Mail and Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
22 March 2006 11:07
Zimbabwe's ruling party has accused opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai of
advocating war following his call for mass protests and warned
of reprisals,
a daily newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The Zimbabwe African
National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF)
party said in a statement that
Tsvangirai should "desist from attempts to
incite civil disobedience" as it
"could lead to bloodshed and undermine
democracy", the state-run Herald
said.
"It is surprising that those leaders who never went to
war are
the ones advocating it," said the statement.
"Those who reject the legal and democratic way of running the
government and
choose confrontation will be confronted by the long arm of
the state," it
added.
Tsvangirai, who was re-elected president of a faction
of the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party on Sunday, warned
President
Robert Mugabe, saying "the dictator must brace himself for a long,
bustling
winter across the country".
The former trade
union leader called on about 14 000 supporters
at a weekend conference to
take part in a "sustained cold season of peaceful
democratic
resistance".
The statement by Zanu-PF information secretary
Nathan
Shamuyarira and Elliot Manyika, national political commissar, said
the MDC
had not taken part in Zimbabwe's liberation war against British
colonial
rule and therefore did not understand the implications of
violence.
"Their leaders have never fought in a war, and they
do not know
the problems of promoting war in a society," it
said.
"War is not like a picnic or a dinner party, it is
blood, sweat,
injuries, and death."
Once posing the
biggest challenge to Mugabe's rule, the MDC
split late last year over
Tsvangirai's decision to boycott senate elections
and the gap between the
rival camps shows no sign of being bridged.
Created in 1999
with Tsvangirai as its leader, the MDC made
major gains in the 2000
parliamentary elections but lost ground in last
year's March elections that
the party dismissed as a sham.
The ruling party also
reiterated a charge that the MDC and
Tsvangirai were puppets of Britain
which has criticised Mugabe's land
reforms in which thousands of white farms
were seized and redistributed to
landless black farmers.
"No matter how Tsvangirai may try to market his lies and wishful
thinking,
MDC has remained the baby of our colonial masters in Britain," it
said.
"It is indeed the master's voice and will continue
playing to
the gallery of the West."
Political analysts
say the MDC is at the moment too weakened to
confront the government and its
army in the streets after the opposition
party split into two rival
political parties.
Besides the Tsvangirai-led MDC -- which is
widely seen as the
main rival to Mugabe's Zanu-PF party -- there is another
faction of the
opposition party that also calls itself the MDC and is led by
former student
activist Arthur Mutambara.
Calls in the
past by Tsvangirai and his MDC for mass revolt have
fizzled out with only a
handful of people heeding such calls, while the army
and police have always
been more than ready to prevent people from taking to
the streets against
the government.
But analysts and observers say Zimbabwe -- in
the grip of its
worst economic crisis to date, which has seen shortages of
literally every
basic survival commodity, from fuel to food and electricity
and with
inflation beyond 700% -- may just be ripe for a revolution. -
Sapa
Zim Online
Thu
23 March 2006
MUTARE - Zimbabwe's labour movement, churches,
student and civic
groups on Wednesday endorsed calls by main opposition
leader Morgan
Tsvangirai for a popular uprising against President Robert
Mugabe, stocking
up tensions in a country already on edge.
The
groups that met in Mutare included the National Constitutional
Assembly
(NCA) that campaigns for a new and democratic constitution for
Zimbabwe,
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition,
Zimbabwe
Council of Churches, Zimbabwe National Students Union, Zimbabwe
Lawyers for
Human Rights (ZLHR), Women Coalition and Bulawayo Agenda.
The civic
groups' decision to support Tsvangirai's calls for mass
protests came the
same day the state-controlled Herald newspaper published a
stern warning to
the opposition leader by Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF party in
which the party
said anti-government street protests could lead to
bloodshed.
Mugabe's government has in the past
used the army and police to
ruthlessly thwart protests by civic groups and
Tsvangirai's Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party.
But
ZLHR director Arnold Tsunga, among prominent leaders who were at
the Mutare
meeting, said the civic groups had resolved to mobilise
Zimbabweans to free
the country from its "political and economic woes" and
to pay with their
lives if need be.
Tsunga said: "People have said they have had
enough of praying in the
hotels and churches, they said they wanted to
translate that into some
activity .. we have a regime that can deal with us
heavily hence we want to
put mechanisms and strategies to minimise
that.
"Of course there will be a price to pay - even of lives. But
ultimately, failure is not an option."
Human rights activist
and NCA leader, Lovemore Madhuku, said civic
leaders would now go to the
ground and mobilise Zimbabweans for the mass
demonstrations but hinted the
protests would take time to organise.
"We are living in misery:
politically and economically all because of
the way we are governed," said
Madhuku. "We will organise demonstrations but
not today or anytime this
week."
Earlier in the day, prominent Bishop Trevor Manhanga had
urged civic
leaders to take up the cudgels and fight for human rights and
democracy in
the country saying no one but Zimbabweans could save the
country.
Addressing his party's congress last week, Tsvangirai
urged
Zimbabweans to save food and money ahead of what he called a "cold
season of
peaceful democratic resistance" to end Mugabe's 26-year-old
rule.
He repeated the same threats to lead a popular revolt against
Mugabe
and his ZANU PF party during a Press conference with journalists in
Harare
on Tuesday.
Responding to the threats, ZANU PF warned
Tsvangirai that it will use
the law to punish him and upping the tempo told
the opposition leader that
it alone had "the gruelling experience of
war."
Calls in the past by Tsvangirai and his MDC for mass revolt
have
fizzled out with only a handful of people heeding such calls while the
army
and police have always been more than ready to prevent people from
taking to
the streets against the government.
But analysts and
observers say Zimbabwe - in the grip of its worst
ever economic crisis that
has seen shortages of literally every basic
survival commodity from fuel to
food and electricity and with inflation
beyond 700 percent - may just be
ripe for a revolution. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Thu 23 March
2006
HARARE - A dispossessed white landowner is suing President
Robert
Mugabe in a case that will test how far the government is prepared to
abide
by its own laws empowering it to seize only agricultural land for
redistribution to landless blacks.
