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MPs D.Wyatt. C Spelman. F. Fields
| The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
Us |
MPs D.Wyatt. C Spelman. F. Fields |
(MP Kate Hoey - ex minister of sport was present that day as well). Thanks to you all for your support and for the 94 who raised the motion in Parliament. God bless you.
(Thanks to Sue Perkins for the excellent photos).
RCMP papers sought by Harare
defendant
By COLIN FREEZE
From Saturday's Globe and
Mail
The leader of Zimbabwe's opposition has launched a court battle in
Canada
saying he "desperately" needs documents from Ottawa to help in his
defence
against allegations that he plotted a coup.
In Harare, Morgan
Tsvangirai stands accused of high treason, a charge that
carries the
possibility of the death penalty. He says the RCMP and Foreign
Affairs
Department are refusing to release information that could clear him.
"My
solicitors are desperately seeking copies of the RCMP's investigation
and any
other information that the Canadian government may possess that
would be of
assistance to my defence," Mr. Tsvangirai writes in an affidavit
filed in
March in the Federal Court of Canada.
The story he tells in court documents
involves multiple layers of intrigue.
At the centre is a pair of Montreal
consultants Mr. Tsvangirai had hired to
burnish his image, but who instead
switched sides and went to work for
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
It
is these same consultants who secretly taped Mr. Tsvangirai meeting them
in
Montreal, then handed the tape over to Mr. Mugabe's authoritarian regime.
The
tape forms the basis of the coup-plot allegations on which Mr.
Tsvangirai is
being tried.
Mr. Tsvangirai denies he ever plotted to oust Mr. Mugabe
violently and
maintains he is just the latest victim of the consultants. He
alleges in the
court documents that the consultants have been involved in
many fraudulent
dealings.
Mr. Tsvangirai says the RCMP and Foreign Affairs
have chronicled many
similar complaints from around the world involving the
same consultants. He
says he needs to get at Canadian government documents
outlining these
complaints so he can discredit his accusers in a Harare
court.
Spokesmen for the RCMP and Foreign Affairs said they could not comment
on a
matter that is before the courts in Canada.
In court documents, Mr.
Tsvangirai points to several lawsuits filed in
Montreal courts involving
fraud allegations against the consultants. He also
points to Foreign Affairs
documents, portions of which have already been
made public, indicating that
several individuals and corporations in other
countries complained to
Canadian consular officials about the consultants'
business dealings.
In
the affidavit, Mr. Tsvangirai notes that Foreign Affairs had
conducted
intelligence debriefings with one of the consultants, Ari Ben
Menashe, in
which he volunteered information about his travels. The
department has since
cut all ties to him.
Mr. Tsvangirai, who retained the
consultants in August, 2001, says he had
heard that their Montreal firm,
Dickens and Madson, could help his campaign
and raise money for his party,
the Movement for Democratic Change.
He was told the Montrealers "had
considerable political influence and the
ability to raise large sums of money
to help finance the MDC's efforts to
win the presidential elections," he says
in the affidavit.
That December, Mr. Tsvangirai flew to Montreal to meet the
consultants, Mr.
Ben Menashe and Alexandre Legault.
The two men had formed
a Montreal business partnership about a decade ago,
after coming to Canada
separately.
The consultants met with Mr. Tsvangirai in Montreal in December,
2001, a
meeting they secretly videotaped. A month later, they signed a
contract to
work for Mr. Mugabe.
In February, 2002, a month before the
Zimbabwean election, they were doing
paid pubic-relations work for Mr. Mugabe
in Zimbabwe. At the time, they
issued a statement saying they handed the tape
over to his officials because
they felt "morally compelled to assist the
embattled people of Zimbabwe and
their President, Robert Mugabe."
The
videotape was released to an Australian broadcaster, which presented it
as
proof of a Zimbabwean coup plot taking shape. A month before the March,
2002,
election, Mr. Tsvangirai and two co-accused were charged with treason.
In
previous interviews with The Globe and Mail, Mr. Ben Menashe and Mr.
Legault
have denied wrongdoing, saying the videotape is indeed evidence of a
coup
plot.
SABC
MDC vows 'final push' to oust
Mugabe
May 24, 2003,
18:30
Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's opposition leader, said today his
supporters
were planning a "final push" to force President Robert Mugabe
from
power.
Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC),
told about 7 000 people in Chitungwiza, southeast of the
capital Harare, that
Mugabe was the main impediment to the recovery of an
economy which has all
but
collapsed.
"Please (Mugabe) why don't you go now? Because if you remain in
power this
economy will never recover. And if you wait too long to go, it
will get too
dark to find your way out, "Tsvangirai
said.
Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence from
Britain in 1980,
on Thursday hinted for the second time in as many months
that he may be ready
to hand over to a successor amid a deepening political
and economic crisis
many blame on his
mismanagement.
However, he vowed the MDC, which he calls a puppet of the West,
would only
rule "over our dead
bodies".
Zimbabwe in dire
situation
Zimbabwe has acute fuel shortages, inflation well over 200% and
half its 14
million population face starvation. An acute shortage of
Zimbabwe dollar
notes has added to the woes of Zimbabweans already finding
it hard to get
hold of basic commodities like maize-meal, sugar and
milk.
Mugabe's government has dismissed media reports that the
international
community was preparing an economic rescue package for
Zimbabwe hinging on
Mugabe resigning by the end of the
year.
The MDC and labour unions each called strikes earlier this year,
which were
among the biggest protests against Mugabe since his controversial
re-election
in March 2002 polls that both the opposition and several Western
countries
said were
rigged.
Mugabe (79) denies mismanaging the economy, saying it has been
sabotaged by
the West in retaliation for his seizure of white-owned farms
for
redistribution to landless blacks. - Reuters
News24
Zimbabweans queue for cash
24/05/2003
12:57 - (SA)
Harare - Long queues of people waited outside
banks on Saturday in central
Harare amid fears of more strikes and reports
banks were limiting cash
withdrawals.
There were many people waiting
outside cash machines in Harare's main First
Street and surrounding areas, an
AFP reporter reports.
A three-day stay-away last month left banks and
customers struggling for
cash and the situation appears to have worsened
since, with state media
reporting that the central bank no longer has the
necessary foreign currency
to print new notes.
Fuelling the anxiety,
the state-owned Herald newspaper on Saturday reported
that cash shortages had
resurfaced at "most banks in Harare".
"Now we can't even get our money
when we need it," the paper quoted one
would-be customer, Godwill Munyimi, as
saying.
The paper said customers were only being allowed to withdraw a
maximum of up
to 20 000 Zimbabwe dollars (R170).
Zimbabweans are
struggling under shortages of many basic goods, including
foodstuffs and
fuel, while inflation has now topped 269 percent.
Monday is a public
holiday in Zimbabwe and there have been reports there
could be more protest
stay-aways soon, although the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC)
has set no definite date.
Meanwhile, last week the Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions (ZCTU) advised
people to stock up on provisions and to keep
money aside for a possible
indefinite job
stay-away.
A Betrayal of Democracy
Mail & Guardian
(Johannesburg)
COLUMN
March 18, 2003
Posted to the web May 24,
2003
Richard Calland: Contretemps
The pamphlet had a
photograph of Nelson Mandela. "Why have you got his photo
on here?" I was
asked in Harare towards the end of last year. It was a
surprising question,
coming as it did from a Zimbabwean human rights worker.
But the meaning soon
became clear. She said: "Because he has done nothing;
he has betrayed
us."
This is unfair on Mandela. He is not the architect of the South
African
government's policy towards Zimbabwe. And, in the case of Nigeria -
another
place where President Thabo Mbeki pursued a policy of
constructive
engagement, that time with the Sani Abacha regime - he went out
on a limb to
condemn Abacha's brutal tactics, calling successfully for
Nigeria's
expulsion from the Commonwealth.
For that Mandela is
remembered fondly by human rights activists in Nigeria.
For those who know
what Mandela's deputy president's view was then,
scepticism is reserved for
Mbeki.
But what the conversation about the pamphlet photo of Mandela told
me was
the depth of the sense of betrayal that many Zimbabweans feel about
South
Africa's response to the crisis in their country.
Zimbabwean
pro-democracy activists have known what South Africa's foreign
policy towards
the Mugabe government is for some time now. Yet there is no
substitute for
hearing something important directly from a human being. That
is when
intellectual understanding yields to a more profound intuition.
A group
of about 50 leading Zimbabwean human rights and democracy activists
were
given this opportunity at a conference facilitated by the Institute
for
Democracy in South Africa near Pretoria in the beginning of March.
They
heard a representative of the government speak with impeccable clarity
about
South Africa's approach to its northern neighbour. What they heard
was
nothing new, yet it provoked a surge of anger from the Zimbabweans
present.
The Chatham House rules of the conference preclude me from
citing the
identity of the government representative and from attributing
direct quotes
to the individual. Not that I think the person would mind;
there was no lack
of confidence in the position and no hint of
apology.
