The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
Harare - Police broke up a meeting of displaced white farmers
and detained
at least four of their leaders for questioning, the group's
lawyer said on
Friday.
More than 100 white farmers gathered at an
agricultural research institute
north of Harare to discuss legal implications
of the government's seizure of
thousands of white-owned farms for
redistribution to blacks.
Police accused organisers of convening a public
meeting without notifying
them - an offense punishable by up to six months in
jail under strict
security laws - according to their lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa.
Participants
were ordered to disperse, witnesses said.
The meeting was
organised by Justice for Agriculture, an association of
farmers thrown off
their property under the controversial land program.
The group is
demanding that the government pay them realistic compensation
or return their
land.
Its head, John Worsely-Worswick, was detained for questioning at
Harare's
main police station along with three other officials and a prominent
lawyer,
Mtetwa said.
Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena declined to
comment on the arrests,
saying he was awaiting details from provincial police
officers.
The farm seizures have crippled Zimbabwe's agriculture based
economy,
leaving the country with acute shortages of food, gasoline, medicine
and
other imports.
The World Food Program estimates more than 5.5
million people - almost half
the population - will need food aid to avert
famine in coming months.
Many prime farms seized by the government went
to ruling party leaders.
Others lie idle because of shortages of fertilizer,
seeds and plowing
equipment.
The state District Development Fund said
on Friday that 13 000 functioning
tractors remained in the country. At least
40 000 are needed for plowing
ahead of upcoming rains, the fund said, but
many were destroyed during the
often-violent land seizures since February
2002.
Reuters
Mugabe hints at Commonwealth exit
(Reuters) -
November 28 2003 11:04
HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert
Mugabe has suggested that Zimbabwe
could leave the Commonwealth, from which
it was suspended last year after
his controversial re-election.
Zimbabwe has been excluded from next month's Commonwealth summit in
Nigeria.
The Commonwealth groups Britain and mainly its former colonies.
"If
our sovereignty is what we have to lose to be readmitted into
the
Commonwealth, well we will say goodbye to the Commonwealth, and perhaps
the
time has now come to say so," Mugabe said at a state funeral in Harare
on
Friday.
Zimbabwe accuses what it calls the "white" section of
the
Commonwealth, led by Britain and Australia, of pursuing a vendetta
because
of Mugabe's seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to
landless
blacks.
Zimbabwe was suspended from the 54-member group
after charges by
Commonwealth and European Union observers that Mugabe rigged
his re-election
last year.
Britain and Australia have been
determined to keep Mugabe away from
the December 5-8 heads of government
meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja,
while several African members have
tried to keep him in the group.
The Zimbabwe issue has dominated
preparations for the summit and
threatened to split the group along racial
lines.
On Friday Mugabe lashed out at what he called an
"apologetic" stance
that some African countries had taken by failing to
support his government
over the land reforms.
"Those of this
view allow the neo-colonialists and neo-imperialists to
drive us to apologise
for representing and pursuing our interests, for being
ourselves," Mugabe
said.
"Is it the African solidarity and sovereignty, the solidarity
of those
who are non-whites, or is the strength, the power of the few whites
in the
Commonwealth that should dominate the view of the Commonwealth?" he
said.
Mugabe, 79, in power since independence from Britain in 1980,
says his
local and international opponents have sabotaged Zimbabwe's economy
to
punish him for the land programme.
New Zealand Herald
Zimbabwe failure haunts Don
McKinnon
29.11.2003
By HELEN TUNNAH
For a man campaigning to stay
Commonwealth Secretary-General, Don McKinnon
is spreading a pretty downbeat
message about his biggest headache, Zimbabwe.
"What we have achieved so
far is probably nothing," McKinnon admits. "I have
failed totally to achieve
anything, but no other organisation has achieved
anything either in creating
a mood for change.
"But show me what the pressure point is on Zimbabwe
and I'll do it."
McKinnon hopes to be appointed to a second term as
Secretary-General at the
Commonwealth leaders summit in Abuja, Nigeria, next
week. Zimbabwe's
President Robert Mugabe won't be there, excluded because of
his country's
suspension from the 54-nation body after he kept his hold on
power in last
year's rigged presidential elections.
Dissatisfaction
over McKinnon's stand against Mugabe is thought to be behind
the announcement
yesterday that Sri Lankan candidate, former foreign
minister Lakshman
Kadirgamar, will be seeking to replace the New Zealander.
Mugabe
continues to threaten to turn up at Abuja, but if he did his presence
could
damage the body irreparably. Prime Minister Helen Clark, and her
British and
Australian counterparts Tony Blair and John Howard, have said if
Mugabe
attends, in any capacity, they will walk away from the summit.
Foreign
ministers from South Africa, Lesotho and Mozambique are expected to
meet in
Pretoria this weekend to discuss Mugabe's exclusion, but McKinnon
yesterday
appeared confident he would not lose his position.
Sections of the
Commonwealth have warned of the perils of a Mugabe-endorsed
alternative and
McKinnon said he did not detect a situation that would
divide the 54-member
Commonwealth.
"The support I have from the Pacific, from the Caribbean,
from most of Asia
and a number of African leaders who have rung me in the
past few weeks
suggests to me it is not a split. I spoke to a lot of leaders
six or eight
months ago, and said to them, 'if you think it's time for a
new
Secretary-General, I'll go home'," McKinnon says. So far, he isn't
packing.
Now 64, he will be 69 by the time his spell at the head of the
Commonwealth
Secretariat ends if it is extended for four years, from next
April.
He got the job after promoting himself as a champion of the
Pacific region
and developing states and after his role in helping to broker
the
Bougainville peace accord. That earned him a Nobel peace prize
nomination,
but political rivals say he is too reluctant to speak out against
dominant
nations on humanitarian issues, citing East Timor's occupation by
Indonesia.
Asked this week about the human rights record of Commonwealth
host Nigeria,
McKinnon avoided overt criticism. He said Nigeria - a nation
where violent
crime and corruption are rife, and where this year's elections
were notable
for the hundreds killed - faced an "enormous challenge" in
managing
deep-rooted ethnic rivalries and religious tensions between
Christians and
Muslims.
"The African leader can have more problems in
the first hour of the day than
other leaders face in an entire term.
Sometimes these human rights issues
aren't as important to these leaders as
putting food on the table and
providing education."
As
Secretary-General he has restructured the Commonwealth's administration
arm
into a more modern organisation and rates as one of his best
achievements
securing special envoys to troubled spots, such as post-coup
Fiji.
His
Mugabe failures aside, it may be his strident protests against European
and
United States trade subsidies which bolster his muted impact during his
first
term as Secretary-General.
Following the collapse of world trade talks in
Mexico in September, amid a
standoff between developed and developing
nations, McKinnon has ignited the
debate at the Commonwealth
level.
Reflecting the language of key African nations, South Africa and
Nigeria, he
has savaged the billions of dollars the US, Europe and Japan pour
into
propping up their farmers, while driving down world prices for key
African
exports such as cotton.
"If you want to keep Africa in
poverty, then keep following those policies,"
he told the Weekend
Herald.
His report to the Commonwealth summit is equally blunt. "The
single biggest
measure developed nations could take to tackle world poverty
would be to end
trade distorting subsidies. Sadly, talk is long and cheap on
this topic;
delivery is short and progress painfully slow."
He expects
Commonwealth leaders will agree to a strong statement on fair
trade in their
communique, but accepts it may have limited impact.
"They may not act,
but they will be left in no doubt about what is wanted."
The same could
be said of the Commonwealth over Zimbabwe next week. McKinnon
has not spoken
to Mugabe for 18 months, since the southern Africa state
was
suspended.
Mugabe has moved on from keeping McKinnon waiting for
lengthy spells at
Harare hotels and airport, to refusing to meet him at all.
And, defiant of
international criticism, Mugabe has fast-tracked the seizure
of farms owned
by white landowners.
A country once able to feed its
own people is now reliant on food aid, with
half its 14 million people
suffering from a famine crippling the nation. A
Commonwealth report,
commissioned by McKinnon after Zimbabwe's suspension,
blamed the land
seizures for the rising hunger.
The Guardian newspaper said McKinnon
believed there was "conclusive
evidence" Mugabe's government had politicised
food aid. People suspected of
sympathising with the main opposition, the
Movement for Democratic Change,
are left to starve.
Limited economic
sanctions have been imposed against the regime by the
European Union, the US
and Britain - aid agencies suggest sanctions may have
worsened the famine -
but not by the Commonwealth.
Individual states have introduced political
sanctions, including New
Zealand, which has a travel ban against Mugabe and
about 80 officials or
government members.
