The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
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Mbeki's policy on Zim is a 'dangerous
game'
March 01 2004 at 01:26PM
President
Thabo Mbeki's persistent policy of "quiet diplomacy" towards
Zimbabwe is a
dangerous game that could ultimately claim his dream of an
African
renaissance, analysts have warned.
South Africa lobbied fiercely
for its northern neighbour's return to
the Commonwealth but failed dismally,
with the 54-nation body announcing
that Zimbabwe's suspension would be
maintained indefinitely.
Mbeki's policy "is a very dangerous game",
political analyst Hussein
Solomon of the University of Pretoria said on
Sunday.
"I don't think it is in our national interest that
President Mbeki has
no credibility as a leader because he is not prepared to
stand by the
principles he is espousing in terms of Nepad and a vision of an
African
renaissance."
'At some point, the Zimbabwe economy
is going to implode'
Mbeki is one of the architects of the New
Partnership for Africa's
Development (Nepad), a social and economic rescue
plan that promises good
governance in return for more economic
aid.
"The danger is that the United Kingdom, among other countries,
and
Canada which has been trumpeting Nepad in terms of G8
(industrialised
nations) and other forums, could very well withdraw that
support."
Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, director of studies at the
Johannesburg-based
South African Institute of International Affairs, said it
was time for a
different strategy towards Zimbabwe.
"At some
point, the Zimbabwe economy is going to implode, and it's not
good for the
SADC; it's not good for what we are trying to achieve in terms
of
Nepad.
"What South Africa will have to realise is, something has to
change.
They have to send clear signals to Mugabe, and it does not have to
be
public."
The South African foreign ministry has so far
remained silent on the
decision to maintain Zimbabwe's suspension, but the
Democratic Alliance said
Mbeki "again embarrassed South Africa" at the
Commonwealth meeting. -
Sapa-AFP
Leeds Today
Asylum seekers face life on Leeds streets
By Paul
Willis
SCORES of asylum seekers face destitution on the streets of Leeds
after
Government laws have left them in a legal limbo.
Asylum
seekers from Zimbabwe, Iraq and other countries whose claims have
been
refused by the Home Office cannot be sent back because their homelands
are
considered too dangerous.
But without entitlement to benefits and with no
legal right to work, they
are left homeless and poverty-stricken.
In
Leeds, the problem has led to asylum seekers being forced to sleep
rough.
Destitute
The worst affected are Zimbabwean nationals who have lost
their claims.
While people of other nationalities, like Iraqis, are entitled
to some
financial support, those who have fled the regime of Robert Mugabe
receive
nothing - even though the UK Government admits it is unsafe for them
to
return to Zimbabwe.
To help tackle the problem, kind-hearted volunteers
in Leeds are putting up
destitute asylum seekers in their homes.
But
asylum groups here admit those they are managing to help could be only
the
tip of the iceberg.
John McClaughlin is the co-ordinator for Short Stop, a
project aimed at
finding temporary accommodation for refugees and asylum
seekers.
He said: "The people we help would otherwise be on the street. But
we can
only speak for those who use our service. We don't know how many more
are
destitute and are either sleeping on friends' floors or living
rough."
There are around 1,800 asylum seekers in Leeds awaiting decisions but
there
are no figures for those who have lost their claims. Short Stop helps
around
three a week into temporary homes.
Prince George is a 17-year-old
Liberian who fled his country in the
aftermath of the bloody civil war there.
Prince lost both his parents when
soldiers attacked their village.
He
said: "I came here totally alone and didn't know anyone. After a few days
in
London, I was sent to Leeds. It has been very hard for me but I have had
some
good help from people here."
One person he met was Short Stop volunteer Simon
Webster.
The 37-year-old teacher has hosted dozens of nationalities including
Iraqis,
Afghanis and Africans since he joined the scheme a year
ago.
Simon, from Armley, said: "I was so disgusted by the negative
stereotypes in
the media. So when I heard about asylum seekers having to
sleep on park
benches, I decided to help out.
"I put people up for a
couple of days at a time and it allows them a small
sanctuary where they can
rest and relax. It's very good to meet the
individuals and hear their stories
- it puts all this hysteria about asylum
into a proper context."
paul.willis@ypn.co.uk
BBC
Aussie trio check Zimbabwe
An Australian cricket
delegation has left for Zimbabwe to investigate
security for their tour in
May.
Cricket Australia general manager Michael Brown and team manager
Steve
Bernard have traveled to Harare with players union chief executive Tim
May.
CA says the tour could only be called off over security and
moral
arguments will play no part in the decision.
England's
October tour to Zimbabwe could be postponed because of
objections to
President Robert Mugabe.
England's fears will be discussed at a
meeting of the International
Cricket Council's executive board next
week.
Under ICC rules, every member nation must tour every other
country at
least once every five years.
The Australian trio will
spend the next two days in Zimbabwe, where
Ricky Ponting's men are set to
play a two-Test series and three one-day
matches.
They will then
fly to Sri Lanka to discuss their findings with the
Australian team, with a
decision on whether the tour goes ahead expected in
about two
weeks.
The Australian government is opposed to the tour on moral
grounds,
fearing the Mugabe regime, which has been accused of human rights
abuses,
will use the visit for political gain.
Australia
cancelled a tour of Zimbabwe in 2002 for security reasons
played in Bulawayo
during the 2003 World Cup.
Zim Focus Now On Food Security
New Era (Windhoek)
March 1,
2004
Posted to the web March 1, 2004
Viola
Zimunya
Windhoek
WITH the fast-track land acquisition and resettlement
programme over,
Zimbabwe is now concentrating on the country's food security,
through
focused production. In the process, a few challenges have to be
addressed,
says Professor Jonathan Moyo, the Minister of State for
Information and
Publicity.
The land reform programme itself, the
process that was started in Zimbabwe
three years ago, has not yet ended, he
said, adding that it would not end
for a long time, considering that it is a
problem that has been in existence
for "a century or so".
Of immediate
importance and attention, says Moyo, is the new challenge of
"now empowering
the new farmers to make sure that they utilise the land that
they have been
given to the maximum". According to him, this involves giving
them "all kinds
of agricultural input support".
Since agriculture is the mainstay of the
Zimbabwean economy, it is important
that the majority of the population
participates, hence the resettlement
programme that saw some close to 25 000
commercial farmers in place.
Referring to the old situation where only 4
500 commercial white farmers
dominated the commercial sector, and the present
where the government had
targeted 30 000 black commercial farmers but has
managed to resettle 25 000,
Moyo said this was "a major, major achievement by
any standards". However,
he was also keen to add that this exercise must now
translate into actual
contribution to the country's Gross Domestic
Product.
Apart from the commercial farmers, says Moyo, the government has
also
empowered the peasant farmer, "who was already doing well under
very
difficult conditions utilising derelict land, but now has access to
land".
The peasant farmer has always met the country's major grain
requirements,
especially maize.
Now this peasant farmer is getting
involved in wheat, tobacco, horticulture,
livestock and even wildlife. All
these are key export areas, says Moyo,
adding that this gives security to the
country. He cited as an example of
this security the fact that the peasant
farmer will not likely externalise
foreign currency gained from his/her
production, as the white farmers used
to do.
Apart from the obvious
challenges that were presented by the fast-track land
reform programme, that
the government is still addressing, the country had
to contend with a drought
that lasted the three years.
"When we were going through the land reform
programme over the last three
years, unfortunately they were also years of
successive drought and this
brought a lot of pressure on us because people
must continue to live."
Moyo added that the country was then faced with a
huge import bill for maize
and wheat. This was also not made easier by the
dwindling inflows of foreign
currency.
Factors such as externalisation
of foreign currency, "all forms of economic
sabotage within the financial
sector, corruption as people started to take
advantage to create all kinds of
get-rich-quick schemes that were illegal
and smuggling of goods, basic goods
including the smuggling of maize itself,
which was in short supply in
Zimbabwe", all contributed to the challenges of
the past few
years.
The country also saw the emergence of a thriving informal market,
which
touched on the currency, and it (the currency) became in short supply,
said
Moyo.
All is not lost, however, as the government has put in
place measures to
address the difficult challenges, particularly the new
monetary policy as
well as the restructuring of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
That, combined
with the fast-track land programme, is bound to bring changes
"of a
fundamental nature", says Moyo.
New Era caught up with Professor
Moyo during his just-ended visit, and had a
brief but wide-ranging interview
with him, which will be published in our
Friday edition.
