Both the MDC and the main labour
body have threatened to hold protests
soon over the deteriorating living
conditions in this once prosperous
southern African country, but no date has
yet been set for the action.
State media last weekend
accused former colonial power Britain and the
United States of using
think-tanks like the ICG to try to topple Mugabe.
"Having failed
completely and repeatedly to topple the strong
government of President R G
Mugabe, either by the ballot box at elections
that are held regularly, or by
acts of sabotaging the national economy, they
(Britain and the US) are now
resorting to the last card, a military coup,"
Shamuyarira said.
"The MDC and its supporters will be trashed, humiliated and split even
further," the spokesperson for the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union
Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) added, in reference to a damaging split in the
opposition group late last year that has left it weakened. -
Sapa-dpa
www.fidh.org
15/06/2006
Zimbabwe
The trial of the six trustees of the
independent radio station "Voice of the
People" (VOP), begins today at the
Magistrates' Court, Rotten Row, Harare.
The International Commission of
Jurists (ICJ) and the Observatory for the
Protection of Human Rights
Defenders (OBSERVATORY), a joint programme of the
International Federation
for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation
Against Torture (OMCT),
have sent a trial observer to monitor whether the
proceedings comply with
international standards for fair trial and whether
the charges comply with
international human rights law.
The trial takes place against a
background of alleged irregularities in the
handling of the case by the
investigating police. These include reports that
investigating police
assaulted an employee of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human
Rights (ZLHR), an
organisation chaired by one of the VOP Trustees, Mr.
Arnold Tsunga, and
arbitrarily detained employees of two of the VOP trustees
in order to compel
those trustees to present themselves to the police for
arrest. Mr. Arnold
Tsunga, who was a co-recipient of the 2006 Martin Ennals
Award for Human
Rights Defenders [1], is also Chairman of the Zimbabwe Human
Rights
Association (Zimrights). Zimrights was recently informed of a serious
threat
to Mr. Arnold Tsunga's life.
The ICJ and the OBSERVATORY have mandated
Mr. Ronald Selvan SC, a
distinguished South African lawyer and acting Judge,
to attend the hearing
and monitor whether or not the accused receive a fair
trial, before an
independent and impartial tribunal, as required by
international human
rights law. The ICJ and the OBSERVATORY call on the
Zimbabwean Government to
ensure that international observers are able to
attend the trial without any
hindrances.
Background
On 25
January 2006, six VOP trustees, Mr. David Masunda, Mr. Arnold Tsunga,
Mr.
Lawrence Chibwe, Mr. Nhlanhla Ngwenya, Mr. Millicent Phiri and Ms.
Isabella
Matambanadzo, were arrested and charged with broadcasting without a
license,
a charge carrying a penalty of up to two years imprisonment. The
accused are
currently free on bail. A preliminary hearing was held on 28
February 2006,
at which a Magistrate decided not to accept the defence's
submission that
there was insufficient evidence to send the case to full
trial.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1]
The Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA), created in
1993,
is a unique collaboration among eleven of the world's leading
non-governmental human rights organisations to give protection to human
rights defenders worldwide. The Jury is composed of the following: Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, FIDH, OMCT, the ICJ,
Diakonie Germany, International Service for Human Rights, International
Alert, Front Line, and Huridocs. Mr. Arnold Tsunga shares the 2006 MEA with
the Iranian human rights defender Mr. Akbar Ganji.
IOL
June 15 2006
at 03:50PM
Harare - Zimbabwean police Thursday razed shacks at a
slum on Harare's
fringes more than a year after a controversial urban
clean-up drive, leaving
scores without shelter, an activist
said.
"At least 78 families have had their shacks razed to the
ground by
municipal police early this morning," Precious Shumba,
spokesperson for the
Combined Harare Residents' Association
said.
Shumba said those affected "including many women and children
have
been told that if they do not find an alternative place to go, then
Harare
officials will again come back for them tomorrow."
The
slum on the banks of the Mukuvisi river in Harare's south housed
families
rendered homeless during a sweeping urban demolitions blitz last
year which
left at least 700 000 homeless and destitute, according to the
United
Nations.
