Zim Standard
BY CAIPHAS
CHIMHETE
ATTORNEY-GENERAL Sobusa Gula-Ndebele's arrest last
week on allegations
of conduct contrary to the duties of a public officer
was unconstitutional,
leading constitutional law experts have
said.
Gula-Ndebele is accused of secretly meeting former NMB Bank
deputy
managing director, James Mushore, who was on the police wanted list
for
allegedly externalizing foreign currency.
The police last
week charged Gula-Ndebele with contravening section
174 (1) (a) of the
Criminal Law (Codification and Reform Act), which deals
with the conduct of
public officers.
Mushore fled the country to the UK in 2004, where
he had been living
until his return and subsequent arrest.
Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena could not be reached for comment
yesterday, but constitutional law experts pointed out the AG's arrest was
improper.
Constitutional lawyer Lovemore Madhuku described the
arrest as
"unconstitutional, unprocedural and unthinkable" in any democratic
country.
Madhuku, a University of Zimbabwe law lecturer, said the
Constitution
of Zimbabwe grants the AG the exclusive power to determine
whether or not to
prosecute any person.
"If it were true that
the AG met Mushore and made the alleged
assurance it would be
unconstitutional to arrest him because doing so would
be usurping his powers
to determine prosecution," he said.
Madhuku said the correct
procedure when police believe the AG has
committed a crime would be to
institute proceedings for his removal from
office through the President,
before arresting him.
What happened, he said, was "unthinkable" in
a properly functioning
democracy.
"Unfortunately, Zimbabwe is
not one," he said.
Madhuku added: "If the AG meets someone over a
drink in a restaurant
and the next day he is in police custody what concept
of independence is
that?"
Another constitutional law guru, who
asked not to be named, said what
the police did was tantamount to trying to
influence the way the
Attorney-General carries out his official duties,
which is unconstitutional.
The police failed to do their homework,
he said, or it might have been
deliberate malice to harass him "to settle
whatever old scores there might
be", he said.
The Constitution
of Zimbabwe states that the AG shall not be under the
authority of any
person in the performance of his duties and that no person
shall be able to
issue instructions on the exercise of his functions.
Section 76 (7)
of the Constitution says: "In the exercise of his
powers under subsection
(4) or 4 (a), the Attorney-General shall not be
subject to the direction or
control of any person or authority."
The law expert said if the
police felt that the AG had committed a
crime, the Commissioner of Police
was supposed to approach the President,
who would appoint a tribunal,
composed of lawyers and reputable civic
leaders.
The tribunal
would investigate and make recommendations.
"If there is a prima
facie case, the President would then give the
green-light by suspending the
AG. After that the police can arrest him
because he will no longer be in the
office," he said.
Another constitutional expert, Welshman Ncube,
who is representing
Gula-Ndebele, yesterday refused to comment.
"I am representing Gula-Ndebele, so it would be very inappropriate for
me to
comment at the moment," Ncube said.
The Minister of Justice, Legal
and Parliamentary Affairs Patrick
Chinamasa, who has on several occasions
clashed with Gula-Ndebele, said he
could not comment as he was still
mourning the death of his son who died in
the United States two weeks
ago.
Gula-Ndebele sanctioned the prosecution of Chinamasa, accused
of
trying to obstruct the course of justice in a case involving the Minister
of
State for Security, Lands and Land Resettlement, Didymus
Mutasa.
But Chinamasa was acquitted.
The Minister of
Rural Housing and Social Amenities, Emmerson
Mnangagwa, the acting Minister
of Justice, could not be reached for comment.
Gula-Ndebele's arrest
has taken a political dimension, with some
analysts saying it was designed
to curb the influence of General Solomon
Mujuru's faction, to which
Gula-Ndebele is reported to belong.
Zim Standard
By Davison
Maruziva
THERE is a painful moment in her life that brings
tears welling up in
Memory Gwishiri's eyes. It is the realisation, she says,
that her husband
could be alive today had doctors not gone on strike at the
end of September.
Parirenyatwa Hospital says the tragedy is being
investigated, but
point out the doctor on duty denies failing to attend to
Hillary Chiike
before he died in the Casualty section.
Chiike
(27), a victim of an army hit-and-run accident, was buried at
Manica Bridge,
south of Mutare, on 25 September. But his family insists he
needn't have
died.
Gwishiri (24), and two young children, Yolanda in Grade One
and
Simbarashe, aged two years and nine months, survive Chiike.
On 22 September, towards evening, Chiike was struck down by an army
vehicle
near King George and Lomagundi roads. While the driver of the Puma
fled in
his vehicle, Chiike was able to tell passers-by to call his home and
inform
his wife about the accident.
When Gwishiri and relatives arrived,
Chiike was still conscious and
could explain how he was knocked down and
what happened subsequently, as
well as to indicate his
condition.
City of Harare documents show the ambulance crew of
Musumbu and
Chamunorwa (Call 10588Z) ferried Chiike from Lomagundi Road to
Parirenyatwa
Hospital Casualty section.
It is the alleged
failure of the doctor and nurses on duty on the
fateful evening that
Gwishiri and at least four separate witnesses say
contributed to Chiike's
death.
"The doctors that were there," said Gwishiri, "spent almost
two hours
without attending to him. When we asked the doctor, she shot back
by saying
she had her own stresses."
The doctors were on
strike.
Three of the four witnesses have lodged separate complaints
with the
Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr David Parirenyatwa, over
the
conduct of the staff at the Casualty section on the evening of 22
September.
Parirenyatwa, according to his secretary, was not immediately
available to
comment. He was said to be out of town.
Joyce
Mtshani, N G Mukurazhizha and Ronna Sibanda, the witnesses,
complain that
the medical doctor on duty and five nurses were uncaring
because from the
moment Chiike was delivered to Parirenyatwa hospital by the
ambulance crew,
which was shortly after 7PM, until 9.30PM, when he died,
no-one had attended
to him, in spite of the pain he said he felt.
"The five nurses,"
Mtshani said, "remained seated and were not even
bothered by my pleas, save
to say that the doctors were on strike and they
were also going to join the
strike the following Monday (24 September).
"I pleaded with the
doctor to please attend to the patient brought in
by the ambulance. She told
me that as far as she was concerned, Chiike was
in a stable condition and
there were more critical patients to attend to."
Mtshani said when
she pleaded with the doctor on duty, the doctor
"screamed" at her, warning
her not to exacerbate her stress by such demands.
Meanwhile the
clock was ticking for Chiike. Shortly after 9.30PM, he
died - before any
medical staff at Parirenyatwa's Casualty section had
attended to him. Chiike
is probably the first documented statistic of a
medical doctors' strike. But
his wife and the three witnesses say he needn't
have died.
Thomas Zigora, the Chief Executive Officer of Parirenyatwa Hospital,
told
The Standard: "Yes, we are aware that there's a case where these
allegations
are being made. Some of the people who were there have put these
allegations
in writing to the Minister (of Health). I have put the
allegations to the
doctor (on duty on 22 September) and she denies ever
making that statement
(she is alleged to have made to the witnesses)."
But Zigora said as
a result of the complaints, the matter had been
referred to a clinical audit
committee.
The function of the committee is to review the outcome
of a case such
as Chiike's and arrive at some conclusion. As part of its
work, the
committee is expected to interview the ambulance crew, the nurses
on duty on
that evening in question and the doctor concerned.
Zigora did not say when the audit committee is expected to report on
its
findings.
At 24, Gwishiri had not thought she would be left to face
the future
on her own, trying to guide their two young children's lives,
single-handed.
What will she do next? She says these are tragedies
one is never fully
prepared for. She scans the horizon, tears welling up in
her eyes. The
future is one vast unknown and the thought of it can be very
unsettling.
"I am trying to sort out my papers," she says,
suppressing the urge to
cry in front of a stranger. "Probably, I will try to
start a new life in .
Botswana." Gwishiri is a hairdresser. It's the thought
of starting afresh
that keeps her going. The other alternative would be to
allow her grievous
loss to overwhelm her.
Do the children
understand what has happened? Did she explain to them
about their
father?
"What they know," Gwishiri said, "is that they will not see
their
father anymore. Whether they understand the concept of death yet, I
can not
say."
Even she too must struggle to come to terms with
death. The pledge
she, like all Zimbabweans, believed was sincere at the
time, to achieve
"Health for all by the Year 2000", must sound hollow and
even dishonest
today.
Zim Standard
By Our Staff
THE banking sector has joined the current "queue" phenomenon in
Zimbabwe, if
what was witnessed in the past week is anything to go by.
A snap
survey by The Standard in Harare yesterday showed the return of
long queues
for cash in many banks, some of them stretching to the pavements
outside the
banks.
A banking executive said the queues were a result of the
high demand
for cash as people bought scarce groceries in preparation for
the festive
season.
He said the challenge was that ATMs could
only dispense a maximum of
$8 million in one transaction.
"What
it means is that if you want to withdraw $20 million, you have
to conduct
three transactions at the machine," he said. "If you are number
20 in the
queue and the people ahead of you are withdrawing $20 million
each, it means
you are actually number 58."
He said the introduction of higher
denomination notes of $1 million
would result in the queues moving
faster.
The central bank recently announced it intended to
introduce a new
currency before the end of the year, but abruptly made an
about-turn,
deferring the move to next year.
It was speculated
that the RBZ governor Gideon Gono was feeling the
hyper-inflation heat and
intended to lop off the zeros as he did in August
last year.
Analysts said the queues reflected the devastating effects of
hyper-inflation.
"It is a repetition of the situation we had 18
months ago," said
economic commentator Eric Bloch. "We have to slash the
zeros to stabilize
the currency because very soon cash registers will not
cope."
Zimbabwe has the highest inflation rate in the world - 7
982.1%,
eroding the purchasing power of the currency.
Analysts
say without putting in place sound economic measures, the
country will
continue to fail to contain the hyper-inflation, whatever
monetary or fiscal
gymnastics are implemented to tame the scourge.
Questions sent to
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had not been responded
to at the time of going
to press.
Meanwhile, in the central business district of Harare
yesterday,
people had to make withdrawals inside the banking halls, instead
of using
the Automated Teller Machines, as only
$1 000 notes were
available.
The ATMs dispense the higher denomination $200 000 and
$100 000,
although the limit is $8 million a transaction.
"Some
businesses no longer accept these $1 000 notes," said Ignatius
Phiri,
lugging two heavy bundles of the notes, totalling the maximum $20
million he
had withdrawn. "I know I will have problems with kombi crews and
some
retailers."