Ann Arbor News
Amid grimness of AIDS, poverty, family memoir lifts spirits
Monday, March 1, 2004
Here
is an amazing new book that not only enlightens us about poverty and
AIDS in
Africa, it also touches our hearts and lifts our spirits: "Love in
the Driest
Season: A Family Memoir," by Neely Tucker (Crown, 242
pages,
$23.95).
Tucker blends hard facts and death rates - one in
four people aged 19-44 in
Zimbabwe are HIV positive, for example - with the
softer realities of the
heart. What emerges is his testament that even amidst
death, disease, and
political chaos, love flourishes.
Neely, formerly
a foreign correspondent in Africa for The Washington Post,
will talk about
his book at 8 p.m. Friday at Shaman Drum.
Raised in rural Mississippi,
the author pursued a journalism career that
took him to Detroit. While living
in Greektown in a loft over a pizza
restaurant, Tucker fell in love with his
neighbor, Vita, an African-American
paralegal worker and librarian who had
grown up in Alabama. They married and
moved from Tucker's four-year reporting
assignment in Eastern Europe to
Zimbabwe in 1997.
They had thoughts
about adoption and in Zimbabwe volunteered at orphanages
and donated
supplies. On the day they met the baby they would name Chipo,
their lives
changed forever: "There are moments in life, no more than two or
three, when
everything changes and you find yourself swept along in a series
of events
that are beyond your measure," he wrote in the book. "And so it
was that I
picked up the girl-child one day in an orphanage at the epicenter
of the
world's AIDS crisis, in a country where foreign journalists,
including
myself, would shortly be declared to be enemies of the state. She
regarded me
with worried eyes and a whimper, and then she closed her left
hand around my
little finger."
Neely and Vita decided Chipo would be their child for as
long as she lived.
Keeping her alive, feeding her and eventually adopting her
in a country that
is strongly opposed to international adoption consumed them
for a highly
stressful 18 months.
Looking back, Tucker recalled more
about the first time he saw Chipo. "If we
had shown up 72 hours later, she
would not have been there," he told me in a
telephone interview from his
office at The Washington Post. Without their
intervention, Chipo would have
died, Neely explained.
As a newborn, Chipo had been abandoned about a
mile from the nearest
village, but passersby discovered her tiny body in time
to save her life.
She was taken to an orphanage in Harare, the capital, where
Vita and Neely
found her.
When Chipo's life was in jeopardy, Vita
rushed her to the best hospital. But
at three months, Chipo's weight had
fallen to just over four pounds. She
couldn't keep down food, had suffered
three bouts with pneumonia and was
nonresponsive. Neely and Vita cared for
her until she was healthy, only to
meet strong bureaucratic opposition when
they tried to adopt her. They
persevered using Neely's skills with the
bureaucracy and Vita's warm
determination.
As they struggled uphill to
adopt, Zimbabwe was falling apart politically,
Tucker said.
"The
country continues to be in some kind of political and economic
free-fall," he
said. "There are huge problems with food, poverty, farming
and AIDS. (Prime
minister) Robert Mugabe didn't win the election, but he
said he did. ... All
foreign correspondents were expelled."
Zimbabwe opposes international
adoption, unlike some other African
countries, including Sierra Leone,
Ethiopia, Kenya, and maybe South Africa,
Tucker said. "I wish that Africa was
more on the tour of international
adoptions," he said. "I don't think it's
for lack of effort by agencies.
There's the overlay of the slave trade. ... I
wish there was easier access."
Since returning to this country, Vita
Tucker, 51, has taken a job in East
African development. Neely Tucker, 40,
still works for The Post, but does
not travel abroad. In the four years the
family has been back, Tucker has
rarely spent more than 48 hours away from
5-year-old Chipo. "I just really
don't like being away from her," he
said.
In Zimbabwe, the couple had another baby in their home, but he
died. The
resulting pain put a temporary end to their desire to adopt. But
early this
year, they came close to adopting a child from Sierra Leone. It
didn't work
out, and now Tucker thinks there probably will be no more
children.
"Just doing the math ... I don't know whether she can be a
soccer mom when
she's 65," he said.
Tucker wrote his book in "three
months flat" at his parents' farm in
Mississippi. His family and Vita's
family play roles in the book, helping
bring out themes of race. He dedicated
the book "For Chipo - who lived," and
to a heartbreakingly long list of 23
other children "who did not."
Tucker is a talented writer who tells a
highly readable story. He has more
than enough knowledge of Zimbabwe and
Africa to keep his family memoir from
being too sweet.
And these days,
when he puts Chipo to bed, he sometimes notices that the
only framed item in
her bedroom is a map of Zimbabwe.
Book discussions
a..
Registration begins today for April Cover to Cover book discussions
offered
by the Ann Arbor District Library. The first book slated for
discussion is
"The Lady and the Unicorn," by Tracy Chevalier 7-8 p.m. April
1 at Nicola's
Books, which is co-sponsoring the discussion. The second book
is "An Amateur
Marriage," by Anne Tyler 10-11:30 a.m. April 14 at the
downtown library. The
first 15 library card-holders who register for these
discussions may check
out a copy of the title to be discussed. Those who
register later must bring
their own copy of the book to the discussion. To
register, call the downtown
library fiction and media desk, (734) 327-4560,
or any library branch by
dialing (734) 327-4200.
Literary events
a.. Yasmeen Hanoosh
reads from her translation of "Scattered Crumbs," a book
by Muhsin al-Ramli,
at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Shaman Drum. The book, set in an
Iraqi village during
the Iran-Iraq war, is a criticism of a totalitarian
regime as told through
stories of a peasant family.
a.. Quan Barry reads from her poetry at
5 p.m. Thursday in the University of
Michigan's D1276 Davidson Hall. Born in
Saigon and raised in Boston, she
received her master's degree from U-M and
was a Wallace Stegner fellow at
Stanford University as well as the Diane
Middlebrook poetry fellow at the
University of Wisconsin's Institute for
Creative Writing. Her work has
appeared in The Kenyon Review and The New
Yorker, among other publications.
Currently, she is an assistant professor of
English at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison.
Send letters to Anne
Martino, The Ann Arbor News, 340 E. Huron St., Ann
Arbor, MI, 48104. Send
e-mail to annevm@aol.com
From The Sunday Mirror, 29 February
Land war rages
Shame Makoshori
The land dispute pitting a Zanu PF official Kenneth
Karidza, Lands, Land
Reform and Resettlement minister John Nkomo and safari
operator, Mervyn
Senior took a new twist last week with Nkomo claiming that
Karidza's
eviction from his farm two weeks ago was an implementation of the
Utete land
commission's recommendations. At the vortex of the land dispute is
the 394
hectare Rocky Arlington farm, which also incorporates Mbizi game
park, where
the minister is alleged to have instructed police to order
Karidza off the
A2 farm he was allocated under the agrarian reform in 2002.
When The Daily
Mirror ran the story early last week, Nkomo refused to provide
details
although he acknowledged the dispute, only to phone the next day
saying the
story was anomalous. "I can confirm that I am aware of the matter
but I will
not confirm any further," the minister when contacted last week,
referring
all questions to Karidza. About 30 demonstrators sympathetic to
Karidza
staged a peaceful demonstration last week in protest of the return of
Senior
to the property, arguing that the new farmer was offering better
packages to
workers than him.
A professional hunter at the lodge
produced a payslip that indicated that
until last year, he was earning $50
000 per month, an amount several
gardeners in the capital are surpassing. He
said since Karidza's arrival at
the controversial property last year, their
salaries was significantly hiked
and a funeral assistance package was put in
place to help them. Karidza told
The Sunday Mirror that Nkomo was using the
Utete report as a scapegoat as
the eviction order had been plotted since
2002, but was constantly shot down
by Agriculture minister, Joseph Made, who
felt Karidza had properly acquired
the farm. "The issue of evicting me has
been on the agenda for the past two
years, but I was saved by minister Made
who said it was unprocedural to
evict me. "Did the Utete reform give them the
go ahead to evict people even
without informing them? I have invested $250
million on the farm and all my
crops have no one looking after them. I held a
meeting with Nkomo last year
on the issue and he said he was awaiting the
Mashonaland East land audit
report but he never came back to me," Karidza
said.
He accused top government officials, including Environment and
Tourism
minister Francis Nhema, and close associates of Senior opposed to
his
allocation of the farm of masterminding the eviction bid. Documents
in
possession of the Sunday Mirror however indicate that the war veteran,
who
produced copies of his offer letter signed by Made won the case at the
High
Court last year making him the legal owner of the farm. Made could not
be
reached for comment yesterday as his mobile phone remained
unanswered.