In an application to the
High Court earlier this month, Alexander
Stuart Ross, wants the court to
compel Mugabe to reverse the acquisition of
his land by the government,
arguing that the land, known as Gletwyn Farm or
Gletwyn Township, is part of
Harare municipal land.
The government's Land Acquisition Act and
Constitutional Amendment No
17 passed last year exempt municipal land from
seizure by the state under
its controversial land reform
programme.
According to Ross, Gletwyn, which is registered in his
name, was
incorporated into the Harare municipal area by statutory
instrument 41 of
1996.
The government seized the property in
November 2004 and gave it over
to the police to develop into residential
stands for members of the law
enforcement agency.
A private
company that is said to be chaired by Deputy Finance
Minister David Chapfika
was supposed to have started work together with the
Police Heights Housing
Co-operative trying to develop Gletwyn into a
residential suburb. The land
developer has however not done so yet.
Ross argues in papers filed
at court that it was illegal for the
government to acquire Gletwyn because
the Land Acquisition Act upon which it
based its actions does not permit the
state to acquire municipal land for
purposes of redistribution.
"A piece of land under municipal area cannot be acquired under the
provisions of the Land Acquisition Act applicable to agricultural land, as
all land within any municipal area is expressly excluded from such
provisions," Ross states in his papers.
Section 2, Chapter
20:10 of the Act stipulates that "agricultural land
required for
resettlement purposes" means any rural land the acquisition of
which is
reasonably required for resettlement purposes and which is
identified in a
preliminary notice as being required for those purposes -
rural land means
any land other than land which is in a municipal area or
local government
area.
Last August's constitutional amendment bans citizens from
contesting
in court seizure of their land by the state but the controversial
amendment
also makes it clear that the government can only take farmland
for purposes
of resettlement.
Mugabe and his senior officials
have also made clear at various public
fora that they will only seize
farmland for redistribution to black
villagers who do not have adequate land
to grow crops and raise animals.
Ross says in his court
application: "If the state were to start
seizing urban land by 'selective
nationalisation', it is possible the
property market, upon which the state
depends for many revenues and many
people depend for their livelihoods,
would collapse."
It was not possible to get comment from State
Security Minister
Didymus Mutasa, who oversees land redistribution or from
Attorney General
Sobuza Gula-Ndebele, the government's chief
lawyer.
Up to 10 government ministers and heads of department are
cited as
respondents in the application. Among the respondents are Mutasa,
Chapfika,
Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo, Lands and Agriculture
Minister
Joseph Made, Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri and Reserve Bank
of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono.
Gono, who has strongly
spoken against land seizures, is named as a
respondent because he allegedly
financed the unauthorised subdivision of
Gletywn by Divine
Homes.
The RBZ boss has called for an end to land seizures saying
continued
disturbances on farms was hampering efforts to produce food and
more
agricultural exports, vital to efforts to end a severe economic crisis
that
has seen inflation shooting above 700 percent while every basic
commodity is
in critical short supply.
Critics blame the
government's farm seizure programme for
destabilising the mainstay
agricultural sector, causing food shortages and
worsening the economic
crisis. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Thu 23
March 2006
HARARE - A Zimbabwean judge who was scheduled to hear
the bail
application of Peter Michael Hitschmann, who is accused of treason,
on
Wednesday recused himself from the case after the Attorney General's
office
objected to his handling of the case.
A lawyer
representing Hitschmann, Peter Makombe said Justice Hungwe
had agreed to
recuse himself from the treason case in which his client is
accused of
plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe.
Makombe said the
matter will be heard today by another High Court
judge, Justice
Chitakunye.
"Justice Hungwe was told to recuse himself from the
case. The AG's
office said he should not handle the case because he handled
the bail
applications of the other suspects in Mutare. He recused himself
and the
matter will now be heard tomorrow (Thursday)," said
Makombe.
Hitschmann, together with several other Movement for
Democratic Change
(MDC) party activists including the party's legislator for
Mutare North,
Giles Mutsekwa, were three weeks ago arrested by the police
following the
discovery of an arms cache in Mutare.
But Hungwe
last week ordered the release of Mutsekwa and the other
activists from
police custody citing lack of evidence. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Thu 23
March 2006
GABORONE - Police in Botswana on Sunday arrested four
Zimbabweans for
stealing fuel worth over 61 000 pula (about US$12
200).
A police spokesman in Gaborone, Superintendent Mogomotsi
Mogapeisi,
said the four Zimbabweans were found in possession of huge
quantities of
fuel all worth 61 000 pula which they failed to account
for.
One of the Zimbabweans, who is believed to be part of the fuel
smuggling syndicate, was found in possession of 20 860 pula which he also
failed to account for.
"They could not account for the petrol
and the cash and have been
remanded in custody," Mogapeisi
said.
The four are expected to appear in court on
Tuesday.
Fuel is in critical short supply in Zimbabwe, which is in
its sixth
year of a bitter economic recession, because the Harare
authorities do not
have the foreign currency to import the commodity. -
ZimOnline
CNN
Wednesday, March 22,
2006; Posted: 1:25 p.m. EST (18:25 GMT)
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- For
the first time in at least 40 years, supplies
of Coca-Cola dried up
Wednesday, another sign of economic crisis in
Zimbabwe, where people suffer
acute bread shortages and farmers warn of
worse to come.
Harare agents
for the U.S. Coca-Cola Company said local production of the
drink stopped
earlier this month, but refused to give official reasons. Bar
and cafe
owners said they had been promised resumed deliveries at the end of
the
month, but were told hard currency shortages had prevented licensed
bottlers
importing the secret concentrated syrup used to mix the popular
soft
drink.
One sports club in Harare on Wednesday sold imported canned Coke
made under
license in Malaysia for 100,000 Zimbabwe dollars (US$1.00),
double the price
of the locally bottled version.
It was the first
Coke drought across the country for at least four decades,
shop owners said.
Throughout the seven-year guerrilla war that ended white
rule and led to
independence in 1980, Coca-Cola was available in rural
stores in the heart
of war zones.
Traditionally, it has been the country's best-selling soft
drink, and its
absence underscored the nation's worst economic crisis since
independence.
Farmers' groups on Wednesday predicted a further decline in
wheat
production, blaming acute shortages of fertilizers, gasoline and
electric
power to run aging irrigation equipment.
