Daily News
Leader Page
Threat to seize foreign businesses
frightening
11/27/02 9:07:32 AM (GMT +2)
THE
threat by Zimbabwe to seize all foreign-owned business interests
is
frightening because of its implications. It is to be hoped this was an
empty
threat.
Stan Mudenge, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, said at the
weekend the
government had recently announced a high-powered investigation to
establish
the nature of British-owned properties in Zimbabwe, with the
specific aim of
freezing their assets if the owners are on a travel ban
announced by the
government early this month.
If the government
announced a travel ban on the said owners, but is
now going ahead and
threatening seizure of their properties, this is an
admission of the futility
of the travel ban.
No one in Europe is desperate to travel to
Zimbabwe. Yet, on the other
hand, Zimbabwean government ministers are busy
conjuring up excuses for
trips to Europe. Samuel Mumbengegwi, Chris Kuruneri
and Paul Mangwana are
the latest examples of Zimbabweans clamouring to go to
Europe.
There are no European nationals desperate to come here to
the extent
they become international objects of embarrassment.
If people rejoice when they travel to places they are not wanted,
most
commentators tend to view them with scorn.
The government's
travel ban targets more than 120 people, mostly
British officials. This is an
apparent retaliation against the European
Union's "smart sanctions" against
President Mugabe and senior members of his
government and the ruling Zanu PF
party, because of their appalling human
rights record, political instability,
the absence of the rule of law and
lack of democracy during the past 34
months.
What is frightening about the threat is Zimbabwe's apparent
inability
to learn or benefit from the mistakes made by the late former
Mozambican
president, Samora Machel, when he took over all the companies and
firms
owned by Portuguese nationals.
The result was that
Mozambique's economy was totally crippled. In
Zimbabwe's case, such a
hare-brained scheme is the last thing a beleaguered
economy needs. Grabbing
foreign-owned firms would be the last nail in the
economic
coffin.
If anyone seriously believes Zimbabwe will be able to rise
from the
ashes of such ruins, then they need to wait and witness, first-hand,
the
effects of any forced takeover of foreign firms.
The first
immediate effect is that there will be massive job losses.
The
second is that shortages will become the norm. Foreign-owned
companies have
been able to weather the current economic crisis, largely
because of the
largesse of their external headquarters. The imported raw
materials these
companies have depended on to contribute to the Zimbabwean
economy can be
expected to dry up, as will new foreign investment. No one
will be able to
promote or trust this country as an investment destination.
Zimbabwe seems to have this propensity to forget that there are
other
countries that are competing for the same cake of foreign
investment.
Investors will always go where the safety and security of their
investment
is guaranteed.
The manner in which the government has
handled the issue of Border
Timbers, which is supposed to be guaranteed
security under a
Zimbabwe-Germany government-government agreement is one
eloquent statement
of the level of the country's commitment to safeguarding
foreign investment.
The same could be said of the acquisition of
farms, especially as some
of them were purchased after the government
declared it had no interest in
the land and certificates to this effect were
issued before they were
bought.
Similarly, the invasion of firms
by so-called war veterans and
government supporters demonstrated that
guarantees of security of investment
had been suspended.
There
has never been as damaging a statement by the government as the
announcement
by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. It effectively condemns
Zimbabwe to a
state of disinvestment and underdevelopment. No one with the
genuine
interests of Zimbabwe can make such a declaration, especially as it
seeks to
take the country back to pre-independence days.
The government
needs to think more carefully about the consequences of
the utterances of its
ministers. Such hollow posturing does Zimbabwe no
good.
Daily News
Feature
Why you might not attend this
funeral
11/27/02 9:00:12 AM (GMT +2)
FIRST,
the bad news: Zimbabwe is dead. Second, more bad news: nobody
came to the
funeral.
Some will protest: Zimbabwe is so beautiful it will never
die. More
bad news: beautiful things die too: Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe,
Joyce Ndoro -
they died.
Many people I know say if Zimbabwe died
today, they would not attend
her funeral. Those who might chafe at the gender
of the country, ought to
know no country has ever been given a male identity.
The Earth itself is
Mother Earth.
Radical feminists have
protested at this. They believe it's a male
chauvinist ploy to identify women
with everything not entirely positive,
although I believe Mother Earth is a
positive planet, in spite of such
notorious Earthlings as Attila the Hun, Idi
Amin, Adolf Hitler, Jean-Bedel
Bokassa, Adolf Eichmann, Joseph Mobutu, Jack
the Ripper, Macias Nguema,
Caryl Chessman, Kamuzu Banda, Charles Manson,
Hendrik Verwoerd, Antonio
Salazar, Sani Abacha, Dr Crippen, Rasputin - and
Myra Hindley and Ian Brady,
who tortured and killed children in Britain more
than 30 years ago.
Zimbabweans who say they would not attend their
country's funeral
insist they would not have died with the country. Only
people who profited
from the government's peculiar application of democracy
would perish with
their part of the country. Confusing? Today people are so
bewitched,
bothered and bewildered by the crisis which President Mugabe's
"war cabinet"
has failed to tackle, few can think rationally.
The detractors say the Zimbabwe to die would be described as a married
woman
who lived recklessly, took on many lovers, whom she flaunted in
public, much
to the horror of her husband, his and her relatives and all the
neighbours,
neglected her children into Street-Kidom and lived a life of
debauchery and
immorality.
For that reason, they vow they would not attend her
funeral.
Others speculate on how she died: was it hara-kiri or did
she die of
Aids? Did she die of hunger, the lack of food, not the insatiable
craving
for pleasure?
Many feel the time has come to write, not
RIP (Requiescat In Pace) on
Zimbabwe's gravestone, but MSRIH - May She Rot In
Hell. She lived a full
life - full of cheating, killing, subterfuge,
infidelity and was a past
mistress of The Double Double-Cross.
In a phrase, she got her comeuppance.
Zimbabwe committed suicide,
for she had a good life at the beginning,
loved by all, including suitors she
had dumped before marrying this patient,
if naive man who allowed her so many
liberties when he left her in utter
disgust to shack up with their
middle-aged maid, she was devastated.
I took up this theme after
attending the funeral of a young man who
died young. Mark Chavunduka was only
37 years old. He was ill for a short
while, but for a whole eternity there
will be debate on whether his torture
by the soldiers of his own country in
1999 did not hasten his premature
demise. Certainly, the torture would not
have enhanced his chances of
fending off the onslaught of whatever natural
calamity awaited him.
The merits and demerits of the story which
precipitated his and Ray
Choto's fateful captivity by the soldiers have been
endlessly ventilated
among journalists on all sides of the divide - The Good,
and The Bad/Ugly.
What will not be disputed is this: for whatever
real or imagined wrong
they had committed, the two did not deserve the
punishment they were
subjected to - like stoning a woman to death for having
a child out of
wedlock (as some Muslims do).
Zimbabwe is about
to expire, to hand in her dinner pail, to kick the
bucket, to croak, "to join
the fishes" as the Mafia would say.
She has taken too many lives to
survive a day longer in a world where
retribution for such wrongs is swift
and final. So, imagine you are at her
wake, not in Mbare, for the woman lived
like The Hostess With The Mostest -
in Borrowdale Brooke with all the
razzmatazz of the supreme courtesan.
"So, do you think she died
with any regrets, for neglecting all her
children until they ended up
rummaging for scraps of food in the dustbins,
not only of the rich, but even
of the poor people of Hatcliffe Extension?"
"Who knows?" says the
only other person at the wake, a ghost which
bears a striking resemblance to
Herbert Chitepo, Joshua Nkomo, Josiah
Tongogara, Enoch Dumbutshena, Masotsha
Ndlovu, Jason Moyo and Sidney
Malunga - all rolled into one.
"Do
you think she found God in her last hours of her life?" I ask.
The
ghost laughs. "God? She might have found Him, but I doubt that He
found her.
After the jokes she told about one of her friends being as good
as the Son of
God? About one of her other friends who she touted as being
more righteous
than a bishop? And then, the last straw, that man who
implored Him to help
with his budget - what cheek! He'll make them pay for
that."
At
which point I rouse myself from the reverie and confront the
conundrum: what
is the purpose of Zimbabwe? In other words, of what use is
Zimbabwe
today?
Don't laugh. A country has some use, like a wheel spanner to
a flat
tyre, a bandage to a scratch on the skin, a ring at a wedding, a
referee at
a soccer match.
In that context, of what use is this
Zimbabwe today? For its people,
there must be very little use. Its greatest
failure is being unable to feed
all of them, confining itself to those of her
people who have party cards of
a certain type.
For me, the cure
for this Zimbabweosis - the state of being a
Zimbabwean who doesn't have this
card that entitles you to free food, free
land, free houses, free cars, free
sex, free booze - is lots and lots of
laughter.
