Independent, UK
By Daniel Howden, Deputy Foreign Editor
Published: 04 April
2007
A local journalist suspected of having links to Zimbabwe's
opposition has
been found murdered following an escalation of the
government's campaign of
violence and intimidation.
Edward Chikombo,
a part-time cameraman for the state broadcaster ZBC, was
abducted from his
home in the Glenview township outside Harare last week.
His body was
discovered at the weekend near the village of Darwendale, 50
miles west of
the capital, The Independent has learnt.
There are concerns in Harare
that the killing may be linked to the smuggling
out of the country of
television pictures of the badly injured opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai
after he was beaten up by police on 11 March.
A former colleague of Mr
Chikombo said: "It's not clear whether the murder
was a message to the media
or a political killing." The footage of Mr
Tsvangirai leaving a Harare
courthouse with a suspected fractured skull, and
then lying in a hospital
bed, provoked a storm of international criticism of
Robert Mugabe's regime.
Journalists for the state broadcaster routinely film
news as it happens in
the country but cannot use the footage in heavily
censored bulletins. Some
pictures do find a way out of the country and in
the past staff at ZBC have
been sacked or harassed under suspicion of
selling it to foreign
broadcasters.
The government has banned both the BBC and CNN from
reporting from Zimbabwe
and any unacc-redited journalist faces a two-year
prison sentence.
Since taking power in 1980, Mr Mugabe has nationalised
media outlets and the
last independent voice disappeared with the recent
closure of the Daily
News. Local journalists are forced to work undercover
for international
outlets while accreditation papers are routinely refused
to organisations
seen as hostile.
Eyewitnesses saw a group of armed
men abduct Mr Chikombo last Thursday. His
captors drove a silver pick-up
truck of the same make used in numerous
similar abductions during a
sustained three-week terror campaign targeting
government
opponents.
The pattern of abductions and punishment beatings has become a
terrifying
nightly ritual in Zimbabwe, where scores of opposition activists
and their
relatives have been attacked by gangs using unmarked cars and
police-issue
weapons. The government has refused to confirm or deny its
involvement in
these "hit squads" but Mr Mugabe has spoken of the police's
right to "bash"
the opposition and of "terrorist acts" by
opponents.
Another local journalist, Gift Phiri, a senior reporter for
the exiled The
Zimbabwean newspaper, was detained and beaten by police on
Sunday. Mr Phiri
was picked up near his home in Sunningdale, in Harare. His
lawyer, Rangu
Nyamurundira, said his client had been badly beaten while in
custody. "When
I saw him, Gift could not sit down as he had been very badly
beaten on his
back and his buttocks. He told me four policemen, including
the chief
superintendent, had tortured him for hours.
"One of them
pinned him to the floor with his boot, while the others beat
him with an
assortment of a baseball bat, metal handle and a police baton."
Shortly
after his arrest Mr Phiri was accused of throwing petrol bombs at
police
stations but that charge was changed to, "practising as a journalist
without
accreditation".
Mr Phiri's newspaper confirmed that he had applied for
accreditation but had
received no response.
Meanwhile, a British
journalist, Alex Perry, has left Zimbabwe after his
arrest and release, Time
magazine confirmed yesterday. He was detained for
apparently entering the
country without official media accreditation. Mr
Perry, the South Africa
correspondent for the news magazine, was arrested in
Zimbabwe on Saturday,
apparently for entering the country without official
media accreditation. He
was freed on Monday night by Zimbabwean police after
paying a small
fine.
Time said in a statement: "Time correspondent Alex Perry was
briefly
detained while on assignment in Gwanda, Zimbabwe. He has since been
released
and is no longer in the country."
Independent, UK
I was arrested and tortured. This is the price workers in Zimbabwe
pay
Published: 04 April 2007
Zimbabwean workers are staying away from
work today, as they did yesterday,
because our economy is in tatters, and
our proposals for reform have been
ignored.
I know that British
people who care about the workers of Zimbabwe - and the
many Zimbabweans who
have fled to the UK - will be demonstrating outside the
Embassy of Zimbabwe
on the Strand this lunchtime, and I thank them for their
commitment to our
just cause.
Zimbabwe has an inflation rate of more than 1,700 per cent,
four-fifths of
the workforce are unemployed, and life expectancy has
plummeted to just 37
years because of starvation and disease. Ordinary
Zimbabweans can no longer
afford to buy the basic necessities to feed
ourselves and our families.
For those who can work, the average minimum
wage for a Zimbabwean is
Z$90,000 (£182) a month, but a family needs at
least Z$938,000 to pay for
necessities - barely enough to buy bread, let
alone provide for their
families. A pint of milk recently rose in price from
Z$10,000 to Z$17,000
overnight.
The Minister of Public Service,
Labour and Social Welfare, Nicholas Goche,
is an example of the shameful
behaviour of the Government of Zimbabwe. He
has been quoted saying he has
been giving his farm workers a paltry Z$10,000
a month.
It's
difficult to explain what this means in monetary terms, because the
official
exchange rate of US$1 to Z$250 is a joke - unofficially, the
exchange rate
is closer to US$1 to Z$7,000. In that light, the Zimbabwean
Congress of
Trade Unions (ZCTU) demand for a minimum wage of Z$1 million
looks more
realistic.
People often ask me how ordinary Zimbabweans are coping with
this situation,
and the sad answer is that increasing numbers simply aren't.
One in four
Zimbabweans has left the country. Others have returned to the
land, scraping
a living or, sometimes, starving.
But the trade union
movement is still alive and still fighting for the
rights and livelihoods of
ordinary Zimbabweans. Our general strike this week
has shown that we are
unbroken, despite the brutal repression of the current
regime.
In
September 2006, the leadership of the ZCTU was arrested for participating
in
a peaceful protest for jobs, for measures to counter hyper-inflation, and
for greater access to medical treatment. I was among those arrested,
tortured and denied access to medical treatment. This is the price that
workers in Zimbabwe pay for the right to demonstrate for a living
wage.
We subsequently issued the Mugabe Government with a list of
proposals to
make life more bearable for workers in Zimbabwe. We have been
ignored by the
Government, so we have been forced into action.
We
have already experienced threats and raids on our offices to intimidate
us
into calling off the strike. ZCTU staff have been beaten up and our
flyers,
files and video tapes seized. The government has tried to mislead
Zimbabweans by placing false stories in the media suggesting that our action
has been called off. They claim we are engaged in politics. The only
politics that we are engaged in is the politics of the stomach, politics
that will ensure that workers earn a living wage.
Falsely accused of
fomenting violence, we have urged our supporters only to
stay away from
work, not to demonstrate in the streets, because of the
brutal attacks they
would face from the security services.