Bus fares can now cost as much as $500 000 for one
trip.
Nyarai Chimhanda of Belvedere urged the banks to take urgent
steps to
avert a looming crisis ahead of the festive season.
"Imagine one's mood if they queued for the money to buy groceries and
then
from there start queuing for each and every item for their Christmas
basket?" she said. "That would be enough to kill the Christmas
spirit."
Efforts to get comment from Bankers' Association of
Zimbabwe president
Pindie Nyandoro were all in vain.
Zim Standard
BY SANDRA
MANDIZVIDZA
SINIKIWE Nyikayaramba, a Nyanga Miss Rural
contestant whose picture
appeared on the front page of The Standard, alleged
last week how she was
indecently assaulted and photographed naked after
being promised "big
international modelling contracts".
In the
picture, she appears dressed only in shorts, with her breasts
barely covered
by leaves.
Angered by the publication, the 18-year-old last week
said she felt
betrayed and abused by the pageant organiser, Sipho
Mazibuko-Ncube.
Nyikayaramba said she felt she had no option but to
expose the
circumstances in which the picture was taken. She said there were
many other
pictures, including one where she posed in the nude in front of a
Chinese
man introduced to her as "Mr Wang".
Nyikayaramba said
she had "run away" from Mazibuko, having joined the
Miss Rural pageant in
2005 at 15 years, while at school in Nyanga.
She had never fancied
herself as a model, her preferred career being
that of a lawyer. All that
changed when she met Mazibuko. She says Mazibuko
told her she could become
an international supermodel if she joined the Miss
Rural
pageant.
"What Mazibuko wants, Mazibuko will get. I did not want to
be a model
but I ended up being a disciple of hers for the past two years,"
she said.
Though she did not win in the Miss Rural finals held in
2005,
Nyikayaramba said she kept "hanging on" with Mazibuko because she kept
reminding her of the big, major international contracts awaiting
her.
During 2005 and 2006 she did not pose naked for pictures,
until
October 13 this year. She said while at a house in Avondale, a Chinese
man
identified only as Wang, reportedly from the Chinese embassy, arrived
with a
camera.
She said she and other girls were told they had
to be photographed if
they hoped to land fat contracts in China. She said
they were assured by
Mazibuko the pictures would never be published in
Zimbabwe.
At first, she said she was photographed wearing shorts,
with her
nipples covered.
But Mazibuko insisted she be
photographed in the nude if she wanted
that big contract in China, she
said.
"Mazibuko said I was too dark and if I wanted the pictures to
be 'nice'
I should remove all my clothes and not be shy. She would tell me
how to pose
and 'Mr Wang' would fondle my breasts while pretending to tell
me how to
pose," said Nyikayaramba, near tears.
"She told me
the pictures would never be published in Zimbabwe and
that I was going to be
paid," she said.
"I was never given this money," she said.
Nyikayaramba said despite the abuse she remained with Mazibuko.
"My
mother is in South Africa and my father in Mozambique and I had no
one to
turn to. I was relying only on Mazibuko who had come to collect me in
South
Africa where I was staying with my mother."
In Bulawayo, she said
she and the other girls slept in the garage at
Mazibuko's house and most of
the time would spend the whole day loitering in
town without eating
anything.
But after The Standard exposed the abuse of the girls in
Masvingo,
Nyikayaramba and a Chinhoyi contestant, Tariro Chiguvi, ran away
from
Mazibuko in Harare and sought help from the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority
(ZTA).
"We want to go home but we can't, knowing that Mazibuko
is out free
and is continuing to abuse other girls. We want her to be
questioned,"
Chiguvi said.
The girls are now living with the
former patron of the pageant, Susan
Jason, in Harare.
Jason
said she wanted to put the girls in the "right hands", so they
could go home
safely.
"They have been abused enough. What I want for them is to
be under the
right people, so that they can safely go home. I have also
talked to Girl
Child Network who came here and talked to the girls. I hope
something will
work out," she said.
Mazibuko told The Standard
last week that she was looking for
Nyikayaramba and Chiguvi because she
wanted to take them back to their
parents.
She admitted having
hired a Chinese man to take pictures of
Nyikayaramba, claiming the pictures
secured her a modeling contract in South
Africa.
Nyikayaramba
has said she refused to accept the alleged contract.
Efforts to get a
comment from Wang were fruitless.
An official at the Chinese
embassy said on Friday: "There are many Mr
Wangs here."
When
Mazibuko and her contestants came to The Standard offices seeking
to prevent
the publication of the story exposing the pageant, a Chinese man
arrived
later asking to see her. He left shortly afterwards.
Zim Standard
BY WALTER
MARWIZI
THERESA Makone declared yesterday no one in Morgan
Tsvangirai's
faction of the MDC could stop her from assuming the leadership
of the Women's
Assembly.
A defiant Makone acknowledged there
were problems caused by the
dismissal of Lucia Matibenga but stated her
controversial election was
"water under the bridge".
She said
she was aware there were youths and men in the party who
opposed her
election but stressed that the issue only concerned "women".
The
party's national executive deferred discussion on her
controversial election
over a week ago amid protests from senior party
officials.
The
officials were unhappy at the way an extraordinary congress for
women was
held at a restaurant in Bulawayo.
Party chairperson, Lovemore Moyo,
is expected to explain to the
national executive how Makone's election,
slammed by women's observer groups
as falling far short of SADC principles
and guidelines, was handled.
But Makone said yesterday she had
already started working in her new
post, despite pressure from party
officials disgruntled by her appointment.
She told journalists the
pending discussion on her election by the
national executive was a mere
"formality" and described suggestions that her
election could be reversed as
"pie in the sky".
She said no organ in the MDC could decide her
fate, adding this was
purely an issue of women.
But a party
official warned yesterday the national council had power
to reverse Makone's
election if it was found to be flawed.
Her rival, Matibenga said
yesterday Makone was free to declare that
she was in charge of the Women's
Assembly but her legitimacy remained in
doubt until the issue of the
violation of the constitution was addressed.
Zim Standard
BY OUR
STAFF
POLICE on Friday morning arrested two newspaper chief
executives in
connection with price increases, in a move slammed as
"vexatious
interference", The Standard can report.
The CEO of
the Zimbabwe Independent and Standard newspapers, Raphael
Khumalo, was taken
to Police General Headquarters by two detectives to
answer questions in
connection with price increases at the newspapers.
Jacob Chisese,
the CEO of the Financial Gazette, was also taken in for
questioning.
At PGHQ they were interviewed by Superintendent
Nzombe and eight other
officers. They were asked why they were charging
cover prices (Z$600 000)
not approved by the National Incomes and Pricing
Commission.
They explained that the cost of newsprint, film,
printing plates and
fuel made it impossible for the papers to survive
without increasing their
cover prices. They pointed out that the State-owned
Herald had been given
permission to raise its price even though it received
subsidised fuel and
was located in the Central Business District, where
there were no power
cuts.
Independent newspapers have to carry
the cost of diesel for generators
during increasingly frequent power cuts at
their printers and buy fuel for
vehicles at the market rate of $1.3 million
a litre.
The two CEOs were then told to sign a "memorandum of
warning" saying
they should not increase their cover prices unless given
permission to do so
by the National Incomes and Pricing
Commission.
If they refused to sign, they were told, they would be
incarcerated
over the weekend and brought before a magistrate on Monday who
would order
their prices to be slashed to those charged before the latest
increase. They
signed after taking legal advice and were
released.
Iden Wetherell, Group Editor, Zimbabwe Independent and
The Standard,
said: "This is a vexatious interference with the business of
publishing and
a threat to the viability of our newspapers given the rapidly
escalating
print costs which the government has done little to
control."
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, Dr Gideon Gono,
advised the
government a fortnight ago that newspaper prices should not be
controlled
because they were not basic commodities whose prices are
gazetted.
The assault on independent newspapers comes in the wake
of the
appointment of Godwills Masimirembwa to chair the National Incomes
and
Pricing Commission. Masimirembwa is a regular columnist of the
government-controlled Herald newspaper.
Zim Standard
BY WALTER
MARWIZI
DIDYMUS Mutasa has admitted he spent time with Nomatter
Tagarira, the
alleged spirit medium, but denied performing bizarre rituals
to help him
succeed President Robert Mugabe.
The Minister of
State for National Security, Lands, Land Reform and
Resettlement in the
President's Office said it would be "stupid" for him to
want to be
president, as he had "privately and publicly" supported Mugabe's
candidature
in the 2008 election.
"As (Zanu PF) Secretary for Administration,
which is a very important
post in the ruling party, let me categorically
state that there is no
vacancy in the Presidency, that is the seat of
President and the two
Vice-Presidents . . ." Mutasa said.
He
said Jeremiah Mambo Jenami, a member of the spirit medium's crew,
who
alleged Mutasa performed the rituals in Rusape "knows deep down his
heart
why he is telling such lies".
"Those who wish to brew political
storms by propagating lies are doing
so at their own peril and should
channel that energy instead to productive
use," Mutasa said.
As
to his alleged involvement in Maningwa, Mutasa confirmed he was one
of the
ministers who visited the "oil mountain" where Tagarira, a Grade III
dropout, hoodwinked government officials into believing diesel could gush
out of rocks.
Mutasa said while it turned out the diesel claims
were a "hoax", it
was unfair to criticise him for entertaining the alleged
spirit medium.
"The Chinhoyi diesel hoax was not a personal
expedition by me," he
said. "Rather, it was a national exercise mandated by
the ruling party's
politburo and I was one of those selected to be on that
research team."
He said he had to be a participant observer if he
was to come up with
an informed decision that would be communicated to the
politburo which set
up a task force to look into the claims by Tagarira.
That involved working
judiciously, Mutasa said.
"As a research
team we did not manufacture that spirit medium; we saw
her there . . . So,
for others to blame us for the spirit medium's
shortcomings is
unfair."
Asked why he never doubted from the start that diesel
could not gush
out of the rocks, Mutasa said he did right to listen to the
alleged spirit
medium.
From the days of the liberation
struggle, he said, spirit mediums
offered guidance and counselling to
freedom fighters and "could manage
miracles and strange happenings" during
the war.
"Anyone who was or claims to be part of this country's
liberation will
tell you of the very important roles performed by our spirit
mediums,"
Mutasa said.
"So, personally when the diesel issue
first came to mind, I dedicated
myself to being the proverbial doubting
Thomas. I wanted to see in order to
believe and paid particular attention to
detail during the whole exercise
for the nation expected nothing but gospel
truth on the matter. That truth
could not be ascertained if I had developed
half-heartedness or if I had
dismissed the spirit medium at a
glance."