Senior has declared that he will not speak to this paper, which
could not
establish his relationship with Nhema who he is alleged to have
once treated
to a holiday in the United States last year. The dispute at the
farm is the
latest in a series of other post-land reform wars that have
erupted,
implicating the top brass, most of who stand accused of using
their
political clout to evade properly laid down procedures for selfish
gains.
From The Sunday Telegraph (UK), 29 February
'Rape is OK. It helps us to train people'
Hilary Andersson, of the BBC's Panorama programme,
reveals how thousands of
youths are being taught to rape, maim, torture and
kill in Zimbabwe's terror
training camps - and now Robert Mugabe intends to
make the camps compulsory
for all the country's young men and
women
It should have been just another shopping trip for Debbie. She
needed a few
vegetables, so headed off into one of Bulawayo's markets. On
that November
morning back in 2001, she had no premonition that her life was
about to be
wrecked. In the market was a large gang of Mugabe's youth militia
chanting
Zanu PF slogans. They quickly spotted the tall 20-year-old and
demanded that
she come and join them. Debbie, terrified, turned and ran for
home, but the
gang chased after her through the streets. She thought she had
made it to
safety, but she had been seen entering her house. If she didn't
come out,
the gang members shouted, they would burn it down. Debbie
surrendered. She
was allowed to take just one possession with her: a blanket.
Debbie was
taken to one of the so-called training camps for Robert Mugabe's
Green
Bombers youth brigades. That night the camp boys came into her
dormitory.
They locked the doors, then took it in turns to rape her. "The
boys turned
the lights off at 10 o'clock," she said. "They told me: 'If you
cry, if you
make a noise, we'll beat you'."
The ordeal didn't
finish there. She says she was raped again - and again,
every night for the
next six months. Debbie shared her blanket with an
11-year old girl called
Sitembile. The little girl would scream night after
night as she was raped,
too. The morning after being gang raped for the
first time Debbie asked the
camp commander for medical help. He told her not
to complain and sent her on
a 20-kilometre run. Like many of the youths she
was often deprived of food
for days at a time, and frequently beaten. One
day she was caught trying to
escape, and was sadistically punished. She was
buried to her neck in the
ground. When she was dug out hours later she was
made to roll in raw sewage.
"The water, it was dirty," she said, "my head
was rolling inside." The
commanders then forced Debbie to eat her meal with
the other inmates without
being allowed to wash. "The commanders, they
laughed," she said. Debbie, now
22, is understandably a deeply traumatised
young woman. She fled to South
Africa after speaking publicly about her
experiences in Zimbabwe. As a
consequence, she now lives isolated and in
hiding, in fear of Mugabe's secret
police. At least two Zimbabweans have
been tortured, one to death, for
telling the truth about the camps.
There are at least six large camps
in Zimbabwe, trapping thousands of
children and youths inside. The youngest
are aged just 11; the oldest 30.
Once inside, many of the recruits are put
through a horrific training
programme which, over a period of three to six
months, can turn ordinary
youngsters into thugs with a capacity for extreme
violence. The people of
Zimbabwe are told that the camps are job training
centres, where youths
learn such skills as carpentry and sewing. Many
youngsters believe this
propaganda and actually volunteer for the camps.
Panorama spent weeks with
Debbie, slowly eliciting the full horror of her
ordeal. She was far from
alone in her brutal treatment. In interviews
conducted by Panorama and human
rights groups with almost 100 former camp
youths, around 50 per cent of the
girls said that they were regularly raped
in the camps. Rape on such a scale
helps break down the youth in the camps
emotionally, which enables the camp
commanders to gain physical and
psychological control of their young
inmates. The boys in the camps are often
encouraged to rape by the
commanders, who ply them with alcohol and
drugs.
"Daniel", who was in a camp about 100 miles from Bulawayo and
is also now in
South Africa, sports a tight woollen hat, and lounges on his
chair when he
speaks. He smiles when he talks about raping. "I was enjoying
it," he
admits, "because I was only choosing the nice girls." Daniel, who was
a
young leader in the camp, treated the girls as his slaves, ordering them
to
wash his clothes, and bring him food and drink as he pleased. A
former
official with the Ministry of Youth, Gender and Employment Creation
that
oversees the camps, explained the government's thinking. "You are
moulding
somebody to listen to you, so if it means rapes have to take place
in order
for that person to take instructions from you, then it's OK," he
said. He
was so horrified that he left his job with the ministry in disgust.
Rape is
just one of the ways camp commanders are able to turn their charges
into
unquestioning automata. The training methods vary from camp to camp, but
the
pattern is consistent. Every day the inmates are woken at 3 or 4am
and
forced into a regime of tough exercise. Those who can't keep up are
beaten
with rubber whips. For two or three hours a day they are also taught
the
history of Zimbabwe. One of the training manuals that is used in the
classes
is a collection of Robert Mugabe's speeches. The children say that
they are
afraid to question the teachings. "They have to take out the stuff
which you
have in your mind and then put in new stuff," said one man who had
been
through the camps. The youths are taught that opponents of Mugabe's Zanu
PF
party must be dealt with harshly.
The brutality in the camps
prepares the youths for the more advanced lessons
in how to torture and kill
government opponents. Most of the youths Panorama
interviewed said that they
were taught how to kill. Debbie was given lessons
in using shoe laces for
strangling, and stabbing people in the head with a
knife. The "star pupils"
are selected for training in the techniques of
torture. Youths testified to
being taught how to torture with electricity,
or by hanging victims upside
down and lowering their heads into buckets of
water below until they nearly
drown. Even while they are still "in training"
many youths are sent out on
missions to beat up opponents of Mugabe's
government. Some, Debbie was one,
are also sent out to kidnap fresh recruits
into the camp. A few are forced to
attack and maim members of their own
families if their relatives are
suspected of being opposed to Mugabe. One
24-year-old woman, "Promise", said
that she was forced to beat her own
uncle. During the attack his back was
broken and he is now crippled. "Now
sometime I have nightmares about it and I
end up screaming," said Promise.
The camps are situated in remote
areas and there is little chance for
escape. Any disobedience or breaking of
the rules means instant punishment.
The camp commanders themselves are former
soldiers and war veterans. It took
months of discussions to persuade one of
them to speak to Panorama
anonymously. He admitted that youths in his camp
had been sent to kill two
opponents of the government two years ago. "My
superiors instructed me that
the people must be eliminated," he said
matter-of-factly. A youth ministry
official who has now fled to South Africa
said that he attended meetings at
the Ministry of Youth at which killings and
hit lists were openly discussed.
"Somebody would just say: 'We went on
Saturday to this other area, and we
beat up people. Ah, by the way, one of
the guys died," he said. "It was like
describing the result of a match
between Manchester United and Arsenal." As
a means of keeping Mugabe in power
and of subduing the opposition, the youth
militias have been highly
successful over the past three years. They were
used to beat and intimidate
thousands of supporters of the Movement for
Democratic Change during the
elections of 2002. Since then, they have been
used to "police" food queues,
making sure that government supporters get
first access to the desperately
needed maize.
An estimated 50,000 youths have already passed through
the camps, but Mugabe
wants more. His next goal is to win the parliamentary
elections in 2005, so
is in the process of making it compulsory for every
Zimbabwean youth to
undergo training. "These guys are going to be used by the
ruling party,"
said the one camp commander who would speak to us. "Our main
concern is that
we keep this opposition party out of power." If Mugabe has
his way, an
entire generation of young people will be forcibly brutalised and
corrupted.
Most of those who have fled his camps are deeply traumatised by
their
experiences. They feel tainted for having maimed, tortured and killed.
It is
a burden they find almost impossible to shake off. Debbie is HIV
positive as
a result of her rape. She also became pregnant and now has a
one-year-old
daughter, Nunus. She knows that she is likely to die from Aids
long before
Nunus is fully grown - it is a sadness that so overwhelms her
that she has
tried to kill herself.