So, when I watch
them on television making those numbingly boring
speeches, I roll on the
floor, my ribs tickled to breaking point. They take
themselves so seriously,
just the sight of them in their two- or three-piece
suits breaks me
up.
Some of them bring you comedy to rival Safirio
Madzikatire's
one-liners. I remember in the early 1980s meeting him in a
restaurant in
Bulawayo, for the first time in almost 25 years. The first
question he asked
was: "M'fana, are you still drinking?" I had to be careful
before replying:
was he offering to buy me a drink? Was he asking me to buy
him a drink? Was
he commenting on my physical appearance? What had he noticed
in my eyes, in
my face, in my hair or in my clothes which had persuaded him
to ask whether
the drink had finally done me in, physically?
"No, I stopped," I said.
He nodded sagely, that enigmatic smile on
his lips. Still, I am not
sure why he asked the question. Another friend, at
our first meeting after
the same period, asked me this question: "Where are
the girls?"
I would have liked to attend Safirio's funeral, as I
attended Mark's.
He was "good people", as they say, a man who
laughed and laughed.
As for the funeral of Zimbabwe, I think I'll
wait for A Sign From
Above. Where will her soul be? My suspicion is that she
took herself too
seriously.
Without laughter, there is no soul,
I say.
bsaidi@dailynews.co.zw
Aids epidemic 'bringing social collapse'
UN demands urgent action as
virus kills 3 million a year, takes hold in
eastern Europe and risks pandemic
in Asia
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Wednesday November 27,
2002
The Guardian
The Aids epidemic is causing the spiralling
disintegration of some of the
poorest countries in Africa, precipitating
famine and social, political and
economic collapse, says the latest official
United Nations update.
The UNAids report takes a more sombre tone than ever
before as it lays out
the increasing scale of the global epidemic which last
year killed 3.1
million people, of whom 610,000 were children.
A
further 5 million people were infected with the deadly virus in
2002,
bringing the world total living with HIV to 42 million. Most of the
29.4
million with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are likely to die - only
about
300,000 currently receive life-saving drugs.
But the report also
warns that what is happening now in Africa may prefigure
a similar pandemic
in the populous countries of Asia.
India already has the second highest
number of people - nearly 4 million -
living with HIV and the largest number
of Aids orphans. A recent US
intelligence report estimated the number could
surge to 25 million by 2010.
World leaders have been warned of an
"explosive" spread of the disease into
new areas unless more resources are
freed up to fight Aids.
Launching the report ahead of World Aids Day on
Sunday, the executive
director of UNAids, Peter Piot, said there was a direct
relationship between
HIV/Aids and the famine in southern Africa - in Lesotho,
Malawi, Mozambique,
Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
"Aids is fuelling
the food crisis in sub-Saharan Africa," he said. "This is
the first
large-scale sign of what the impact of Aids can and will be for
society as a
whole."
The report says that the six countries have more than 5 million
adults and
600,000 children living with HIV/Aids out of a population of 26
million,
more than one person in five.
A generation of once-fit young
adults who were the farm workers, parents and
teachers of southern Africa are
falling ill and dying. A study this year in
Malawi showed that about 70% of
households had suffered labour losses due to
sickness. Some had been forced
to neglect their farms to try to earn cash to
buy food.
Alan
Whiteside, director of HIV/Aids research at South Africa's University
of
Natal in Durban, said that Aids was causing crises not just in health but
in
development, economics and politics as well.
"Today in [southern Africa]
over 15 million people are facing food
shortages. Sure, the rain hasn't come,
but people are unable to plant the
fields. They are unable to get to the
fields," he said, adding that there
could be a window of only four to six
weeks when seed could be sown.
"Agricultural workers are lost. The
learning from generation to generation
is lost."
He said there was a
crisis of orphans, too. "Children are growing up
unloved, unsocialised and
uneducated."
For the first time in the epidemic, as many women worldwide
are infected
with HIV as men, largely because in sub-Saharan Africa, women
account for
60% of infections. Yet it is the women who care for the sick,
look after the
children and, in many regions, labour in the fields, so their
loss is a
major blow.
The epidemic in parts of Africa is overwhelming
the coping mechanisms of
whole countries, said Dr Piot.
"We must act
now, on a much larger scale than anything we have done before,
not only to
assist those nations already hard hit, but also to stop the
explosive growth
of Aids in the parts of the world where the epidemic is
newly
emerging."
The UN price tag put on the battle against Aids is $10bn
(£6.4bn) a year. -
the world has paid only $3bn this year.
"There is
clearly a major resource gap," said Dr Piot. "We are not doing
enough. There
is definitely a case for increasing awareness among the public
in developed
countries that the Aids epidemic even very far away in Africa
or India is
affecting stability in the world where we are.
"There is a responsibility
on governments and the public in countries like
Britain or western Europe to
contribute to the fight against Aids in
developing countries.
"It is
not only a moral responsibility. This is becoming one of the greatest
threats
to stability in the world - and now I'm quoting Colin Powell in a
speech last
week. 'Not enough is being done.' "
The report shows the epidemic taking
off quickly in eastern Europe and the
central Asian republics. In 2002, there
were an estimated 250,000 new
infections there, bringing the region's total
to 2.5 million. But in some
countries the spread has been phenomenal, with
almost as many new infections
in Uzbekistan in the first six months of this
year as in the entire previous
decade.
Daily News
Leader Page
Democracy under threat in the
MDC
11/27/02 9:06:55 AM (GMT +2)
THE apparent
feuding within the main opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) ranks
over Munyaradzi Gwisai (MP Highfield) is an
opportunity for the party to
discard ambiguity and clearly define its
political ideology.
Gwisai's crime is making public utterances that have brought the MDC
into
"disrepute". His utterances that the MDC has now sidelined students
and
workers, formerly the backbone of the party, and allowed capitalists to
run
the show seems to have hit a raw nerve with the top
leadership.
The MDC faces the danger of having punished someone
whose views
mirrored those of the generality of its supporters. Clearly the
MDC is an
amalgamation of different interest groups and it would have been
wiser to be
tolerant of a divergence of views than the current intolerance
being
displayed.
When former Zanu PF stalwarts Dr Eddison Zvobgo
and Dzikamai Mavhaire
decided to be frank about their views, they were
quickly ostracised by their
party, much to the chagrin of many who are now in
the MDC.
Their argument then was that Zanu PF was stifling debate
and free
expression amongst its members. The opposition even invited Zvobgo
and
Mavhaire into its fold implying a tacit tolerance of
divergence.
The treatment of Gwisai will send a message to its rank
and file that
a plurality of views within the MDC is not
tolerated.
Zanu PF's former secretary-general Edgar "Two Boy"
Tekere was another
who regularly fired at his own party frank reprimands when
it faltered -
much in the same way Gwisai was doing.
Tekere
warned that many in Zanu PF were not upholding their avowed
socialist
principles (manifesto), and were indulging in self-enrichment
(acts which are
associated with capitalists). Today Tekere's utterances have
been vindicated
in that Zanu PF went on to disregard its pro-people policies
favouring
self-aggrandisement.
Could it be some early warning signs that the
MDC is "truth-phobic?"
The MDC could have expelled him only if Gwisai's
statements and actions
could not be proved.
Our position is that
the basis for Gwisai's expulsion is not one which
a party acclaimed as a
Movement for "Democratic" Change can uphold and be
proud of.
Clearly there has got to be another charge for Gwisai's dismissal to
which
the general public is not privy, otherwise the much publicised
accusations
and perceived indiscipline charges do not suffice.
It would seem
the party's hierarchy present at the hearing were more
perturbed by Gwisai's
exit from the hearing, in other words the attitude and
manner to which he
responded to the hearing.
Unfortunately the media only impressed
the public on how Gwisai
excused himself from the hearing at the MDC
headquarters, without giving the
public some insight into Gwisai's written
response to the accusations
levelled against him.
On a personal
note, we have noticed that the MDC had great
organisational power in the year
2000, because it was directly linked to
students' and workers' unions. The
late Learnmore Jongwe was the patron of
the Zimbabwe National Students'
Union, and Nelson Chamisa, who had been
secretary-general the previous year,
had a good hold on the unions.
Instead of sustaining its links with
the student unions, the MDC
allowed Zanu PF (which was sponsoring Student
Representative Council [SRC]
candidates) to put in place proxy
representatives in the country's tertiary
education
institutions.
A point we can prove and submit to the MDC and to the
Press is the way
in which Zanu PF now controls the SRCs of the University of
Zimbabwe,
Bulawayo Polytechnic, Masvingo Polytechnic and Harare
Polytechnic.
For those colleges where students are strident in
support of a new
political dispensation, notice how some of their members
have been absorbed
by the State security apparatus. So in the end the MDC has
not been able to
sustain their influence on student unions.
