The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
The move
has been inspired by our unwavering commitment to serve the
millions of
people who read The Daily News every day. Our core commitment is
to keep the
people of Zimbabwe informed about important national issues and
also provide
entertaining as well as educational material on a variety of
Issues that may
be of interest to our readers.
We have had to accept that Zimbabwean
laws do not permit us to base this
operation in our country of origin but we
are also open to the opportunities
that other countries whose laws are less
hostile to a free press provide. We
have therefore taken the decision to
externalize our publishing operation
and operate from where it is legal for
us to do so whilst we await the
conclusion of our case in the Zimbabwean
courts.
The Internet is a media that is almost impossible for the
nation state to
control through legal instruments because in order to
exercise jurisdiction
over publishers there must be the co-operation of the
host country. Quite
clearly when the Zimbabwean government enacted the Access
to Information and
Protection of Privacy Act which has been used to stop the
publication of the
Zimbabwean print edition of The Daily News they did not
fully consider the
technological advancement that enable publishers to reach
their audiences
from beyond the physical boundaries of
Zimbabwe.
There is a general consensus amongst the democratic nations
in the world
that few, if any obstacles should be placed in the path of free
expression
and the internet has emerged as one of the most effective vehicles
for free
expression. Democratic governments only interfere with Internet
usage when
such interference is clearly in the public interest as has been
the case
with crimes committed
through the net such as pedophilia and
terrorism. This will challenge
governments like are own which have laws that
are hostile to free expression
to remove these laws from their statute
books.
We will continue the fight to get the Daily News back on the
streets of
Zimbabwe where we can serve the greater portion of our
established
readership. This is because access to the internet in Zimbabwe
remains the
preserve of a privileged few who constitute less than one percent
of the
total population.
Currently, although our readers can
access the new site, only the
interactive features on the site are operative.
Since our operation in
Zimbabwe was shut down our readers continue to submit
letters to the editor
and humorous anecdotes on Zimbabwean issues. Readers
are also participating
in polls on key Zimbabwean issues, the results of
which are published on the
web. The readers, or ‘Friends of The Daily News'
are the ones who have kept
the site going whilst our editorial team prepares
to re-launch what we
believe will become the premier site for news and
information on Zimbabwe.
The enthusiasm of our readers has been remarkable.
We have counted a total
of 90 000 hits since the new site was established and
our promise to readers
is that we will soon be back to continue telling the
Zimbabwean story “like
it is”.
VOA
Zimbabwe Price Hikes Continue Despite Government Efforts to
Curb
Tendai Maphosa
Harare
09 Oct 2003, 17:15 UTC
Gas
stations in Zimbabwe are ignoring the government's new fuel prices, and
are
setting prices of their own, usually much higher.
The government, in an
attempt to protect low-income consumers, has set
prices for products and
services ranging from bread, sugar and flour to fuel
and bus fare. But its
price controls have backfired, leading to widespread
shortages and withdrawal
of services.
Gas prices have been raised twice since August, in an
attempt to bring them
up to what Minister of Energy Amos Midzi calls
market-related prices. The
government also gave up its monopoly on fuel
imports.
The price hikes have made gas and diesel fuel widely available,
but
virtually all the oil companies are charging more than the
government-set
price.
Despite the threat of prosecution, bakers charge
as much as four times the
government price for a loaf of bread. To avoid
government price controls,
they make products that are not on the price list,
creating shortages of
bread.
Commuter van drivers simply stayed at
home, after police cracked down on
them for overcharging. This has made
commuting a nightmare for some workers
who spend as much as six hours getting
to and from work.
University of Zimbabwe economist Moses Tekere says
setting prices is the
wrong way to protect consumers and eliminate
shortages.
"The Zimbabwean crisis has its roots in various fundamentals
that have been
mismanaged," he said. "The answer really lies in us correcting
the
fundamentals, in us going back to producing goods that can be exportable,
in
us stimulating investments, stimulating economic activity, [and] putting
up
policies that enable people to produce goods and services in abundance.
That
is the only recipe for shortages."
Zimbabwe is experiencing its
worst economic crisis since independence 23
years ago. Inflation is at a
record high of 426 percent, and unemployment
stands at more than 70 percent.