The three main
farming organizations said in a joint statement that their
members estimated
planting about 45,000 hectares (108,000 acres) of
irrigated winter wheat
this year, down from 65,000 hectares (156,000 acres)
last year and less than
half the area needed to meet the nation's demand for
bread and other
wheat-based foods.
Shortages of bread, a second staple after corn, also
in short supply, power
outages and scarcities of gasoline, fertilizer and
other essential imports
have become routine in the troubled southern African
nation.
Poor harvests last year yielded about half the nation's
consumption of wheat
and corn. The shortfall was supplemented by imports and
food aid.
In January this year, at least 3 million Zimbabweans were
receiving
emergency food handouts.
The collapse of the
agriculture-based economy since 2000 spurred record
inflation to 780 percent
last month, the highest rate in the world.
xinhua
www.chinaview.cn
2006-03-23 02:39:43
HARARE, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Africa should
take charge of its
airwaves and speak with one voice so to portray a correct
picture about
developments on the continent, Zimbabwe's Information and
Publicity
Minister, Tichaona Jokonya, said on Wednesday.
Addressing a Joint Command and Staff Course on the role of
information in
developing countries, the minister said control of the media
was essential
for the development of the continent.
"We have regional
protocols that enable and even require us to
organize ourselves so we speak
to the rest of the world in our words, from
our own point of view," he
said.
"We need news from an African perspective to counter the
predominantly Eurocentric perspective we have had all
along."
The African Union had last year made references to the
establishment of radio and television stations to ensure that the continent
had a pan African voice, he said, and it was critical that this be
implemented. Enditem
Cape Argus
March 22, 2006
The head of Zimbabwe's
media regulatory body wants to tighten press
laws to control the
distribution of "subversive material of foreign origin",
the
state-controlled Herald newspaper reported.
Zimbabwe's Media and
Information Commission (MIC) has control over
which newspapers are published
in the country. But a few foreign
publications, critical of President Robert
Mugabe's government, are
distributed in Zimbabwe.
The papers
include weeklies such as The Zimbabwean, published in
Britain; South
Africa's Mail and Guardian newspaper and the Sunday Times of
South
Africa.
"It is essential that we should regulate both the
publishers and the
distributors," MIC chairman Tafataona Mahoso was quoted
as saying. He did
not name the offending publications.
"Those distributors who import foreign periodicals should indicate
where
they are procuring such periodicals," Mahoso told a parliamentary
committee
on transport and communications.
Meanwhile, the state-run news
agency is "on the brink of collapse,"
the Herald revealed in a separate
report.
Some staff members of the agency, New Ziana, are "failing
to come to
work because of poor salaries which were sometimes paid too
late," the
chairman of the parliamentary committee on transport and
communications, Leo
Mugabe - a nephew of Mugabe - was quoted as saying. -
Sapa-dpa
Mail and Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
22 March 2006
08:51
Zimbabwe's tobacco farmers are this year expected to
produce
just 55-million kilogrammes of tobacco, the lowest output for years,
state
radio reported on Tuesday.
"Tobacco output for this
year is expected to be lower than last
year's, with an average output of
between 50 and 55-million kilogrammes for
the crop," the radio reported
Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB)
technical services executive
Andrew Matibiri as saying.
The TIMB had earlier this year
predicted a harvest of 70-million
kilogrammes of the leaf, once the
country's biggest earner of hard currency.
Tobacco production
has been in steep decline since President
Robert Mugabe's government
launched a controversial programme of seizing
white-owned commercial farms
for redistribution to new black farmers.
In 1999, a year
before the land seizures, Zimbabwe produced
250-million kilogrammes of
tobacco. Last year, production figures stood at
only 74-million kilogrammes.
The leaf crop, produced mainly for export, used
to provide 40% of the
country's foreign currency receipts.
The radio attributed the
expected low yield this year to
"challenges that were faced by farmers
during this season such as shortages
of coal and
fertilisers".
Tobacco sales for this year's crop will begin
in Harare on April
25, the radio said. -Sapa-DPA
Business Day
(Johannesburg)
March 22, 2006
Posted to the web March 22,
2006
Dumisani Muleya
Johannesburg
ZIMBABWEAN opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai failed yesterday to say when
his faction of the divided
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would launch
a promised mass action
campaign to dislodge President Robert Mugabe from
power.
Tsvangirai
said at his Harare home that the national council of his MDC
faction would
decide "soon" on the protests.
Following his re-election as leader of his
faction on Sunday, Tsvangirai
raised the political temperature by
threatening to lead a defiance campaign
against Mugabe.
He said at
the weekend: "The options open to us are very clear: we need a
short, sharp
programme of action to free ourselves."
The leader of the other rival MDC
faction, Arthur Mutambara has issued
similar warnings.
Government
forces, meanwhile, have been put on alert to deal with potential
riots and
have raided the residences of opposition aligned people,
supposedly to
preempt a coup.
Law enforcement agents raided the offices of newly
elected Mutambara's MDC
faction on Sunday in the country's second city,
Bulawayo, "looking for arms
of war".
This follows the arrests of
opposition members last week on allegations of
plotting to assassinate
Mugabe, although the case has virtually collapsed.
Most of the suspects
were released last week.
Police units on Monday set up roadblocks on main
routes leading into the
capital, and were seen circling Tsvangirai's Harvest
House headquarters
after his threats of mass action during his group's
congress at the weekend.
Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi said
yesterday that the MDC was free to
protest within the limits of the
law.
"They can do whatever they want. This is a democracy but they must
act
within the law," Mohadi said. "If they break the law, the law will take
its
course. No one is above the law."
State Security Minister Didymus
Mutasa was quoted in the media as saying
government was ready to deal with
the MDC.
"We are watching them closely. We heard Tsvangirai's threats and
we hope
they will just end as threats, but if they start destroying things
then they
will see us," Mutasa said. "If they want a fight then we are more
than ready
to hit back harder."
Mutasa controls the dreaded Central
Intelligence Organisation, which has
been widely accused of terrorising the
opposition and government critics.
