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 Senior ANC official resigns over party stance on Zimbabwe
Friday, May 26 2:02 AM SGT - CAPE TOWN, May 25 (AFP)

A senior member of South Africa's ruling African National Congress resigned from his job and the party Thursday after a furore over a statement he wrote for the ANC condemning violence in Zimbabwe.
Pieter Venter, who resigned from his post as the ANC head of media in parliament, wrote a statement delivered as a motion in parliament Tuesday which condemned "the loss of human life, brutality and thuggery" in Zimbabwe.
"Such conditions severely compromise the possibility of a free, fair and credible election," it said.
The motion appeared to be at odds with President Thabo Mbeki's stance that the June 24 and 25 poll could be free and fair and caused a stir within the party, particularly in the party's headquarters in Johannesburg, the SAPA news agency reported.
ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni called a press conference Thursday to claim the motion did not contradict Mbeki.
The party stood by its leader and believed that the elections could still be free and fair, despite the ongoing violence, he said.
South Africa's first democratic election in 1994 was preceded by violence, but was still deemed free and fair, Yengeni added.
But Venter stuck to his guns and said that the statement, which had party support, did indeed intend to say that the violence in Zimbabwe meant that free and fair polls were not possible.
He said he believed Yengeni's statements to the press were "basically condoning violence, murder and political intimidation in Zimbabwe."
In Zimbabwe, "you basically have state-sponsored violence, intimidation, (ruling) ZANU-PF cadres deployed in every single constituency.
"That's just bizarre to say free and fair elections would be possible under these circumstances," he said.
Mbeki this week dismissed the findings of a United States-based observer team, the National Democratic Institute of International Affairs, that conditions for a free and fair election in Zimbabwe did not exist.
"It is not correct to be making any prejudgments," Mbeki was reported as saying in Washington during a five-day state visit to the United States.
"If you stand there a month before the elections and already discredit them, I do not think that is correct."
Mbeki has adopted a quiet diplomatic approach to Zimbabwe and not condemned the invasion of close to 1,500 white-owned farms in Zimbabwe by supporters of the ruling party or the killing of at least 25 people in clashes attributed to political violence.
Venter said: "The president's strategy quite clearly is not working, and personally I experience it as immoral."
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 Letters to the Editor of Zimbabwe's Financial Gazette 25 May 2000

We can’t be midwife to mother who kills babies
D Tafirenyika, Karoi

EDITOR — Politics goes together with economics. If people suffer they react violently.
ZANU PF has failed to manage the economy. The ruling party is concentrating on politics, forgetting the economy of the country.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has come to rescue us.
ZANU PF is telling people that if they vote for MDC they will not get land. This is false.
If people vote for MDC they will still get the land and the economy will thrive.
Even if we don’t get land we will still vote ZANU PF out of power.
The whites are free to participate in the politics of this country. We cannot continue to be “midwives” to a mother who kills her babies the government, which is killing the economy.
Just as well the referendum was not about political parties. The ruling party would have been out.
The “No” vote suggests that the people are tired of ZANU PF.

MDC, I say keep it up. I will vote for you even if I go blind: my friends will take me to the polls.
Well done Morgan Tsvangirai.
You are a real threat guys
Pasvaal M, Bulawayo
EDITOR — This letter serves to congratulate the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for its great achievements so far.

Even if it is not yet in power, one of its greatest achievements is that although it hasn’t had a chance to be covered mainly by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, it has shown us that it is a threat to the ruling ZANU PF. The emergence of the MDC has seen formerly untouchable people being touched — that is, Kumbirai Kangai, Solomon Tawengwa, etc.

The popularity of the MDC has seen President Robert Mugabe desperately promote lawlessness by directing war veterans to invade white-owned commercial farms. We have heard through the “Minister of Chaos”, Hitler Hunzvi, that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai wants to sell the country to the British. That is an achievement on the part of MDC.

Then the vice president with a PhD told Zimbabweans that no black person is as bad as Tsvangirai.

I salute you MDC.You are a threat guys.
A courageous paper!
Jonathan Wasserberg, Birmingham, United Kingdom

EDITOR — I applaud your editorials and your courage to speak out.

I visited your country as a medical student and was struck by its beauty and the kindness of the people.

I am sure peace and democracy will prevail. And I totally agree that Britain and the international community should ostracise Zimbabwe’s corrupt leaders.
So they don’t want us to vote?
Proud to be Zimbabwean, Ohio, USA

EDITOR — We, Zimbabweans based in foreign lands, might not be able to vote anymore but we all know from the ruling ZANU PF’s rude awakening in the constitutional referendum that our brothers who are in the midst of strife back home will not fail us.

I do not feel that a few comments from me would alter the inevitable, so I will just let things be.

On the other hand I would like to encourage all my brothers to do the right thing when the elections do take place.

I would especially like to thank your newspaper for being the number one provider of the truth to us Zimbabweans out here.

Yave nguva yekuisa jongwe mupoto! (It’s time to fry the chicken!)
You cannot stop a volcano from erupting.
Moyo’s strange myopia
Clarity ''Nyasha'' Malcolm, Chipinge

EDITOR — I am one of many, I believe, who feel ashamed of and disillusioned by one Professor Jonathan Moyo.

As a socialist much more enlightened than other emotional political scientists, I have some sympathy for Moyo, who is unconsciously being hypnotised by the ZANU PF government.

He has become fascist and incalculative, yet ironically complacent. The way he castigates almost everyone shows that he is prudish, guided by a strange feeling of debauchery. More devastating about Moyo is his inability to see into the future (short-sightedness).

Although aware and reliably informed of the collapse of ZANU PF, he still lies to the nation. Land is a concern for every sane Zimbabwean, not only for ZANU PF. It is unpardonable for Moyo to use the same racist tactic used by President Robert Mugabe in bargaining politically the land question. Moyo, like Mugabe, should realise that we respect the sanctity of law and principles and that we are not confused by politics.

Politics of land should go beyond the parliamentary election. Moyo appears to have become the “Mugabe is my saviour” type.

It is my humble observation that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change is fairly popular to the extent that comparing the party to a doomsday cult is a sign of ill-sight and is utter blasphemy.

I am sorry Moyo has been transformed into a never-do-well person. Behind Moyo are the likes of the flabbergasting Chenjerai Hunzvi, the preposterous Andrew Ndhlovu and dictator Mugabe.

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 Zim crisis splits SA’s ruling ANC
Financial Gazette - Staff Reporter Thursday 25 May, 2000

SHARP differences emerged this week within South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) on Zimbabwe’s deepening crisis, with the ANC contradicting its leader and state President Thabo Mbeki on whether next month’s elections could be free and fair.

The ANC yesterday said the current violence in Zimbabwe compromised the elections and doubted whether the June 24-25 poll could be free and fair given the prevailing “thuggery and brutality”.

But Mbeki, who is visiting the United States, on Tuesday dismissed suggestions by a US-based election observer group that Zimbabwe was not ready to hold a free plebiscite.

The National Democratic Institute’s mission on Monday issued a report saying the ongoing government-sponsored campaign of violence and political intimidation meant that conditions for credible elections in Zimbabwe did not exist. “It’s not correct to be making any prejudgments. If you stand there a month before the elections and already discredit them, I don’t think that is correct,” Mbeki told reporters in Washington.