Economists widely blame President Robert
Mugabe's inept policies and
sometimes-violent land reform program for
wreaking havoc on the entire
population.
State Keen to Address Inflation
The Herald
(Harare)
October 9, 2003
Posted to the web October 9,
2003
Harare
THE Government is working flat out to find a lasting
solution to operational
difficulties facing the financial services sector,
Finance and Economic
Development Minister, Dr Herbert Murerwa has
said.
Addressing guests at the official launch of Barbican Bank in Harare
on
Tuesday, Dr Murerwa said most of the difficulties being faced by
commercial
banks were largely caused by the spiralling inflation.
"We
are doing our best to control the rate of inflation. We, as Government,
are
consulting various stakeholders with a view of getting solutions to some
of
the problems affecting the operations of financial institutions,"
he
said.
Dr Murerwa said some of the proposals will be included in the
2004 Budget.
He urged commercial banks to provide lines of credit to
newly resettled
farmers to enhance agricultural production.
Barbican
Holdings chief executive Dr Mthuli Ncube said the financial
institution is
perhaps one of the very few in the country which has not been
affected by the
cash shortage.
"We opened our bank at a time when the cash crisis had
already surfaced. So
we put in place contingency measures aimed at ensuring
that our clients were
not unduly inconvenienced by the prevailing scenario,"
he said.
Dr Mthuli said the financial institution will continue to run a
limited
number of branches for the time being.
Both Dr Murerwa and Dr
Ncube concurred that the issuing of bearer cheques
had gone a long way in
easing the cash problems, which faced the country
during the past six
months.
Barbican opened its doors to the public on the first day of July,
becoming
the 14th commercial bank to operate in the country.
It has
one branch in the central business district.
Barbican Holdings group
chairman Professor Phenias Makhurane said they would
open two more branches
in Mutare and Bulawayo before the end of the year.
Barbican Holdings has
also opened branches in South Africa, Botswana and the
United Kingdom.
Trade Unionists Promise Further Protests
UN Integrated Regional
Information Networks
October 9, 2003
Posted to the web October 9,
2003
Johannesburg
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) on
Wednesday vowed to continue
with mass action despite police swooping on
dozens of its members gathered
in the capital, Harare, to protest high taxes
and soaring inflation.
ZCTU secretary-general Wellington Chibhebhe, who
remained in custody on
Thursday, told IRIN the police had arrested 41 union
activists in Harare and
a number of ZCTU supporters in other
cities.
Speaking to IRIN from the Harare central police station,
Chibhebhe said: "It
is still unclear under which law they (the police) will
charge us. At first
they said we would be charged under the Public Order and
Security Act
(POSA), but then we were also told that we may be charged under
the
Miscellaneous Offences Act. In any event, we expected this, and
these
arrests will only strengthen our resolve to continue with our
protest."
Public demonstrations and protests are effectively illegal
under the 2002
POSA, which activists say curtails citizens' rights to freedom
of
expression. Serious restrictions on the rights of assembly and
association
have made it difficult for elected representatives to meet with
their
constituents, because meetings are either declared illegal or
disrupted.
"We knew the government would not have given us permission to
march, so we
did not bother requesting permission," Chibhebhe
added.
ZCTU, the main umbrella body representing labour movements in the
country,
called for a three-day national strike in April to protest a 200
percent
hike in fuel prices that increased urban commuter bus fares. ZCTU
argued
that workers would have to spend about 60 percent of their monthly
wages on
transport.
Inflation now stands at over 400 percent and a
large section of the
population is finding basic commodities increasingly
unaffordable
News24
Labour activists released by Zimbabwe police
October
09 2003 at 05:30PM
Harare - About 50 activists from Zimbabwe's
national labour movement,
including most of its leadership, were released
from police custody on
Thursday following protests against President Robert
Mugabe's regime.
A total of about 200 people were arrested countrywide on
Wednesday when
police stamped on planned demonstrations to demand tax cuts
and action
against spiralling price increases in Zimbabwe's collapsing
economy.