Reuters
Wed 22 Mar
2006 10:24 AM ET
By Robert Evans
GENEVA, March 22 (Reuters) - African
leaders bear much of
the responsibility for the continent's 12 million people
living
in poverty in their own countries after being driven from
their
homes, a senior United Nations official said on
Wednesday.
Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan
Egeland
was speaking at the launch of a report showing that last
year
Africa accounted for half of the world's "internal refugees"
and
Zimbabwe alone for nearly a third of the 2 million new ones.
"The
African leadership has been horrendous in the last
generation in so many of
these situations, and they have to face
the truth," Egeland, former head of
Norway's Red Cross, told a
news conference.
But he said the
international community had to do much more
to help what the U.N. and
humanitarian organisations call
"internally displaced people" or IDPs, who
across the globe
totalled some 23.7 million at the end of 2005.
The
report, from the Norwegian Refugee Council which runs an
Internal
Displacement Monitoring Centre in Geneva, showed an
overall drop of 1.6
million last year in global figures after
four years in a row when totals
were over 25 million.
Centre officials said this was largely due to
people
returning to their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC),
southern Sudan and elsewhere as political leaders moved
to end long civil
conflicts.
But the report said 600,000 had been driven from their
homes
in the Zimbabwean crackdown on urban shanty dwellings, and
hundreds
of thousands more had been uprooted by fighting in
Colombia, the DRC, Iraq
and Sudan.
TACKLED MUGABE
Egeland himself tackled Zimbabwe
President Robert Mugabe
face to face on the shantytown issue during a visit
to Harare
late last year. Mugabe later denounced him as "a hypocrite and
a
liar", suggesting he was an agent of British colonialism.
The
Norwegian report, "Internal Displacement: Global View of
Trends and
Developments in 2005", said Sudan with 5 million
remained the country with
most internal refugees, and numbers
were swelling further because of the
conflict in Darfur.
Egeland said the situation in the province along
Sudan's
border with Chad, and the scene of what aid agencies say
is
widespread murder, rape and pillage by government-backed Arab
militias,
was deteriorating rapidly.
There had been increasing attacks by the
militias on camps
for the displaced while the government in Khartoum was
blocking
efforts to get a U.N. peace-keeping force in to replace
under-
equipped units from the African Union.
"Darfur is a place where
we (U.N. humanitarian organisations
and non-governmental aid agencies) keep
people alive until they
are killed," Egeland declared.
After Sudan,
Colombia's decades old conflict involving
government forces and militias
against left-wing guerrilla
movements kept 3.7 million away from their homes
in camps and
makeshift shelters.
Uganda, which Egeland said he planned
to visit shortly, had
2 million internal refugees, almost all in the north of
the
country where a rebel Lord's Resistance Army has created havoc
for
years and regularly raids camps for the displaced.
The DRC still had 1.7
million, and there were 1.3 million in
Iraq, many of them left over from
population movements enforced
under the regime of Saddam Hussein ousted by a
U.S.-led invasion
three years ago.
The report is available at www.internal-displacement.org.
March 22,
2006
By Tagu Mkwenyani
Harare (AND) Homeless people
see red as civil servants take up houses.
THOUSANDS of Zimbabweans,
left homeless after bulldozers razed their
houses in the clean up operation
in May last year, have no hope of ever
owning houses as government has
directed that civil servants be given
priority in the allocation of
houses.
The minister of Public Service Labour and Social Welfare
announced
that it had reserved 20 percent of the houses constructed under
Operation
Garikai to government workers. The programme, launched after
widespread
criticism over the way government had handled the clean up
operation dubbed
Murambatsvina, was designed to help the people who had been
left homeless. A
United Nations report, compiled a few weeks after the
operation, estimates
that up to 700 000 people were left homeless and over 2
million affected in
one way or another when the government cracked down on
illegal structures in
urban cities. Determined to limit the damage,
government announced that it
would build houses for the affected people in
the shortest possible time.
Critics however said government had no resources
to carry out the housing
project, which would gobble several trillions of
Zimbabwean dollars.
A few months down the line, only handful of
small houses have been
constructed on land which is not serviced and
beneficiaries have been given
a go ahead to construct pit latrines. Touring
a construction site in Cowdray
Park in Bulawayo recently, Minister Goche
said civil servants would be given
preference whenever the allocation of the
houses was done. "This is a
national government programme and not a local
authority programme. Bulawayo
Metropolitan province is a new structure where
many workers in the structure
do not have accommodation. "We have set a
number of houses for institutional
ownership by the government so that
government workers (civil servants) can
go and stay there."
Harare (AND)
By Violet Gonda
22 March 2006
Minister of State Security Didymus Mutasa has
repeated threats against
the opposition in a telephone conversation with SW
Radio Africa. The
security minister had threatened the MDC on national
television two weeks
ago, and when we contacted him for clarification on
Wednesday, he first
refused to comment saying he doesn't talk to "banned
people" and puppets of
the west. But after some gentle persuasion, he later
revealed that ZANU PF
would use its power to 'silence'
opponents.
When the notorious minister first threatened the MDC, he
warned that
the government would "eliminate" people in the opposition who
upset the
security of the country. This warning came shortly after security
forces
allegedly found an arms cache at the home of Peter Hitschmann in
Mutare.
Several opposition members including MDC MP Giles Mutsekwa were
arrested on
charges of plotting to assassinate Robert Mugabe. The charges
were later
dropped for lack of evidence.
Asked what he meant by
"eliminating the opposition," Mutasa boasted,
"Tangatirikureva precisely
izvozvo. Kuti vachifunga kuti tinovatya hativatyi
and they should not speak
like they are doing (sic). Kunge iwo ndiwo
vakabata zvinhu zvese muno
muZimbabwe. Vakabata zvinhu zvese muZimbabwe
ndisu."
("We meant
precisely that. That we are not scared of them if they
think we are scared
of them. And they should not speak as if they are in
control of everything
in Zimbabwe. We have control of everything in
Zimbabwe.")
The
threats were renewed this week after calls were made by the leader
of the
opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai, for the MDC to embark on a "cold
season of
peaceful democratic resistance" to end the dictatorship. The
government
responded on Wednesday through the state mouthpiece - the Herald
newspaper-
with a warning that there would be bloodshed if the opposition
embarked on
anti-government street protests.