Mutasa said the alleged spirit medium performed all her
rituals in
their presence and different people had different perceptions.
Some believed
them, others did not, he said.
But Mutasa said
after "a strict observational and participatory
methodology" they came to
the conclusion that there was no diesel in the
Maningwa hills. This led to
the arrest of the alleged spirit medium and her
aides.
"I will
continue to serve this country and the ruling Zanu PF party as
long as I can
breathe and will not shy away from performing duties assigned
to me by His
Excellency (Mugabe) or the country, lest detractors think
otherwise. To me
Zimbabwe and Zanu PF come first, personalities later,"
Mutasa said.
Zim Standard
BY OUR
STAFF
BULAWAYO - A government minister last week blamed the
poor performance
by beneficiaries of the chaotic land reform programme on
the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC)'s refusal to endorse the
resettlement exercise,
which he said amounted to sabotage.
Economic Development Minister, Sylvester Nguni, claimed the spirited
opposition by the MDC had affected the new farmers' confidence to produce
for the nation.
He said this amounted to sabotage.
Zimbabwe has suffered food shortages after the government embarked on
the
controversial land reform programme, which disrupted agricultural
productivity.
But Nguni told a pre-budget seminar that the
"success" of the land
reform programme had been reversed by the MDC, which
"demoralised the
resettled farmers".
"The reason why the nation
is facing food shortages is because of
opposition to the land reform
programme by the MDC," Nguni said to bursts of
laughter from
MPs.
"This resulted in beneficiaries losing confidence to produce
food for
the nation."
The United Nations World Food Programme
last week announced it had
bought more than 35 000 tonnes of maize for the
country, to feed the
starving population.
Zimbabwe has said it
is importing thousands of tonnes of maize from
Zambia, Malawi, South Africa
and Tanzania while negotiations with several
other countries in Southern
Africa for more maize imports were underway.
But the maize imports
seem to be failing to satisfy the rising demand,
which has sparked
countrywide maize-meal shortages, especially in the
southern parts of the
country.
Nguni's presentation was on National Economic Development
Strategy:
Challenges for Economic Turnaround.
He said: "The MDC
opposition to it (land reform) demoralized most
farmers and this is viewed
as sabotage since we now face a food crisis . .
."
The US
Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service earlier
this year
forecast Zimbabwe's maize harvest at 850 000 tonnes in 2007, less
than half
the amount needed to meet domestic consumption.
The United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Food
Programme have said that
more than four million Zimbabweans, about a third
of the population, would
need food aid this year.
Zim Standard
BY CAIPHAS
CHIMHETE
VISIBLY frail and coughing persistently, Sheila Gomo*
(12), sat on the
pavement looking at her colleagues as they begged for alms
from motorists at
the traffic lights.
She had neither the
strength nor the zeal to join them, although she
too was hungry. Untouched
by the girl's sorry state, people passed by
carrying on with their own
business.
Most of them believe it is the government's
responsibility to look
after such children.
The government
admits this, but a spokesman says the relevant
department is woefully
under-funded. "To be honest with you, it has
collapsed. It's not functioning
any more," he said of the Department of
Social Welfare.
Since
2000 most of the government's key sectors have been deprived of
much-needed
funding as the economy has suffered in the wake of the land
reform
fiasco.
To most adults, Sheila was no different from the hundreds
of street
kids of the city, now dismissed as a nuisance by shoppers and the
few
tourists visiting a country considered by a number of Western states to
be
an unsafe destination for their citizens.
Yet one
sympathetic passer-by picked up Sheila and took her to Streets
Ahead, a
welfare organisation that helps abused and disadvantaged children.
At the centre, it was established she had lost her virginity through
sexual
abuse and was infected with a sexually transmitted infection (STI).
Duduzile Moyo, director of Streets Ahead, said Sheila is now being
kept at a
"safe house" in an upmarket suburb in the city. She is being
treated at the
Harare Central Hospital.
"She is recovering well," said Moyo. "She
has been going to the
hospital for the past three weeks."
Her
case was reported at Mbare police station and the alleged
perpetrator - a
22-year-old living rough on the streets - was arrested.
Police
investigations are still underway.
Sheila's case is a drop in the
ocean of the many cases of sexual abuse
of street children, estimated at 12
000 countrywide, according the Child
Protection Society (CPS).
Moyo said cases of the physical and sexual abuse of street children
were
prevalent as people, mostly those in influential positions, take
advantage
of their desperation.
She said although girls were more susceptible
to abuse, boys were
being sexually victimised as well.
"This
year alone, there were at least three Aids-related deaths on the
streets,"
she said.
Moyo claimed prominent businesspeople and politicians
took advantage
of the darkness of the night to abuse both boys and girls
roaming the
streets in search of comfort and help.
"The problem
is that the children do not want to name their abusers
because they are paid
a lot of money to keep quiet," she said.
CPS advocacy manager,
Reuben Musarandega, confirmed the high
prevalence of sexual abuse of street
children.
"Of great concern to us is that we don't have the actual
figures," he
said.
There has been no proper survey to determine
the extent of the
problem, he said.
Ellen Simati (16),
operating around a hotel, said she could not afford
to report her "lovers"
to the police because they paid her well.
"The police don't give us
money," said Ellen, who claim-ed her parents
were in Epworth. "At times I go
home to Epworth but I like it here because I
can get good food every
day."
Moyo of Streets Head said most of the children do not see
sexual
exploitation as abuse because of the money and food they receive in
return.
"To them it's a way of life. It's normal," she said.
Between June last year and June this year, Streets Ahead has assisted
and
counselled at least 1 040 street children.
But some, she said, ran
away after a few days because they enjoyed the
"liberty" of the
streets.
"You give them shelter and good food but they always run
away. We need
a more comprehensive and all-encompassing approach to address
the problem,"
she said.
Without addressing the root causes, she
said, children, driven by
extreme poverty, would continue to fill the
streets of the cities and towns,
harassing shoppers for food and
money.
A number of street children have graduated into "street
adults" and
have started their own families on the streets.
The
families gather during the evenings and disperse to their various
"working
points" in the morning.
Social commentators say the solution to the
street children problem
lies in addressing the social and economic crisis
forcing them onto the
streets.
Sociologist and former
University of Zimbabwe vice-chancellor, Gordon
Chavunduka, said the abuse
children suffer inflicts permanent "scars" on
their lives.
Reactions to street children, said Chavunduka, have tended to be
"punitive",
while their anti-social and delinquent behaviour is not viewed
in its proper
social and psychological context.
"The children need
rehabilitation," he said. "Then, they should be
reunited with their families
and relatives. Taking them into homes, as is
the current scenario, will not
help."
Although there are several laws and conventions that protect
children
from abuse, they are never implemented. The laws enable the
prosecution of
parents, relatives or guardians who mistreat or abuse
children.
The Children's Act of 2002 criminalizes the neglect of
children as
well as protecting them from any form of labour that interferes
with the
normal development of a child.
Zimbabwe is a signatory
to the United Nations Convention on the Rights
of Children and the African
Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.
"But there is a gap
in the implementation of the laws and policies,"
says Musarandega of the
CPS. "The laws are not being implemented. They are
just on
paper."
Chavunduka blames the breakdown of the social fabric for
the increase
of street children.
"It is society which is at
fault and, the government in particular,"
Chavunduka said .
Efforts to get a comment from the Department of Social Welfare
director,
Sydney Mhishi, were fruitless as he was said to be attending
meetings last
week.
An official with the Department of Social Welfare in the
Ministry of
Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare said the unit had
neither the
staff nor the resources to carry out its duties
effectively.
"The department is under-funded and most of the social
welfare
officers have left for greener pastures," he said. "To be honest
with you it
has collapsed, it's not functioning any more."
It
appears the government under pressure from the worsening
socio-political and
economic situation, has shifted focus to other pressing
issues than that of
the welfare of children.
Unless government implements its laws,
children like Sheila will
continue to be abused without recourse to justice.
Even if justice prevails
later, it would not replace lost virginity and the
trauma of sexual abuse.
* not her real name.
Zim Standard
By Bertha
Shoko
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations
Children's
Fund (UNICEF), together with government has launched a strategy
to prevent
maternal deaths and neonatal deaths in response to the high
mortality
figures in Zimbabwe.
According to the Zimbabwe
Demographic Health Survey (ZDHS), compiled
by population experts in UNFPA,
there are 555 maternal deaths for every 100
000
live births
recorded in Zimbabwe in the period 2005-6.
The lifetime risk of
dying from pregnancy related complications in
Zimbabwe is one in 16 compared
with one in more than 4 000 in high income
countries.
UNFPA
defines maternal death as the "death of a woman while pregnant
or within 42
days after termination of pregnancy from any cause related to
or aggravated
by the pregnancy or its management".
This includes death as a
complication of abortion at any stage of
pregnancy.
Neonatal
mortality rate was standing at 24 deaths per 1 000 live
births in 2005 and
these are infant deaths that occur within 28 days after
birth.
In response to these high maternal and neonatal deaths the Ministry of
Health and Child Welfare came up with a strategy, contained in a 40-page
booklet, Zimbabwe Maternal and Neonatal Health Roadmap (MHN
Roadmap).
The period of implementation for this strategy will be
2007-2015.
The MHN roadmap is a national framework for planned
activities aimed
at "significantly improving maternal and newborn health
services at
institutional and programme levels".
The roadmap is
also a build up on the agreements and objectives of
various
international conferences and meetings that sought to address the
shortfalls
in the health systems of many countries where maternal and infant
health is
concerned.
These agreements include the Safe Motherhood Initiative
(1987), the
International Conference on Population and Development
Programme of
action (1994) and the Millennium Summit, which led to the birth
of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Improving maternal
health and reducing child mortality are MDGs four
and five respectively. The
Four Pillars of safe motherhood and newborn
health concepts will, among
other issues, guide health workers in the
implementation of the MHN
road
map.
These are: access to; family planning for
mothers to help them space
their children, depending on their health,
antenatal care where high risk
pregnancies can be monitored closely, clean
and safe delivery for the mother
and new-born and essential obstetric and
neonatal care.
Speaking at the recent launch of the road map, UNFPA
Zimbabwe
Representative Bruce Campbell, said more than half of maternal and
neonatal
deaths are
avoidable.
"We know what needs to
be done," said Campbell. "Even countries with
limited resources can afford
what needs to be done."