On the contrary. Presumably emboldened by the words of Minister
of Foreign
Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma just a few days before, it was an
apparently
definitive statement of policy: Zimbabwe has a democratic
government - note,
not a mealy-mouthedness about legitimacy, no, it is a
full-on democracy -
and it is not for South Africa to interfere; this is the
starting premise;
all else flows from this; and any problems you -
Zimbabweans - have, you
must sort out yourselves.
The session had to
end soon after, and so there was time for just one
emotional rebuttal.
Further outpourings would not have made any impact, I am
sure of that. The
South African government is well aware of what is going
on. It is just that
its policy response is immersed in nuance - to summon
the most generous word
available.
The nuance, if that is what it is, derives from a combination
of two things.
First of all a dogged and perhaps dogmatic determination to
respond in a
solely multilateral way. Mbeki is committed to multilateralism,
as is the
African National Congress. That is why it devotes so much attention
to
entities such as the Non-Aligned Movement.
Indeed, when it comes to
matters such as the unilateral use of American
power most of us are also
dedicated multilateralists, putting the case of
the United Nations as if our
very lives depended upon it. Surely what is
sauce for the goose is sauce for
the gander. Why is it that so many people
in South Africa want to stop United
States President George W Bush acting
unilaterally in the case of Saddam
Hussein, but complain bitterly at Mbeki's
failure to do just that in the case
of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe?
The second element is a belief
that the most effective way to effect regime
change in Zimbabwe is to cajole
and persuade Mugabe. This strategy demands
"constructive engagement" - a
polite term for an unappetising policy
response to a problem regime. In other
words, you permit and even encourage
a level of legitimisation of Mugabe in
the belief that it is the only
climate in which he will consider reform and
retirement.
There is a third, complicating factor of unknown quantity:
Pan- Africanism.
To some Pan-Africanists Mugabe exhibits an admirable sense
of power. To them
his two-fingers to the West, his stubborn, mad-as-a-fox
mavericking is
positively alluring. I suspect there is a strong element of
this in the
approach of Dlamini-Zuma, an energetic member of the Black
Consciousness
movement in her youth, and perhaps also in Mbeki's
approach.
If so, it represents a serious misjudgement - as illustrated by
Professor
Brian Raftopolous's brilliant analysis of the Zimbabwean crisis
presented at
last week's conference. To allow Mugabe to use the superficial
allure of a
Pan-Africanist/Third Worldist rhetoric to mask the betrayal of
his own
people and their oppression by his henchmen and militias is to fall
naively
for the most childish of tactics. As Raftopolous put it: "Using an
external
argument to justify internal repression is the most serious thing
Some of
what Mugabe says about globalisation we can agree with. But a
dialogue that
legitimises repression we refute."
I have no doubt that
there are many in the ANC who, though they are well
aware of the brutal
expediency of his policy direction, admire what they see
as a Mugabe's
boldness. If only, they think quietly, we could deal so
decisively with white
privilege in our country. There might be an element of
empathy with this,
were it not for the fact that all Zimbabweans are
suffering from the crisis
of governance, black and white, rich and poor.
There is a humanitarian
crisis: 7,2-million or 60% of the population needs
food aid.
When some
South African policy-makers see this for themselves, they might be
forgiven
for thinking that it is not substantially different from the plight
of the
millions of most poverty-stricken here.
Again, even if there is any
empathy to be drawn to such a response, the idea
that Zanu-PF is now a
"progressive party", as Dlamini-Zuma keeps
maintaining, must be exposed for
the utter nonsense that it is. I don't know
how she defines "progressive",
but I wonder whether she has read Zimbabwe's
Access to Information and
Protection of Privacy Act, or its Public Order and
Security Act, or its
Broadcasting Authority Act, all of which exist solely
to suppress free
thought and activity. All would be struck down under South
African
constitutional law. What is progressive about a government that
passes such
laws?
Finally, back to the policy of "constructive engagement". In the
1980s the
ANC condemned Western constructive engagement with Pretoria.
Consider these
words, written by pro-liberation writers Peter Vale and
Sanford Unger in
their chapter "Why Constructive Engagement Failed" in the
Penguin-published
book Apartheid in Crisis: "American policy has actually
exacerbated the
situation inside South Africa by encouraging and indulging
the white
regime's divide-and-rule tactics - leading that regime, its
internal and
external victims and much of the international community to
believe that,
whatever the rhetoric emanating from Washington, American
prestige is on the
side of the Pretoria government."
Two weeks ago
Dlamini-Zuma said that "the trouble with you [the media] is
that you are
waiting for one word - condemnation. You will never hear that.
Not so long as
this government is in power." These are words she may come to
regret. Not
because Mbeki will necessarily shift policy, but because if his
government's
policy fails its credibility throughout the world will be
undermined. Just as
Blair risks his whole reputation on his policy to Iraq,
so Mbeki's reputation
in relation to good governance and projects such as
the New Partnership for
Africa's Development is threatened.
It is one thing to exercise quiet
diplomacy but quite another to explicitly
offer support to Mugabe in public
statements such as Zuma's. Mbeki has been
far more cautious; does he support
his foreign minister?
Zimbabwean anger is a natural and justified
response to this. Yet Zimbabwean
opposition needs more than anger to succeed.
Civil society activists must
get their campaign together and build a
concerted, united movement for a
transition with just the same sort of
strategic wit as the ANC was able to
muster in the early
1990s.
Indeed, underlying the government representative's crisp statement
of policy
last week lay another more subtle line directed at the
Zimbabwean
opposition: stop whingeing and tell us precisely what you want us
to do.
Provided it does not breach Mbeki's doctrinal multilateralism,
there is more
possibility to this than may meet the eye. As chair of the
African Union,
the South African commitment to notions of good governance and
peer review
must be put to proof. A first Peer Review by a Group of Eminent
Persons has
to happen sometime, otherwise the credibility of the idea will
wither
rapidly.
The South African government could, and should,
isolate Mugabe instead of
legitimising him. Political pressure through the
multilateral institutions
of the Southern African Development Community and
the African Union could
apply real pressure on him, and South Africa has the
leverage to do so.
As Vale and Unger argued about South Africa: "A policy
must be crafted that
not only recognises and works with the current grim
realities there, but
also tries to ease the transition to an altogether
different, albeit
unknown, future in which blacks will take part in the
government of their
country. There is no longer any question that this change
will occur in
South Africa; the question is how, according to whose timetable
and with
what sort of outside involvement."
There is no question that
the same logic applies to Zimbabwe now. Change
will inexorably come, by one
method or another, because the people of
Zimbabwe will demand it as intensely
as they deserve it.
In the meantime, Dlamini-Zuma's diplomatic hyperbole
shames her own party's
tradition of human rights and democracy. Perhaps that
is where the betrayal
lies.
Zim
Standard
MDC ready for war
veterans
By Henry
Makiwa
THE Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) said yesterday it will crush
any attempts by Zanu PF-aligned war
veterans to thwart its proposed mass
action next month as it emerged that
some senior ruling party leaders were
on the verge of defecting to the
opposition.
Nelson Chamisa, the MDC's
national youth chairman and newly-elected
Member of Parliament for Kuwadzana,
warned the aging war veterans of "bitter
consequences" if they attempted to
obstruct the mass action planned by the
opposition
party.
Party leader Morgan Tsvangirai told
the rally at Chitungwiza's Chibuku
Stadium that some senior Zanu PF officials
wanting to jump ship and join the
MDC had approached him in the "Nicodemous"
hours of the night.
"We will accept them
but they should not expect high posts and to be
treated with kid-gloves when
they come to us," Tsvangirai said, without
mentioning names of the ruling
party's officials seeking to defect and join
the
opposition.
Chamisa described the Zimbabwe
National Liberation War Veterans'
Association (ZNLWVA), led by Patrick
Nyaruwata, as a "congress of Mugabe's
supine
bootlickers".
"Nyaruwata should never
claim cheap victories and celebrations because
like a candle burning in the
wind, he will soon snuff out," said
Chamisa.
"We, the young generation of
Zimbabwe, will not be intimidated by
empty threats of senile and old figures
whose cheap talk are inspired by
Mugabe's bribes. The MDC will mobilise all
youth across the country to ward
off the threats of the so-called war
veterans who are in truth
shameless
mercenaries."
He was reacting
to threats from the war veterans that they would link
with state security
agents and use "military force" to quash the proposed
mass action, which
according to insiders, is scheduled for sometime
next
month.
"Our train of revolutionary
change will not stop at anything ...
Nyaruwata has forewarned us and he might
as well have forearmed us," Chamisa
said, to thunderous
applause.
Analysts said Nyaruwata's threat
to use military force to stop the
possibility of a popular uprising against
President Robert Mugabe's policies
was meant to cow the populace who are
increasing becoming bolder.
The MDC and
the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions have during the past
two months
organised highly successful job stayaways that were observed by
industry and
commerce as well as the general populace.