The ZANU PF statement said,
""ZANU-PF alone has the gruelling
experience of war, and strongly urges the
armchair talkers to shut up. War
is not like a picnic or a dinner party, it
is blood, sweat, injuries and
death."
Peaceful protests are a
constitutional right in Zimbabwe, but the
government has passed draconian
legislation to make it illegal.
Critics have accused the government
of using diversionary tactics to
run away from its biggest problem - the
collapsed economy.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
22 March 2006
The government announced a
planned takeover of the majority of shares
in the mining industry earlier
this month, but did not bother to consult any
stakeholders that would be
affected by this controversial move. This
included foreign companies that
own mines in Zimbabwe, local companies and
the mineworkers who risk life and
limb deep down underground. As industry
officials began making noise about
the intended takeover, Robert Mugabe met
the top chefs from South Africa's
Implats, which owns the Zimplats mining
outfit in Zimbabwe. The next day,
the mines minister Amos Midzi met with
industry officials. But the
mineworkers were not invited to any of these
discussions.
Tinago Ruzive, president of The Association of Mineworkers Zimbabwe,
told us
Wednesday that they will demand shares in the industry. He said:
"We
think we should have been involved but unfortunately we have not
been
invited to such meetings and we only hear it through the media." Ruzive
said
as far as he knows, there are no mineworkers in the country that own
any
shares in the industry. He revealed that mineworkers in South Africa,
represented by the National Union of Mineworkers, own a stake in the wealth
that they contribute to through mining. Ruzive wants the same for
Zimbabweans.
The government has said it wants as much as 51% of
the shares in all
mining concerns. Ruzive said he has not been told if the
plan was to hand
over some of those shares to mineworkers, and he has not
been part of any
formal talks on the subject. He complained that he could
not even discuss
much about the planned takeover because no information had
been provided to
the union. Asked if the union itself had contacted
authorities, Ruzive said
they would now write to the ministry since it seems
as though the bill might
soon be rushed through parliament.
As
for the current state of the industry, Ruzive said the biggest
problem they
are facing is the shortage of foreign currency which is needed
to buy spare
parts. He said this has slowed down the industry considerably,
and the
government has not done enough to address it. And on behalf of the
mineworkers in Zimbabwe, Ruzive said once more: "We demand to be
involved."
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
After a damaging internal split, the Movement for Democratic Change
is back
in action and eager to take on the government.
By Hativagone
Mushonga in Harare (AR No.57, 22-Mar-06)
Zimbabwe's Movement for
Democratic Change, MDC, suffered a serious blow last
year when it split over
the issue of electoral participation, but the
faction led by Morgan
Tsvangirai has now made a comeback, which suggests it
could once again pose
a challenge to President Robert Mugabe.
In the 26 years that Zimbabwe has
existed, the MDC has been the only
political force to come close to wresting
power from Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF
party. The MDC won 48 per cent of the
vote in the 2000 parliamentary
election, in spite of widespread ballot
rigging.
However, last November's election to a new upper house of
parliament, the
Senate, drove deep divisions within the party - with
Tsvangirai arguing that
it was useless to field candidates because the
electoral process in Zimbabwe
is so fundamentally flawed - and an opposing
faction led by deputy leaders
from the minority Ndebele ethnic group who
were in favour of taking part.
For ZANU PF, the schism - which seemed to
spell an end to effective
political opposition - was a gift from the gods.
The administration stood to
gain so much from disarray in the MDC's ranks
that some observers suspect
that Mugabe's Central Intelligence Organisation,
CIO, helped engineer it.
According to University of Zimbabwe political
analyst Professor Heneri
Dzinotyiweyi, "Three out of five Zimbabweans are
hostile and unhappy and the
government sees these people as a challenge. So
the latest MDC divisions
have been a good development for ZANU PF - they
were in its favour."
But an MDC party congress which the Tsvangirai
faction held on March 18-19
appears to signal a new start for a rejuvenated,
authentic opposition party.
The numbers alone are telling: more than
15,000 Tsvangirai supporters packed
into Harare City Sport Centre, compared
with just 3,000 who attended a rival
congress held by the pro-Senate MDC
group in February in Bulawayo,
Zimbabwe's second city.
The popular
backing for Tsvangirai's group was matched by a new and more
assertive
rhetoric from its leadership.
"The phase that we have entered calls upon
us to endure the pain and
resolutely fight for freedom," Tsvangirai said in
his opening speech, to
thunderous applause from delegates.
"The
options are very clear. We need a short, sharp programme of action to
free
ourselves... a sustained cold season of peaceful democratic
resistance."
Tsvangirai, who has in the past been accused of not
confronting Mugabe
forcefully enough, used his speech accepting re-election
as president of his
MDC faction to warn Zimbabweans, "A storm is on the
horizon."
Party spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the election of a fresh
young team at
the Harare congress showed that the MDC was back in earnest.
"The MDC is now
bigger and better and is now stronger with the biggest names
and the
smartest minds in the leadership," he said. "There is going to be a
paradigm
shift. What you can see is that there is no doubt that MDC has more
supporters than ZANU PF."
Munamato Chinyauke, who attended the Harare
congress as an observer, said
Tsvangirai was always going to emerge as the
MDC's real leader.
"Tsvangirai is known everywhere, be it in rural or
urban areas," said
Chinyauke. "He might be. a school drop-out or whatever,
but he is admired by
the people for his bravery in tackling Mugabe head-on.
He is a hero to many
Zimbabweans, and people think that Welshman Ncube [MDC
secretary-general who
led the pro-Senate group] sold out."
Chinyauke
predicted that Tsvangirai and his new team were "set to take
Zimbabwe to
greater heights".
"Just wait and see. Mugabe must be shaking in his
pants. The split caused by
the CIO has actually lifted Tsvangirai to a
higher level," he said.
In contrast to Tsvangirai, a former miner and
trade union leader who left
school at a young age, the "other MDC" is led by
a professor of robotics,
Arthur Mutambara, a political outsider who was
elected president of the
faction in late February.
Mutambara has held
out an olive branch, but the stronger rival grouping does
not appear to be
in conciliatory mood.
"Mutambara has dirty hands. He has endorsed rebels.
