The ZIMBABWE Situation Our thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe
- may peace, truth and justice prevail.
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The latest development on the ACP-EU JPA meeting in The Hague.

17/11/2004: EPP-ED Group threatens to boycott the ACP-EU JPA. Maria Martens
MEP

The EPP-ED Group in the European Parliament will boycott the 8th session of
the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly scheduled on 20-25 November in the
Hague if a banned Zimbabwean representative is present. The EPP-ED Group has
called on the other Groups to follow its example.

Group Co-ordinator Maria Martens sent a letter to the Dutch Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Development last month requesting it not to issue an
entry visa for Mr Kumbirai Kangai, number 22 on the list of Zimbabweans
banned from entering the EU. Kangai and others are banned because they are
being held responsible for grave violations of human rights under the Mugabe
regime.

However, it is legally difficult to enforce the travel ban if the journey
concerns the ACP-EU JPA or other international meetings which are governed
by a multi-lateral agreement.

Maria Martens said:  "Parliament has other means to put pressure on
Zimbabwe. Our group is very active in this field and our approach is
successful. In November 2002, the EP denied access to its buildings of
Christopher Kuruneri, Deputy Finance Minister and number 25 on the list, and
Paul Mangwana, Minister of Justice and number 35 on the list. This resulted
in the cancellation of the ACP-EU JPA meeting. To prevent a second disaster,
the ACP countries themselves put pressure on Zimbabwe which resulted in a
promise by the Zimbabwean Parliament not to send representatives on the EU
blacklist in future."

Despite this promise, Kumbirai Kangai was sent to Brussels for a meeting on
22-23 September. The EPP-ED threatened to boycott the meeting if Mr Kangai
acted as the official representative. Mr Kangai was subsequently replaced by
the Zimbabwean Ambassador so that the meeting could be held.

Maria Martens said: "It is a pity that on that occasion, the Socialists and
the Liberals did not follow our example. Like us, they are against issuing
entry visas to banned persons but they didn't stick to their guns when it
came to the crunch. I am calling on all groups to follow our example and
walk out if Zimbabwe is represented by a blacklisted person".-ends-

more information:

Eduard Slootweg, EPP-ED press service. tel. + 32 475 721 280
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Daily News online edition

      Students roast Mugabe over youth militia

      Date: 19-Nov, 2004

      CAPE TOWN - The Southern African Students Union (SASTU) has blasted
the Zimbabwean government for "preaching democracy while acting
undemocratically."

      SASTU secretary-general, Fidas Muchemwa told The Daily News Online at
the start of a two-day meeting in Cape Town to discuss the militarisation of
the youth in Zimbabwe that President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF had failed to
transform from a liberation movement into a democratic government.

      "People went to war so that they could have freedom of assembly,
freedom of association.but Mugabe is now denying people those freedoms which
they fought for," Muchemwa said.

      He said Zanu PF had misled the nation into believing that the sole
reason why people went to war was to win back the land.

      "It's not true. We also want those freedoms which he (Mugabe) is
denying us," said Muchemwa.

      Muchemwa said Zimbabwe was no longer a safe place for youths and the
meeting would seek ways of stopping the government of President Mugabe from
continuing its youth militarisation programme.

      He said Mugabe was using the youth to stay in power even when it's
clear that he had lost the mandate of the people.

      He said there was consensus among students and youths in Africa that
Mugabe had lost the plot and the meeting would discuss ways of putting an
end to the practise.

      The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU), International Students
Union Africa region, African National Congress Youth League, the Young
Communists Youth League and a number of youth groups and students from
across the region and Africa are attending the meeting.

      The meeting is taking place at a time the Zimbabwean government has
announced that it would increase by two more centres the number of national
youth training institutions to 12.
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Daily News online edition

      If these are our values, then get me out of here

      Date: 19-Nov, 2004

      By Munodii Kunzwa

      IN the 1980s, the acting white editor of a Zimpapers title, The Manica
Post, was virtually ejected from a confidential briefing of editors at
Munhumutapa Building.