Despite all this, we must take
action - the violence of the security
services is nothing compared to the
violence of hunger, poverty and disease
that ordinary Zimbabweans suffer
every day. We are sustained by the support
we have received from workers
around the world - from Britain and the rest
of Europe, from the Americas,
from Asia and the Pacific, and especially from
our colleagues in Africa. The
South African and Nigerian trade union
movements in particular have stood
with us whenever we have needed their
support, and their action demonstrates
that the failure of their leaders to
stand up to Mugabe does not reflect the
views of ordinary Africans. Those
trade unionists have experienced
dictatorial regimes and have proud
traditions of fighting for
freedom.
Whatever the regime does in response to our general strike, we
will continue
to struggle for workers - we have already announced that there
will be a
national action every three months from now on until the situation
in the
country improves.
We believe in a better Zimbabwe, where our
people are prosperous, healthy
and free, and we will not stop fighting for
that.
The writer is president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions
The Guardian
Press
Association
Wednesday April 4, 2007 5:08 AM
Workers across the UK
are being urged to demonstrate their support for a
national strike in
Zimbabwe to highlight the effect of the "crippling"
economic climate on
ordinary members of the public.
Employees in London were called on to
join a lunchtime demonstration outside
the Zimbabwe Embassy in the Strand,
where vigils have been held for more
than four years to complain about human
rights abuses under president Robert
Mugabe's regime.
The TUC and
campaign group Action for Southern Africa (Actsa) said people in
this
country should protest against the "violence and torture" meted out to
trade
unionists in Zimbabwe.
The strike has been called over the state of the
economy in Zimbabwe, where
inflation has soared to 1,700% and unemployment
has reached 80%.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "Zimbabwe's
people are suffering
from Mugabe's appalling economic mismanagement,
corruption and brutal
repression.
"They are standing up for their
rights, and we must stand with them."
Lela Kogbara, chairman of Actsa,
said: "As with every oppressive regime,
women and workers are left bearing
the brunt. Join us as we stand in
solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe in
their struggle for peace, justice
and freedom."
Kathryn Llewellyn,
head of campaigns at Actsa, added that workers attending
protests in
Zimbabwe were now being "branded" after being beaten up by
police and other
officials.
"We are disgusted by the news that state bullies are now
branding helpless
protestors after having beaten them. This relentless state
violence is
despicable and must be opposed.
"We stand in solidarity
with the general strike and call on people to join
our demonstration outside
Zimbabwe House."
© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2007, All Rights
Reserved.
The Star
Many too
afraid of losing their jobs in harsh economic environment
April 04, 2007
Edition 2
Cris Chinaka
Fear crippled a national strike called by
Zimbabwe unions as workers,
companies and shops heeded government warnings
to continue with business in
an economy verging on
collapse.
President Robert Mugabe's government says the Zimbabwe Congress
of Trade
Unions (ZCTU) called yesterday's strike as part of a plot by the
main
opposition Movement for Democratic Change to oust it, and promised
tough
action against any open protests.
The ZCTU said the two-day
stayaway action was spurred by Zimbabwe's economic
crisis, which has seen
inflation soar to more than 1 700% and left most
workers struggling to pay
their bills and feed their families.
The government sent a helicopter
patrol winging over the city while riot
police patrolled central Harare, but
there were few visible signs of
increased police presence in industrial
districts and townships.
Journalists who drove around Harare's industrial
areas early yesterday found
many firms operating as usual, and the normal
hordes of unemployed waiting
outside factories seeking
employment.
Banks, offices and shops were also open in the city centre
and a journalist
in Zimbabwe's second largest city, Bulawayo, said many
businesses there
appeared to be operating normally.
"Zimbabweans are
very risk averse, and in this case they are unsure of the
benefits of the
stayaway, but very sure of the possibility of the wrath of
the state,"
Eldred Masunungure, a political commentator, said.
The ZCTU says workers
want a minimum wage of Z$1-million (R28 600) and for
the government to
resolve an economic meltdown and increase access to Aids
drugs.
The ZCTU
accused authorities of intimidation, but said the job boycott was
successful.
"Considering the (beatings) and intimidation we have
witnessed recently,
(the strike) has been quite successful," ZCTU president
Lovemore Matombo
told reporters.
"It has been more effective in
industries were some workers have stayed at
home," he added.
Matombo
said earlier he hoped workers would risk open defiance to protest
against an
economic crisis that has seen the country battle the world's
highest
inflation rate, unemployment of more than 80% and frequent shortages
of food
and fuel.
An executive at a Harare clothing factory said almost all his
50 employees
had turned up for work, and one of them, Dickson Mapara, said
they feared
losing their jobs in such a hard economic environment.
"I
understand what the ZCTU is trying to do for us . but things are so hard
I
cannot afford to lose this job, and although I get very little, I cannot
afford to get nothing at all," he said as some of his colleagues shouted at
a reporter to get off the premises. - Reuters
The Telegraph
By a
Special Correspondent in Harare
Last Updated: 1:41am BST
04/04/2007
Deep in the maize fields of rural Zimbabwe,
where President Robert
Mugabe once led the "liberation struggle" against
white rule, even lifelong
supporters of the 83-year-old despot are crying
for him to go.
Voices of dissent used to be heard only in the
cities and among the
Ndebele minority of the south.
But Mr
Mugabe now faces criticism - albeit whispered and furtive -
from people who
have spent their lives swallowing his propaganda.
"People are
feeling the pinch, everyone is feeling the pinch and there
is only one
person to blame, Mugabe," said one 34-year-old, who illegally
trades foreign
currency.
Like everyone else who spoke to this newspaper, he was
too afraid of
reprisals to give his name.
"My elderly mother,
her friends in the villages, the fighters in the
liberation wars, they are
now suffering too much and they know things must
change."
advertisement
Factories, shops and offices fell silent yesterday as a
two-day strike
began in Zimbabwe. It was called by the trade union movement,
supposedly to
protest over the calamitous state of the economy, but in
reality to call for
Mr Mugabe's departure after 27 years in
power.
But the strike was patchily observed. In the capital,
Harare, most
shops and businesses opened as usual. In the second city of
Bulawayo, the
strike was more effective.
Yet hopes for change
were high when The Daily Telegraph toured
Zimbabwe. In the marketplaces of
Mbare, a rundown township in Harare,
vegetable salesmen said their
businesses were collapsing.
"We have the produce to sell, but the
costs are now too high for
people to buy it," said one man who gave his name
only as James.
"It is Mugabe who led us into liberation, but now he
is killing us. He
must go," he said, nervously scouting the market for
eavesdroppers or
informers. Minutes later, hundreds of street vendors
selling sugar scattered
as a police patrol swept the township. Mr Mugabe
banned these small-scale
traders from working last year, effectively denying
them even a meagre
living.
"This cannot continue. People have
nothing to feed their families. We
cannot stand it," said one sugar seller.