"All in all, 150 people have been affected by
burning houses destroyed
in June last year when the government embarked on
Operation Murambatsvina,"
or Clean up Filth, he added.
In May
last year, the government launched the demolitions campaign
that it
described as a drive to rid cities of filth and crime. It was
launched in
winter, amid severe food and fuel shortages.
Zimbabwe is in the
throes of severe political and economic crisis,
with some 80 percent of the
population living under the poverty threshold.
More than 70 percent
are jobless and inflation crossed the four-digit
level in April and
currently stands at nearly 1 200 percent.
Tafadzwa Mapfumo, a
lawyer with the Zimbabwe Human Rights forum which
is representing the
affected families said it had petitioned the high court
to halt the
evictions. - Sapa-AFP
The Herald
(Harare)
June 15, 2006
Posted to the web June 15, 2006
Fidelis
Munyoro And Chakanetsa Chidyamatiyo
Harare
ZANU-PF administration
director Cde Fredrick Shava and Gokwe-Kana Senator
Shaddy Sai must leave a
farm they occupied on the strength of an eviction
order from the Kwekwe
Magistrates' Courts.
The High Court yesterday granted an application for
a provisional order by
Mr Jacobus Oosthuysen and his family who were evicted
from the farm without
notice in April. The farmer's other family members are
Richard Gravett
Oosthuysen, Phillip Charles Alexander Oosthuysen and Sophia
Oosthuysen
listed as applicants in the case.
Justice Anne-Mary
Gowora, also granted a final order for the two to return,
immediately, the
farming equipment to the Oosthuysen family. In her judgment
on Monday,
Justice Gowora said the Oosthuysen family had made out a case for
the
granting of the interim relief it sought. "I will as a consequence issue
an
order in final terms for the equipment to be released to the applicants
(the
Oosthuysen family) and further that they may be permitted in terms of
this
order to retrieve from whomsoever may be in possession of the same,"
said
Justice Gowora.
"A provisional order is issued in terms of the draft."
Justice Gowora
criticised the Kwekwe magistrate who deal t with the case for
breaking the
natural rules of justice, when they failed to allow the
Oosthuysen family a
chance to be heard in court. " . . . the learned
magistrates (Mr E A Kadye
and Mr C Mudzongachisvo) who issued the ex-parte
orders have filed
affidavits in opposition of the relief being sought. In my
view, they have
taken positions in the cause wherein they seek to defend the
orders which
they issued. Would they change their stance if the matters were
brought back
before them? "I find no proper justification for a judicial
officer to
depose to an affidavit in defence of a decision he or she would
have made.
He or she should not involve himself or herself in the merits of
the
decision being challenged," Justice Gowora said.
Cde Shava, a
former Cabinet Minister, and Sen Sai occupied the farm after
securing an
eviction order from the two Kwekwe magistrates on April 10, and
evicted the
family on the following day. The Oosthuysens then filed an
urgent
application in the High Court, which sought to bar Cde Shava and Sen
Sai
from occupying the farm pending confirmation or discharge of a final
order
in the magistrates' courts.
But Justice Gowora found that the Oosthuysen
family had been improperly
evicted because the magistrates' courts rules do
not permit the grant of an
order for eviction, without allowing the other
party to be heard. "Apart
from infringing this rule (Order 22 Rule 1) in a
fundamental way, the orders
granted for eviction of the applicants from the
farm without notice of the
application to them also violates the rules of
natural justice," the judge
said.
The judge also said it was
disturbing to note that all family members were
evicted through an order
issued against Mr Oosthuysen yet their occupation
of the farm was through
Rolling River Enterprises (Pvt) Ltd, which was the
title holder of the
property. The judge dismissed an argument by Cde Shava
and Sen Sai asking
the court to deny the application on the basis that it
was pending at the
Kwekwe Magistrates' Courts. "Given the manner in which
the orders for
eviction (of the family) were obtained and executed, it would
only be fair
in the circumstances for me to hear the application despite the
matter being
in the Magistrates' Courts in Kwekwe," the judge said.