Prime Minister Clark and
McKinnon say a Zimbabwe solution at Abuja will have
to be agreed by the 52
invited leaders after a special committee comprising
Australia, South Africa
and Nigeria failed to persuade Mugabe to abide by
the principles of good
governance.
Mugabe reduced the effectiveness of the group by
characterising John Howard
as a racist while reminding South Africa and
Nigeria of the ties of African
unity, but the strength of such a rallying cry
may be weakening as a new
generation of Africans emerge who were born after
independence into the
constraints of poverty.
Mugabe's African
neighbours are growing increasingly nervous about having a
failing state on
their doorstep - three million Zimbabwean refugees are in
South Africa
already - and the key to any progress on Zimbabwe lies with
South Africa's
President Thabo Mbeki.
At the Abuja summit, Mbeki and Nigeria's President
Olusegun Obasanjo will be
reminded they have a responsibility to Africa to
lead calls for change in
Zimbabwe.
Clark is not detailing any message
she will take to private talks or the
practical solutions New Zealand thinks
can be found to the Zimbabwe crisis.
She is firm in wanting Zimbabwe expelled
from the Commonwealth, while
knowing that will not happen, and describes the
plight of the starving
millions as "horrific, horrific".
"We have said
they should be thrown out, absolutely. They should have been
expelled quite
some time ago, but suspension at least has the advantage of
they don't turn
up."
Oxfam New Zealand's executive director Barry Coates says continuing
pressure
from the Commonwealth is important, but it needs to be stepped
up.
"Countries like South Africa are just not playing a strong enough role.
This
is a humanitarian crisis."
Mbeki has shown little inclination to
take a stand, retaining instead an
allegiance to a loyal opponent of South
Africa's apartheid regime.
Diplomacy before the summit is carefully
avoiding any criticism of African
leaders and their failure to isolate Mugabe
- last week he signed a number
of human rights accords with the African Union
- to avoid any perception of
a race-linked split within the
organisation.
And there is also acute awareness of the symbolism if
Obasanjo, as a black
leader and the host, delivers any criticism of Zimbabwe,
supposing
Commonwealth leaders can actually agree to a statement.
If
anything is achieved at Abuja, it may be because Mbeki and Obasanjo
are
driven not by Commonwealth sensitivities, but the political and
economic
realisms of the New Partnership for African Development, known as
Nepad.
The major financiers of African aid, predominantly from Europe and
the US,
have made it clear there will be no handover of funds under Nepad
unless
African states sort out their governance, and that means resolving
the
Zimbabwe mess.
Obasanjo and Mbeki reportedly argued against
extending Zimbabwe's suspension
from the Commonwealth, but Nepad specifically
requires members to deal with
errant African Union states through "peer
review" procedures. Zimbabwe will
be the first test of those
mechanisms.
JAG OPEN LETTER FORUM
Email: justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet:
www.justiceforagriculture.com
Please
send any material for publication in the Open Letter Forum to
justice@telco.co.zw with "For Open Letter
Forum" in the subject
line.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
1: Re Open Letters Forum No. 194 dated 26 November 2003
Who stole the
land?
The matter is quite simple.
All ethnic and tribal groups
represented in today's Zimbabwe, are guests in
this country.
The SAN,
wiped out by the Bantu, were the only people who could claim this
part of
Africa as theirs.
Lets out this to rest once and for all, rid ourselves
of guilt and cross
examination and focus on the future.
Simon
Spooner
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
2: News from Uganda
News from Uganda:-
Trumpet World Mission's
John Mulinde recalls how, during Idi Amin's time
Christians went into the
forests and held 24 hours prayers.. Amin had
declared Uganda an Islam state.
He went in 1979, and Milton Obote's
violent reign and civil war lasted from
1980 to 1985. The economy was on
the verge of collapse with inflation up to
1000%.
WHO experts predicted that the nation would collapse in 1997 with
one third
of the population dead, another third suffering and the remaining
third too
weak to maintain the economy. The government saw no way out so it
called
church leaders together admitting their predicament and asking for a
ray of
hope.
One man spoke, "God has a plan for our nation and a
purpose."
The result of prayer was that, the nation scarred by death and
decay has
changed to what it is today.
President Museveni repealed Amin's
Islamic covenant, and gave the national
flag to a group of
intercessors.
Mulindi challenged the president to take action against
corruption.
Museveni appointed a cabinet minister for Ethics and Integrity, a
born
again Christian.
Now the inflation rate has dropped to 6-8% and
the IMF says the country is
a prime example of economic recovery in
Africa.
So there we have it.
All the
best
Ruth
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
3: Locating relatives
Dear Sir/Madam
I am trying to locate my
relatives who live in Zimbabwe. Given the
political environment in Zimbabwe,
our family is seeking news as to their
well being and
circumstances.
Their names are John Lockett and his children Pat (female)
and Duncan
Lockett. I believe that John Lockett would have been a farmer in
the 1960'
s. John Lockett was born in England and migrated to Africa as an
adult.
Can you offer me any advice on how best to
proceed?
Sincerely
Beth Eggleston
Project Officer
Metropolitan
Services Coordination
Disability Services Commission
146-160 Colin
Street
West Perth
Western Australia
6005
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All
letters published on the open Letter Forum are the views and opinions
of the
submitters, and do not represent the official viewpoint of Justice
for
Agriculture.
Zim Independent
Chefs caught in gold licence blitz
Blessing
Zulu
ZANU PF chefs are among directors of companies whose gold-buying
licences
were cancelled by government last week after they failed to
deliver
stipulated amounts to the Reserve Bank, the Zimbabwe Independent
has
established.
Documents in the possession of this paper indicate
that Zanu PF bigwigs were
among those affected when government cancelled 14
gold concessions awarded
to nine companies.
Government abruptly
cancelled the 14 gold concessions last week, alleging
the companies were
involved in illegal trade of the precious mineral. Police
have been fighting
running battles with illegal gold panners said to be
undermining
infrastructure in the Midlands town of Kwekwe.
Those who lost
licences include Midlands governor Cephas Msipa, a director
of Rynawald
Trading with a concession in Zvishavane, McDonald Chapfika, a
commodity
broker with close links to the army and Zanu PF, and the Gold
Mining and
Minerals Development Trust formed by the Reserve Bank and headed
by
businessman Nhlanhla Masuku.
Senior Mines and Minerals Development
officials this week said there were
many politicians involved in the "game",
hence difficulties in controlling
illegal trading in gold.
Msipa
yesterday refused to comment on the matter, referring all questions to
his
son, Christopher.
"My son is directly running that company and you
can talk to him," he said.
Efforts to get comment from Christopher Msipa
were unsuccessful.
Msipa's co-directors are listed as Christopher
Zwelithini Msipa, James
Dzimbiri, Archford Dzimbiri, and principal officer
Patience Saungweme.
Macdonald Chapfika, younger brother of Zanu PF MP for
Mutoko North, David
Chapfika, was also caught in the licence blitz. Chapfika
is the director of
Needgate Investments.
Chapfika confirmed to the
Independent that he was the director of Needgate
Investments and said they
were "shocked" by government's actions.
"Yes I am the director of
Needgate and Msipa is the director of Rynawald
Trading," he
said.
"We are compiling a report for government and we cannot
pre-empt its
contents. But we are shocked by what the government did,"
Chapfika said.
Chapfika's co-directors at Needgate are Ottilia Masunda,
Netsai Mugadza and
Paul Simbarashe Chimbodza.
Nhlanhla Masuku is
the chairman of Gold Mining and Minerals Development
Trust which has five
concessions in Mazowe, Shamva, Mudzi, Mutare and
Filabusi.
Masuku
told the Independent that some companies had gone to court, but he
would not
take that route.
"The whole thing does not make sense to us," he said.
"We will respond through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the
Ministry of
Finance who set us up," he said.
Masuku denied that the minister had given them any money.
"I am not aware of the $500
million that the Minister of Mines purports to
have given us," Masuku
said.
The Independent has it on good authority that the trust had
delivered a
paltry six kg of gold to the Reserve Bank in eight
months
The other companies hit are Minerals Marketing Corporation of
Zimbabwe,
Oleaster Investments Pvt Ltd, trading as Golden Syndicate, SAD Pvt
Ltd, and
Shipford Investments trading as Golden Kopje.
The firms
were licenced in March this year and the government splashed out
$500 million
to assist them.
They were required to surrender 150 kg of gold a
month to the Reserve Bank's
Fidelity Printers and Refineries but are believed
to have delivered only
39,2 kg in the seven months from April. On a monthly
remittance of 150 kg
they should have delivered 1 050 kg by the time the
licences were cancelled.