Tsvangirai yesterday reiterated that 2003 was "The Year of Freedom"
and urged
Zimbabweans to become stronger and unwaveringly take part in the
planned mass
demonstrations.
He said: "We will not call
on Bush (American President George W. Bush)
to remove the despotic dictator,
but we will do it ourselves because it is
our
responsibility."
He added: "So we should
all take to the streets without fear of
repression when the call is made to
restore the glory of our
ruined
country."
The MDC leader told
the 10 000 strong crowd of supporters that
"victory would soon
come".
"Never again should we let a party
and a party leader treat us like
his gullible subjects. We should take this
form of action for the sake of
our children and our children's children lest
they accuse us of watching
haplessly while bad men destroyed their future,"
Tsvangirai said.
Zim
Standard
Millers close down as
wheat shortages bite
By Kumbirai
Mafunda
ZIMBABWE'S three largest millers
could be forced to suspend operations
anytime from now amid revelations that
the sole marketer of grain, the Grain
Marketing Board (GMB), has failed to
deliver wheat rations to the millers.
Milling industry sources told Standard Business that they were
receiving
inconsistent supplies of wheat from the state-run GMB which has
the monopoly
on importing and marketing grain products.
The GMB has been rationing wheat supplies to millers, only allocating
6 000
tonnes per week to the three, namely National Foods, Blue Ribbon Foods
and
Victoria Foods.
However, the millers said
they were being forced to temporarily shut
down because deliveries had became
erratic over the past few weeks.
An
official at National Foods, the country's largest miller, who
declined to be
identified, said although the GMB had reduced its
allocations, the state body
had still failed to supply wheat grain for the
past two
weeks.
"The mill will close again tonight
because we have no wheat. Our
allocation is 2 500 tonnes a week but they
(GMB) haven't given us any.
Furthermore, our suppliers haven't kept us in the
picture," he said.
Sources in the milling
industry said the Midlands-based Victoria Foods
and Blue Ribbon were the
worst affected among the millers who are also
strangled by the government's
price controls.
An official at Blue Ribbon
Foods said they were receiving less than a
third of their former weekly
allocation and last week, their plant was
forced to close down because of
water and other shortages.
"We have been
operating at below half capacity. The inflows this week
have been very low,
not even reaching rationed levels. We are getting much
less than we used to.
Yesterday we had to shut down because we had no
water," the official
said.
"We are sceptical about next week
because we don't have information
from the relevant officials. From what we
understand, wheat stocks are
running out," he
added.
Former GMB boss and Movement for
Democratic Change shadow minister for
agriculture, Renson Gasela, said
although government had projected a harvest
of 250 000 tonnes, only 140 000
tonnes were harvested from last year's crop
against a demand of 40 000 tonnes
a month.
He said the few silos that were
still holding wheat grain in the
country had dried
up.
"Last week they had 5 000 tonnes left
which must be finished by now.
So there will be no bread and other wheat
products. There is no plan from
GMB at the moment to import wheat at all and
we are going to stock out
completely," said
Gasela.
Although government is currently
making much noise about winter
cropping which it says will salvage the
current shortages, the energy crisis
is likely to derail the
programme.
"Our concern right now is we
are going into the winter cropping season
with power cuts and shortages of
fuel," said one miller.
Another source
said apart from energy deficits, there is insufficient
seed for the
much-vaunted winter cropping.
National
Bakers Association of Zimbabwe chairman, Armittage
Chikwavira, said his
members were relying on stored stocks and once they run
out they would be
forced to close down.
"We are still baking
using stored stocks. I can foresee us grinding to
a halt because we don't
have alternatives," said Chikwavira.
Zim
Standard
Mortuaries strained as
deaths soar
By Cynthia
Mahwite
BULAWAYO-The government has been
urged to upgrade mortuaries at public
hospitals across the country because
existing facilities are failing to cope
with increased demand for space due
to the HIV/Aids scourge ravaging
the
country.
Currently many corpses in
hospital mortuaries remain unclaimed as a
result of the high burial expenses
and the harsh economic climate, leading
to serious
overcrowding.
The country's death rate,
fuelled by the HIV/Aids pandemic, is now
about 3 000 people per week and this
is straining mortuaries, most of them
set up before the disease began to take
its toll.
A survey at Bulawayo's public
hospitals last week revealed that there
was a serious shortage of mortuary
space, with bodies piling on top of
each
other.
Hospital authorities who
declined to be identified said the crisis was
worsened by failure by some
cash-strapped families to claim the bodies of
their departed relatives,
fearing to meet the hospital bills they left
behind and the exorbitant burial
costs.
As a result many bodies remain in
the mortuaries for up to three
months before they are given paupers' burials,
said the authorities.
Bulawayo residents
living next to Mpilo Hospital mortuary who spoke to
this newspaper complained
about a serious stench coming from the
hospital.
"The stench from the mortuary is
so bad and we urge the government to
address the situation by either building
another mortuary or reviewing the
mortuary policy as a whole," said Zanele
Ndlovu.
Thoko Moyo, another Bulawayo
resident, said: "The government must set
price controls for graves as the
prices are stopping families from decently
burying their dead. They must also
allow us to claim bodies without coffins
and the use of blankets for
burial."
Contacted for a comment, Health
and Child Welfare Minister, David
Parirenyatwa, said government was aware
that a number of people could not
afford proper burials and had come up with
new retention periods for
unclaimed
bodies.
"We have already introduced a new
facility whereby anybody that
remains unclaimed beyond a new retention period
of 21 days can now be given
a pauper's burial. We are sensitive and aware
that a number of people cannot
afford burials these days," Parirenyatwa
said.
Zim
Standard
Panic buying grips
Zimbabwe cities
By our own
Staff
THOUSANDS of Zimbabweans swamped
banks and emptied supermarket shelves
as panic buying swept the country ahead
of an anticipated series of long
mass job actions organised by labour, civic
organisations and the
opposition.
Shoppers in Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Masvingo and Mutare could be
seen
frantically snapping any available foodstuffs while banks and
building
societies ran out of cash and some began to ration the amounts
clients could
withdraw.
While it has
been common to see short queues of people with a few
items in their
supermarket trolleys because of the skyrocketing prices of
commodities, it
was the complete opposite from Friday. Long and snaking
queues were all over
the major cities at the start of the weekend as
shoppers attempted to secure
most of the basic but scarce food stuffs left
on the
shelves.
Cash shortages also resurfaced in
banks and building societies amid
reports that one building society, which is
heavily patronised by civil
servants, had to appeal for money from
supermarkets after it had run
completely
dry.
Many shoppers said they were not
taking chances in view of the planned
mass action by the Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions and the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC).
"I experienced problems the last
time when we had a stayaway. I can't
be caught napping again. I have to stock
enough food to ensure that even if
they call for a week long mass action, my
grandchildren will be well catered
for," said Ambuya Mutero of Mucheke, a
high-density suburb in Masvingo.
Martha
Mhlanga of Kambuzuma in Harare said: "There is so much alarm
among the people
to withdraw as much money as possible from banks and buy
the basic
necessities needed in homes."
In Bulawayo,
hordes of city residents swarmed around supermarkets much
of Friday and
yesterday afternoon in search of foodstuffs while thousands
waited patiently
in long queues outside banking halls as the stayaway fever
gripped Zimbabwe's
second largest city.
Sithembile Ncube, a
Bulawayo resident, described the massive shopping
sprees as
"abnormal".
The ZCTU last week urged
Zimbabweans to "store a bucket of mealie meal
and save a penny" ahead of a
planned and indefinite mass action to protest
against fuel price increases,
which went up by more than 300 percent, and
the general decay in living
standards.
Yesterday Wellington Chibhebhe,
the ZCTU secretary general said: "We
have noted the intense purchasing of
goods by the ordinary citizenry. That
is the right thing for them to
do."
Chibhebhe could however not disclose
the form in which the mass action
will take though many observers believe the
ZCTU will call on workers to go
on an indefinite
stayaway.
The MDC last week said it was
planning combined mass protests to push
President Robert Mugabe out of
office.
Zim
Standard
Wallets give way to the
car boot
By Langton
Nyakwenda
FANCY going shopping or to the
bank this week? Forget about the wallet
and grab that plastic shopping
bag!
Many Zimbabweans have now resorted to
packing hundreds of thousands of
notes into plastic bags or satchels just to
do the month's groceries or pay
their
bills.
In fact, it is said thieves in
Harare no longer pick pockets
preferring to smash and grab bags and satchels
from cars or plying open car
boots where shoppers now stash the thousands of
'Zimkwachas' needed for
day-to-day living. Hapless street wallet vendors say
they are being driven
out of business because many people now move around
with bags instead of
wallets.
The
shortage of the larger denomination $500 dollar notes had worsened
the
situation because banks were giving out $50 and $100 dollar notes
which
became too bulky for the small pocket
wallets.
"One needs a bag not a wallet for
that kind of money," said Wonder
Kajola, a vendor in the city who specialises
in selling wallets.