In a statement, president of Zimbabwe's Congress of Trade
Unions, Lovemore
Matombo said he and the 52 unionists who were arrested on
Wednesday as they
gathered to stage a demonstration in central Harare, were
set free on
Thursday after being told that plans to charge them and take them
to court
for violating security laws had been dropped.
"There was no
substance for police to take us to court. It was just pure
harassment. We
knew we were going to go through intimidation and harassment.
"But the
issue is not yet finished. We will continue (demonstrating) until
we see the
(national) budget in November, which is by when the union expects
tax cuts to
be announced."
At least one man had to be taken to hospital in the
western city of Bulawayo
after being assaulted by riot police, and another
two reported assaults in
Harare.
Three bystanders were arrested in
Bulawayo and had not yet been released.
Three union officials were also
arrested, assaulted by police and then
driven 50km outside the city and
dumped there, Matombo said.
Police action against the union also
continued in other parts of the
country.
Arnold Tsunga, director of
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, said five
local union officials were
arrested in the southern town of Chiredzi, and
another three in the town of
Chegutu, about 150 km west of Harare.
"All eight were accused of
violating draconian laws that outlaw public
meetings being held without
police permission but they were not
demonstrating."
The officials were
picked up at their homes and places of work and were
still in police custody,
Tsunga said.
Wedbesday's action drew an angry response from the Congress
of South African
Trade unions(Cosatu), who threatened "solidarity action"
against the Mugabe
government, similar to the action it took in August when
union members
blockaded South Africa's border posts into Swaziland to protest
against
suppression of the Swazi union movement by the kingdom's
authorities.
Tsunga said: "Zimbabwe, five years ago one of Africa's
strongest economies,
is now categorised as having the fastest shrinking gross
domestic product in
the world as a result of Mugabe's reckless economic
policies and the
destruction of the country's agricultural industry through
his illegal
forced removal of nearly all of the country's 4 000 white farmers
from their
land."
The labour movement is one of the most powerful
voices against the
government, and its members suffer arrest, assault and
harassment as a
matter of routine, he said. - Sapa
SABC
Zimbabwe faces food crunch as imports lag
October 09,
2003, 05:42 PM
Zimbabwe is well short of filling its food deficit
for the season
ending in March, with imports to date still less than a third
of what it
needs, a US-based food security unit said today. Aid agencies say
5.5
million people in Zimbabwe will need food aid by year-end.
The country, once the breadbasket of southern Africa, has struggled
with
shortages over the past three years, with agencies pointing to drought
and
disruption linked President Robert Mugabe's seizure of white-owned
commercial
farms for landless blacks.
In its September food security report
the Famine Early Warning System
Network (Fewsnet) put Zimbabwe's total
cereals gap for 2003/04 (April-March)
at about 738 464 tonnes, including 671
424 tonnes of staple maize.
"Food aid and commercial imports
achieved by mid-September 2003 have
covered only 28% of the 2003/04 marketing
year's initial cereal deficit,"
Fewsnet said. "The 2002/03 harvest is running
out for most rural households,
and purchased foods are selling at prices that
continue to escalate far
beyond the reach of the majority of poor
households," it added.
Although rainfall prospects appeared good,
the 2003/04 cropping season
beginning next month could be undermined by
shortages of key inputs like
fertiliser and seed, with maize output likely to
be just 1.2 million tonnes
or 66% of national needs.
The United
Nations World Food Programme has appealed for a total of
$550 million to
stave off widespread starvation in the region - much of it
earmarked for
Zimbabwe - but said recently that only about 20% of the target
had been
reached.
Zimbabwe's food shortages are one aspect of an economic
crisis
plaguing the country, which has shown itself in acute shortages of
fuel and
foreign currency, one of the world's highest rates of inflation
and
unemployment of over 70%.
Mugabe rejects charges that his
land reforms have contributed to the
food crisis, or that the programme -
which he says is meant to correct land
ownership imbalances created by
colonialism - has mainly benefited senior
government officials. -
Reuters
News24
Zim farmers want to rebuild
09/10/2003 19:21 -
(SA)
Bloemfontein - Zimbabwean farmers planned to rebuild their
country's
agricultural industry, Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU)
representative Doug
de la Freene said on Thursday.
"We are determined
to work our way through the problems," De la Freene said
in Bloemfontein,
speaking at the annual congress of Agri SA.
