Waste not want not
By
maBhara
4 May 2003
I recently drove to Harare via the Masvingo -
Mvuma Road and had cause
to return via the Chivi - Buffalo Range Road. Having
worked in all
these areas for many years I have an extensive knowledge of
the
commercial farms and the communal areas, as they used to be. What
I
saw told me a story.
Travelling through the Masvingo and Chatsworth
farming areas what I
saw was the best grazing I have ever seen in those
areas. Although
there were a very few isolated groups of settler huts there
was
nothing else. There were no crops, no cattle, no people, no
farmers.
The area was deserted, yet over the last few years there has been
a
deliberate callous war against commercial farmers and
their
infrastructure.
On the trip back from Harare the Gutu and
Masvingo commercial farming
areas were exactly the same. Just an empty void.
No crops, no cattle,
no people, no wildlife, no farmers, no production. One
individual farm
used to run 22,000 head of export quality cattle - now it is
deserted.
Why, what was all the destruction, rhetoric, torture and
harassment
for?
When I got to the Lowveld, where the farmers are
hanging on the best
they can, their farms are inundated with settlers who
continue on
their course of destruction. Is this because the farmers are
still
there and therefore the pressure is still being kept up? Once
the
farmers are off the "settlers" have done their job of
destroying
another productive unit and they leave?
I have spoken to a
few farmers about this observation and this seems
to be the same throughout
the country, even in the high crop producing
areas. What sacrilege. What
waste.
I have just received a telephone call from [ ... ] to report that
one
of the A2 settlers on his farm "dumped" two workers on his farm
on
26th February and has not returned to either pay or assist with food
in
this remote area. The workers had subsequently turned to poaching
to satisfy
their hunger. They were caught after snaring 2 eland, 1
giraffe and a zebra.
The farmer realising their plight organised
transport to drop them off at the
nearest civilisation some 60km away.
They left on their own free will and the
farmer therefore declined to
prosecute.
On my own farm we used to run
1100 head of cattle and am reduced to
23. This morning came the message that
a heifer had been strangled in
a snare made from copper wire just close to
the house. Police are
investigating, but a future breeding cow worth $150,000
has been lost.
To me, all this destruction of the commercial farming
infrastructure
has been far more than just greed or covetousness; it has just
been
destruction for a political purpose, and most certainly nothing to
do
with land reform.
With hope, we have now reached the point where we
can sit down with
more rational non-destructive people to plot a way forward
for the
rebuilding of our wonderful country and
people.
Telegraph
Leave Zimbabwe's
cricketers alone: Mugabe is the villain
By Graham Boynton
(Filed:
05/05/2003)
With the arrival of Zimbabwe's cricket team in England
last week has come a
flurry of editorials denouncing the tour and everyone
involved. Suddenly,
after months of complete silence, Zimbabwe is back in the
news again.
At the centre of the ruckus is a charming, mild-mannered
young man by the
name of Heath Streak. He is the Zimbabwean cricket captain
and, if you were
to listen to his appeals for his team to be left alone to
get on with the
game, you might think he is an apologist for the Mugabe
regime.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I know the Streak family
well - I
was at school and played cricket with Heath's father, Dennis, and
have
watched in despair as their family farm in Matabeleland has been carved
up
and occupied by Mugabe's thugs. Dennis was also thrown in jail last
year
along with other local farmers, but has emerged to retain a tenuous grip
on
a small unoccupied section of his farmlands.
Young Heath Streak
will be required to employ a great deal of his natural
charm to get through
this tour. For as the situation in Zimbabwe continues
to deteriorate - as it
does daily now - there will be increasing pressure in
the coming weeks to
abandon it.
The opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC), is
opposed to the tour because, as Paul Themba Nyathi, its
Secretary for
Information and Publicity, told me this weekend, normal
sporting relations
between the two countries suggest that things are normal
in Zimbabwe "and
they are clearly nothing of the kind at the
moment".
Streak himself has attracted some criticism from the MDC, which
feels that
he should have stood with the now former Zimbabwean cricketers,
Andy Flower
and Henry Olongo, when they held their black armband protest "to
mourn the
death of democracy in our beloved Zimbabwe" during the Cricket
World Cup.
Mugabe's opponents might not regard this tour as a good thing,
but they
cannot deny that it is proving to be useful in refocusing the
attention of
international media on the county's problems.
Over the
past two months, while the world has been concentrating on events
in Iraq,
Mugabe has launched a massive, sustained attack on opposition
activists
inside Zimbabwe in an attempt to crush the MDC once and for all.
So
confident was he that international attention was elsewhere that he made
his
intentions quite clear, declaring publicly in late March: "Let the MDC
and
its leaders be warned that those who play with fire will not only be
burnt,
but will be consumed by that fire."
Since then the army, the police and
the youth militia - the notorious Green
Bombers - have gone after everyone
they could identify as an opposition
activist, from Members of Parliament,
through to party workers and ordinary
supporters.
Just in the past few
weeks, more than 500 people have been arrested,
including 11 MPs, and more
than 250 have been hospitalised after sustained
beatings, torture and rape.
Among those arrested were Paul Themba Nyathi and
Gibson Sibanda, the MDC's
vice-president. It is the equivalent of throwing
Oliver Letwin and Theresa
May in the Tower for arguing with the Prime
Minister.
While all this
has been going on, Zimbabwe's mismanaged economy has all but
ground to a
halt. There is very little food, and almost no food production
now or in the
foreseeable future, mainly because the hundreds of Mugabe
cronies who have
been handed once fully functioning farms have not bothered
to do any farming
over the past year.
In fact, very few of the new landowners - mainly
politicians, generals and
civil servants - have taken the time to pay even
cursory visits to their
farms. Without foreign currency the country cannot
buy fuel and Mugabe's
recent announcements of price increases adding up to
300 per cent have
merely exacerbated the problem.
A one-way bus
journey between the two main cities of Bulawayo and Harare on
the barely
functioning national bus service now costs Z$15,000, more than
most
Zimbabweans earn in a month.
The only thing that is keeping Mugabe's
government limping from one week to
the next is his powerful southern
neighbour's largesse. Almost all the
country's fuel supplies are coming
through South Africa and 90 per cent of
its electricity requirements are
being provided by Escom, the national
electricity supply
commission.
This cannot go on indefinitely, however, and there is
increasing pressure on
Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, to get
Mugabe to pay his
electricity bill - now estimated to be running at US$6
million - or to
discontinue services.