The ANC passed a motion in parliament in Cape Town yesterday condemning the loss of human life and the “brutality and thuggery” preceding Zimbabwe’s first closely-contested elections in 20 years.

The ruling ZANU PF party is facing a spirited challenge from the newly formed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and has resorted to beatings and other forms of intimidation to cow supporters of the MDC, led by trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai.

At least 23 people have been killed and hundreds injured in clashes between ZANU PF and MDC supporters in the past three months.

Senior ANC member and former Cabinet minister Pallo Jordan, who tabled yesterday’s motion, called on the South African parliament to acknowledge that the violence in Zimbabwe severely compromised the holding of free and fair elections.

Last month, the ANC also contradicted Mbeki by condemning the loss of life caused by the illegal invasion of commercial farms in Zimbabwe.
Mbeki has steadfastly refused to publicly rebuke President Robert Mugabe’s election tactics, choosing instead to pursue quiet diplomacy.
The ANC has since appointed its own team to mediate on the Zimbabwean crisis led by secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe.

Meanwhile, an international election expert said this week Zimbabwe could not hold free and fair elections under the current conditions of intimidation and violence.

Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, chairman of the Electoral Commission of Ghana who is in the country, said Zimbabwe’s electoral system needed to be improved if credible elections were to be held.

He said missing from the Zimbabwean system were checks and balances such as a truly independent electoral body, a transparent voter registration system, a level playing field and a free political atmosphere.

Zimbabwe’s electoral body is a department within the Ministry of Home Affairs and has in the past been heavily censored by human rights groups and the opposition for its bias in favour of ZANU PF.

In Ghana, for example, the electoral commission which was established in 1968 is independent and employs a fulltime staff of 1 200.

Afari-Gyan said the delimitation of constituencies was a very delicate and difficult task that could not be done during the same year as elections were being held and questioned how registered voters would be identified if their names were missing from the voters’ roll.

In Ghana voters are issued with identity cards on registering, but in Zimbabwe voters were denied this opportunity when registering last year and earlier this year.

Because of the rushed registration and the failure of the government to publish the voters’ roll in time, independent poll monitors say there is a distinct possibility that many prospective voters — especially in urban areas - may not vote if their names are missing from the register.

There is very little time left to inspect and correct the voters’ roll, even when it is published now, and those registered have no proof that they did so, a loophole that could be manipulated to rig the ballot.

6 000 villagers flee rural terror
Financial Gazette - Staff Reporter Thursday 25 May, 2000

MORE than 6 000 villagers had by mid-yesterday fled Zimba-bwe’s countryside into Harare and other cities as armed bands of former independence war guerrillas and ZANU PF youths stepped up a terror campaign against the opposition in rural areas.

Some of the fleeing villagers talked of killings of several of their relatives who had not been able to escape from the attackers.

The Zimbabwe Human Rights Organisation (Zim-Rights), coordinating relief for the fugitives, said yesterday it had not yet been able to confirm or verify the reported murders.

“Some of them claim that their relatives have been tortured and murdered but we have not yet been able to go to the affected areas to see and verify these claims for ourselves and the extent of the violence,” ZimRights director Munyaradzi Bidi said.

ZimRights’ offices in Harare, Mutare, Kwekwe and Bulawayo had been inundated by villagers seeking shelter and help. He estimated the refugees at more than 6 000. Bidi expects the number of refugees to swell. He said he was recording information from the villagers for possible future litigation against their attackers.

“People are suffering, but the most distressing thing is the sight of terrified little children who understand nothing about what is happening except only the hunger and cold they have had to endure during the long marches through the bush at night to escape the violence,” he told the Financial Gazette.

At one “safe house” in Harare, where a Good Samaritan has taken in more than nine families who fled their homes in Chief Nyakuchena’s area in Mudzi, more than 200 km northeast of Harare, a middled-aged woman, Senzeni, broke down in tears as she recounted how the attackers allegedly raped her in front of her children and villagers.

Another villager, Peter Chikomo who now has nightmares because of the attacks, recounted how he had witnessed the rampaging mobs beat up his ageing mother as one of the assailants grabbed his dog by its hind legs and hurled it into raging flames consuming one of his huts.

“I do not think all that is happening has anything to do with politics,” Chikomo said. “President Robert Mugabe no longer likes the people, otherwise why would he set our children against us, to burn our houses and kill us?”

Bidi said: “What we see happening now is just like what happened in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces during the Gukurahundi operations in the early 1980s.” He was referring to the army’s crackdown on armed rebels in the two provinces in an operation in which churches and human rights bodies said thousands of innocent civilians were either killed or tortured by government troops.

Political violence ahead of Zimbabwe’s June 24-25 parliamentary elections has killed at least 23 people in the past three months.

Although in most cases the killings have occurred in broad daylight and the perpetrators are known, the police are yet to prosecute those involved. Some villagers camped in Harare after fleeing their homes in Mutoko said the violence would never intimidate them into supporting ZANU PF.

One villager, Mika Chisamba, who says he once staunchly believed in ZANU PF and Mugabe but admits to now being a supporter of the opposition United Parties party, said he now only feels “anger towards the party that has turned me into a beggar”.

 Schools to close for one week for elections
Financial Gazette - Staff Reporter Thursday 25 May, 2000

ZIMBABWE’S schools and colleges, a target of violence orchestrated by the ruling ZANU PF party, will shut down for a week from June 22 to allow students to participate in general elections scheduled for the end of next month, it was established this week.

Top officials said the government is finalising a plan to shut all schools and tertiary institutions for a week until after the elections because of concerns over the safety of students and teachers in the face of escalating violence. Higher Education and Technology Minister Ignatius Chombo confirmed that his ministry wanted to temporarily close the schools to allow staff and students to vote in their various constituencies but declined to give a specific date. “We are working on a plan which will see temporary closure of classes to allow students eligible to vote to do so in their constituencies as well teachers and lecturers involved in the election process to have time to do so,” Chombo told the Financial Gazette.

“In the light of the situation prevailing, it is important that we have a break of lessons for a certain period for the safety of students as well. We are working to ensure that what we are proposing does not disrupt examinations for those writing in June. As soon as the plan is approved, we will make it known,” he said.

Hundreds of schools have closed countrywide because of the violence, which has targeted teachers and students accused of supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the chief rival of ZANU PF in the June 24-25 polls. Chombo said: “We want elections to be held in a peaceful environment but at the same time we have to ensure the safety of students and so we cannot leave anything to chance.”

According to the government officials, the plan to close the schools was being hatched apparently because of an intelligence report which foresees increased violence towards and soon after the elections.

Plans have already been made to deploy law enforcement agents, including members of Zimbabwe National Army, to help the police to ensure that peace is maintained mostly in urban areas — the powerbase of the MDC — during the last week of the campaign.

Cabinet is expected to endorse the plan next Tuesday.

The pre-election violence has either closed or disrupted schooling in at least 250 schools in the past three months. Some have closed for just a day, only to re-open later after talks between ZANU PF supporters and the affected institutions.