"We need to do three things: first we must
support every woman in
making and exercising her choice to be
pregnant.
"Secondly we need to provide every pregnant woman with
access to clean
and safe delivery. Lastly we must make sure that every woman
and every
new-born has access to emergency life-saving care when
needed."
Delivering the keynote address, the Minister of Health and
Child
Welfare, Dr David Parirenyatwa, said it was commendable that Zimbabwe
was
one of the few countries that have managed to come up with concrete
plans to
reduce maternal and neonatal deaths.
Parirenyatwa said
maternal and new-born mortality "constitutes a
silent emergency" in Zimbabwe
and called on government's "key partners" to
support the road
map.
Said Parirenyatwa: "For us to obtain positive gains as we
implement
the country specific road map, we will need a strong determination
on the
part of the government, the key partners willing to come on board to
support
the interventions agreed, the professional groups themselves in
their
various settings to lead the way in investing in the health of the
women and
their newborns."
Zim Standard
BY Jennifer
Dube
THE failure by the government and business to agree on a
pricing model
has undermined wage negotiations since the third quarter,
raising the
spectre of a year without a 13th cheque for
workers.
Last week, in an interview, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions
acting secretary general Japhet Moyo, said all current indications
were that
most companies might not pay out the 13th cheque.
"Negotiations have been very difficult since the third quarter and
most of
our affiliates are yet to conclude negotiations for the fourth
quarter," he
said. "Employers have so far been failing to award wage and
salary
increases. Workers do not think they will get any bonus this year."
In a written response to questions from Standardbusiness, the
Employers'
Confederation of Zimbabwe president Johnson Manyakara, said most
employers
had embraced the idea of a productivity bonus in place of the 13th
cheque or
a Christmas bonus.
"By definition, a productivity bonus is a 'Thank
you for a job well
done'. It therefore gets paid when a company has
performed satisfactorily.
"Productivity and viability are two sides
of the same coin (and) yes,
many businesses are facing serious viability
problems due to a myriad of
factors."
Among others, he cited
non-viable pricing, inability to re-stock
following the price blitz, acute
foreign currency shortages and poor
capacity utilization due to an acute
shortage of foreign currency for key
inputs and spare parts, disruptive
power outages, erratic supply of coal,
water shortages, particularly in
Bulawayo, erratic supply and the high cost
of fuel.
"Individual
businesses have been affected differently. It therefore
follows that some
businesses will be able to pay a Productivity Bonus while
others will not be
able to afford it since they are battling with survival
issues," Manyakara
said.
He said employers were committed to paying out the 13th
cheque and
workers deserved it, but only where businesses were performing
well.
Traditionally, employers pay out the bonus, equivalent to
one's
monthly salary, along with the November salary in appreciation of
workers'
service.
Moyo said the fact that most workers'
contracts did not specify
entitlement to a bonus made this month-end look
even bleaker.
"We negotiate for the 13th cheque every year and that
can spell
disaster this year, given the difficulties encountered in
negotiating for
salaries during the year," he said.
Since the
beginning of the year, the majority of workers clamoured for
a living wage,
one pegged on the poverty datum line.
But most employers failed to
award better remuneration citing the
deteriorating economic
environment.
The situation was worsened by the government's price
blitz in July.
Employers said they could not award hefty pay hikes because
the blitz meant
they were operating at a loss.
"We hope
employers will not try to use the price blitz excuse again
this time," said
Moyo.
"We believe companies were operating profitably before the
blitz and
have reserves to dip into and award bonuses to their workers who
managed to
make them survive when things were so tough."
Zim Standard
By Our Staff
THE
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority plans to re-engage European buyers who
pulled out
of the recent edition of the Zimbabwe International Travel Expo
(ZITE).
In an interview last week, ZTA marketing and
communications director,
Givemore Chidzidzi, said the authority planned to
re-engage the buyers
during the oncoming World Travel Market to be held in
London from tomorrow.
"We have to reassure them that Zimbabwe is
the safest destination in
the world and allay whatever fears they may have
had," he said.
About 70 European international buyers, particularly
from the UK last
month withdrew their participation from the ZITE for
"political reasons".
ZTA chief executive officer, Karikoga Kaseke,
criticised the buyers
then, saying Zimbabwe would not die on their
behalf.
"It is he who eats poison that dies. So it is wrong to
assume that
Zimbabwe will die. We should not mourn either because this
suicidal death
shall not be our own funeral," he said. "We love them, of
course, but our
love for them shall not make us die on their behalf. So we
say rest in peace
to them."
Chidzidzi will lead a 20-member
tourism delegation to the show which
runs until Thursday this
week.
The delegation will include representatives of the ZTA, Air
Zimbabwe
and the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority
Other
members of the delegation are private sector companies involved
in various
tourism services, including car hire, tour operators, activity
and
accommodation services.
Chidzidzi said the ZTA would follow up on
buyers who attended the
recent edition of Travel Expo.
"We will
use the opportunity to showcase our tourism product to
international
tourists in attendance and hope to persuade them to visit
Zimbabwe, through
presenting the country in our own way and creating
awareness about the real
situation prevailing in the country", he said.
He said ZTA also
hoped to conclude lucrative deals which may translate
into groups of people
visiting the country, conferences and flow of foreign
investment into the
embattled industry.
Fondly regarded as The World's Biggest Travel
Show, the WTM attracts
exhibitors and tourists from all over the
world.
Zim Standard
By our
staff
RESERVE Bank of Zimbabwe Governor's Number One enemy,
inflation, seems
to be getting the better of him, with indications that it
has wiped out the
value of his recently unveiled gold support price, leading
to fresh cries of
discontent among miners.
Gideon Gono last
month became popular with miners when he increased
the gold support price
from $3 million a gramme to $5 million.
But the Zimbabwe Miners'
Federation last week said the facility was
"now worth nothing".
In an interview, ZMF president George Kawonza said his organisation
would
soon return to the negotiating table in anticipation of another upward
review.
"The $5 million is no longer enough and this is posing
serious
viability problems." he said. "The way the value of the dollar is
going
down, we may have to close shop and look for other ways of
survival."
Miners constantly pressed for a better support price for
the greater
part of this year, something which necessitated a successive
review from
$350 000 a gramme to $1 million, then $3 million during the
first half
alone.
Presenting his mid-year monetary policy
statement last month, Gono
also announced that backdated to last August, the
support price increased
from $3 million a gramme to $3.5 million while that
for September was raised
from $3.5 million to $4 million a
gramme.
"As monetary authorities, we call upon all gold producers
to take
advantage of these raises and increase their deliveries to the
Reserve
Bank," Gono said then.
His call came against a record
of constantly declining deliveries to
the central bank amid speculation that
some miners were resorting to
side-marketing in search of better
returns.
Zim Standard
BY NDAMU
SANDU
HALF of the country's registered tourist accommodation
facilities have
applied for grading by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA)
as the date
draws near for the 2010 World Cup soccer showcase in South
Africa.
Karikoga Kaseke, ZTA group CEO said of the 600 registered
facilities,
only 50% had applied for grading when the exercise began this
year.
"To date at least 140 facilities have been graded. Some made
the grade
and others have been given time to upgrade their standards," said
Kaseke.
The grading consists of inspection, assessment and
evaluation of the
physical structures, the equipment and, more importantly
the quality,
diversity and standard of services.
Factors
considered when grading include the physical environment;
general outlook;
public areas; guest room size and facilities; general
services; and
management and staff.
The grading comes at a time when MATCH, the
accommodation company
owned by FIFA, soccer governing body, has said it will
offer accommodation
contracts to facilities which are graded in line with
international
standards.
"They (MATCH) will only contract
graded facilities. We therefore urge
the accommodation providers to apply
for grading so that they benefit when
2010 comes," said Kaseke.
MATCH requires 55 000 rooms for the 2010 World Cup. South Africa has
said it
will provide 35 000 rooms, leaving a deficit of 20 000 rooms to be
shared by
neighbouring countries.
MATCH has finished the inspection of hotels
in Botswana and South
Africa. In Zimbabwe, the hotels in Victoria Falls were
inspected but the
FIFA accommodation company will inspect hotels in Harare
and Bulawayo.
ZTA last Monday awarded grades to 61 accommodation
facilities,
including lodges, self-catering accommodation and
hotels.
Tourism experts say the grading of the facilities is "a
step in the
right direction for the industry
"It's a step for
us in the industry, said Chipo Mtasa, president of
the Zimbabwe Council for
Tourism. "Quite a number of establishments were
waiting anxiously to know
what their status is."
Mtasa, who heads Rainbow Tourism Group
(RTG), said graded facilities
have to maintain standards.
"Grading is one thing; maintaining the standards is something else,
let's
maintain it," the RTG boss said.
Cornelius Nyahunda, the
newly-elected president of the Hospitality
Association of Zimbabwe (HAZ)
told Standardbusiness last week the grading
was welcome as it ensured that
standards were maintained.
"It (grading) helps in managing
standards of destinations. It makes
the whole experience in all our hotels
standard," he said.
Nyahunda took over the reins at HAZ last week,
replacing Fungai
Mutseyekwa who is moving out of the hospitality sector in a
career change.
Zim Standard
BY our
staff
HEADS will roll at the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra)
as the
parastatal embarks on another restructuring exercise to conform with
international standards.
Dr Gibson Mandishona, the agency's
board chairman, told a
parliamentary portfolio committee last week that
Zimra was abandoning a
restructuring barely a year after it had been put in
place.
Mandishona told the Public Accounts Committee that a
restructuring
introduced in February was defective and
top-heavy.
The restructuring brought in five commissioners -
Operations, Human
Resources and Administration, Investigations and
Technical, Corporate
Services and Finance and Planning. Mandishona said this
was a joke in the
region as the revenue collection agency had an organogram
based on support
services.
"We are the joke of the region," he
said. "We were doing something
which was out of context, not only in the
region but also internationally."
Mandishona said the management
had "misled the board" on the new
structure, claiming it was in line with
regional trends.
He said: "We had full trust in the management. The
board had no
expertise in customs, we were depending on the technical
expertise of
management."
Mabvuku-Tafara legislator Timothy
Mubawu disagreed: "In all
truthfulness and fairness, you were acting as a
board. I think we have to be
honourable and take our creation
."
Mandishona was asked how many workers would be retrenched when
the
agency reverted to the pre-February 2007 status. The chairman said the
number was low.
When Zimra restructured to five commissioners
from the original three,
21 workers lost their jobs.