Today, Mbeki and Nigerian
president Olusegun Obasanjo arrive in Harare to
hold more talks with Mugabe,
and, most significantly, for the first time to
hold a formal meeting with the
MDC president, Morgan Tsvangirai.
Until now, Mbeki has refused to engage
the MDC, insisting that Mugabe and
his Zanu-PF party is the legitimate
government.
However, as The Daily Telegraph revealed this weekend,
documents have now
come to hand supporting MDC claims that last year's
elections were rigged
[report, 3 May] and, if the legal challenge to the
legitimacy of the Mugabe
government makes it to the High Court in Harare,
such documentary evidence
could prove embarrassing to President Mbeki, who
has himself declared the
2002 elections free and fair in the face of
overwhelming evidence to the
contrary.
It is quite conceivable that
this visit of two of Africa's Big Men is the
beginning of the endgame of
Mugabe's ruinous rule over Zimbabwe. They will
no doubt attempt to persuade
him to take a dignified exit and also attempt
to persuade Tsvangirai to make
some concessions to allow such a retreat to
take place.
One thing is
certain - Mugabe's defiant statement last week that he would
not be retiring
imminently and that he would be seeing his presidential term
to completion in
2008 has a distinctly hollow ring. Even with the support of
the Big Men, it
is hard to see him lasting the year.
Meanwhile, back in the British
summer, it might be appropriate to go easy on
the 28-year-old fast bowler
leading the Zimbabwean team through our green
and pleasant land.
The
tour is really a sideshow, for the real drama is being played out in
Africa,
and, after all, for the past three years the government ministers we
pay to
attend to these matters have hardly done any more than Heath Streak
to get
rid of Africa's top tyrant.
The Guardian,
Tanzania
Land must benefit all
Zimbabweans -Mkapa
Monday, May
05, 2003
.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Guardian Reporter
President
Benjamin Mkapa has said the major challenge for the Zimbabwe
government is to
make sure that land that has been given to nationals is
utilized
appropriately so as to produce enough food for the benefit of
the
Zimbabweans.
The President made the
statement at Mzuzu in Malawi during a press
conference on Saturday where he
graced the graduation ceremony at Mzuzu
University. He was on a three- day
official visit to Malawi.
Responding to
questions posed by journalists who had wanted to know
Tanzania's position
regarding the political crisis in Zimbabwe, Mkapa said
that he did not
believe that imposing economic sanctions on Zimbabwe was a
solution to the
problem.
"We still support diplomatic efforts
as a solution to the political
crisis that would ensure peace, tranquility
and national unity but we insist
that the people of Zimbabwe should have the
final say in electing their own
leaders," President Mkapa
explained.
Addressing students, lecturers of
Mzuzu University and other guests
who had attended the graduation ceremony,
President Mkapa called upon
African countries to use education as a means to
further international
cooperation so as to build formidable nations that
could stand to
multi-party democracy and
globalisation.
During the ceremony President
Bakili Muluzi was accorded an honorary
degree of Doctorate of Philosophy
(Phd).
Regarding bilateral relations between
Malawi and Tanzania, the two
presidents agreed to establish a programme that
would develop the Songwe
River Basin, an economic venture that would benefit
both countries. Songwe
river marks the boundary between the two
countries.
They also agreed to step up efforts
to develop the Mtwara Corridor
which would among other things open up new
transport routes for Malawi.
President Mkapa
invited President Muluzi to visit Tanzania and be
guest of honour at this
year's Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair. The
President returned to Dar
es Salaam yesterday afternoon.
Daily
News
Disaster fund
looted
5/5/03 6:53:24 AM (GMT
+2)
From Energy Bara in
Masvingo
Some survivors of the Masvingo
bus disaster have not received a single
cent from the fund set up to benefit
them, amid reports that over $5 million
donated by President Mugabe was
misappropriated.
Mugabe donated the amount
to assist both the bereaved families and
the
injured.
However, concern has been
raised over the manner in which the money
was used with the intended
beneficiaries claiming that only $400 000
remained in the coffers
.
The Masvingo bus disaster fund was
established in June last year
following one of the country's worst accidents
when an articulated Mhunga
bus collided head-on with a haulage truck killing
38 people, most of them
trainee teachers from Masvingo Teachers'
College.
The two vehicles burst into
flames on impact and some of the bodies
were burnt beyond recognition. A DNA
test was later conducted in South
Africa and it emerged that one of the
bodies was burnt to ashes.
The accident
occurred 55 kilometres north of Masvingo along the
Masvingo/Harare
road.
More than $7 million, in addition to
Mugabe's contribution, was raised
for the
fund.
One of the survivors, who refused to
be named for fear of
victimisation, yesterday said he had not received a
single cent as
compensation from the fund and the bus
operator.
He said: "All the injured were
told to compile a list of their goods
and the nature of their injuries to get
compensation, but up to now we have
not been given a single
cent.
"It appears we are not going to get
anything from the fund."
The fund was
mired in controversy as the Masvingo political leadership
led by provincial
governor, Josaya Hungwe, refused to release the money into
the national fund,
arguing that it would take too long to reach the
intended
beneficiaries.
The chairman of
the Civil Protection Unit, James Murapa, refused to
comment on the
allegations that at least $5 million was not properly
accounted for and
referred all questions to the Masvingo provincial
administrator, Alphonse
Chikurira.
Chikurira, however, said: "The
money was properly accounted for. Some
of it was used to pay hospital bills,
while the bereaved families got
their
share."
Chikurira said he was not
sure whether the money pledged by Mugabe was
later deposited into the
fund.
However, Hungwe confirmed that
Mugabe honoured his pledge by releasing
the money into the
fund.
Investigations by The Daily News
have revealed that a total of $3,7
million was paid to the bereaved families.
Hospital bills amounting to only
$2 million were settled, while others were
still outstanding.
But, it still remains
unclear how more than $5 million was used.
Another survivor said: "I used my own money to be treated, but have
not been
refunded. We were advised that all those who had money were free to
pay for
themselves, but would be reimbursed. It is now almost a year and I
do not
know who to approach."
Daily
News
Coal shortage hits
hospital
5/5/03 7:03:20 AM (GMT
+2)
Staff
Reporter
THE shortage of coal has hit
Harare Central Hospital, which is now
failing to heat up its boilers for
steam to sterilise instruments used in
the theatre and labour
wards.
The hospital is also now failing to
adequately feed its staff,
patients and students and to clean linen in the
laundry due to the shortage.
A medical
doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said last
Thursday the shortage
had been affecting the hospital periodically for a
long time and the
institution had been without adequate coal for the past
three
days.