Over 7 000 teachers have been forced to flee their schools and many are seeking job transfers to urban areas.
The Zimbabwe National Students’ Union, the umbrella body for students in tertiary institutions, has called for a peace march next month demanding an end to the violence which has so far killed 23 people, injured hundreds and left more than 6 000 homeless.

Splinter group lobbies war veterans to end anarchy
Financial Gazette - Staff Reporter Thursday 25 May, 2000

SOME former guerrillas of Zimbabwe’s 1970s liberation war campaign are mobilising war veterans under the newly-formed Liberators’ Platform for Peace and Development to end the lawlessness and anarchy in the country, a spokesman for the organisation said this week.

Dzinashe Machingura, a member of the interim executive of Platform, said some former fighters felt they could no longer stand idle while Zimbabwe’s achievements were being sacrificed “by unscrupulous opportunists and careerists” for selfish gains.

“The association is a platform for the restoration of peace and order in the country. The events of the past few months in Zimbabwe have done incalculable harm to the country in terms of business losses, investment opportunities, racial relations and the image of the country abroad,” he told the Financial Gazette. “If we cannot stop it now, it will take us many years to repair the damage.”
Machingura and five others — Webster Gwauya, Parker Chikowere, Abel Sibanda, Kennedy Taitezvi and Modern Mutsetse — form the interim committee of the organisation, which is opposed to the activities of veterans led by Chenjerai Hunzvi.

Hunzvi has spearheaded a campaign to invade and demarcate commercial farms as well as intimidate the opposition. At least 23 people have been killed since Hunzvi’s group, with the approval of President Robert Mugabe, unleashed a reign of terror in the country three months ago.

The leaders of Platform are among the architects and signatories of the 1976 Mgagao Declaration, which spearheaded the resumption of the liberation struggle after a truce ushered in by the 1975 Lusaka Declaration.

Some of them such as Machingura were in the high command of the Zimbabwe People’s Army then led by the late Joshua Nkomo.

“The level of violence in the country is totally unacceptable. We strongly believe that if there was commitment and goodwill on the part of the executive, this violence could be checked because the police have enough resources to handle this violence,” Machingura said.

He said it was unfair to blame the lawlessness on all veterans because only a few of them were involved and these were being manipulated by the ruling party in exchange for material gains.

“True war veterans are not involved in these invasions. It is only a vocal few that are being manipulated by politicians and mainly political hooligans who are involved,” he said.

He said land redistribution should be based on need and called for a study of people’s needs to be carried out first.

Hunzvi is demanding 20 percent of all land earmarked for redistribution for his members, who form less than one percent of Zimbabwe’s 12 million-plus population. “On what basis is this demand being made? A study should be carried out to establish the needs of the people and we believe that land should be given to all people, whether war veterans or not,” Machingura said.

He said although land was an issue in Zimbabwe, it had been over-dramatised by some politicians for election purposes. If the issue had been given priority by the government, it would have been addressed during the past 20 years. Machingura said the government was sitting on more than five million hectares of land it was reluctant to resettle landless peasants on.

His organisation would soon convene a national consultative conference to discuss how best to end the lawlessness and improve Zimbabwe’s tarnished image.

Farmers: why we opposed Hunzvi’s jailing
Financial Gazette - Staff Reporter Thursday 25 May, 2000

THE Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU) opposed the jailing of Chenjerai Hunzvi, leader of Zimbabwe’s independence war veterans over contempt of court charges, because it feared his followers would unleash more violence on farmers, a CFU leader said this week.

“We opposed a custodial sentence for the simple reason that we feared increased violence on farms if that sentence was effected,” CFU director David Hasluck told the Financial Gazette. “We had to take into consideration the safety of our members.”

He was commenting on a ruling last week by the High Court, which fined Hunvzi $10 000 and sentenced him to a wholly suspended three-month jail term for flouting the court’s earlier judgment ordering that he takes steps to end invasions of farms by his members.

Four farmers, a farm foreman, a policeman and an unknown number of farm workers have been killed in violence that has accompanied land seizures by the veterans, who began occupying farms after the government lost a referendum on a new constitution in February.

Hasluck reported more cases of farm occupations at the weekend in Masvingo, Chiredzi, Mwenezi, Concession, Shamva and Harare West which had disrupted farming.

There were also more cases of intimidation of farmers and workers in Mashonaland West, Raffingora and Karoi, he said.
“More cases of farm occupations continue to occur as well as intimidation of farmers by the veterans. We are getting little assistance from the authorities to stop this problem,” Hasluck said.
“All these actions which continue to happen on the farms are in breach of President Robert Mugabe’s call for peace on the farms.”
Mugabe has called for an end to the violence on the farms but backed the invasions. He has shrugged off two High Court orders outlawing the invasions and publicly said he will not order the veterans off the farms, 1 300 of which are now under seizure.
Commercial farmers said a truce brokered by them and the veterans was meaningless as long as violence on the farms continued.
Hasluck said some veterans invading some farms in the past few weeks were ordering farmers to vacate their properties altogether while telling others not to plant any new crops and to remove their livestock.
Most farmers had since stopped planting winter crops, a development likely to trigger food shortages, especially of bread, in the coming months.

Zimbabwe’s mother of all deceptions
Fiancial Gazette 25 May 2000 - Masipula Sithole

TO ''deceive'' is to make a person believe what is false; it is to mislead on purpose.

It is behaviour usually found in “courtship” when a man wants something from a woman; or, vice versa, a woman wanting something from a man.
Deception is behaviour found in politics too. In fact, deception is so typical of politics everywhere that some have defined politics as the “art of deception”. Electoral politics are like competitive sports, almost in every sense. The propensity to deceive gets higher when the stakes are high, and particularly when big teams like Highlanders and Dynamos are involved.
Usually, we think of politicians deceiving the people; rarely do we think of it happening the other way — the people deceiving politicians.
We take the masses to be always honest but for the manipulative politician. I believe that, in their common wisdom, the masses are also cunning, rational and manipulative. They calculate the stakes in politics.
This year certainly would not be the first time the people of this country have deceived politicians.
In 1980 the present white commercial farmers ferried their farm labourers to Bishop Abel Muzorewa’s United African National Congress rallies and to cast their votes for his party on election day.
They donated for the bishop seven “fatted calves” to feed the “multitudes” that came to his “star rally” at Zimbabwe Grounds on the eve of the independence election.
Yet a few days later, the same people voted for “Comrade” Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party. Could it be they had become sober by then?
But how does one explain the fact that they were sober when they made the decision to go to the Zimbabwe Grounds, chanting “Huru-yadzo!”, feasting and drinking to the unsuspecting bishop’s delight?

They sobered up in the secrecy of the polling booth!

Muzorewa was a victim of deception by the Zimbabwe electorate.

The next massive deception of politicians by the electorate involved was in 1985, at the height of the conflict in Matabeleland. “Thousands” turned up at ZANU PF rallies all over Matabeleland. PF ZAPU membership cards and T-shirts were burnt together with “Father Zimbabwe” posters bearing Joshua Nkomo’s face. All to the seeming delight of the Ndebele crowds shown on Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation Television, chanting: “Pasi neZAPU! Pasi naNkomo!”, their party and leader. But come voting day, the Ndebele electorate silently said: “Pasi naMugabe! Pasi neZANU PF”, as they cast their vote for PF ZAPU candidates in the secrecy of the voting booth.