In
other words, the MDC no longer enjoys co-operation from these
mass
mobilisation bases. We submit that the MDC was a bit slow in this
regard,
and should probably question why the Sudanese government
postponed
indefinitely the SRC elections held at its main
university.
The answer is simple to find: SRCs are strong
mobilisation platforms
which any political party seeking to attain power
would lose at their own
peril.
On the workers' front, ever since
2000, many workers' committees have
resorted to strike against poor
remuneration and working conditions. Their
efforts at getting redress from
their employers have been isolated and
muzzled by the State propaganda
machine.
For example, the medical practitioners, laboratory
technicians and
junior doctors, teachers and Air Zimbabwe engineers went on
strike, and the
MDC was silent save for a few impotent supportive statements
issued by the
party. Even the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions seemed to
place importance
on who is and who is not their member in supporting troubled
workers.
That the MDC has never organised any form of national mass
action,
especially pro-worker action, has allowed the employers' caucus to
be
stronger. The workers' miserly welfare has not been made any better. It
is
in this regard that we find Gwisai's accusations that students and
workers
are being sidelined finding favour with reason.
The
African National Congress (ANC) never at any one time abandoned
the worker
and student bases in South Africa. The Congress of South African
Trade Unions
(Cosatu) patently bore allegiance to the ANC and Steve Biko's
Black
Consciousness Movement comprised of black students from the country's
major
tertiary education institutions who bore allegiance to the major
political
parties of the day.
Reference is made to the statement by Biko
where he says: "Our true
leaders are in jail, and by that I refer to Nelson
Mandela and Robert
Sobhukwe."
In that context, it is
self-evident that any party in the world cannot
afford to slacken its hold on
the workers' and students' unions. Any party
that does so commits political
suicide.
Daily News
Justice for Agriculture registers as a
trust
11/27/02 8:38:50 AM (GMT +2)
Farming
Reporter
Justice for Agriculture (JAG), a splinter farmers'
organisation from
the Commercial Farmers' Union, is now formally legalised
and registered as a
trust, with a board of trustees comprising eight founder
members all, bar
one, farmers, a spokesman for the trust has
said.
"This was obviously essential for litigation purposes,
especially for
class or representative actions, and particularly in view of
the reticence
of other representative organisations to litigate on behalf of
farmers. For
this reason, and also because of the Private Voluntary
Organisations (PVO)
Act, we have had to form a membership body which will be
catered for by
formation of a membership association under the JAG trust. The
PVO Act
provides exemption from registration with the Ministry of Public
Service,
Labour and Social Welfare as long as the organisation provides legal
aid
exclusively for its own members (Section 2, part 4 (H)
(v))."
So with a membership body, JAG does not fall under the PVO
Act
requirement for registration, and can avoid a situation whereby it would
be
declared illegal in a similar manner to the human rights organisation,
Amani
Trust.
JAG legal strategies have already saved farmers
considerable costs.
Legal advice from a senior partner in a
reputable law firm costs at
least $20 000 an hour. A $20 000 investment in
JAG membership could save
farmers that in one visit, and the door and phone
lines of the JAG office
are open all year round.
"Furthermore,
it is not only through legal advice that one stands to
benefit, but also help
in a number of current pressing issues that challenge
the farming community,
not the least of which is restitution or compensation
through the JAG loss
claim document," the spokesman said.
JAG was primarily set up
principally to seek justice through legal
means where other "representative"
organisations have been reticent to do
so.
JAG believes that
whatever legal means at its disposal need to be
used;
n To get all
property rights and security of tenure respected and to
work toward
restitution so that farmers can get back to farming in
the
future.
- To assist in helping the hundreds of thousands of
farm workers that
have been left destitute as a result of the current land
reform programme.-
To challenge the constitutionality of Section 8
legislation which has put so
many people in prison and out of their homes and
off their farms.
- To challenge the constitutionality of S.I.6
legislation which has
cost farmers billions of dollars and has resulted in
farm workers being made
jobless and homeless.
- To compile loss
documents taking into account losses resulting from
illegal activities which
have dispossessed people of their farms, their
houses, their assets, their
savings, and their income so that future legal
challenges and or negotiations
can succeed in getting compensation paid.
- To publicise and hold
legally accountable the authors and the
perpetrators of the losses and trauma
resulting from illegal activities.
The JAG Association needs
farmers' membership in order to be able to
take representative actions
through the Zimbabwean and eventually
International Courts.
"Up
until this time we could only set precedents with individual
actions. We are
now legally able to litigate on a representative or class
action. You need to
be a member to ensure your rights are upheld and that
every legal avenue
possible will be pursued to achieve restitution or
compensation, wherever you
might be in the future.
JAG was working towards a vision for
agriculture in the future which
upholds and respects the rule of law and
property rights.
The JAG Trust has now been legalised and
registered and can accept
membership under the JAG Association. In order to
join the JAG Association
for any of the above purposes, please send a cheque
of $25 000 (Twenty five
thousand dollars) payable to: Justice for
Agriculture, to 17 Phillips
Avenue, Belgravia, Harare or pay cash at our
offices, from where membership
forms can be obtained.
JAG was
set up by farmers to represent, help and advise farmers.
"Our
portfolios include not only legal and publicity, but also housing
and job
procurement, trauma and stress counselling, support benefits for
both farmers
and their workers, and civil society, Commercial Farmers Union
and Zimbabwe
Tobacco Association liaison.
"Help and advice in these areas are
always available. Needless to say,
we must be farmer funded. All membership
fees and donations will be fully
accounted for, receipted and gratefully
acknowledged.
"All farmers' and non-farmers' donations are greatly
appreciated. More
donations will be required in the future as new legal
challenges need to be
taken locally and internationally," the spokesman
said.
Daily News
MDC applauds EU stance
11/27/02 8:45:22 AM
(GMT +2)
By Luke Tamborinyoka Political Editor
THE
European Union (EU), has been applauded for refusing to be
intimidated and
blackmailed into allowing the two banned Zimbabwean
ministers to attend the
EU-ACP joint parliamentary meeting in Brussels,
Belgium.
The
applause came from the MDC secretary-general, Welshman Ncube,
after the
break-up on Monday of a meeting of African, Caribbean and Pacific
(ACP),
countries and the EU.
The ACP representatives walked out in protest
at the European
Parliament's refusal to bar two ministers from its premises,
where the
meeting was scheduled to take place.
The two
Zimbabwean ministers, Chris Kuruneri, the deputy minister of
Finance and
Economic Development and Paul Mangwana, the Minister of State
Enterprises and
Parastatals, are on the list of top Zimbabwean officials
slapped with travel
bans to EU countries.
Ncube said yesterday there was no way the EU
would have allowed into
their Parliament "representatives of a murderous
regime which rigs elections
and murders its own people"
He said:
"We salute the EU for standing together with the
long-suffering people of
Zimbabwe who have known no peace and security since
President Mugabe's defeat
in the constitutional referendum in 2000."
Ncube said the EU stance
was a strong and clear message to Mugabe that
the free and democratic world
was no longer standing by to do business with
murderous regimes.
"They will be isolated, ostracised, and held accountable until such a
time
that they restore the freedoms and liberties of the people," he
said.
"It is a matter of regret that some of the ACP countries, in
this case
led by South Africa, have continued to betray the struggle of the
people of
Zimbabwe for democracy and freedom by remaining in solidarity with
the
dictatorial Mugabe regime," said Ncube.
He said while some
ACP countries were vociferous in their condemnation
of what they called EU
militarism, they had maintained their silence on
Mugabe's crimes and
sins.
Ncube said the MDC was aware that there were many ACP
countries who
did not agree with the positions taken by South Africa, Haiti,
Mali and
Cuba.
"We hope and trust that sooner rather than later,
the democratic
African and Caribbean countries will speak out and take a
position in
defence of the rights and freedoms of the people of Zimbabwe,"
Ncube said.
"The refusal of the EU to be intimidated by hysterical
African slogans
celebrating dictatorship and repression is a victory for all
democratic
forces in the world but more importantly for the people of
Zimbabwe, whose
every right has been trampled upon by the Mugabe regime," he
said.
Daily News
MDC attacks new monetary policy
11/27/02
8:44:36 AM (GMT +2)
By Chris Mhike Business
Reporter
THE new national monetary policy tabled by the Reserve
Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ), last week will not revive the economy, says the
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC).
The new monetary policy
which sought to dualise the interest rate
regime was presented by Dr Leonard
Tsumba, the RBZ governor.
Lending rates for exporters and companies
in the productive sector
were cut by more than half so that players could
borrow money at low
interest rates. While, importers, consumers and other
borrowers categorised
as "non-essential or consumption borrowers", would pay
higher interest rates
as determined by the market.
The official
banking rate, previously pegged at 57,2 percent was
immediately suspended
under the new policy, "until such a time when economic
conditions become
favourable".
Government normally presents its monetary policy twice
a year - in
January and June.