He said: "This is affecting
operations in the theatre and the labour
wards because that's where most
instruments need to be sterilised. Staff in
these departments are now using
disinfectants to clean the instruments,
which is not as effective as
sterilising with steam."
A worker at the
hospital's main kitchen said they were now cooking
limited food - for the
patients and students only. He said sometimes they
resorted to obtaining food
from Chitungwiza General Hospital.
The
doctor said women in the labour wards were sleeping on beds
without linen
because of the shortage of coal to use in operating the
laundry
machines.
The hospital obtains its coal
from Lakas Products, a coal merchant
company in Harare. An official at the
company said he could not comment on
anything involving
coal.
Zimbabwe's largest and single
producer of coal, Wankie Colliery
Company Limited, has been failing to meet
the high demand for coal for the
local
market.
It has cited the shortage of
railway wagons as the major impediment.
In
a statement issued in January, the company also blamed the regular
breakdown
of mining equipment as the reason for the shortage. The equipment,
a
dragline, cannot be timeously attended to as a result of foreign
currency
shortages.
About 85 to 95
percent of the company's coal production is obtained
from the open cast mine,
which depends on the dragline. The failure to
service and maintain the
dragline has resulted in reduced capacity output.
Daily
News
Ex-ZNA members' lives at
risk, says lawyer
5/5/03 7:05:01
AM (GMT +2)
By Precious
Shumba
ARNOLD Tsunga, the director of the
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights
(ZLHR), says he fears that the publication
of names of two former Zimbabwe
National Army (ZNA) members by the State-run
Sunday Mail last week has put
them at great risk of being summarily executed
by the army for allegedly
being armed and in possession of dangerous
weapons.
On 28 March, The Sunday Mail
published a story saying Tenda Chawapiwa
Makota, Major Peter Guhu and Solomon
Chikowero, the MDC intelligence chief,
were wanted by the
police.
Guhu has claimed that he was
dismissed from the army on 29 November
2001 for allegedly being an MDC
activist.
This was at the recommendation
and instructions of Lieutenant-General
Constantine Chiwenga, the army
commander.
Tsunga said his clients were
innocent citizens whose lives had now
been seriously endangered by
mischievous people with sinister motives.
Makota left the army in 1998.
Guhu's
dismissal is being challenged in the High Court where he is
demanding his
benefits.
Tsunga said: "It's not possible
that he can be pursuing the civil
claim against his former employers and at
the same time he is said to be on
the run from them. Makota officially
retired from the army and he is running
his businesses as a responsible
citizen."
The Sunday Mail advert creates
grave danger for them, Tsunga said.
"They could be executed on the pretext
that they are armed and dangerous
when in fact, they are genuine
businessmen."
Tsunga said the ZLHR was
considering taking the two men's case as a
public interest litigation because
of the "grave reality" of the advert's
threat to the right of
life.
The paper's story, headlined Wanted,
claimed that the police wanted
the three in connection with incidents of
public violence during the 18-19
March mass job stay-away. The advert gave
Chikowero, known as Socks, and
Guhu's residential addresses. It claimed the
two were believed to be heavily
armed with automatic and home-made bombs,
warning they must be approached
with extreme
caution."
Tsunga said he would take the
two to the CID Law and Order at Harare
Central Police Station as soon as he
comes to Harare so that they clear
themselves
.
The anxiety I have is that the police
might not be genuinely
interested in interviewing Makota and Guhu." he
said.
Daily
News
CIO quizzes councillors over
Mudzuri's whereabouts
5/5/03
7:06:15 AM (GMT +2)
From Ntungamili Nkomo
in Bulawayo
THREE Harare city councillors,
including the director of housing, who
were booked in a Bulawayo hotel were
on Friday allegedly harassed by members
of the
CIO.
The CIO agents reportedly asked them
about the whereabouts of Elias
Mudzuri, the suspended mayor of
Harare.
The councillors, who were
attending the urban councils' meeting in
Bulawayo, alleged that they were
picked up at midnight by the CIO
for
questitioning.
The ousted mayor was
also in Bulawayo for the meeting but was not
booked at the same hotel with
the councillors.
Wellington Madzivanyika,
the councillor for Kambuzuma Ward 14, was in
the company of Benjamin Maimba
(Hatfield Ward 22), Elizabeth Marumba
(Greendale Ward 9) and Numero Mubaiwa,
the director of housing. The four
were booked at Serlborne
Hotel.
Madzivanyika alleged that the CIO
members violently opened the door to
their room while they were asleep and
demanded that they lead them to where
Mudzuri was. "The harassment that we
experienced on Friday is highly
deplorable in any
democracy.
"Surely how do you explain a
situation whereby police come and harass
you in the middle of the night just
because you are a member of the
opposition," said
Madzivanyika.
When the councillors professed
ignorance over Mudzuri's whereabouts,
the CIO left, but returned at around
4am for further questioning.
Madzivanyika
said the CIO members were led by one Mapfure, who picked
Mubaiwa and took him
to Rose Camp Police Station for
questioning.
"When we told them that we
didn't know where Mudzuri was, they
threatened us with unspecified action and
went away. They returned at about
4am and took Mubaiwa to the police station
where they seized his mobile
phone and searched for Mudzuri's phone numbers,"
he said.
Mubaiwa could not be reached for
comment.
Maimba said: "That was total
harassment and it should stop," he said.
Contacted for comment yesterday, Mudzuri alleged that Zanu PF wanted
to kill
him.
"They even came to where I was booked
but I had already left after I
was tipped-off that the police were looking
for me. Zanu PF is planning to
eliminate me," he
said
Daily
News
Mudzuri comes out of
hiding
5/5/03 7:07:01 AM (GMT
+2)
Staff
Reporter
Elias Mudzuri, the suspended
Harare Executive Mayor, yesterday said he
had come out of hiding and was
"back in my territory".
Mudzuri was
suspended by Ignatius Chombo, the Minister of Local
Government, Public Works
and National Housing, last week for alleged
incompetence. He went into hiding
on Friday after he was alerted by his
sources that the police were looking
for him .
He said: "The police just wanted
to harass me. Now that people know
the police want to arrest me I hope they
will give me maximum support."
Chombo
suspended Mudzuri on a number of allegations, including
misconduct,
mismanagement and insubordination.
MDC
councillors met on Saturday to decide their reaction to
Mudzuri's
suspension.
Sekesai
Makwavarara, the deputy mayor, yesterday said: "We are meeting
tomorrow to
finalise our statement."
Only one of the
43 city councillors is Zanu PF. The rest are
MDC.