All efforts to intimidate and terrorise them had come to nought.

What happened?

Simple: deception of politicians by the people. It was now Mugabe’s turn to be deceived by the electorate, albeit a Ndebele electorate.

Faced with the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) challenge in the 1990 parliamentary and presidential elections, ZANU PF and Mugabe unleashed the paramilitary youth and women leagues, beating and cowing many a ZUM supporter into submission. Several ZUM candidates withdrew from the race under threat of death. (We are all too familiar with the near-fatal shooting of the ZUM candidate for the Gweru Central constituency, Patrick Kombayi).

But this time the electorate did not deceive Mugabe’s party.

Why did they not deceive it like the Ndebele electorate had done in 1985?

Instead, they voted ZANU PF. Or did they?

To be frank, in the 1990 parliamentary elections, the electorate, fed up with the ZANU PF regime, decided ZUM was not worth their effort and sacrifice.

Instead of voting for ZANU PF, most people stayed away, the start of voter apathy in Zimbabwe electoral politics. It was discerning apathy.

In other words, the electorate did not accept being intimidated into voting for ZANU PF; most people made the deliberate decision not to cast their vote for either ZANU PF or ZUM. Only 1,5 million of the nearly five million eligible voters voted.

It is important to note that this conscious decision was as “deceptive” as the decisions of 1980 and 1985 had been.

As in the case of ZUM, ultimately the electorate in the 1995 election determined there wasn’t much choice between the Forum Party of Zimbabwe and ZANU PF; so they again stayed home, for we know how much ZANU PF campaigned for a large turnout. This then explains the voter apathy in the 1990 and 1995 elections: a conscious decision on the part of the electorate not to vote because there was no viable alternative to the ZANU PF regime.

People seemed to be saying: “ZANU PF or ZUM is the same difference.” Why take part in a “same difference” election?

We all know the current situation as we approach the June 2000 parliamentary election. Or do we?

Is it “huruyadzoish” as in the deceit of 1980? But who is feasting, and on whose account?

Is it “gukurahundish” as in 1985? But who is the target this time? Not the ethnic Ndebele, not really. (Supposedly, Ndebele ethnicity explains the 100 percent deception in Matabeleland in the election of 1985, as some state intellectuals are quick to point out, though shyly).

Or is it “ZUMish” and “Forumish”, in the sense of the absence of a “viable opposition”? Will voter apathy continue for lack of the so-called “viable” opposition? Or has it now arrived?

The times are “huruyadzoish” in the sense that white farmers are ferrying their farm labourers to rallies and donating “fatted calves” and other things.

It is “gukurahundish” in the sense that it’s cruelly brutal, particularly in the countryside. It is between tears and laughter.

The surrender of huge piles of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) T-shirts and membership cards at every ZANU PF rally gives the impression that this mammoth of a movement had grown larger than life. Or we are seeing “rented” cards and T-shirts, to use Jonathan Moyo’s imaginative phrase!

To add colour to these tragic rallies you have, for the first time, white farmers chanting the “Pamberi” slogan and clumsily doing the “Kongonya” dance. What a tragic circus!

Today the farmers and their labourers are MDC; the next day they are ZANU PF. What are they? Rather, whose are they? Who is being deceived: the MDC or ZANU PF? As I watch television and read the state media, and hear state intellectuals pontificating about the MDC every day, I get the impression that people have made up their minds already; they will take part in the forthcoming election and they have already decided which party they will vote for, with or without intimidation or “fatted” calves.

I can’t help but think that election 2000 is going to be the mother of all deceptions! As for me, I am not deceiving anybody; my vote is already known. I voted “NO”.

- Masipula Sithole is a professor of political science at the University of Zimbabwe.

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Zimbabwe Court Extends Poll Nomination Date

Thursday May 25 7:37 AM ET By Ellis Mnyandu

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's opposition succeeded on Thursday in a last ditch attempt to win more time to nominate candidates for next month's parliamentary elections.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had gone to court to argue that a postponement was vital if it was to field a full team of candidates in the June 24-25 vote -- which could bring a real challenge to President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF.

The government side told the court in Harare it had no objection to pushing back the original May 29 closing date.

``By consent, the nomination date for elections...is moved from May 29 to June 3,'' Judge Godfrey Chidyausiku said.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai welcomed the decision.

``It is the only logical thing to do. It gives us time to check the boundaries and the voters' role,'' he told reporters, before addressing 5,000 supporters at a rally in Bulawayo.

Attorney General Patrick Chinamasa said the government was willing to accommodate the opposition request. ``I have no difficulty with June 3. There are no intentions on the part of government to deny anyone from standing in elections,'' he said.

Opposition Leader Urges Vote For Change

The MDC had canceled previous rallies near Zimbabwe's second largest city due to political violence, in which six local party supporters have died in the past two months.

``We do have the elections coming and everyone must just go and vote for change,'' Tsvangirai told reporters.

``We may not have a visible campaign because people are at risk. We don't want dead people,'' he added.

At least 23 people, mostly blacks, have been killed, hundreds have been beaten and many more forced to flee their homes in political violence and government-sponsored land invasions since February.

Mugabe's party, in power for 20 years, has denied orchestrating a campaign of intimidation and accused the MDC of fomenting violence against ZANU-PF supporters.

Mugabe told reporters on Wednesday that the government would not be rigid about the nomination date, but all would-be candidates should take care to ensure they met all requirements.

``...the amateurish organizations who have not participated before should take care,'' he said.

Zimbabwe has been sliding into chaos for the past three months as mobs of ZANU-PF youth and veterans of the former Rhodesia's war to end white minority rule have invaded 1,000 of the country's 4,500 mainly white-owned commercial farms.
Mugabe has said the invasions are justified because the process of land redistribution has been far too slow, and accused former colonial power Britain of reneging on past promises to help settle the emotive land issue.
Backing up its pledge to take over up to 841 of the farms covering 2.1 million hectares (five million acres), the government has given itself the powers to take over the land free of charge, paying compensation only for improvements made since its purchase.

 UK alarm at Mugabe land law

BBC: Thursday, 25 May, 2000, 11:15 GMT 12:15 UK

White farmers and opposition supporters have been intimidated

The UK Government has expressed alarm about the latest development in the political confrontation over land ownership in Zimbabwe.
Foreign Office Minister, Peter Hain, said he was extremely concerned that President Mugabe might be preparing to seize land quickly and without compensation - using powers in a new law that took effect on Wednesday. "This Act is calculated to raise the temperature. It is in nobody's interests," Mr Hain said.

"We have always recognised the importance of the land issue but any resettlement should be done in a way which is acceptable to all concerned - clearly this is not," he stressed.

Mr Hain added that the revised Land Act was calculated to raise the temperature between white farmers and black squatters who have occupied their land.

Possible confiscations

The amendment to the Land Act was made possible by a constitutional change forced through the Harare parliament by Mr Mugabe on 6 April, which put the onus for paying compensation on Britain, as the former colonial power.

Britain has offered a £36 million ($53million) package for voluntary redistribution of farmland to landless black people, but has always insisted it will not provide compensation for farms confiscated against their owners' wishes. Farmers' leaders said they thought the government would use the new law to try to confiscate more than 840 farms.