We have no time to deal
with divisionary people," said spokesman
Chamisa.
Dzinotyiweyi said the fact that the two wings had gone ahead
with their own
congresses and leadership votes suggested there would be no
rapprochement.
"It doesn't sound logical and serious that they talk about
unity but still
go ahead and choose their party executives," he said. "In
general, it is the
minority [Mutambara faction] that would be anxious to
join the
[pro-Tsvangirai majority], not the other way round."
Left on
its own, Mutambara's wing could simply wither away.
"Judging from the
crowds that attended, it puts an end to the speculation of
who will win the
MDC," said a political analyst who did not want to be
named, referring to
the two rival party congresses. "It is a matter of time
before Mutambara
will be completely alienated, judging by the poor turnout
at his latest
political rally [in Bulawayo]."
Both the government and ZANU PF have
recognised the potential threat from
Tsvangirai's MDC - and are already
pressing panic buttons.
One of the most powerful figures in the
administration, State Security
Minister Didymus Mutasa, has warned that the
government will "deal
decisively" with anyone who threatens the status quo
and crush any mass
action designed to topple Mugabe.
If the MDC
wanted war, he said, the government was ready to hit back. "We
are watching
them closely," said Mutasa. "We heard his [Tsvangirai's]
threats and we hope
they will just end as threats. But if they start
destroying things, then
they will see us."
Zimbabweans will now be watching to see whether the
Tsvangirai's MDC emerges
stronger than ever, and how its plans to resist
Mugabe's rule take shape,
especially if this is met by a crackdown by the
police and military.
The state-owned daily Herald, which serves as a
mouthpiece for the
government, has set the tone by telling Tsvangirai to
"desist from attempts
to incite civil disobedience. It could lead to
bloodshed and undermine
democracy. Those who choose confrontation will be
confronted by the long arm
of the state".
Hativagone Mushonga is a
pseudonym of an IWPR contributor in Zimbabwe.
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Army
faces mass resignations and desertions as discontent over pay and
conditions
grows.
By Obert Zizousiku in Harare (AR No.57, 21-Mar-06)
At the
entrance to an army camp in Harare's southwestern township of
Dzivarasekwa
is a small notice with pictures of about 20 soldiers, and the
names of
fifteen others, who are wanted for deserting the army.
The posters appeal
to fellow soldiers and the public to either arrest the
deserters or inform
the army of their whereabouts.
Such posters found at army camps
countrywide indicate a growing trend in the
army where personnel
are
going AWOL.
It is emblematic of the discontent in the security forces -
ironically the
people on whom the regime of President Robert Mugabe, the
commander in chief
of the army, has relied over the years to repress
dissenting voices in the
country.
Zimbabwe's soldiers are quitting in
their hundreds at the end of three and
seven-year contracts because of poor
pay and working conditions, a
development that could pose a security threat
to the crisis-weakened
southern African country. Many others whose contracts
have not expired are
simply deserting.
The country's intensifying
economic crisis has begun to erode the morale of
the army, which among state
agencies close to Mugabe is second only to the
much-feared spy agency, the
Central intelligence Organisation, CIO.
Emotions are running high among
the soldiers - numbering around 40,000, down
from 82,000 in the late 1990s -
who now believe they are being sidelined by
Mugabe, despite having been the
key instrument in sustaining his regime.
The resignations and desertions
are mostly among the ranks of young privates
and non-commissioned
officers.
The surest sign that all is not well are the resignations from
the elite
Presidential Guard - which protects the head of state and his two
deputies -
accompanying Mugabe and his entourage everywhere they
travel.
Andrew Masango, not his real name, who finished training in
Bulawayo two
years ago and was immediately posted to the Presidential Guard,
told IWPR he
plans to quit because of poor pay and conditions. "It's not
worth it. We
toil every day for nothing," said the 23-year-old. Even though
it's an elite
unit, Masango said the benefits from serving in it were no
greater than
elsewhere in the armed forces.
Masongo has a wife and
child who live in his rural home. "They used to live
with me in Harare but I
sent them to the rural areas because I could not
afford to pay the city
rents," he said. "Now I stay at the barracks where
the conditions are
terrible."
Soldiers who stay in the barracks, even those in the extensive
grounds of
Mugabe's palatial presidential mansion, complain that the quality
of their
food has deteriorated over the years.
"I stand at the gates
at State House guarding for hours on end on a
virtually empty stomach," said
Masondo. "Breakfast is only two thin slices
of bread and a cup of
tea."
A private soldier in the army earns eight million Zimbabwe dollars
a month
(about 80 US dollars) - putting him well below the poverty line for
the
country.
For the government the army provides ready employment
for ZANU PF youths who
would otherwise have been recruited into National
Youth Service camps where
they are pumped with anti-opposition propaganda
and pro-ZANU PF patriotic
messages, before being serving in militias
deployed to village areas to
support ruling party officials.
A
soldier, who asked to be known only as Thomas, came through the youth
camps
into the army. He said that for all the lessons on patriotism he
attended,
he can hardly bear the life the he is living as a soldier.
After six
months of training at Mushagashi camp, near the southern town of
Masvingo,
Thomas was posted to Nyanga in the Eastern Highlands where he
received basic
military training.
"My life is still miserable despite the fact that I
protect the president of
the country," Thomas told IWPR. "I cannot even
afford to visit my mum in
Magunje [near Lake Kariba in northern
Zimbabwe]."
A report released by a parliamentary defence committee two
years ago gave
advance warning of the deteriorating conditions in the
army.
The report said most barracks in the country had massive shortages
of food
and uniforms. It also noted the harmful effects of poor pay on
morale.
Former army major Giles Mtsekwa, shadow minister of defence in
parliament
for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, said the
desertions
and resignations point to massive discontent. "It's a dangerous
situation
but Mugabe does not realise it," said Mtsekwa. "The soldiers are
leaving
because they are poorly paid. We have warned about this for
years."
He said the problem is made worse by the fact that while Mugabe
underpays
the lower ranks he takes very good care of his
generals.
"The generals have been allocated farms [confiscated from white
commercial
farmers] which are protected by low-paid foot soldiers," said
Mtsekwa. "They
[the generals]are very well paid and have access to army
vehicles for
personal use at the farms.