Mudzuri declined to say whether he
would report for duty at Town
House
today.
He said: "Chombo had no
right to suspend me. The charges have no
meaning. What Chombo wants is for
the theft and corruption to continue. We
were getting to the heart of the
matter in our investigations and that is
why he suspended
me."
He said the government had targeted
him for removal from office ever
since his election in March last
year.
Mudzuri said: "They say I failed to
run the city, but isn't it the
government that has failed? There is no
foreign currency, there is no
petrol, the government has failed to complete
Kuwadzana Extension and the
government flats. If anyone should be removed for
failing it is the
government."
Mudzuri
has on several occasions been harassed by the police and Zanu
PF
supporters.
Daily
News
Leader Page
Mudzuri
being persecuted for exposing
corruption
5/5/03 6:54:26 AM (GMT
+2)
Reports carried by this and other
newspapers that Engineer Elias
Mudzuri, the suspended executive mayor of
Harare, is in hiding make sad
reading.
Initial indications are that Mudzuri, was suspended by Ignatius
Chombo, the
Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing,
last week
for allegedly initiating an investigation into Chombo over land
the minister
reportedly acquired in Harare's plush suburb of Umwinsdale
through the then
Department of Physical Planning for about $70 000. The
plot, known as
subdivision K of Nthaba and measuring almost 2 hectares, was
pegged at a cost
of about $250 000 in March 1996 when Chombo acquired
it.
Chombo first reportedly occupied 1,7
hectares of that open land which
had been free space and open to residents
for the past 20 years before going
for the whole
hog.
Mudzuri confirmed that he had
instituted investigations on Chombo over
the matter and various other
issues.
The executive mayor was suspended
for unravelling corruption within
the city council which had become
deep-rooted with continuous Zanu PF
dominated councils since independence in
1980. Mudzuri said he was
contesting the suspension, widely viewed by the
legal fraternity as unjust
and illegal.
Chombo responded by filing an urgent application in the High Court to
bar
Mudzuri from conducting his official duties, but quickly withdrew
the
application to avoid embarrassment, for lack of
evidence.
Chombo was alleging that Mudzuri
was defying the suspension and had
been seen wearing his mayoral regalia at
official functions during the
just-ended Zimbabwe International Trade Fair in
Bulawayo. Mudzuri's lawyer,
Beatrice Mtetwa, confirmed that the
Attorney-General's Office had withdrawn
the application but had not given
reasons for their about-turn.
To the
residents of Harare, Mudzuri was carrying out his duties to the
best of his
abilities given the fact the Chombo had been trying to undermine
him from the
time he was elected.
Mudzuri won the
mayoral election on an MDC ticket in March last year.
He had since written
several letters to Chombo complaining about corruption
within the city
council.
One example that quickly comes to
mind and confirms Mudzuri's
assertions that Chombo wants to protect
corruption involves the reversal of
several cases of dismissal of top council
officials, among them the chief
security officer, Joseph Chinotimba, for
being absent from work without
official
leave.
Chombo went out of his way to
defend Chinotimba and up to now, he is
still employed by the council,
although it is common knowledge that
Chinotimba, the self-styled
commander-in-chief of farm invasions, was absent
from work while leading the
violent and chaotic land redistribution
programme which is largely
responsible for the famine now gripping
the
country.
In a concerted effort to
frustrate Mudzuri, Chombo blocked the council
's efforts to secure a
supplementary budget of $68 billion to run the
affairs of the city properly.
Mudzuri has vowed - and rightly so - not to
leave office before his term of
office expires unless the residents give him
a vote of no
confidence.
Mudzuri is definitely a pain
in the side of the establishment. There
is nothing more telling than the
capital city giving a ruling party a vote
of no confidence than voting an
opposition mayor into office. Zanu PF could
not take that lying down, but the
people had spoken.
As a result they
orchestrated a plan to make his tenure of office as
uncomfortable as
possible, but unfortunately the residents stand by their
mayor and have taken
steps to sue the minister and the government for
Mudzuri's illegal
suspension.
To counter that, State agents
have been set on him and he is now in
hiding. He has been in hiding since
last Friday in Bulawayo when the police
started hunting for him. He left the
trade fair grounds in a hurry and was
not able to attend the official opening
because the police were after him.
The State is maligning Mudzuri because he
was about to expose a large can of
worms on their corrupt activities which
have brought this once beautiful
country to its
knees.
The visiting heads of state from
Malawi, Nigeria and South Africa
should be able to see for themselves what
kind of repressive regime
Zimbabweans are dealing with when they fly in to
meet President Mugabe and
Morgan Tsvangirai over the country's worsening
socio-economic and political
crisis today.
Daily
News
Leader Page
Guilty
conscience must be removed to move
ahead
5/5/03 6:55:26 AM (GMT
+2)
By Cathy
Buckle
"We have never preached or
practiced the politics of vengeance
and
retribution.
"We are determined never
to allow the horrors of the past to haunt and
influence the future of our
country."
These words were said on 30
April 2003 by MDC president Morgan
Tsvangirai, who was addressing senior MDC
party officials, Harare city
councillors and Members of
Parliament.
These are indeed admirable
words and ones which we hope will never be
forgotten either by the MDC
leadership or Zimbabweans in general.
In
his address, Tsvangirai talked about all the problems facing
Zimbabwe and
issues that need urgent address.
He said
the MDC were ready to govern and had policy packages ready for
the
reconstruction of the economy in the agricultural, mining and
tourism
sectors.
Tsvangirai said
emergency plans were in place to generate jobs,
resuscitate the economy and
revive education and health systems in
Zimbabwe.
He did not talk about just
exactly what Zimbabwe is going to do about
all the people who have made our
lives utter hell for the past three years
and I hope and pray that he and the
MDC are not going to make the fatal
mistake that President Mugabe made in
1980 and just sweep everything under
the carpet, forgive and forget and start
again from scratch.
For Zimbabwe this
would be as much of a disaster in 2003 as it was
in
1980.
I am sure I am not alone in
wondering just exactly where Zimbabwe went
wrong way back in
1980.
It's so easy to just blame it all on
someone else, isn't it? What was
it that each and every one of us did wrong
that led - over 23 years - to the
disastrous state of affairs that has become
our daily hell?
In 1980 not one of us,
man, woman or teenager, black, white or brown,
had to confess our sins or
admit our deeds.
We did not have to stand
up in front of our friends, neighbours and
communities and say: "This is what
I did, I am sorry. Please forgive me or
punish
me."