Court ruling

Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic change, MDC, has won more time to nominate candidates for next month's elections on June 24-25. The MDC had appealed for an extension to the High Court in Harare.

The court has ruled that the nomination date will now be four days later, on 3 June.

Ekwueme in Zimbabwe, Chides Mugabe over Election

This Day (Lagos)

May 25, 2000
By Paul Ibe

Lagos - Former Vice President, Dr Alex Ekwueme has berated the Robert Mugabe-led government of Zimbabwe, over the current political conditions in that country which he said are an impediment to a fair electoral competition.

Ekwueme who led the United States based National Democratic Institute (NDI) to a week-long fact finding mission to Zimbabwe, said that political violence and intimidation are too widespread and severe for credible elections.

In a damning 16-page report by the Ekwueme-led NDI, the first substantial analysis by any international group on the political situation ahead of the election, the group started that "the abilities of political parties and many candidates, predominantly from the opposition, to campaign openly and freely do not meet international standards for fair electoral competition."

Furthermore, it added that "the effects of violence and attempts at political intimidation have undermined trust among many Zimbabweans in the secrecy of the ballot and have raised fears of retribution for voting against the ruling party. The Tuesday edition of the Financial Times quoted the NDI report as saying that "the conditions for credible democratic elections do not exist in Zimbabwe at this time."

Several organisations, including the European Union and the Commonwealth plan to send observers to monitor the general elections slated for June following numerous attacks on opposition supporters by members of the ruling party. Patrick Merloe of the NDI, a group linked to the Democratic Party, said that in his several years of "observing more than 35 elections in countries that are emerging towards democracy, the conditions here are among the worst that I've seen."

Zimbabwe has since independence been under the control of Zanu and Robert Mugabe. The party which controls 146 of the 150 seats in parliament perhaps for the first time is facing a real political threat from the newly- formed Movement for Democratic Change led by trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai.

However, the Ekwueme led NDI said that in spite of the ragging political violence, many Zimbabweans, including the opposition are desirous of forging ahead with the elections.

It therefore implored Mugabe and other political leaders to ensure an immediate end to "gross" bias in favour of the government by the state media and recommended an urgent campaign to educate voters.

Zimbabwe has been gripped by political violence which climaxed with the government-backed attacks on farmers of the predominantly white owned lands.

Letter from : Chaz Maviyane-Davies

Dear Friends,

The world knows that the forthcoming Zimbabwean elections will be aeons away from being 'Free and Fair' but that doesn't phase our mindboggling government in their zest to bewilder any observer.

We have parliamentry elections once every 4 YEARS, yet they feel it is adequate to give the opposition 4 DAYS to find candidates for 120 constituencies and for them to get 10 signatories for each candidate from a voters roll and a delimitation zone plan that was only offered to them today.

Today is a holiday and that leaves only tomorrow as Saturday and Sunday are also holidays. When you consider that through their violent terror campaign, the ruling party have made most of Zimbabwe a 'no-go' area for the opposition, this is a task that makes going to Mars by bicycle easy. -Happy Africa Day

Over the next few weeks I will be sending sporadic 'graphic commentaries' relating to our situation and the world at large... It's the only way to keep my sanity in the centre of an absurd and dangerous situation.

Chaz

 Mugabe changes land ownership law

The Irish Times: From Andrew Meldrum, in Harare

ZIMBABWE: President Robert Mugabe has changed Zimbabwe's law to allow him to confiscate white-owned farms without compensation, it was announced in Harare yesterday.

Mr Mugabe used his sweeping powers to amend the Land Acquisition Act, giving his government the authority to seize white-owned farmland for redistribution to poor blacks. The alteration was published in a special government gazette, according to the presidential press secretary, Mr Munyaradzi Hwengwere.

It is expected that Mr Mugabe will put the newly-amended law to use very soon by proclaiming the seizure of 841 farms. He has repeatedly stated he will take 841 farms, covering 2.1 million hectares, before the parliamentary elections on June 24th and 25th.

Mr Mugabe is hoping the seizure of the white-owned farms will help his ZANU-PF party regain the support of the country's poor rural blacks. His backers have already invaded more than 1,300 farms and are claiming them as their own. The official confiscation of 841 farms will make them government properties. It is expected Mr Mugabe will move poor blacks on to the seized farms before the parliamentary elections.

In addition to land seizures, Mr Mugabe has based his party's campaign on widespread violence and intimidation against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). At least 23 MDC members have been killed by Mugabe supporters since April 1st.

The Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU), representing Zimbabwe's 4,500 mainly white commercial farmers, yesterday appealed to the international community, especially Britain, to make funds available so that farmers would be compensated for properties seized.

The United Nations Development Programme has suggested that it could help raise funds for a land redistribution programme.

"The international community could make funds available for a proper resettlement programme, in which farmers would be fully compensated for their land," said Mr Tim Henwood, president of the Commercial Farmers' Union. "It would be helpful if Britain were to come to the table and participate."

The farmers' plea for international aid is widely viewed as unrealistic. Diplomats here say that no international donor would agree to fund a land redistribution programme while the Mugabe government is supporting the widespread illegal occupations and violence.

COMMERCIAL FARMERS' UNION - FARM INVASIONS UPDATE:
THURSDAY 25 MAY 2000

REGIONAL REPORTS

MASHONALAND CENTRAL
Up to midday, the war vets appear to have taken a day off in Mash Central. Centenary: Stable, but three farm cottages are still occupied.
Glendale: The work stoppage reported at Brawlands yesterday was resolved with some assistance by the police.
Mazowe/Concession: Quiet today, but Pearson Farm owner has still not been permitted back to his house. He has been prevented from picking an export flower seed crop and from planting a wheat crop.

MASHONALAND WEST (SOUTH)
Quiet today. Yesterday, Mapleleaf driver assaulted, policeman involved. Last night, attempted robbery on Kelvington Farm, owner fired shots in the air, three robbers fled. In Chegutu, Zanu PF rallies being organised on farms, assaults of labourers on three properties, one Zanu PF youth arrested.

MASHONALAND WEST (NORTH)
Tongai and nine youths came and pegged on Erewhon Farm. They stated they are going to raise a flag and take control of the farm as of 23/05/2000. Owner informed she is wasting time and fuel by doing land prep, as they are taking over the buildings for Zanu PF headquarters and the homestead for a chef. Lions Den - A driver was beaten by a war vet named Master who then proceeded to Manyemba Farm and beat the farm clerk. He claimed to be armed with a pistol and issued a farmer a death threat in the presence of the police. Police have taken action against him.
An agreement reached on Cornrise Farm.

MASHONALAND EAST
Macheke/Virginia: One farmer had a house burnt down, but arson not suspected. Demands for transport and land pegging continue.
Marondera South: Approximately 30 people arrived on Arcadia this morning. Marondera North: A domestic worker on Rocklands Farm was beaten up - police have been informed and have taken action. On Chipungu, one cow shot with a shot gun and another missing. On Kent, another threatening situation defused. Beatrice/Harare South - unable to make contact.
Wedza: Five labourers beaten up last night at Journeys End Farm. Youth meeting to be held on Corby Farm today. Demands for food refused. 250 youths invaded Chakadenga farm village last night, broke into two labourer's houses and assaulted them. Demanded that rose workers do not attend work today (they are not) and threatened to burn farm down. Police informed but had not arrived by late morning.
Owner of Journeys End cornered yesterday by main leader (Dalka) who forced him to drive to his house. Work disrupted. Approx 120 war vets slept in workers' village and demanded food this morning, which was refused. Another meeting was held and cattle labourers only arrived at work at 7.30 am. War vets have left but threatened to return with reinforcements.
Owner of Ruware was threatened yesterday and is off the farm at the moment. His driver went to Wedza and only returned at 10.00 pm, but has been told to return for more questioning today about the owner and his bull.