"In an attempt to lay out the
Bank's monetary policy stance,
consistent with the 2003 budget -it has become
necessary, however, to
timeously articulate complementary policy measures to
the budget statement,"
the RBZ said last week.
Economists and
other commentators have criticised Murerwa for his
failure to draft a
national economic instrument reflecting the nation's
fiscal and monetary
policies. The Minister imputed the onus to draft
monetary policy measures and
other fiscal policy implementation strategies
to numerous other government
ministries.
Last week's RBZ monetary policy announcement was the
first step
towards the completion of the economic policy whose picture
government
started painting on 14 November.
Tsumba said: "The
objective of the current monetary policy measures
has been to support both
the export and productive sectors by achieving a
low and stable rate of
inflation which stimulates positive growth.
In a statement released
this week, Tapiwa Mashakada, the MDC shadow
minister for finance, however
said the new monetary policy represented a
desperate ploy, which gave a false
impression that government was doing
something about the declining
economy.
Mashakada said: "The monetary policy has failed to address
the
shortage of the foreign currency in the country. That shortage has
forced
the Zimbabwean dollar to depreciate. The new policy is really clear on
how
people will obtain foreign currency from the banks."
He said
the low interest rate on loans policy had far reaching
implications for
consumers as it was unlikely to generate investment.
"People would
rather borrow to replace their own capital which can be
used to speculate and
externalise assets."
The new monetary policy has received mixed
reactions from business and
the public.
Antony Mandiwanza, the
president of the Confederation of Zimbabwe
Industries (CZI), said the policy
was incomprehensive in its approach to
economic problems.
Witness Chinyama of Kingdom Financial Holdings Limited said the dual
interest
policy would be easily implemented as "the government will find it
difficult
to divide the market into two to apply the policy rate."
Shingie
Munyeza, ZimSun's chief executive, hailed the new policy as a
positive move.
Munyeza, said since tourism was recognised as part of the
export sector, it
would have access to cheaper money to rebuild the
industry.
The
Herald also welcomed the new policy.
In an editorial on 21
November, the government-controlled newspaper
said: "The new monetary policy
is just what the doctor ordered . . . The
monetary policy is a step in the
right direction but the central bank now
needs to come up with more
incentives, particularly for the export sector to
generate more foreign
currency for the country."
Daily News
State tightens money supply
11/27/02
8:39:24 AM (GMT +2)
By Colleen Gwari Business
Reporter
IN a bid to resolve the dire foreign currency crisis, the
government,
through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), is reportedly
reducing money
supply on the market.
Economic analysts said the
much talked about tumbling of foreign
currency rates on the parallel market
were temporary as the central bank
implemented its new monetary
policy.
Commercial banks which spoke to The Daily News said the
government had
instructed them to limit individual transactions to a maximum
of $5 million
a day.
In a related move, the government has
forced banks to lengthen the
period in which cheque deposits can be cleared
for withdrawals.
The move had resulted in a money supply shortage
which would tend to
trigger a rise in interest rates.
Taking a
queue from the money market, foreign currency parallel rates
tumbled, with
the United States dollar trading at a $1 000 a unit, while the
pound sterling
was trading at about $2 000.
Although commercial banks could not
provide exact figures of the money
supply deficit, saying the recently
adopted Zimbabwe Real Time Gross
Settlement System was running days behind,
indications were that the money
supply situation would continue.
Contrary to government views that the closure of the bureaux de change
would
help force rates down, business leaders and economic analysts had
warned that
it would further worsen the situation.
A visit to some bureaux de
change in the capital yesterday, showed
that most had stopped
trading.
The panic associated with the government's intentions to
abolish the
foreign exchange bureaus had forced members of the public to hold
on to
their foreign currency in anticipation of better rates.
While exporters welcomed the RBZ monetary policy saying it would
help
resuscitate most companies faced with collapse, and generate the
much-needed
foreign currency, the mining sector cried foul, saying its
allocations were
far below expectations.
Under the dual rate
policy, borrowing by the export and productive
sectors would attract interest
rates of between 5 and 15 percent, while
consumption borrowing rates would be
market-driven.
The RBZ has also suspended the bank rate which was
fixed at 57,2
percent.
The banking sector, doubting the
sustainability of a rather fragmented
policy, had adopted a wait-and-see
attitude.
The Bankers' Association of Zimbabwe said it was up to
individual
banks to draft their own minimum lending rates.
Daily News
NCA to demonstrate again this weekend
11/27/02 8:46:13 AM (GMT +2)
From Ntungamili Nkomo in
Bulawayo
THE National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), says it will
hold
nationwide demonstrations on Saturday this week to raise awareness among
the
people to challenge Zanu PF's legitimacy as a government and call for a
new
constitution.
Felix Mafa, the NCA acting national chairman,
said in Bulawayo
yesterday they wanted civic organisations to educate and
enlighten people on
the major causes of the problems facing the
country.
He said these were a direct consequence of President
Mugabe and his
government which he said rigged the March presidential
elections in broad
daylight.
Previous efforts by the NCA to
stage demonstrations have been thwarted
by the police.
But
recently, the NCA has changed its strategy, holding
demonstrations, not in
the city centre, but in the high-density suburbs to
evade the
police.
"The NCA is demonstrating to make the people realise and
appreciate
that the socio-economic crisis in our country emanates from a
government
which is illegitimate, illegal and not people-oriented," said
Mafa.
He said the NCA would defy the Public Order and Security Act
(POSA)
which requires that the police be notified before a rally or
public
gathering takes place.
Mafa, who is acting in place of
Lovemore Madhuku, described the Act as
a "draconian piece of legislation"
designed by Zanu PF to oppress the
masses.
There was need for
the people to stand up and challenge it, he said.
"We are following the
same strategy we have been using and we are not
going to ask for a go-ahead
from the police because we know what the answer
will be."
Mafa
said POSA contravened section 20-23 chapter 3 of the Bill of
Rights and was
therefore illegal. "Freedom of association and assembly is
clearly enshrined
in the Bill of Rights and by holding a demonstration we
feel we are doing the
right thing that POSA is trying to deprive us of," he
said.
The
demonstrations would start in the high-density suburbs all around
the country
and he urged people to join.
Mafa said: "We are not identifying
exact venues but we will start from
the suburbs, and as usual, we are
expecting thousands of people to join us."
He urged people to
support the idea of a new constitution that would
make possible an election
re-run.
"May I also advise those who are well-enlightened about the
cause of
our crisis to conscientise others so they can realise that there is
a need
for a new constitution that will enhance our socio-political
stability.
"We strongly believe that a new constitution would
definitely change
things for the better."
Mafa lashed out at the
Southern African Development Community (Sadc)
countries for "condoning" the
abuse of human rights in the country by Zanu
PF and even recognising a
"misbegotten government".
"We are questioning the sanity of Sadc
and those who have expressly
condoned every wrong that has been happening in
the country. Zanu PF has
politicised food aid, which is a fundamental right
that should be equally
disbursed regardless of one's political affiliation,"
said Mafa.
The food situation has raised much apprehension as those
perceived to
be opposed to Zanu PF are denied maize-meal
Washington File
26 November 2002
Zimbabwe, Botswana
Score at Opposite Ends of Freedom Index
(Heritage Foundation report shows
striking contrast) (800)
By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington File Staff
Writer
Washington -- Zimbabwe has reached another low with the release of
the
Heritage Foundation's "2003 Index of Economic Freedom" that rates
the
once dynamic nation just above North Korea and Cuba as among the
most
repressed places on earth, politically and economically.
In
contrast, Zimbabwe's neighbor, Botswana, was judged sub-Saharan
Africa's
"freest country" because of its adherence to democratization
and open market
reforms. Overall, it ranked 35 out of 156 nations
rated by the Index. At the
bottom of the list, Zimbabwe tied with Laos
at 153, followed by Cuba at 155
and North Korea's 156.
The Heritage Foundation was established in 1973as
a research and
educational institute (think tank) whose mission is to further
the
principles of free enterprise, limited government and
individual
freedom. It has been rating the nations of the world against
those
elemental criteria for nine years.
The Heritage staff in
cooperation with the Wall Street Journal
newspaper compiled the 2003 Index
based on data collected from June
2001 to June 2002. Statistics came from:
The Economist Magazine's
Intelligence Unit; International Monetary Fund
(IMF); World Bank;
Transparency International; and the U.S. Departments of
State and
Commerce.
The 439-page report was released to the public at
a November 22 forum
the Heritage Foundation sponsored on conflict in Africa.
Keynoting the
forum, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
Walter
Kansteiner commented on the situation in Zimbabwe, citing the
recent
of an American there. "An American citizen was shot and killed at
a
roadblock in Zimbabwe. We have asked for a full explanation. We
have
gotten a partial explanation from a police report and are awaiting
a
more detailed one. There was an autopsy that was performed and
we're
waiting for that results." Last week, U.S. and U.N. diplomats
were
illegally detained and their driver beaten by Zimbabwe
police.