Another vendor, Peter
Chabande, said: "We are now heading towards the
Zambian situation if not
worse where one has to carry a bag of money to
collect one's monthly
salary."
A snap survey around Harare's
bars revealed that revellers were
already carrying bags of cash to buy
drinks.
Others stash "bricks" of bank
notes and occasionally dash to car parks
to grab wards of cash, pay off the
round of drinks and still say: "cheers!"
Zim
Standard
Zimbabwe's winter crop
doomed
By Itai
Dzamara
Biting fuel and power shortages
are likely to hamper this year's
production of Zimbabwe's winter crop which
is already threatened by a lack
of seed and other inputs-a situation which
might worsen hunger and
starvation.
The
Standard has established that despite claims by some indigenous
owned banks
that they are behind the new farmers, many of the banks were
reluctant to
issue loans to the farmers because of the prevailing insecure
macro-economic
environment.
As a result, most of the new
farmers have failed to secure the
infrastructure as well as the capital
needed for winter cropping.
Farming
organisations, and a survey by this paper, have revealed that
very little, if
any, winter cropping is in progress despite widespread
government
claims.
In Marondera, the new farmers said
they lacked irrigation equipment
and did not have any plans to plant the
winter crop this year.
"We are not in a
position to plant winter crops. We don't have
irrigation equipment as well as
inputs. Efforts to obtain loans from banks
have been in vain," said Francis
Muremwa of Eirene farm.
Many dams in the
Marondera area are either dry or contain very little
water reserves owing to
the prolonged dry spell that was experienced during
the last rainy
season.
Sources at seed manufacturers Seed
Co said there was very little seed
in stock and what was available was far
less than that required for a
successful winter cropping
season.
"As you are aware from
advertisements being shown, seed production was
severely affected over the
last two years such that we will have to import
in order to have enough for
the next season," said the source who spoke on
condition of
anonymity.
Silvanos Mashingaidze, the
second vice-chairman of the Zimbabwe
Farmers' Union (ZFU), said only those
"with the resources" would plant the
winter
crop.
"The new farmers have to apply for
loans at banks. Tell those who have
failed to get loans that I have said
organise yourselves into associations
which can source inputs," said
Mashingaidze.
In a statement, the
Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said there would be
very little winter
cropping this year, largely due to the lack of inputs as
well as
infrastructure which was destroyed during the farm
invasions.
Renson Gasela, an agriculture
expert and the opposition MDC's shadow
minister for agriculture said:
"Despite much hype and publicity, last year's
winter crop was a flop and the
situation is even worse this year. This year
there is no fertiliser, no fuel
and there are incessant power cuts.
"Last
year, there were still some white commercial farmers around who
assisted in
winter cropping. But this year, most prime land is lying
idle."
However, Lovegot Tendengu, the
director of the pro-government Farmers'
Development Trust, said they had set
aside 'huge' funds to assist farmers.
"We
have set aside $2bn for a fund to assist farmers who want to plant
winter
crops and we have been receiving overwhelming requests from the
farmers,"
said Tendengu without elaborating.
Unlike
last year, when the government talked incessantly about its
land reforms,
this year it is uncharacteristically quiet. Agriculture
minister, Joseph
Made, requested written questions but as usual
never
replied.
Zim
Standard
ZCTU's confrontational
stance backed
By Henry
Makiwa
VISITING Commonwealth Trade Union
Council (CTUC) director, Annie
Watson, says she supports the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU)'s
stance of confronting the government to
rectify the current economic and
political
crisis.
Watson, whom the government nearly
deported soon after she jetted into
the country on Friday, urged the ZCTU to
voice the concerns of the workers
despite the government's "constant
repressive compulsions".
"There are tiffs
between governments and labour bodies in most
countries, even in the United
Kingdom (UK). The ZCTU should not despair in
the obstruction they face from
the government, but should persevere in
carrying out the wishes of the
workers," Watson told The Standard.
"There
is no magic formula in improving the situation of workers,
sometimes normal
measures fail and it's understandable when labour aborts
the dialogue route
for a more confrontational one," she said, referring to
the mass actions
organised by the ZCTU.
The government
backed down on an attempt to deport Watson on Friday in
a move observers
described as an afterthought of the serious implications
the expulsion would
cause to the country's already battered
international
image.
Watson, who is of
Irish origin, is in Zimbabwe until June 1 on a
mission to evaluate the ZCTU's
informal sector training programmes that are
funded by the CTUC. Yesterday
she challenged the government to step up
efforts of providing social security
to workers in the informal sector.
"The
informal economy cannot be ignored in this country because it now
holds more
workers who have lost their jobs in formal establishments. It
cannot be left
unregulated either; workers need more protective labour laws
for their health
and physical safety," Watson said.
The
CTUC was found in 1979 by trade unions within the
Commonwealth.
Watson said she was irked by
the Zimbabwean immigration officials'
swift attempt to throw her out of the
country amid unspecified reasons.
She
said: "I have visited 28 Commonwealth countries and not anywhere
have I had
such a reception as I got in Zimbabwe this time
around.
"We are acting transparently and
without bias so we would like to
advocate for a translucent response from the
government."
Watson's aborted deportation
came hard on the heels of the deportation
of Andrew Meldrum, a correspondent
for the British Guardian newspaper who
had stayed in the country for 23
years. Despite a High Court ruling barring
Meldrum's deportation, immigration
authorities, reportedly under the
influence of Vice-President Simon Muzenda,
sent the American journalist
packing.
Zim
Standard
Moyo manipulating
police-Zinef
POLICE should
not take instructions from Information minister Jonathan
Moyo in his attempts
to settle personal scores with the independent press,
Zimbabwe National
Editors' Forum (Zinef) chair Iden Wetherell
said
yesterday.
"Moyo has lost every
single case he has inspired against the media
since President Mugabe foisted
him on the nation three years ago," Wetherell
said. "In two major trials
currently underway, the State has been
embarrassed by evidence of political
manipulation of the police and clumsy
attempts to influence the courts by
abuse of the state media."
In a statement
carried in the Herald yesterday, Moyo said law
enforcement agents would seek
to establish how The Zimbabwe Independent
obtained confidential
correspondence between the commander of the army and
chief of the defence
forces referred to in a story on military management of
the 2002 presidential
poll published in the paper on Friday.
Moyo said the government had noted "attempts by the opposition to
use
newspapers like The Daily News and Zimbabwe Independent to make
unlawful
bribery appeals to civil servants and others with access to
lawfully
protected documents".
Wetherell, who is Editor of The Zimbabwe Independentt, said he was
unaware of
any such case.
"If Moyo has any evidence
of such bribery he should produce it. It is
a very serious charge. He should
either put up or shut up."
Wetherell said
Moyo should not make specious claims of threats to
national security to
justify military involvement in elections when those
"threats" were the
product of his own propaganda.
Zim
Standard
Mugabe's succession talk
'mere posturing'
By Caiphas
Chimhete
RECENT public pronouncements by
President Robert Mugabe regarding the
succession issue are mere posturing by
the beleaguered leader who is once
again trying to hoodwink the world into
believing that he is ready to pass
on the 'button' to someone else, Zanu PF
insiders and other Zimbabweans
said
yesterday.
They said Mugabe did
not intend to leave office any time soon, and as
such, had not made any
attempt to encourage, let alone introduce the subject
to the rank and file of
Zanu PF through official ruling party
channels.
Addressing a rally in Mt Darwin
last week Mugabe, who earlier on in
interview with the ZBC called for debate
about his successor, complained
that some people in his party were not being
open about their presidential
ambitions, preferring to "consult spirit
mediums".
"You must debate succession
openly. We want to be true and open to
each other and discuss as a united
people," said Mugabe, adding that there
was no need for Zanu PF leaders to
engage in clandestine activities over the
issue because of its importance to
national unity.
However, most Zanu PF
officials, who spoke to The Standard yesterday
said they took Mugabe's
comments with a pinch of salt "because it was unlike
him." They said Mugabe's
remarks were insincere in the light of utterances
by Information Minister
Jonathan Moyo who recently described as "wishful
thinking" the idea that
Mugabe would quit office before the expiry of his
term in
2008.
Former Matabeleland Governor
Welshman Mabhena said the call by Mugabe
for Zanu PF to be open about their
ambitions was a gimmick for him to
identify people bent on taking his
position. "He is not honest, he is not
sincere at all. That is actually
witch-hunting and anyone in the party who
dares start the debate or make
known intentions to contest the post will be
gone," he said without
elaborating.
Former legislator Dzikamai
Mavhaire who lost support within Zanu PF
after his "Mugabe must go statement"
in Parliament, yesterday refused
to
comment.
Fellow Masvingo Zanu PF
leader Eddison Zvobgo who was sidelined after
fears that he was harbouring
presidential ambitions, said: "I am in London
and I haven't read the article.
I can only comment when I come back home."
Former Zanu PF secretary-general and a close ally of Mugabe during
the
liberation struggle, Edgar Tekere, did not hide his
feelings.