Featherstone: nothing to report - all quiet at present.

Bromley/Ruwa/Enterprise:
Enterprise - New invasion on Bally Vaughn Farm led by war vet Sikamba who is a new entity. Twenty arrived and eight remained. Propol advised - no response yet. General night time political meetings and assaults continue. Workers have been advised that police will now actively investigate and prosecute all reports of criminal activity. As a result at least seven reports were made yesterday to police.
Owners and managers of Atlanta and Lonely Park Farms now residing and working full time on respective farms.
One manager on Rudolphia still unable to return.

Letter being circulated by w/v leaders requesting transport/cash/food for Zanu PF rally scheduled for 03/06/2000 in Marondera.

Bromley/Ruwa/Goromonzi - police activity in investigating crime reports welcomed. No new invasions.

MANICALAND
All quiet today - no reports.

MIDLANDS
No report received.

MATABELELAND
All quiet today - no reports.

MASVINGO
Chiredzi area:
Wasara Ranch had an increase of people onto the property and there seems to be a general increase of movement all round, chopping of trees and building of shacks. Report of a meeting with Dr Hundzwe at Chiredzi today.
Sebanani Ranch (new invasion) - the war vets are coming from Ngwane Ranch and invading this farm, demanding meat, which has been refused.
Ngwane Ranch - 50-60 war vets are still on this property.

Mwenezi area:
Merrivale Ranch still has three different war vet groups on the property. They have been there since Monday and are still pegging out plots. They have indicated to the game scouts that they want to set up a base camp on the farm, and are currently cutting trees and building shelters, as well as setting snares.
Masvingo Central:
Heathcote Farm reports that all the war vets have moved off the property.
Save Conservancy:
The Task Force and war vets agreed that smaller groups should join forces with the game scouts to control further invasions and poaching and to accompany fence maintenance teams. Cooperation between parties established.
Gutu/Chatsworth - no communications this morning.
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KAROI, Zimbabwe, May 25 (AFP) - Black Zimbabwean farmworker "John Nkomo" is sure he will beaten, perhaps maimed, when the militant war veterans who have been invading neighbouring properties arrive on the farm where he works as a cook.

"They will come here," he told AFP on his employer's tobacco farm in Zimbabwe's northwestern Karoi area. "There is no doubt."

Because his employer is a known supporter of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), workers on the farm are likely to be beaten more severely than those on farms where the white farmer has kept his political allegiances hidden.

"If they beat us, they beat us, there is nothing we can do," Nkomo -- not his real name -- said. "There is nowhere we can go to. They are everywhere."

"They" are veterans of the country's 1970s liberation war, supported by a rag-tag bunch of landless peasants and supporters of the ruling ZANU-PF party who have been invading farms across the country since February in a violent land-grab that has the blessing of President Robert Mugabe.

Only a handful of farms in the tobacco-rich Karoi remain unoccupied and farming activities have virtually ground to a halt.
While many of the occupations have been peaceful, those farms where the farmer is a known MDC supporter are often the scenes of brutal beatings of farmworkers and farmers, four of whom have been killed.

Asked if he was scared, Nkomo said: "To be beaten by someone where we cannot fight back is of course a frightening thing."

He had, he said, already been confronted by ZANU-PF supporters while travelling in a bus at the weekend.

"They were waiting at the bus terminus," he said. "Anyone with an MDC T-shirt was beaten, and anyone who refused to say the ZANU-PF slogans was beaten."

He managed to slip past them unpunished but the incident left him shaken.

Nkomo's employer recently held a huge MDC rally on the farm, where a cow was slaughtered and MDC T-shirts handed out. Because anyone caught wearing MDC colours is singled out for punishment, the farmer has since collected all the T-shirts and removed them from his premises.

He has no doubts his tobacco and coffee farm will be invaded and that he and his workers may be beaten.

But he believes someone has to take a stand against the intimidation and violence being directed against opposition supporters across the country ahead of parliamentary elections in June.

"It is important to stand up and show the way," the farmer, who like his workers, would not be identified for fear of reprisals by the war veterans. "We need a viable opposition."

He criticised the Commercial Farmers Union for changing its stance on political support.

The union initially advocated that white farmers not be afraid to show their political allegiances, but since the beatings and killings have urged farmers rather to keep their colours a secret.
He, too, is aware he may be beaten, but believes he has to carry on with his farming activities in the face of the intimidation.

"It is better to confront them, than wait for them to come to you," he said, adding that he had been to the war veterans to discuss the situation in the area -- and had promptly been warned that a ZANU-PF rally would be held on his farm and that he had to supply a cow for the occasion.

He may not be able to stop the rally, but he plans to charge them for the cow.

His neighbour knows what it's like to be at the mercy of the war veterans.

Earlier this week his farm was invaded by axe-wielding militants and his workers were forced to dance and chant ZANU-PF slogans. He was made to join the dancing.

The farmer, now renamed "Elvis" by other farmers for his dancing antics, was continually threatened when his enthusiasm lagged.

"It was terrifying" said "Elvis". "They were very threatening. I could smell the beer on their breath. They had also been smoking dagga (marijuana). I thought that any moment I would get a crack on my head."

Though they didn't beat him, they took away one of his two farms -- including all the land where he plants his crops.

Police are unwilling to interfere in what they see essentially as a political dispute over land.

"I realised then that when they stand there with their sticks and axes, you are on your own," he said.

"Whatever they want you to do, you will do. When they tell you to toe the line, you toe the line."
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Thursday, 25 May, 2000, 17:43 GMT 18:43 UK - BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_763000/763553.stm
Opposition wins election change

More than 8,000 MDC supporters attended the Bulawayo rally

Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, has won more time to nominate candidates for next month's elections.
The High Court in Harare has ruled that the nomination date will now be four days later, on 3 June - the last day possible under Zimbabwe's election rules.

The move came as 8,000 opposition supporters attended a rally in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second-largest city.

Before the rally, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai told his supporters not to put their lives at risk in the run-up to the elections, saying the party didn't want any more dead heroes.

The Movement for Democratic Change say there have been several thousand incidents of violence or intimidation against its supporters since February, and that 23 of 25 people killed in political violence were MDC sympathisers.

In the capital, Harare, about 3,000 people attended a prayer meeting calling for peace following months of political violence and intimidation by ruling party supporters.

Ruling welcomed

Attorney General Patrick Chinamasa told the court that he had no difficulty with changing the nomination date.

"There are no intentions on the part of government to deny anyone from standing in the elections," he said.

The ruling has been praised by the MDC.

"The extension is welcome. It was the right thing to do. It was the only logical thing to do" the Mr Tsvangirai said.