From BBC News, 29 February
Zimbabwe camp commander speaks
A commander at one of Zimbabwe's notorious youth training
camps has spoken
to the media for the first time. The "Youth Services
Instructor" spoke
freely about life in the camps to a team from the BBC
Panorama programme on
condition of anonymity. He revealed that his camp some
as young as 15 are
taught to use weapons like guns. "We train them how to use
weapons, although
we don't concentrate as soldiers but there is a period when
we train them
how to use those guns," he said. The unnamed commander also
told the
programme that the young men and women who attend youth camps in
Zimbabwe
were being trained to be "useful to the ruling party during the time
of
need." He also revealed that recruits are given daily lessons in things
like
sovereignty, politics and history. He added that those who run the camps
try
to guide the youngsters on what information to get as they can
become
"misguided" by a lot of the independent information available. The
commander
claimed that recruits to the camps were often used to disrupt the
activities
of opposition parties in the run up to elections in Zimbabwe. He
said: "Next
year is an election time in this country so these guys are going
to be used
by the ruling party. Although it's a government institution the
party
benefits from these guys because they sometimes use them to deal with
some
situations involving politics. We want to make sure that we don't want
the
opposition party to set foot in the rural areas, that is our main
priority.
In fact they will never set foot there during this coming
election."
The camp commander conceded that stories of rapes being
carried out in the
camps were true, saying "it happens here and there", but
claimed that the
problem is not as bad as it used to be. He also added that
such matters were
dealt with within the camps, sometimes with the use of
"some corporal
punishments". Senior staff in the camp took this course of
action because it
"cannot seen to be exposing it (the ruling Zanu PF party)
negatively so it
may be like you are washing dirty linen in public so these
are things which
we deal with inside." The commander, who had grave
reservations about taking
part in the interview because he thought it may be
a trap set by Zimbabwe's
intelligence services, also revealed he was hoping
to get a promotion. He
defended his role in the camps by saying: "To me its
part of my duties you
see, it's part of my duties so I will be executing my
duties. It's not on
the right or wrong basis but you see our main concern is
that we keep this
opposition party out of power."
Envoy Clarifies Sweden's Stance Over Zimbabwe
The Times of Zambia
(Ndola)
February 28, 2004
Posted to the web March 1, 2004
Times
Reporter
VISITING Swedish ambassador for dialogue in Africa, Sten
Rylander, has
clarified Press reports attributed to him this week that his
country did not
support targeted sanctions against
Zimbabwe.
Ambassador Rylander said in a statement yesterday that in fact
Sweden
strongly defended the targeted European Union (EU) sanctions and
the
necessity and right of the international community to react against
the
ongoing human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
He said in an interview
he gave to journalists, he clearly stated that
position, "unfortunately, I
was misquoted in some parts."
"What I did point out was that punitive
sanctions by themselves cannot solve
the root problem.
The key to a
national lasting solution in Zimbabwe lies in intensified
dialogue among the
Zimbabwean parties concerned, as well as in the region,"
he said.
The
envoy underlined the belief that SADC and its member-states,
including
Zambia, could play a helpful role in promoting such dialogue
efforts.
Mr Rylander said in discussing the Zimbabwean situation, he
dismissed the
common assertions that EU and its member-states have been
against land
reforms in general.
"Our concern have always been related
to the way in which land reforms have
been carried out," he said.
With
regard to the debt issue and the role of the international
financial
institutions, Mr Rylander said Highly Indebted Poor Countries
(HIPC) should
be seen as a big step forward and urged Zambia to muddle
through to reach
the completion point as soon as possible.
"I
underlined the obvious fact that HIPC cannot be seen as the only solution
to
the debt problem in African countries. This problem will remain even in
a
post-HIPC perspective and ought to be discussed in the frame work
of
continued international negotiations," Mr Rylander said.
thecrimson.com
Aspiring Astronaut Named Rhodes Scholar
Shazrene S.
Mohamed '04 is seventh Harvard student to receive honor this
year
By
ELISE M. STEFANIK
Contributing Writer
Shazrene S. Mohamed '04, an
astrophysics concentrator from Kirkland House,
has been named a 2004 Rhodes
Scholar.
One of seven Harvard students to receive the prestigious scholarship
this
year, Mohamed will study at Oxford University to earn her Ph.D.
in
astrophysics.
Four of her American classmates were awarded the
scholarship in November,
making Harvard the leader in the number of
scholarships for the third
straight year.
Two more Harvard students
from Kenya were notified of their acceptance in
December.
A native of
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Mohamed was interviewed in Harare, Zimbabwe
on Dec. 5,
2003 and notified that day of her scholarship.
Last year, Mohamed was the
2003 recipient of the Leo Goldberg prize for the
best astrophysics junior
thesis.
She is also active in a variety of extracurriculars at Harvard,
as an
officer of STAHR-a student run astronomy club which organizes classes
at the
Loomis Michael Observatory at the Science Center-a dorm crew captain
and a
coxswain for IM crew. Mohamed said she also enjoys Tae Kwon
Do.
The Rhodes Scholarships are endowed through the will of Cecil Rhodes,
a
British philanthropist, who founded the honor in 1902.
Applicants
are selected on the basis of several criteria-high academic
achievement,
integrity of character, a spirit of unselfishness, respect for
others,
potential for leadership and physical vigor.
According to the Rhodes
Trust, these qualifications are directed at
fulfilling Cecil Rhodes' hope
that Rhodes Scholars should "esteem the
performance of public duties as their
highest aim."
Mohamed said that during her final interview she was asked
several
science-related questions-ranging from general topics to "the
particulars of
radio astronomy."
Other questions addressed her view on
life in Zimbabwe.
Mohamed said she responded to questions about how she
would act in a
position of power in Zimbabwe. She said that she would address
the current
political and economic situation optimistically.
"Zimbabwe
is a country full of great, strong, talented people," she said. "I
know that
we will overcome this suffering and realize our full potential."
She felt
that what set her apart from the other applicants was her unique
field of
study and her dream to become an astronaut, she said.
Approximately 95
Scholars are selected worldwide each year, 32 of whom are
chosen from the
United States.
The Rhodes Trust awards each Scholar full funding to
attend Oxford
University, a stipend to cover necessary expenses while in
residence in
Oxford and transportation to and from England.
Daily Times, Nigeria
African leaders sign common security
plan
African leaders signed a sweeping defence and security agreement at
the
weekend that allows the African Union (AU) to send forces to intervene
in
civil wars, international conflicts and coup attempts across the
continent.
Also, Libyan leader, Moammar Gaddafi, said his country decided
to dismantle
its atomic programme to avoid the dangers it might
bring.
"The nuclear arms race is a crazy and destructive policy for
economy and
life," Gaddafi said at the closing session of the African Union
summit.
"Any nation state that will adopt these policies cannot protect
herself, on
the contrary, it would expose itself to danger."
It was
the first time Gaddafi publicly addressed Libya's nuclear programme
since
agreeing to eliminate its facilities in December.
The defense and
security agreement aims to prevent tragedies like the 1994
Rwandan genocide,
in which more than 500,000 people were massacred while the
African Union's
predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), did
nothing. The
39-year-old OAU was disbanded in 2002 because it was
so
ineffective.
But with funding shortage and the African Union
already in $40 million debt,
the joint force is not likely to be formed soon,
delegates said. A Zimbabwe
official said it would not be ready before
2010.
"The framework we have just signed includes the necessity to find
collective
answers to threats, whether internal or external," Mozambique
President
Joaquim Chissano said.
"But our efforts are not over. ... We
have to show a real commitment to the
implementation of our
decisions."
Chissano told Associated Press the union would establish a
"standby force"
of African troops for deployment to conflict zones on short
notice.
He declined to elaborate, but draft copies of the agreement
called for
creating five regional brigades to be deployed by two bodies
modelled on the
United Nations.
The first is the African Assembly, or
parliament. The second is the Peace
and Security Council, Africa's version of
the U.N. Security Council. They
will be created in a few months.
Libya
proposed creating a single African army, but many countries viewed
that idea
as unrealistic.
However, Ould Salek, a foreign minister for Western
Sahara - a territory in
southern Morocco, recognised by the African Union -
said the concept would
be discussed at the next summit in July.
"There
is a great need for African troops to intervene in cases of
necessity. We
must take on fully our duty to stop war in Africa," he said.
Funding will
be a major obstacle for the force, and aid will be sought from
donor
countries, including the United States, Japan and European Union,
he
said.
African nations have had no formal policy on how to react to
conflicts on
the continent.
Charles Muligande, who headed the Rwandan
delegation, said nations could
have intervened to stop the 1994 genocide but
chose not to.
"It isn't about legal frameworks," Muligande said. "It's
about will. There
has to be will."
Saturday's agreement does not
obligate African states to act but provides
standards for them to uphold,
including protecting democratically elected
governments from coups. The
standby force could be deployed to enforce
disarmament programs and provide
humanitarian aid.