Gershem
Pasi, the commissioner-general said reverting to the old
structure would
pose many human resource challenges.
He said as of March, 93
managers including himself, were put on fixed
term contracts while
non-managerial staff were graded as revenue officers.
Pasi said in
line with the old structure non-managerial staff would be
graded into
customs and taxes departments.
Lawmakers said changing the
contracts of workers would result in
mounting legal suits.
"Unfixing a fixed contract is costly," said Fortune Charumbira,
President of
the Chiefs Council. "There is going to be interesting
litigation."
Zimra is set to revert to the old structure where
there will be two
departments - Taxes and Customs - headed by commissioners.
The two
commissioners will report to the Commissioner General.
Zimra was formed in 2001 following the merger of the Department of
Taxes and
Department of Customs, in line with international trends.
Analysts
say the retrenchments would chew up what remains of in Zimra's
coffers which
reportedly dried up in August.
Zimra workers went on strike in
September over a 5 000 percent salary
hike.
Zim Standard
By Alistair
Thomson
DAKAR - Africa needs more investment in farming to cope
with soaring
food prices due in part to growing biofuel production in the
West, but it
could profit from rising demand for alternative energy, an IMF
official has
said.
The explosion of biofuels production from
food crops, subsidised by
some Western countries as a less environmentally
damaging alternative to
fossil fuels, has contributed to a surge in food
prices with grains and
other crops at record highs.
"The
priorities for Africa are adapting to this new situation,"
Charles Collyns,
deputy director of the International Monetary Fund research
department,
said.
"The reality is that food prices are going to be higher going
forward
than they have been in the past. This creates both problems and
opportunities," he said.
Collyns was speaking after presenting
the IMF's regional economic
outlook to government officials and civil
society representatives in Senegal's
capital Dakar, several of whom
expressed concern over rising food prices in
Africa despite generally benign
economic fundamentals.
"These problems are not given adequate
attention in the West, but when
one comes to Senegal and one visits Africa
then it becomes very clear that
this is a major issue," he
said.
Besides demand from the biofuels industry, record high oil
prices were
also driving up food costs due to transport and other related
costs, and
this was hitting consumers in poor countries the hardest, he
said.
African governments should focus more on developing farming,
which not
only provides food but helps improve incomes in rural areas where
many of
Africa's poor live, Collyns said.
"It's important to
build up infrastructure, to build up institutions
to allow these people to
participate in the global economy, to take benefit
from the higher prices
that are coming from agricultural goods to produce
new products, both for
domestic consumption but also for export," he said.
Collyns
criticised Western governments who subsidise biofuels
production, saying
some operations did not significantly reduce emissions of
greenhouse gases,
and hurt poor countries by contributing to food price
rises.
"In the IMF we are also worried about the impacts of policies to
produce
biofuels. A third of the increased demand for grains in recent years
is
coming from the use of grains for biofuels," he told delegates.
"This is very inefficient because in fact there are other ways of
producing
biofuels. . . using lower-tier agricultural crops," he said.
With
adequate investment, African countries could benefit from new
biofuels
technologies by growing sugar or possibly the jatropha plant,
Collyns
said.
He urged Western governments to open up their markets to
biofuels
imports rather than subsidising domestic production.
-
Reuters.
Zim Standard
Comment
THE University of Zimbabwe is apparently in no hurry to
speed up
renovations of halls of residence to enable students to return and
live on
the campus, fuelling speculation there is more to the closure of the
accommodation than meets the eye.
Student accommodation at UZ was
closed at the beginning of July
following disturbances. The crisis the
closure of the eight halls of
residence has precipitated is unprecedented.
More than 5 600 students, most
of them with no immediate families in Harare
or from poor rural backgrounds,
were thrown out of student accommodation on
the campus and are in a
desperate situation.
While the
students' determination to pursue their studies is
remarkable as evidenced
by the hardships they endure daily, the conditions
they have been condemned
to, will have an enormous adverse impact on their
academic
work.
There are disturbing reports that as many as 1 200 students
are
sleeping rough, in night clubs and at the railway station waiting rooms
in
Harare.
The majority of them can be seen along Sam Nujoma
Street every morning
or evening walking to and from the UZ in
groups.
Anyone with the interests of the students' education at
heart would
have moved speedily to renovate the accommodation so that those
housed at
the campus would move back in the shortest possible
time.
But that has not happened and a tour of the UZ shows there is
no
renovation activity, especially around the halls of residence. The
absence
of any heightened work suggests several things. It is possible that
the
administration at the UZ is using the excuse of damage to the student
accommodation when they have no money to pay contractors. General telephone
lines to the UZ have not been working for some time and the explanation is
that services were cut because of non-payment.
It is ironic
that no funds could be made available for essential work,
when the
institution has just taken delivery of a new white Toyota Prado. An
argument
could be raised that the vehicle was budgeted for a long time ago,
but it
would have been important that the issue of student accommodation was
attended to expeditiously so that it does not appear that the administration
is preoccupied about looking after itself at the expense of students'
welfare.
By ignoring the plight of students, the UZ is denying
them the right
to shelter and a conducive learning environment.
What is of concern is that the Minister of Higher and Tertiary
Education,
the political opposition, civil society organisations promoting
students'
rights and education, as well as parents of the affected children
appear to
view what is happening at the UZ as acceptable. Nothing could be
further
from the truth. It is as if the administration would be happy if the
closure
of the halls of residence continued.
But students paid for their
accommodation, and presumably for meals.
It is doubtful whether the UZ has
reimbursed the students for services the
institution is not
providing.
What is happening at the UZ is a disgrace. The oldest
institution of
higher learning in the country does not deserve this. It
should be providing
exemplary leadership to other universities. Instead, it
is punishing
students, the majority of them innocent. At what point is the
government
going to intervene, or is it comfortable with dispersal of
students because
this serves its political interests?
The
government has always suspected students of being sympathetic to
the
opposition. It is tempting to believe students are being punished for
this
perception.
Zim Standard
sundayopinion by
Bill Saidi
ASKED who, from world history, they would most like to
interview, a
couple of Americans chose Jesus Christ and Albert
Einstein.
And what would you ask Jesus of Nazareth? Personally, I
would ask Him
if He had any help He could offer us to recover from the
excesses of this
government.
And how to resist temptation
without spending 40 days and 40 nights in
the wilderness, as I am slightly
claustrophobic.
Nothing I have read in the Bible has helped so far.
The sermons with
which we are bombarded every Sunday on state television are
as effective as
an ancient fly swatter.
I suppose one reason
could be that some of it sounds too soppy. You
wonder if the authors believe
they are already in The Hereafter.
I would ask Einstein, the father
of Relativity, how we could apply his
theory to end poverty in Africa, and
force its leaders not to gorge
themselves on the fat of the
land.
For Marx and Engels: Weren't their theories of equality as
haywire as
the Bible's proposition of a life of plenty only after
death?
For Zimbabwe's famous departed: Mbuya Nehanda, for instance,
could be
asked if being a spinster hardened rather than hindered her resolve
to fight
the white settlers, which war her side lost dismally?
Also, does she believe the Domestic Violence Act conforms to our
culture,
which teems with so many male chauvinist elements even the passing
of this
law was accompanied by the most scurrilous comments from a number of
male
MPs?
Would she be terribly upset if women were given the legal
right to
punish their husbands, physically, if they strayed? Would she
support their
castration?
I would personally be very eager to
interrogate Charles Mzingeli about
his brief flirtation with
communism.
The 2007 Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Doris
Lessing, in her
autobiography, Under My Skin, devotes a section of the book,
on her stay in
the then Southern Rhodesia, to her membership of the
Communist Party.
She speaks glowingly of Mzingeli's attendance at
some of their
meetings in "white" Salisbury.
I met Mzingeli
long after he and Lessing met at those clandestine
meetings, and Lessing a
few years before the country she wrote of in her
first novel, The Grass Is
Singing, had turned into Zimbabwe.
The book was made into a
riveting film, starring Karen Allen. Vincent
Mijoni, a colleague with whom I
worked in Salisbury and Lusaka, had a small
role in the picture, filmed in
Zambia.
After independence, Lessing paid regular visits to
Zimbabwe, some of
them recalled in her fascinating non-fiction book, African
Laughter.
Like many others who expected the new Zimbabwe to be a
model of
tolerance among races, she was critical of the ham-fisted manner in
which
all races were being treated by the new government.
Lessing met with Zimbabwean writers during her visits, including an
address
to the Zimbabwe Writers' Union in Harare.
Still sprightly at 88
years, Lessing was reportedly "out shopping"
when the announcement was made
that she had won the Prize.
Those who know her were relieved she
had won the prize - at long last.
What I would ask Mzingeli,
with whom I had many useful chats at his
shop in Harare Township in the
1950s, would be whether he cringed at
communism because it was not exactly
African, its ideology of equality
seeming to ignore the work ethic of the
African peasant: you reap what you
sow.
Others I would want to
talk to: Herbert Chitepo, Joshua Nkomo,
Masotsha Ndlovu, Josiah Maluleke and
Kufakunesu Mhizha.
My question: Are you proud with what the country
has become? Who do
you blame? How do we get rid of this lump of dirt on
which we are sitting?
An introspective look would not necessarily
be a morbid exercise
culminating in an indictment of the leadership. It
would be a cold,
calculated and candid analysis of how our dream turned into
this nightmare.
There would be an acknowledgment of culpability: we
cannot blame it
all on outsiders.
After 1980, we were in
charge. Can any external force be blamed for
Gukurahundi? A number of
outsiders may have decided to score their own
points through that bloody
internecine conflict, but they had not created
it.
Others I
would talk to about all this would include Eddison Zvobgo and
Garfield Todd:
if they had somehow managed to be influential after 1980,
what would they
have done to avoid the disastrous pay-out to the war
veterans and the
equally catastrophic use of the ex-fighters in the bloody,
chaotic and
politically perilous land reform programme?
My final question would
be to the spirit medium and prophet Chaminuka
himself: "Can you get us out
of this mess quickly - or are you too scared of
you-know-who?"
saidib@standard.co.zw
Zim Standard
sundayview by Judith Todd
THE possibility of attacks by our
powerful neighbour South Africa
seemed ever increasing, and so was
Zimbabwe's state of anxiety. One night I
suffered vivid and frightening
dreams of falling upon the preparations of an
imminent South African
attack.
There were scores of young whites, male and female, in
camouflage
uniform, heavily armed, drinking and eating braaivleis before the
sortie. At
first I came upon them rather as if I were in a boat looking down
into the
water, where I could see them clearly below.