      The briefing was being given by Robert Mugabe. Nathan Shamuyarira, was
the Minister of Information. It wasn't clear at the time why Maurice Wood
was being given the heave-ho. But a few people suspected it had to do with
his colour. There was then a very solid anti-white slant in Zanu PF
politics, the harbinger of what was to occur in 2000 over the land issue.

      An unidentified insider (he would be, wouldn't he?) said he had
eavesdropped on a conversation during which the fear was expressed that Wood
might pass on the gist of the proceedings of the briefing to persons known
to be against the government, like Ian Smith. For those too young to
remember who Ian Smith was....there can't be many of them, surely?

      Shamuyarira once publicly berated the acting editor of The Herald over
an editorial critical of the government. Shamuyarira was also in charge when
Willie Musarurwa got the boot as editor of The Sunday Mail. As a former
journalist himself and a long-time working colleague of Musarurwa,
Shamuyarira was nevertheless ruthless with the media, government and
independent.

      Former journalist colleagues accused him of wanting to be more Zanu PF
than Zanu PF because of his past association with the Front for the
Liberation of Zimbabwe (Frolizi), whose leaders included the veteran
nationalists James Chikerema and George Nyandoro.

      Another Minister of Information, Victoria Chitepo, once slipped out of
a function commemorating World Press Freedom Day in Harare, shortly after
delivering her anti-independent media speech. Editors from the independent
media, who responded to her speech, found themselves addressing faceless,
bloodless civil servants.

      One minister of information, wisely unnamed for this purpose,
suggested Zimpapers refuse to print one issue of an independent weekly, to
sabotage their sales. The management refused to carry out such an outrageous
act of perfidy.

      Chen Chimutegwende, who held the portfolio when ANZ, the publishers of
The Daily News was launched, virtually frothed at the mouth at a conference
in Nyanga, almost swearing (it seemed to many) that he would strangle this
new baby at birth.

      But all these high-profile shenanigans against the independent media
paled into nothingness when Jonathan Moyo landed on the scene, like a
creature from some dark, dank lagoon in the wildest part of Hades. Nobody in
the independent media created his problems with the Ford Foundation in
Nairobi or the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

      All they did was report on them. Some concluded that his dark past was
catching up with him, as happens to most people who leave a trail of some
sort in their path. But Moyo seemed to accuse the media of creating
falsehoods about him. He seemed and still seems determined to have them pay
for it with their blood, if not their ink.

      None of the former information ministers, people generally beholden to
Mugabe for their political rise, sank to the depths of media hate Moyo has
achieved against the independent media.

      The last straw must be his latest fulmination: he speaks of the media
being required to promote the values of the country. These values must
include a subservient media which, if public television is to be taken as an
example, must publish his picture every day on its front page.

      These values must include no real criticism of the president or the
cabinet or the government or the ruling party. Then he spoke of his
definition of "regime". It would not jell with George W Bush's definition,
or anybody else's, for that matter. A regime to Moyo is simply a government.
But when Bush speaks of a "regime change", he specifically refers to a
replacement of the Mugabe regime by another.

      This regime has its own peculiar qualities. It has little respect for
good governance as it is understood by other nations - in the Commonwealth,
for instance. The Mugabe regime, as represented by Moyo himself, believes
the media in any country has a national duty not to attack the government,
which he translates into "undermining" the government. For an educated man,
he must be one of the most dangerously ill-informed people on earth.

      Or he has such a deep contempt for people who disagree with Zanu PF's
policies of benevolent dictatorship he is convinced they are a bunch of
nitwits. The "values" he talks about bear little relationship to democracy
as it is understood by the rest of the world. His pet monster, the Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act is not like any other press law in
the world, despite vile attempts by his department to liken it to the press
laws of a number of Western countries.