Mines minister Edward Chindori-Chininga
described the output as "very
worrying".
In an interview yesterday
Chindori-Chininga said the cancellation of the
concessions was
final.
"That is a decision that has been made by government and the
trust is going
to be restructured," he said.
He said two days
after the cancellations the concessionaires delivered 90kg
of
gold.
"It just shows that some of them were now trading on the
parallel market
instead of delivering the gold to us," he
said.
President of the Zimbabwe Miners Federation Nixon Misi told a
local daily
that the banned concessionaires were fuelling the parallel
market. Misi said
they bought gold at $28 000 and sold it for $65
000.
The country is said to be losing 70% of its gold to smugglers.
Sources said
most of the affected companies were contemplating going to court
to get
their licences back.
Zim Independent
MDC reads council members the riot act
Augustine
Mukaro
THE opposition Movement for Democratic Change has ordered Harare
acting
mayor Sekesai Makwavarara and all executive committee chairpersons on
the
council to resign their positions by Monday.
The latest
development in the Town House saga is likely to raise the
political
temperature between the MDC and Local Government minister Ignatius
Chombo,
who wants Makwavarara to continue as acting mayor.
Last month the MDC set
up a commission to investigate problems at Town
House. Chitungwiza MP Fidelis
Mhashu headed the commission.
The party's leadership has accepted the
recommendations of the commission
and on Wednesday MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai said Makwavarara and all
executive committee chairpersons should
quit their posts by December 1 to
restore order on the
council.
Sources who attended the meeting said the party was prepared
to expel the
councillors if they refused to comply.
Councillors
who have been ordered to relinquish their posts are Falls Nhari
(finance),
Fani Munengami (environment), Jerome O'Brien (audit), Christopher
Mushonga
(housing), Wellington Madzivanyika (procurement) and Chipo
Suka
(licensing).
The sources told the Zimbabwe Independent that
Tsvangirai accused
Makwavarara of fuelling divisions in the party and
questioned her leadership
qualities.
"Makwavarara caused divisions
in the party by aligning herself more to
Chombo than her party," the source
said.
"She is alleged to have gone to the extent of giving Chombo
names of
councillors whom she felt threatened her position. The councillors
were
subsequently suspended."
Sources said the MDC leadership was
infuriated by Makwavarara who is accused
of allowing embattled town clerk
Nomutsa Chideya to literally run the
council.
- Meanwhile,
Tsvangirai was yesterday quizzed by the police in Kadoma over
an attack by
unknown assailants on a Zanu PF member during the final
campaign for
tomorrow's parliamentary by-election.
Tsvangirai's spokesman William
Bango said the MDC leader was stopped and
questioned for almost two hours on
his way back to Harare after his roadshow
in Kadoma.
This came as
MDC spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi said Zanu PF had set up
militia bases
near polling stations to intimidate voters.
"The Zanu PF militia have
set up bases 150 metres from all polling stations
from which they will carry
out their intimidatory activities," Nyathi said.
Zim Independent
War vets cancel Mutare congress as succession battle hots
up
Itai Dzamara
THE War Veterans Association has again postponed its
annual congress
scheduled for this weekend in Mutare as the succession battle
in Zanu PF
enters the home stretch.
The war veterans play a major role
in the power games in the ruling party
and are already engaged in manoeuvres
to find President Robert Mugabe's
successor.
The association's
secretary-general Endy Mhlanga confirmed on Wednesday that
the congress had
been postponed and would only be held after the Zanu PF
national conference,
set for next weekend in Masvingo.
"Indeed the congress has been postponed
again," said Mhlanga.
"It will only be held after the Zanu PF
national conference. There are a
number of reasons for the postponement," he
said.
"One of the reasons is that most war veterans are involved in
Zanu PF
structures and will play a major role at the national conference.
There was
therefore a lot of pressure on them organising the congress and the
party
conference at the same time."
Mhlanga admitted that the
succession debate had a role in the postponement
of the war veterans'
congress.
"It is true that the issue of succession has been very
dominant within the
war veterans' body and should have been discussed at the
congress.
"We articulate the people's will and have a major role to play
in ensuring
that the succession issue is handled properly. We obviously need
to avoid
having the issue divide and antagonise the party, which has been the
case so
far," said Mhlanga.
Association chairman Patrick Nyaruwata
promised a fortnight ago that there
would be "miracles" over the succession
issue from the war veterans,
claiming they had a major role to contribute
towards the outcome.
The Zanu PF national conference is expected to
tackle the succession issue,
with reports that Mugabe has recently indicated
to the politburo that he
needs to retire from active politics early next
year.
Zim Independent
Herald accused of demonising judiciary in Daily News
case
Blessing Zulu
ZIMBABWE Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) has accused
the Herald of colluding
with "forces within the state that do not believe in
the rule of law" to
demonise the judiciary.
The government-controlled
news-paper on Tuesday ran a story in which Media
and Information Commission
(MIC) lawyer Johannes Tomana accused
Administrative Court president Michael
Majuru of pre-determining the outcome
of the legal wrangle between Associated
Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) and the
MIC.
Tomana was reported as
having filed an affidavit concerning Mujuru's alleged
behaviour. The paper
claimed that Majuru was being investigated for
unethical behaviour regarding
the MIC/ANZ dispute.
In a statement, ZLHR director Arnold Tsunga said
the allegations against
Majuru amounted to a personal attack.
"The
suggestions that Mr Majuru has now suddenly prejudged the matter
through an
informal, incidental and fortuitous communication to a stranger
asking for
help in a street, is mischievous and calculated to damage the
reputation of
Mr Majuru in both his personal and professional capacity,"
Tsunga
said.
He said the over-riding motive was that of maintaining and
prolonging the
closure of the Daily News and sustaining the institutional
attack on the
right to freedom of expression.
"This has been
achieved since Mr Majuru has been left with no alternative
but to recuse
himself from the matter. The recusal of Mr Majuru … prolongs
the matter and
places the next (court) president to deal with the matter
under undue
pressure," Tsunga said.
Constitutional law expert and chairman of the
National Constitutional
Assembly, Dr Lovemore Madhuku,
concurred.
"It a clear case of victimisation of judges and an attempt
to influence
court decisions," said Madhuku.
He described Tomana's
behaviour as highly improper and calculated to
undermine the judicial
system.
Tsunga said state officials were not comfortable with
judgements that did
not favour them.
"In fact the attack on Mr
Majuru is a deliberate reminder to the judiciary
by those forces within the
state who do not believe in the rule of law that
they are at risk if they
make rulings that are seen to be against the state
or the ruling party," he
said.
Tsunga said given the operating environment a record number of
judges of the
Supreme Court and High Court bench had resigned since
2000.
"The pattern of events … shows that the state is determined to
'use the law'
to subvert justice and ensure that the Daily News does not get
published
again," he said.
Tsunga said the Supreme Court was now
being used to clamp down on people's
rights.
"It is extremely
regrettable that the Supreme Court (which in any democracy
should be the
defender of justice, civil liberties and fundamental freedoms)
is constantly
referred to as the reason why the state continues to act in
the manner that
it does in preventing the people of Zimbabwe from enjoying
their right to
freedom of expression," he said.
Tsunga said if the MIC lawyer had
been genuinely concerned at the conduct of
Mr Majuru, his remedy would not
have been to rush to the press, but to make
an application for Majuru to
recuse himself.
"ZLHR views the attack on the Administrative Court
and on Mr Majuru by the
government-controlled newspaper as contemptuous,
unwarranted and calculated
to bring the administration of justice into
disrepute.
"It is also part of a wider, deliberate, systematic and
sustained general
attack on the judiciary to manipulate it, reduce its
independence and weaken
national institutions of protection that are vital
for the restoration of
the rule of law and democracy," said Tsunga.
Zim Independent
US refutes accusations over sanctions
Iden
Wetherell
UNITED States ambassador to Zimbabwe Joseph Sullivan has
rejected
accusations that his country's sanctions have hurt the Zimbabwean
economy,
saying the damage is entirely self-inflicted.
"Zimbabwe's
policies and practices have isolated it from the international
community," he
told the Zimbabwe Independent in an interview on Wednesday.
The
attitude of the US was not responsible for foreign investors staying
away,
Sullivan said.
"As Secretary of State Colin Powell has pointed out,
international capital
is a coward. It avoids like the plague places where the
rule of law does not
obtain - where there are no macro-economic
fundamentals," Sullivan said.
Nor was the US responsible for the World
Bank and International Monetary
Fund giving Harare the cold shoulder.