But Mr Mugabe has been anointed as
the ruling Zanu-PF party's candidate for
next year's presidential elections.
If he wins another five-year term -
which is almost certain - the way will
be clear for him to stay in power
until he is 89.
Mr Mugabe has suffered one small reverse. He had
planned to postpone
the elections altogether until 2010 and keep the
presidential term unchanged
at six years. His colleagues appear to have
forced him to retreat on those
minor points - but the old despot has once
again been given a new lease of
political life. Southern African leaders
meeting in Tanzania failed to
condemn his campaign of
repression.
"They call him the wily old fox and he's shown that yet
again. Now
there is no chance he will step down," said a white farmer who is
among
thousands who have lost their land. President Thabo Mbeki of South
Africa,
chosen to mediate between Mr Mugabe and Zimbabwe's weak and divided
opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, disagrees. Asked by
the Financial Times if Mr Mugabe would eventually retire peacefully, Mr
Mbeki said: "I think so. Yes, sure."
There is talk in Harare
that Mr Mugabe, having won next year's
election, will then retire and hand
over power to an anointed successor.
This scenario may be Zimbabwe's only
hope.
"Once Mugabe has gone, the outside world will be happy again
to deal
with Zimbabwe," said a businessman closely linked to
Zanu-PF.
"We will see donor money coming again, the International
Monetary Fund
will help us. This is what we need, and the only thing in the
way is
Mugabe."
Violet Gonda: Working as a human rights lawyer representing political detainees in Zimbabwe has become quite a challenge. As the Mugabe regime continues it’s crackdown on opponents, abducting victims from their homes and hospitals, lawyers are increasingly spending more of their time in High Court making urgent applications to access their clients.
In many of these cases detainees are deliberately being starved, tortured and denied medical treatment. My guest on the programme Hot Seat today is lawyer Alec Muchadehama who has represented a variety of activists in the pro-democracy movement.
Welcome on the programme Hot Seat Mr Muchadehama.
Alec Muchadehama: Thank you very much.
Violet: Now let us start with what is it really like working as a human rights lawyer in Zimbabwe right now?
Alec Muchadehama: It’s quite challenging, I think that is what I can say because as you might know, a lawyer’s allegiance is virtually to the laws of Zimbabwe and his job is basically to represent his clients to the best of his ability and there is really a limit to what a lawyer can do in terms of executing his duties. One normally goes to Court, obtains Court Orders then execution is done by other people.
But, what we have experienced in the short while is extremely challenging circumstances where for instance, if you find; even from long back like starting at 13th September 2006 when the ZCTU members were assaulted right through to the arrest of Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara, Lovemore Madhuku and others, and even currently, the arrest of Ian Makone, (MP) Paul Madzore and the others who are in custody.
You find that what we used to brag about as Lawyers for Human Rights was our reaction time. We normally got to the scenes between five to ten minutes of receiving instructions to attend a particular case. But, what now happens is that if you try to follow up on any case that is arising during this time and you go to a police station and ask who has been arrested and why they’ve been arrested and where they are and so on, the first thing that you are met with is some feigning of ignorance by the police who will be claiming that they do not know where the clients are, and they are not responsible, they are not investigating them and so forth. So you have that first challenge of even locating where the clients are.
And, what the police are now doing is that instead of taking them normally to the police station nearest where they have been arrested from, they scatter these people. In the last instance where Morgan Tsvangirai and others were arrested you find that some of the accused persons were detained at Nyabhira, some at Selous, some at Borrowdale Police station, some at Braeside, some at all over in and around Harare. The idea being that it must be extremely difficult for us to locate these clients. And, the police, they will be a connivance among the whole organisation that lawyers must not know where these clients are. So that again becomes problematic.
But apart from that, when it comes also the question of even when you come to know; by whatever means; as to where the person will be detained and so on, the police will again deny you access to see the client so that you interview them to take the normal details of who their names are, what they have been arrested for, whether they need anything immediately, including advising their relatives and so on. And so, because you will not be able to see them, we get stuck right on the first hurdle as to how do you represent a person who has not given you instructions, and who you do not know what they have been arrested for.
So, as a stop gap measure, we then rush to Courts; normally the High Court in this case; on an urgent basis, and we know for certain that those detained in custody will be assaulted by the police. And, part of the reason why the police will be scattering them and denying us access is so that they continue to assault them without us knowing. By the time we see them we see more injuries than the person themselves. So we rush to the High Court seeking basically those things, firstly access to our clients so that we see them, we talk to them and find out what is happening.
But also, to seek orders to enable our clients to be treated at medical institutions because, like I said, invariably they will have been assaulted by the police in a very bad way, within a way such that barring us having to represent them, we would be more worried about really whether they are going to live or not. So you become worried about that aspect that really they have to be referred to hospital.
Apart from the question of injuries and the need to get to hospital, there will also be the aspect of food which I think is a basic necessity in life. But when they get arrested they are not given food, either because at the police station there is no food or because deliberately the police will be starving these accused persons. So again, we apply for such orders. And, apart from that, we also ask that those that are arrested be taken to Court as soon as possible because we know that if we don’t include that the chances are that the police will detain those accused persons for as long as they want. Right now we have a situation where one of the accused persons has spent over two weeks in police custody when we were being denied access and notwithstanding the Court Orders, the police were still continuing to detain them.
Violet: So you know, you seem to be representing a lot of people, what cases are you working on right now?
Alec Muchadehama: Right now we have cases in which mostly MDC activists are being accused of bombing certain sites around the country. There is also the issue of a journalist who is also accused of bombing places in conjunction with the MDC.
Violet: and how often are you in Court then?
Alec Muchadehama: Oh these days almost on a daily basis we are in Court. Either we are in the High Court applying for their release or being taken to Court or medication or food. Or, we are at the Magistrates Court applying for bail or we are handling trials for those cases whose dockets will have been completed. So it’s really a daily thing for us here.
Violet: Now the MDC had said that at least 200 activists had been arrested (countrywide) this past month with many unaccounted for. What is your estimation of those who have been arrested in the last few days, alone?
Alec Muchadehama: For those that have been arrested I think so far at least fifteen are supposed to be appearing in Court, at least in Harare for a fact. And, of those that are appearing in Court when one looks at the charges you will find that the charges really have nothing in relation to those people. In other words, there is no connection between the people who are arrested and the so called charges or the bombings that are being talked about. So you really wonder why these people are being arrested at all.
And, as you are correctly pointing out, most of them are actually being arrested, they sit then in custody, some are released, some are re-arrested and the police are now on an arresting spree. They raid people and just arrest randomly and wantonly, beat them up, trump-up false charges and so on. So it’s a real, I don’t know whether it’s a campaign or something else, but it’s so widespread that really no one is safe because the police can simply arrest you and lay false charges and even in some instances drag you to Court and oppose bail.