      Most of the countries named have no government newspapers. They have
no editors who are appointed by a government minister. They have no such
information departments which organise biras or galas or bashes for dubious
occasions. But most of all their governments do not mistake the people or
the country's values for the ruling party's values, which can only be
concerned with the party's hold on power.

      In any other country, Moyo would be a political laughing stock. In
Zimbabwe, where his special brand of political tomfoolery seems to appeal to
the lunatic fringe, he seems to have acquired celebrity status, as Goebbels
did before the Nazis were wiped out.
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Daily News online edition

            Rebel cricketers, ZCU bury hatchet

            Date: 19-Nov, 2004

            REBEL Zimbabwe cricketers and the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU),
the mother body that runs cricket in the country have buried the hatchet
paving the way for the return of the country's top cricketers to the
national team.

            For the past eight months, cricket union officials and rebel
white players have been involved in a wrangle which resulted in the white
players quitting the national side.

            The cricketers have withdrawn from the alternative dispute
resolution process set up by the International Cricket Council in July to
resolve outstanding issues between the two parties.

            The Zimbabwe Alternative Dispute Resolution Tribunal was formed
with the agreement of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union to work on a number of
issues including the dispute over the issue of captaincy, the selection of
the national team and relations between the players and some of the ZCU
board members.

            With the dispute now put to rest, the rebel cricketers led by
former captain Heath Streak could soon make themselves available for
national duty.

            Their imminent return is expected to strengthen a squad which
had become the whipping boys of international cricket.

            After the withdrawal of the rebel players, Zimbabwe was so
weakened that the ICC ordered them not to play Test cricket until next year
by which time the international body believed that either the young players
would have gained experience or the rebel players would have been back.

            It is not clear if the rebel players will be back in time to
face England in one day matches in Harare and Bulawayo next week.

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Daily News online edition

      Video captures plight of Zimbabwean refugees

      Date: 19-Nov, 2004

      JOHANNESBURG - A local non-governmental organisation, Solidarity Peace
Trust, has produced a video, No War in Zimbabwe, which captures the South
African government's indifference and insensitivity to the plight of
thousands of Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa.

      The Trust says the 52-minute video would be used to raise awareness on
the state of the Zimbabwean refugees in the United Kingdom and South Africa
where the majority of are staying.

      Zimbabweans are now the biggest group of foreign Africans in South
Africa, although very few are have been granted political refugee status.

      The South African Home Affairs ministry has told them that they cannot
be granted asylum status because "there is no war in Zimbabwe."

      The video, based on extensive research over one year looks at why
Zimbabweans are leaving their country and whether South Africa is meeting
its international obligations towards refugees.

      In the video immigrants recount horror experiences at the hands of
South African authorities and how some died by jumping from moving trains to
avoid deportation.

      Speaking after screening of the video to refugees at the Central
Methodist Church, a Solidarity Peace Trust official said the video would be
used to conscientise the African government and population about the plight
of the Zimbabwean refugees.

      Socks Chikowore, a Zimbabwean refugee, said: "This video is good and
we are going to use for lobbying here so that our situation could be
improved."

      Another refugee said: "I hope this video would be used to change
things here and at home."

      A South African who declined to be named said: "What I saw in the
video is disturbing. I lived in exile in many countries and I was never
treated that way."

      A young male refugee who claimed that his father used to cook for
President Thabo Mbeki when he was exiled in Harare said South Africans must
remember they are now free because of the assistance they got from fellow
African brother and sisters.

      Hundreds of Zimbabweans are dying in South African detention centres
and are being buried as paupers.

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Daily News online edition

      Embassy in roadshow to counter anti-UK propaganda

      Date: 19-Nov, 2004

      BULAWAYO - In a surprise development, Zimbabweans are learning that
far from being a public enemy and the cause of most of their economic and
political problems, Britain is in fact the second largest donor of bilateral
aid to vulnerable people in this country.

      The British government has earmarked 26 million pounds sterling (about
Z$300 billion at auction rate) to combat HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe over five
years, and it is supporting community projects across the country through
its Small Grants Scheme.