Zimbabwe ceased payment of its
obligations to the Bretton Woods institutions
in 2001, he pointed out.
Sanctions have not prevented Zimbabwe
exporting goods worth US$100 million
on a preferential basis to the US market
last year. Nor have they stood in
the way of the US$140 million a year the US
has spent over the past two
years on food and HIV/Aids prevention, Sullivan
said.
While the US had experienced only minor interference with its
food
distribution, there were "many credible reports of partisan distribution
of
food by government", he said.
Legislation governing sanctions
was directed solely at those responsible for
the breakdown in the rule of
law, Sullivan said. While it was not possible
to disclose the names of those
to whom travel restrictions applied because
of US privacy laws, those
affected had been informed, he said.
The names of those to whom
financial sanctions apply were published earlier
this
year.
Contrary to reports that the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change had a
hand in framing the US Democracy and Economic Recovery Act,
Sullivan said no
parties other than those in the US had a role.
He
noted that for the past two years 50% of Zimbabweans have needed
food
assistance. Zimbabwe's neighbours who were equally affected by drought
last
year reported only 20% of their populations in need. This year the
figure
was lower still while Zimbabwe's remained at over 50%.
At
the height of the catastrophic drought in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s, only
20%
of its population required and received aid, Sullivan noted.
The US
favours inter-party dialogue as the route back to legitimacy,
Sullivan
said. "The 2002 election did not confer democratic legitimacy on
this
government because of the way it was conducted," he said.
"Democratic
government requires a free and fair process."
The ambassador said
while it was impossible to say there had been progress
in restoring
democratic institutions or democratic practice and a return to
the rule of
law, it was important to leave those goals in place.
It was US policy "to
see Zimbabwe become a prosperous democratic country
that respects the rule of
law", the ambassador said.
Both President George Bush and Secretary
Powell have pointed out that
Zimbabwe is not adhering to its own
commitments.
"I have in private conversations with government
officials heard that
addressing the political crisis was critical in order to
address the
economic crisis," Sullivan said. "But we have not seen the
political crisis
addressed with the urgency articulated in private
conversations."
Zim Independent
Divisions emerge in Mash Central after Zanu PF
poll
Augustine Mukaro
FORMER Information minister Chen Chimutengwende was
last weekend imposed as
Mashonaland Central provincial chairman without an
election taking place,
creating a rift between emerging politicians and the
old guard, the Zimbabwe
Independent heard this week.
Dickson Mafios,
an emerging political powerhouse in the province who was
heavily tipped to
pip Chimutengwende to the post, was sidelined from the
race for chairmanship
on a technicality.
Mafios this week confirmed that he had been
willing to run for the
chairmanship but policy changes did not allow him to
"cross-floors".
"As a party we have district co-ordinating committees
and that is where
people are chosen," Mafios said.
"The selections
are done using categories, which are mainly youth, women and
the main wing.
Party policy does not allow anyone chosen in one category to
contest in
another," he said.
Mafios said the actual voting was done at district
level so that last
weekend's event was more of an allocation of provincial
positions and
endorsing them.
"We agreed in principle that
Chimutengwende should be provincial chairman
and everybody accepted it.
Voting was done at district level and last week
we were allocating and
confirming positions," he said.
Highly placed sources told the
Independent in Bindura on Sunday that the
change of policy was done to
sideline Mafios because he was chosen by the
youth league.
"The
protocol is that district youth wings should have nominated him but
none of
the seven districts brought his name forward."
Zim Independent
Urban dwellers to get assistance
Loughty
Dube
ZIMBABWE'S hard-pressed urban dwellers might get assistance when
the
Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZVAC) completes its
assessment
of the food situation in urban areas this week. It seeks to
determine who
needs food aid.
The assessment was commissioned at the
end of September by donor agencies to
look into the situation in the
country's urban areas that have not been
spared by the food shortages and the
ravaging drought.
ZVAC chairperson Joyce Chanetsa confirmed to the
Zimbabwe Independent that
the urban assessment was complete and that their
team was analysing data
before meeting at the end of this week to evaluate
its findings.
"The first preliminary report will be out before the
end of this week. We
have finished compiling the data and we are now
analysing the results and
any action that will be taken will arise from the
preliminary report," said
Chanetsa.
The assessment comes shortly
after the World Food Programme (WFP) warned
that the food situation in urban
areas was getting critical.
The WFP says it is facing a US$111
million shortfall from a US$197 million
international appeal it sent out to
donors in June this year.
The United States Agency for International
Development in August launched an
urban intervention programme whereby the
agency would subsidise the price of
sorghum meal in some urban
areas.
The sorghum meal is popular with urbanites who cannot afford
the ever
escalating prices of other foodstuffs.
Chanetsa said the
urban assessment covered the whole country and included
mining and border
towns, growth points and the major cities of Bulawayo
and
Harare.
The completion of the urban food assessment comes a
week after the WFP
launched another urgent appeal for donations for
Zimbabwe's over five
million hungry people.
Many households in
urban areas can no longer afford basic food commodities
because of escalating
prices and a high inflation rate.
Inflation is currently at 526%,
according to figures issued last Tuesday by
the Central Statistical
Office.
Zim Independent
Govt/Zanu PF loses $800 million to sanctions
Staff
Writer
ASSETS worth 825 000 euros ($800 million at the official exchange
rate) have
so far been seized from government and Zanu PF officials by the
European
Union as part of targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe's political
leaders.
The assets are worth about $6,1 billion on the parallel market
rate of 1
euro: $7 500.
The EU imposed sanctions on President
Mugabe and his close associates just
before the March 2002 presidential
election after it accused Mugabe's regime
of human rights
violations.
The European Union has also imposed a travel ban on
government ministers and
senior officials. The ban has been extended to cover
senior Zanu PF
officials and first lady Grace Mugabe. MEPs would like the
sanctions regime
extended to cover spouses of government ministers, as in the
case of United
States travel restrictions.
Several civic groups
have since the assets freeze been petitioning the EU on
the quantum of the
assets which have been frozen to date. The inquiry into
the amount of assets
seized is meant to gauge the effectiveness of the
sanctions. Western
diplomats this week said there was a good possibility
that senior politicians
were able to move their monies to banks in the Far
East before the net closed
in on them.
A letter from the EU Committee of Petitions to a South
African-based
pressure group clarified the issue of the assets
freeze.
"The total sum of the 825 000 Euro had been reported by
members states as
the amount of assets frozen belonging to members of the
Mugabe regime in
Zimbabwe," said Committee of Petitions chairman Nino
Gemelli. Gemelli said
five members of the EU had not reported to the
committee.
This he said had no impact on the final figures as the
countries concerned
did not have anything to report.
The
correspondence did not however disclose where the assets had
been
seized.
At the time when government announced the
assets-freeze last year President
Mugabe said there were no assets to freeze.
He said if any were found the EU
could donate them to
charity.
Observers have said the seizure of the assets was a bold
statement that the
European Union was serious about sanctions.
Zim Independent
Diplomatic row brews as Mugabe's nephew takes
farm
Staff Writer
PRESIDENT Mugabe's nephew, Gabriel Mugabe, has laid
claim to a farm
protected by a bilateral agreement between Germany and
Zimbabwe in what
could turn into a diplomatic row between the two
countries.
The German embassy in Harare has written to the Foreign
Affairs ministry to
express its disquiet over the acquisition of Cluny Farm
in Makonde. The
property is owned by a German national, Franz Alexander
Ditze, who bought it
in 1994.
Zimbabwe and Germany in 1995 signed
the Encouragement and Reciprocal
Protection of Investments Agreement, which
came into effect in April 2000.
There have been past attempts by various people to force Ditze off his farm.
"The embassy regrets to
state that the non-action on the side of the
competent authorities of the
Republic of Zimbabwe obviously has led some
Zimbabwean nationals into
believing that they could claim Cluny Farm under
the government's A2
settlement scheme," the German embassy said in letter to
the Foreign Affairs
ministry in February.
In September last year the German Foreign
ministry summoned Zimbabwe's
ambassador to Berlin, Gift Punungwe, regarding
the threat to German-owned
properties in Zimbabwe. Punungwe re-affirmed
Zimbabwe's commitment to the
bilateral agreement. He also assured the Germans
that full compensation
would be paid in terms of the agreement if the
property was taken by
government.
Ditze has since gone to the High
Court to ward off Gabriel Mugabe's moves to
evict him. Andrew Mugandiwa of
Wintertons is representing Ditze. Last Friday
Justice Alfas Chitakunye
granted Ditze a provisional order barring Mugabe
from evicting him from the
farm. He also filed another application on
Tuesday challenging the listing of
the farm for compulsory acquisition and
subsequent eviction under Section 8
of the Land Acquisition Act.