Justice Gowora
also dismissed an argument by the two that the Oosthuysen
family used a
wrong procedure and should have sought stay of execution at
the magistrates'
courts and not the High Court. She said the Oosthuysen
family could not stop
a process that had already been executed. David Drury
of Gollop and Blank
represented the Oosthuysen family while Masawi and
Mangwana Law Firm
assisted by Mr Charles Chinyama of Chinyama and Partners
acted for the two
who took over the farm. Last week, the High Court ordered
the eviction of a
newly-resettled farmer Mr Day Muyambo who had been
allocated land in
Hurungwe under the land reform programme paving the way
for the previous
farm owners to repossess their property.
Mr Muyambo was allocated the
land in September last year, but Justice Bharat
Patel ruled his occupation
of the farm as unlawful and granted a provisional
order compelling him to
leave the farm. In his judgment, Justice Patel said
the former owners
Hendrick Pieter Terblanche, Gert Cornelis Terblanche, Anna
Terblanche, Moy
Enterprise and Nduba Farm who had applied for a provisional
order to
continue to conduct their farming operations without interference,
should do
so.
This he said, should remain the case until such time when the land
and
improvements made on it were compulsorily acquired in accordance with
the
law. In their application, the previous owners of the farm argued that
the
property had not been subjected to an acquisition order, adding that the
acquiring authority had not served them with a competent notice to vacate or
to wind up operations. They also argued that their right to possession,
occupation and production was protected by subsisting grower's contracts and
partnerships with approved investors.
However, in his submissions Mr
Muyambo argued that the national policy on
land redistribution overrides any
other agreement. He said the aggrieved
farmers could only be compensated in
terms of section 16A of the
Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Act.
By
Tererai Karimakwenda
15 June 2006
Highlighting governments
disastrous demolition policies Tuesday,
another displaced victim of last
year's operation died in a squatter camp
outside Bulawayo. This death could
have been prevented had the
non-governmental organisations and church groups
in the area been allowed to
feed displaced families and to provide shelter
and blankets for the winter.
But according to church officials government
policy has been to deny the
people the basic necessities and to make it
difficult for anyone else to
help them.
We spoke to a reverend
who has been gathering blankets and collecting
food for displaced families
at the informal settlement of Killarney outside
Bulawayo and he told us at
least 2 people are dying there every week. He
said the main cause of the
deaths is malnutrition combined with the cold
weather that has set in. There
is a desperate need for food and blankets.
The reverend chose to
protect his identity and that of the deceased
because he believes that
otherwise he may find it even more difficult to
continue his vital work. He
told us NGOs are not allowed to feed the
residents at Killarney, an informal
peri-urban settlement that was destroyed
during Operation Murambatsvina in
2005. Many of the families that were
displaced at the time have come back to
nothing and are living in shacks
without any running water. The reverend
said the church has been assisting
these families but working under
stringent rules and in a very negative
atmosphere.
Malnutrition
weakens the immune system and without shelter many of the
displaced people
have been coughing. The reverend said in most cases the
cough brings on
severe chest pains which eventually lead to death. He
appealed for help with
maize meal and other food items and blankets would
ease the suffering of
these desperate people.
The death on Tuesday has intensified debate
about the role of the
church in resolving the crisis that has gripped the
country. Some of church
leaders who met with Mugabe last month have been
accused of supporting the
ruling party's policies and forgetting about the
people's suffering.
The church in Zimbabwe is now split over how
best to approach the
crisis. The Archbishop of Bulawayo Pius Ncube has said
some church officials
were given farms and bribes by the ruling party in
exchange for bringing
their parishioners to support
ZANU-PF.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
By Tichaona
Sibanda
15 June 2006
Over 1,5 million people across the
country's second largest city of
Bulawayo were plunged into confusion and
chaos after a huge power cut on
Thursday, forcing the city to grind to halt
for the first time in many
years. Industries were shut down, supermarkets
and shops were closed and
workers were told to go back home as morning
rush-hour traffic became
gridlocked. The blackout had hit the city at
midnight Wednesday. By midday
Thursday most of the city still had no
power.