The Economic Index judged 156 nations using a number of
political,
economic and social variables, including trade policy,
government
intervention in the economy, foreign investment, property rights
and
the black market. The countries were scored on a five-point
system
with one being the best and five the worst. Botswana had a score
of
2.50 and Zimbabwe 4.40.
The United States came in at number six,
tying with Denmark and
Estonia. In Latin America, Chile, with a score of
2.00, came in best
in the region. In the Middle East, Bahrain "remains the
most
economically free country" in the region, tied for 16th in the
overall
Heritage list. Hong Kong registered first in Asia with a score
of
1.45, which also made it "the world's freest economy."
In Asia, the
Index stressed that "the four freest economies in the
region -- Hong Kong,
Singapore, New Zealand and Australia, have stayed
true to their Anglo-Saxon
roots by keeping legal systems modeled after
Great Britain" and therefore
prospered.
In a preface to this year's report, Heritage President Edwin
Feulner
wrote: "The road to economic freedom is not easy, but it is
rewarding.
Today, however, even as economic freedom continues to grow
in
countries in all regions of the world, many other countries continue
to
pursue the failed and counterproductive policies of the past,"
Feulner
added.
And a prime example of the latter is Zimbabwe, where President
Robert
Mugabe, through his autocratic rule and economic mismanagement,
has
managed to turn an agricultural and industrial infrastructure
envied
by many into a pauper state that requires food relief
from
international donors; thus making the Index's most "repressed"
list.
The Index states: "Overall, economic freedom in sub-Saharan Africa
has
improved in the past year. The scores of 19 countries are
better."
However, "Zimbabwe remains the region's least economically free
and
continues to deteriorate," in part, because of Mugabe's
policies.
"In an effort to increase the support for his presidency," the
Index
noted for example, "Mugabe set in motion a plan to confiscate
farmland
without compensation, later urging his supporters to occupy land
owned
by political rivals. This policy was pursued openly even though
the
Zimbabwe Supreme Court ruled the invasions unconstitutional."
In
contrast, Feulner said, "The list of greatly improved countries [in
the
Index] includes Botswana.[which] has long served, through its
prudent
economic policies, as a model of successful development for
sub-Saharan
Africa. Having capitalized on its record by improving its
trade policy,
capital flows and foreign investment, banking and
finance and regulation
scores, Botswana is now Africa's freest
country."
Botswana also
achieved another distinction in the Heritage report. In
2001, the Index began
a separate list of countries whose economic
policies were "prudent" and
advanced enough for inclusion in a Global
Free Trade Association. They were
judged on several criteria
including: Open trade policies, liberal capital
and investment flows,
ease in operating businesses because of low regulatory
burdens, and
rule of law that secures property rights. The countries that
qualified
for the Association in the 2003 Index included Botswana, "because
of
improvements in its trade, regulation and foreign investment"
ratings.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of
International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
Coming home
Alexandra Fuller has been nominated for a Guardian First Book
Award for her
memoir of a childhood in Africa. Here, posing as an American
tourist, she
returns to Zimbabwe to visit the valley she grew up in.
Everything is
astonishingly familiar - and yet fatally
different
Wednesday November 27, 2002
The Guardian
I am once
again in Zimbabwe, on a journey back to the creased mountains of
my childhood
where my family once owned a bad-luck, if picturesque, chunk of
land. Near
the farm, chopped out from the spilling exuberance of jungle, my
younger
sister Olivia is buried. We gave up the farm in 1981, at the end of
the war
of independence in what was known (in those orderly days) as a
"compulsory
purchase" (whereby black Zimbabweans were relocated lands
previously held by
white people). I want to see both the farm and Olivia's
grave before it is
too late.
This tight fist of soil pressed up against the Mozambique border
contains
the ghosts of so many of my memories. And in a way, this tiny,
stubborn farm
(more rock than soil, more beauty than brawn) also holds the
ghosts of
Zimbabwe's memories. On these lands, 25 years ago, my sister and I
uncovered
shards of pottery from ancient burial sites. Later we stumbled upon
echoes
of Zimbabwe/Rhodesia's bitter fight for independence (army camps in
the
kopjes). Still now, the land is gathering into its depths the people
who
pass over her surface.
The farm, careless of those who have bled,
birthed, died or fought on it,
has not, I discover, lost its shape. Roads
have washed away, barns have
crumbled, weeds have swallowed where Rhodes
grass once prevailed, but the
essential red, obstinate earth is
unmoved.
I could not come into Zimbabwe as a journalist, so I applied for
a tourist
visa from the Zimbabwean embassy in Washington DC. David Manyika,
who issues
visas at the embassy, was chatty and personable. I found myself
(prelude to
Africa) sitting on the steps of the embassy with him one late
September
morning. We were waiting for someone who had the keys and who had
not yet
arrived to open shop. Not that it mattered terribly much. There is
hardly a
queue of anxious travellers hoping to visit Zimbabwe.
"What
are you here for?" asked David, "do you want to apply for a
Zimbabwean
passport?"
It took me a moment to see that, in David's
eyes, this was a tremendous
joke. "A Zimbabwean passport!" he repeated,
weeping with laughter.
The queue at the passport office in Harare, on the
other hand, snakes down
the street for two kilometres, day and night. Street
children sell their
places in the queue to anxious citizens desperate to
leave Zimbabwe - from
Z$250 for a place near the front of the line to an
economical Z$50 for a
station near the back.
And David, unlike most of
his stay-at-home colleagues, supports Mugabe. In
10 days within Zimbabwe
itself (among the traders in the makeshift
marketplaces, the passengers on
the bus, the nurses at the hospitals, the
teachers at my old school) I find
only two Mugabe supporters. One is drunk
(veering at me from a group of
bleary intoxicants slouched under the shade
of a veranda at a tavern outside
Chinhoyi yelling, "You white! Go away! We
kill you! Zanu-PF!") and the other
is a diamond smuggler from the Congo, and
so presumably ineligible to vote in
Zimbabwean elections anyway, (declaring
in French-accented English,
"Zimbabwe, it is great. Here it is built; good
roads, good busses, nice
exchange rate, plenty of business. No law and
order.
Perfect!")
Clutching my visa (there are rumours that immigration is no
longer allowing
those in possession of a British passport into the country,
so I am grateful
for my recent decision to become an American citizen) and
trying to look as
casually like a daughter-returning-to-visit- family as
possible, I arrive in
Harare's impressively modern new airport. My parents,
who have driven
through the western half of Zimbabwe from the place where
they now farm in
Zambia, are here to meet me and to spend a day with me
before I rent my own
car and journey east alone, back to our old farm. My
father is smoking his
pipe under a large laminated sign asking him, in both
Shona and English, not
to do so, and mum has her nose in a well-fingered
book. They embody, for me,
the scent of home; cut tobacco, parched paper,
sun-scoured skin, road dust,
horse sweat and flea-plagued dogs. I bury my
face in my father's embrace.
This is what is most familiar and beloved to
me.
And it is familiar still. What is immediately surprising about
Zimbabwe, and
Harare in particular, is that it has changed so little in the
last couple of
years in spite of the ripe pungency of rot which emanates from
its body
politic. The roads are still well-kempt, the street lights still
work
(mostly) and the shops are still bursting with consumer goods (for the
fewer
and fewer who can afford to purchase them). Restaurants still
offer
incredible service, and the hotels are among the finest I have stayed
in
anywhere - staff are deferential, menus are replete with choices
and
properties are now staked with a sign that reads (in peculiarly
polite
Zimbabwean fashion), "Please Don't Panic! It is Necessary that our
Grounds
are Patrolled By Armed Guards. This is for your Safety and
Comfort."
What has changed is the increased presence of Mugabe's militia
machine and
the corresponding rows of displaced, starving people, hunched on
Harare's
main streets. Members of Mugabe's green-uniformed "youth brigade"
are
dispatched from the paranoid body that makes up the country's
leadership.
They are nicknamed "greenbottles" by the locals. (Greenbottles,
it turns
out, is also the name given to the fat, psychedelic flies familiar
to any
hunter or butcher in this part of Africa that feed off carrion). These
youth
are infamously aggressive and power-hungry and they are omnipresent. I
have
barely left Harare, no one has even pointed a gun at me yet, and I
am
already intimidated.
When I arrive in Zimbabwe, it is almost
October. The month which the Mashona
know as "Gumiguru" or "the month of the
big 10" but which white people have
always known as "suicide month." It is
the beginning of the end of the dry
season, it has not rained for months and,
by now, it feels as if it may
never rain again. It is an ominous month,
inscrutable with its withheld
rain, swollen with waiting and hopelessness. It
is usually the time when
farmers are preparing their land for the spring
planting - when, across the
country, great plumes of red dust kick up behind
tractors. This year, the
tractors are, for the most part, silenced and
instead a thick blanket of
woodsmoke hangs like a ragged cloud, above the
land, turning the sky to
unwashed grey and tinting the sun a pale, nicotine
yellow.