"We plan to keep a core of
expertise and skills on the ground and rebuild
our agriculture."
De la
Freene was referring to the drastic decline of his country's farming
sector
following the government's controversial land reform programme.
He said
their minister of agriculture was determined to "remove every
white
farmer".
Inflation was in reality closer to 800% than the
official level of around
400%.
"This means that no-one can farm,
whether an old farmer, a new farmer or a
traditional farmer," De la Freene
said.
"Agriculture has become irrelevant to the Zimbabwean economy. It
cannot work
for the national economy anymore."
To rebuild their
industry they needed predictability to create (market)
confidence and obtain
finance, he said.
He advised South African farmers to concentrate on
production and "leave
politics to the politicians".
By contrast with
De la Freene's speech, the Namibian Farmers' Union sent a
positive message to
South African farmers.
"We have stabilised the land reform situation in
Namibia," union president
Jan de Wet told the congress.
He said his
government recently appointed five consultants to compile a
national land
reform plan. This was to be based on a working document
drafted by the
farmers' union.
Newsday
S. Africa, Bush Facilitate Terror in
Zimbabwe
By Robert Kirby
Robert Kirby is a columnist
for the Mail & Guardian of Johannesburg, South
Africa. Sheryl McCarthy is
off.
October 9, 2003
South African newspapers have been almost
vituperative in criticizing
President Thabo Mbeki's "quiet diplomacy"
concerning the crisis in next-door
Zimbabwe. One paper observed that it's
been active advancement by Mbeki of
tyrant Robert Mugabe's
government.
What the press seems to have overlooked is a parallel
culpability by those
world leaders - most notably George W. Bush - who could
bring pressure to
bear, not only on Mbeki but on other southern Africa
leaders who have not
only allowed but, in some instances, openly encouraged
Mugabe in his
outrageous dictatorship.
When it comes to making
fine-sounding promises about arresting Zimbabwe's
human tragedy, Bush has
been just as good as Mbeki. If quiet diplomacy has
been a fiasco, what of
Bush's African speciality, fly-by diplomacy - his
version of doing absolutely
nothing?
It is not hard to understand why fresh press condemnation has
erupted: the
summary closure by Mugabe of the courageous opposition Daily
News and its
Sunday sister publication, followed by violent police harassment
of their
staff and the snubbing of a supreme court order restoring the
papers' right
to publish. Previously, Mugabe took action against the Daily
News in the
form of a bomb in its presses. Last year, 22 of its journalists
were
arrested and tortured. This time it's been vandalism or seizure by
Mugabe's
police of the papers' equipment and computers and, again, detention
of its
journalists.
In response to this and the many other brutal
excesses of the Zimbabwean
regime, the silence of Mbeki's government has been
thunderous. From
Washington there hasn't been the whisper. But then, dead
promises don't
talk. While he was hurtling around Africa at Mach-point-8 a
few months ago,
Bush raised a lot of hopes, speaking baronially about
American hands-on
involvement in helping Africa heal its festering political
wounds; of how
deeply his administration was committed to the relief of
Africa's suffering
masses; how the U.S. military could be deployed in helping
maintain peace.
Perhaps Bush's advisers have not told him about how
effective a literally
tiny British military force - fewer than 200 troops -
in Sierra Leone has
been in helping contain wholesale anarchy; how the
French, with another
small detachment, are holding the peace in the Cote
d'Ivoire.
Only last week new massacres were reported from Liberia. Yet a
couple of
U.S. Navy ships quietly upped anchors off Liberia's coast and
slipped away
in the night with a contingent of Marines.
While
attending the United Nations' fall picnic last month, Mbeki loftily
dismissed
the Zimbabwean crisis as being "something they will get over." If
Mbeki does
not consider the shocking human calamity on his own doorstep as
requiring
meaningful intervention, then surely Zimbabweans should expect, at
the least,
some signs of direct action from those who could make
a
difference.
Bush had both purpose and means when it came to ridding
the Middle East of a
tyrant. In the case of Zimbabwe, he would be helping to
rid the African
continent of one of its most grotesque despots. And Bush
would have no need
of guns; he has both the economic and political power to
pressure the South
African government and its neighbors into taking positive
steps toward
ridding Zimbabwe of its lunatic helmsman.