President Mugabe himself does not face elections until 2002, but he has called parliamentary elections for June 24-25.

Promise of jobs

At the rally of opposition supporters at a stadium in Bulawayo, the MDC leader said that President Mugabe had ruined the country.

He promised to create jobs if the MDC wins next month's elections.

"We have one chance and one chance only to get rid of Zanu-PF and put this country back on its feet," he said.

"Zanu-PF was given 20 years. They have failed. What we are doing now is removing Zanu-PF," Mr Tsvangirai added.

"We do not hate Robert Mugabe. What we hate is the system he has put in place. If the MDC implements its economic programme we will get employment," the MDC leader told the crowd.

Defiant opposition

Mr Tsvangirai was in defiant mood as he spoke to the crowd who had defied threats and intimidation by ruling party militants to attend the rally.

"Even if they kill, even if they beat people, we are not going back. We will meet on polling day," he said.

"Those who have been killed and beaten have not done so for nothing," he added.

Many in the crowd wore MDC T-shirts, but admitted that they had not worn them on their way to the stadium.

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Thursday 25 May, 2000

6000 villagers flee rural terror
Staff Reporter

MORE than 6000 villagers had by mid-yesterday fled Zimbabwe's countryside into Harare and other cities as armed bands of former independence war guerrillas and ZANU PF youths stepped up a terror campaign against the opposition in rural areas.

Some of the fleeing villagers talked of killings of several of their relatives who had not been able to escape from the attackers.

The Zimbabwe Human Rights Organisation (Zim-Rights), coordinating relief for the fugitives, said yesterday it had not yet been able to confirm or verify the reported murders.

"Some of them claim that their relatives have been tortured and murdered but we have not yet been able to go to the affected areas to see and verify these claims for ourselves and the extent of the violence," ZimRights director Munyaradzi Bidi said.

ZimRights' offices in Harare, Mutare, Kwekwe and Bulawayo had been inundated by villagers seeking shelter and help. He estimated the refugees at more than 6 000.

Bidi expects the number of refugees to swell. He said he was recording information from the villagers for possible future litigation against their attackers.

"People are suffering, but the most distressing thing is the sight of terrified little children who understand nothing about what is happening except only the hunger and cold they have had to endure during the long marches through the bush at night to escape the violence," he told the Financial Gazette.

At one "safe house" in Harare, where a Good Samaritan has taken in more than nine families who fled their homes in Chief Nyakuchena's area in Mudzi, more than 200 km northeast of Harare, a middled-aged woman, Senzeni, broke down in tears as she recounted how the attackers allegedly raped her in front of her children and villagers.

Another villager, Peter Chikomo who now has nightmares because of the attacks, recounted how he had witnessed the rampaging mobs beat up his ageing mother as one of the assailants grabbed his dog by its hind legs and hurled it into raging flames consuming one of his huts.

"I do not think all that is happening has anything to do with politics," Chikomo said. "President Robert Mugabe no longer likes the people, otherwise why would he set our children against us, to burn our houses and kill us?"

Bidi said: "What we see happening now is just like what happened in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces during the Gukurahundi operations in the early 1980s."

He was referring to the army's crackdown on armed rebels in the two provinces in an operation in which churches and human rights bodies said thousands of innocent civilians were either killed or tortured by government troops.

Political violence ahead of Zimbabwe's June 24-25 parliamentary elections has killed at least 23 people in the past three months.

Although in most cases the killings have occurred in broad daylight and the perpetrators are known, the police are yet to prosecute those involved.

Some villagers camped in Harare after fleeing their homes in Mutoko said the violence would never intimidate them into supporting ZANU PF.

One villager, Mika Chisamba, who says he once staunchly believed in ZANU PF and Mugabe but admits to now being a supporter of the opposition United Parties party, said he now only feels "anger towards the party that has turned me into a beggar".

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Guardian (UK)

Mugabe gangs strip and beat school staff

Andrew Meldrum in Chimanimani, eastern Zimbabwe Thursday May 25, 2000

They arrived with lists of schools, businesses and individuals suspected of supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and began hunting them down.

They took over the towns secondary and primary schools and dragged the teachers from their classrooms. Some teachers accused of being MDC supporters were stripped naked in front of their students. Many were beaten, some unconscious. Several teachers were hospitalised and three headmasters are still missing.

By the standards of Zimbabwes increasingly brutal election campaign, Chimanimani got off lightly at the weekend. But the hit squad trained and funded by President Robert Mugbes ruling Zanu-PF had done its job.

Today, Chimanimani, a quiet, prosperous town on Zimbabwes eastern mountains is half deserted. Most people avoid speaking to outsiders.

The campaign is called "Operation Tsuro" after the rabbit or hare, which Shona people believe to be a particularly intelligent animal. The hit squad has been trained to burn, bludgeon, torture and kill to get Zimbabweans to support Zanu-PF.

Next stop on the gangs tour was the Border Timbers estate and lumber mill. After several workers were beaten and management was threatened, the company decided to close down all operations. Border Timbers employs 3,500 people and had export orders worth US$18m (11m) last year. The company has since re-opened.

Mr Mugabes men also invaded the farm of the MDC parliamentary candidate for Chimanimani, Roy Bennett. In response to death threats, Mr Bennett said he would rather give up his farm than his allegiance to the MDC. But he left Chimanimani with his wife, Heather, after the war veterans had held her hostage for several hours.

Mr Bennett tried to return to his farm yesterday, but he was warned by police that the occupiers were armed and would shoot him dead. His once prosperous coffee farm is now a shambles from looting and destruction. Many of his 600 workers have been badly beaten.

"The war veterans intimidated everyone in the town," said a local woman."Tellers at the bank, workers at Zesa [the state electric power company], the post office and the PTC [the phone company] were all threatened and followed when they went home from work. Some were beaten and their homes ransacked."

The police have promised to protect people from violence, even if it comes from visiting thugs from Zanu-PF, but things have not returned to normal in Chimanimani. There are no tourists and the normally popular hotels and lodges are empty.

At the weekend people were told to attend a rally for the Zanu-PF parliamentary candidate, Munacho Mutezo. About 2,000 showed up, many in vehicles commandeered from Mr Bennetts farm.

Mr Mutezo, the chairman of Time Bank in Harare, made a big show of the MDC T-shirts and membership cards, which he said had been "surrendered" by people at the rally.

"There are hundreds here who have rejoined Zanu-PF," Mr Mutezo said. "People are deserting the MDC for Zanu-PF out of free choice."

The intimidation of Chimanimani is not an isolated incident. Zanu-PF has sent squads to Kariba, Mutoko, Murehwa and Masvingo and other provincial centres. In Harare and Bulawayo, the townships have been brutalised by gangs who go door to door.

"We are afraid and we hope things will get back to normal soon," said a man in Chimanimani. "But people still want change. We hope that if we are quiet now, we will be able to vote for change when the time comes."
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Extract from....

http://www.davidicke.com/icke/articles2/backzimbabwe.html there is lots more that is interesting....

(This is Lancaster House talks...) . The constitution was presented to the assembled Rhodesian political leaders, black and white, by Carrington, who insisted on an answer by the end of the week. One man in the Rhodesian delegation who would have seen the inherent flaws in this was John Giles, a constitutional expert. On Tuesday October 4th 1979, on the very day that the Rhodesians were due to discuss the Carrington proposals, John Giles went missing and was later found dead.