A great, heavy, pregnant sense of waiting and dread prevails. On
my slow
journey home, I visit as many old friends and acquaintances as I can
find.
All, without exception, have stories of intimidation, violence,
attacks,
beatings, vote-rigging by Zanu-PF against anyone who dares oppose
Mugabe's
regime. By the time I reach the valley in which I grew up, I am
weighed down
with a sense of complete hopelessness for this country. How can
it survive
this madness?
It is old Thomas Matenga, whom I have known
since I was a tiny child, who
gives me a gleam of hope. Thomas, who is
managing a still-existent
commercial farm in the area in which I grew up,
knows exactly where Olivia,
my sister is buried. It has been a long time
since I have seen her grave,
and Thomas offers to show me the road leading up
to it. First we snake
through an old orange orchard and up to a house (which
did not exist in my
time) now occupied by the manager of the farm which
encircles this little
old cemetery. We get out and walk and Thomas takes off
his hat in a gesture
of respect as we approach the fenced-off enclosure of
these old graves (the
fence does nothing to stop the exuberant attention of
the local monkeys).
Olivia's grave is closest to us, near the rusted gate.
The vegetation around
the grave is overgrown; moss and weeds have swallowed
the top of the tiny
hump which describes her diminutive corpse.
We
stand in silence for a moments until the tears stop. Then I ask
Thomas,
"Promise me that if those thugs come and kick you off, you will come
and
tell her goodbye from me."
Thomas turns his brilliant smile on me.
"They won't kick me out. As long as
I have blood in my body, I will stand up
to those people. What does this old
man [Mugabe] think of us? That we are
weak? That we will give up and let him
kill our country? No. There is nothing
that old man and his 'youth' can do
to me that hasn't been done to me
already. Ha! He can take our voices, but
he can't take our
minds."
"You are the most illogically optimistic old man I have ever
met," I tell
him.
The next day, I drive back along, old familiar
roads, ribbed with erosion
and still laced with the shade of old msasa trees.
I am in search of Mr
Donald (his father was Scottish, his mother a Mashona),
who is one of the 21
tenants who live on what used to be our old farm. Mr
Donald has made his
house in the old grading shed (where, as a child, I
learned to count in
Shona by running up and down the rows of tobacco bales,
"Potsi, piri, tatu,
ini!") Mr Donald welcomes me in for tea laced with soured
milk - the
open-mouthed breath of the old grading shed is still bitter with
ancient
burley tobacco.
I dip, blinking into the dim room and stand
for a moment to let my eyes
adjust to this new idea of the grading shed. A
wall of old hessian sacks
separates a double bed from a sofa and two chairs.
There is a television set
in the corner and a photograph of Mr Donald's son,
pressed into submission
in a careful school uniform, smiles shyly down from
its stand on a lace
table cloth on the Welsh dresser.
The place is
dusty with the fine film of red kicked up from the powdery dirt
floor. Two of
Mr Donald's younger children sit by the door (they are swollen
with what I
recognise to be worms, tinged by malnutrition) and are greedily
crunching
their way through the bag of green apples that I have brought for
them. I am
conscious, suddenly, that the only toilet available to these
children is a
skinny long-drop set up next to the old grading shed.
Mr Donald and I
begin to talk farming: we exchange advice on how best to rid
the soil of star
grass, (what is needed is fertiliser, irrigation, a tractor
and a plough
whereas Mr Donald works with a team of oxen and has access to
neither
fertiliser nor irrigation). We discuss the most effective method of
removing
ticks from a cow and the difficulty of obtaining maize seed in
Zimbabwe
today. We discuss tobacco prices.
"I sold five bales of tobacco last
season," Mr Donald tells me. "The
government took Z$30 000 [£350]for taxes
and also for this new tobacco levy.
I don't know what the levy is for. They
left me with Z$30,000. It's not
enough to plant another crop this
year."
Mr Donald looks much older than his 50 years. He wears an old felt
hat with
a leopard- skin band, a worn cotton shirt and bare feet. He fought
during
the war for Ian Smith's government. His direct neighbour (who owns a
tractor
and has already completed his ploughing in preparation for this
year's crop
and who owns a herd of 30 impressively fat cattle) is an
ex-combatant too,
although, unlike Mr Donald he fought to liberate Rhodesia
from white rule
and is now entitled to a government pension.
After
tea, Mr Donald takes me up behind the old workshop (which now houses
Mrs
Donald's chickens) and shows me where he plans to build a house one day,
and
the mukwa tree under which he has instructed his son to bury him when
he
dies. "I am very happy on this place," Mr Donald says, "of that there is
no
doubt. I want to pass it to my son one day. But at this rate there will
be
nothing for my children. This way we will all soon be starving. The dreams
I
had in my head for this place have died in my heart."
The sun is low
in the west as I make my way back to the car. The air is
releasing into its
rolling embrace the hot-breathed scent of the potato
bush. An
emerald-splattered dove begins to call, "my mother is dead, my
father is
dead, and my relatives are dead, and my heart goes dum, dum, dum."
From
here, I drive back to Harare (setting myself conspicuously apart from
the
general population in my bubble of blue Mazda) and then get the bus to
the
border crossing into Zambia. The border town of Chirundu in October is
as
close as I have ever come to the biblical description of hell.
A
topographical map of Zimbabwe and Zambia shows the two countries
converging
here in a depression of pale yellow, and the heat is
correspondingly thin
and breathless.
The Zimbabwean side of Chirundu
is crushed with an anguish of bodies who
appear to be suffering damnation
without relief. A long, rickety shelter,
which does nothing to keep out the
heat and dust, supports the multitude of
Zimbabweans hoping to escape into
Zambia in the next week or so. They sleep
and eat and sleep some more, one on
top of the other, too afraid to move
from their seats and lose their place in
the queue out of here.
Zimbabwe has become a haunted land - a country
without a voice. Some voices
have simply disappeared. Other voices have
simply been intimidated into
silence. An old school friend, a single mother
in Harare, told me: "Of
course I have an opinion. You know me. What do you
think I think of this old
man? But I see those guys at the roadblocks and I
flash my party card and I
give them the fist," she showed me her Zanu-PF
salute, "because if they lock
me away, who takes care of Toby?"
My
fellow bus passengers include several well-dressed traders from
the
Democratic Republic of Congo ("Do you want to buy some diamonds?"), a
few
haunted-looking smugglers from Mozambique (pathetically small quantities
of
cooking oil and sugar jealously guarded under a thin layer of clothes),
some
cheerfully drunk Zambians and a few subdued Zimbabweans. It takes us
more
than two hours to clear the border, by which time I have been accepted
as
the resident idiot American abroad.
It takes a special kind of
patience to travel for long distances by bus in
Africa. Many of my companions
have brought entertainment for the drive in
the form of cassette players and
cans of Castle lager; the rest console
themselves with regular visits to
every tavern east of Karoi ("Driver! Stop
here!"). As a result, we are now
also forced to stop frequently between
taverns ("Driver! I mean it! Stop
here!"). The drunks disgorge themselves
from the bus where they scatter
jubilantly across the countryside, into
fields once sternly separated from
the road by fierce strands of barbed wire
and now apparently open to
all.
Almost all, that is.
"I wouldn't get off the bus here, if I
were you, sister," one of the
Zimbabwean women warns me (she is wearing a
black vest that proudly
proclaims in silver writing, "SLUT," and a pair of
very tight green jeans).
"They might think you are British, these war
veterans. They don't like
British."
I stare out at the field. It is
burned almost beyond recognition - and those
hasty huts with their
suspiciously-staring residents didn't used to be
there. I used to know this
farm. In those days, I would have been welcome to
make use of the bathroom
facilities at the main house while my fellow
passengers would have been
limited to a quick visit behind the roadside
bougainvillea bushes. I cross my
legs and shrug.
I am sitting next to a very old woman who has also
foregone the distracting
benefits of warm beer and frequent pee stops.
Although we have smiled at one
another and we have both gone out of way to
allow the other as much legroom
as possible, we have not exchanged a word.
Now, as she stares out at the
drunks frolicking in the searing light of the
afternoon - the driver is
trying, without success, to herd them back into the
bus - she says suddenly,
"You should see these lumps on my feet."
I
politely inspect the lumps which are, admittedly, impressive. "You
people
should pay attention to what is happening to Zimbabwe not because half
of us
will die in the next few months, but because half of us will live," the
old
woman says as I am looking at her feet.
I sit up to look at her,
but her old face has folded back into itself, and
her eyes have closed. The
drunks clamour back onto the bus, we lurch forward
and my thoughts are
drowned out by the roar of the bus and the blaring
music.