Ditze said the acquisition of the property
was irregular. He said the
government said it had acquired the farm by order
on October 6. The farm had
been gazetted for compulsory acquisition on August
8.
Ditze said the order to acquire the farm should have been done
within 30
days of the gazetting of the farm.
"It accordingly
follows that the order was made after the expiry of the
30-day period. The
notice (in the Government Gazette), so I am advised, is
irregular and of no
legal force and effect," he said.
The court papers said Mugabe, who
is managing director of office furniture
manufacturer Byco, visited Cluny
Farm on November 4 and told Ditze that he
"had been given the
farm".
Ditze, in his sworn affidavit, said Agriculture minister
Joseph Made who was
in the company of six men, visited the farm the next day
and ordered workers
to stop working.
"They broke into the
farmhouse and conducted a search," said Ditze. "I do
not know what they were
looking for. However, nothing was removed from the
house."
Ditze
said on Wednesday last week Gabriel Mugabe visited the farm again in
the
company of three "henchmen".
"The henchmen were wielding axes and
knobkerries. He demanded that I should
vacate the farmhouse not later than
November 22," said Ditze.
He has however contended that he has the right
to remain on the farm until
January 7 next year as stated by the law.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
Killing Zim
THE latest edition of the Atlantic Monthly, an influential US
political
magazine, has landed on my desk. It contains an article on
Zimbabwe by
Pulitzer Prize winner Samantha Power who lectures at the John F
Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University.
Her thoughts on
Zimbabwe, coming after a visit here when she met a
wide variety of people,
will be of interest to readers.
The Zimbabwe case, she argues,
"illustrates the prime importance of
accountability as an antidote to idiocy
and excess". Her article is
appropriately titled "How To Kill A
Country".
Repudiating Ian Smith's contention that the black
majority was
incapable of governing, Power believes Zimbabwe "offers
testament not to
some inherent African inability to govern, but to a minority
rule as
oppressive and inconsiderate of the welfare of citizens as its
ignominious
white predecessor".
Robert Mugabe has by his
actions compiled a "how-to" manual for
national destruction, she
says.
"The country's economy in 1997 was the fastest growing in
all of
Africa; now it is the fastest shrinking," Power says. "A onetime
net
exporter of maize, cotton, beef, tobacco, roses, and sugarcane, it
now
exports only its educated professionals who are fleeing by the tens
of
thousands.
"Although Zimbabwe has some of the richest
farmland in Africa,
children with distended bellies have begun arriving at
school looking like
miniature pregnant women.
"How could the
breadbasket of Africa have deteriorated so quickly into
the continent's
basket case? The answer is Robert Mugabe…"
Power describes a
trip through the Mazowe valley, once the
"breadbasket of the
breadbasket".
"Yet driving through it today is like visiting a
refugee camp that has
been hit by a hurricane. Fields that should brim with
knee-high,
forest-green winter wheat now contain only the crackling yellow
stubble of
last year's crop. The barbed wire that once hemmed in cattle has
been ripped
away by squatters who have plopped down cheap cement houses in
the middle of
arable fields and killed off cows and sheep for
food."
Power points out that Mugabe's campaign of racist
expropriation is not
new.
"Mugabe's belief that he can
strengthen his flagging popularity by
destroying a resented but economically
vital minority group is one that
dictators elsewhere have shared," she says.
"Paranoid about their
diminishing support, Stalin wiped out the wealthy kulak
farming class, Idi
Amin purged Uganda's Indian commercial class, and, of
course, Hitler went
after Jewish businesses even though Germany was already
reeling from the
Depression. Whatever spikes in popularity these moves
generated, the
economic damage was profound, and the dictators had to exert
great effort to
mask it."
Which leads the author to examine
the significance of the closure of
the Daily News, a move clearly designed to
limit the flow of information
about Zimbabwe's deteriorating
condition.
In a 24-page appeal to the international community
delivered in July,
Mugabe's cabinet defended the land seizures as "empowering
the poor", and
criticised donors' scepticism towards what it called
"pro-poor" policies.
"Everyone and everything was responsible for
food shortages except the
real culprit, Mugabe himself," Power says. "By
exaggerating Zimbabwe's crop
yields in Potemkin fashion, the cabinet
downplayed its needs, making it
impossible for the WFP to get from donors -
already stretched thin in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Liberia - the food Zimbabwe
will need to stave off
widespread starvation in 2004."
She
describes the formation of ruling-party militias as typical of
tyrants who
never stop worrying about the loyalty of their militaries.
You
can see in Zimbabwe Africa's worst tendencies in microcosm, Power
says. But
she rebuts sceptics who argue that democracy promotes tyrannies of
the
majority.
"When a ruler operates without constraint he can
institute a tyranny
of the minority," she argues, "and he can plunder his
country's economy and
starve his people without any
corrective."
Only democratic accountability can provide the
bedrock concept that no
developed or developing country can live without,
Power argues.
"An outspoken press, a healthy opposition,
periodic elections, and an
independent judiciary are rightly valued for
themselves, but their greatest
virtue is practical: they deter and thwart
top-down demolition."
Despite every effort to destroy his
country, Mugabe has not destroyed
its spirit, Power says, pointing out that
despite torture opposition
activists remain brazen in their dissent. Mugabe's
mounting crackdown is
testament to his frustration with the resilience of
civil society.
Mugabe and Smith share a common misconception,
Power concludes. "They
both fail to realise that a government cannot survive
indefinitely when it
advances the political and economic desires of the few
at the expense of the
many."
Zim Independent
Murerwa’s budget: full of sound and fury …
Ngoni
Chanakira
FINANCE minister Herbert Murerwa’s 2004 budget has finally been
presented to
parliament and is now “history”, at least as far as its targets
are
concerned.
Murerwa said the total budget stood at $7,75 trillion
with constitutional
and statutory appropriations accounting for $1,33
trillion.
Commentators have either praised the budget for trying to
stabilise the
nation’s crisis-torn economy or dismissed it as a populist
non-event that
leaves much of the donkey work to new Reserve Bank governor
Gideon Gono.
Analysts point out that Murerwa tried to do the usual
balancing act to
please all and sundry at a time when government is in a fix
and the economy
a bottomless pit.
Despite advice from all sectors,
government has failed to control soaring
inflation, mend its relationship
with the international community, stop
spending money it doesn’t have, and
boost exports by giving exporters better
incentives.
From 600% next
month, inflation was likely to head up to 700% in the first
quarter of next
year, the minister said.
Murerwa admitted that inflation is the “worst
enemy” facing Zimbabwe’s
economy and that overspending must stop. How this
would be achieved however
was not evident in his statement last
week.
Analysts however contend that this is the major problem currently
facing
Zimbabwe because officials simply promise things without spelling
out
exactly how they are to be achieved.
What Murerwa promised in many
instances is not new but a rehashed version of
excuses made in budgets
presented before him by his predecessors.
Confederation of Zimbabwe
Industries (CZI) president and Dairibord Zimbabwe
chief executive officer
Antony Mandiwanza summed up the mood at a
post-budget breakfast meeting last
Friday when he said the 2004 budget was a
“suspense statement”.
“This,
ladies and gentlemen, is a suspense statement,” Mandiwanza said. “It
has good
policy pronouncements but we need more detail. Without specific fis
cal
policies and a monetary statement we run the risk of
triggering
speculation.”
Murerwa did not provide concrete detail about
the monetary policy,
preferring to pass the task to Gono.
The minister
did not even bother to accompany his statement with the
estimates of
expenditure — the blue book, although this shortcoming can
probably be
attributed to the Government Printers rather than the
minister’s
office!
“Government will pursue an interest rate policy
which will encourage growth
on one hand while fighting inflation on the other
through discouraging
speculative and consumptive borrowing,” Murerwa said.
“The details will be
announced in the monetary policy statement to be issued
by the governor of
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe by mid-December
2003.”
In three weeks therefore Gono is expected to perform miracles. The
former
Jewel Bank chief is expected to transform an economy that is in
the
intensive care unit to one that is not only thriving but also
vibrant.
The Zimbabwean economy has deteriorated progressively over the
past four
years.
Real output has dropped by one third, inflation has
reached 525,8% for
October and social conditions are
deteriorating.
The country’s balance of payments has been under severe
pressure since 1999,
when Zimbabwe began to accumulate payment
arrears.