Violet: And it’s also reported that that some of these activists that were arrested this past week were severely assaulted in custody and had to be hospitalised but that the police later abducted them from hospital and re-arrested them. Can you confirm this?
Alec Muchadehama: Indeed, we actually talked to those people who were arrested and they were also examined by medical practitioners; qualified medical practitioners. And, all of them confirmed that they were assaulted by the police; not ordinary assaults; they were brutalised, tortured both physically and mentally. They have even been threatened with death. And, when they go to hospital it will be through the Court Orders, which we would have obtained in the High Court.
On Saturday we managed to place others at the Avenues Clinic by the consent of the State and the Court so ordered that those people had to remain at the Avenues Clinic for treatment under the guard of the Prison Services. But it’s very sad that the Prison Doctor and some other superiors from Prison and other nameless and faceless persons then came in the middle of the night, abducted these people and then dumped them at the cells at Harare Remand Prison without treatment at all. And, when they were abducted they were actually in the process of being treated at the Avenues Clinic and some were being given sedatives, others had X rays being taken, others were being examined by doctors and so on. But all that was disregarded when they were adducted and taken to Harare Central Police Station.
Violet: How many were they?
Alec Muchadehama: Figures were, before this happened, were about nine.
Violet: So, are they still in custody?
Alec Muchadehama: Yes, they are all still in custody and all of them, when I talked to them today, they said they still needed treatment and this treatment is not being administered at Harare Remand Prison and we have not been advised of any reason why this is so.
Violet: Now, Mr Muchadehama, what about these serious allegations against these Opposition activists. Now the police accuse your clients of bombing police stations and other sites around the country. What evidence do they have linking them to these so called attacks, bomb attacks?
Alec Muchadehama: I would clients were just taken from their homes in the middle of the night at about 2.00am taken from bus stops, from shops and so on, because the police have a list of who is an MDC activist and who is not. And you can see the trend that the idea is not that they have proper suspects to arrest. All they are interested in is if you are an MDC activist in a particular area and you are a bit politically active then you must have been responsible for the bombings. So they just raid your home, make you a suspect, lay false charges, assault you, force you to confess and so on. So, it’s really not a question as to - there is no coincidence here, the targets are known. You just look for an MDC activist, arrest and say ‘you bombed the train in Marimba or you are the one who petrol bombed the Zaka police station’. For these ones (in Harare), those that are appearing in Court today and tomorrow they are alleged to have bombed Zaka Police Station, to have been responsible for the bombings which happened in Gweru, Mutare and so on. How can that be?
Violet: You know, as a human rights lawyer in the last month alone are there any cases or is there any case that you would say left you with a lasting impression?
Alec Muchadehama: Ah, nearly all of them are quite shocking. You would imagine that the arrest of Morgan Tsvangirai in the cells, they had really not done anything, they had not done anything really, but they were just assaulted. And the burial of Gift Tandare; I had represented him before and only to hear that he’d been shot in Highfield. And we had actually talked to the witnesses who were near him when he was shot and the story when it came in the press and through the police and so on, it was so distorted and full of lies, that he really deserved better even in death.
And the abduction of his body from Doves Funeral Parlour to the rural areas there - it is really something that was unheard of. That they could actually abduct dead bodies simply to prevent some perceived political gathering at which things were going to be said which they didn’t like. I think that one particularly stands as something, which I really did not expect.
Violet: You know it must really be frustrating for you running around and working in this kind of situation or this kind of environment, why do you carry on?
Alec Muchadehama: Ah I think I have stopped being frustrated and I have just said let’s do it and see what happens. Who knows, perhaps someone one day might actually listen and see that really human beings ought to be treated like human beings. So we try to make the point as meaningful as we can so that the judges or whoever cares to listen will listen. In any event, we believe in what we will be doing, we think that we are doing the right thing and in an innocent and civil way and our clients have done nothing wrong; they deserve to be treated humanly.
If they are innocent they deserve to be acquitted and if they have not committed any offence they shouldn’t be arrested and when they are arrested they are supposed to be treated humanely. So those are some of the points that we will be making as opposed to really having to do nothing about it, because if people do nothing about it the situation here is such that the police are really trying their best to do whatever pleases them or please their masters or whoever has sent them. So I think if people who are looking at the case objectively, whether it is members of the public or the police or anyone else I think they will be able to judge for themselves as to whether, despite the challenges that we are facing, are clients are correct or incorrect.
Violet: Do you ever worry about your personal safety?
Alec Muchadehama: Ah I don’t have to worry about that. If I start worrying about that then I might as well cease being a lawyer or get employed in a bank or something because once you start worrying about those things you start getting terrified and so, and remember, this is happening to everyone, no one is safe. No one can say that because me I’m not involved in this case therefore I am a safe, it doesn’t work like that. And I believe that really there is nothing special about me, if it happens it happens, just as it is happening to our clients and it can happen to anyone.
Violet: But have you or your colleagues ever been threatened?
Alex Muchadehama: Ya, many of my colleagues receive anonymous calls from people threatening to deal with them if they continue on their path. Some have been threatened with disappearance; their names are always mentioned by the police as people who work for the Opposition and who have ceased to become lawyers and turning themselves into politicians and so on. But this is just naming which is unnecessary. A lawyer is a lawyer and they can adopt various tactics of protecting their client’s interests.
Violet: And is there a very clear demarcation between those who are on the side of the Government, you know in terms of the lawyers, or those who are against? Or you just take the cases you are given, whether they are political?
Alec Muchadehama: Ah, there’s no such distinction which is there. Like any lawyer you just take the cases as they come without even looking where it has come from, who has given you instructions and so on. So you we don’t look at that.
Violet: Earlier on you were talking about how victims are denied food in detention, how they are denied medical treatment, how you spent most of your time in the High Court making urgent applications to access your clients. Does this mean that the legal system is now a bit of farce now, where affidavits are just thrown out like that and where the police don’t even comply with High Court Orders?
Alec Muchadehama: Yeah, that it the pity really, that even if you get these Court Orders the police totally disregard them. That the police ignore Court Orders is now legendary in Zimbabwe. One of the reasons why they do that is that they know very well that if they disobey orders nothing is likely to happen to them and therefore they can actually do it with impunity. Where they carry on like that and no one is really enforcing the contempt procedures, to say that because they are in contempt we really want to demonstrate that the Court doesn’t like that. So, the Courts again have really not taken a stance against police officers who disobey Court Orders. So the police are actually now, they know that, that the Courts are not serious, they are not really worried about their orders not being obeyed. So they carry on like that and this is a trend which has developed.
Violet: So do you think Judges are under pressure?
Alec Muchadehama: Ah, I wouldn’t know what they are under, but what I know is that they don’t appear to be worried about their judgements being disobeyed.
Violet Gonda: So what would you say is the general state of affairs of the legal fraternity?