· Don't
Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller's memoirs of her
childhood in
Africa, is one of five books shortlisted for this year's
Guardian First Book
Award. For more information on the shortlist go
to
guardian.co.uk/books/firstbook2002.
From The Mail & Guardian (SA),
27 November
Zimbabwe boots AFP chief out of the
country
Harare – The Zimbabwe government on Tuesday refused to renew
the work permit of the AFP bureau chief in Harare, who must now leave the
country by the end of the week. AFP's chairman and chief executive officer
Bertrand Eveno expressed the international news agency's "deep regret" at the
decision in a letter to the Zimbabwe government. Stephane Barbier (43) who has
been the bureau chief in the five-country regional office in Harare since July
2001, must leave by Saturday when his current work permit expires. Eveno said in
the letter that AFP has maintained a regional office in Zimbabwe for 22 years
"acting always in good faith and strict compliance with all laws and regulations
of your country." "I am obliged to register Agence France-Presse's sincere
disappointment in this matter," Eveno said. In September the Zimbabwe
authorities refused to renew the work permit of Griffin Shea, a US national
working for AFP. Barbier's initial one-year permit had been extended by six
months in June this year.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo in July indicated to AFP
that under the country's new press law, only Zimbabwean journalists would be
allowed to work in the country. President Robert Mugabe enacted a law in March
that imposed stringent limits on press freedoms for independent and foreign
journalists working in the country. The Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act allows only permanent residents or Zimbabwean nationals to operate
as journalists on a long-term basis. Foreign journalists may work only for an
unspecified "limited period" or cover specific events. The Supreme Court is due
to make a ruling in a lawsuit filed by Zimbabwean journalists challenging the
constitutionality of the law. Subject to registration under the new law, AFP
plans to keep its Harare office manned by Zimbabwean journalists but the
regional office will move to Johannesburg, South Africa. The Harare bureau
covers Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
War Vet's Trial Postponed
The Herald (Harare)
November 27,
2002
Posted to the web November 27, 2002
Harare
THE trial of a
key suspect in the murder of Macheke farmer Mr David Stevens
will only start
after the completion of the case of his co-accused who is
facing the same
charges, the High Court ruled on Monday.
Banda Katsamudanga, a war
veteran implicated as the key suspect in the
murder of Mr Stevens, is being
tried separately with four other suspects.
His co-accused,
Richard Svisviro, Muyengwa Munyuki, Charles Matanda and
Douglas Chitekuteku
had their trial stopped early this month after Svisviro
fell ill during the
proceedings.
Katsamudanga who could not be located at the time the trial
commenced, was
separately indicted for trial a week after the case of his
co-accused had
started.
His trial, however, had been set to begin on
Monday in anticipation that the
case of the other four would have been
completed.
But the State, led by prosecutor Mrs Fortune Chimbaru, asked
for a
postponement to allow the conclusion of the case of Svisviro and the
other
three co-accused.
Justice Chinhengo and assessors, Major Misheck
Nyandoro and Mr Stanley
Tutani, granted the application on the basis that
there was a possibility by
the State to call accomplice witnesses in the
event the four are convicted.
The court released Katsamudanga out of
custody on $5 000 bail. It is not
certain when the trial of Svisviro and the
other three will resume since his
condition has not improved.
All Set for Launch of Transfrontier Park
The Herald
(Harare)
November 27, 2002
Posted to the web November 27,
2002
Harare
Presidents Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Joaquim Chissano of
Mozambique and Thabo
Mbeki of South Africa will officially launch the Great
Limpopo Transfrontier
Park next month.
The launch will take place on
the Mozambican side of the new park believed
to be one of the world' largest
transfrontier conservation areas.
The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park
links Gonarezhou National Park on the
Zimbabwean side, Gaza National Park in
Mozambique and Kruger National Park
in South Africa.
Tourism ministers
from the three countries, Cde Francis Nhema of Zimbabwe,
Mr Fernandos Sumbana
of Mozambique and Mr Mohammed Vali Moosa of South
Africa met in Harare
yesterday to finalise preparations for the launch.
Cde Nhema told
participants at the meeting that as the three countries moved
closer to the
launch, it was important to address inherent challenges in a
new innovative
and creative manner.
"We must have the courage to recognise our
successes, mistakes and failures
in the past and use them in a positive
manner for the future.
"A balanced approach, carrying the necessity to be
flexible and recognising
our different capacities will ensure that we move
together in harmony and
that there will be no loss for anyone involved but a
gain for us all," said
Cde Nhema.
The permanent secretary in the
Ministry of Environment and Tourism,
Ambassador Lucas Tavaya, said the
signing ceremony was scheduled for
December 8 or 9 in
Mozambique.
"Final preparations have already been completed and
everything is set for
next month.
"The opening of the new park is
expected to attract several thousands of
tourists starting from next year,"
he said.
Ambassador Tavaya said the park was expected to unlock great
potential for
tourism revival and investment in Zimbabwe and the
region.
Apart from the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, Zimbabwe was
also linking
up Chimanimani National Park in Manicaland with
Mozambique.
In Victoria Falls, another conservation area, the
Okavango-Upper Zambezi
Mega Park, would benefit Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and
Zambia.
The countries have removed border fences to allow elephants and
other game
to follow traditional migration routes and tourists to travel
across
boundaries without facing border controls.
CNN
Zimbabwe bans foreign journalist
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Posted: 10:23 AM EST (1523 GMT)
HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) -- Invoking a
harsh new media law, Zimbabwe's
information department has refused to renew
the work permit for the French
news agency AFP's Harare bureau
chief.
Stephane Barbier, 43, has worked in Zimbabwe since June 2001. He will
move
to South Africa on Saturday but the news agency will maintain a bureau
in
Harare, staffed by Zimbabweans, AFP said.
Zimbabwe's Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act, passed this
year to a clamour of
protest from media freedom organisations, bans foreign
journalists from being
based permanently in the country.
"It was expected. I did not expect a
miracle," Barbier told Reuters on
Wednesday in reaction to Tuesday's
ruling.
AFP's chairman and chief executive, Bertrand Eveno, said in a letter
to
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo that AFP had maintained a regional
office
in Zimbabwe for 22 years "acting always in good faith and strict
compliance
with all laws and regulations of your country."
"I am obliged
to register Agence France-Presse's sincere disappointment in
this matter,"
Eveno said, adding that he "strongly condemned" the measure.
The information
department's letter to Barbier, seen by Reuters said:
"Reference is made to
your correspondence... in which you ask for a letter
of support from the
department to enable the department of immigration to
consider your
application for renewal of a work permit."
"The Department of Information and
Publicity deeply regrets that it is
unable to issue a recommendation on the
matter."
Only a handful of foreign news organisations maintain a presence in
Zimbabwe
where President Robert Mugabe's government is grappling with
political,
economic and agricultural crises.
Reuters has a bureau with two
correspondents -- both Zimbabweans.
The media law punishes "abuse of
journalistic privilege," such as publishing
falsehoods, with fines and up to
two years in prison.
Twelve journalists have been charged under the new act,
including a
correspondent for Britain's Guardian newspaper, Andrew Meldrum,
who was
acquitted in July of charges of reproducing a false
story.
Meldrum, a U.S. citizen and a Zimbabwe permanent resident, is
challenging
his subsequent deportation from the country.
Zimbabwe's
Supreme Court reserved judgement last Thursday on a challenge by
journalists
against the media laws.
The Independent Journalists' Association of Zimbabwe
(IJAZ) says sections of
the act, which Mugabe signed into law in March,
infringe their
constitutional rights.
ZIMBABWE: Government maize import monopoly challenged
JOHANNESBURG, 27
November (IRIN) - The Zimbabwe government's monopoly on maize imports, long
cited as one of the reasons why the country is battling to keep up with food
needs, is being challenged by a private importer which claims its constitutional
rights have been violated.
A World Food Programme cereal import progress
report for mid-November recorded Zimbabwe's total uncovered cereal gap until the
next harvest as 465,051 mt. But a government order issued last year has fixed
the price of maize and given the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) sole distribution
rights.
This was to protect consumers during shortages brought on by a
drought and disruptions to commercial farming during the land reform
programme.
In response, importer Frontline Marketing took the matter to
the Supreme Court this week, arguing that the company's constitutional right to
trade was being infringed.
"My client [Frontline Marketing] trades in
commodities and wants the opportunity to trade in maize," the firm's lawyer,
Linda Chitato, told IRIN on Wednesday.
The matter was heard by five
judges, in accordance with challenges based on the constitution, and judgement
was reserved, she said.
Opposition Movement for Democratic Change
agriculture spokesman Renson Gasela said the GMB should allow anyone to import
maize, to overcome the current shortages.
He conceded that prices of the
unsubsidised commodity would increase, but "at least it would make it
available."