      Over 7 000 Zimbabweans studying for United Kingdom qualifications each
year sit their examinations in Harare and Bulawayo, courtesy of the British
Council.

      This is the message of a British Embassy roadshow that has visited
such places as Bulawayo and Mutare to explain the work of London in
Zimbabwe.

      It comes against a backdrop of an increasingly strident propaganda
campaign by President Robert Mugabe and the government spokesman,
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, to demonise British Prime Minister Tony
Blair.

      The British government is accused of ganging up with the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change in a bid to effect regime change in the
country. It is also accused of trying to reverse the controversial land
reform programme that saw thousands of white commercial farmers evicted from
their properties.

      Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections, due in March next year, have
already been dubbed the "anti-Blair" polls, with the ruling Zanu PF urging
its supporters to give a crushing blow to the "imperialists".

      The roadshow, at which queries about British passports and
nationality, trade and investment are being handled, also provides an
opportunity to learn how to apply for a UK visa.

      An estimated one million Zimbabweans have fled the country to settle
in the UK as economic refugees. The majority survive by illegally performing
menial jobs, despite the high professional qualifications they often hold.

      But with one British pound trading around Z$15 000 on the local black
market, there is no end in sight of the lure of the great trek northwards.

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Cape Argus
      Tsvangirai warned not to return home
      November 18, 2004

      Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government has accused opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai of mobilising support for more sanctions and warned
him not to bother returning home to face the consequences of his actions.

      Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told parliament Tsvangirai should
not return home if he continued lobbying for new sanctions against the
Mugabe regime. He said the MDC's continuing call for targeted sanctions was
making Tsvangirai "the state's enemy number one".

      "I don't think he would want to come back to this country," said
Chinamasa.

      Tsvangirai has said he was opposed to any sanctions that hurt the
ordinary people of Zimbabwe but has called for a tightening of targeted
sanctions against individual members of the Mugabe regime, a move that
Mugabe has previously equated to treason.

      This week Tsvangirai met Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson and
Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds among other officials in Stockholm. He is
due to have meetings with senior politicians in Britain, France, the
Netherlands, Belgium and Norway as part of his aggressive drive to have the
Mugabe regime isolated and forced to implement a new SADC charter on free
and fair elections.

      Tsvangirai has reportedly reiterated his call for the tightening of
targeted sanctions in his meetings with European leaders.

      The Mugabe regime had managed to keep Tsvangirai under virtual house
arrest for close to three years while he answered to trumped-up treason
charges. The High Court acquitted him of the charges last month.

      The Mugabe government is so annoyed by the audiences that foreign
leaders are giving Tsvangirai that its tightly controlled media dismissed
President Thabo Mbeki as a virtual sell-out when he became the first foreign
leader to meet Tsvangirai soon after his acquittal.

      Tsvangirai himself seems aware of the dangers that await him when he
returns home. Sources close to him said his programme had been arranged in
such a way that he would meet all the foreign leaders that he wanted to meet
before he returned home in two weeks' time. This had been done to ensure
that if he were arrested and charged upon his return, he would already have
accomplished his mission abroad.

      It is understood the state has already been contemplating amending the
terms of Tsvangirai's bail conditions on his second treason charge so he has
to surrender his passport.
      The second charge arose from mass protests called by Tsvangirai early
last year.

      The state said the protests had been called to illegally topple the
government.

      Tsvangirai was released on Z$10m bail but his passport was not covered
as it had already been seized over the first treason charge of which he was
acquitted last month.

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Mail and Guardian

Tsvangirai branded 'state enemy number one'

      Harare

      18 November 2004 14:30

President Robert Mugabe's government has labelled opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai as state enemy number one, the official Zimbabwe media reported
on Thursday.

Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa also issued a veiled threat of
unspecified action to be taken against Tsvangirai, the head of the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC), when he returns from a lengthy international
tour.