Our correspondent Themba Nkosi said that as the day
progressed
electricity began to come back in some areas of the city although
most was
limited backup power. Zesa officials said full restoration would
take much
longer. Nkosi said Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority officials
have
blamed the outage on a breakdown of their outdated equipment, which has
been
in operation for the last half century. But the power cut has exposed
the
state utility's battle to supply adequate electricity to its
consumers.
The regime in the country will argue that it has moved
swiftly to kick
start the upgrading of the Hwange power-generating plant in
an attempt to
forestall criticism of the country's ailing power network. Two
days ago,
vice-President Joyce Mujuru, signed a US$1.3 billion deal with
China to help
relieve an acute shortage of energy. The Herald newspaper said
Chinese
companies will build new coal mines and three thermal power stations
in the
Zambezi valley on the Zambian border.
In the last 5
years countless deals have been signed to upgrade the
country's power
stations but nothing has ever got off the ground.
An electrical
engineer based in the UK said with almost all the
domestic electricity
production reliant on hydro-electric and coal power
stations like Hwange,
utilities constructed many years ago, the crisis can
only be dealt with by
acquiring foreign currency to import new parts.
'The unprecedented
power cut which left Bulawayo in darkness on
Wednesday is symptomatic of a
growing problem not confined to that city
alone. In almost every part of the
country, generators have been unable to
keep pace with the increasing demand
for electricity and with the need to
spend money on upgrading outdated
infrastructure, the government is surely
fighting a lost battle,' said the
engineer.
In Zimbabwe, the rate of power plant construction has
failed to keep
pace with growing demand, which has been boosted by the rise
in the
popularity of air-conditioning units and refrigerators.
'Privatisation of power generation is another way of solving the
problem,
but with the present government, its obviously a non starter. I won't
be
surprised to hear that the whole system has now been compromised and can
collapse in a domino effect as each point down the line gets overwhelmed
leading to other cities and towns going the same way as Bulawayo,' the
engineer said.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
12 June 2006
Roy Bennett refused asylum in
SA
MARIAN TUPY
On May 26, South African government denied
political asylum to Roy Bennett,
the outspoken critic of Zimbabwe's ruler
Robert Mugabe and former member of
that country's Parliament. Bennett fled
to South Africa in April 2006 to
escape incarceration on trumped-up charges
of attempting to assassinate
Mugabe. If returned to Zimbabwe, he will likely
end up in jail. Bennett's
treatment stands in stark contrast with Pretoria's
treatment of
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose corrupt and authoritarian rule
over Haiti did
not prevent him from getting an asylum in South Africa.
Clearly, as far a
Pretoria is concerned, not all political refugees are
equal.
Bennett made the news in May 2004, when he scuffled with Justice
Minister
Patrick Chinamasa on the floor of Zimbabwe's Parliament. Bennett,
who lost
his farm during Mugabe's disastrous land expropriation policy, lost
his cool
when Chinamasa said that Bennett "has not forgiven the government
for
acquiring his farm, but he forgets that his forefathers were thieves and
murderers." Though he later apologized for the incident, Bennett was
sentenced to one year in prison by the Parliament dominated by Mugabe's
loyalists. Bennett was "made to stand naked in front of prison guards and
... given a prison uniform covered with human excrement." While in jail, the
once stocky farmer ruined his health and lost 66 pounds.
Earlier this
year, Bennett went into hiding and later fled to South Africa.
His flight
followed the alleged discovery of an arms cache on a farm in
eastern
Zimbabwe. The government immediately started rounding up opposition
figures
and put out a warrant for Bennett's arrest. Once he arrived in South
Africa,
Bennett petitioned for political asylum under that country's 1998
Refugees
Act. According to the act,
"no person may be refused entry into [South
Africa], expelled, extradited or
returned to any other country ... if as a
result of such refusal, expulsion,
extradition, return or other measure,
such person is compelled to return to
or remain in a country where he or she
may be subjected to persecution on
account of his or her race, religion,
nationality, political opinion or
membership of a particular social group;
or his or her life, physical safety
or freedom would be threatened on
account of external aggression,
occupation, foreign domination or other
events seriously disturbing or
disrupting public order in either part or the
whole of that country."