Shortly after its creation in 2002, the African Union
deployed several
thousand peacekeepers from South Africa, Ethiopia and
Mozambique to Burundi,
but that country remains mired in a civil war that has
killed more than
200,000 people.
African leaders also signed an
agreement on a common policy to boost
agricultural production and manage
water resources.
Monday, March 1, 2004
The Star
Namibian commercial farmers fear land grab
March
1, 2004
By Rosemary Nalisa
The Namibia Agricultural
Union, says the announcement that farm
expropriations will take place in the
country has sent shockwaves through
its agricultural community.
"It is shocking. It causes sorrow and disturbances in the farming
community,"
said the union's president, Jan de Wet.
On Wednesday, Prime
Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab said on state television
that a number of
white-owned farms would be expropriated to accelerate
land
reform.
This was because the existing policy of "willing
seller, willing
buyer" was not delivering results.
"The process
has become too slow because of arbitrarily inflated land
prices and
unavailability of productive land," observed Gurirab.
Like many
other countries in the region, Namibia is saddled with
racial imbalances in
land ownership that date back to the colonial era.
Fourteen years
after independence, more than 240 000 people are still
in need of land. The
Namibian parliament last year passed a land reform act
allowing the
government to acquire properties in the public interest, with
the payment of
just compensation.
Although the prime minister did not say which
land would be
expropriated, it is believed that farms belonging to absentee
landlords are
likely targets.
De Wet called on the government to
make clear the criteria that would
be used to select properties, as the
current situation was creating
uncertainty that could lead to
unrest.
"The situation also affects the surety of the farms,
because financial
institutions now regard them as risky investments, and
farmers might in
future struggle to get loans. The question is: Are we going
the Zimbabwe
way?"
At the start of 2000, Zimbabwe embarked on a
violent land reform
programme that has seen about 4 000 white-owned farms
confiscated. A number
of black peasant farmers have been resettled on the
properties.
However, several choice farms are also reported to
have been taken
over by government officials.
Discontent over
land ownership in Namibia has been stirred up in
recent months by the
dismissal of some farmworkers who have stayed on the
properties for
decades.
The layoffs have led to clashes between farm owners and
unions, and
angered the government.
"Committed to seeing the
'willing buyer, willing seller' approach
work, the government has witnessed
with dismay and outrage how farm workers
are left destitute and dumped with
their families and belongings on the
roadsides by their employers," said
Gurirab.
The secretary-general of the Namibia Farm Workers Union,
Alfred
Angula, welcomed the government's announcement - and highlighted the
need
for further reforms.
"Farmers need to realise that they do
not pay pensions or any other
compensation to their workers, who sometimes
work on such farms for decades,
and when they become old they want to evict
them and make it the
government's problem," he said.
Late last
year, Angula's union called for farm occupations in those
areas where the
evictions were taking place.
Gurirab has cautioned both landowners
and the landless to co-operate
with the government and refrain from engaging
in unlawful action during the
implementation of the redistribution process.
He said the "willing seller,
willing buyer" policy would continue alongside
expropriations.
Various opposition parties have described Gurirab's
announcement as a
ploy to gain favour for the government ahead of
presidential elections
scheduled for December, when President Sam Nujoma is
expected to step
down. - Sapa-IPS
Safari, Forestry Land to Be Redistributed
The Herald
(Harare)
March 1, 2004
Posted to the web March 1,
2004
Harare
Government will repossess safari and forestry land
allocated to farmers for
game ranching in Hwange district and redistribute it
equitably, the Governor
for Matabeleland North, Cde Obert Mpofu, said
yesterday.
Cde Mpofu was speaking at a meeting held at the Mhla-hlandlela
Government
offices in Bulawayo with stakeholders to discuss concerns they
raised
regarding the manner in which safari and forestry land in Hwange
was
distributed under the resettlement programme.
There were
allegations that some people were allocated small farms that are
unprofitable
for safari operations, yet others got bigger farms.
"We have heard your
concerns and we will start the process afresh. All land
will be re-taken and
redistributed," said Cde Mpofu to a round of applause
from the
gathering.
Participants at the meeting also expressed displeasure over
the allocation
of quotas for this year's hunting season, which begins
today.
As a result of the disparity in the land allocations, new farmers
from the
province have been denied hunting quotas, while others have been
given up to
55 elephants.
He said another worrying thing was that
safari operators in the district had
not managed to secure quotas to
date.
"Some areas have already managed to secure quotas but our province
is
lagging behind. Why? We will seriously look into this issue," he
said.
Cde Mpofu also revealed at the meeting that there was 500 000
hectares of
land in Matabeleland North province available that safari
operators and
newly resettled farmers should take up.
"This is your
land. We want you to tell us how that land ought to be
distributed," he
said.
Stakeholders at the meeting then came up with recommendations that
would be
forwarded to the Minister of Special Affairs in the Office of the
President
Responsible for Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement, Cde John
Nkomo, and the
Minister of Environment and Tourism, Cde Francis
Nhema.
Some of the recommendations were that the maximum hectarage for
hunting
purposes should be 5 000, up from 3 000. They recommended that the
500 000
hectares of land that is available should be equitably distributed
among
those who need to utilise it productively.
The stakeholders also
recommended that the issue of allocation of quotas had
to be dealt with as a
matter of urgency as they were losing a lot of
business while awaiting them
to be approved.
Another recommendation was that first preference has to
be given to people
in Matabeleland North province, as they would have an
interest in developing
their communities.
Cde Mpofu said communities
in areas such as Hwange were not benefiting from
their
resources.
"There are so many elephants in some areas but the local
people there are
still poor, we need to empower them," he said.
President, Mubarak to Hold Talks
The Herald (Harare)
March
1, 2004
Posted to the web March 1, 2004
Innocent
Gore
Cairo
President Mugabe is now in Cairo on his way back home after
attending the
12th G15 summit in Venezuela.
The President is expected
to hold bilateral talks with his Egyptian
counterpart Mr Hosni Mubarak either
today or tomorrow.
Egypt is also a member of the G15 and enjoys good
relations with Zimbabwe.
Leaders of the G15 pledged to set up a
co-operation fund, which would
promote the strengthening of the education,
health, trade and investment
centres of the developing countries of the
South.
Sources who attended a plenary session of the G15 summit here said
the
leaders also adopted a proposal by India that each member state be
assigned
a specific sector, which it would co-ordinate.
India opted
for the health and pharmaceuticals sector. India also suggested
that a
business summit be held alongside that of political leaders at the
next G15
summit.
The G15 leaders agreed to form a troika comprising Algeria,
Venezuela and
Iran to co-ordinate the global systems of trade preferences and
their
foreign ministers were expected to deliberate on this and report back
after
six months.
President Mugabe made an intervention during the
plenary session, saying the
G15 had always had the problem of transforming
its ideas into action because
it did not have an executive arm to implement
the ideas.
He said there was therefore need for the formation of an
institution that
would serve the G15 and ensure that decisions were
implemented.
President Mugabe said the IMF had not served the countries
of the South
well. He undertook to contribute to the formation of the
University of the
South.
"I am an educationist myself and will be
ready to contribute," President
Mugabe, who holds the highest number of
academic degrees in human history
among heads of state, told the other G15
leaders.
Cde Mugabe addressed the summit on Friday last week.
He
said the international situation had changed for the worse in political
and
economic terms and Third World countries stood threatened by the
arrogant and
bullying leaders of the North.
"We see unjust wars such as those of Iraq
and Yugoslavia waged against
innocent societies made culpable through blatant
lies and propaganda chanted
on the CNN, BBC and other media to sharpen the
insatiable appetites of
greedy neo-imperialists for aggression and
aggrandisement."
Now comprising 19 countries, the G15 was born out of a
realisation of the
asymmetrical relations between the rich, powerful and
dominant countries of
the North and impoverished, weak and marginalised
countries of the South.
The G15 was founded out of a realisation that
interaction between countries
of the South as collective victims of a cruel
history of imperial dominance
and exploitation, was quite insignificant as
compared to rival interaction
between the countries of the South and their
erstwhile colonisers of the
North.
Vetting of Ex-Detainees, War Collaborators Set to Begin This
Month
The Herald (Harare)
March 1, 2004
Posted to the
web March 1, 2004
Harare
THE vetting of ex-detainees and war
collaborators is set to begin this month
to determine those who will receive
gratuities, a senior member of the
Zimbabwe Ex-Political Prisoners, Detainees
and Restrictees Association
(ZEPPDRA) said yesterday.