He said that at the moment the government had allowed brewers
to import maize, but this was on condition it was used to brew beer, and not
resold.
"They should support anyone who wants to bring in maize," he told
IRIN.
[ENDS]
IRIN-SA
WOMEN AND CONCERNED CITIZENS OF BULAWAYO - BRING YOUR POTS TO BANG
TOGETHER
AND WEAR YOUR RIBBONS -
LET US ALL JOIN TOGETHER
Let us end
the silent suffering
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
is on the increase.
DOMESTIC
VIOLENCE
is the cause of......
Murdered and battered women
Raped,
maimed and abandoned children
This could be you, your mother, your sister,
your daughter.
LET US MARCH TOGETHER
FOR POSITIVE CHANGE
FOR
KNOWLEDGE
FOR THE WORLD TO KNOW.
When..... 3 December 2002
12
Noon
Where .....From the High Court
to the Governor's
Office
Who......All women and sympathisers
"Women, change starts with
you"
Domestic Violence Probably Effects More Than Half of Zimbabwe's
Women
This frightening revelation is made according to a survey conducted by
the
Musasa Project, a non-governmental women's rights' group, in March 1996.
972
women aged 18 years and over were interviewed about their experiences
since
the age of 16 in the Midlands province.
Researchers found
that:
* One in two women had suffered psychological abuse, ranging
from
insults and threats of violence to having their partner boast of or
bring
home other lovers.
* One in three had been sexually abused or
harassed, or forced to have
sex against their will, while one in six had been
choked, strangled,
intentionally burned or attacked with a weapon.
* One
out of every 12 respondents said she had been physically abused
while
pregnant.
* Only about 17 percent reported no violence against them.
*
One-third of the women had suffered economic abuse, such as
being
deliberately deprived of money or prevented from working by their
partners.
Most of the respondents were abused by someone they knew -- a
spouse,
partner, in-law or neighbor.
Women or children who have been
sexually assaulted also face a very real
risk of acquiring HIV/AIDS.
The
women who escape from violent relationships face poverty and little
means to
support their children. Each year, a number of women try to commit
suicide to
escape such difficult situations.
Children in abusive households also suffer
from the effects of violence,
whether or not they are physically abused.
Studies have shown that children
who witness violence may experience many of
the same emotional and
behavioral problems that physically abused children
experience, such as
depression, aggression, disobedience, nightmares,
physical health complaints
and poor school performance.
LET US MAKE OUR
CHILDREN'S LIVES SAFER
WOMEN, CHANGE STARTS WITH YOU.
JOIN THE MARCH
AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
3 DECEMBER 2002
Daily News
Government too big: report
11/27/02 8:54:18
AM (GMT +2)
Staff Reporter
THE government is too
large and cannot be sustained by a small economy
such as Zimbabwe's, a
Parliamentary committee said in its report to
Parliament
yesterday.
The chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on the
Budget, State
Enterprises and Parastatals, Finance and Economic Development,
David
Chapfika, said the proposed 2003 Budget, which was being debated, gave
more
allocations to recurrent expenditure.
"There have been
deficits on the recurrent budget in the past, but
these had been tackled by
previous ministers. Its emergence suggests that
although there is a projected
decline in the overall deficit relative to the
Gross Domestic Product, there
remains a problem in the structure of
government expenditure patterns,"
Chapfika said.
"These suggest that the size of government is still
too large compared
with the size and performance of the
economy."
Chapfika said the salaries bill alone consumed 49,4
percent of revenue
and 34,6 percent of the Budget expenditure.
Opposition MPs said the Budget fell short of addressing the
country's
hardships.
Tapiwa Mashakada, the Shadow Minister for
Finance, said the Budget did
not solve the problems of the ordinary man in
the street.
"The workers expect to see a budget which is a vehicle
for job
creation and which increases disposable income in their pockets," he
said.
Mashakada said the Budget was addressing the symptoms and not
the real
crisis of the economy, adding that some capital projects such as the
Zambezi
Water Project were always on the Budget statements but nothing had
been done
over the years.
Tendai Biti (Harare East) described
the Budget as a "sham", saying it
was meant to reproduce the Zanu PF
government at all costs.
Meanwhile, the former Minister of Health
and Child Welfare, Timothy
Stamps, and the former Minister of Finance and
Economic Development, Simba
Makoni, have retired and resigned, respectively,
as non-constituency MPs.
The two have left to pave the way for Amos
Midzi, the new Minister of
Energy and Power Development, and Witness
Mangwende, the Minister of
Transport and Communications, who were recently
appointed to President
Mugabe's so-called war Cabinet.
Their
departure was announced yesterday by the Speaker of Parliament,
Emmerson
Mnangagwa, who told the House that the two former ministers left
last
week.
He said Stamps and Makoni had resigned with effect from
Thursday and
Friday last week, respectively.
"We commend them
for their service to Parliament and to their
country," Mnangagwa
said.
He said Midzi and Mangwende had become MPs with effect from
last
Saturday and they would be sworn in today.
SABC
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zimbabwe not fit for cricket matches
November 27, 2002,
09:00
Zimbabwe is scheduled to host six of the Cricket
World Cup
matches, but concerns arising from violence over the country's
controversial
land reform programme have led to calls for the matches to be
moved.
A delegation led by Malcolm Speed, ICC Chief
Executive, includes
the chief executives of the boards of the countries due
to play in Zimbabwe:
England; Australia; India; Pakistan; Namibia; and the
Netherlands, is in the
country.
Speed, who will lead them
on three days of inspections starting
today, said soon after his arrival:
"It's not our function to evaluate the
regime of any country. There are 84
countries that are members of the ICC.
We're interested in the way they play
cricket, the way they go about
presenting their teams."
Peter Chingoka, president of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union, is
optimistic. "We
are very confident that they will go back with a positive
report on the
situation here," he said.
"As far as cricket is concerned, we
have said and continue to
say that it is safe and secure for all the
participants to come to Harare
and to Bulawayo, as has been proved by the
fact that Pakistan are here at
this present time and the peaceful and
enjoyable tour that they are having
vindicates what we are saying from a
cricket point of view."
That view was not shared by Trudi
Stevenson, a Member of
Parliament for Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for
Democratic Change. She
believes it's wrong to hold World Cup cricket games in
the country. "Rape
and starvation and torture is going on here as I speak and
it's an affront
to us for people to go in there, into that cricket ground
with (Zimbabwe
President Robert) Mugabe, the patron, sitting up there
protected by all his
cohorts, but pretending that everything is all right,
when the country is
suffering as much as it is," said
Stevenson.
The ICC believes that holding the World Cup
matches in Zimbabwe
is very important both commercially and professionally
for the game.
Australia and England are the two countries which have
expressed most
concern about playing in Zimbabwe. An Australian tour to
Zimbabwe was called
off in March after their government advised citizens not
to travel to the
African country because of fears over election violence. -
Reuters
State Tightens Money Supply
The
Daily News (Harare)
November 27, 2002
Posted to the web November 27, 2002
Colleen Gwari Business Reporter
IN a bid to resolve the dire foreign currency crisis, the
government, through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), is reportedly reducing
money supply on the market.
Economic analysts said the much talked about tumbling of
foreign currency rates on the parallel market were temporary as the central bank
implemented its new monetary policy.
Commercial banks which spoke to The Daily News said the
government had instructed them to limit individual transactions to a maximum of
$5 million a day.
In a related move, the government has forced banks to
lengthen the period in which cheque deposits can be cleared for withdrawals.
The move had resulted in a money supply shortage which would
tend to trigger a rise in interest rates.
Taking a queue from the money market, foreign currency
parallel rates tumbled, with the United States dollar trading at a $1 000 a
unit, while the pound sterling was trading at about $2 000.
Although commercial banks could not provide exact figures of
the money supply deficit, saying the recently adopted Zimbabwe Real Time Gross
Settlement System was running days behind, indications were that the money
supply situation would continue.
Contrary to government views that the closure of the bureaux
de change would help force rates down, business leaders and economic analysts
had warned that it would further worsen the situation.
A visit to some bureaux de change in the capital yesterday,
showed that most had stopped trading.
The panic associated with the government's intentions to
abolish the foreign exchange bureaus had forced members of the public to hold on
to their foreign currency in anticipation of better rates.
While exporters welcomed the RBZ monetary policy saying it
would help resuscitate most companies faced with collapse, and generate the
much-needed foreign currency, the mining sector cried foul, saying its
allocations were far below expectations.
Under the dual rate policy, borrowing by the export and
productive sectors would attract interest rates of between 5 and 15 percent,
while consumption borrowing rates would be market-driven.
The RBZ has also suspended the bank rate which was fixed at
57,2 percent.
The banking sector, doubting the sustainability of a rather
fragmented policy, had adopted a wait-and-see attitude.
The Bankers' Association of Zimbabwe said it was up to
individual banks to draft their own minimum lending rates.