Under normal circumstances, Bennett would have a
strong case for remaining
in South Africa. He is a political refugee from a
country where public order
and the rule of law have totally broken down. The
government routinely
ignores court orders it disagrees with and murders its
political opponents.
The country's economy is being run by and for the
benefit of Mugabe and his
cronies. And there is little doubt that Bennett's
personal safety would be
imperiled, considering that Zimbabwe's Security
Minister Didymus Mutasa
already threatened the regime's opponents with
physical elimination.
Absurdly, Mutasa's fellow cabinet minister in charge
of Home Affairs, Kembo
Mohadi, recently stated that the government has
"never persecuted anybody in
Zimbabwe."
However, South Africa's
ruling elite is strangely enamored with Mugabe, the
former Marxist
revolutionary turned despot. South Africans have pursued a
policy of
appeasement toward Mugabe, which they euphemistically call "quiet
diplomacy." The policy has been a massive failure. In the last few years,
Zimbabwe deteriorated into a primeval state marked by violence, famine and
disease, 80 percent unemployment, and 1,000 percent inflation.
And so
Bennett's request for political asylum was denied. Contrast that with
Pretoria's treatment of the deposed ex-president of Haiti Jean-Bertrand
Aristide. According to a report by the U.S. State Department, Aristide ran a
"corrupt" government "shot through with drug money." Another recent report
by the U.S. Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
claimed that "8 percent of illegal drugs entering the United States had
passed through Haiti." Moreover, during his 2004 trial in Florida, Beaudoin
Ketant, a former confidant of Aristide's and his daughter's godfather,
testified that Aristide "controlled the drug trade in Haiti. He turned the
country into a narco-country. It's a one-man show. You either pay [Aristide]
or you die."
In December 2005, Raoul Peck, who was Haiti's Minister
of Culture under
Prime Minister Rosny Smarth, wrote in the Wall Street
Journal, that Aristide
"turned into a mob leader. The language of
reconciliation gave way to the
"necklacing" of political opponents, the
firebombing of radio stations,
homes and offices of opponents, the murder of
journalists like Jean
Dominique and Brignol Lindor, and the unwillingness to
bring the criminals
to justice. Hired thugs raped and kidnapped even the
poorest of the poor in
the slums that Aristide always pretended he was
defending." South African
government's response to the mounting evidence of
Aristide's misrule was to
send him a shipment of armaments to keep him in
power. When that failed, he
was welcomed to South Africa, where he enjoys
luxurious exile paid for by
the South African taxpayer.
Pretoria's
treatment of Bennett drips with hypocrisy. Isn't it about time
that South
African government started living by the high principles it
preaches around
the world?
Marian L. Tupy is Assistant Director of the Project on Global
Economic
Liberty at the Cato Institute.
TradingMarkets.com
Thursday, June 15, 2006; Posted: 08:42 AM
(RTTNews) - Thursday,
Zimbabwe's consumer basket for a family of six gained
17% month-over-month
in May, a consumer council report indicated this week.
The number,
considering only urban centers, stood at 48 million Zimbabwe
dollars in May
compared to 41 million Zimbabwe dollars in April. Increases
in commodity
prices, especially transport and bread, pushed the number
higher. Earlier in
the week, the nation's statistical office said the
poverty datum line for
the month of May rose to 52 million Zimbabwe dollars
from $37.9 million
Zimbabwe dollars in April, while Bulawayo emerged the
most expensive
province in the country.
TradingMarkets.com
Thursday, June 15, 2006; Posted: 08:56 AM
(RTTNews) - Zimbabwe
government's domestic debt has surged to an all-time
high of 22.36 trillion
Zimbabwe dollars in May, reports said Wednesday. The
African nation has the
world's highest inflation rate pegged at 1193.5% in
May. The central bank is
blamed for flooding the market with excessive issue
of paper in an effort to
stem inflationary credit. Meanwhile, economists
warn that the central bank's
move may result in money supply problems in
future.