Then I
found myself amongst them, and knew that all was lost. But they
started
quarrelling and disagreeing amongst each other, and I felt slightly
hopeful
of escape. Then I woke up.
That day I went to see someone at Harare
Central Prison. He was in a
bad way, and so was the man in the next booth.
Maybe a lot of the prisoners
were in a state of shock or special dejection
because of the seven hangings
in the past fortnight. Prisoners were now day
by day, night by night, living
a nightmare from which, unlike me, they were
unable to wake-up. I wondered
if, post-independence, they still stand to be
condemned en route to the
gallows as they used to under Smith.
Thursday 21 May was full of sombre moments. Allister Sparks called
from
Johannesburg and said everything was absolutely terrible. I thought he
was
referring to the bombings in Johannesburg the day before, the probable
aftermath and of course the heightened risk for us all in the Frontline
States. But he wasn't. He had returned home from Zimbabwe to be absolutely
shattered, as he put it, by the news that his wife Sue had cancer. She was
to undergo surgery the following Tuesday.
In the evening, the
ANC's Kingsley Mamabolo brought more supplies of
food for Katherine Gardiner
and Richard Jurgens, and we persuaded him to
stay and eat with us. He
cheered them up, as they had quite understandably
been suffering from what
Richard called "the heebies" after South African
attacks in Harare. So had
I.
On Sunday 17 May, there had been an enormous explosion at
5.10AM.
As I woke, I could just imagine a building lifting up in
the air and
then settling down again, full of crushed people. I was anxious
about some
friends, including the Brickhills, but knew it would be unwise to
speed off
in my car when the security forces themselves would be rushing
around. I set
off at about 6.45 and checked on a number of houses, which
were all right,
and then went to the ANC offices just up the road from where
the Brickhills
lived, and realised that was where the attack had taken
place. Not much
damage was done and no one was hurt.
Tim Leech
and two other journalists were arrested. I was slightly
amused about Tim. He
had been telling others that I was to be detained for
passing information to
Amnesty International. Now he was in, not me, but
there was no need to
worry. He was well connected, had lots of support and
his many friends were
arranging for gourmet food to be taken to him from
Sandro's.
The ANC husband of the woman blown up by a TV bomb in Harare had also,
unbelievably, been detained. I didn't know the man, Mhlope, but mutual
friends said they could hardly recognise him after his wife Tsitsi was
killed, he was so thoroughly psychologically smashed and miserable. To put a
man in that condition into solitary confinement was beyond my
understanding.
One evening, as I walked into 18 Masefield Avenue,
the telephone rang.
I rushed and answered. The voice on the phone was white,
quite pleasant, and
belonged, I thought, to a middle-aged man. The accent
was Rhodesian or South
African, which was perhaps why I was
worried.
Is that 35209?
Yes.
Who is
that?
Just hold on a minute. I want to put on the light. (This was
to give
myself time to think.) Yes. This is 35209. Who would you like to
speak to?
Well, I was just trying to find out who lives there. You
see . . . the
last digit of my number keeps slipping and. . . well. . .
someone keeps
getting 35209 and I was just trying to find out who lives
there. I know it
sounds a bit funny
. . .(laughter)
Yes, it does. But sometimes these 35 numbers can be difficult, so if
you're
having problems just ring 90 - that's telephone faults and they'll
help
you.
Yes. Thanks . . . sorry . . .
Not at
all.
I was troubled by the call because of having had several ANC
people
billeted with me, the last group leaving just the day
before.
On a trip from Harare to Bulawayo, my little Citroen
turned 100 000
miles old. A policeman on the Bulawayo side of Gweru flagged
me down for a
lift, and I invited him to watch the milometer with me, as I
didn't want to
miss the event. But we reached his destination, a roadblock,
at 99 999
miles, so he didn't witness the moment.
The policeman
had been chasing a car in which he thought he had left
his clipboard. He had
found the car but not the board, but didn't seem much
worried. As we took
leave of one another, he asked for my name and gave me
his - Masunga. Mr
Masunga was obviously an absent-minded policeman, for he
had almost shut the
door and I was nearly on my way when he said: "Oh, oh."
He had
placed his firearm on the floor under his feet on the passenger
side and
left it there when he got out. What he or I would have done if he
hadn't
remembered, I don't know. I probably wouldn't have noticed it for a
couple
of days; someone else may have found it; I may have thought it was
planted.
Oh, oh, indeed!
"Zapu Rallies and Meetings Banned" read the
headline in The Sunday
Mail on 21 June 1987. I wondered how a "meeting"
would be defined: Where two
or three of you are gathered in Nkomo's name? It
was also announced that in
the recent Beitbridge district council elections,
Zapu had won eight of the
12 contested seats. Minister Nkala was furious,
and was reported as saying:
"If the current wave of killings is intended to
intimidate the government,
both Nkomo and the dissidents should think again.
I am not threatening
anybody, but as soon as things appear to go well,
Comrade Nkomo poisons the
atmosphere. This kind of thing we cannot
allow."
An ANC representative passing through Harare called in and
it was very
late, well after 2AM, when we managed to persuade him to spend
the night. He
was so tired he could hardly move. He gave me his car keys and
asked me to
collect some special cigarettes he had in his glove box and to
please put
them in the room he was going to use. I guessed exactly what was
happening.
I collected his gun from the car and put it under my
jacket so as not
to startle my guests when I walked through the lounge, and
then placed it in
the drawer of the bedside table in his room. I didn't
enjoy handling the
weapon, but I couldn't see what else he could have done.
If he had gone out
himself, the guests may have accompanied
him.
In the morning, I was glad that no one had asked what was so
special
about those cigarettes. How terrible to live with the knowledge that
any
minute an attack may be made on you. The former ANC representative to
Zimbabwe, Joe Nzingo Gqabi, was shot dead outside his house in nearby
Ashdown Park in August 1981. He was shot 22 times.
Excerpt from
Judith Todd's latest book, Through the Darkness; A Life
in Zimbabwe,
available from www.zebrapress.co.za.
Zim Standard
sundayview with
Brilliant
Mhlanga
I have been following stories and some
interesting renditions about
the state of affairs in Zimbabwe. Some make
interesting reading while others
indeed seek to address the crux of
Zimbabwe's criminalized state. I also had
an opportunity to follow closely
President Robert Gabriel Mugabe's speech
delivered at the United Nations
62nd general assembly in New York.
I noted that a generally
uncritical mind would take it for a strong
Pan-African voice. It is my wish
to submit that those who might have
accepted Mugabe's speech as a script
hinged on addressing the post-colonial
disorder by blaming the western world
are not to blame that much. It is just
the state of their
minds.
This falls within the same rhetorical ambit with the
statements we are
always subjected to from some colleagues, either from the
West or Africa,
who when sympathizing with us say, 'God knows whatever
happened to Robert
Mugabe'. These people have a tendency of presenting
Mugabe as if he was once
a great leader and promising fellow for Africa. I
am not sure whether these
assumptions are based on ignorance of how Mugabe
ascended into power, and
how he has always maintained his grip on power.
These people have always
tended to annoy me as they portray the same
mistakes and miscalculations the
West has always made when dealing with the
Zanu PF government.
History has it that when Robert Mugabe was
being knighted and offered
honorary degrees by various universities in the
West, it was at the height
of the Matabeleland/Midlands massacres (the
Gukurahundi genocide). The
international community and some sections of the
Zimbabwean population
deliberately chose to ignore it when the man was
seized by one of his
moments of madness, as he himself once acknowledged
sometime ago.
This is generally characteristic of human beings to
ignore potential
problems for as long as they do not affect us. It is only
recently that we
have all had to sing with one voice that this man and his
party, Zanu PF are
bad, and that they have always been. It is quite easy to
tell that. The best
way to know it is reading a simple history of the party,
particularly, how
after hob-knobbing from one place to the other they later
captured the
state, and now they are in the process of writing history
claiming that they
alone fought the struggle, only with the help of Zipra,
when it is even
common knowledge that this is not strictly
true.
At least the problems we are now facing require that we
engage in a
concerted effort to unseat this group of kleptomaniacs and
thugs. We are all
aware of the bizarre policies they have implemented by way
of operations,
ranging from Operation Diamond, Gukurahundi to the most
recent one on price
controls. Now is the time for Zimbabweans to have a
united progressive
movement, made up of well meaning
Zimbabweans.
We cannot afford to even lose this opportunity as we
all know that the
MDC and many other progressive colleagues in the
opposition and the civil
society movement are not Godly ordained. They are
bound to make mistakes,
some of which they have already made. But always
dwelling on the past will
never save us.
Having followed
Mugabe's speech at the UN 62nd general assembly I
quickly realised that his
speeches make for good reading when one's belly is
full. Yes, at least one
would in general see some sense regarding the
western views of Africa. It
would be prudent to further state that the
generality of the people in the
West have little or no knowledge of Africa.
It therefore must not surprise
anyone to be asked questions like; do you
know so and so, he comes from
Africa like you, in fact from Cameroon? Are
your countries not neighbours?
This smacks of a mixture of both ignorance
and 'I do not care' attitude of
most people in the West.
But we cannot blame them for that; it is
because their respective
states are progressive and not criminal like ours.
Unfortunately, most
people who have either lived long in the West or are not
well informed of
the goings on in Zimbabwe have tended to see Mugabe and
many other dictators
as great leaders of Africa. Little do they even know
that most of Mugabe's
talk is generally a mixture of common sense and
naivety, and in particular
nonsensical.
Little do they know
that the same Westerner he now accuses of being an
oppressor and detractor
used to fund Zanu PF and even rigged elections for
them in
1980.
I am not really sure whether for all these years Robert
Mugabe and his
psychophants had been hoodwinked into believing that the West
is benevolent,
particularly in the eighties when they were giving him all
those accolades
or not. He has simply forgotten that these are the same
people who watched
in silence when he killed his own people in Matebeleland
and Midlands; an
issue which has haunted him to this day.
I am
not sure whether he was properly advised or not; if at all he
was, then his
advisors had misjudged the nuances surrounding geo-politics.
Surely, the
world we live in has no permanent friends and permanent enemies.
It only
thrives on permanent interests. It follows therefore that naivety
must never
be taken seriously or for some kind of Pan African sentiment!
An
African who claims to have liberated his people by day and starts
hacking
them down by night is not worth taking seriously. In fact, in Africa
such
actions are taken as some kind of witchcraft. This has been the nature
of
the ruling party in Zimbabwe. Western intransigency during and in the
post-colonial period has always been known. It is a known fact that the
Western world watched during the cold war period when African liberators
turned against their people and started butchering them.