There is little productive investment in the economy and there
are reports
of significant capital flight and emigration of skilled
labour.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which Zimbabwe loves to
hate, says
the economic crisis reflects to a large extent inappropriate
economic
policies.
The IMF said these shortcomings include loose
fiscal and monetary policies,
the maintenance of a fixed exchange rate in an
environment of rising
inflation and administrative
controls.
“Increased regulations and government intervention have driven
economic
activity underground and contributed to the chronic shortages of
goods and
foreign exchange,” the IMF said.
“The impact of these
policies has been exacerbated by the fast-track land
reform programme,
recurring droughts, and the HIV/Aids pandemic. Meanwhile
investor confidence
has been eroded by concerns over political developments,
weak governance and
corruption, problems related to the implementation of
the government’s land
reform programme, the push for an increased
indigenisation of the business
sector, and the selective enforcement of
regulations.”
Murerwa painted
an even gloomier picture.
The minister said the economy was estimated to
contract by 13,2% this year
and inflation to peak at about 600% by December
before going up again to
700% during the first quarter of
2004.
Analysts said like other budgets before it, government had missed
virtually
all targets.
They said the need for supplementary budgets —
this year amounting to $672
billion in August — showed government could not
stick to its promises of
controlling expenditure.
They said Zimbabwe
needed to restore confidence by reducing uncertainties
associated with any
particular risk if the budget was to be taken seriously.
“We have become
a risky investment destination which affects the tourism
business,” Zimsun
chief executive officer Shingi Munyeza said.
Others said the country
needed to observe and protect property rights that
were being abused by farm
invaders in broad daylight.
“They (property rights) form one of the
central pillars of private
enterprise development,” a Zimbabwe National
Chamber of Commerce economist
said. “They also ensure security of tenure and
investment in the eyes of
both domestic and foreign
investors.”
Analysts said the problems not addressed in the previous
budget would simply
spill over into 2004 although with greater intensity this
time around.
They said the 2004 budget did not focus on how inflation
would be contained
or how foreign currency would be generated — agriculture,
manufacturing and
mining were all declining.
They said because there
was no monetary policy, targets had already been
missed by some agriculture
sectors such as tobacco.The analysts said job
creation was being “talked
about” but in reality companies were closing
down.
Murerwa, while not
saying how, promised to eliminate corruption in both the
public and private
sectors.
Analysts question why the defence and security portfolio was
given the third
highest vote of $1,27 trillion when there was regional peace
and social
services were deteriorating.
At the breakfast meeting the
minister defended the defence vote, saying:
“There is no telling what will
happen in the country.”
Economist John Robertson in a paper presented at
a recent labour relations
seminar said if Zimbabwe is to experience better
rates of economic growth in
the coming years investment spending would have
to lead the way.
“This immediately highlights the need for lower
inflation, moderate interest
rates and conditions that will help stabilise
the exchange rate,” Robertson
said.
“The exacting standards of good
fiscal management and good economic planning
will have to take over
completely from the slap-dash policies of
government-sanctioned looting and
pillaging that we have seen in the last
five or six years.”
Zim Independent
Mumbengegwi’s confession of failure
THE
announcement by Industry and International Trade minister Samuel
Mumbengegwi
that government was abandoning its privatisation programme marks
a serious
departure from the reform measures government has been touting for
a number
of years.
While ministers have previously emphasised the need for
successful
commercialisation of public enterprises, this was always seen as
a
preliminary to ultimate divestment. But Mumbengegwi, it would seem,
in
keeping with the backward behaviour of the anti-reform wing of
President
Mugabe’s government, has closed the door to a vital component of
economic
recovery.
Speaking to the Zimbabwe National Chamber of
Commerce in Bulawayo recently,
he said NRZ, Air Zimbabwe and Zesa would not
be privatised but
commercialised.
These are companies that continue to
drain the fiscus despite government
assurances that they would be placed on a
sound footing.
This paper revealed the shocking news last week that from
18 planes at
Independence, Air Zimbabwe had been reduced to a fleet of three.
NRZ is
technically insolvent. Zisco is a disaster. In all these cases
taxpayers
pick up the tab for the state’s managerial incompetence.
Why
is it assumed that a government that cannot manage its own budget can
manage
the budgets of public corporations where managers and workers are
sheltered
from best practice and keep their jobs irrespective
of
performance?
NRZ is unable to perform its basic function of moving
goods and passengers.
As a result the operations of Wankie Colliery and
Zisco are prejudiced.
Goods which take less than a week to be shipped by rail
from Durban to
Bulawayo now take a further three weeks to be released from
NRZ’s goods
yard.
Tel*One behaves like a parastatal in responding to
the needs of customers
who have no alternative service provider to turn to
because government has
been slow to license the fixed-line service of even
one of its own
supporters.
Air Zimbabwe has been failing its
passengers for several years now. An
energetic campaign by government to
bring tourists to the Victoria Falls
will collapse in part because the
national airline is incapable of providing
a world-class service. Tourists
will take SAA to the Zambian side instead.
They resent being dumped at
airports because of late arrivals or last-minute
schedule
changes.
Government cannot oppose privatisation of these
poorly-performing companies
on the grounds of a poor track record of
divestment to date. Cottco,
Dairibord, and Zimre all operate efficiently and
profitably following their
release from the clutches of state control. At the
same time they have
relieved the fiscus of the burden of subsidies and
contributed in tax to
national revenues. That in turn enables government to
spend money on other
things.
Commercialisation on the other hand has
added to the burden of consumers.
Blithely ignoring the price controls the
private sector is subject to, state
companies like Zesa, Tel*One, Zimpost and
the CSC have hiked costs at
regular intervals adding hugely to the vicious
cycle of inflation.
The pretext for hanging on to these concerns is that
indigenous Zimbabweans
will benefit. It is difficult to see how indigenous
Zimbabweans are
benefiting from government ownership at Air Zimbabwe, Zisco,
NRZ and
Zimpost. There have been no benefits of technology transfer,
capital
injection, or new markets which privatisation would yield. Instead
there has
been a continued decline in which consumers are being
fleeced.
Mumbengegwi’s claims that privatisation is at odds with
indigenisation
should be seen as the last hurrah of a regime wedded to
outmoded and
damaging economic policies, using the excuse of indigenous
ownership to mask
sheltered employment for its own parasitic
elite.
Nothing more clearly illustrates the economic bankruptcy of this
regime than
its abandonment of a policy programme that has brought benefits
to
governments and ordinary people — many of whom become
first-time
shareholders — around the world.
Zimbabwe’s policies are
not only at variance with best practice overseas,
they are at odds with
trends within the region.
Mumbengegwi has exposed Zanu PF’s incorrigible
failure to learn from its
mistakes and from the success of other societies.
He has provided one more
reason why this regime should not be allowed to
punish its people any
further.
Zim Independent
Eric Bloch
Sanctions not the cause of economic
decline
Finance minister Herbert Murerwa is one of the very few ministers
in the
Zimbabwean government who deservedly should be the subject of high
regard,
notwithstanding his inability to turn around Zimbabwe’s
increasingly
distressed economy, or even to halt its decline. That inability
is not
because he does not know what to do, but because that which is
necessary is
in outright conflict with the ideologies and precepts of the
ruling party,
Zanu PF, in general, and those of President Robert Mugabe in
particular.
Regrettably, either Murerwa is unable to convince his cabinet
colleagues and
the president to “bite the bullet” by recognising realities
and enabling him
to take the drastic steps necessary for economic recovery,
concurrently with
their collective action to create an economically conducive
environment, or
he is unwilling even to attempt to do so. The latter is
probably the case,
for in all probability the minister is reluctant to pursue
a path which is
likely to lead him to the precipice of dismissal from office,
which must be
seen as the most probable reaction of the president to anyone’s
endeavours
to motivate change to the policies so long espoused by
him.
Murerwa’s critics focus solely upon the catastrophic extent of
Zimbabwe’s
economic decline, holding him responsible for not taking the
measures
recognised by most as prerequisites for economic recovery. They fail
to take
note of the reasons why he does not do so, first and foremost of
which must
undoubtedly be that he is not allowed to do so. That his
capability is
underestimated is demonstrated by the quality of his
representation of
Zimbabwe when he was High Commissioner to London, and is
evidenced by the
very constructive manner in which he has, at various times,
served as
Minister of Tourism and the Environment, Minister of Commerce and
Industry,
and as Minister of Higher Education. His performance in those
offices is
clear proof that he is a man of significant ability, and yet that
ability
does not reflect in his current field of high responsibility. It
must,
therefore, be assumed that that is due to him being restrained from
doing
that which is necessary, and being unable or unwilling to shake off
the
constraining shackles.