The
association's Bulawayo provincial secretary, Cde Modercai Mlotshwa said
the
vetting would be done by ZEPPDRA officials with the assistance of
the
officers from the Department of Social Welfare, the Ministry of Defence
and
the Prison Services among other arms of Government.
He said
members would soon be invited to meetings where they would be
briefed on the
modalities of the exercise."The vetting will start this month
and we are
organising a meeting scheduled for 14 March this year, where
officials from
different Government departments will explain the way the
gratuities will be
disbursed," Cde Mlotshwa said.
"The meeting will also be a forum to
explain the likely beneficiaries and
the amount of money each recipient will
receive." The issuing of gratuities
follows the amendment of the War Veterans
Act to accord ex-detainees the
same status to fighters of the liberation
struggle waged between the 1960s
and 1980s.
In the past, the
Government has insisted on providing ex-detainees with free
medical services
and school fees assistance. Ex-detainees also benefited
from the recently
implemented land redistribution programme. The 15 000
members of ZEPPRA
previously demanded lump sums of $70 000 and a monthly
pension. In 2000, the
organisation dropped its monetary demands saying it
wanted the Government to
concentrate on the pressing land issue.
Kick Out Corrupt Leaders
The Herald
(Harare)
COLUMN
March 1, 2004
Posted to the web March 1,
2004
Caesar Zvayi
Harare
"WE now must admit, we are reaping the
bitter fruits of our unwholesome and
negative behaviour. Our image as leaders
of the party and Government has
never been so badly tarnished.
"The
public are crying for our blood, and they certainly are entitled to do
so
after watching our actions and conduct . . . Do we surely deserve this
unfair
treatment from those among us who through their serious
irregularities and
violations of the law have marred our hitherto excellent
record of
performance?"
The above is an excerpt from President Mugabe's speech
to the Central
Committee on March 23 1989 after high profile leaders were
implicated by the
Sandura Commis-sion.
The commission had been set up
to probe leaders who had abused the
parliamentary motor vehicle scheme, which
allowed legislators to purchase
cars directly from Willowvale Motor
Industries.
President Mugabe's anti-graft stance is, thus, not a new
development but has
been a constant feature of his leadership.
The
President has always called on the leadership to adhere to the
Leadership
Code, a set of ethics which are aimed at fostering servant,
people-centred
leadership as opposed to money worship.
Unfortunately, some of the people
he entrusted with positions of
responsibility have continuously let him down
as they have been implicated
in various scandals over the
years.
Currently, President Mugabe has launched an anti-graft drive which
has
netted in several big players in commerce and industry, and from the
way
things are going it is going to be quite a catch!
The greatest
shock is that some high profile politicians who hold key posts
in the ruling
party and Government have been linked to corrupt
practices.
Paradoxically, these people always froth at the mouth,
sloganeering and
pledging undying patriotism whilst at the same time
surreptitiously raping
the motherland they claim to love.
Of course, a
man is innocent until proven guilty, but the mere fact that
such people have
been probed is bad enough for their standing in the eyes of
the public who
look up to them.
Indeed, as President Mugabe asked, if gold rusts what
will iron do? The
electorate expects the leadership to be people of high
decorum in all
aspects of life.
If these leaders have any modicum of
respect for the people, they must step
aside and let real patriots steer the
ship.
They must take a leaf from the likes of Enos Nkala, Dzingai
Mutumbuka,
Fredrick Shava and the late Maurice Nyagumbo, who threw in the
towel after
they were implicated by the Sandura Commission of fraudulent
dealings at
Willowvale
The tragedy of our time is that quite a number
of affluent people are buying
themselves into power at the expense of well-
meaning cadres who lack the
financial resources to sway the
gullible.
The fact that a "leader" chooses to entice people with money
rather than
ideas is enough testimony that he has nothing to offer the
people.
Such leaders are basically businessmen who regard political
office as a form
of investment; the money they pour in will be expected to
bring high
personal returns at the expense of the nation.
This kind of
behaviour is corruption of the highest order, which must never
be tolerated
if we are to defeat the machinations of our detractors, for, as
President
Mugabe said, imperialism is becoming more financial
than
political.
Worshippers of money can be bought easily to undermine
the country's
sovereignty and independence.
Speaking at the 7th
Zanu-PF Annual People's Conference in Masvingo in
December last year,
President Mugabe blasted the mercenaries when he said,
among other things,
"Let those who want to use money to disrupt our party
and create in it a new
ideology be ashamed. Let them repent, I say this
because I know what is
happening. Fortune seekers are not nation builders."
The recently
completed Zanu-PF restructuring exercise has seen mainly the
affluent ascend
to positions of leadership. Either Zanu-PF is full of
affluent people or
money was changing hands. The latter is probably the case
in light of
President Mugabe's comments, and that is tragic.
President Mugabe once
again slammed corrupt leaders in a speech read on his
behalf by
Vice-President, Cde Joseph Msika, at the burial of national
heroine Cde Julia
Zvobgo.
The President warned all corrupt leaders in both the public and
private
sectors that, if they believe that there is a link between corruption
and
wealth, they'll inevitably come to real grief.
"We have got to a
stage where decisive action against corruption is called
for," the President
said, "The waywardness which was beginning to threaten
the very fabric of
this country just has to be stamped out ruthlessly."
This is necessary
for if one bad apple is left to fester in a picnic basket,
the rest of the
apples will inevitably be affected and thrown away. To this
end, the ruling
party must kick out all those leaders in its structures and
Government who
are implicated and convicted in the ongoing anti-corruption
drive, lest
genuine cadres suffer from the folly of a few pretenders.
Such people
must not be allowed to stand for election at the next congress
or legislative
polls, as they might cost the party the people's support.
It is such
double-faced people who, in the end, bring the name of the party
into
disrepute as they eventually pursue personal wealth at the expense
of
national wealth.
With detractors always peering at the door, ready
to undo the purse strings
for Iscariots, mercenaries can be easily bought and
used against the people
since their politics bear allegiance to the highest
bidder.
As Mr Clement Georgias, the managing director of Trinity
Engineering, said
in his congratulatory birthday message to the President,
the country cannot
develop if the President has to constantly look over his
shoulder to see who
in his party is rocking the boat, while at the same time
wondering who in
the opposition is scheming against him.
Analysts say
that the recent Cabinet reshuffle clearly shows that the
President does not
have faith in the so-called young Turks as he chose to
stick to his tried and
trusted steeds. The President subsequently said as
much in an interview he
had with Newsnet on the eve of his 80th birthday
when he said he would rather
stick to his old team-mates.
Let's throw the mercenaries overboard, we do
not need them as they almost
sank the ship.
EU Charges Against Zim Baseless, Says Kangai
The Herald
(Harare)
March 1, 2004
Posted to the web March 1, 2004
Jonathan
Mbiriyamveka
Harare
ZIMBABWE'S ambassador to Austria Cde Tirivafi
Kangai has dismissed as
baseless charges by the European Union for imposing
sanctions against
Zimbabwe.
In a statement, Cde Kangai said the
Government noted with disappointment
that the EU had persisted with its
sterile policy of sanctions at the
dictates and instigation of
Britain.
"It is regrettable that the United Kingdom continues to drag the
EU into the
unresolved racist and colonial issue brought about by its
reneging on the
Lancaster House Constitutional Agreement in 1979."
Cde
Kangai said in reviewing sanctions, the EU had been seeking progress in
five
key areas: an end to all so-called politically motivated violence,
commitment
to free and fair elections, protection of the freedom of the
Press,
independence of the judiciary and an end to illegal occupation
of
properties.
He said the five key allegations have no legal basis
but are just charges
thrown at an accused country that is not given the
chance of defending
itself.
"The talk of politically motivated
violence does not hold water anymore.
There have not been any significant
cases of political violence for the past
two years with the just-ended
(by)election in Gutu North, Masvingo province,
being described by even the
often negative Zimbabwe Election Support Network
as peaceful while the losing
opposition MDC candidate said the poll was free
and fair.
"We all know
that the so-called commitment to free and fair elections can
only be shown by
Zanu-PF losing elections. As long as the ruling party
continues to win,
Zimbabwe's elections will never be free and fair in the
eyes of the EU, yet
the African Union, Sadc, Non-Aligned Movement to name a
few declared the last
presidential elections free and fair," Cde Kangai
said.