IOL
June 15
2006 at 02:27PM
Harare - The trial of seven directors of an
independent radio station
charged with violating Zimbabwe's tough media laws
was postponed on Thursday
after a key witness for the prosecution failed to
turn up at the court.
Prosecutor Justin Uladi said an expert from
the government
broadcasting authority who was due to give evidence at the
start of the
trial was in Switzerland on business.
Lawyer
Beatrice Mtetwa protested at the delay questioning why the
witness had
travelled overseas when he knew he was expected to attend the
trial.
"This is unacceptable," Mtetwa told the court. "Since
January the
prosecution has been telling us and even yesterday (Wednesday)
they said
they are ready for trial and we keep getting these
postponements."
The seven directors of the Voice of the
People (VOP) radio station
were arrested in December and January and briefly
detained at Harare's main
police station, accused of possession and
operation of transmission
equipment without a licence.
The
seven - Arnold Tsunga, Millie Phiri, Isabella Matambanadzo, David
Masunda
and Nhlanhla Ngwenya, Lawrence Chibwe and John Masuku - are now due
to stand
trial beginning on September 25.
The shortwave radio station is one
of only two independent
broadcasters which have managed to circumvent
Zimbabwe's repressive media
laws by using transmitters outside the country
to carry their programmes on
shortwave.
Most of VOP's
programming is in the two main languages - Shona and
Ndebele - placing it
among the few independent media able to reach the large
rural population who
have no access to newspapers.
Zimbabwe has four radio stations and
one television station all
controlled by the government.
Plainclothes police in December ransacked the radio station's offices
in
central Harare, arresting staffers Maria Nyanyiwa, Takunda Chigwanda and
Nyasha Bosha and held them in cells for four days.
The three
employees are also to face trial alongside the seven
directors.
Under the strict broadcasting laws passed in 2001, radio stations are
required to register with a government-appointed board.
A
breach of the laws attracts a ZIM$5-million (about R333) penalty or
a jail
term of up two years.
VOP broadcasts into Zimbabwe on shortwave
from its transmitter in
Madagascar. Its offices were firebombed in August
2002.
VOA
By
Patience Rusere
Washington, DC
14 June
2006
The outspoken Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of
Bulawayo has taken aim
at Zimbabwe's political opposition, criticizing its
leadership for failing
to inspire enough confidence in the population to
bring about mass protests
of conditions.
Known as a blunt-speaking
critic of President Robert Mugabe, the prelate
said in an interview with the
Catholic News Service this week that the
founding president of the Movement
for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai,
talked big but had "no vision."
Ncube said Tsvangirai had ignored national
crises like the government's 2005
slum-demolition drive and tended to cling
to power much like President
Mugabe.
As for rival MDC faction leader Arthur Mutambata, Ncube said the
former
student leader and expatriate businessman lacked political maturity,
which
he said had helped to perpetuate the split in the opposition and
thereby
reduced its effectiveness.
Reporter Patience Rusere of VOA's
Studio 7 for Zimbabwe interviewed Ncube.
Tsvangirai spokesman William
Bango took issue with Ncube's comments, saying
that Tsvangirai has been
implementing policies agreed on by the party's
membership. But Deputy
Information Secretary Abednico Bhebhe of the
Mutambara wing of the MDC said
Ncube's criticisms were constructive and
would be taken to
heart.
Elsewhere on the political scent, Interim leader Daniel Shumba of
the newly
founded United People's Party said he hopes more than 100,000
people will
turn out June 24 for the party's official launch. The former
ZANU-PF
chairman for Masvingo Province was suspended from the ruling party
in the
course of a 2004 power struggle.
Shumba told reporter Carole
Gombakomba of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that
he hopes his party will make
a difference in the country's political and
economic crisis.
ekklesia.co.uk
A fortnight ago exiled UK Zimbabweans called on Archbishop of
York Dr John
Sentamu, a Ugandan former judge, to intervene in the argument
about the
actions of a pro-Mugabe Anglican bishop.