However, his opening remarks upon
presenting his 2004 budget statement to
parliament last week were
exceptionally disappointing. In acknowledging that
“the country has once more
experienced another year of severe socio-economic
hardships”, he attributed
blame to the international community. He said that
“the sanctions imposed on
the country have worsened the economic
environment”.
That has long
been the excuse resorted to by the president, by Zanu PF
apologists, and by
other cabinet ministers, but it is an excuse which is
baseless and specious.
Although it cannot be denied that certain sanctions
have been applied on
Zimbabwe, and are currently in force, their nature is
in the main not of an
economic nature, and have little economic impact. They
are almost wholly
sanctions which are targeted against those wielding
political control in
Zimbabwe.
The facts are that no economic sanctions have been imposed upon
Zimbabwe by
any of the international community, other than that some have
withdrawn aid
which they previously provided for Zimbabwean developmental
purposes. Even
those who have withdrawn that aid have continued to provide
humanitarian aid
such as the provision of food and of funding to combat
HIV/Aids. But none
have discontinued or barred trade with Zimbabwe, and the
few who have
imposed constraints upon investment in Zimbabwe have only done
so
notionally, for the current Zimbabwean economic circumstance
renders
Zimbabwe an unattractive investment destination and, therefore, with
or
without sanctions, little investment is, or will be,
forthcoming.
Of economic consequence is that Zimbabwe has been suspended
by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), and is no longer a recipient
of
development funding from the World Bank. But that is not due to
politically
motivated sanctions. Suspension by the IMF is as a direct result
of
Zimbabwean default in debt-servicing. Similarly, funding is not
forthcoming
from the World Bank because its constitution bars it from
providing funding
to any country whose arrears with the bank exceed
stipulated limits.
The only sanctions imposed upon Zimbabwe are that its
membership has been
suspended in the Commonwealth, precluding Zimbabwean
participation in its
deliberations such as those shortly to be conducted at
Chogm in Abuja,
Nigeria, and that the European Union and the United States
have imposed
sanctions which are targeted at specified individuals. To all
intents and
purposes those targeted sanctions preclude the hierarchy of the
Zimbabwean
government and of Zanu PF, and members of their families, from
travelling to
the European Union and to the United States, and also that any
funds of such
persons as can be located be frozen.
No other sanctions
have been imposed, and hence it is wholly spurious for
sanctions to be
alleged as the cause, or worsening, of the economic
environment. In
contradistinction, the very countries that are attacked by
Zimbabwe’s
politicians for having imposed targeted sanctions are foremost in
supplying
aid for humanitarian purposes, and that aid has effectively
supplied Zimbabwe
with significant inflows of foreign exchange or of
imported requirements and
have therefore effectively contributed to the
economy and relieved the
state’s fiscal burden.
By way of illustration, it is relevant to note the
continuing support of the
US, notwithstanding it being a focal point for
Zimbabwean government ire and
criticism. Not only has the US continued to
give assistance to Zimbabwe, for
humanitarian purposes, but it has markedly
increased that assistance. In
2000, the extent of assistance was US$13,6
million, which increased to
US$21,3 million in 2001, and then increased
dramatically in 2002 to US$148,3
million, whilst 2003 commitments are only
marginally less, at US$138,4
million.
Much of that assistance (which
at currently prevailing parallel market
exchange rates equates, in 2003, to
nearly $828 billion!) has been directed
at providing food to Zimbabwe, which
food support would not have been
necessary had government not destroyed
Zimbabwean agriculture (even if
government pretends that the food shortages
are due to drought). Much else
of the significant financial assistance given
by the US is to combat the
HIV/Aids epidemic. Over the last two years the US
has provided 380 000
metric tonnes of food aid, at a value of US$235 million,
making the United
States government the largest single donor of food relief
to Zimbabwe,
equating to over 40% of total international contributions to the
World Food
Programme (WFP) for Zimbabwean food relief.
Most of the
other 60% of WFP’s magnificent support for the millions of
starving
Zimbabweans emanates from the member states of the European Union
(EU), as
does considerable aid in the fields of health and education. Thus,
whilst the
USA and the EU have imposed sanctions upon Zimbabweans, they are
of minimal
economic consequence, and it is therefore very distressing that
Murerwa has
joined the bandwagon who try, without credibility, to blame
sanctions for the
state of the economy. Minister Olivia Muchena emulated
Murerwa in making that
unfounded allegation on the day following the budget
presentation. That state
of the economy was summed up in the budget
statement as being “rising
inflation, erosion of real incomes, critical
foreign exchange shortages,
decline in savings and investment, capacity
under-utilisation, company
closures and high unemployment”.
The minister has correctly identified
the symptoms, but has misdiagnosed the
causes. Those causes are the acts of
commission and of omission of the
Zimbabwean government. Those acts include a
near-total failure to impose and
maintain law and order, disregard for the
fundamental principles of
democracy, alienation of cordial international
relations, destruction of
agriculture, imposition of a command economy, with
regulation being the
order of the day, widespread nepotism, pronounced
corruption, absence of
fiscal disciplines, and creation of racial divides. As
long as those causes
of economic decline are entrenched and rigidly adhered
to, no economic
measures as government may resort to can succeed in achieving
economic
recovery.
Zim Independent
Muckraker
Why is the Herald silent on
Georgia?
IT was the wealthiest of the Empire’s former dependencies when it
secured
independence. It had the highest per capita GDP in the region. But
a
combination of corruption, cronyism and eventually chaos impoverished
its
people, leading to a successful rising that saw its stubborn
old-guard
leader forced out.
Events in Georgia last weekend will have
inspired Zimbabweans with a fine
example of what peaceful “people power” can
achieve in removing an obdurate
and parasitic regime. But it will also have
served as a rebuke.
The opposition, following the blatant theft of an
election by President
Eduard Shevardnadze, came out onto the streets in their
tens of thousands.
Eventually their critical mass was so strong that the army
gave up trying to
control the situation. And Russia’s foreign minister told
Shevardnadze —
himself an ex-Soviet foreign minister — that he should work
out his
differences with the opposition which had successfully used
parliament as
the central forum for its protest. It shows us that where the
numbers are
irresistible, the forces of repression cannot prevail
A
visitor from Georgia may be forgiven for concluding that, given
their
docility, Zimbabweans generally prefer things as they are. But
the
authorities were clearly worried: the Herald didn’t mention Georgia
on
Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.
Do journalists with the state media
have any say over what they write? We
ask because despite the finding of the
Utete committee on land reform that
only 127 000 families had been allocated
land so far under A1 and 7 500
under A2, and of these many had not yet taken
up their allocations, scribes
such as Alfred Chagonda writing in the Herald
last week continue to claim
that 300 000 have been resettled under A1 and 50
000 under A2.
What is happening here? Is Chagonda genuinely ignorant of
the Utete report,
or does he know what the real figures are but is obliged by
the
story-tellers at Munhumutapa Building to go on peddling their
false
statistics? The Herald repeated the now discredited figures again
on
Wednesday. What’s the charge to be: ignorance or
deception?
Meanwhile, the Herald’s chief reporter seems to be under the
same gun. He
managed to slip this into a report on the upcoming Zanu PF
conference:
“Although Dr Muzenda will be greatly missed, his patriotism and
commitment
to the total liberation of Zimbabwe should inspire members to
remain
steadfast in safeguarding the country’s sovereignty and
independence.”
Are those the chief reporter’s words? And what about
these?: “Zimbabwe has
this year witnessed a systematic Western media barrage
bent on creating gory
scenarios in the country.”
Really? Who has been
creating the “gory scenarios” for the Western media to
write about?
We
feel sorry for vice-chancellors with a distinguished academic record
having
to say all sorts of strange things when awarding honorary doctorates
to the
president. He was featured on the front page of the Sunday Mail last
weekend
receiving a citation from Midlands State University Vice-Chancellor
Professor
Ngwabi Bhebhe who said Mugabe was being honoured for “empowering
the
majority”.
At a time when the majority are experiencing unparalleled
unemployment and
poverty, this was a particularly inappropriate time to award
Mugabe a
doctorate in anything, let alone commerce, one would have
thought!
Unless you read the report carefully.
“The impact of your
economic policies,” Bhebhe was quoted as saying, “have
been particularly felt
in the commercial and industrial sectors.”
Indeed they have. Four hundred
companies closed last year and over 290 so
far this year, according to the
CZI. Many companies that have gone to the
wall didn’t respond to the CZI
survey so we can be sure the number is much
higher.