Alec Muchadehama: Ah, working as a lawyer these days is quite a challenge I can say. I wouldn’t urge lawyers to give up or to throw their hands into the air and so on. I would even say let’s continue trying and let’s make those submissions in a proper way and let’s try to assist our clients without fear of favour and stick to what our responsibility is and to really look at the law and to do it with a clear conscience that our allegiance is to the law and to no one else. And once we focus on that and that background, I think there would be no problem. These other problems about people disobeying Court Orders and the system operating like it is, it is a passing phase, but history will record that at least for those that tried, they tried to make a difference.
Violet Gonda: No, thank you very much Mr Muchadehama.
Alec Muchadehama: OK.
Audio interview can be heard on SW Radio Africa’s Hot Seat programme. Comments and feedback can be emailed to violet@swradioafrica.com
The American Spectator
By Hal G.P.
Colebatch
Published 4/4/2007 12:07:39 AM
The following letter from a
British lady in Zimbabwe appeared the other week
in the London Daily
Telegraph:
"Recently an official from the British Embassy in Zimbabwe
visited a local
retirement home to answer questions from the elderly
residents. She was
asked what plans had been made, given the current
political violence and
looming threat of civil war, to evacuate the
remaining 12,000 British
citizens, most of whom are elderly
people.
"She said no plans had been made and that in the event of further
violence
and fears for the residents' safety, 'you would have to make your
own
arrangements to get out.'
"How exactly would we manage to do
this? I am 71 (and still, by the way,
working owing to the country's
economic disaster) and my mother is 97.
"We could not afford the airfares
even if we could get seats, and those of
us who are still fortunate enough
to own vehicles could not obtain the fuel
to reach the border as it is both
expensive and scarce.
"My father and his three brothers died fighting for
Britain in the last
world war. I wonder how they would feel about this
causal attitude of the
British Government where their descendants' lives are
concerned?"
NO PLANS? GIVEN THE STATE of Zimbabwe this letter should,
perhaps, have
caused a degree of shock. However, it is part of a pattern
that has been
becoming more obvious for several years. The British community
in Zimbabwe
appears to have been treated with callous indifference by the
British
government in the last few years as Mugabe has destroyed the
economy,
violated civil rights wholesale and victimized whites, and as his
regime has
deteriorated towards chaos and civil war.
Previously, back
when Zimbabwe still had something like an economy, it was
possible for
resourceful people there who could not export their assets
otherwise to buy
an aircraft, fly it out, and sell it. But the Britons
trapped there today
are a particularly helpless minority not only because
Mugabe's annihilation
of the Zimbabwean economy has made their assets
completely worthless -- so
that even the physical means of escape are denied
them (a plight they share
with black Zimbabweans) -- but also because those
with the means to get out
have largely gone, and those that are left are for
the most part
impoverished and more-or-less helpless old people without the
support of
families. The grotesque idea comes to mind of caravans of
octogenarians
trying to trek across Africa looking for help and safety.
Technically, a
lot of them are not, or are no longer, British. And thereby
hangs a tale:
towards the end of 2001 Mugabe enforced a decree that British
passport
holders in Zimbabwe had to formally renounce their British
citizenship, even
if this had been simply inherited through parents, or lose
Zimbabwean
citizenship and voting rights (whatever they are worth). This
gave rise to
as poignant vignette: as these people lined up at the British
High
Commission, many of them elderly and in tears, a British official was
reported as shouting at them: "You had six months to do this and you have
all left it to the last minute. The staff have to have a break and a cup of
tea!"
This apparent readiness by the British government to abandon
its own people
to their fate is bad enough. Remember how Israel, with less
than a tenth of
Britain's resources, beginning in 1977 airlifted out of
danger, and gave
refuge and Israeli citizenship to, a community of about
15,000 Ethiopian
"Falashas," who it was decided were of Jewish origin? The
contrast is
glaring.
BUT THERE IS WORSE. Quite shocking reports
emerged of active discrimination
against Zimbabwean whites by the Blair
government: people who had plainly
resigned their British citizenship under
duress were not allowed to resume
it, and were made to pay 11 times the
official rate for British passports.
The Foreign Office, when questioned
about this, said it was trying to
"maximize income" from the Zimbabwean
consulate! This was also forcing the
whites concerned to use black-market
pricing, and thereby break Zimbabwean
law and give the deranged dictator a
pretext to arrest them.
It seemed, as time went on, that British citizens
could be persecuted,
robbed and murdered apparently with impunity by the
increasingly insane
Mugabe regime, the persecution extending to the
victimization of Zimbabwean
policemen who displeased the dictator by
providing elderly British farmers
with extra blankets at night when they had
been arrested on trumped
up-charges and held in a cold cell. The white-owned
farms which were
previously the mainstay of Zimbabwe's economy have been
expropriated, a
major factor in the present economic collapse and increasing
starvation. Of
course, these elderly British are, in a ghastly sense,
privileged and
fortunate in modern Zimbabwe in having lived so long. Under
Mugabe black
life-expectancy has gone from 60 to 38 years.
Journalist
David Blair pointed out some years ago that the age of the
remaining white
victims gave this persecution a particularly horrible
aspect: "Their average
age cannot be under 65. The young have gone, the
grandparents
remain."
OF THE 12,000 BRITISH PEOPLE remaining in Zimbabwe, it is
estimated that
about half are aged pensioners (except that Zimbabwean
inflation and
economic collapse has made their "pensions" worthless). Many
are World War
II veterans or the widows of veterans. Private charities, such
as "Zimbabwe,
A National Emergency" are trying to help them, but it appears
the British
government is doing nothing and has no interest in doing
anything. (It is
spending about $20 billion, so far, on the London Olympic
Games, however.)
The first big wave of white persecutions by the Mugabe
regime, beginning in
2001, was the first major foreign-policy crisis, with
large numbers of
British lives at stake, for the Blair Government. Mugabe
had shown his
colors (which he had never bothered to hide much anyway) as a
terroristic
tyrant by the genocidal massacres of many thousands of Ndabele
people
previously. Prime Minister Blair and the Foreign Secretary, both then
on
holiday, left the matter to a junior Foreign Office Minister, Baroness
Amos,
who said and, as far as one could tell, did nothing whatsoever. In
January
2002, she told the Today program that "in different parts of the
world we
see different countries turn to bad leadership and bad politics,
and we've
seen that coming in Zimbabwe for some years and it's a tragedy."
That was
it.
A plea by Prince Charles, who reportedly wrote privately
to the Prime
Minister's office asking that the British people trapped in
Zimbabwe be
helped, was apparently ignored. With the situation now desperate
and
complete chaos and civil war in Zimbabwe looking nearer every day, the
stage
is being set for a particularly cruel and unnecessary criminal
tragedy.