But now Lambeth
Palace has announced that his boss, Archbishop of Canterbury
Dr Rowan
Williams, has stepped into the dispute.
Dr Williams has said that Bishop
Nolbert Kunonga should be suspended until
allegations against him have been
dealt with.
In 2005 Kunonga was brought to trial and accused of
violations of canon and
civil law, including incitement to murder his
opponents. The trial broke
down after the judge abruptly quit, throwing the
proceedings in disarray.
But the problems have not gone away.
"In the
context of a prolonged and political crisis, the [Anglican] Diocese
of
Harare faces intolerable strain in the form of the very grave and
unresolved
accusations against Bishop Kunonga," said a statement from the
Archbishop's
London office.
It continued: "In other jurisdictions, a priest or bishop
facing such
serious charges would be suspended without prejudice until the
case had been
closed. It is therefore very difficult for Bishop Kunonga to
be regarded as
capable of functioning as a bishop elsewhere in the
communion."
Dr Williams is spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican
Communion, and it
was felt that he alone had the authority to make this
move, even though he
has no official juridical powers.
The Rev Paul
Gwese, exiled rector of St Francis of Assisi in the Harare
suburb of Glen
Norah, says that "since his controversial ordination in 2001
[Bishop Nolbert
Kunonga] has terrorised Christians, and is turning his
diocese into a
religious branch of Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF party."
He adds: "People want
spiritual leaders who are accountable, but when you
look at the way things
are being done in Harare Diocese, church politics is
no different from
secular politics."
Christians in Zimbabwe have been divided by President
Mugabe's often brutal
rule, which has destroyed the economy, violated human
rights and attacked
press freedom.
Some have been courageous in
speaking out for social justice. But others
have been cowed into submission
or collusion.
Canada Free Press
You
bloodywell are - that's who!
By David Cobain
Thursday, June 15,
2006
Millions of human beings are starving in Zimbabwe, thrown off their
land or
out of their jobs by their barbarous compatriots - and you are
responsible,
in complicity with the academic leftists, social loonies and
corrupt
politicians you have spawned.
That's how I thought I should
start a recollection of my experiences in
Zimbabwe 20 years after leaving
that fatally appealing piece of southern
Africa. But further reflection
induced in me a moderating sadness that no
degree of indignation could
lessen.
Outrage can be entertaining, of course, but bludgeoning readers
with
statements and statistics risks turning even Canadian tolerance, that
philosophical poodle of our age, into a sullen beast. Perhaps, I thought
then, a few telling anecdotes, instead. Thus....
One lunchtime,
during my first week in what was then Rhodesia - days before
Prime Minister
Ian Smith unilaterally declared his country independent of
Britain - I was
introduced to Chad Chipunza, leader of the opposition United
People's
Party.
We were drinking, I and my editor, in the National Club, at the
Ambassador
Hotel in Salisbury, now Harare. Chad, knowing my companion well,
came over
to greet us and stayed for the next hour or so, until we returned
reluctantly to our office.
He was the first African I had met
socially, apart from brief encounters
with visiting politicians, businessmen
and students I had interviewed, and
occasionally had drinks with, when I
worked for the Central Office of
Information in London.
I was charmed
and immediately attracted. Chad was a naturally friendly man,
blessed with a
rotund face that swelled frequently into an embracing grin.
He was also
given to dropping into any receptive ear the most startling
names of the day
or decade.
'As I said to Jack...', he once began a sentence to me.
'Jack?' I said.
'Jack Kennedy!' he responded, with histrionic
surprise.
On another occasion, he confided: 'Dev - I am going to London,
to see
Harold'. Knowing by then how the game was played and sure of my role,
I
responded as required: 'Harold?' 'Wilson!', said Chad, with indulgent
amusement.
Chad was a truly wonderful companion and a good friend,
demonstrating to me
over the years many appealing facets of what one might
consider the nature
of the sub-saharan African and his view of life and the
dangerous world he
had always inhabited.