"The Mugabe I know would not do
such a thing. As far as I know, he
believes people should just keep quiet
because the country's future revolves
around him. No one in Zanu PF would
dare talk about succeeding Mugabe," said
Tekere, former president of the now
defunct Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM).
Zanu PF secretary for information and publicity Nathan Shamuyarira
said
within Zanu PF, the debate would start in the provinces and the
central
committee before reaching the Politburo and finally the party's
annual
congress late in the year. He said every Zimbabwean was entailed to
openly
debate on the succession issue without
fear.
Acting chairman of the Zimbabwe
National Liberations War Veterans
Association (ZNLWVA), Patrick Nyaruwata,
said Mugabe was sincere in his call
for open discussion of the succession
issue.
Zim
Standard
Resettled areas in a
state of disaster
By our own
Staff
IN what could be an admission of the
failure of the much-touted land
reforms to alleviate food shortages,
President Robert Mugabe has declared a
state of disaster in all resettlement
areas.
In a government gazette released on
Friday, Mugabe noted that there
was widespread food insecurity and the risk
of water shortages, not only in
the resettlement areas, but in communal and
urban areas as well.
He also declared a
state of disaster in Matabeleland South where
livestock were vulnerable to
the effects of drought.
The declaration
paves way for funds to be harnessed and channelled to
the areas, and for
donors to assist the affected people but it is feared
that very little money
would be raised because the government is broke and
many donors have fled
from Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe plunged into
turmoil after government-backed farm invasions
led by so-called war veterans
destroyed the commercial agriculture sector
from
2000.
Widely condemned, both at home and
internationally, the fast-track
land reform exercise that followed spelt doom
to the country's prospects as
rich farm lands were grabbed by Zanu PF cronies
with little or no farming
experience.
Zim
Standard
Masvingo forthcoming
elections too hot for Zanu PF
stalwarts
By Parker
Graham
MASVINGO-Zanu PF's traditional
dominance of Masvingo urban's political
landscape comes under severe test in
the forthcoming council elections that
have a potential to transform the
fortunes of the ruling party on its
favourite hunting
ground.
Since independence, the ruling
party has dominated politics in
Masvingo. Its greatest challenge has been to
reconcile two warring factions
within the party- the Zvobgo and Hungwe
groups-but that changed in 2001 when
Alois Chaimiti of the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) beat
Jacob Chademana of Zanu PF for the
coveted mayor's post.
In spite of this
major setback, Zanu PF still won eight seats in the
10-member council and
continued to dominate Masvingo town council affairs,
riding on its majority
in the chambers.
However, this scenario is
set to change in August as the MDC seems
poised to turn the political tables
against a background of the worsening
economic environment. Already, there
are indications that Zanu PF might face
difficulties in getting credible
candidates willing to square up against the
MDC in the August
polls.
The Standard has established that
sitting Zanu PF councillors and
other notable party activists who have
dominated Masvingo urban politics for
years, were now not so keen to contest
the poll on a Zanu PF ticket.
Caution has
become the order of the day among the Zanu PF faithful
who, it appears,
realise that Masvingo is no longer the "one party province"
it was a said to
be a few years ago.
Masvingo urban
constituency falls under Masvingo Central constituency
which is represented
in Parliament by Silas Mangono of the MDC.
Said Alderman Naison Tsere, the Zanu PF deputy Mayor: "I have to study
the
political wind first before I decide to contest the election. I have
seen
several people being deceived or misled by the electorate into
believing that
they had their support only to be embarrassed by the
election
result.
"To avoid such
embarrassment, one should be very careful and cautious
about the political
climate and the political wind."
Tsere
added that he would only seek re-election if he got the mandate
from the
people in his ward.
Ward Three Zanu PF
councillor and veteran educationist, Alderman
Hamadziripi Mamutse, who also
served as deputy mayor for Masvingo for a long
period, said he intended to
stand for the election but was quick to point
out that the electorate was no
longer predictable.
"People can just push
you into the ring but you will be shocked by
unexpected results. I am also
studying the situation to ascertain what
exactly the people want. But I would
want to seek re-election,"
said
Mamutse.
Ward One councillor also
of Zanu PF Alderman Hosea Matapura, said he
wanted to quit politics but
expressed fears that in the event that he
stepped down, the opposition MDC
would just "walk over" the ruling party.
"I am quite convinced that if I step down, the MDC would win the seat
without
sweating for it. It is against this background that I seek
re-election," said
Matapura.
He admitted that the young
opposition party posed a serious threat to
the ruling Zanu PF in Masvingo's
August council elections.
Zim
Standard
Media racism: A
propaganda gift to Mugabe
THE
hysteria and spate of condemnations in both the local and
international press
concerning the illegal arrest and deportation of foreign
correspondents has
once again cast a high voltage spotlight on the age-old
issue of master race
versus the dark continent.
The
unprecedented coverage of the unlawful abduction and deportation
of Andrew
Meldrum and other foreign correspondents before him, particularly
in the
international media, clearly shows that a white skin to them, counts
for more
when it comes to being a victim of the Mugabe
tyranny.
Theirs is a world where people
are judged not by the content of their
characters but by the colour of their
skin. A white journalist, whether
Zimbabwean or not, is named whereas black
Zimbabwean journalists who have
been arrested and harassed are often content
to be referred invariably as
"more than a dozen journalists were arrested and
detained". If this in not
journalistic racism, we do not know what
is.
Not that Zimbabwean journalists, both
back and white, and foreign
correspondents are not together in the very front
trenches of the battle for
freedom and human rights in Zimbabwe. We are
together in our unwavering
determination to bring back freedom and democracy
in this country. The issue
is not personal but one of genuine concern and
worry about the way the
international media covers the African story and the
place of local
journalists in it.
More
often than not, the international media by their excessive and
sustained
highlighting of the plight of white victims at the expense of the
black
majority, play right into the hands of President Mugabe's
totalitarian
regime.
Until very
recently for example, the British government overplayed
their hand with
regard to the Zimbabwean white commercial farmers, taking a
very high profile
stance which President Mugabe exploited to the full,
portraying it as
neo-colonialism. This high profile stance did not in any
way help the cause
of the commercial farmers.
There is
therefore a tremendous responsibility on the part of Western
media to break
out of this trap. What is very sad is that by continuing to
play their racist
card, they will be handing a propaganda gift to people
like President Mugabe
to portray the former colonial master as hypocritical
and part of the
problem.
There is something to be said for
both the local and international
media keeping things in their proper
perspective. Yes, the deportation of
Meldrum does draw the world's attention
to the plight of repressed and long
suffering Zimbabweans but equally
important is the courage and
aggressiveness of poor local independent
journalists, who have nowhere to
run to-these are the people who are most
affected and they deserve the same
amount of recognition and respect. The
media must preserve a sense of
proportion, a sense of judgement and
subtlety.
When former President Bill
Clinton set off in March 1998 on the first
extensive tour of Africa by a
sitting US President, the New York Times,
arguably the most influential
newspaper in the US, headlined the visit
"Presidential torch to light the
dark continent". If the New York Times
could use such a headline, we shudder
to think the sort of language other
newspapers are likely to use. We can
clearly see the woods that contain more
than men and animals in such a
headline i.e. the racist ideology of
the
West.
Racism is the root cause of
the unequal coverage of blacks and whites
when it comes to the Western press.
The beast is alive and well. Africa and
the world have a responsibility to
stand up to a racist ideology and
forcefully call for a world that does not
put racism at the forefront of
its
agenda.
Any profession defends its
members and journalists, by the very nature
of their job can use megaphones
to do so. Worldwide, because journalists
think and feel that their public
role is important, they feel obliged to
report on their beleaguered
colleagues. And we believe that an attack an any
one of us amounts to an
attack on the profession at large.
That is
why we also condemned the illegal deportation of Andrew
Meldrum whose only
crime was to disagree with a regime that is bent on
stifling press freedom in
the country.
The point we are making here
is that foreign or white journalists must
not be the only focus of
international media attention.
In our
tragedy, 99 percent of Zimbabweans have become the victims of
President
Mugabe's tyranny and local journalists have placed their lives and
careers on
the line and their work, for the most part, goes on without the
attendant
glare of television cameras and other media outlets. The point is
that the
Western media must not close its eyes to this, particularly the
poor ordinary
victims.
In Zimbabwe, we have a man who
started off as a saviour of humanity
but has now become an abominable tyrant.
Most Zimbabweans are fully involved
and standing their
ground.
Our plea therefore to both local
and international media is that they
can make the coverage of the Zimbabwean
tragedy much more balanced and fair
by putting it in its proper
perspective.
Zim
Standard
Not in the national
interest...
overthetop By Brian
Latham
THE government of a
troubled central African country has resorted to
refusing to give reasons for
its actions, saying it would not be in the
national interest to do so. In the
last fortnight, the government has
refused to give reasons for the illegal
deportation of a journalist and
refused to give reasons for its curious
contract with a certain
controversial
Canadian.