Hal G. P. Colebatch, a lawyer and author, has lectured in
International Law
and International Relations at Notre Dame University and
Edith Cowan
University in Western Australia and worked on the staff of two
Australian
Federal Ministers.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Robert Mugabe plays out
his last act as dictator and destroyer of Zimbabwe
Wednesday, April 04,
2007
By Gwynne Dyer
It will take a while yet, but the long and
brutal reign of Robert Mugabe in
Zimbabwe is probably nearing its end. Not
because of the democratic
opposition at home, whose members are regularly
beaten up and sometimes
killed by the regime's police. Not even because
neighboring countries in
southern Africa are at last putting pressure on Mr.
Mugabe to go. But just
because his own partners-in-crime have decided that
it's him or them.
The key moment arrived last December, when for the
first time the senior
ranks of the ruling Zanu-PF Party stood up to Mr.
Mugabe and refused to
accept his proposal to postpone the next presidential
election from 2008 to
2010. It was typical Mugabe salami tactics -- give me
two more years, and
maybe I'll decide to resign in 2010 -- but this time it
didn't work.
In that case, said Mr. Mugabe, I'll run for president again
in 2008 (which
would keep him in the presidency for his 90th birthday in
2014).
Given the speed with which Zimbabwe's economy is collapsing and
its
population fleeing abroad, seven more years of Mr. Mugabe and it would
not
be worth inheriting power there -- so Mr. Mugabe's potential heirs
within
his won party have begun to rebel.
All that has followed --
the vicious assaults of opposition leaders by Mr.
Mugabe's police in
mid-February, the South African government's decision a
week ago to start
talking to Mr. Mugabe's Zanu-PF rivals and Zimbabwean
opposition leaders,
and the emergency meeting of the leaders of the
14-nation Southern African
Development Community in Tanzania on March 28 --
is a response to this new
perception that Mr. Mugabe doesn't have long to
run.
"I have been to
these [southern African] summits and I know that behind
closed doors they
are brutally frank," Mr. Mugabe's former information
minister, Jonathan
Moyo, told The Guardian last week. "They will remind
Mugabe that he told
them he would retire at the end of his term in 2008 ...
They will tell
Mugabe that his rule in Zimbabwe is dragging down the whole
southern African
region." None of that got into the meeting's closing
communique, which
ritually expressed solidarity with Mr. Mugabe, but Mr.
Moyo is probably
right, because Zimbabwe is becoming a blight on the region.
Inflation in
Zimbabwe, at 1,700 percent, is the highest in the world (the
next highest,
Burma, is only 60 percent), and average income is less than a
10th of South
Africa's. Ten years ago Zimbabwe was seen as the bread basket
of Africa, and
it earned ample foreign exchange from exports of tobacco and
other cash
crops; now it cannot feed half its people, and the tobacco crop
is down by
four-fifths.
There are an estimated three million Zimbabwean economic
refugees in South
Africa (two-thirds of the country's working-age
population), and they are
the main support of those left at home, because
unemployment in Zimbabwe is
80 percent or more. Zimbabwean life expectancy
is now the lowest in the
world: 37 for men, 34 for women.
Then there
is the unbridled brutality of the police force, the official
contempt for
the law, the propaganda that blames all the failings of the
regime on
foreign imperialists plotting against it -- it's not exactly the
image that
southern Africans want for their region.
On the whole, southern Africa
does not fit that image. From South Africa to
Tanzania, most of the
governments in the Southern African Development
Community are democratically
elected and law-abiding. Most economies are
showing good growth, and nobody
is starving. But it is a well-known fact
that people in other continents
have difficulty in telling one African
country from another and that
investors are the most ignorant of all.
Zimbabwe's multiple failures take up
more space in the international media
than news about all 13 other members
of the development community combined,
and so the neighbors' patience has
run out.
In fact, it ran out some time ago, but being realists about the
nature of
politics in Mr. Mugabe's Zimbabwe, the other southern African
leaders saw no
point in publicly demanding change. Now, however, there is
blood in the
water. Mr. Mugabe managed to bully Zanu-PF's central committee
into
nominating him for the presidency again last week, but everybody knows
that
two major factions in the party want him to quit. That has opened the
door
for others to demand change as well.
The main contenders for the
succession are not without sin.
Emmerson Mnangagwa was state security
minister when 25,000 members of the
minority Ndebele tribe were murdered by
the regime in the 1980s for
supporting the wrong political party.
Vice-President Joice Mujuru is the
wife of Solomon Mujuru, a former army
chief who became very rich thanks to
his involvement in illegal land-grabs
during the seizure of all the farms
owned by white Zimbabweans.
The
ideal outcome would be an alliance between Zanu-PF dissidents and
Zimbabwe's
democratic opposition in a transitional government leading to
free,
internationally supervised elections. The reality may be a good deal
messier, because the Old Man doesn't know how to let go. He has just
imported 3,000 "security personnel" from Angola to stiffen his own police,
who are deserting in droves and going to work in South Africa as security
guards because inflation has made their wages in Zimbabwe almost
worthless.
But one way or another, Robert Mugabe's long misrule has
reached the
beginning of the end.
Gwynne Dyer is a
London-based journalist and military historian
(www.gwynnedyer.net).
Zim Online
Wednesday 04 April 2007
By Farisai Gonye
HARARE -
A defiant President Robert Mugabe left Harare on Tuesday for the
Far East,
ignoring a national job stayaway called by trade unions to protest
economic
hardships they blame on his government.
Mugabe also skipped a crucial
meeting of his ruling ZANU PF party's inner
politburo cabinet and that was
supposed to fine-tune plans for next year's
presidential election in which
he will stand after successfully suppressing
discontent from party rivals
who wanted him to retire at the end of his term
next year.
Party
insiders, who spoke to ZimOnline on condition they were not named,
said they
too were unaware of details of Mugabe's trip or even which country
exactly
he was visiting, with some speculating the 83 year-old leader might
have
gone to seek urgent medical attention.
ZANU PF spokesman Nathan
Shamuyarira said Mugabe would return at the weekend
but refused to disclose
further details on his trip which he said was
private.
"The visit is
private, so the details are equally private. He will be here,
Sunday
latest," said Shamuyarira.
The ZANU PF spokesman said the politburo would
still go ahead and make
recommendations on how next year's presidential and
parliamentary elections
should proceed. The recommendations shall be
forwarded to the government for
implementation.
Mugabe, Africa's
oldest ruler, outfoxed his opponents, managing to secure
ZANU PF's
endorsement for another run for the presidency at a key central
committee
meeting in Harare last Friday.
Many had anticipated that the central
committee would not endorse Mugabe's
candidature and force him to
retire.
Critics and some party colleagues blame Mugabe for being the
biggest
stumbling block to Zimbabwe's economic revival, a charge he denies.