Chinamasa was quoted in the state-controlled daily Herald newspaper as
telling Parliament on Wednesday that Tsvangirai was the government's worst
enemy for lobbying for sanctions on his fellow countrymen.

"I can't think of any other description other than to say state enemy number
one," he said.

"If Mr Tsvangirai called for sanctions, I don't expect he would want to
return to this country," he added, without elaborating.

The former national trade union leader has been on an international tour for
nearly three weeks. Government officials returned his passport after his
acquittal on treason charges last month.

A campaign of smart sanctions against Mugabe and his political inner circle
began in 2001 in retaliation against the Zimbabwe government's violent
repression of its opponents and the lawless seizure of white-owned farm
land.

The United States, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and
Switzerland banned Mugabe and senior ruling party and government officials
from travelling to their countries, and from holding bank accounts there.
There are also bans on arms supplies to Zimbabwe.

Tsvangirai was banned from travelling for two years when he was forced to
surrender his passport for the length of the treason trial in which he was
accused of plotting to assassinate 80-year-old Mugabe. The judge said the
state had provided no evidence to support the charges.

He left Harare on October 23 for talks with Southern African leaders, flew
on to West Africa where he met the leaders of Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana and
Burkina Faso, and then to Europe. He was reported on Wednesday to be in
Sweden from where he will go on to Denmark, Norway and The Netherlands. He
was also due to meet European Union leaders and the EU secretariat.

In London, he would address members of the estimated 1,2-million Zimbabwean
diaspora who had fled economic collapse and political repression to live in
Britain.

MDC deputy Secretary General Gift Chimanikire said the party wanted to
explain their view of the democratisation of Zimbabwe and the need for the
restoration of the rule of law.

Tsvangirai has also been urging international leaders to force Mugabe to
stick to internationally accepted guidelines for parliamentary elections set
for March next year.

Tsvangirai was widely regarded as the winner of presidential elections in
2002, but Mugabe won with 1,5-million votes against Tsvangirai's
1,1-million. Independent observers, including the Commonwealth, dismissed
Mugabe's win as the result of violent intimidation. - Sapa-DPA
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Petition Calling for the Release of Roy Bennett

 In October 2004, Roy Bennett (MDC MP for Chimanimani) was sentenced by a partisan committee dominated by ZANU (PF) of the Parliament of Zimbabwe to an effective one-year in prison with labour. This sentence is unprecedented throughout the world.

 His “crime” was to push over in Parliament the Minister of Justice, Patrick Chinamasa, who during debate had insulted and provoked Bennett beyond reason, calling his late father and grandfather “thieves and murderers”. This “offence” would have attracted a small fine had it been tried in a Zimbabwean court. 

 The imprisonment of Roy Bennett is the culmination of over four years of relentless, state-sponsored attacks against himself, his family, friends, workers and colleagues and is designed to prevent Bennett from standing as a candidate in the March 2005 Parliamentary General Election.

 If you believe that Roy is a victim of political persecution, has been unfairly imprisoned and should be released immediately then please print out this form (if possible back to back) and sign below. Do not simply type in your details. The form must be printed and completed in the form of a “hard copy”.

 We encourage you also to send copies of this petition to as many people as possible on your mailing list

 You can also contribute by copying this form and challenging at least 100 people to sign. Send the completed forms (if possible before 15th December 2004) to

      1.       Free Roy Bennett, Box 3231, White River 1240, South Africa.

      2.       MDC offices in Bulawayo.

3.       MDC offices in Harare.

4.       Or you may scan the completed forms in ADOBE and send them to freeroybennett@yahoo.com

 The petitioners’ aim to present the petition before 31 December 2004 to the following

·         The Speaker of Zimbabwe Parliament

·         SADC Parliamentary Forum

·         Inter Parliamentary Union

·         Parliamentarians for Global Action

·         Commonwealth Parliamentary Association

 

                                    Petition Calling for the Release of Roy Bennett 

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