It is thought that the troubled
central African regime has discovered
that it is easier to refuse to give
reasons for its illegal behaviour than
to justify the same. It is far easier
to say that it's not in the national
interest to disclose why Mr So and So is
an "undesirable inhabitant" of the
troubled central African dictatorship than
to say he was deported because we
didn't like him very
much.
And it's far easier to tell the
courts that details of the curious
contract can't be disclosed because it
isn't in the national interest than
it is to admit that the devious
beneficiary of the contract scammed the
government of hundreds of thousands
of real dollars.
After all, the troubled
government of the troubled central African
tyranny doesn't make mistakes. And
when it does, they're always someone
else's
fault.
Still, disgruntled members of the
Zany party inform Over The Top that
in both cases where "national interest"
was resorted to, there was
considerable embarrassment in dysfunctional
government circles. Many
believed the deportation of the journalist was ill
timed and ill considered.
It would have been far better to have silenced him
by other means, say doves
within the
party.
The same doves claim the
controversy over the contract being discussed
in court by the troubled
central African police state's top spy should have
been avoided by teaching
the defence lawyers a short, sharp lesson in good
manners. "If it had been
explained to these people that asking certain
awkward questions carried
certain health risks, all this could have been
avoided," said a Zany
dove.
Still, analysts say citizens of the
troubled central African state can
expect government to use the "national
interest" rider increasingly often.
"We
can expect them to say it is not in the national interest to
explain the high
hospital occupancy rate caused by unexplained wounds
sustained in the dead of
night," said one analyst. However, they will say
that the low hotel occupancy
rate is due to British propaganda sullying the
image of their peaceful
democracy.
"In fact, if events can't be
blamed on the British, the Americans,
Australians, the opposition, churches,
civil society, whites, businessmen,
gays, the Commonwealth, the European
Union or the press, then the government
of the troubled central African
country will resort to using the 'not in the
national interest' clause," said
an analyst who will be named as soon as we
find someone willing to lay claim
to the quote.
In the meantime citizens can
expect it to be not in the national
interest to publicise the fact that their
homes have been burnt down, their
daughters and wives raped, their sons
tortured and their friends deported.
A
senior Zany official, speaking to OTT on condition he wasn't quoted,
said:
"We are not lying. Of course it is not in the national interest to
disclose
these things because they are very embarrassing to
us.
"If the world knew that we had no real
reason to deport anyone or that
we have been robbed by a foreign scam artist,
we would end up looking stupid
and that most certainly isn't in the national
interest."
Meanwhile, a member of the
opposition More Drink Coming Party said
they all looked stupid anyway, so he
didn't know what all the fuss was
about.
Zim
Standard
A tale of two leaders:
Mourning Sisulu, celebrating his life, Mourning
Mugabe's reign, will
celebrate his passing
Sundayopinion
By Thandi Chiweshe
AS South Africa and the
progressive world mourned Walter Sisulu over
the last two weeks, I felt a
deep sense of sadness. Not so much for Walter
Sisulu himself, but for Robert
Mugabe and others like him. This was brought
very sharply to me when my aunt,
who has never really been involved in
politics said to me, "I wish I could go
to that man's funeral. I didn't know
him, but just the things that have been
said about him make me want to go
and bid him
farewell".
I asked her what she
would do if Mugabe died, and she declared, "that
one, I will dance on top of
this roof!" She told me that she would take a
week off-bugger my children and
I who depend on her household management-so
she could "celebrate" adequately.
I felt so sad. Not hurt. Just sad.
My aunt
is 48 years old. She lived through the worst years of our
national armed
struggle. She experienced the pains of colonialism. And she
was there when
independence finally came. I learnt a few of the
revolutionary songs from
her. In those days she spoke fervently about the
new Zimbabwe, and the new
vistas opened up for women like her. Her two
children, myself, and many
others we know, went to school for free. We were
the beneficiaries of free
health care, affordable housing, good wages, and
most importantly, of
peace.
I remember most of that. I, like
many young politics-less people, just
assumed that these were normal things
that every normal human being simply
got. It was only later that I got to
know some people fought for them and
got us to where we were -yes were, ten
or so years ago. We are no longer
there anymore. We have sunk somewhere down
into the mud of misery and
despair. This is what my aunt now knows, lives
through, and will remember
about Robert
Mugabe.
My aunt exemplifies where millions
of Zimbabweans are today. As we
marvel at the outpourings of love, adulation
and celebration of Walter
Sisulu, we wonder if our very own erstwhile
revolutionaries are listening
and watching? How do they feel, we want to
know? Do they see the sadness of
all this? In Shona we say, "usapunze mukombe
wasvika", meaning, don't drop
the gourd of water when you are so close. So
close to delivering it to the
person who needs it. So close to the finishing
line. Of course for those who
have never fetched water like what some of us
women have done, the meaning
of this idiom might be
lost.
Imagine, living in a village, where
potable water has to be fetched
from five kilometres away. You carry the
precious water on your head,
carefully, with love, back to your home. Just as
you get close to home, a
whole 10 kilometres later, down comes the pot of
water! Imagine it is
already late evening. There is no chance of going back
to the well. Yet you
know there are some 10 or so people waiting for this
water. You also were
looking forward to drinking some of that water. Or
perhaps you were hoping
to relax listening to your favourite radio programme,
with your feet up?
Kupunza mukombe wasvika is a huge crisis not just for you,
but for those
around you.
Our Great
leader apunza mukombe asvika. What is it that the people of
Zimbabwe will
remember when Mugabe dies? Let's make some comparisons; First
the look;
Sisulu was 90 years old. And it showed. At least in the gray hair.
What is it
with our President and Palette hair dye number 10? Or is it
number 1? Is it
some sort of denial of the fact that he is actually close to
80? Is it to
ward off old age? We all want to look and feel good. But having
a Michael
Jacksonesque identity crisis at that age and when one is a state
President
can only be laughable.
Secondly everyone
speaks about Sisulu's love for his wife and family.
If anyone had asked me
who Walter Sisulu was I would have just said,
"Albertina's
husband".
Unlike many others of the
revolutionary ilk who came back and traded
in their old wives for newer
models, Walter stuck to his. Unfortunately the
wife thing is a problem that
our leader shares with many other men the world
over. At least ours does
appear with his in public-which perhaps was the
whole point of a second lady
to begin with? Who remembers what Mrs Chissano
looks like? Newscasters kept
getting Mrs Nyerere's name wrong because nobody
had become familiar with her.
As for Mrs Muluzi number 1 and Mrs Chiluba
number 1, ok we won't go
there.
Then there are the children.
Sisulu's children look like his children.
Imagine meeting Mugabe and Chatunga
somewhere they are not known. How would
you assume they are related? Any man
who is going to be reproducing at
Mugabe's age indicates a selfishness and
recklessness that should
immediately disqualify him from public office. It
shows that the man
couldn't care a hoot what will happen to his children let
alone to any one
of us after he is gone. If he is not bothered by the fact
that Chatunga will
need someone to play soccer with at the age of 14, why
should he be bothered
when we tell him that there won't be a national economy
for anyone to
inherit?
After many years
of struggle, Sisulu handed over to the next
generation of leaders in South
Africa. Kutonga madzoro as we say in
Shona-leadership is taken in
turns.
Not for Mugabe. He is the alpha and
the omega of nationalism. Hearing
Mandela tell the world that he was
recruited into the ANC by Sisulu was a
refreshing change. It is only recently
that Eddison Zvobgo consigned Mugabe
to a footnote in the history of Zanu.
"When we formed Zanu, myself, Enos
Nkala, Ndabaningi SitholeS..and others",
Zvobgo told us. No prizes for
guessing who the nameless others were.
Zimbabwe's history has been rewritten
to unashamedly give Mugabe a starring
role and write others out of the
story.
How a person can so monumentally self-destruct the way Mugabe has can
only be
regarded as profoundly remarkable. To build a legacy in one decade
and
destroy your own achievements in another must take either great genius
or
great megalomania and stupidity. No amount of history revisionism is
going to
remove the terrible legacy Mugabe is leaving us. The bad has
eclipsed the
good in a way that makes it so hard to remember the good. Yet
there was so
much that we could choose to remember. Even the revered Nelson
Mandela did
not deliver a quarter of what Mugabe delivered to the people
post
independence.
That is a fact. While
Mandela was the nice dancing President,
symbolising a new South Africa,
Mugabe provided what people wanted-
practically. But try telling that to a
person born in 1991 and she will spit
in your face. Matakadya kare
haanyaradzi mwana -What has already been eaten
won't quieten a crying baby.
To get to a point where you hate your own
people and your people hate you
must be a very lonely and painful place to
be. Unless of course you don't
care?
Today we mourn Sisulu and celebrate
his life. We are mourning Mugabe's
reign and will celebrate his
passing.
Zim
Standard
Letter
Zimbabwe
approaching last gasp
Well,
now-let's take a serious look around us.