He said the
need to protect the freedom of the Press was another
empty
allegation.
He wondered how an entire bloc of some of the most
powerful countries in the
world could assume that freedom of the Press in
Zimbabwe was guaranteed by
one newspaper in a country that had more private
newspapers than owned by
the Government.
"This is clear insult to the
plethora of private newspapers that are being
published in the country as it
simply means they do not represent a free
Press. We take exception to this,"
Cde Kangai said.
He cited the independence of the judiciary as another
trumped up charge that
sought to insult the present bench as Zanu-PF
sympathisers in a bid to push
them against the State while portraying former
white judges as the doyen of
justice.
Cde Kangai said the allegation
should be dismissed with the contempt it
deserved as the Zanu-PF Government
had lost a number of cases in the courts.
He noted that there were more
cases of injustice in Europe, including
incarceration of people without trial
for unprecedented long periods.
"The demand to end the so-called illegal
occupation of properties is the
crux of the sanctions and the EU has allowed
itself to be drawn into a
bilateral wrangle between Britain and Zimbabwe,"
Cde Kangai said.
He said Zimbabwe was singled out for regime change from
1998 even as worse
political crisis situations in Africa prompted a better
understanding on the
part of the UK, the EU and US.
"The point is far
from issues of democracy and good governance in Zimbabwe
that determined the
call for regime change. It has been simply the anger at
a black nationalist
leader (President Mugabe) who has also dare the long
accepted rules of
colonial property ownership of the most fertile land by a
few descendants of
mostly British origin at the expense of the indigenous
African majority," Cde
Kangai said.
He said the EU should have shown more bravery and told
Britain in no
uncertain terms to confront Zimbabwe over the issue, adding
that the British
were afraid of engaging Zimbabwe on a one-to-one basis
because they knew
Zimbabwe was right in reclaiming its land.
Cde
Kangai said while the British government might be satisfied with itself
for
having scored a major victory at the EU, that would not change the
situation
in Zimbabwe but further strengthen Zimbabweans to look within
themselves for
their own development, prosperity and total emancipation.
The Herald
(Harare)
March 1, 2004
Posted to the web March 1, 2004
Walter
Nyamukondiwa
Harare
HARARE City Council's financial books have not
been audited since 2001 and
the local authority is leaping in the dark, with
no idea of its exact
financial position, it has emerged.
Councillors
last week took the city treasurer Mr Cosmas Zvikaramba to task
over delays in
preparing yearly accounting audits.
At a full council meeting last week,
the councillors demanded to know why
the audits were taking long to
prepare.
The city's books have not been audited since
2001.
Councillor Christopher Mushonga said it was not proper for council
to
operate without knowing its financial position.
"You never know
maybe we are in the red. We need to know the city's
financial position. It
helps us to plan better," he said.
Mr Zvikaramba said a shortage of
manpower was hampering their work.
Councillor Mushonga requested the
treasurer to give the number of
accountants the department needs to update
the accounts soon.
Mr Zvikaramba said the department needed six
accountants.
"With those we expect to have the 2002 accounts ready by
June," he said.
"The 2003 accounts should be up to date by November this
year."
Councillors then asked why up to now the posts for accountants
that were
advertised in the Press were still vacant.
Mr Zvikaramba
said the department wanted to have college graduates who could
learn while on
the job.
"It is better to have someone we can teach," he said. "Having a
fully
qualified and practicing accountant will not help."
Council has
over the years been losing experienced personnel to the private
sector, which
offers better salaries.
The treasurer said public accounting and private
accounting were different
and it would take longer for one coming from the
private sector to be
effective.
Some councillors said experienced
accountants should be hired.
Councillor Mushonga said council should not
expect to be granted borrowing
powers without fully audited and up to date
accounts.
"There is no way in hell we can expect to get borrowing powers
without these
accounts," he said.
Harare recently applied to the
Government to borrow $82,5 billion to fund
various
projects.
Councillor Elijah Manjeya said unaudited books provided corrupt
officials an
opportunity to steal from council without trace.
"At this
rate those with sticky fingers will steal and we will only get to
know about
them in 2010," he said. "Our books should be at current
levels."
Councillors demanded a report from the audit committee on the
matter.
Health Professionals Launch Programme
The Herald
(Harare)
March 1, 2004
Posted to the web March 1,
2004
Harare
A GROUP of health professionals have launched a
programme aimed at providing
free treatment to patients failing to access
specialist healthcare.
The programme known as the Community Medical
Outreach Service Trust (CMOST)
began in June last year and was officially
launched on Friday night in
Harare.
It groups specialist doctors,
nurses and paramedics.
The doctors offer specialist gynaecology, urology,
paediatric care, ear,
throat and nasal infection treatment. The health
professionals treat
patients at health centres in the country on a rotational
basis and have so
far taken their services to Masvingo, Banket, Mutare,
Harare Central
Hospital and Mpilo Hospital in Bulawayo.
CMOST founder
member and president Dr Edwin Muguti said the outreach
programme was aimed at
ensuring that every patient receives treatment.
"Our duty as doctors is
to alleviate suffering of patients and we believe
medical professionals have
the power to make things better," said.
The Minister of Health and Child
Welfare Dr David Parirenyatwa who
officiated at the launch and is also patron
of CMOST said there was need to
highlight the health sector's successes
instead of concentrating on negative
aspects.
He said CMOST was a
noble programme that would help ensure the
less-privileged patients in the
country would receive medical attention.
"I am proud that top surgeons
are involved in this programme and this will
be chronicled in the successes
of our country's health delivery system,"
said Dr Parirenyatwa. He said the
three most important aspects in the
country's health delivery system were
human resources, drugs and
infrastructure.
"The Ministry of Health and
Child Welfare appreciates the efforts by the
country's health professionals
who are contributing towards assisting
patients.
"I hope CMOST will
grow and inspire other health professionals to embark on
similar
programmes."
CMOST member Dr Gibson Mandishona said the outreach service
was embarked on
by health professionals who have the patients at
heart.
He said a disease map of the whole country would also be
formulated to
assist health professionals in the programme.
"The CMOST
philosophy is that Zimbabwe shall not face doom or gloom as long
as we have
professionals and dedicated doctors to serve the people.
"Their
dedication translates into upholding the Hippocratic Oath," he said.
Last
month CMOST undertook 40 operations at Harare Central Hospital worth
$250
million in its efforts to treat the less privileged.
Dr Mandishona said
CMOST was also working with medical students particularly
those in
postgraduate courses for outreach programmes.
He appealed for assistance
from the Government to boost its medical
equipment and mobile theatre.
ZRP Seeks $25 Million for Hospital
The Herald
(Harare)
March 1, 2004
Posted to the web March 1,
2004
Harare
THE Zimbabwe Republic Police needs $25 million dollars
to complete work on
the Bulawayo Camp Hospital.
In an interview the
acting officer in charge of the camp, Inspector Keteas
Siziba said at least
$25 million was needed for plumbing and electrification
for the hospital to
be completed.
He said the hospital, which is expected to cater for more
than 40 patients
at any given time, was expected to be complete in a few
months' time and it
will start operating as soon as the ZRP acquire a few
remaining essentials.
"We do not have adequate equipment for the hospital
but we have a few beds
and we are yet to sit down and think of the way
forward.
"Meanwhile, we are appealing to the corporate world to come and
assist us as
they have done before," said Inspector Siziba.
Meanwhile,
the acting Bulawayo police spokesperson, Assistant Inspector
Langa Ndlovu
said the construction of the hospital was started in September
1998 under the
then officer commanding Matabeleland North Senior Assistant
Commissioner
Albert Mandizha. It is a joint effort of all officers within
the province and
other individuals.
"It was built for police officers and their dependants
but we can
accommodate certain cases if need arises. What motivated us into
building
this hospital is that we have residents in the camp and we want them
to have
a hospital nearby which offers good services."
Ass Insp Ndlovu
said the hospital will be treating all kinds of ailments and
there would not
be any need to refer patients to other hospitals like Mpilo
and United
Bulawayo Hospitals.
"We want to provide bedding so that it becomes more
of a hospital than a
clinic as we also have our own resident doctor," he
said.
The Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Cde
Sithembiso
Nyoni who had come to check on the progress of the hospital said
she was
impressed by the determination and unity that exists in police
force.
"When the construction of this hospital was started I thought it
was a small
clinic and did not think it would progress as it has done now. I
am
impressed by the unity of spirit that these people have shown," said
Cde
Nyoni.