In 1980 we did not have a Truth and
Reconciliation Commission. We did
not have a War Crimes Tribunal and were
never made either answerable for our
deeds or accountable for our
actions.
Instead, we all breathed an
enormous and collective sigh of relief and
carried on as if nothing had ever
happened. Simply put, one day we were
committing the foulest of abuses and
atrocities on each other and the next
day we were supposed to all be big
mates and pretend nothing had
ever
happened.
Never again must this be
allowed to occur in our history. If we let it
happen again when our country
finally returns to democratic governance, it
will be our children - in 20
years' time - who will again have to pay for
the sins of their fathers and
mothers.
Every man and woman who has
murdered, tortured, raped, burned and
looted in three years of mayhem in
Zimbabwe must be bought to justice. I am
not talking about revenge or
retribution, but about justice.
We cannot
again have a nation where people are walking around with
guilty consciences
and have got away with their crimes. This must even
extend to each and every
household; even the men and woman, in our own
suburbs and streets, who have
extorted money for Independence celebrations
and demanded party cards in
order for us to be allowed to buy food.
Even they must be made to confess, apologise for stripping people of
their
dignity and make compensation to those they have stolen
from.
God forbid - when Zimbabwe returns
to democracy - that the
perpetrators of crimes in the last three years are
allowed to walk free. The
ordinary men and women of Zimbabwe are angry at
what has been done to them
in the name of Zanu
PF.
We must not wait for people to take
the law into their own hands.
Every man and woman in Zimbabwe must demand
that there will be truth and
reconciliation committees, public hearings,
trials and court justice.
If, as
Tsvangirai said last week, we are not going to let the horrors
of the past
haunt and influence the future of the country, then justice must
be
done.
The restoration of our economy is
critical, but so is the need for
truth, forgiveness and justice. Zimbabwe
must never again be a nation with a
guilty
conscience.
Cathy Buckle is a housewife
based in Marondera.
Daily News
Margarine runs out as shortages
continue
5/5/03 6:49:38 AM (GMT
+2)
Business
Reporter
THE availability of basic
commodities remained critical for the past
week with the market running out
of margarine.
A survey by The Business
Daily revealed that most shops in and around
Harare had no
margarine.
However, a new brand of
margarine code-named Blossom has surfaced in a
few selected outlets selling
at more than double the price of Stork
margarine. Blossom margarine replaces
Storkspread, which graced the market
for a rather short
period.
The change in brands and packaging
has been a desperate bid by some
manufacturers to circumvent price
controls.
Prices of most basic commodities
had gone up an average 100 percent.
Retailers attributed the rise in prices
to increased costs of production.
One of
the retailers said the continued scarcity of basic commodities
was a result
of electricity load-shedding and erratic fuel
supplies.
Manufacturers were reportedly
operating below capacity owing to the
power problem, which has gripped the
nation, due to foreign currency
shortages.
Daily
News
Feature
No hope in
sight for Zimbabwe's swelling
jobless
5/5/03 6:52:18 AM (GMT
+2)
By Lawrence
Paganga
NORMAN Mutasa, 31, of Mbare in
Harare, is a typical example of the
hordes of jobless
Zimbabweans.
He has been looking for a job
for the past five years since his
retrenchment in
1997.
Five years down the line, his hopes
of ever getting one are fast
fading by the day as more companies are
down-sizing their operations or
closing
down.
Mutasa's case is similar to that of
other millions of Zimbabweans who
are failing to get jobs in the country as
the future of industry and
commerce looks bleak, gnarled by economic
mismanagement.
Blaming the land reform
programme for causing the current misery in
the country, Mutasa, who is
married with two children, said his prospects of
ever securing employment
were now very slim.
"The land reform
programme has seen companies closing down as there is
no production taking
place since this country relies mainly on agriculture,"
Mutasa said. "As a
result, very few companies are recruiting workers at
the
moment."
He said his hopes of
securing a job would only be after a change in
the
government.
"It is high time that we had a
new leadership in this country as the
current one has failed us and we are
facing more hardships because of them,"
Mutasa
bemoaned.
"Things are hard for me and my
family and I don't know for how long we
are going to live like
this."
He used to work for a food
processing company.
Every morning he
visits companies close to his Mbare home looking for
a job, but so far all
his efforts have been in vain.
Unemployment, conservatively estimated at 65 percent before the Zanu
PF-led
government embarked on a calamitous and chaotic land
redistribution
programme, has been rising in Zimbabwe as most displaced farm
workers join
the swelling ranks of the
unemployed.
Economic experts put the
unemployment rate at 80 percent.
Such a
high figure has spawned poverty among urban residents as they
battle to
survive in a shrinking economy.
The plight
of the unemployed has been worsened by critical shortages
of basic
commodities, which are only available at black market prices that
are way
beyond the reach of the majority in formal or informal
employment.
Mutasa was one of the job
seekers who were interviewed by The Daily
News at the Simon Mazorodze Road
flyover area on the outskirts of Harare's
central business
district.
He said he relies on his
relatives for support to pay rentals and
school fees for his child in primary
school.
The dependency ratio among
Zimbabweans has increased dramatically
since it was officially put at eight
people during the 1990s because of a
shrinking economy. On an average a
Zimbabwean worker supports more than
10
people.
"I don't know how long I can
remain dependent on my relatives for
sustenance as they also face their own
problems." he said shaking his head.
His
concerns were echoed by Thomas Mombeshora, 22, who said it was
time the
country had a new leadership.
"Life has
become difficult for us job seekers as there are very few
companies that are
engaging workers even on a part-time basis and I think
this can only change
if we have a government with new ideas,"
said
Mombeshora.
Mombeshora, who also
lives in Mbare, said his dreams of getting a job
and looking after his
parents in Rusape had faded.
"I was hoping
that one day I would be able to fend for my parents, but
all that has
failed," he said.
Poverty has reached
alarming levels in Zimbabwe as companies, hit by
the shortages of foreign
currency and raw materials, continue to close or
down-size their operations.
About 80 percent of the country's population is
living below the poverty
datum line.
The government has blamed
Western countries for Zimbabwe's economic
meltdown, accusing the opposition
of working in cahoots with these countries
to throttle the economy and cause
civil unrest.
Only a fortnight ago,
President Mugabe, in a televised interview,
blamed two years of drought and
sanctions for causing a stagnation in
economic growth but admitted that
Zimbabweans had endured a lot of suffering
in the past three
years.
Mugabe, however, skirted around
questions that corruption in high
places and a thriving patronage system,
which benefited Zanu PF cronies, had
played a major role in the creating the
economic malaise. Resources meant
for the benefit of the majority had
benefited, but a few cronies.