I
believe the country is approaching its last gasp; the government is
reeling,
hanging by a thread. It knows it is completely incapable of doing
anything to
help itself or the country. It has now resorted to mindless
violence; its
latest act of desperation being the Andrew Meldrum saga.
Meldrum's temporary
exit from this country is an example of how far the
regime is prepared to go
in complete defiance of a specific High
Court
order.
We are leaderless,
rudderless. We have no plan, no hope. The economy
is ruined-No fuel,
electricity, cash from the bank, a dozen kinds of basic
foodstuffs,
forex-anything this country needs to survive. There is
nothing-except
sometimes on the black market, and those people will be dealt
with in due
course.
Frankly, the government wants out!
Mugabe is cowering within his
residence. At the recent meeting with "the
three wise men". Mbeki, Obasanjo,
Muluzi, he "looked old, tired, lonely and
battle weary." (Financial Gazette,
May 15) with Obasanjo commenting "Things
are definitely bad". Mugabe's only
aim now-self preservation: "I must not be
blamed, held accountable for the
deaths and destruction I have caused-the
degrees of violence, the Zanu PF
ndeyeropa (Zanu PF is a bloody
party)
Tsvangirai, wake up. I really
believe you have no opposition. The ZCTU
is planning an indefinite stayaway
in due course (Standard 18 May). Get in
with them-or use them as part of your
uprising (You've already promised
another country-wide stayaway, the "final
push" within two weeks). I don't
believe any talk with Zanu PF is
feasible-get in and do it. Now.
The worst
thing you can suggest is "urge the public to march into the
city centres on
the next stayaway instead of staying indoors". You have to
lead them; they
have to be utterly purposeful-and so do you. Do it. The
whole country-and,
Zanu PF/Mugabe are waiting to greet
you.
PNR
Silversides
Mt
Pleasant,
Harare
Sunday
Times (SA)
Mugabe's wife blows R100 000
Michael
Schmidt
Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe lived up to her reputation as
a big
spender on a recent trip to South Africa, where she spent almost R100
000 in
just five days.
The wife of President Robert Mugabe shelled out
R99 604.42 at South African
stores between February 3 and February 6 -
including R51 000 for a dinner
service imported from Britain.
VAT
refund documents in the possession of the Sunday Times show that
Mugabe
splurged on food, clothing, pharmaceuticals and
hardware.
VAT refund is an incentive to encourage tourists to spend
more money in
South Africa. The minimum amount that can be claimed is
R250.
A VAT refund administrator official, who asked not to be
identified,
confirmed the processing of Mugabe's claim and said that she had
submitted
several claims.
According to the claim submitted to the
VAT Refund Administrator at the
Johannesburg International Airport on behalf
of "Mugabe G, c/o Zimbabwean
High Commission, 792 Merton Ave, Arcadia,
Pretoria" on March 13, Zimbabwe's
first lady was claiming refunds for
spending:
a.. R51 860 on the dinner set;
a.. R3 443.75 at Pick
'n Pay;
a.. R2 415.05 at Edgars;
a.. R1 192 at
Truworths;
a.. R9 245 at Bianchi Fashions;
a.. R2 586.85 at
Woolworths;
a.. R6 175 at Desch for Men; and
a.. R16 159.07 at
Buchel Hardware in Pretoria.
Mugabe was issued with a $672.97 (R5 042.88)
refund on May 9 for goods
totalling R43 099.12.
However, the
administrator refused to refund Mugabe for the dinner service
from Sandton
City store David Daniel because the receipt did not include
Mugabe's full
address.
Store owner Greg Isaac refused to comment on Friday, saying:
"I don't think
it is fair for us to discuss the private purchases of our
clients."
Another receipt that failed the test was one from a
nameless store on
February 5 for a shirt costing R2 200.
The
refused invoices were sent, along with the refund cheque, to Zimbabwe's
first
lady.
Sunday
Times (SA)
Shock report details abuse in
Zimbabwe
Ranjeni Munusamy
Allegations of sexual assault
and rape by soldiers, torture in youth camps
and the beating up of children
are contained in a damning report on Zimbabwe
compiled by the Australian
government.
The "Record of Abuse and Repression by the Zimbabwean
Government", which is
in the possession of the Sunday Times, was presented to
a Commonwealth
Ministerial Action Group meeting in London this week by
Australia's Foreign
Minister, Alexander Downer.
Australia, which
chairs the 54-nation Commonwealth, is pressing for
sanctions against Zimbabwe
to be stepped up in addition to its suspension
from all the Commonwealth's
councils.
The report says Australian diplomats "witnessed what was
clearly the result
of several vicious beatings by army personnel, including
beatings with
sticks wrapped in barbed wire".
"This crackdown
occurs amid serious allegations of rape and torture at camps
in Zimbabwe,
with particular concern regarding Border Gezi youth camps set
up to
indoctrinate young Zimbabweans," the report says.
It documents the
"repression of the opposition"; how the March 2002
presidential election was
rigged; the politicisation of food distribution;
and infringements of civil
and political rights, including the curtailing of
media
freedom.
The report says that over the past 18 months, 42 senior
opposition Movement
for Democratic Change officials have been arrested and
many of them tortured
in custody.
"It is rare for any action to be
taken against perpetrators of abuses
against members of the opposition,
creating a culture of impunity and the
perception that such abuses are
tolerated or encouraged by the government,"
it says.
It quotes a
human rights political report which found that 58 murders, 111
cases of
unlawful detention, 170 cases of unlawful arrest, 67 cases of
assault, 227
cases of abduction and 1 060 cases of torture had occurred.
With
regard to food aid, the Australian government claims Zanu-PF
politicised food
distribution through:
a.. Monopolising imports through the Grain
Marketing Board;
a.. Requiring party membership as a condition for
purchasing food in some
locations;
a.. Controlling eligibility for the
purchase of food and the milling of
grain;
a.. Removing MDC supporters
from food-for-work programmes;
a.. Allowing party officials or commercial
allies to profit from the re-sale
of food at exorbitant black market
prices;
a.. Confiscating maize at informal roadblocks; and
a..
Putting the party's youth militia in control of grain depots.
"In the
Binga area of Matebeleland North, the government prevented the
Catholic
Commission for Peace and Justice from implementing its relief
programme for
30 000 children for two months from May 2002," the
report
states.
Regarding land reform, it says only "between 20%
and 50%" of redistributed
commercial farms have been taken up, with the rest
lying fallow.
The official line that '54 000 indigenous commercial
farmers were settled
under the fast-track resettlement on 11 million hectares
of land' ignores
the fact that most such farmers have not actually occupied
the land. Many
new farmers have left the land due to lack of capital and
other inputs
promised."
The report says that, according to the
Famine Early Warning System Network,
between 600 and 1 000 commercial farms
are operational - a sharp decrease
from 4 400 in 2000. It says there appear
to have been no killings of white
farmers since April 2002 as the majority
left their land voluntarily, by
force or by intimidation.
The
report says the number of white commercial farmers still farming has
declined
from 4 500 two years ago to 600 - and that about 97% of formerly
white-owned
farmland has been appropriated by the
government.
Sunday
Times (SA)
The race is on to take over from
Mugabe
Zanu-PF heavyweights jostle for power but they're too
scared to come out in
the open
Sunday Times Foreign
Desk
Officially, Robert Mugabe may still be in charge of Zimbabwe,
but his
lieutenants look increasingly ready to assume the presidency of
this
crisis-ridden country.
Political heavyweights in Zimbabwe's
ruling Zanu-PF are already looking
beyond Mugabe's tenure of office and
consolidating their positions for a
takeover when he finally
retires.
Zanu-PF sources said this week that Mugabe's lieutenants
were intensifying
their efforts in the escalating battle for
ascendancy.
"Our understanding in the party is that Mugabe has now
decided to retire,
but he is becoming vocal about his succession debate
because of internal
power struggles and growing tension," a senior Zanu-PF
member said.
"By denouncing those lobbying to position themselves for
power, he is trying
to ensure that the situation does not become unmanageable
in the end."
Reports of heightening Zanu-PF power struggles
resurfaced this week in the
wake of Mugabe's latest condemnation of senior
party officials over their
clandestine bids to succeed
him.
Addressing thousands of supporters at a rally on Thursday in
Mount Darwin,
about 160km northeast of Harare, Mugabe said people were free
to openly
discuss his succession, but party functionaries should stop covert
campaigns
to take over.
Mugabe said he was aware that some of his
party's top officials were seeking
divine intervention to succeed
him.
"I am aware of what is happening. Some top leaders are
consulting ancestral
spirits and traditional healers to enhance their
political fortunes," he
said. "But it's not about ancestral spirits, it's
about unity and people's
wishes."
Last month Mugabe, for the first
time, declared his succession debate open,
but denounced party leaders who
organised themselves along "ethnic and
personal lines". He also indicated
that his retirement could be near.
Retired army general Solomon
Mujuru, Zanu-PF secretary for administration
and Speaker of Parliament
Emmerson Mnangagwa, and Information Minister
Jonathan Moyo are leading the
fight for Mugabe's throne.