Dr. Kitty Little was at Lancaster House that day to meet Ian Smith, a friend of many years. She has been trying ever since to make the background to both the conference and the death of John Giles public. The previous day, Dr. Little says, Giles had been to Hamley's (the famous London toy shop) to buy Christmas present for his children. On the morning he disappeared he rang his wife, sounding very cheerful and upbeat, but later that morning he was observed looking suddenly very worried about something, In the afternoon, an official car, a Granada Ghia, came to pick him up. He was never seen alive again.

While Lord Carrington's proposals, in the absence of Giles, tied the Rhodesian delegation in mental knots and won the day, the police were advised that Giles was missing. The next morning, John Giles was found dead on a path close to the rear entrance of Lancaster House. Verdict: "Suicide". His death would not have been made public at all, unless an ambulance man had alerted the press. The coroner, who did not call policemen at the scene to give evidence, decided that Giles had jumped from a first floor window at Lancaster House, which those who have been to the spot say was an impossibility, given where the body was found. And that's another thing. The Lancaster House staff used the service door of the building and would have had to step over the body to get in and out. It was supposed to have laid there through a whole afternoon, evening, and night. Yet it wasn't found until the following morning.

The case was handled by the local police and the authorities refused to discuss it with the Rhodesian-Zimbabwe Special Branch. No police file exists on John Giles, I understand. Kitty Little insists that Ken Flower, the head of the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation was, or had been, a member of Britain's intelligence section, MI6. She also says that it is now known that MI6 was working to destabilise Rhodesia in order to force the dictatorship swap that Lancaster House was really designed to produce. According to Dr. Kitty Little's impeccable sources, Ken Flower might qualify for the Guinness Book of Records as the doublest of double agents! While head of Rhodesian Intelligence he was also working for MI6, the KGB, East European Intelligence, the CIA, and a number of African Intelligence networks. He worked with the "D" group of MI6 operatives who, to quote Dr. Little, "did nasty things and had them blamed on Ian Smith". Zimbabwe is obviously very important to the Elite and the multinational corporations, one of which, Rio Tinto Zinc, had enjoyed the experience of having Lord Carrington on its board (and the Queen is a major shareholder).

There is considerable evidence to support Kitty Little's contention. Two months after the Lancaster House conference, it was revealed that Margaret Thatcher (Bil) and Lord Carrington (TC, Bil, RIIA, Comm 300) had ordered a massive surveillance operation on the delegates. Telephones were tapped, rooms bugged, diplomatic communications were monitored, and the British used Rhodesian security to interpret the African language. This was revealed by reporter Barrie Penrose in the London Sunday Times of February 3rd 1980, under the headline, "Minister's Phone was Tapped by Secret Services". This, said the article, was why "Lord Carrington could conduct the conference on the basis of brinkmanship. The intelligence service told him what the brinks were." Which leads to another question: if the rooms and phones were bugged, why did they not know what had happened to John Giles until he was found dead the next morning? Ummm. Kitty Little contends that Margaret Thatcher was kept in the dark by Carrington about a host of foreign policy subjects and only selected information was allowed to reach her. This clearly would have coloured her views of which policy to follow. It is emerging that for all her apparent power, the "Iron Lady" was another puppet, perhaps even more than most.
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Subject: FW: Nairobi Point of View

Let's Grab The Land And Live In Poverty
The East African (Nairobi)
April 30, 2000
By Charles Onyango-Obbo

Harare - The daily spectacle on international TV of drunken Zimbabwean war veterans, their hangers-on, and other goons of Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF wielding hoes, machetes and sticks while murdering white farmers is, to understate it, extremely embarrassing for many an African. This is the kind of African stereotype which white racists must surely think was made in heaven. The white man arrives in Africa, finds healthy bush where the "natives" are hunting squirrels and civet cats, seizes it and turns it into rich farms. Mugabe goes to the bush to fight a guerrilla war to kick out the British colonialists and to give his people back their land and freedom. He takes power all right, but gives land first to himself and his cronies. The people remain wretched. And they are not free either, because when they try to say they don't like Mugabe's corrupt ways, he sends in his boys and they beat up the protesters and kill a few for good measure. Then one day the poor Zimbabweans wake up, hungry, barefoot, and landless. They can't touch Mugabe's land. In any case, the new Zanu-PF farmers' yield is not as bountiful as that of the white Zimbabweans. So, with a little prompting from Mugabe, they set upon the white-owned farms. Most likely, the veterans will run down the farms. The water systems will break down, the food storage will go to waste, they will slaughter and roast the farm animals in camp-fires over the next few months, then the farms will become barren.

Fate is a cruel mistress. Another severe drought might visit Zimbabwe in the years to come. If Mugabe is still president then, he could very easily find himself begging for food for the poor people in the country, most of them former veterans on confiscated farms. Who knows, some of the very farmers who are being run off the land in Zimbabwe now could be the ones selling grain to feed the same hungry fellows who chased them off the land.

I do sympathise with the millions of poor landless black Zimbabweans, and think it is unfair that 4,000 white-owned farms should comprise a third of Zimbabwe's productive farmland. However, I think if "our" people are to steal the land back, at least they need to do it with some style. Following the law and court rulings on the land issue, is one way of doing that. In these matters, it always helps not to depart too far from common sense. You don't have to be a Nobel prize-winning agricultural scientist to figure out that those down-and-out squatters and veterans who are grabbing the white-owned farms in Zimbabwe cannot make good farmers. Unless the intention is to let them grab plots on which to build their huts, it is hard to see the commercial sense in supporting these seizures. Therein then lies the real problem. Land fragmentation in many parts of Africa is as big a problem as landlessness. The landless have no land and live in poverty. But the fragmented land owners have little plots of exhausted soil which yield nothing and they are too poor.

On this matter, few leaders are clearer than President Yoweri Museveni. He has some unkind words on land fragmentation, and frequently tells crowds (when it is not election time, as it is now) that there is no future being peasants eking a living from their small gardens in the villages.

Sensible governments educate their people. Then they push through policies which encourage the modernisation of agriculture and the creation of jobs in the towns. It's much better to be a truck driver on someone's farm earning $100 a month, or a clerk in a small factory in town earning $120 a month, than to be a landed peasant in the village, queuing up for food handouts at the local World Food Programme feeding centre.
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Photo taken at about 11hrs30 on Friday 19th May 2000 in the grounds of the Chimanimani Police Station.
This man – Mr Fradrick MUYOCHA ID No 44-032 482 522 was abducted at gun point on the night of Thursday 18th May man handled and driven in a vehicle stolen from Roy Bennett the farm belonging to Roy Bennett and occupied by “War Vets”.

At the farm he was beaten in the presence of the area chief of the CIO until he renounced MDC and promised to support ZANU PF – he was then given a programme to support ZANU and taken back to Chimanimani.

On Friday 19th May he reported the assault to the Police..

When this photograph was taken I was told by a “WAR Vet” who I can identify, that should it be published he and I would be killed.

We also have a recorded Video tape of the afore mentioned person relating the beating incident

R Whitehead
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