"Mugabe is using divide and
rule tactics even in the army. While the young
boys in the lower ranks are
living like paupers, the generals are well
catered for. Mugabe's strategy
has always been to take care of the top men
who are key to his continued
stay in the power. This ensures that discontent
among the rank and file is
easily dealt with."
ZANU PF parliamentary deputy and retired colonel
Claudius Makova told IWPR
that the desertions were "nothing to worry about
because most of the army
people are still loyal". Makova, who chairs
parliament's defence committee,
said the
army is stable because most
senior personnel are veterans of the 1970s war
of liberation against white
minority rule "who love their country".
However, sources in the army said
Makova is underplaying the enormity of the
growing crisis in order to please
Mugabe, who is palpably predisposed to
flattery from his closest advisers.
"If the army is hungry like it is now,
it's a potential security risk," one
former army major told IWPR.
Some troops have been confined to barracks
and are facing court-martials
after staging protests about food
shortages.
An army spokesperson recently confirmed to a national
newspaper that
soldiers are resigning, but denied that there has been an
increase in the
rate. "The position is that if you are not happy, you are
allowed to leave.
There is nothing new in that as it is has been happening
since 1980," he
said.
But in late March the government admitted the
scale of the crisis by issuing
a new order banning soldiers and policemen
from quitting their services
until they have served a minimum of ten years.
Sources in the discharge
sections of both services said a combined total of
3,000 troops and police
officers had quit since January.
Obert
Zizousiku is the pseudonym of an IWPR contributor in Zimbabwe.
March 22,
2006.
By Tagu Mkwenyani
Harare (AND) Pro-senate
faction leader, Arthur Mutambara, wants
Zimbabwe's security forces to shun
partisan politics than compromise their
integrity.
PROFESSOR
Arthur Mutambara, leader of the pro-senate faction of the
opposition MDC
wants Zimbabwe's security forces to stay away from partisan
political
activities that compromise their professionalism.
Job Sikhala, the
Secretary for Defence and Security in the faction
said, if elected Professor
Mutambara would ensure forces were geared towards
towards protecting all
citizens without regard to their political
affiliation. Sikhala explained
Mutambara's position a day after security
forces raided their MDC offices in
Bulawayo searching for arms of war.
The soldiers are reported to have
claimed that they had seen a man
with an AK47 entering the MDC premises.
However party insiders say the raid
could have been an attempt to intimidate
Mutambara, a new entrant to the
Zimbabwe political scene, who has been
calling for the removal of the Zanu
PF government.
Sikhala said
Mutambara "cherishes professionalism and that his
government will ensure
that the national security agencies provide
protection to all Zimbabweans
without fear or favour." He added the
Professor also wanted to see "that the
security forces at the present moment
try to maintain a high moral ground by
refusing to take commands that are
not in the interests of the citizens.
That they maintain high degree of
discipline and refuse to take part in
partisan political activities that
will compromise their integrity as a
professional force."
Harare (AND)
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Residents of
the country's deteriorating urban centres blame government
policies for the
collapse of municipal services and infrastructure.
By John Gumbo in
Harare (AR No.57, 21-Mar-06)
Once the heart and soul of the region,
the Mbare suburb of Harare has gone
into tragic decline, reflecting the
general deterioration of many of the
country's cities and towns.
In
the years between its establishment in the 1890s and Zimbabwe's
independence
in 1980, the residents of this black township settlement, west
of the then
capital Salisbury, boasted that it had evolved into the cultural
centre of
sub-Saharan Africa.
The nationalist movement was born in Mbare, with
people like Dr Samuel
Parirenyatwa - who together with Joshua Nkomo launched
the first black
political party - living there in the 1950s.
Mbare
used to be called Harare, but after independence the capital's new
black
leaders considered the name so important that it replaced Salisbury.
Now
Mbare's most of successful and illustrious sons and daughters of are too
high and mighty or ashamed to live there any more, although they cannot
resist visiting the suburb over the weekends to drink and throw braaivleis,
or barbecues, at the good old places of their youth.
Under the rule
of President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party, Mbare is
shadow of its
former self. Its physical decay is painfully evident to anyone
who cares to
drive through.
The traffic lights that once regulated crossings are gone.
The tar is all
but eroded from the roads and pavements. Motorists negotiate
their way
around potholes filled with raw sewage from numerous burst pipes,
while
residents on foot skip nimbly from stone to stone to avoid being
splashed by
the filth.
The stench of urine and human waste wafts
through the air and food vendors
accost new arrivals with their unhygienic
wares. Bus shelters have been
totally stripped of any material that can help
build a rudimentary shelter
in a city of innumerable homeless
people.
Mbare's homes - some of them three-storey flats known as matapi -
are
falling apart. The windowpanes have been broken and the walls have been
defaced with mould and graffiti.
Washing facilities in the homes have
long ceased to function and water taps
are rusting. Mbare last had running
water in December 2005. On roadsides and
any open spaces near homes, heaps
of garbage lie uncollected. Because of
Zimbabwe's chronic shortages of
foreign exchange, fuel and vehicle spares,
refuse trucks have been grounded
for months on end.
Cholera has struck for the first time in 26 years of
independence. At least
30 people have died since the beginning of the year
in Harare's working
class suburbs. Three members of one Mbare family have
died of cholera and
for a while the township market was closed in an attempt
to halt the spread
of infection.
The Mbare situation mirrors the
state of all Zimbabwe's cities and towns,
which are slowly collapsing. It is
a reflection of the country's
economy, which has been in steep decline for
the past nine years, with
inflation expected soon to top 1,000 per
cent.
In Harare as a whole, virtually nothing functions, from the
streetlights to
the health delivery system. As the chaos in the cities,
caused by central
government's interference in municipal government,
continues to unfold, the
service delivery system gets worse by the
day.
With most cities now under the control of the central government the
situation is certain to deteriorate further, posing serious health threats
to residents.
What worries people is the collapse of the sewage
systems. Nelson Chabwinja,
a resident in Mbare for the past 16 years, says
he fears for his family's
life, which he says is constantly at risk because
of the burst pipes and
sewage. "Many of us live in the high
density areas
where raw sewage actually flows right on to your doorstep. I
fear for my
children's health," he said.