But he was more than that.
He was, if no seer or pundit, a thoughtful man
with a rare grasp of Africa's
past, combined with a sympathetic
understanding of its present and a growing
apprehension at what he regarded
as its fearsome future.
'If Africans
get so upset about this,' he observed once, after street
protests about some
actual or imagined racial hurt, 'they should wait and
see what their own
people do to them.' And, this time, there was no smile on
the face of my
usually genial friend.
If I knew that Chad was dead (I am not sure, as we
lost touch over the
tumultuous years, but he was unlikely to have long
survived the advent of
Mugabe, whom he referred to, characteristically, as
Bob), I'd be glad he
didn't live to see his forecast so monstrously
fulfilled.
I don't wish this on all my Zimbabwean friends, of course -
but I'm inclined
to hope, too, that Delia, our one-time housegirl, has also,
one way or
another, avoided the horrific 'independence' and 'Africanization'
that we
have, collectively, imposed on them.
Delia was a lovely young
woman. Not a designer Afro-this or Afro-that...but
a good, bright,
conscientious African youngster who enjoyed her position in
my home
(snigger, you bloody socialists!) as much as we delighted in her.
We
parted from her reluctantly, and sadly, when the rush of
'Zimbabweanization'
after the 1980 election took my job (which I didn't
resent for a second) and
made expedient a move to then badly troubled, and
increasingly fearful,
South Africa.
There were, at the time, perhaps five million black
Africans in the new
Zimbabwe and fewer than 100,000 whites. Finding a job
for Delia in such
circumstances seemed unlikely - but, still, we put an ad
in The Rhodesia
Herald extolling her virtues.
We were surprised,
then, and Delia overcome by almost insupportable pride,
to receive responses
from eight families looking for a reliable housegirl.
Seven of the families,
judging from their names, were European or white
Rhodesian, one was
African.
Given a list of their details, Delia scanned it and quickly made
her first
decision. 'Not that one!' she said, stabbing the African name with
a finger.
We didn't ask why: we thought we knew. It was, anyway, Delia's
life and one
of the few choices open to her.
Delia went off to toil
for her new European master as we decamped to face
the unpleasantness of
much of life in South Africa. And she seemed, we
learned from her first
letter, to have landed on her - or, anyway, somebody's
- feet. She asked
that we send her a watch.
As with my wish for Chad (whose name came from
a church his father spotted
during a visit to London: St. Chad's, I
suppose), I hope life has gone well
for Delia. But, given the savagery
rampant in her country, that hope is as
thin as she must be, if she is
alive.
I am no more optimistic about Kingston Mpanda, my friend and
protector from
all manner of evil, about Daniel Kabaya, a touchingly
childlike admirer I
tried to groom for one of Zimbabwe's new consular posts,
about Hudson, a
desk clerk at the Ambassador Hotel.
It was Hudson,
one of those taciturn Africans suspected, no doubt rightly,
of harbouring
unacceptable political ambitions, who paid me one of the most
affecting
compliments of my mis-spent life. It brings tears to my eyes, even
now, all
these years later.
He leaned across his desk one night, as I left the bar
to stagger
uncertainly homeward. 'You know,' he said, a stern puzzlement on
his face as
he peered at me, 'I don't like white men in my country. But I
don't mind
you...I don't know why!'
I didn't know, either. What I do
know now is that the brutal rapine
inflicted on beautiful Zimbabwe as
'progress' and 'self-determination' makes
me weep for my lost friends and
their enchanting innocence. May they rest -
if they cannot live - in
peace.
David Cobain has worked as a writer, editor and broadcaster in
eight
countries around the world for such organizations as CondÈ Nast,
Reuters,
Associated Press, Agence France Presse, the South African Press
Association
and the BBC. As he tells it, he's 'worked for the best and been
rejected by
the most dismal - notably, The Toronto Star, the (Toronto) Sun
and the
National Post'. Born in London, England, he's lived in Toronto,
intermittently, for 50 years. David can be reached at
letters@canadafreepress.com