Zesa Loses Over $14m Every Month
The Herald (Harare)
March
1, 2004
Posted to the web March 1, 2004
Harare
The Zimbabwe
Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) is losing more than $14
million every
month due to illegal connections by some unscrupulous
consumers, a Zesa
official has said.
In a Press statement, Zesa senior public relations
officer Mr Shepherd
Mandizvidza said the illegal connections do not only
prejudice Zesa but also
endangers the lives of consumers who face the danger
of being electrocuted.
"While some perpetrators of this illicit activity
do so innocently to extend
electricity services to some backyard
money-spinning projects to eke out a
living, some of them do so deliberately
to avoid paying electricity bills,"
he said.
He said they had received
many reports of many people being electrocuted and
some properties being
burnt due to wrong connections.
"It is advisable for the consumers to
enlist the technical expertise of the
power utility to repair electrical
faults or should there be any need for
additional electricity services
through the normal channels of service
application," said Mr
Mandizvidza.
He said some of the illegal connections such as bypassing of
meters to avoid
recording of readings, interference with Miniature Circuit
Breakers (MCBs)
and illegal extensions of power are non-technical losses,
which have
adversely affected the business of the power utility.
Mr
Mandizvidza said Zesa had put in place mechanisms to detect such
illegal
connections and most of them are noticed when electrical faults
occur, which
can only be rectified by the power utility.
"The power
utility's security is also making considerable inroads to tame
this unusual
dimension of theft," he said.
He said punitive measures would be taken
against those found committing such
offences. Mr Mandizvidza said they would
pass on the costs of rectifying the
wrong connections and loss recovery to
those making illegal connections.
Mail and Guardian
Zimbabwe wants to repay its debts
Harare,
Zimbabwe
01 March 2004 17:51
Zimbabwe will repay its
long-standing debts to the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) to avoid losing
membership in the global lender, the state news
agency quoted Information
Minister Jonathan Moyo as saying on Monday.
Ziana quoted Moyo as saying
Zimbabwe would repay the money it owes to the
IMF in order to maintain
membership in the lender, which he said "increases
our credit
rating".
The statement came after an IMF board late last year said it was
initiating
the compulsory withdrawal of the economically ravaged Southern
African
country from the body due to lack of cooperation and unpaid
debt.
It notably cited arrears of more than $270-million running back
almost three
years.
"What we need to do is to stop the process of
withdrawal. If you've got a
debt, you must pay," Moyo said, according to
Ziana.
However, he did not say when the government would start repaying
the debt.
Zimbabwe owes foreign creditors more than $4-billion, according
to official
figures.
The country is currently in the grip of its worst
economic crisis, with
inflation at more than 622%, 70% unemployment and
critical shortages of
fuel, medicine and food.
As part of a new
monetary policy aimed at reviving the economy and
attracting investment, the
government has said that it will
service its foreign debts.
Ziana
reported Moyo as saying the IMF was impressed with Zimbabwean
economic
reforms and that he was confident the country would not be forced
to
withdraw. -- Sapa-AFP
Mail and Guardian
Church leaders form Zim task team
Johannesburg, South Africa
01 March 2004 16:45
South
African and Zimbabwean church leaders agreed at a meeting on Monday to
create
a task team to promote talks between Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF and
the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The agreement, however,
is in principle, said Russel Botman, the president
of the South African
Council of Churches (SACC).
He said the team still has to receive a
mandate on the matter from all
Zimbabwean faith-based
organisations.
"We are not clear as what Zimbabwean clergymen want us to
do and we do not
intend making any presumptions. They are still to present
their agenda to us
so we can see if we can deliberate on that," said Botman,
who will lead the
team.
"We move from the premise that problems in
Zimbabwe will not be solved
without a collective decision and input from
those who are directly
affected."
Botman said other task team members
are SACC secretary general Molefe Tsele,
South African Catholic Bishop's
Conference secretary general Richard Manatsi
and Evangelical Alliance of
South Africa representative Moss Ntla.
The clergymen also discussed at
the meeting, which Botman described as the
first of its kind, the political
and social instability in Zimbabwe.
Botman said Zimbabwean church leaders
raised their concerns on various
issues affecting the political instability
in their country, especially in
the run-up to the 2005 parliamentary
elections.
"They have raised the issue of lack of independent media and
the use of
state institutions like the police and the army by the ruling
Zanu-PF to
intimidate and quash opposition parties."
Asked if the
clergymen doubted the South African administration's political
will to solve
the Zimbabwean crisis, Tsele said efforts by President Thabo
Mbeki to come up
with a peace plan could not be underestimated.
"We need to stress that
South Africa should not be seen as the only party
that can bring an end to
this debacle. Regional and continental
organisations must be seen to be doing
something," he said.
"The process of reaching a peaceful settlement in
Zimbabwe is slow but the
delay can not be laid on our government or President
Mbeki's door step but
on political players in that country."
Tsele
said he hoped Zanu-PF and the MDC would reach a peace settlement
Moyo's Visit 'Just a Happy Coincidence'
The Namibian
(Windhoek)
March 1, 2004
Posted to the web March 1,
2004
Tangeni Amupadhi
Windhoek
GOVERNMENT'S announcement on
Wednesday that it plans to expropriate
commercial farms and the arrival of
the Zimbabwean Minister of State for
Information, Jonathan Moyo on the same
day was purely coincidental, say
ministers of the two countries.
Moyo
and Namibia's Minister of Information and Broadcasting Nangolo
Mbumba
insisted on Friday that there was no connection between Moyo's visit
and
Prime Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab announcement on national television
that
Government would begin to expropriate white-owned farms.
They
were speaking at a press conference held at the Office of the
Prime
Minister.
Moyo faced a range of questions including whether he
was looking for
property in Namibia, anti-media laws in Zimbabwe and the
vexing land issue.
Gurirab's announcement on expropriation came on the
same day that Moyo
arrived in Windhoek for what has been described as a
working visit.
Answering a question at the press conference, Moyo said he
did not "see a
connection" with an earlier question that he might have been
in Namibia to
buy property in case it became difficult for him to stay in
Zimbabwe.
"It was pure, pure coincidence, but a happy one for me," said
Moyo, adding
that Namibia and Zimbabwe "shared a common understanding of our
societies".
Moyo said he was happy to hear Gurirab's statement personally
rather than
having to rely on newspapers.
The Zimbabwean information
minister, widely regarded as President Robert
Mugabe's propaganda chief, was
in the country for five days, visiting mainly
Government-funded media such as
Nampa, New Era and NBC.
He and Mbumba signed an agreement allowing for
closer co-operation between
State media in the two countries.
Speaking
about the agreement, Moyo said just as Africans were "our own
liberators,
today we have to be our own story-tellers".
Moyo has advocated news
exchanges between agencies in southern African
countries, arguing that
foreign news organisations had been demonising
rather than aiding development
in Africa.
Zimbabwe has consistently received bad publicity since Mugabe
introduced
what was called a "fast-track" land reform.
However, the
land reform policy has been seen as a political ploy to
destroy
anti-government activists calling for constitutional change and a
limit to
presidential powers.
The land reform programme in Zimbabwe is
said to have led to the collapse of
the economy with investors pulling out or
staying away amid accusations that
it was mainly the ruling elite and Mugabe
cronies who have benefited.
Asked whether he intended to buy property in
Namibia, Moyo said:"I will be
on the look-out for property here any time. It
is such a wonderful place,
but I wish that were true. You have a tradition of
manufacturing stories and
your question is an example of that tradition. You
even suggested that the
President [Mugabe] was on the look-out for property
here, and I'm sure we
will be on the look-out for properties here until the
end of time".
When Mbumba was asked whether Namibia intended to adopt
anti-media laws as
had happened in Zimbabwe, he said the Cabinet would be
guided by the
Namibian Constitution, depending on "challenges" they
faced.
"If we have men abusing their wives, we will make laws to restrict
them,"
said Mbumba.
Moyo said he was "surprised" that the reporter's
question "characterised"
Zimbabwean law as anti-media.
According to
Moyo, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act
was modelled on
similar laws in Sweden.
Media laws in Zimbabwe have been used to clamp
down on news organisations
critical of the Mugabe regime.
Scores of
journalists have been hauled before courts for publishing articles
that, for
example, exposed the President's extravagance.
The National Society for
Human Rights (NSHR) denounced Moyo's visit to
Namibia.
The NSHR
likened him to Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's propagandist, and
also accused
him of being "responsible for the supervision of widespread
media rights and
human rights abuses".