-
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 04 April
2007
Own Correspondent
JOHANNESBURG - A top United Nations human rights official on Monday
called
on Zimbabwe security forces not to shoot anti-government protestors,
warning
them that those who used lethal force against civilians would be
eventually
held to account.
In a statement released to the media, Philip
Alston, the UN Special
Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions said soldiers
and police officers who
complied with orders to shoot protesters will be
held to account.
"Under international law, widespread or systematic
attacks against the
civilian population are crimes against
humanity.
"Members of the police and military who comply with
orders to gun down
demonstrators will eventually be held to account," said
Alston.
An opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
supporter, Gift
Tandare, was shot and killed by the police last month during
anti-government
protests in Harare's Highfield working class
suburb.
Two other opposition supporters, Nickson Magondo and Naison
Mashambanhaka, were also shot and seriously injured by the police during
Tandare's funeral wake in Glen View working class suburb.
Major
Western governments and some African countries condemned the use
of deadly
force by Mugabe's state agents. But Mugabe has publicly defended
the police,
accusing the opposition of seeking to violently oust him from
power.
Alston said the Harare authorities had shown a total
disregard for the
need to balance "the rights to political participation"
and the need by the
government to maintain public order.
"Full,
independent investigations must be undertaken as soon as
possible," said
Alston. - ZimOnline
International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: April 3,
2007
Text Size
WASHINGTON: The U.S. Embassy is
urging American citizens in Zimbabwe to
avoid any large gatherings,
including political rallies, and to choose with
care the bars and nightclubs
they visit, particularly in the high-density
suburbs.
A message sent
to the American community in Zimbabwe on Wednesday said
Zimbabwean Republic
Police (ZRP) raided an upscale nightclub in Borrowdale,
detaining more than
80 people and beating several.
"The ZRP is increasingly using excessive
force including in enforcing a
widespread closure of bars and beer halls in
the southern high-density
suburbs," it said.
Tensions in Zimbabwe
have been high since police violently broke up a prayer
meeting last month,
detaining and severely beating government opponents.
VOA
By Blessing Zulu
Washington
03 April
2007
South African President Thabo Mbeki, appointed
mediator in the Zimbabwe
crisis last week by Southern African Development
Community leaders, said his
first concern is to ensure that the next
elections that are held in Zimbabwe
be free and fair.
In an an
interview published in the Financial Times of London on Tuesday,
Mbeki said
that although "regime change" does not figure on his agenda, he
does expect
that President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe will eventually stand
down.
"We don't have a big stick," Mbeki told Financial Times
reporters, meaning
that he did not intend to force a change in Harare
through intervention,
military or otherwise.
He told the newspaper
that he would try to restart informal discussions
between Mr. Mugabe's
ruling party and the opposition, hoping to pave the way
for presidential and
parliamentary elections less than a year from now in
March
2008.
Mbeki's comments on Zimbabwe elections tacitly contradicted the
communiqué
issued at the SADC summit, which asserted that elections in
Zimbabwe since
2002 have been free and fair. The elections drew wide
criticism for alleged
voter intimidation and ballot fraud by Mr. Mugabe's
ZANU-PF party,
particularly in isolated rural communities.
He
acknowledged that Zimbabwe's electoral process was flawed, "but we do
have
to get Zimbabweans talking so we do have elections that are free and
fair."
International Relations Secretary Eliphas Mukonoweshuro of the
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change faction of Morgan Tsvangirai told
VOA that he
would welcome a negotiated settlement and would concede defeat
if elections
are free and fair.
Mbeki spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga
told VOA that the negotiation process was
well under way, noting that the
secretaries general of the two MDC factions
had met with officials from Mr.
Mbeki's office two weeks ago.
Johannesburg-based independent analyst Obri
Matshiqi told reporter Blessing
Zulu of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that Mr.
Mbeki's latest comments
indicate that despite its seeming support of Mr.
Mugabe, SADC has hardened
its stance on the crisis.
USA today
Posted at 12:20 AM/ET, April 04, 2007
Worlds
away in Africa, another dictator is getting away with murder and
more.
Zimbabwe's leader, Robert Mugabe, 83, has no central role in U.S.
security.
But the abuses he is perpetrating on his people have reached a
level of
inhumanity that cries out for condemnation and for his removal.
Mugabe has
become an extreme caricature of a despotic African dictator.
Zimbabwe has
80% unemployment and 1,700% inflation. Opposition leaders are
beaten and
murdered, and starvation is on the rise. Among his abuses: razing
shantytowns, leaving people without homes. Despite some sanctions, he has
taken to taunting the West. "Nothing frightens me, not even little fellows
like Bush and Blair," he said recently.
True enough, Bush, British
Prime Minister Tony Blair and other major Western
leaders are preoccupied
with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Zimbabwe has
little strategic or
economic significance. Their military intervention is
unlikely, and there
are few more sanctions they can impose. But they can
prod other African
countries to step into the breach.
To date, the efforts of African
leaders have been disappointing. But there
are some signs of
hope.
Protests in Zimbabwe have been gathering momentum. One of
Zimbabwe's top
Roman Catholic clerics, Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulowayo, is
calling for
mass peaceful demonstrations, even if it means standing "in
front of blazing
guns." Last month, opposition leaders led demonstrations.
Several were
beaten by police and one died, stirring outrage at home and
around the
world.
Until now, Mugabe has been able to count on his
ZANU-PF party because its
members get the best jobs and perks. But with the
economy collapsing, even
ministers can't find school fees for their
children. Dire economic problems
caused by Mugabe are deepening, and
fast.
But since 2000, Mugabe has seized, and handed to supporters, most
of the
white-owned farms that were the backbone of a once-prosperous
economy. Their
subsequent collapse has helped push Zimbabwe into its
downward spiral.
The hope is that Zimbabweans will overthrow Mugabe - and
that when they do,
the outside world, particularly South Africa and other
African countries,
will rush in to help.
Trusting dictators is
sometimes needed in the short term. As both Musharraf
and Mugabe show, it's
a dangerous long-term plan.
New Zimbabwe
By
Torby Chimhashu
Last updated: 04/04/2007 10:19:02
LAWYERS representing
Gift Phiri -- a reporter for the Zimbabwean newspaper
published from London
and distributed in Zimbabwe -- say they been barred
from seeing their client
who is still detained by police despite an expiry
of the legal detention
period.
Phiri, who was heavily assaulted in police custody on Monday
following his
arrest on Fools Day is still in custody and police have
indicated they want
to apply for an extension to his detention.
Rangu
Nyamurundira, Phiri's lawyer, said he has been barred from seeing the
newsman.
"I have been denied access to Gift. I don't know of his
condition. Those who
brought him food said he looked stressed. Police have
indicated to me that
they
will apply for extension of his detention,"
Nyamundira said.