Mombeshora
was expecting the ZCTU leadership to come up with a
strategy to safeguard the
interests of the workers.
Workers
world-wide celebrated Workers' Day last
Thursday.
"The closure of the companies is
putting the fate of the workers at
risk and the ZCTU should do something to
cushion workers from more
hardships."
Most job seekers converged at the flyover in the afternoon after
spending the
better part of the morning looking for jobs in the industrial
areas and the
city centre.
Taurai Guche, 18, of Tafara
said: "I cannot immediately go home as my
relatives might think that I am not
looking for a job. The situation is
terrible and I have no hope of getting a
job if things remain as they are."
Guche
said the flyover had become a convenient resting place for the
job seekers
and already he had made friends with other people who come to
the area after
their futile job-hunting expeditions.
Last
year it was estimated that over 350 companies closed down
throwing more than
350 000 onto the streets in Zimbabwe.
This
was hard on the heels of the chaotic farm invasions, which cost
more than 500
000 farm workers their jobs, rendering them homeless too. The
violent farm
invasions cost about 40 lives, with at least 10 of them being
commercial
farmers.
Dispatch
online
'Last hope' talks for ailing Zim
HARARE --
Calls for President Robert Mugabe's retirement appear to be
gaining momentum.
In fact, many people, especially Zimbabweans, are hoping
he will announce his
exit strategy after his meeting with three African
heads of state
today.
Mugabe is expected to meet President Thabo Mbeki and the
presidents of
Malawi and Nigeria, Bakili Muluzi and Olusegun Obasanjo, in
Harare.
The meeting has been hailed as the last hope for a resolution of
the
Zimbabwean crisis which has resulted in the almost total collapse of
the
economy.
The leaders are to meet in an attempt to facilitate
discussions between
Mugabe and the main opposition leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai.
The bid to push Mugabe and Tsvangirai -- who heads the
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) -- to the negotiating table comes amid
mounting
political tensions in the country.
Zimbabwe is deeply divided
politically between supporters of Mugabe, who has
been in power for 23 years,
and Tsvangirai backers.
Talks between the MDC and the ruling Zanu(PF)
have been mooted for some time
now, but there are sticking
points.
Mugabe has said he will only talk to the opposition leader if the
latter
recognises him as a duly-elected head of state.
Tsvangirai, who
rejects Mugabe's legitimacy as president, has ruled out
preconditions for
talks.
The opposition is due to mount a court petition to Mugabe's
election victory
in last year's polls.
The South African government
said in a statement that the meeting was part
of efforts to "assist the
people of Zimbabwe in their endeavour to find
national
reconciliation".
The visit by three-man delegation, who are all strong
supporters of Mugabe's
government, has sparked frenzied media speculation
that they will be urging
Mugabe's early retirement.
Analysts and
commentators point to an interview Mugabe gave on state
television last
month, in which he hinted he was "getting to a stage" when
retirement might
be thinkable.
Tsvangirai added to the speculation last week, saying his
party was willing
to discuss a way for Mugabe's "smooth exit" from power and
the onset of a
"post-Mugabe era".
But the government insists that
Mugabe has no intention of leaving office
before his current term expires in
2008.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said talk of "transitional
governments"
and "exit plans" for Mugabe was wishful thinking.
Mbeki's
presidential spokesman, Bheki Khumalo, said South Africa also
strongly
rejected the idea that Mugabe could go to another country to effect
a
handover of power in Zimbabwe, adding that it was up to Mugabe himself
to
deal with such issues.
While at least three top Zanu(PF) figures
have been named in the press here
as possible successors to the president --
Moyo, parliamentary Speaker
Emmerson Mnangagwa and former finance minister
Simba Makoni -- analysts say
none has popular support.
The opposition
is however adamant that the 79-year-old president should go.
Tsvangirai
and the MDC say that Mugabe's government is responsible for acts
of
retribution and violence against opposition supporters ever since the
party
posed the first serious challenge to Mugabe's rule in 2000
parliamentary
elections.
The opposition party also accuses Mbeki and Obasanjo of not
being "honest
brokers" between their party and Mugabe.
In a statement
last week, Tsvangirai accused the two leaders of trying to
"ensure that
Mugabe's illegitimacy remains unchallenged".
* Democratic Alliance leader
Tony Leon said yesterday that Southern Africans
would be hoping the meeting
between the leaders would yield positive
outcomes for Zimbabwe and the
region.
"We wish President Mbeki well in his endeavours.
"There is
no doubt that the crisis in Zimbabwe has become a test of
credibility of SADC
and the new African Union. It is a test which our
country and region has
failed too often in the past three years."
After three years of broken
promises and missed deadlines, Zimbabwe was on
the brink, Leon
said.
Nobody could doubt the urgent need for action. --
Sapa-AFP-DDC
IOL
MDC hold trump card in Mugabe 'exit
plan'
May 05 2003 at
02:01AM
By Basildon Peta
President
Thabo Mbeki and other African leaders could face legal barriers in
their bid
to persuade President Robert Mugabe to step down.
Mugabe might be willing
to exit at once if Zimbabwe's constitution did not
require an election within
90 days of his doing so.
That is the opinion of Lovemore Madhuku,
professor of constitutional law at
the University of Zimbabwe.
The
constitution requires an election within 90 days if the president
leaves
office between elections. Either of the two vice-presidents or the
speaker
of parliament would act as president pending the
election.
Madhuku believes this is the biggest stumbling block for Mbeki,
Nigerian
President Olusegun Obasanjo and Malawian President Bakili Muluzi,
who were
due in Harare on Monday to launch a new diplomatic push after Mugabe
hinted
he might be willing to step down.
The African presidents were
to meet Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
a..
Mbeki explained the objectives of the Harare meeting on the eve of his
visit,
Jeremy Michaels reports.
"The political leadership of Zimbabwe must get
together to look at all these
challenges of Zimbabwe and solve them, because
a solution to the problems of
Zimbabwe lies with the Zimbabweans... it
doesn't lie with anybody else,"
Mbeki said.
If Mugabe is persuaded to
step down, the constitution would have to be
amended because the Zimbabwean
leader won't agree to an early election.
Mugabe has categorically stated
that the next presidential election will be
in 2008. It is understood,
however, that Mugabe could be persuaded to hold
an early election to run
concurrently with Zimbabwe's parliamentary
elections in 2005, but definitely
not before.
To get Mugabe's co-operation, the constitution must be
amended to do away
with the 90-day requirement.