If the current
Zimbabwean dictatorship is allowed to run its ruinous course,
the consequence
could be a return to the civil war that preceded the 1980
democratic
elections, which brought Mugabe to power. As in Liberia, all the
warning
signs are there, unheard or ignored: the intensifying human tragedy
in
Zimbabwe, its economic collapse, and its starving rural millions, which
each
month cause thousands of desperate Zimbabweans to cross the porous
border and
seek relief in South Africa.
Mugabe's political derangement now seems not
only unstoppable, but carrying
mute approval of those who could bring him to
heel. Mbeki's foreign minister
continues to state that South African
government will never "abandon"
Mugabe. And, all the while, George W. Bush
stares fixedly in the opposite
direction.
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
Business Day
Migration, not land, is the
issue
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
LESSON
FROM ZIMBABWE/Geoff Hill
OVER the past two years, I have been researching a
book on Zimbabwe and the
question most people ask me is: will what has
happened there be repeated in
SA?
My own view is that it won't. The
logic being that, just because Uganda fell
under the tyranny of Idi Amin
didn't mean that neighbouring states like
Kenya and Tanzania followed suit
and started butchering their people.
The Zimbabwean crisis is very much a
product of Mugabe's need to stay in
power long after the electorate has tired
of him. But, if similar
circumstances do ever emerge in SA, my worry is that
we won't see them
coming.
The problem is that, when people talk about
Zimbabwe, they focus on the land
invasions, but in SA the search for answers
doesn't start there.
So where do you go? I'd start at Johannesburg's Park
Station and long-haul
buses pulling in from all over the country, each one
packed with young men
and woman from the rural areas coming to the city in
search of a better
life.
The problem is so bad that, if the rate of
migration to cities like
Johannesburg and Durban is not stemmed, city life
including jobs, water,
housing and general wellbeing will not keep pace with
the surge in
population.
That's where Zimbabwe's problem began. From
independence in 1980 to the
start of the farm invasions in 1999, the
country's population almost
doubled, but the number of people living in
Harare jumped fivefold.
And Zimbabwe is not alone. The movement of people
from rural areas to the
towns is just as severe in Thailand, the Philippines,
Kenya and Brazil. And
in each case the typical migrant is aged between 18 and
30, educated and
unemployed.
Studies by the United Nations and others
have shown that when you educate
people in the countryside, they invariably
move to the urban areas. One
report suggested that, after three years of
primary school, a person was
twice as likely to seek work in the city than
someone with no education.
After three years at high school, the ratio
doubled again to four times as
likely to move to the city.
In
Zimbabwe, it was the urban poor, living six or more to a room, who led
the
revolt against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. However, their gripe
was
not land, but money and jobs.
In 1998, when they took to the streets and
threatened to vote out the ruling
party at the next election, the government
tried to distract them with the
land, but no one was listening and opposition
grew because the real
complaint had not been addressed.
Without
question, there are rural communities in SA who need and deserve
land and
government should make sure they get it through legal means. But
that will
not prevent a revolution.
If you give land to families now, how many of
their children will stay home
and grow crops once they leave school?
Experience in the rest of Africa
suggests that those kids will head for the
cities and try to put their
education to work.
So what are the
choices? One would be to close the rural schools and stunt
the mental growth
of a generation, but that would be unforgivable. The other
would be to accept
that SA is rapidly becoming an urban nation, full of
skilled, hardworking
young people who deserve the right to build themselves
a better
future.
At independence in 1980, the literacy rate in Rhodesia was
already an
impressive 70%, whereas across most of SA, less than half the
population
could read and write. Mugabe performed a miracle and, within 15
years, he
had raised literacy to 95%. In that context, he remains one of my
heroes.
But nothing was done to cater for the demands of an educated
workforce.
When you've spent 10 years or more at school and your parents
worked at
three jobs to keep you there, your dreams go far beyond a life in
the
fields. The new generation would rather be on the internet than on the
land.
If land was the issue then why, when it is there for the taking,
have
2-million black Zimbabweans decamped to SA and about 600000 to the
UK?
Surely they should be claiming their plots instead?
But
small-scale agriculture would never give them the income needed for
clothes,
school fees, cellphones, television and the myriad goods that are
part of
Africa's new culture.
So what are the options?
SA needs to put all
its effort into industrial growth and government could
help the rural areas
by extending its programme of decentralisation and
encouraging new investors
through tax relief and other benefits to set up
shop in the country towns
where unemployment is highest.
Giving people land will not keep them at
home, but if they can find jobs in
their own communities, there's a good
chance they will not migrate to the
city.
Perhaps on the land there is
room to test the Israeli kibbutz system in
which a large number of people
work an estate in line with best farming
practice. This could cater for some
of the thousands of unemployed people in
places like rural
KwaZulu-Natal.
As a journalist, hardly a month goes by that I am not
called out to cover a
protest staged by Zimbabwean exiles in SA. The
demonstrations are invariably
against Mugabe, all the participants are young,
black and educated and, with
their banners and placards, they deny the notion
that land reform has
delivered what the people really want.
I am a fan
of the way the African National Congress has run this country
over the past
10 years. SA has enjoyed more democracy and better government
than any
country in the history of this continent and there is much to be
proud
of.
But if the party's right to power is ever questioned, the challenge
will
come from the urban poor.
And, as in Zimbabwe, land will not be
the issue.
Hill is southern African correspondent for a daily newspaper
in Washington
DC. His Book, Battle for Zimbabwe The Final Countdown
(NewHolland), will be
released on October 15.
Media Alert: Journalist Manhandled, Equipment Confiscated over
T-Shirt
Message
Media Institute of Southern Africa
(Windhoek)
PRESS RELEASE
October 9, 2003
Posted to the web October
9, 2003
On October 3 2003, a vigilante group attacked Cyril Zenda, a
senior
journalist with the 'Financial Gazette', robbing him of 5000
Zimbabwe
dollars (approximately US$6) and his mobile phone.
Zenda told
the Zimbabwe chapter of the Media Institute of Southern
Africa
(MISA-Zimbabwe) that he was spotted by a vigilante known as Chipangano
when
he disembarked from a bus at the main bus terminus in Harare. He said
that
group pulled him to a secluded spot and began interrogating him over
the
message on a MISA-Zimbabwe t-shirt he was wearing. The t-shirt bore
the
message 'Free My Voice: Free the Airwaves'. He told MISA-Zimbabwe that
the
group demanded to know what the message means and why he was wearing
a
t-shirt with an anti government slogan. Zenda said he was lucky that
the
group did not realize that he was a journalist working for the
'Financial
Gazette'. He lied to the group, telling them that the t-shirt had
been a
gift from his younger brother. According to Zenda the group then
proceeded
to tear the t-shirt from his body and burn it. His mobile phone and
money
were also forcibly taken.
BACKGROUND
Chipangano is a
vigilante group associated with the ruling party, the
Zimbabwe African
National Union Patriotic Front (Zanu PF). Despite numerous
complaints of
harassment from members of the public and opposition members,
no concrete
action has yet been taken by the police to dismantle the group.
Zenda
said he did not bother to report the matter to the police and rather
walked
away when he was 'released'. The group openly boasted to him that
nothing
would ever happen to them. Although he was not injured, Zenda said
that felt
traumatized by the incident.
Zim-UK Impasse a Bilateral Problem: Envoy
The Herald
(Harare)
October 9, 2003
Posted to the web October 9,
2003
Lovemore Mataire
Harare
ITALY, which chairs the European
Union, has finally conceded that the
impasse between Zimbabwe and Britain is
a bilateral problem, which should be
resolved by the two countries without
external interference.
Italian ambassador Mr Guiseppe Marchini Gamia
yesterday said his country
would support all efforts aimed at opening
dialogue with Zimbabwe.
"This is a problem between Britain and
Zimbabwe. We appreciate that the
matter between Zimbabwe and Britain is a
bilateral one," said Mr Gamia.
He said although his country had only been
chairing the EU for less than
three months it would work towards the
promotion of dialogue with Zimbabwe.