Harare City Council is battling to repair a
sewage system that has become
severely stretched because of population
increases and more recently because
of the collapse of maintenance services.
The capital's remaining engineers
estimate that pipes are breaking at a rate
of more than one hundred a day.
Salisbury/Harare was originally built to
house a small population - 50,000
in 1950 and 615,000 at independence in
1980. The system now attempts to
support more than three million
inhabitants. People have run away from the
dire poverty of the rural areas
in the hope that the city will improve their
lot.
Engineers say
Harare's system has not only been severely stretched but is
now too old to
function efficiently. They say sewage and water pipes,
supposed to be
replaced every 25 years, have had their life spans pushed to
40 years
because Harare City Council is broke - more than one trillion
Zimbabwean
dollars [10.5 million US dollars] in debt.
Like the whole Zimbabwe
economy, Harare has also lost its creditworthiness
and foreign bankers are
refusing to lend money to the council. The World
Bank, the African
Development Bank, ADB, the European Union and other
international
development agencies, which used to help Harare with loans for
infrastructure development, have withdrawn their support.
Harare's
acting director of technical services, Michael Jaravaza, admitted
to the
government-owned Herald, Zimbabwe's only daily newspaper, that the
city's
sewage system, roads and other infrastructure have not been
maintained or
repaired for more than a decade. He said the city council is
eight years
behind in capital development and infrastructure maintenance.
Once
described as Africa cleanest city, Harare sits on a health time bomb
and the
government does not seem to have a solution. The crisis has moved
from the
outer townships to the central business district where burst pipes
have also
become a common feature. Street and traffic lights in the city
centre rarely
function.
Faced with multiple crises, President Mugabe's ZANU PF
government has moved
swiftly to take over the administration of the
collapsing cities, accusing
their elected councils of failing to deliver.
The main targets have been
councils run by the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change, MDC.
In the past three years, the government has fired
three elected mayors,
accusing them of either corruption or incompetence.
Elected MDC Harare
executive mayor Elias Mudzuri was hounded out of office,
fleeing to America
to study at Harvard University,
Mudzuri was
replaced by a government-appointed commission, under which the
situation has
deteriorated further. City officials have been sacked and
replaced by others
whose only qualifications to run anything are loyalty to
the ruling
party.
Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo has also fired the
mayors of
Chitungwiza and Mutare. The MDC mayor of Bulawayo is under siege
from the
government. It accuses him of issuing severe food shortages reports
concerning the country's second city, which damage Zimbabwe's international
reputation.
But residents and their organisations blame the
government for the collapse
of town and city infrastructures. "It's Chombo
and the government who are
destroying this city because of their policies,"
said Norman Kachere who
lives in Mbare. "They have politicised the whole
council business, but it is
we the ratepayers who are
suffering."
Mike Davis, chairman of the Combined Harare Residents'
Association, CHRA,
says government interference is at the core of Harare's
crisis. "The problem
here is governance. The commission appointed by
government does not have the
people's mandate. It is government that has
destroyed the town by firing
mayors," he said.
Davis' organisation
has many pending court cases challenging the legality of
the state-appointed
commission governing Harare. CHRA's persistent calls for
government to hold
fresh democratic council and mayoral elections have been
ignored by
Mugabe.
"We have a disaster. Nothing functions here," said Davis. "The
road, lights
and sewage systems have broken down and the government is
responsible.
"This government has always wanted to control the cities
[the centres of
support for the opposition]. They are failing because not
only do they not
have the people's mandate, but they also do not have the
skilled and trained
people to do the job."
John Gumbo is the
pseudonym of an IWPR contributor in Zimbabwe.
From The Financial Mail (SA), 17 March
By Tony Hawkins, Harare
Predictably, Zimbabwe is
blaming Britain and the US for last week's IMF
executive board decision to
retain sanctions against the country, denying it
voting rights and access to
IMF lending. Though Western votes certainly did
ensure that Zimbabwe's
status with the IMF remained unchanged, despite its
clearing most of its
arrears to the fund, it is obvious there would have
been no fresh lending to
Harare regardless of the meeting's outcome. This is
so because Zimbabwe
continues to ignore calls from the fund for a
"comprehensive policy package"
to tackle inflation, now at a record 782%,
cut the budget deficit, free the
exchange rate and restore a semblance of
transparency to government's murky
financial dealings. The most that could
have happened, had the vote gone
Zimbabwe's way, would be for the IMF to
have agreed a six-month
"staff-monitored programme" during which Zimbabwe
would be required to
implement precisely the reforms it refuses to adopt.
The debate at
the board meeting underlined the chasm between the two sides.
Finance
minister Herbert Murerwa insisted the economy was on the mend, with
positive
growth in 2006 for the first time since 1998. In stark contrast,
the fund
report presented to the meeting says the economic outlook is
"bleak";
government policies weak; partial reforms, such as last October's
launch of
an interbank foreign exchange market, have been negated; that the
budget
deficit is "unsustainable"; and that inflation will continue to
accelerate.
The IMF report projects average inflation of 740% this year
(238% in 2005),
a 4,5% decline in GDP (-6,5%) and money supply growth of
nearly 500%. It
describes Zimbabwe's external situation as "precarious",
adding that
short-term official borrowings of US$106m will have to be repaid
soon. It
also warns that further sharp reductions in imports will be needed
and that
despite assurances, far from cutting back on "quasi fiscal"
(off-budget)
spending activities, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe "is engaging
in
substantial new quasi fiscal activity which will contribute to continued
high inflation".
The IMF-Zimbabwe meetings are a dialogue of the
deaf. This is apparent from
Murerwa's bland insistence - days after mines
minister Amos Midzi announced
plans to nationalise the mining industry -
that "reports of company
takeovers and threats to property rights in other
sectors . . . are
unfounded". After their unsuccessful trip to Washington,
Murerwa and Reserve
Bank governor Gideon Gono face tough decisions. They
will argue against the
proposed mines takeover, but they are on weak ground:
having convinced the
cabinet to print Z$21 trillion (US$210m) to repay the
IMF, they returned
empty-handed. In so doing, they drove inflation higher
and the currency down
to a parallel market rate of around Z$250 000/US$.