Firstly, it is common knowledge that at the time the West was too busy
seeking ways of fighting the threat posed by the Soviet Communist block.
Secondly, it was just Africans killing each other after all, so they said.
Immediately after the cold war period they watched in silence the Rwandan
genocide taking place. While Africans where busy killing each other in
Rwanda, the West was busy debating the semantics of what to call the event
taking place in Rwanda.
Africa must have learnt this lesson
long back and not to be lectured
by Mugabe today, now that his power is
being threatened. Taking the screams
of a man who is about to fall from a
tree for advice is always dangerous and
might put you in a serious
quandary.
Touts in Mafia-style extortion at Harare's Mbare Musika WHAT I witnessed at
Mbare Musika while waiting to board a bus from Harare to Mutare on Sunday 28
October 2007 was extremely disturbing.
I had heard about it in
the past but I did not take it seriously,
until I saw it first
hand.
I encourage the Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, and
the police
national chief spokesperson, Wayne Bvudzijena, to go undercover
and visit
Mbare Musika to see what ordinary innocent travellers have to
endure at the
hands of touts.
The touts roam Mbare Musika bus
terminus at will, without fear of the
law because they work hand-in-hand
with some of the bus drivers, conductors
and corrupt police officers, whose
role, I believe should be to ensure order
and the safety of
travellers.
The touts openly solicit money from travellers so that
the passengers
can secure tickets and seats in buses. The amounts
solicited/demanded start
from $500 000. This is done in the full glare of
police officers on duty. At
the end of the day, the money is shared. This is
daylight robbery. It is as
if the Mafia is operating freely in this country.
This is shameful.
On this particular Sunday the teams of bus
drivers and conductors
featuring in these corrupt activities were employed
by Zupco and Tenda.
Passengers who tried to resist the unlawful "fee" were
pushed out and fell
off the buses.
Police officers on duty just
watched as if nothing was happening. It
is shameful for Chihuri's boys to
allow such criminal activities to take
place in their full view and do
absolutely nothing.
If the police commissioner has a heart for the
poor and downtrodden
citizens of this country and if he has time to go to
Mbare Musika
"incognito" he will see how travellers are being
arm-twisted.
To the passengers who board buses at Mbare Musika, I
would have loved
to say: "Stop paying these touts and make a stand against
them because they
do not own the buses." But I realise that is not so easy
when one is faced
with bus drivers, conductors and touts who are united and
determined to
exploit you.
D R Mutungagore
Mutare
--------
Municipal billing system suspect
THERE are issues
that the new chair of the
commission running the city of Harare needs to
investigate as a matter of
urgency.
The first is that nearly
every household is being billed based on
"estimates" that frankly defy
logic. Figures are being plucked from the air
and unfortunately the majority
of residents pay up without contesting the
figures.
Those that
do query the charges inevitably have them reduced - for me
that is a
profound admission of the guess work and Dr Michael Mahachi needs
to address
it before residents resort to demonstrations. It is totally
unacceptable
that charges can be based on "estimates" for months on end.
If they
do not have the capacity to undertake physical readings, they
should educate
residents - through a public campaign on how they can read
these figures and
present them when they go to pay their bills.
The other issues have
to do with people paying at district offices but
still getting services cut
off. Residents should not be penalised for
failure of the council to ensure
that its network is linked throughout so
that they have up-to-date
information on how payments are coming to the City
Treasurer's
Department.
Of concern also is the system of debt collectors. I
believe that not
only should Dr Mahachi investigate this, but that the
Anti-Corruption
Commission and the Combined Harare Residents' Association
could uncover a
can of worms if they probed how the City Council is farming
out collection
of "overdue" payments to debt collectors.
In
their investigations they could find out whether residents were
ever
contacted by the Council on "overdue" bills. My experience, which was
confirmed by other ratepayers, is that one is suddenly presented with a
demand from the debt collectors, without any correspondence from the
Council.
My suspicion is that there is corruption taking place
and that someone
is benefitting by farming out these "overdue" payments to
debt collectors,
by getting a "commission" for every "debt"
collected.
We should not always fault the postal services, because
the letters we
received had wrong addresses, whether this was deliberate or
incompetence or
both it is hard to say. But nevertheless I suspect there is
something fishy
going on.
Both the Anti-Corruption Commission
and CHRA could invite residents to
submit written evidence of their
experiences.
Anti-Corruption
Emerald
Hill
Harare.
---------------------
Was
Spencer Banda cleared?
WE the undersigned are all middle-aged
mothers of nine teenage
girls. We have noted that ZTV has brought back
Spencer Banda, whom we learnt
earlier had been facing charges from last year
of sexually molesting two
underage teenage girls.
Our
concern is: Has he been cleared of those charges? If he has,
could the
relevant authorities make this public knowledge since Banda works
for a
public institution? We have made enquiries with organisations working
with
children and it is their understanding that Banda's case is still to be
finalised.
All we are saying is that if the case has not
been concluded but
Banda is allowed back at work at the public broadcaster,
how safe are our
daughters? Let the girl child be protected by us
all.
Norma Masenda, Edna Maswaya,
Valerie Mahara, Fungi Zvindira
Tynwald
South
Harare.
-------------------------
Msika wrong on Sibanda
I do not
understand the point Vice-President
Joseph Msika is trying to make in his
bid to discredit war veterans' leader,
Jabulani Sibanda.
Msika says Sibanda went to Angola for training but was never
deployed into
the bush and therefore should not be considered a war
veteran.
With all due respect, I think we could find
ourselves in a right
mess if we started scrutinising who did what. The fact
that Sibanda was not
deployed is no fault of his own. He underwent training
period.
A lot of the leadership that today claims the tag of
freedom
fighter did so from the comfort of Lusaka, Maputo, Dar es Salaam
etc.
Others, however, were at the frontline, being bitten by mosquitoes -
for
Goodness sake let's not start splitting hairs in our quest to score
points
against each other.
The past is best forgotten. If
anyone has real issues against
Sibanda then let's hear them. Emmerson
Mnangagwa has said the war veterans
are a voluntary organisation and can
therefore do what they want, but Msika
and company are scared that these
"little boys" as he calls them disrespect
the elders! May be the elders
should respect the youngsters to earn the
respect of the young
generation.
Disagreements are very healthy and promote
freedom of
expression. The MDC may have problems, but at least its members
were able to
tell their leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, that they would not stand
by and watch
him violate the party's constitution. Imagine Zanu PF members
telling that
to Robert Mugabe!
Dumisani
Mpofu
Waverley
Kadoma.
Martin Williamson
November 10,
2007
At least Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) have finally abandoned any
pretence at being
a representative, democratic institution. Like the regime
in functions
under, it has eschewed all but the charade of being
accountable, and those
running it have this week shown two fingers to the
dwindling band inside the
country who still care.
The news that the
board's Annual General Meeting takes place this weekend
only broke when
Peter Chingoka's predecessor as chairman, Dave Ellman Brown,
called the ZC
offices and found out, during the course of a conversation,
that he was no
longer a life president. It then emerged that all such life
appointees -
honorary posts awarded for a lifetime of contributions to the
game - had
been stripped of their positions without even being notified.
On the face
of it, this is a callous and cowardly move. It also is another
blow to what
remains of the tarnished reputation of Chingoka. As chairman
this decision
has to rest with him, yet even though he knows all of these
appointees
closely and has worked with them for years, he couldn't bring
himself to
face them and tell them in person why they had been treated so
appallingly.
The real reason for the decision is clear when seen in
connection with the
AGM. It has traditionally been the one public forum
where the board can be
held to account, where officers can be questioned and
where the finances can
be scrutinised. In recent years it has been a fairly
harrowing experience
for the executive. But this year ZC has ruled that only
delegates from the
newly created provinces can attend. Strictly speaking,
under the rules any
presidents or vice presidents can also demand to be
present. ZC has removed
that potential embarrassment by taking them out of
the equation.
So the AGM will be a farce. Only delegates from provinces
created by the ZC
board in 2006 will be present; and those appointed to run
the regional
boards were hand-picked acolytes. All dissenters and those
whose faces did
not fit were cleansed then. It was a cynical ploy to appease
the
international community and pretend there was a vibrant and democratic
domestic set-up. There is as much chance of a delegate questioning the ZC
executive on Saturday as there is of a Zanu PF conference asking Robert
Mugabe to justify his economic policy.
What ZC fears most is
that its accounts will be scrutinised internally.
Already the ICC-appointed
accountants have been sniffing round the books. In
June, Malcolm Speed said
that it was "clear that the accounts of ZC have
been deliberately falsified
to mask various illegal transactions". So no
accounts have been circulated
and it seems only the hand-picked will be
privy to them at the AGM. Even so,
what they get might not matter. As Speed
said of previous offerings: "It may
not be possible to rely on the
authenticity of its balance
sheet."
What this latest contemptuous move suggests is that ZC believes
it has
weathered the international storm and that it no longer needs to
maintain
the veneer of accountability. Chingoka is shrewd enough to know
that other
boards, and as a result the ICC, don't really care what happens.
It's all
about votes and behind-the-scenes deals. If Zimbabwe supports the
right
people when it matters, nobody will rock the boat.
Cricket
limps on in the country, and despite Speed's reservations, ZC
received US$11
million from the ICC in the last year and has nobody to
account to about how
that money is spent. It's a criminal reflection of the
priorities of the
modern game.
Martin Williamson is executive editor of Cricinfo
©
Cricinfo
Matangi, Tonga
10 Nov 2007, 14:26
London,
UK:
The following is an announcement from the Royal Commonwealth
Society:
As the crisis in Zimbabwe deepens, Commonwealth organisations,
NGOs
and
campaigners are calling on Commonwealth leaders to
act.
Spearheading the campaign, the Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS),
backed by a number of Commonwealth organisations, has launched a
Commonwealth People's Charter on Zimbabwe, calling for Commonwealth leaders
to re-engage with Zimbabwe.
The RCS position is that although
Zimbabwe is no longer a member of
the
Commonwealth (having
withdrawn in 2003), it is wrong for the
Commonwealth to ignore such an
important issue, especially considering the
action the Commonwealth took
over former member countries such as South
Africa and the former
Rhodesia.
All citizens of Commonwealth countries, who feel solidarity
with the
Zimbabwean people, are encouraged to sign the Charter. Civil
Society
Organisations, religious groups and any other interested
parties are
also
welcome to contact the RCS to express their
support. The hope is that
Commonwealth governments will be persuaded to
act if Commonwealth
citizens sign the charter in great numbers.