Political analyst Ibbo Mandaza, who is
closely linked with Zanu-PF, said
Mugabe's statements on his succession
indicated that he was about to retire.
He added that it would be
helpful if Mugabe laid out the rules for choosing
his
successor.
As long as there was no official debate on the issue
"speculation, anxiety
and even division will persist", Mandaza
said.
Although Mugabe claims he has no problem with leaders who
declare their
presidential ambitions, he has in the past sidelined those who
have shown
that they want to succeed him.
One such example was
Zanu-PF maverick Eddison Zvobgo, at one time seen as
the most likely Mugabe
successor, who was sidelined for stating that he
wanted Mugabe's
job.
Mandaza, a former senior civil servant, said that without
official
endorsement, Mugabe's potential successors in the ruling party would
not
come out in the open.
As if to confirm this, Zanu-PF chairman
John Nkomo, also considered a
potential Mugabe successor, refused to talk
about the issue when contacted
about it.
The secretary-general of
the opposition Movement for Democratic Change,
Welshman Ncube, said Mugabe's
remarks indicated he was getting increasingly
paranoid about developments
within his party.
"He should simply say he wants to resign so that
the country can move on. He
is the biggest stumbling block to progress,"
Ncube said.
Mandaza, claiming that the next president would come from
Zanu-PF and not
the MDC, said the succession race was wide
open.
He named Mnangagwa in Midlands province, Nkomo and former Home
Affairs
Minister Dumiso Dabengwa in Matabeleland, Local Government Minister
Ignatius
Chombo in Mashonaland West, former Finance Minister Simba Makoni
in
Manicaland and Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge in Masvingo as
potential
successors.
He said Moyo, despite his posturing, was
"too low in the ranks" to be a
candidate.
Sunday
Times (SA)
Zimbabwe will plead for food
aid
Ranjeni Munusamy
The Zimbabwean government is to make
a formal request to the United Nations
World Food Programme (WFP) to extend
emergency assistance to millions of its
citizens facing
starvation.
WFP deputy executive director Sheila Sisulu said the results
of a crop
assessment, to be released next week by the UN's Food and
Agriculture
Organisation and the WFP, will reveal the extent of the food
crisis in the
region.
The WFP is running its biggest relief
project in Southern Africa, with
assistance being rendered to Malawi, Zambia,
Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique
and Zimbabwe.
Sisulu met with
Zimbabwe's Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, July Moyo,
and officials
from the departments of Agriculture and Foreign Affairs in
Zimbabwe this
week.
"All of them were very clear that they were going to make a
request for
assistance to the WFP," Sisulu said.
"The extent of
the request will be indicated to us in the coming week. We
will all be
watching those figures to determine the extent of food
assistance that is
going to be required all round, specifically in
Zimbabwe."
She
said the WFP had been preparing to move out of Zimbabwe as its
emergency
intervention period ended in June.
Zimbabwe has the
largest number of people requiring assistance, with an
estimated 7.2 million
people facing hunger due to drought and crop
shortages.
The high
prevalence of HIV/Aids is exacerbating the problem.
Sisulu said the
WFP gave assistance to the most vulnerable people. In March,
during the
height of the relief programme, the organisation provided food
aid to five
million Zimbabweans.
"We averted a crisis in the region. If the
international community had not
come to the rescue at the time that it did,
we could have had a serious
crisis," she said, adding that although there had
been rain in some areas in
dire need, it had not broken the
drought.
The WFP is also providing relief in Ethiopia, which is
facing a severe
drought, and in Eritrea and other areas in the Horn of
Africa. It is also
planning to increase its activities in the Democratic
Republic of Congo and
the Ivory Coast, where civil conflict has sparked a
humanitarian crisis.
Politics had a negative impact on people's
safety and security, Sisulu said.
"If asked whether this is the case more so
in Africa, I would have to say
yes."
Since the end of the war in
Iraq the WFP has resumed operations in that
country, using the former
government's distribution infrastructure to
provide food aid.
"The
former government of Iraq had a very good distribution system as a
large
percentage of the population was dependent on food supplies. The war
has
destabilised this but we are now restoring the network," Sisulu
said.
She returns to the WFP's headquarters in Rome this week after
spending time
with her family in South Africa following the death of her
father-in-law,
Walter Sisulu.
Tsvangirai is the Pick of a Poor Crop of
Candidates
Sunday Times (Johannesburg)
OPINION
May 25,
2003
Posted to the web May 24, 2003
Johannesburg
Dumisani
Muleya weighs up the chances of aspiring Mugabes
THE debate over who will
succeed Robert Mugabe needs a reality check.
There is talk that the
Zimbabwean presidency will go to Emmerson Mnangagwa,
but that suggestion
ignores several huge obstacles, not least of which is
his arch-rival,
Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
In recent weeks,
Mnangagwa has used state media coverage to build his
profile. His choice of
public engagements has often had no apparent bearing
on his role as Speaker
of Parliament or on his position as administration
secretary for
Zanu-PF.
Given the widespread speculation that Mugabe will step down long
before his
current term of office ends in 2008, observers have likened these
exercises
to a primary presidential campaign.
Party insiders have even
suggested that Mnangagwa will be the next Zanu-PF
presidential candidate.
Even then, Mnangagwa's entrance to State House will
not necessarily be
guaranteed. For a start, he has no constituency - hence
his defeat by an
uninitiated MDC candidate in the 2000 parliamentary
elections.
He only
became Speaker after he was saved by party colleagues, but even
that
appointment has given him no popular power base.
He also became
secretary for administration in December 2000 as a result of
Mugabe's
patronage.
His close association with Mugabe, to whom he was a personal
adviser from
the mid-1970s, during the struggle leading to independence,
could possibly
increase popular resistance to his candidacy. His alleged role
in the
systematic plundering of the Democratic Republic of the Congo could
also
tarnish his image.
Mnangagwa's role during the massacre of
civilians in Matabeleland, from 1982
to 1987, further complicates his
situation. Unsurprisingly, many want
Mnangagwa prosecuted for genocide in
this regard. At least 20 000 civilians
were killed when Mugabe deployed the
notorious Korean 5th Brigade to quell a
purported dissident
uprising.
Internal squabbling in Zanu-PF ranks could present other
obstacles to
Mnangagwa's plans.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo,
who is likely to be a spoiler in the
internal battle to succeed Mugabe, is
evidently against Mnangagwa's
ascendancy. Moyo leads a group of "hawks" in
the party who are opposed to
democratic reforms.
Another faction, led
by retired army commander General Solomon Mujuru, is
also opposed to
Mnangagwa. This camp, which includes two possible Mugabe
successors, Defence
Minister Sydney Sekeramayi and former Finance Minister
Simba Makoni, is
intensifying efforts to block him. Sidelined Zanu-PF
maverick Eddison Zvobgo
and politburo heavyweight Dumiso Dabengwa are linked
to this
group.
Moyo has always been opposed to Mnangagwa's possible presidency.
He wrote in
1996 that Mnangagwa's involvement in the Matabeleland killings
clearly
disqualified him as a possible president.
Moyo recently
maintained this stance in a dramatic way by labelling
Mnangagwa a "coup
plotter and electoral coward".
This followed Mnangagwa's link in February
to a plan to ease Mugabe out of
office through a power-sharing agreement with
Tsvangirai.
Mnangagwa's alleged plunder of DRC mineral resources and his
connection to
local cases of corruption further blemish his reputation. He is
understood
to be under United Nations investigation over the DRC
pillage.
To make matters worse, the European Union and the US, key
players on the
Zimbabwe issue, openly maintain that Mnangagwa should not be
president as he
is Mugabe's crony.
This is why Tsvangirai has a better
chance of winning the presidency. So
far, the MDC leader has managed to hold
the fort well in the face of a
concentrated and sustained Zanu-PF
onslaught.
Having lost by only 400 000 votes in an election clumsily
stolen by Mugabe,
Tsvangirai still controls most of Zimbabwe's urban
areas.
Recently, Mugabe admitted, for the first time, that the MDC was
popular
despite his claims that it was foreign-controlled.
The
opposition party, galvanised by recent by-election victories and
successful
stayaways, seems to be on a roll. It also enjoys support from
the
international community.
Furthermore, Tsvangirai has a national
profile and his support base cuts
across ethnic and regional divides -
something which Mnangagwa does not
enjoy.
However, Tsvangirai does
have serious limitations. He demonstrates political
naivety in allowing
Zanu-PF demagogues to portray him as a violent Western
proxy.
His lack
of refinement has not only exposed him to Zanu-PF's flag-waving
rhetoric, but
also to internal disrespect. The MDC leader appears to be
grappling to
consolidate his grip on his own party at a time when he should
be
establishing his credentials nationally.
But for all his weaknesses,
Tsvangirai is the clear front-runner and the man
most likely to be Zimbabwe's
next president - if the people have any say in
the matter.
Muleya is a
journalist in Harare