But Mugabe's ruling
party is short of the two-thirds majority required to
change the constitution
because it lost 57 seats to the Movement for
Democratic Change in the June
2000 parliamentary election.
Mbeki's biggest hurdle is to persuade the
MDC to agree to the constitutional
amendment needed to change the 90-day law
and allow Mugabe to appoint a
successor who will last until at least 2005
without holding an early
election. The opposition has so far rejected this
plan, saying it wants an
early election.
If it maintains that
position, Mugabe is likely to cling to power.
a.. Meanwhile,
speculation is mounting as to who would succeed Mugabe.
Speaker of
parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa is a key favourite. Other
contenders are former
finance minister Simba Makoni, Special Affairs
Minister John Nkomo and
Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo
has been mentioned, but he is very
unpopular.
Mnangagwa remains
Mugabe's favoured choice. His major weakness is that he is
unpopular with
party members.
He is the most hated man among the Ndebele people of the
Matabeleland
region, who constitute about 30 percent of the population.
Mnangagwa stands
accused of masterminding the massacre of more than 20 000
Ndebeles during
the disturbances in Matabeleland in the early
1980s.
Makoni is the man believed to be favoured by Mbeki as a successor.
As a
former secretary of the Southern Africa Development Community, Makoni
is
respected internationally. He was fired as finance minister last year
after
criticising Mugabe's economic policies.
The faction headed by
former army commander General Solomon Mujuru favours
Sekeramayi, who has been
accused by the UN of plundering the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
If
Zanu-PF were to allow party members to choose the leader, Special
Affairs
Minister John Nkomo would probably win. He is popular in the party
even
though he is Ndebele. He is a moderate seen as pursuing different
policies
from Mugabe.
Tsvangirai believes he could win against any
candidate except Makoni. -
Independent Foreign
Service
IOL
MDC took Mugabe by
surprise
May 05 2003 at
02:32AM
By Khathu Mamaila
As its
name suggests, the Movement for Democratic Change has mobilised
Zimbabweans
on the principle that things can no longer remain the same.
Clearly, two
decades under Robert Mugabe's rule have not transformed
people's
lives.
Within months of its formation, the MDC grew into a formidable
force for
change. At first, Zanu-PF top brass thought the MDC would
dissipate, like
its predecessors.
But the result of a 1999 referendum,
in which Zanu wanted to change the
constitution, proved the MDC was cut from
different cloth. Zanu lost and it
became clear the government needed a
strategy if it were to win the 2000
general election.
Unemployment was
rising and retired soldiers wanted to be paid
demobilisation funds, but
Harare had no money.
The veterans organised themselves to force the
government to give land to
the black people of Zimbabwe. The government could
have acted against them,
but that would have meant isolating itself from its
strongest constituency.
So it opted to support the land call.
It was
not a difficult argument to make. About 4 000 white commercial
farmers owned
about 70 percent of the most fertile land in Zimbabwe.
In many instances,
police did not stop land invasions. This, and the looting
of private
property, were the first steps in the undermining of the rule
of
law.
Farm production was disrupted and thousands of labourers lost
their jobs.
The farm invasions almost destroyed the tobacco crop, the
country's main
foreign currency earner. So Zimbabwe was unable to pay for
imports like oil
and electricity.
If the land reform programme was
designed solely to keep Zanu-PF in power,
it paid off. Zanu-PF narrowly won
the parliamentary election in 2000, but
the MDC won in all the major cities
and became a powerful opposition in
parliament.
For the first time in
two decades, Zanu had an effective opposition. The
tension that characterises
debates in parliament often spill over to the
followers. Supporters of both
main parties have been involved in violent
acts against each
other.
The violence peaked around the time of last year's presidential
poll, which
Mugabe won. But the opposition challenged the victory, accusing
Mugabe of
stealing the election.
Amnesty International's latest report
paints a gloomy picture of the
harassment of the people in
Zimbabwe.
Many MDC members have been arrested. Tsvangirai is facing
charges of
plotting to kill Mugabe. The MDC is challenging the legitimacy of
Mugabe's
presidency in court, which has complicated dialogue between the two
parties.
Zanu-PF insists it will talk to the MDC only if Mugabe's legitimacy
isn't
questioned.
IOL
What happened to one of Africa's
heroes?
May 05 2003 at
02:35AM
By Khathu Mamaila
The call
for the retirement of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe appears to
be
growing louder, with some voices hoping he'll disclose his exit strategy
on
Monday.
Mugabe was expected to meet President Thabo Mbeki and the
presidents of
Malawi and Nigeria, Bakili Muluzi and Olusegun Obasanjo, in
Harare on
Monday.
The meeting has been seen as the last hope for a
resolution of the crisis in
Zimbabwe, which has resulted in the almost total
collapse of the country's
economy.
But Mugabe has not always been a
liability to Zimbabwe. He was once hailed
as a liberation hero, in the same
league as Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere
of Tanzania and Samora Machel of
Mozambique.
So what went wrong?
After his country gained
independence from Britain, Mugabe embarked on a
process of national
reconciliation, forming a new army from his Zanla
(Zimbabwe African National
Liberation Army) troops, ex-Rhodesian fighters,
and guerrillas from Zipra
(Zimbabwean People's Revolutionary Army), the
military wing of Joshua Nkomo's
Zimbabwe African People's Unity.
The unity he championed was put to the
test in the early 1980s when clashes
with disgruntled Zipra guerrillas spread
into an all-out rebellion in
Matabeleland. Ex-Rhodesian forces were deployed
to quell it.
Following the discovery of arms caches on land owned by
Nkomo, who was
serving in Mugabe's cabinet, Nkomo was sacked from the
government. The
rebellion in Matebeleland gained momentum. It was later
crushed brutally by
the North-Korean trained Fifth Brigade.
In what
was described as a commitment to unity, Mugabe again invited Nkomo
to his
cabinet, appointing him as vice-president, and they later formed
the
Zanu-Patriotic Front. This was the beginning of an effective
one-party
state; opposition parties were not banned but were virtually
nonexistent.
Mugabe continued to preach racial reconciliation and
nation-building. When
his close confidant, Edgar Tekere, who was a cabinet
minister and also
secretary-general of Zanu, was accused of killing a white
farmer, Mugabe
sacked him.
Following media reports in 1989 linking
government officials to the illegal
purchase of cars, Mugabe appointed a
commission which fingered senior
government officials, including a
minister.
Attempts to form an alternative opposition continued.