Phiri is being charged for practising without a licence
and writing
falsehoods under the Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act. He
could be jailed for up to two years or fined if found
guilty.
Under Zimbabwean law, police are bound to send an accused person
to court at
the expiry of 48 hours. A warrant for further detention which is
for up to
96 hours can only be granted if police need more time to continue
investigations.
Police can only hold suspects for a period up to 21
days if they have
committed an economic offence as prescribed under the
Evidence and Criminal
Procedure Act (under Presidential
Powers).
Nyamundira said he was preparing an urgent High Court
application to force
the
p olice to release Phiri or send him to
court.
The Zimbabwean reporter was unable to sit, walk or support himself
after the
assaults by detectives from the Law and Order Section on Monday
evening, his
lawyer earlier said.
"He was beaten on the buttocks,
back and on the soles of his feet by police
using baton sticks. He told me he
was forced to sign a warned and cautioned
statement in which the state is
alleging he is practising journalism without
accreditation and writing
falsehoods," lawyer Nyamundira said.
Phiri was arrested on Sunday
afternoon while drinking with friends from the
same neighbourhood at
Sunningdale shopping center.
In February 2006, Phiri was waylaid on his
way home and heavily assaulted by
suspected state security agents using
knuckle-dusters.
Phiri becomes the fourth journalist to be assaulted by
police in as many
weeks
following savage attacks on Luke Tamborinyoka,
Tsvangirai Mukwazhi and
Tendai Musiyazviriyo.
The trio was brutally
beaten by police while covering a prayer meeting by
civic groups and members
of the fractious opposition MDC in the poor
township of Highfield on March
11.
Tamborinyoka was recently beaten and tortured, again in police
custody.
Kuwait Times
Published Date:
April 04, 2007
By Susan Njanji
Zimbabwe's political and economic
crises are set to deepen further following
a decision to have octogenarian
leader Robert Mugabe, already in power for
27 years, seek a new term in
elections next year, analysts said Saturday.
The ruling Zimbabwe African
National Union Patriotic-Front (ZANU-PF)'s top
decision makers decided in
Harare on Friday that despite growing domestic
opposition to
Africa's
oldest leader, he would stand again for elections next year.
Commentators
say the decision spells disaster for the southern country whose
economy is
already on its knees and could see a rise in political unrest.
"It's a very
serious decision which signals a sure direction towards the
continuation of
economic collapse and will deepen the political crisis,"
said constitutional
reform activist Lovemore Madhuku. Eldred Masunungure, a
university of
Zimbabwe political scientist, said everything depended on the
policy
decision the leadership adopts, "but if it is business as usual,
clearly it
will be disastrous... it means the country will slide irrevocably
down the
drain." There will be "a total collapse which will see popular
unrest in the
country", said Madhuku. "The fear is that there will be so
much unrest that
the country will break down ... to the levels we have seen
in some west
African countries where they have had civil wars," he added.
"Disaster is
in the making. It will accelerate the economic meltdown," said
the secretary
general of the Zimbawe Congres of Trade Unions (CTU),
Wellington Chibebe.
Opposition within Zimbabwe has soared in recent months
with inflation now
the highest in the world at 1,730 percent and forecast by
the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) to climb up to 4,000 per cent by year
end. Four out of
five people are out of work and live in abject poverty. The
economic woes
have driven millions out of the country with the CTU
estimating that half of
the the country's 13 million people are in the
diaspora, with at least three
million in nearby South Africa.
Commentators fear political unrest will
worsen, although there are
indications that even if re-elected, the 83-year
old might not complete his
term. According to the state-run Herald, ZANU-PF
is also proposing
contitutional reforms that would enable parliament to
elect a successor if
an incumbent president fails to complete his term due
to death, or steps
down. If he wins a new term next year, Mugabe, who has
ruled the former
British colony since independence in 1980, would remain
head of state until
the age of 89. "The political landscape will be very
nasty in terms of
violence and elimination," said Chibebe.
"At the
moment they are beating up people, but their extent of desperation
will soon
see them start shooting people," said Madhuku, who earlier this
month was
badly assaulted by police, along with the opposition MDC leader
and dozens
of others. Mugabe, who has been widely blamed by the West for the
arrests
and assaults of his opponents and critics, said the group asked for
the
beating because they provoked the police. While there have been
rumblings of
discontent within ZANU-PF towards Mugabe, no-one put their head
above the
parapet to challenge his nomination during the lengthy debates at
the
party's headquarters in the capital. The cash-strapped government is
also
expected to take care of an expanded house of assembly after next
year's
elections, following ZANU-PF's central committee approval of plans to
increase the number of lawmakers from 150 to 210. - AFP
Zim Online
Wednesday 04 April 2007
By
Nigel Hangarume
HARARE - A senior South African football official has
expressed concern over
the political tension in Zimbabwe saying the crisis
could become the next
question on South Africa's suitability to host the
2010 World Cup.
The official, a member of South Africa's World Cup Local
Organising
Committee who did not want to be named, spoke as the
international community
rounded on President Robert Mugabe for his violent
repression against the
opposition.
"A lot of questions have been
raised about our preparedness to successfully
host the World Cup, but we had
not expected Zimbabwe to worry us," the South
African official told
ZimOnline.
"But we are worried and we hope the political situation will
calm down
because the World Cup is not for South Africa alone but our
neighbours and
the whole of Africa as well."
He said only 2010 Local
Organising Committee spokesman Tim Modise could give
an official comment,
the reason he didn't want to be named.
Modise was yesterday unavailable
for comment as he was said to be in a board
meeting in
Johannesburg.
Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai at
the weekend
warned South Africa President Thabo Mbeki that failure to
quickly resolve
the Zimbabwe crisis would cast a shadow over the 2010 World
Cup.
Mbeki was appointed mediator in the Zimbabwe crisis after a Southern
African
Development Community extraordinary summit in Tanzania last
week.
"That pride (for Africa to host the 2010 tournament) will turn to
shame if
the World Cup is blighted by the inability of Africans to solve the
Zimbabwe
crisis," said Tsvangirai, whose brutalisation and that of other
members of
his party at the hands of state security agents has drawn
widespread
criticism against Mugabe.
In February, South Africa had
expressed pleasure with Zimbabwe's progress in
preparing for the 2010
tournament.
Zimbabwe, expecting economic benefits from the World Cup, has
set up a
sport, tourism, image and communication taskforce that it also
hopes will
help reverse the country's pariah status.
South Africa has
indicated it will not be able to accommodate the 300 000
visitors expected
for the World Cup, leaving its neighbours to capitalise
for their own
economic benefits.
However, the political tension in Zimbabwe could keep
potential football
tourists away.
Besides crumbling infrastructure
and services, the country is also
struggling to fund fuel, power, drug and
food imports due to a serious
foreign exchange crisis, while the provision
of clean water has also been a
major challenge. - ZimOnline