The
Charter, with a list of signatures, will be presented, at the
upcoming
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), to Don
McKinnon, the
Commonwealth Secretary General and President Museveni of
Uganda, the CHOGM
host. You can find the Charter at: www.commonwealth-action-for-zimbabwe.org
Commonwealth Press Union, 10/11/07.
SW Radio Africa
(London)
9 November 2007
Posted to the web 10 November
2007
Lance Guma
The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (SA Chapter)
has denied media reports that
its office is closing down following a
withdrawal of funding by donors.
Nixon Nyikadzino an advocacy officer
with the group says the office will
remain open despite a restructuring
exercise that carried out an evaluation
of both its projects and personnel.
A report in the Zimbabwe Times website
said Media Manager Elinor Sisulu,
Coordinator Reverend Nicholas Mkaronda,
Advocacy Manager Emmanuel
Hlabangane, Projects Officer Sifiso Dube and
secretary Precious Dube had all
been retrenched.
The website however linked this to allegations that
the office was being
used to launch a new political party and was
undermining the MDC in the
process. Nyikadzino said a group of people who
are eager to start up their
own project are feeding the reports and view the
coalition as a stumbling
block. He went as far as pinpointing the journalist
who wrote the story
saying he was an interested party in the proceedings.
Asked to explain the
departure of staff from the coalition Nyikadzino said
all those leaving had
done so by mutual consent and had no qualms with the
restructuring.
Crisis Coalition in Zimbabwe coordinator Jacob Mafume told
the Zimbabwe
Times that reports of financial irregularities were untrue and
that the
office had simply run out of projects. 'I would like to place it on
record
that the office is open and will remain open, we are restructuring
only to
deal with some problems and some of our staff have left the office
because
of other commitments. Crisis is a critical component in the fight
for a
democratic Zimbabwe, and therefore has many enemies working against
it.
These rumours are their work," Mafume said.
Meanwhile the Crisis
in Zimbabwe Coalition 'Rock the Vote' concert moves to
Bulawayo on Saturday.
The cream of Zimbabwean music artists will be
performing at the White City
arena while promoting the group's voter
education campaign. Programmes
Manager Pedzisai Ruhanya said they were
taking the concerts to all parts of
the country in the run up to elections
next year.
.
www.cathybuckle.com
Saturday 10th November 2007
Tragedy came to my
home area this week and I write this letter for a family
represented by
three generations who have worked to save an endangered
species for
Zimbabwe. More specifically I write this letter for D.J., Amber,
and Gomo
who were shot and killed one night this week.
These three Black Rhino
were saved from rampant poaching that was ravaging
Zimbabwe in the mid
1980's. Seven young Black Rhino calves, three males and
four females were
sent to Imire Game Park where they were hand reared.
Standing chest high
they were bottle fed on a carefully worked out milk
formula from five litre
plastic bottles fitted with calf teats. You have to
see this to really
appreciate it, the pushing and shoving, the loud
schlurping noises and
contented glugging, the vast streams of silver dribble
and the look of
contentment and pure delight in the eyes of the young
animals.
These
seven Black Rhino were part of a grand scheme by farmers and
Government to
save a species. Private Game Parks and Conservancies, at
entirely their own
risk and expense, would rear the animals, allow them to
breed and then
return the offspring to National Parks so that all
Zimbabweans could share
in this wonderous heritage.
Over 20 years those seven Black Rhino thrived
at Imire. This was a superb
achievement - for man and animal. The Rhino had
to be guarded from poachers,
day and night; they had to be fed on massive
amounts of purchased
supplementary feed and they had to be contented enough
to breed and for the
females to carry their calves for the full 450 day
gestation. Vets and
experts came in when needed and de-horned the Rhinos,
removing the matted
hair-like structure which was the lure to the poachers
and the very cause of
their persecution. Over two decades the Travers'
family returned more than
half a dozen Black Rhino reared on Imire to the
Department of National Parks
and gave a great gift back to our
country.
Four poachers came to Imire at around 9.30 in the evening this
week. D.J.
was shot and killed. Her calf, just a few weeks old, survived.
Amber,
heavily pregnant, was shot and killed. Her unborn calf, almost at
full term,
did not survive. Gomo, a male, was shot and killed. The horn
stump from one
rhino, perhaps one handful, was taken by the
poachers.
D.J.'s calf will be hand reared on Imire with two other young
rhino. Already
that precious milk formula has been sought and the
ingredients searched for
in this time of madness when our shops are empty
and almost all goods are
unobtainable.
I do not know the details of
the crime, the slaughter and the perpetrators
but I feel a great sadness
inside me. It is many years since I had first
hand encounters with elephants
and rhino but they are memories ingrained in
my heart: the feel of their
skin, the look in their eyes, the sounds they
make and the smell of them and
knowing that their lives and their future
depended on us. We must not give
up.
Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.
From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 10 November
Mail & Guardian reporter
Just four months
before scheduled elections, and with a breakthrough in
talks brokered by
President Thabo Mbeki in sight, Zimbabweans are watching
in dismay as the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
disintegrates and Zanu PF
tweaks electoral regulations in its favour.
Recently, there have been
violent clashes between supporters of the MDC,
reflecting bitter divisions
between Morgan Tsvangirai and some of his most
senior officials, partly over
his refusal to keep secret details of meetings
the MDC has been holding with
Zanu PF since April. But Tsvangirai's
spokesperson Nelson Chamisa this week
sought to play down fears of a further
split in the MDC: "The MDC as a
democratic institution has sufficient
mechanisms to deal with both the
internal and external challenges that are
fairly inevitable in such a
mass-based organisation." But the row has added
currency to debate about the
emergence of a "third way", a new movement made
up of disgruntled elements
from both the MDC and Zanu PF, where anger
remains over President Robert
Mugabe's decision to stand for a sixth term
next year. Mugabe had previously
stated that he would retire in 2008, but
now says he can no longer trust his
top lieutenants to preserve the unity of
his Zanu PF party. But critics
doubt there is any real prospect of the
emergence of a third party and have
instead slammed the opposition for
allowing internal fighting to blind it to
what they say are moves by Zanu PF
to pad its own nest as elections draw
closer. This week Mugabe ignored a key
agreement with the opposition on the
formation by Parliament of a new
electoral body to run the elections,
quietly stuffing the existing Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission (ZEC) with a new
batch of loyalists.
Both parties had agreed to provisions, under
Constitutional Amendment 18,
which was enacted in September, establishing a
new body that would register
voters, demarcate constituencies and oversee
preparations for elections. But
Zanu PF appears to be willing only to go as
far as changing a few faces in
the important body. New appointments to the
ZEC include figures previously
employed as senior civil servants, including
in the Registrar General's
office, which has run a voters' roll so
inefficient it has even been
criticised by Zanu PF itself. Ian Makone, head
of elections for Tsvangirai,
and Paul Themba-Nyathi of the Arthur
Mutambara-led MDC faction, said they
will now press for the urgent enactment
of an Electoral Laws Amendment Bill,
which would effectively transfer all
operations of commission to parliament,
as agreed. This week ZEC chairperson
George Chiweshe rejected the
opposition's demands to be included in
preparations for elections, saying
his commission was independent, as "the
Constitution says we shall not be
under anyone's influence ... that is
exactly what we will follow". But a
spokesperson for the National
Constitutional Assembly, a group allied to the
opposition that is
campaigning for a new constitution, said the recent
senior appointments to
the ZEC were "a clear testimony of Zanu PF's
intention to run a
controversial election next year. It also shows the lack
of seriousness on
the part of the government to guarantee a free and fair
election in this
country." He said the opposition parties needed to stop the
infighting and
concentrate on blocking Zanu PF from taking any further
action that will
undermine the credibility of next year's election.
Tsvangirai himself
has dismissed suggestions that his fight with internal
rivals has taken his
attention away from elections, but he has repeated his
doubts that the
government really wants a free poll. "The level of suffering
of the majority
of our people cannot be postponed any longer. People have no
food, jobs,
transport, drugs, water and power. The list is endless. We need
to resolve
the national crisis now, rather than later. This can only be done
by
creating the necessary environment for a free and fair election where
Zimbabweans can freely choose a government of their choice, which can then
immediately resolve the myriad economic problems besetting the country," he
was quoted as saying this week. In spite of the internal battles, there
appears to be some acknowledgement from the opposition that they face a big
battle if elections next March are to be free and fair. Eddie Cross, a
policy adviser to Tsvangirai, said: "The talks in South Africa are almost
concluded - five months later than originally intended, the date for the
elections is yet to be decided and then we get into the issue of the
transition and the management of the election itself. Believe me, this is
going to be a fight to the finish."
SW Radio
Africa (London)
9 November 2007
Posted to the web 10 November
2007
Tichaona Sibanda
An agricultural expert in the country
said on Friday a big percentage of
farmers have failed to get maize seed and
fertiliser amid fears this would
contribute to very low yields next
year.
Renson Gasela, a former Grain Marketing Board chief executive told
Newsreel
the situation was getting critical because it was getting late into
the
farming season. Last month, the Zanu-PF led government said it was
launching
an ambitious plan to revive the country's agricultural production.
As part
of this drive, the government has been distributing hundreds of
tractors,
combine harvesters and planters
'Even with the state-of
the art equipment that these farmers have, what do
you produce when you
don't have the maize seed and fertiliser. Government is
saying they have
distributed 30 000 tonnes of seed but where is it. We don't
see it, we see
absolutely nothing,' Gasela said.
He said pronouncements by government
that they would have a 'the mother of
all farming seasons' was fantasy and
wishful thinking. Farming, he added,
was a matter of detail that if you got
one thing wrong, it would affect
everything.
'We have had good rains,
and we are in the second week of November and what
it means is each day
planting is delayed, it would result in lost yield. I
will give you an
example, a 15-day delay can contribute to a 35 percent
reduction in yield,'
added Gasela.
Analysts, including Gasela blame the government's
fast-track land reform
programme for destroying the agricultural sector,
which was the backbone of
the country's economy before the farm
evasions.
'These shortages are all consequences of the fast-track land
reform
programme. Before the invasions, commercial farmers would produce
enough
seed for sale and you can imagine it's no longer the case now, he
said.
Gasela remains pessimistic the country would not be able to produce
enough
food to feed itself from this farming season, and expected food
shortages to
continue after the harvest and well into 2008.