These closures are
a direct product of the toxic business climate Mugabe’s
damaging policies
have spawned. Mugabe had “braced himself to completely
dismantle foreign
ownership of the economy”, the citation said.
In fact he has gone further
than that. He has completely dismantled the
economy!
But we liked the
president’s remarks on how disappointed he was with
construction work at the
Midlands campus. As a result he was having to
receive his degree in the
open.
“Ndapiwa degree mudondo (I have received a degree from the bush),”
he said.
Shouldn’t that have read: “I have received a degree from a bush
university”?
Still with bushy academics, Stan Mudenge must be deeply
disappointed that
President Luiz da Silva of Brazil gave Zimbabwe a big miss
during his recent
sweep through the region. Although he went to South Africa,
Lula was
focusing on Lusophone states, of which Brazil is the largest. He
managed to
visit all sorts of funny little places, but completely overlooked
the
Lusophonie’s most anxious and insistent candidate-member —
Zimbabwe.
Readers will recall that Stan has been trying to establish a
claim to
membership on the basis of some obscure events over 400 years ago
when the
Munhumutapa kingdom (not a reference to Jonathan Moyo’s department)
was
looking for balance-of-payments support. He reckons that reviving ties
to
Lisbon will dish the Brits. But with Lula coldly spurning his advances,
Stan
must be heart-broken.
Oh well, as the maputukezi say, Não faz mal
— don’t worry about it!
Muckraker was shocked to learn last weekend that
the Supreme Court was now
part of the Zanu PF regime.
According to a
report in the Sunday Mail, Information minister Jonathan
Moyo, in a notice
opposing an ANZ court application, “argued that by drawing
parallels, as it
did in its press release on October 9 2003, between the
Rhodesian regime and
the current Zimbabwean ‘regime’ that the Supreme Court
is part of, the ANZ
has shown how ‘unprepared’ it was not to respect the
highest court in the
country”.
This all looks “not” a little convoluted here. But the salient
point Moyo
appears to make is that the Supreme Court is regarded as part of
the regime
that he is part of. It may be debatable as to how far the
parameters of a
“regime” extend. But the distinction between the executive
and judicial arms
of the state is one that we would have thought any minister
would be keen to
underline, not occlude. After all, aren’t the Supreme Court
judges, together
with others, expecting to stay on after Mugabe and Moyo have
gone?
We note however that harassment of those considered too
independent-minded
appears to have resumed through the agency of ministerial
spooks.
Poor old Olusegun Obasanjo has become Zanu PF’s latest target of
abuse. This
stems from his most recent visit to Zimbabwe where he made it
clear he was
still consulting on whether Zimbabwe would be invited to the
Abuja Chogm
next month.
In fact, he was doing a number of Zimbabwe’s
friends a favour by appearing
to go the extra mile for Mugabe. This followed
representations from Malaysia
and Uganda, among others.
But we can
always count on Mugabe to kick his friends in the teeth. He
refused to humour
Obasanjo by holding an unscheduled meeting with Morgan
Tsvangirai which would
have enabled Obasanjo to argue that talks were under
way and therefore Mugabe
should not be shut out of the summit. Instead he
came under a torrent of
ridicule in the Nathaniel Manheru column which is
the mouthpiece of Mugabe’s
office boys.
Obasanjo emerged from his talks “tired and sombre” after
failing to secure
the summit between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, Manheru claimed.
“In sharp
contrast, the supposedly embattled Zimbabwean head of state
emerged
playfully shadow-boxing, only too happy to dramatise Obasanjo’s
dilemma.”
The South Africans were meanwhile enjoying the whole drama as
it played out
to the detriment of the general, we were told. And why’s that?
Because his
diplomatic failure spikes Nigeria’s chances of a UN Security
Council seat.
The office boys reminded the Nigerian ruler that he would need
Africa’s
support when Nigeria’s candidacy for a seat comes round. Meaning
don’t cross
us.
This of course presumes they will still be around to
threaten and bully
weaklings like Zambia when the opportunity
arises!
Having said that, Zambia doesn’t need to go on behaving like a
submissive
state. It now exports fuel to Zimbabwe, despite producing none of
its own,
and its farmers — including many from Zimbabwe — are selling maize
to their
mendicant neighbour. It even puts former presidents, charged with
misrule,
on trial!
We were gobsmacked by the twist the Herald gave to
Obasanjo’s categorical
‘No’ to Mugabe.
The Herald reported on
Wednesday that “Obasanjo reiterated yesterday that he
was still to invite
President Mugabe to next week’s Commonwealth Heads of
Government
Meeting.”
But this is what Obasanjo actually said:
“We will not
have an invitation (for Zimbabwe). If there is no invitation
they will not
come.”
Which part of ‘No’ does the Herald not understand?
The
Zimbabwe Independent revealed last week that claims in the official
media
that there was near-unanimity on Canaan Banana’s non-hero status at
last
week’s politburo meeting were less than accurate. Something that had
been
thought “in the bag” at the beginning of the meeting turned out to be
out of
the bag by its conclusion.
The blemishes, it would seem, outweighed the
shine. But as just about
everybody has commented, if blemishes were generally
an obstacle, how come
“Hitler” and Border passed the test?
Meanwhile,
an irreverent reader has written in to suggest what the poet
Algernon
Swinburn may have thought would be a fitting epitaph to the nation’
s first
president:
“Now Canaan’s newly met his god, Not earth to earth, but sod
to sod. It was
for sinners such as this Hell was created
bottomless.”
Our thanks to Algy who would probably be aghast to see his
work thus
transformed.
At a breakfast meeting on the budget this week,
economist Rob Davies,
referring to government’s 10-point recovery plan, said
the only other
organisation he knew of that had a 10-point plan was
Alcoholics Anonymous.
He said rule number one: you have to admit you’re an
alcoholic. We thought
that was a bit hard on ministers!
Wags are
pointing out that following the failure of Merp, the millennium
recovery
plan, we had Nerp, the revival plan. When that fails, what will the
next R
be? A resuscitation plan?
Looking at George Charamba’s long-winded
justification this week of the
unpopular Sendekera Mwana Wevhu, the latest
partisan agricultural jingle, we
were amused to see George Bush’s spokesman
entangled in a similar, if
smaller, knot recently.
Trying to minimise
the political damage done by a Republican senator’s
remarks on a Supreme
Court ruling, press officer Ari Fleischer said “the
president typically never
does comment on anything involving a Supreme Court
case, a Supreme Court
ruling, or a Supreme Court finding — typically.”
Asked why the president
had given a speech expressly to comment on an
affirmative action case
recently before the court, Fleischer replied that
was why he had stressed the
word typically.
Zim Independent
Mandiwanza calls for Noczim's deregulation
Ngoni
Chanakira
CONFEDERATION of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) boss Antony Mandiwanza
says the
cash-strapped National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim) is
highly
inefficient, grossly underutilised and should be deregulated
immediately.
In an emotional address at the post-budget seminar in Harare
last Friday,
Mandiwanza, who is also Dairibord Zimbabwe Ltd chief executive
officer, said
industry was fed up with Noczim and it should be deregulated as
a matter of
urgency.
"The role of Noczim is very questionable to
us the private sector,"
Mandiwanza told Finance minister Herbert
Murerwa.
"Noczim is highly inefficient, grossly underutilised and
should be
deregulated. I wonder why we continue to have it."
He
said government should also deregulate the use of the Beira pipeline
and
allow private fuel importers to hire the facility when they needed
it.
"This will be cheaper and cost-effective," he said. "Noczim
should just
charge for use of the pipeline and not get involved in fuel
imports because
it has completely failed and we (business) have serious
problems especially
in the transport industry."
Mandiwanza said
Noczim should play an administrative role such as monitoring
fuel pricing and
should "get out of the fuel importation business".
"It should simply deal
with strategic and operational issues haunting our
economy," Mandiwanza
said.
In his 2004 budget statement Murerwa said in view of the
deregulation of the
fuel industry, Noczim would continue to supply fuel to
the public sector as
well as the agricultural sector and was expected to
charge break-even prices
for all its products.
Before the
liberalisation of fuel procurement, amortisation of the Noczim
debt was part
of the pump price build up.
"In view of the many direct fuel
importers now involved, I propose a levy of
$110 per litre of diesel and
petrol, both leaded and unleaded to be
collected at the point of entry by
Zimra," Murerwa said. "This measure is
effective from December 1 2003 and
does not include illuminating paraffin
and aviation fuel."
Noczim,
which is known more for its corruption scandals, has been accused
of
uneconomic pricing policies that have led to government embarking
on
unsustainable borrowing requirements in excess of $150 billion.