Ndabaningi Sithole, a
former member of Zanu, continued to mobilise for his
party, Zanu-Ndonga. In
what Mugabe's critics say was an elaborate plan to
eliminate Zanu-Ndonga
from the political scene, Sithole was arrested for
allegedly plotting to
assassinate Mugabe. Despite pleading that the charges
against him were
trumped up, he was convicted and sentenced to six years in
jail.
The euphoric glory of freedom was fast disappearing. Ordinary
people wanted
their lives to improve. Mugabe had tried to invest in social
spending, but
had to borrow heavily from the World Bank and the International
Monetary
Fund.
According to economists, Mugabe's problems started when
his government found
itself unable to service the loans. Government
expenditure was also
increased by Zimbabwe's involvement in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo
to prop up the regime of Joseph Kabila, who was
fighting Ugandan and
Rwandan-backed rebels.
The economy was
experiencing negative growth of 6 percent in 2000. The
country was struggling
to meet budgetary goals. Inflation had risen sharply
from 32% in 1998 to 59%
in 1999 and 60% in 2000.
These factors created the necessary pressure for
the launch of a new
opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, under the
leadership of
unionist Morgan Tsvangirai. - Political
Editor
Dispatch
online
Zimbabwe: managing the end of a war
By
Norman Reynolds
THE talks today in Harare cannot just be about Mugabe's
"exit". It is Robert
Mugabe, yes, but also the illegal regime of his party,
Zanu(PF), that has
ruined that country. One of history's shortest and
steepest descents into
human rights abuses, the destruction of the economy
and of massive genocide
against citizens cannot be the work of one man
alone.
For too long, as a travesty of our history, of our Constitution
and as a
mockery of the serious plight of Zimbabweans, our President and
Minister of
Foreign Affairs have backed Mugabe. They said that Zimbabweans
must sort out
their own mess whilst stating that South Africa will never
criticise Mugabe.
They did this while they deliberately stood back from the
illegality of his
regime and ignored the MDC that represents the great
majority of
Zimbabweans.
The meetings in Harare today must not attempt
to provide space for Zanu(PF)
to re-organise. The depravity, human rights
abuses and corruption reach well
beyond Mugabe, the cabinet and party leaders
to most party functionaries,
but especially to the main contenders to replace
him in the party.
It is doubtful that a Zanu(PF)-MDC venture will see
much progress towards
holding decent elections. There are too many within
Zanu(PF) with too much
to lose, including facing the courts and long jail
terms, to move
expeditiously to prepare for elections. It would be neither
right nor
realistic to sanction any further opportunity for mayhem by the
likely
successors to Robert Mugabe within Zanu(PF).
Nothing must be
allowed to delay the beginning of democratic rule and of
economic
reconstruction.
The correct analogy is that Zimbabwe is at the end of
another war. In 1980,
the British provided the interim authority to get to
national elections and
to control the three armies coming to terms with peace
and nationhood. Now,
the search for internal peace is more difficult because
abuse and state
inspired thuggery is more pervasive. Moreover, little of the
state apparatus
works or can be trusted.
The task now is to end a far
more devastating and morally bankrupt war
perpetrated by Mugabe's regime
against its own citizens. The party, the
police and much of officialdom have
been corrupted and many are guilty of
heinous crimes and are known to the
public and to human rights agencies.
The chance of any interim political
arrangement succeeding, of Zimbabweans
sorting out their problems, as in
South Africa, is slim, even remote. The
condition of Zimbabwe today and the
desperate state of her people and
economy is such that any "Relief and
Recovery" programme and the holding of
elections has to be beyond political
manipulation. The levels of poverty and
of internal community trauma make it
too open to abuse if any residue of
Zanu(PF) is allowed to hold power and
thus to keep at bay the law and order
it fears. Like Mugabe, Mugabe's
successors cannot be trusted.
It would be wrong for Mbeki and Nigerian
leader Olusegun Obasanjo to seek to
advance their pet project, a national
unity government. South Africa,
thereby, would yet again be meddling in
Zimbabwe's internal affairs and the
right of its citizens to choose who shall
rule them. The conditions for a
national unity government do not exist.
Indeed, it is Mbeki and Obasanjo who
bear much of the blame for the country
having sunk so low.
It would also be morally and politically wrong to
present a national unity
government to the MDC as the only way forward. It is
not. The MDC should
again refuse it.
There is only one pathway to fair
elections. Mugabe must go but so too must
Zanu(PF) as a governing entity. The
talks must seek to gain agreement to a
UN/AU- led interim administration and
supervised elections. It could draw on
individual Zimbabweans of integrity
but it must remove all levers of power
from Zanu(PF). This model was used
successfully in 1980 in Harare to stop
the war and gain peace and then in
Namibia in 1990 when South Africa
essentially pulled out. It is needed to end
this more invidious war against
the citizens of
Zimbabwe.
Mail and
Guardian
Rush on Zim banks as panic grips
nation
David Masunda |
Harare
02 May 2003 10:34
Zimbabwean
banks ran out of cash and supermarket shelves were emptied as
panic that a
new showdown between the government, the opposition and trade
unions was
looming gripped the Southern African country.
The crisis has deepened to
the point where South African President Thabo
Mbeki and Nigeria's President
Olusegun Obasanjo are to press President
Robert Mugabe to retire, in an
attempt to break the country's economic and
humanitarian deadlock.
In
Harare, queues snaked in and out of banks as thousands tried to
withdraw
their cash to buy and hoard basic commodities in anticipation of
the
possible indefinite stayaway hinted at by the Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade
Unions (ZCTU), the country's largest labour movement.
Last
week's ZCTU-organised three-day stayaway, to protest against fuel price
hikes
of more than 300% a week before, paralysed the nation.
ZCTU president
Lovemore Matombo said the union would organise indefinite
mass action unless
the government reversed the new prices.
Last weekend Amos Midzi,
Zimbabwe's Minister of Energy, insisted his
government would not revise the
increases, saying "the ZCTU can keep on
dreaming".
a.. Meanwhile,
the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has also officially
responded to a
conditional call from Mugabe for dialogue by telling the
Zanu-PF leader to
denounce violence first.
"As a demonstration of its sincerity, the Mugabe
regime must immediately put
a stop to all forms of state-sponsored violence,
uphold the rule of law and
respect human rights," MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai said on Wednesday.
Mugabe recently said he was prepared to
talk to Tsvangirai to solve the
country's economic and political
crisis.
"All Zanu-PF militias must be disbanded ... and the war veterans
must be
disarmed," Tsvangirai told senior party officials in
Harare.
Additional reporting by The Guardian
News
Update from Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA)