Cato
Institute (Washington, DC)
ANALYSIS
2 October 2008
Posted to the
web 2 October 2008
Steve H. Hanke
Zimbabwe is the first
country in the 21st century to hyperinflate. In
February 2007, Zimbabwe's
inflation rate topped 50% per month, the minimum
rate required to qualify as
a hyperinflation (50% per month is equal to a
12,875% per year). Since then,
inflation has soared.
The last official inflation data were released for
June and are hopelessly
outdated. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has been even
less forthcoming with
money supply data: the most recent money supply
figures are ancient
history-January 2008.
Absent current official
money supply and inflation data, it is difficult to
quantify the depth and
breadth of the still-growing crisis in Zimbabwe. To
overcome this problem,
Cato Senior Fellow Steve Hanke has developed the
Hanke Hyperinflation Index
for Zimbabwe (HHIZ). This new metric is derived
from market-based price data
and is presented in the accompanying table for
the January 2007 to present
period. As of 26 September 2008, Zimbabwe's
annual inflation rate was 531
billion percent.
The HHIZ will be updated weekly and available on the
Cato Institute's web
site. www.cato.org/zimbabwe
*Steve H.
Hanke is one of the world's leading experts on exchange-rate
regimes. He has
played a prominent role in designing and implementing
monetary reforms that
have stopped very high or hyperinflations in eight
countries.
http://www.iht.com
The Associated PressPublished: October 2,
2008
HARARE, Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe's financial crisis lurched
into a new phase
Thursday, as efforts to put more cash into circulation
appeared to backfire
into a new round of higher prices for basic goods.
Government officials
threatened to arrest any shop owners found to be
gouging.
Zimbabwe's Prices and Incomes Commission said it has seen
"rampant and
unjustified price increases" since the start of the week, when
the
government introduced higher denomination currency and raised the daily
limit on withdrawals from bank accounts.
The measures aimed to help
ordinary Zimbabweans, who are struggling with the
world's highest inflation
rate. The country's official inflation rate is 11
million percent a year,
but private financial institutions estimate it is
far
higher.
Godwills Masimirembwa, head of the price commission, told state
radio that
inspectors were out in the street Thursday to make sure that
businesses were
sticking to prices approved by the commission on or before
Sept. 26.
"Any businessperson charging prices that have not been approved
will be
arrested and prosecuted for unscrupulous business practices," he
said. "This
is a serious matter."
He said the offense carries a
penalty of up to five years in prison.
"Everything is crazy around here,"
complained Joey Austin, a Harare salesman
handling wads of old and new money
Thursday.
Huge crowds have been lining up at banks since Monday to
withdraw money,
spilling off sidewalks and blocking traffic. People are
desperate to take
out money to buy groceries, which can go up in price in
minutes.
Edward Mungofa, a private business consultant, said the economy
is suffering
because of political uncertainty over Zimbabwe's stalled
negotiations on
forming a new power sharing government.
President
Robert Mugabe and the opposition led by Prime Minister-designate
Morgan
Tsvangirai signed a power-sharing deal Sept. 15, but have since been
unable
to agree on which party should control key Cabinet posts.
South Africa's
new president, Kgalema Motlanthe, said Thursday he wanted his
predecessor,
Thabo Mbeki, to continue to mediate the power-sharing deal in
Zimbabwe - an
idea rejected by chief Mugabe negotiator Patrick Chinamasa.
"I don't
think that the issue of allocation of ministries is a matter that
can be
referred (to Mbeki)," Chinamasa was quoted as saying by The Herald, a
government mouthpiece.
Chinamasa said officials were confident of a
breakthrough soon.
http://www.transparency.org/news_room/latest_news/press_releases_nc/2008/2008_09_23_zimbabwe_cpi
Harare,
Zimbabwe, 23 September 2008
The statement of the Transparency International
Chairperson Huguette
Labelle, contained in the press release by TI global
Secretariat of 23
September 2008 (see TI website: www.transprency.org) calling the rising
levels of corruption in low - income countries 'an ongoing humanitarian
disaster' echoes TI Zimbabwe's own sentiments and qualifies its approach to
the fight against corruption in Zimbabwe, which from 2006 has taken a more
keen interest in the humanitarian consequences of corruption by looking at
social and public service delivery in local government.
With growing
concern, TI Zimbabwe has watched the meagre resources and
services provided
to the poor further strangled by bourgeoning corruption
that has tainted the
complexion of everything and everyone fair in this
country. The governance
framework that is characterised by weak
institutions, specifically
parliament and judiciary, and in the face of
draconian laws and self-serving
policies, has resulted in selective and
haphazard approaches in addressing
corruption. Subsequently, this has
contributed to the weakening of
institutions of governance necessary for the
curtailing of corruption. The
lack of political will to comprehensively
approach the fight against
corruption in a transparent and effective manner,
demonstrated by the
failure to give oversight and leadership with integrity
and accountability,
has allowed corruption to permeate all spheres of human
life so that the
whole society is criminalized. There is no longer a
distinction between
petty and grand corruption; the arrogance of corruptors
and corruptees and
the skewed policies, force ordinary citizens between a
rock and a hard place
in order to survive the increasingly unrelenting
social, economic and
political environment.
At this point of the release of the 2008
Corruption Perception Index (CPI)
of 2008 the future seems exceedingly
bleak. TI-Zimbabwe places the welfare
and equitable development of the
masses at the heart of the agreement
between the three parties, ZANU PF and
the two MDC formations, and calls on
them to demonstrate the necessary
political will, integrity and
accountability by holding this deal together
in order to realise the hopes
that people have placed on the power sharing
agreement. They must put to an
end all the suffering caused by the
misgovernance and the politicisation,
along partisan lines, of institutions
of governance that has fuelled
corruption from top to bottom, and may yet be
the final nail on the coffin
of a dying nation.
Zimbabwe scored 1,8
on the 2008 CPI and the country was ranked 166 out of
180 countries
surveyed. There is clear evidence that as the political,
economic and social
crisis has deepened, so has the corruption.
Statistically, Zimbabwe's score
has slipped by about a 62% from 2.9 in 2001
to 1.8 in 2008. This evidence
points to a direct correlation between the
crisis in governance and the rise
of corruption. The CPI score measures the
degree of public sector corruption
as perceived by experts and business
people and country analysts (See the TI
website www.transaprency.org). While
TI Z is cognizant of the negative impact the sanctions have had on the
economic and social planning, the political leadership cannot abrogate their
responsibility to be custodians, protectors and promoters of values and
practices that prevent the perpetuation of corruption and bad
governance.
With regard to anticipated investments in the wake of the
power sharing
agreement it is noted that the press statement makes reference
to the
findings of Prof Johann Graff Lambsdorff of the University of Passau,
commissioned by TI global to carry out the CPI, that imply that it is in the
best interest of low income states such as Zimbabwe to fight corruption and
improve the way investors perceive doing business in their countries. The
findings state ' there is evidence to suggest that the improvement in the
CPI by one point [on a 10 point scale] increases capital inflows by 0.5% of
a country's gross domestic product and averages incomes by as much as 4%'
(www.transparency.org).
The
TI global Chairperson Huguette Labelle in the press release, further
makes
the point that high corruption levels in poor countries can mean the
difference between life and death, an issue already explored by TI Zimbabwe
in a study conducted between 2006- 2007 that looked at corruption in public
service delivery in the health sector with a specific focus on HIV/AIDS. The
devastating effects of corruption on the vulnerable in our society should be
the driving factor in strengthening the national strategies against
corruption whose flagship is the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) as
supported by the Ministry of Anti Corruption. Specifically this can be done
by making the ACC independent, strengthening the oversight role of
Parliament and offices of the Auditor General and Ombudsmen by making them
more responsive and transparent to the public, as well as opening up the
space for civil society to play an effective watchdog role.
TI
Zimbabwe notes with regret the early signs of a continuing culture of
lack
of integrity and accountability from some quarters of the leadership
who are
signatories to the power sharing agreement. Asset stripping must
stop
forthwith. Egos and partisan interests before those of the nation are
delaying the formation of a government and the implementation of the issues
raised in the agreement. The nation is geared for a period of transition and
the reform of critical governance institutions is critical to boosting
social and economic development for the betterment of the people's
livelihoods. The leadership must be held accountable to deliver the promised
Amendment No.19 that will usher in a new dispensation. The new dispensation
must be open enough to allow civil society to operate freely and play its
role of watchdog alongside the media and other public oversight
institutions. Civil society must continue, without fear or favour, to
execute their mandate. Their role is more critical now than ever before. TI
Zimbabwe calls on all Zimbabweans to demand the prioritization of
institutional reform, the end of corruption and misgovernance in Zimbabwe as
we all look forward to a future of participatory democracy and negotiated
engagement between state and non-state actors in shaping the future of
Zimbabwe.
Media contact(s):
John Maketo
+263 4 793 246
programs@transparency.org.zw
Reuters
Thu 2 Oct
2008, 8:48 GMT
By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE (Reuters) - South
Africa's new government called on former President
Thabo Mbeki on Thursday
to continue as the region's mediator in Zimbabwe's
political crisis despite
his ousting as president.
But a senior official with Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF
party said Mbeki's involvement was not needed now to
break an impasse
threatening to derail a power-sharing deal and the recovery
of the African
nation's shattered economy.
Mbeki, a
trouble-shooter in a series of African crises during nine years as
president, brokered the September 15 deal between Mugabe and MDC leader
Morgan Tsvangirai that is to establish a unity government.
Mbeki's
role was thrown into doubt after his ruling ANC forced him to
resign.
Pressure for him to become involved again has grown as Mugabe's
party and
the MDC argue over the allocation of cabinet posts.
"Mr. Mbeki's
facilitation efforts in Zimbabwe have proven his dispassionate
vision for a
lasting political solution to the challenges facing Zimbabwe,"
new South
African President Kgalema Motlanthe said in a statement.
"Accordingly,
our government has full confidence in Mr. Mbeki's ability to
build on the
historic successes already made in the power sharing
negotiations under his
mediation."
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change initially
criticised Mbeki as
being too soft on Mugabe, but it now supports him
continuing his 18-month
mediation under a mandate from the 15-nation
Southern African Development
Community.
DOUBTS
ZANU-PF, which
lost control of parliament in a March election and entered
the talks
reluctantly, said it did not see any immediate need for mediation
over the
dispute on cabinet posts.
"I don't think that the issue of allocation of
ministries is a matter that
can be referred to the facilitator (Mbeki),"
Patrick Chinamasa, chief
ZANU-PF negotiator at the talks, was quoted as
saying in the state-run
Chronicle newspaper.
"We cannot, at the
slightest difference in opinion, call outsiders to
mediate. If there is
thinking on such kind of an approach, it has to stop in
the interest of
harmonisation of relations," Chinamasa said.
Mugabe, who has ruled since
independence from Britain in 1980, has expressed
confidence that the cabinet
would be named this week. But MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai and his officials
say a deal is not imminent.
The opposition accuses Mugabe's party of
trying to assign the opposition a
junior role in government.
Without
a breakthrough, Zimbabwe's economy could worsen still further. The
once-prosperous nation is crumbling under inflation of about 11 million
percent -- the highest in the world -- and chronic food
shortages.
U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes estimated that three
million Zimbabweans
were already relying on aid and that the figure could
rise to five million,
or about half the population, the BBC reported on
Thursday.
(Additional reporting by Paul Simao in Johannesburg; Editing by
Matthew
Tostevin)
http://www.monstersandcritics.com
Africa News
Oct 2,
2008, 9:25 GMT
Johannesburg - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's
Zanu-PF party has opposed
calling in ex-South African president Thabo Mbeki
to salvage a power-sharing
deal with prime minister-designate Morgan
Tsvangirai's Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC).
Zanu-PF's chief
negotiator Patrick Chinamasa rejected calls from the MDC for
Mbeki to step
in to end the impasse between the two parties over the
distribution of
cabinet posts in a new unity government.
Mbeki is the Southern African
Development Community (SADC)'s mediator in
Zimbabwe, who brokered the
power-sharing deal between Mugabe and Tsvangirai
last month.
SADC
said they expected him to continue in the role after he stepped down as
South African president on September 21.
'I don't think that the
issue of allocation of ministries is a matter that
can be referred to the
facilitator (Mbeki). We cannot, at the slightest
difference in opinion, call
outsiders to mediate,' Chinamasa was quoted by
the state-controlled Herald
newspaper Thursday as saying.
'Even if you are a married couple, you
cannot have a situation where your
wife runs to her mother each time you
have a problem in your home. If there
is thinking on such a kind of
approach, it has to stop in the interest of
harmonization of relations,' he
added.
On Tuesday, Mugabe and Tsvangirai held talks but failed to
finalize the
make-up of cabinet.
Under a deal the longtime foes
signed on September 15, Mugabe's party is
supposed to get 15 posts in a
31-member cabinet, Tsvangirai's party is to
get 13 and the remaining three
go to a splinter MDC faction led by Arthur
Mutambara.
The MDC blames
Mugabe for the delay in implementing the deal, saying he
wants to retain
'all the key ministries,' such as foreign affairs, home
affairs and finance.
Western governments have been calling for the MDC to
have the upper hand in
government.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa
Thursday that
his party had complained to SADC.
'We won the March 29
(parliamentary) election but they (Zanu-PF) want us to
play second fiddle,'
Chamisa complained.
'We hope they (SADC and the African Union) chip in
quickly and the impasse
is broken.'
A unity government that attracts
aid and investment is seen as the only real
solution to Zimbabwe's economic
collapse. The September deal ended Mugabe's
28-year stranglehold on power,
but the euphoria has since evaporated as
hardliners in his party balk at
sharing power with the MDC.
On his return home from the UN General
Assembly in New York on Monday,
Mugabe said that the new government would be
formed by the end of the week.
Tsvangirai said at the weekend a new
government was urgently needed to avoid
starvation in the country, whose
food production capacity has been wiped out
by a decade of disastrous
policies.
02 October 2008 |
If Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe does not soon agree to a fully
inclusive Cabinet, it is likely that former South African President Thabo Mbeki
will be in Harare before the weekend. Mr. Mbeki has remained in contact with the
stumbling Zimbabwean peace deal he facilitated last month on behalf of the
Southern African Development Community.
Sources tell VOA
negotiations on forming a Cabinet are taking place almost continuously in Harare
at various levels in the political hierarchy.
A source with a long and
close knowledge of the negotiations tells VOA the Cabinet should have been
formed two weeks ago.
Zimbabwe's new Deputy PM Arthur Mutambara, President Robert Mugabe, new PM Morgan Tsvangirai pose after signing power-sharing accord in Harare, 15 Sep 2008 |
South African President Thabo Mbeke (file photo) |
http://www.apanews.net
APA-Harare
(Zimbabwe) Delays in appointing Zimbabwe's new cabinet have
worsened
friction between the ruling ZANU PF and the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) over the control of local government councils, APA
learnt here Thursday.
The MDC declared that its elected councillors
would not take orders from
Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo, whom
it accuses of meddling in
the affairs of the opposition-dominated local
authorities.
The party accused Chombo of imposing handpicked ZANU PF
supporters who would
serve as "special interest councillors" in
MDC-dominated urban councils.
The MDC said Chombo had no right to meddle
with council decisions in most
cities and towns as "he is not a cabinet
minister".
"There is no legitimate government in Zimbabwe at the moment
and the nation
is eagerly awaiting the conclusion of inter-party talks so
that an inclusive
government can begin to respond to the needs of the
people," an MDC
spokesperson said Thursday.
Relations between the
MDC-dominated urban councils and Chombo came to a head
on Tuesday after the
minister allegedly threatened the elected mayor of the
third city of Mutare
for refusing to co-opt ZANU PF officials into the
MDC-dominated
council.
The minister is alleged to have threatened to dismiss the
12-member city
council unless they installed the ruling party
officials.
The appointment of a new cabinet is deadlocked after President
Robert Mugabe
and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai failed to agree on control of
key
ministries.
By Lance
Guma
02 October 2008
Zimbabwe's labour unions faced increasing calls
to act in the wake of
worsening economic conditions in the country despite
the power sharing
accord signed two weeks ago. Last week the umbrella
Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions issued a 7 day ultimatum to the Central
Bank to scrap cash
withdrawal limits which have created long winding queues
at the banks. After
a series of half measures from the bank, including an
increase of the cash
limit from Z$1000 to Z$20 000, ZCTU appear to have
backed down saying the
threatened strike, 'penciled in for 1st October has
been deferred while we
assess, in consultation with our structures, the
impact of the RBZ move.'
Three days after that statement was issued the
country is in the throes of a
worsening financial crisis. The new cash
withdrawal limits have simply
triggered a new wave of prices increases,
forcing people to adjust upwards
the amount of money they need for daily
requirements. Everyday riot police
are being deployed to control huge crowds
jostling to withdraw money from
the banks. Many times the banks do not even
have the money to dispense,
while on some occasions deliveries from the
Reserve Bank arrive late in the
afternoon. The queues are so big they are
spilling off into side walks and
blocking traffic.
A black market
dealer told Newsreel, 'there are so many people already on
the street trying
to get money from the banks, we don't know why the ZCTU
backed out of their
planned strike action.' His sentiments were echoed by a
political
commentator who said the ZCTU had missed a chance to harness the
collective
anger of a suffering population. 'It's hard to understand why
Zimbabweans
put up with all this nonsense? If these things happened in other
countries
you would have spontaneous protests, but we seem to have developed
a habit
of normalizing the abnormal.'
Raymond Majongwe, the Secretary General of
the militant Progressive Teachers
Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), said they were
considering a demonstration by
teachers against the Z$20 000 cash withdrawal
limit. He decried the limit
saying it was not even enough to buy an orange
or a packet of lacto milk
(Z$37 000). Majongwe said the way forward was for
all unions in the country
to rally together and tackle the crisis affecting
them as workers. He
confirmed that 90 percent of teachers were still on
strike, with a handful
adopting a mercenary attitude by charging students
Z$300 to $1000 a day for
lessons and others receiving payment in the form of
cooking oil and sugar.
This he said was compromising their strike
action.
Meanwhile government officials, burying their heads in the sand
over the sky
rocketing prices, responded in the usual high handed manner
threatening to
arrest shop owners accused of profiteering. The head of the
pricing
commission, Godwills Masimirembwa, told state radio price that
inspectors
would be out on the streets on Thursday and, 'any businessperson
charging
prices that have not been approved will be arrested and prosecuted
for
unscrupulous business practices.'
Analysts say in the absence of
fundamental political and economic reforms
the situation can only get
worse.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
http://www.hararetribune.com
Thursday, 02 October
2008 05:38
ZANU-PF's rejection of the MDC's call for Thabo Mbeki to
intervene in the
cabinet formation talks was inspired by ZANU-PF leaders'
desire to see the
deadlock continue for weeks to come, the Tribune
heard.
Negotiations to form a cabinet have with Tsvangirai's Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) claiming that Mugabe wants to retain all key
posts -- believed to be the defence, home affairs, state security and
finance ministries.
After Mugabe and Tsvangirai failed to resolve
their differences during a
meeting Tuesday, the MDC called on Mbeki and the
regional bloc SADC to
resume their mediation to break through the
logjam.
But the chief negotiator for Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party denied
there was
any deadlock, saying no outside mediation was
needed.
"Anyone who says there is a deadlock is being mischievous. There
is
commitment on all of us to make things work," Patrick Chinamasa
said.
"If there was a disagreement as is being suggested, I don't think
it's one
that would justify calling in the facilitator," Chinamasa
said.
"If there are any issues, I believe they can resolve them among
themselves,"
he added.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the party
had already contacted the
15-nation Southern African Development Community
(SADC), which has appointed
Mbeki as its mediator.
"This is an urgent
matter, communication lines to SADC have been activated,"
Chamisa told
AFP.
Mbeki's forced resignation as South Africa's president last week
raised
concerns about the fragile pact he had brokered to divide powers
between
Mugabe as president and Tsvangirai in the new post of prime
minister.
Mugabe said Monday that a new government would be formed by the
end of the
week, but that now appears a dim prospect.
SADC spokesman
Charles Mubita on Wednesday said the group had not been
contacted about the
stand-off but said Mbeki was the "only channel" for
handling Zimbabwe's
crisis.
"If there is anything that needs to be discussed with Zimbabwe,
there are
channels, and the only channel is through the facilitator," he
told AFP.
"They will then have to get in touch with the SADC mediator,
which is former
president Thabo Mbeki."
Mbeki's spokesman Mukoni
Ratshitanga said SADC would have to "formally
pronounce" whether the former
president would continue as mediator.
However he added: "President Mbeki
will participate in any process that is
aimed at taking the African
continent a step forward."
In rejection the intervention of Mbeki,
ZANU-PF officials opposed to the GNU
deal hope to extend the deadlock for
sometime to come, MDC officials charged
Thursday.
In keeping the
deadlock in place, the ministers who stand to lose office if
the new cabinet
takes over will keep their positions. As long as the new
cabinet is not
allowed to take office, security chiefs in the police and the
army will rest
easy in the knowledge that they wouldn't likely face
prosecution for their
crimes.
Less three weeks ago, Chinamasa told the media that it will take
all of two
months before a new cabinet sworn in. Looking back, it seems he
was right.
There are several factions within ZANU-PF who pushing for the
collapse of
the GNU deal, analysts have said.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Thursday,
02 October 2008 08:46
APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) Zimbabwean shops and fuel
stations started
selling commodities in foreign currency Wednesday, more
than two weeks after
the central bank relaxed exchange control regulations
to allow trading in
the US dollar and other stable currencies.
After a slow take-off for the new foreign currency-trading scheme, a
handful
of shops started selling in US dollars or South African rands.
Others were taking orders from consumers, with promises to import the
commodities from South Africa.
Several filling stations in the
capital Harare and the second largest
city of Bulawayo displayed prices of
fuel on boards, a situation that had
become rare since the country's
economic problems started in 2000.
The price of petrol ranged from
US1.20 to US$1.30 a litre at service
stations in the capital.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe allowed trading in foreign currency in
September after bowing to pressure from industrialists and retailers who
were failing to cope with record inflation of more than 11 million
percent.
The exchange control relaxation formalised a flourishing
black market
for goods and services that had become the accepted way of life
in
crisis-hit Zimbabwe.
The delay in implementing the new
scheme was blamed on problems in
installing retail software to capture the
transaction in the multiple
currencies. - APA
By Violet Gonda
2
October 2008
It has taken a plate of plain sadza to drive desperate and
hungry students
to say enough is enough. Students at Harare Polytechnic
demonstrated on
Wednesday night, protesting deplorable conditions at the
state institution.
The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) said
after weeks of just
eating boiled cabbage with no salt or oil, the students
could take no more
when the canteen menu changed to just plain sadza and no
relish.
The cash strapped students say the situation was worsened by the
fact that
they were forced to pay Z$17 billion for their food by the college
authorities. Although the money was later reduced to Z$1.6 billion none of
the students who had paid the full amount have been reimbursed.
The
infrastructure at the college, as at most government institutions, is
facing
complete collapse. ZINASU said: "184 students who inhabit one of the
institution's six hostels are being forced to use only one toilet, as all
the others are not functioning."
The college authorities say
hyper-inflation is eroding the little money they
have and have run out of
funds for repairs.
ZINASU coordinator Mfundo Mlilo told SW Radio Africa
the Wednesday's
protests resulted in a food committee and a student
representative body
being formed at the college, to represent the interests
of the students.
The news of the student unrest comes at a time when
Zimbabwe is reeling
under its worst ever economic crisis. Tens of thousands
of people spend days
queuing just to try and get their own cash out of the
banks. Efforts to put
more money in circulation backfired on Thursday as it
only served to
increase prices of basic commodities.
And Zimbabweans
continue to suffer in silence. There has been no show of
public outcry over
the deteriorating situation in the country. Mlilo
believes this is because
of the general fear of the Mugabe regime which
reacts violently. The student
leader said: "I will tell you that since 2003,
when I left the University of
Zimbabwe, over 100 students have been
expelled. And this number which is
within the last five years is greater
than the number of students who were
expelled during the Rhodesian
government. This should speak volumes about
the nature of the reaction by
our state."
But he said Zimbabweans are
finally getting fed up and are coming to a stage
where they cannot stomach
living as they do for one moment longer.
Everything hinges on the success of
the intra party deal, but the student
movement is said to be now getting
ready to mobilise for real protests.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
UN calls for
increased farming production to prevent an extra 2 million
people becoming
reliant on food and medical aid
Jenny Percival
guardian.co.uk,
Thursday
October 02 2008 11:46 BST
Almost half the population of Zimbabwe could
soon be dependent on food and
medical aid, the UN's humanitarian chief said
today.
John Holmes, the UN's under-secretary general for humanitarian
affairs, said
that around 3 million people were already reliant on aid, and
that figure
could rise to more than 5 million.
He said it was a
critical time because preparations needed to be made now
for next year's
harvest to avoid millions more people becoming reliant on
aid. The main
growing season in Zimbabwe lasts from now until March.
"Planting season
for the next harvest starts in five or six weeks' time, at
least for maize,
and there is massive shortage of seeds and fertilisers in
the country
because of the economic situation," he told the BBC's World
Today
programme.
"We're looking to see whether we can accelerate even at this
late stage and
get some of those seeds and fertilisers and other imports
into the hands of
small farmers," said Holmes.
He said he hoped the
farmers would plant more seeds "so they can harvest
more, so we have less of
a food assistance problem next year".
Holmes also said that access for
aid agencies had improved since last
month's power-sharing deal was agreed
between the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) and Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF
party.
Mugabe ordered aid groups to suspend work in June ahead of the
presidential
run-off election, leaving millions at the mercy of state food
distribution.
Aid groups also complained that the government had given food
primarily to
Mugabe supporters.
The UN estimated Zimbabwe's
population at 13.3 million in 2007, with an
average life expectancy of 44
for men and 43 for women.
02 Oct 2008
14:58:00 GMT
Source: CARE - Canada
CARE International
Website: http://www.careinternational.org
CARE
urges international community to step up support
Harare, Zimbabwe Oct. 2,
2008 - CARE is calling on the international
community to meet the WFP appeal
to avert a food crisis in a country already
staggering under record
inflation and food shortages.
The UN has said three million people are
already reliant on aid, and that
figure could rise to five million. CARE is
one of WFP's largest partners in
Zimbabwe, and is also a member of the
Consortium for Southern African Food
Emergency food distribution program
funded by USAID Food for Peace. CARE
plans to steadily increase food
distributions each month from about 450,000
people in October to more than
900,000 people per month in the peak hunger
period from January to
March.
The WFP is appealing for US$151 million to purchase maize
regionally in
order to meet this year's food aid gap, caused by a poor
harvest and the
country's economic crisis. WFP's current food stocks will
last until only
January, 2009, when most poor families across the country
often have nothing
left to eat from the previous harvest.
"We are in
a crisis, and we're appealing for relief now so this doesn't
become a
famine," said Stephen Gwynne-Vaughan, Country Director of CARE in
Zimbabawe.
"Right now, we have food stocks to support distributions through
to January.
But when the food aid runs out in January, there will be a
problem.
"Timing is crucial. Donors need to meet the WFP appeal now
so we can get the
food here before January."
In Zimbabwe, which used
to be a major exporter of food, harvests have been
increasingly poor due to
the country's spiraling economic crisis. This
year's harvest is only enough
to feed one-third of the population, leaving a
gap of 1.2 million metric
tonnes of grains. The government is expected to
import 800,000 metric tonnes
of food to fill the markets for those people
who can still afford to buy
food, and the WFP will distribute food aid for
the millions of poor families
who qualify for food assistance.
"In some communities, up to 80 percent
of the people need food aid," said
Gwynne-Vaughan. "Families cope with food
crises in different ways. Normally
people change the staple foods they
eat-they substitute more expensive
preferred foods for lower quality and
less nutritious foods. In Zimbabwe
there is not enough food in the markets,
so people reduce the size of the
meals they eat, and they reduce the number
of meals they eat in a day."
About CARE: CARE is one of the world's
leading humanitarian organizations.
CARE has been working in Zimbabwe since
1992, implementing programs in small
economic development, agriculture and
natural resource management, water and
sanitation, health and emergency
response. NOTE to editors: In August, the
Zimbabwean government lifted a
temporary ban that restricted aid agencies,
including CARE, from working in
the country. CARE's activities are now
proceeding as normal
Reuters
Thu 2 Oct
2008, 16:19 GMT
By Muchena Zigomo
PRETORIA, Oct 2 (Reuters) -
South African farmers will help rebuild
Zimbabwean agriculture if the new
government can resuscitate the stagnant
sector, a senior South African
farming official said on Thursday.
Once a regional breadbasket, Zimbabwe
is now in the grip of an economic
crisis marked by food and fuel shortages,
and the world's highest inflation
rate of more than 11 million
percent.
The country faces another poor growing season this year because
seed and
fertiliser has been in short supply.
Zimbabweans and relief
agencies hope a power-sharing deal signed last month
between President
Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and
Arthur Mutambara
will herald an economic recovery.
"What we will try to do, if the
agriculture sector is stabilised again, is
to definitely try to negotiate
deals for them," Lourie Bosman, president of
South Africa's largest farmers'
grouping AgriSA, told Reuters.
"(That will mean) bringing expertise,
bringing new supplies which they don't
have at the moment."
South
Africa has one of the strongest agricultural sectors in Africa, in
contrast
to Zimbabwe, where critics have long argued Mugabe's seizure of
white-owned
commercial farms for landless blacks suffocated farming.
Now most foreign
aid and investment in Zimbabwean agriculture hinges on the
new government
enacting democratic and economic reforms.
The U.S. Agency for
International Development's (USAID) Famine Early Warning
Systems Network
(FEWSNET) said in an alert last week Zimbabwe could run out
of basic food
grains by early November as imports have been insufficient to
make up for
another disastrous harvest this year.
It said food imports had to triple
between now and March 2009 from the
current average of about 8,786 tonnes a
week.
"Their agriculture sector has been ruined completely. There is just
about no
agriculture sector left," Bosman said.
Tsvangirai, who will
become prime minister in a new unity government, said
its first action would
be to "stop the devastating food shortages" and to
"unlock the food already
in our country and distribute it to our people."
But the stalled
allocation of cabinet ministries has delayed the
much-anticipated economic
recovery programme.
South Africa's government said last month it would
"do everything necessary"
to help revive Zimbabwe's agriculture before the
start of the summer rains.
It said it would send a task team led by its
treasury, agriculture and
foreign ministries, working with other Southern
Africa Development Community
(SADC) countries, to develop an emergency
intervention plan to lift the
sector.
Thousands of white farmers have
fled Zimbabwe since the land seizures began
in 2000. Farmers' groups said
their members were attacked after elections
held in March.
"We cannot
persuade (farmers) to return but we can persuade people to
invest," said
Bosman. (Editing by Matthew Jones)
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=5111
October 1, 2008
By Our
Correspondent
BULAWAYO - Zanu-PF militiamen, some claiming to be war
veterans - who led a
terror campaign during the run-up to the June 27
presidential election -
have evicted Rejoice Sibanda-Ncube, who also claims
to be a war veteran,
from her farm in Nyamandlovu, Matabeleland North after
she refused to feed
them.
The militias are to this day still camped
at an election campaign base
adjacent to her farm.
The now starving
Zanu-PF militiamen looted maize as well as farm machinery
and other
property, which Sibanda-Ncube says she inherited from the previous
owner of
the farm, who was evicted from during the violent land occupations
by
Zanu-PF supporters in 2000.
Sibanda-Ncube was evicted from her Redwood
Farm in Nyamandlovu last Friday
by the militiamen who were angered by her
refusal to provide food at their
campaign base.
Sibanda-Ncube, a
beneficiary of the chaotic land reform programme which
followed the farm
invasions, confirmed to The Zimbabwe Times she had been
ordered off the
farm.
The farm occupations - led by so-called war veterans - saw white
commercial
farmers forcibly removed from their land in what President Robert
Mugabe
said was a move to correct the wrongs of the colonial
past.
Alex Goosen, a commercial farmer, was the previous owner of Redwood
Farm
before he was violently removed from the land by the invading
gangs.
Sources said Sibanda-Ncube was force-marched out of the farm at
midnight by
more than 10 militiamen on Friday, ostensibly because she was
not attending
Zanu-PF meetings in the area and was also refusing to provide
food to the
militiamen or so called war veterans at their campaign
base.
In an interview yesterday, Sibanda-Ncube confirmed her
eviction.
"They came around 1am on Friday last week and force-marched me
and my three
children," said a traumatized Sibanda-Ncube. "They accused me
of being a
sell-out by not attending Zanu-PF meetings and not sending food
to their
base.
"They were led by Ngwiza Ncube, the war veterans'
leader in Nyamandlovu and
Ngwenya, the Zanu-PF chairman for the area. They
warned me against setting
foot on the farm as they said the farm now
belonged to them."
Sibanda-Ncube said she returned to the farm after two
days, seeking
permission from the war veterans, now camped there, to collect
her clothes.
She discovered that all her property and some farming
equipment which
including harrows, wheel barrows, and bags of maize had been
looted by the
invaders.
"The militias and war veterans have looted
all my property and threatened to
shoot me if I set a foot again on the
farm," said a distraught
Sibanda-Ncube.
She told The Zimbabwe Times
that she has sought legal recourse in a bid to
reclaim back her
land.
The 2000 land reform programme slashed agriculture production in
the country
to low levels as reflected by the food shortages that have
gripped the
nation annually since then.
Some of the farm invaders,
who claim to be veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation
struggle in the 70s, are
merely unemployed youths taking advantage of a
chaotic political
situation.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Thursday,
02 October 2008 08:25
Zimbabwe Alert
The Speaker
of Zimbabwe's Parliament Honorable Lovemore Moyo says the
incoming inclusive
government should deliver on the letter and spirit of the
agreement signed
by Zanu PF and the two MDC formations in view of the
restrictive nature of
laws such as the Access to Information and Protection
of Privacy Act
(AIPPA), Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and
Broadcasting Services Act
(BSA).
Speaking at the National Journalistic and Media Awards
(NJAMA) on 26
September 2008 in Harare Honorable Moyo who was the guest of
speaker,
conceded that parliament had over the years passed various media
laws such
as AIPPA, POSA and BSA that "have hindered freedom of expression".
"These
laws provide for stringent licensing conditions which makes it
difficult for
new players to come in and very difficult for journalists to
operate. As
Parliament we stand ready to play our part in the
liberalisation of the
media in line with the spirit of the agreement among
the political parties
which seeks to improve the operating environment of
the media," he said.
Agreement
Article XIX (a) of the
agreement states: the government shall ensure
the immediate processing by
the appropriate authorities of all applications
for re-registration and
registration in terms of both the Broadcasting
Services Act as well as the
Access to Information and Protection of Privacy
Act.
Associated
Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) publishers of The Daily News
and The Daily News
on Sunday have been battling to be granted an operating
licence since the
banning of their publications in September 2003 by the
Media and Information
Commission (MIC) in terms of the repressive AIPPA
under which The Tribune
and The Weekly Times also met with a similar fate.
"It is my hope
that the inclusive government will deliver on this
commitment and dedicate
itself to achieving this goal," said the Speaker.
"Government
interference should be discouraged to ensure impartial and
accurate
reporting, while the media must afford its readers an opportunity
to
criticise it when necessary."
Free press
He said only
a free press is best placed to afford citizens
information on the actions,
decisions and performance of those they have
elected to represent them as
well as holding them accountable. "So the onus
is on the media to inform and
educate the public on the detail of the
agreement and the need to promote
national healing.
"The media thus has an enormous responsibility in
that regard and can
easily be discredited if it becomes a blatant propaganda
tool, resorts to
selective or partisan reporting."
Public
media
The Speaker said Africa was replete with examples of conflict
and
instability arising from partisan journalism. He lamented the fact that
there were certain sections of the public media that continue to report
negatively about the opposition leadership contrary to the spirit and letter
of the agreement.
Referring to the media as the glue that holds
democracy together,
Honorable Moyo said: "It is therefore indisputable that
the public media has
the public service responsibility of taking a leading
role in the healing of
our nation.
"It is against this
background that I call upon the independent and
public media to have a
paradigm shift in order to play a positive role in
this
process.
"This can only come from journalism that digs and probes
and questions
rather one that accepts moribund ideas that tend to be
divisive of our
society.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we stand at the
beginning of a new dawn. It is
my hope that the media will play its role to
ensure that accountability is
promoted, transparency ensured and good
governance achieved."
OhMyNews
Students not likely to
write final exams
Stephen Tsoroti
Published 2008-10-02
16:42 (KST)
For almost three weeks, schools has been literally closing
down in most
districts of Zimbabwe as teachers strike for pay rise and
better working
conditions.
Schools have closed and several more are
facing the same situation. Some of
boarding-students are going back home at
a time when they are preparing to
write their year-end examinations, placing
even greater pressure on the
recipient schools.
School children from
most government schools in the country have had no
lessons since the school
term opened because of the teachers strike.
Takavafira Zhou, the
president of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe
(PTUZ), said
children cannot be expected to write exams when they have not
attended
lessons. He said his Union has sent letters to the authorities
saying the
most logical and realistic thing was to postpone the exams "or
even declare
that 2008 is altogether a forgotten year and we may start
afresh next year,
assuming that the new deal will work and perhaps
conditions would have
improved."
Practical exams for science students have already started and
Zhou said in
some schools "grounds people" are invigilating the exams
because of the
teachers" strike. "It's a tragedy. Even June exams, the
markings were
abandoned because the teachers refused to mark. So assuming
that they will
write, who will mark?" quipped Zhou .
PTUZ, the
biggest grouping of educators in the country, said told OhmyNews
that 15,200
teachers had migrated to neighbouring states, such as South
Africa,
Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland, since the beginning of 2007.
Raymond
Majongwe, PTUZ's secretary-general, confirmed that the mass exodus
of
teachers was forcing schools to close, while many institutions were
operating with a skeleton teaching staff.
"Matabeleland North
(Province) has been the most affected one as a result of
teacher shortages,"
said Majongwe. He said 8,000 teachers had left Zimbabwe
after the first
term, while another 7,200 left after the second term.
Over the years
teacher's salaries have not kept pace with Zimbabwe's
official inflation
rate of more than 6,000 percent, while neighbouring South
Africa has
embarked on a recruitment drive for teachers in the Southern
Africa
Development Community (SADC) to bolster their own teacher numbers.
http://www.zimbabwemetro.com
Local News
October 2, 2008 | By Staff
Police
Commissioner Augustine Chihuri has threatened to resign if Mugabe
goes ahead
and allocates the Ministry of Home Affairs to the MDC,sources
have
revealed.
Chihuri reportedly met President Robert Mugabe at State House
in Harare
early this week and told him that he cannot directly work under
any MDC
minister.
"The President was told that by Chihuri that he
will step down if he handed
over the home Affairs ministry. " revealed a
source who attended the
meeting.
Meanwhile ZANU PF 's chief
negotiator Patrick Chinamasa has downplayed the
deadlock over allocation of
four key ministries telling state media that
progress has been
made.
"I don't think that the issue of allocation of ministries is a
matter that
can be referred to the facilitator . We cannot, at the slightest
difference
in opinion, call outsiders to mediate. Even if you are a married
couple, you
cannot have a situation where your wife runs to her mother each
time you
have a problem in your home. If there is thinking on such a kind of
approach, it has to stop in the interest of harmonisation of relations," he
told The Herald.
Chinamasa went on to claim that the Deputy Prime
Minister designate
Thokozani Khuphe has already toured her new office to be
located in downtown
Harare.
"I understand offices for Mr Tsvangirai
and the two Deputy Prime Ministers
have already been set aside at
Munhumutapa Building and that MDC-T vice
president Thokozani Khupe has
already been to the building to see the
offices", said
Chinamasa.
Earlier MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told The Star newpaper
that they has
been no progress in the stalemate.
"This approach of
claiming the marrow of the government while peripherising
the MDC is
completely unacceptable. The mistake that Zanu-PF is making is to
imagine
that we are desperate to be in the government. We are not in a hurry
to be
chauffeur-driven. We are a people-driven party.", he said.
Financial Gazette (Harare)
27 September
2008
Posted to the web 2 October 2008
Nelson Chenga & Charles
Rukuni
Harare
A HEALTH disaster of unimaginable proportions looms in
Harare after the
water situation deteriorated even further this week,
sparking fresh health
concerns as an outbreak of cholera in Chitungwiza
claimed two more lives
this week bringing to 13 the total number of deaths
so far.
The water crisis in Harare and in Chitungwiza, approximately 30
kilometres
south of the capital, has reached critical levels forcing doctors
and the
cities' residents associations to exert pressure on government to
put its
house in order and avoid continued loss of lives.
Faced
with severe shortages of foreign currency required to import water
purification chemicals and spares to repair the ageing water infrastructure,
the government has all but admitted it does not have the capacity to deal
with the problem.
The confusion over Cabinet appointments has not
helped the situation.
The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human
Rights (ZADHR) this week said
a serious health crisis looms in urban areas
owing to the severe shortage of
running water.
Failure by the
state-run Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) to treat
and pump
adequate supplies of water has left most urban homes dry and forced
residents to rely on unsafe sources of water.
This, coupled with a
breakdown in the sanitation system (burst sewage pipes
and lack of refuse
collection and proper disposal) is threatening the health
of millions of
Zimbabweans at a time when the health delivery system is
least prepared to
deal with any major outbreak of diseases due to the brain
drain and the
shortage of drugs.
Water and sanitation experts, including the few
engineers left at ZINWA,
have warned of the impending health and
environmental crisis but their
appeals have fallen on deaf
ears.
ZINWA has since admitted it has not been treating the more than 300
megalitres of waste produced in the capital, which is simply being
discharged into Harare's main source of raw water, Lake Chivero.
The
untreated waste water has contaminated more than half of Lake Chivero.
As a
result the water treatment bill has spiked to such levels that ZINWA is
now
unable to procure the enormous amount of chemicals needed to treat the
murky
Chivero water for safe human consumption.
Water experts have also said
the treatment of Harare water has become
complicated because the waste water
discharges were highly contaminated with
industrial toxins, which need
complex methods to remove, thus exposing
consumers to health complications
other than cholera.
"The new government must address this crisis as a
matter of urgency. It is a
matter, which cannot wait for resolution of
differences or 'sticking
points'. Public service provision has been
inadequate for several years and
requires urgent and comprehensive remedial
action," said ZADHR.
The association told The Financial Gazette this week
that access to safe
drinking water and to adequate sanitation are basic
human rights and not
privileges.
"They (access to sanitation and
water) are determinants of health, which if
not made available can result in
outbreaks of diarrhoea, cholera and
dysentery that are life
threatening.
"Lives have already been lost to cholera in Chitungwiza and
health centres
in Harare and Bulawayo are burdened by numerous cases of
diarrhoea on a
daily basis. It is highly likely that the number of deaths in
Chitungwiza,
currently reported at 13 individuals, is much higher, and that
this is but
the tip of an iceberg of much more morbidity. This has not been
communicated
to the public," said the association.
Outbreaks of
cholera at any time are symptomatic of serious structural
problems within
the system of public works. They are more common when rains
have resulted in
flooding or overload of drainage systems.
An outbreak in the middle of
the dry season is particularly disturbing.
This week Health Minister
David Parirenyatwa urged urbanites to be on high
alert in the wake of the
outbreak of cholera in Chitungwiza.
"I would like to urge those who might
be experiencing watery diarrhoea,
vomiting and rapid severe dehydration to
quickly report to any clinic," the
daily Herald quoted the Minister as
saying.
But the association of doctors yesterday said it was not good
enough for the
Health Ministry to respond to disease outbreak only after it
has occurred.
"It is paramount that it (Ministry of Health) works in
conjunction with
other ministries concerned, such as that responsible for
water resources,
and ZINWA, to ensure that disease is prevented and that
Zimbabwean's right
to the highest attainable state of physical and mental
well being is
respected," it said.
Meanwhile, water problems have
once again come to the fore in Bulawayo
following reports that staff from
ZINWA who are supposed to maintain
boreholes at the Nyamandlovu aquifer, one
of the city's lifelines, have
abandoned the site.
The council only
has 20 months of water supply left and has been banking on
rehabilitating
boreholes at Nyamandlovu. The council had asked ZINWA to
allow it to lease
an agreed number of boreholes, which the council would
maintain but ZINWA
has refused to commit itself.
The council says it has the spare parts and
the staff to maintain the
boreholes as well as well-wishers who are prepared
to fund the operations.
ZINWA, which was allowed technically to take over
water supplies in the city
but never did so, is reported to have lost a lot
of its staff. Its
maintenance team at Nyamandlovu was reported to have left
the site.
The parastatal has been facing persistent cash shortages with
staff going
for months without pay.
The mayor Clr Thaba Moyo was
concerned about the latest development because
the council could not
rehabilitate the boreholes without consulting ZINWA
because it owned the
boreholes.
Bulawayo has been facing perennial water problems because its
supply dams
are now too small for the city of more than one million people.
No new dam
has been built for the city over the past 30 years.
The
city was looking forward to the Zambezi Water Project but it has also
been
bogged down by bureaucracy and lack of funds.
Some city residents have
been querying how the project will proceed now that
its chairman, Dumiso
Dabengwa, is out of mainline politics.
Dabengwa left ZANU-PF to join
Mavambo Project before the March elections and
has since abandoned the
project.
02 October
2008
The Combined Harare Residents Association would like to reject and dismiss the deputy minister of Water and Infrastructural Development, Engineer Muzembi call’s on ZINWA to “involve other stakeholders” in water management. This call comes from a man who is in the defacto cabinet which disregarded the legislature and the very same stakeholders whose inclusion he is now calling for. The state media has for the past months tried to pacify local government through half-hearted and stage managed castigation of ZINWA. This was being done to simply lobby for a buy-in into ZINWA by the local authorities. This will be tantamount to endorsing the mess which has claimed so many lives, thus being accomplices to this carnage.
The call comes when tertiary institutions
of The University of Zimbabwe’s caliber and centrality in national human
resource development can not open because of the water crisis and health hazard
unfolding in the city. The call comes at an unfortunate time when 14 lives have
been lost to cholera in Chitungwiza and when scores of people are suffering form
diarrhoea, dysentery and other related diseases. Some of the city’s areas like
Mabvuku and Tafara have gone for more than a year without water. Other affected
areas include Hatfield,
ZINWA forcefully took over water and sewer
management from the City of
The Combined Harare Association reiterates
its position that water and sewer management, as all other local government
processes, is and should, remain the responsibility of the local authority and
the residents who are the rightful custodians of the city and all its asserts.
The ZINWA takeover was unwarranted, unprocedural and has resulted in the untold
suffering and deaths of residents and continues to pose a threat to their
health. The Deputy Minister’s call serves as an admission of failure and guilt
and further buttresses the point that ZINWA should return the water and sewer
management to the City of
Combined
Exploration House, Third Floor
Landline: 00263- 4-
705114
Contacts:
Here at Kubatana, we are enough of politicians fiddling whilst Zimbabweans
starve. Our current electronic
activism campaign encourages people to get in touch with the offices of the
President and the Prime Minister designate to urge them to stop stalling and
start governing. Getting contact information for the President’s office, though, was no easy
matter. First off, when I used the numbers in the telephone directory, as soon as I
asked for contact information they’d transfer me to the Ministry of Information.
No wonder Zanu PF wants to keep control of the Ministry of Information. It would
be too hard to reconfigure all the telephone lines to separate them from the
numbers for the President’s office! When I finally got through to the right person, I asked for their email
address. I could hear the receptionist shouting across the office to one of her
colleagues – “These people want our email address. Can I give it?” She asked. “Which people?” Her colleague asked. “These people on the phone. They’re calling from Harare. They want the email
address for our office. Can I give them?” “Who are they?” “They’re on the phone.” “What do they want?” “They want our email address can I give them?” “No. Don’t give them our email address. We don’t know who they are.” The whole exchange reminded me an awful lot of trying to get Zanu PF’s email
address. She then came back on the line and told me they weren’t on email so she
couldn’t give me the email address. So I asked for fax number. She said the fax
was down. So if I have an urgent message for the President’s office? How am I
meant to get it to them? She told me to phone the Ministry of Information. It took four more phone calls and uncountable inter-office transfers for them
to eventually give me their fax number – and to get them to give me a fax tone
when it rang. This is exactly what needs to change in the new Zimbabwe. As much as we need
government to start governing again, this must be a New government, with a new
attitude about itself and its responsibilities to the people, and a new approach
towards listening to Zimbabweans and responding to what we want. Fax the President’s office on +263 4 251641 and let them know that you want a
new government – and you want it now.
http://kubatanablogs.net/kubatana/?p=810
Greetings in Shona
usually go something like this; "Makadii?" (How are you?)
The answer usually
goes; "Tiripo, kana makadiiwo?" (We are well, if you are
also well). Infused
in this greeting is this society's ethos. The
recognition that our destinies
are intertwined. That no person is an island.
That we belong to the human
family. That each person has responsibilities
not just to themselves, but to
the community to which they belong. That you
are what you are because of
others. Hunhu, ubuntu.
Last night l was in my office on Selous Ave
working late when something
happened that is symptomatic not just of the
serious decay in this country,
but perhaps also of the reason why as
Zimbabweans we have not risen up and
done something about our mess. It was
about 8:45pm and all was quiet in this
area of the Avenues, when a sudden
scream rang out. It was a woman screaming
for help. There was terror in her
voice. Although such screams are common
place in the area around Selous
Avenue/ Livingstone Avenue/ Third Street
going towards Fourth Street, as
people fall prey to the thieves and robbers
who haunt the area, they are
still shocking and frightening when they
happen. We all ran out of the
office to look out. What normally happens (and
l use the word normally
advisedly) is that because it is so dark, (on
account of there being no
street lighting), you hear the agonised screams of
a person as they succumb
to the thieves, long before you see them running
for dear life. You peer
into the dark but you cannot see the victims until
they come to a lit up
area near one of the offices. And so it was that last
night we heard the
screams of the woman long before we saw her. She was
screaming for help and
it appeared to us that the thieves were still in
pursuit, shouting as they
went after her. So loud were her screams that she
drew the attention of a
number of people who were in nearby offices. People
were calling out to her
to run towards the light. Hearts were pounding as we
waited for her to
emerge from the night. We were gratified to see an armed
police officer who
had been checking the nearby Beverley Bank ATMs for cash,
emerge and run
towards the screams. And then he stopped short. The woman
emerged into the
lit up area, as did her accosters. They were about three
police officers
who were roughing her up. She was screaming that they were
hitting her as
she came up to the armed police officer who was her would-be
rescuer. She
kept asking "why are you hitting me? Why are you hurting me?
What have l
done?" She was clutching her handbag to her chest and there was
real terror
in her voice.
As they came to the lit up area where people had gathered,
the police
officers pulled back a little but continued roughing the woman
up, pulling
and shouting at her. All this without arresting her. The
would-be rescuer
was at a loss as to what to do l guess, given that these
were his fellow
police officers. He did not ask what was going on and he
just started
trailing after them as the three went off, still assaulting the
woman. The
three of us who had been watching this tragedy just stood
impotently,
consumed with a mixture of guilt, fear, helplessness and
despair.
The security guards went back to their posts, muttering that she
was
probably a prostitute. The implication being therefore that she deserved
whatever abuse the police officers were subjecting her to. Other people went
off, muttering and wondering what she had done. Again the implication was
that she must have done something to deserve the abuse, otherwise why would
the police be doing that?
No one problematised the role of the
police. No one said that even if she
had broken the law, the police should
have arrested her and taken her into
custody, not assaulted her like
criminals. There were three of them; they
could have done that easily. Even
if she was a commercial sex worker, that
still did not give the police the
right to rough her up as they were doing.
Now, l do not know the facts of
the story. I do not know what she had or had
not done. I do know however
that the police take an oath of office in which
they swear to uphold the
laws of the country. If someone is suspected of
committing an offence, he or
she should be arrested and taken into custody.
As far as l could tell, the
woman was not resisting arrest. One is therefore
left wondering why the
police were behaving as they were. I have my theories
as to why, but will
not go into them.
The guilt we felt at not having intervened kept pulling
at us long after her
screams had fallen silent, we kept wondering how she
was, what had happened.
We questioned whether they were real police officers
or they had been
thieves dressed as police officers. We wondered perhaps if
they had tried
to proposition her and she had rejected their advances and
therefore the
assault and harassment was retaliation. We wondered if perhaps
they had
tried to steal from the woman and were roughing her up to
facilitate this.
(One certainly hears enough stories in which police
officers are implicated
in criminal activities) They were certainly not
behaving like officers of
the law as they assaulted the woman.
Our
guilt arose from the fact that we had kept silent when we should have
spoken
out. We had stood back when we should have stepped up and stepped in.
We
were relieved that it was not us and we were safe. We felt sorry for the
woman but that was not enough to compel us to act. We were afraid that the
lawless louts would turn on us. We were afraid perhaps of the inconvenience,
so we sacrificed the woman to her doubtful fate. We were after all working
late because we had to. Getting ourselves involved would have meant that we
would lose valuable time getting embroiled in a messy and dangerous argument
with the apparently lawless police, or so we told ourselves. The irony is
that the incident so disturbed us that we could not continue
working.
Our response l think is part of the problem we have in Zimbabwe.
We all know
what's wrong and what's right but no one is willing to do what
it takes for
the common good. The shelves are empty, but as long as l am
managing to put
food on my family's table, who cares that my neighbour's
children are going
to bed hungry? As long as l can access cash through
various means, who cares
that someone has been spending days and nights
outside the bank waiting to
withdraw their paltry money. We look at them, we
feel sorry, we despair but
we are relieved that it is not us standing in the
baking sun as we go about
our business. We do not intervene. We do not speak
out when we should. As
long as l is managing, it is enough. Hatisisina
hunhu. We have lost our
ubuntu. That which makes us members of the human
family.
I hope as the Prime Minister and his two deputy prime ministers
are
inspecting their swanky new offices in Munhumutapa Building, they are
thinking of ways of healing our community and restoring our
values.
This entry was posted on October 2nd, 2008 at 1:53 pm by
Catherine Makoni
Lance
Guma Producer/Presenter SW Radio
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By Alex
Bell
02 October 2008
The Common Market for East and Southern Africa
(COMESA) has given Zimbabwe a
second chance to hold the regional bloc's 13th
summit, in what would appear
to be a hasty show of confidence in the country
as a result of the power
sharing deal.
The summit had been initially
set to take place in May but was called off
after state-sponsored violence
swept through the country, following Robert
Mugabe's election loss to
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the first
round of voting in March.
In postponing the summit at the peak of political
violence, COMESA had said
it was doing so to give Zimbabwe time to conclude
its electoral
processes.
Zimbabwe was once a major player in COMESA, before its economy
collapsed
over the past decade. The power-sharing deal signed by Mugabe,
Tsvangirai
and Arthur Mutambara has been dubbed as the best opportunity for
Zimbabwe to
end the combined crises in the country that has seen the world's
highest
inflation, desperate shortages of food and fears of a looming health
disaster.
But despite a clear lack of change on the ground since the
deal was signed,
as well as a deadlock over the distribution of cabinet
ministries,
international trade ministry officials announced on Thursday
that the summit
of the 20 nation bloc will take place at the end of
November.
Harare based journalist Angus Shaw told Newsreel on Thursday he
is
"surprised" by COMESA's decision to hold the summit, so soon after
canceling
the event in May. Shaw agreed that the decision is a hasty show of
support
and added it is clear that regional blocs such as SADC, the African
Union
and COMESA are listening to political spin by ZANU PF. "On the ground
there
is a serious crisis," Shaw explained, "and I don't know if COMESA even
knows
about the cabinet deadlock."
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