Mr Gamia was speaking soon after
meeting Vice President Msika to express his
concern over the continued
occupation of some farms owned by Italian
nationals in the
country.
Vice President Msika is the chairman of the national land
taskforce.
The ambassador said 30 properties owned by Italian nationals
in all the
country's provinces were currently under occupation by villagers
who have
defied orders to vacate the farms.
He said the farms were
first listed for compulsory acquisition but were
later de-listed after the
embassy lodged a complaint to the Ministry of
Local Government, Public Works
and National Housing.
Mr Gamia said that there was a heavy presence of
Italians in the country
actively involved in various economic
activities.
Vice President Msika told the ambassador that he needed to
clarify the
status of the farms.
He told the ambassador to separate
the farms acquired on a government to
government agreement from those
purchased by individual Italian nationals
after the Second World War when the
country was still under settler colonial
rule.
Cde Msika said those
acquired during colonialism by Italian nationals were
to be dealt with in the
same manner as any other farms purchased by other
nationals during the
colonial era.
Cde Msika promised to look into the issue together with the
Ministries of
Foreign Affairs, Local Government, Public Works and National
Housing and
Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement.
However, Vice
President Msika criticised Italy for involving itself in a
bilateral matter
between Zimbabwe and Britain.
The Vice President said Zimbabwe had always
been ready for dialogue with any
nation as an equal and not as a subordinate
because it was a sovereign
state.
He said as a sovereign state,
Zimbabwe had the right to decide its own
destiny without outside
interference.
Cde Msika said Zimbabwe had always advocated dialogue but
the Italians, at
the instigation of Britain, decided to join the bandwagon of
other EU
countries to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe.
The Vice President
said the Government was in the process of analysing the
report of the
Presidential Land Review Committee with a view to correcting
certain
anomalies that could have arisen during the implementation of the
land reform
exercise.
"The question of land reform is a mammoth task and during the
process
mistakes have been made. We have some who have multiple ownership of
farms
and we are changing that," he said.
The Presidential Land Review
Committee report was recently tabled before the
Zanu-PF Politburo and members
said they needed time to study it before
formally deliberating on it.
MSNBC
Zimbabwe opposition slams arrest of union chiefs
By Cris
Chinaka
HARARE, Oct. 9 — Zimbabwe's main opposition party on Thursday
condemned the
arrest of union leaders who organised demonstrations against
high taxes and
soaring prices caused by the country's economic
crisis.
Dozens of people, including two leaders of the Zimbabwe
Congress of
Trade Unions (ZCTU), were detained on Wednesday after they tried
to march in
Harare and two other cities without police permission as required
under
tough new security laws.
ZCTU secretary-general Wellington
Chibebe, who was among those
arrested, said the group had been released in
two batches on Wednesday and
Thursday. Some had paid admission-of-guilt fines
while the rest were charged
under Zimbabwe's Miscellaneous Offences Act and
could be summoned to court
at a later date.
The main opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which has
strong labour backing and has
staged its own protests over Zimbabwe's
mounting political and economic
crisis, said the arrests were worrying.
''The MDC is deeply concerned
that the Mugabe regime still believes
it can silence dissenting voices
through intimidation and arbitrary arrests
of innocent civilians who stand up
to express their displeasure in the
current economic crisis,'' the party said
in a statement.
Both the ZCTU and MDC accuse the government of
President Robert
Mugabe of mismanaging the southern African country since
independence from
Britain in 1980.
Mugabe denies the charges and
accuses opponents of trying to destroy
the economy and subvert his
government.
The landlocked nation is grappling with acute shortages of
foreign
currency, food and fuel. Unemployment stands at over 70 percent
and
inflation is near 430 percent.
On Tuesday, Chibebe said the
union had asked workers to report to
work on Wednesday and then join
demonstrations to demand lower taxes and
''sanity in the level of prices.''
Chibebe was one of those arrested.
Prices of basic food stuffs have
soared in recent months, prompting
the government to hint at a return to
price controls to kill a thriving
black market.
Street protests
without police permission are banned in Zimbabwe
under security laws enacted
last year which critics say are aimed at
repressing criticism of Mugabe's
government, which critics say has become
increasingly
authoritarian.
(additional reporting by Stella Mapenzauswa)