VOA
By Peter Clottey
Washington, D.C.
20
August 2007
The International Crisis Group says the political
impasse in Zimbabwe,
believed to be the cause of the country's deepening
economic woes is not
exaggerated. This followed a statement by Zambian
President Levy Mwanawasa
that the crisis in Zimbabwe is overblown. Political
analysts have criticized
leaders of the just ended Southern African
Development Community (SADC)
meeting in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, for
failing to take action against
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe due to his
inability to resolve the
political and economic crisis in his
country.
Sydney Masamvu is a Zimbabwean senior analyst with the
International Crisis
Group in South Africa. From Pretoria, he tells reporter
Peter Clottey that
the crisis in Zimbabwe needs to urgently be
resolved.
"We are seeing a lot of diplomacy at play. I do not want to
read too much
into what President Mwanawasa said, but one could just see
that SADC is just
trying to present some semblance of homogeneity in terms
of their approach
to the Zimbabwe situation. And given President Mwanawasa's
earlier comments
on Zimbabwe where he likened the state of affairs to that
of a sinking
titanic, one could see that this time around he is the incoming
chair of
SADC and taking over at a time where for the worst or for the best
a
decisive move has to be made on Zimbabwe during his tenure as the SADC
chair," Masamvu noted.
He said all political and economic indicators
point to a very distasteful
situation in Zimbabwe.
"The economy has
been shrinking for the last six seven years, in the
negative growth, all the
social indicators are in the negative. So really
you cannot exaggerate the
suffering of the people," he said.
Masamvu said although the problems of
Zimbabwe should be solved by its
people, there is the need for past
president's in the region to lend a hand.
"Indeed it's correct! You need
Zimbabweans to sort out their problems
themselves, but secondly, you need
even African solution to African
problems. No wonder why everyone is lauding
the SADC initiative, for it puts
African leaders to tackle one of their own,
and over and above as what the
Zambian minister is saying that he needs the
retired African statesmen. It's
actually correct, that's the take two
approach, which SADC should take on
board to capacitate in the SADC
mediation process," Masamvu pointed out.
He said retired statesmen like
Nelson Mandela should be called upon to be
part of the mediation process
initiated by SADC.
"When you look at the current crop of SADC leaders,
you get the thinking
that Mugabe stands head and shoulders above the current
crop of Africa
leaders, especially in SADC. As such, the track two
diplomatic approach,
which should be engaged on Zimbabwe, is to rope in
retired presidents who
fall in the same political league Mugabe like the
former President Kaunda,
President Mandela. those are the people who can be
used to give leverage to
the SADC mediation process to help President
Mbeki," he said.
Masamvu said it was highly unlikely for Zimbabwe to have
a completely new
constitution as is being advocated by the opposition
Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC).
"I think the compromise which
would happen is that the proposed
constitutional amendment Number 18, which
is being pushed by ZANU-PF would
be used to front load every constitutional
reform which needs to be done. So
we are actually going to see all the
parties compromising on constitutional
amendment number 18 and taking that
as a vehicle to effect some
constitutional reforms. Indeed I need to state
from the onset that we are
not going to see a new constitution, but rather
we are going to see a
constitutional review, which would be done under
constitutional amendment
18," Masamvu noted.
Zim Online
Monday 20 August 2007
By Farisai Gonye
HARARE - Zimbabwe's ruling party is moving people
from rural areas to
register as urban voters for next year's planned joint
presidential and
parliamentary polls to strengthen its chances of wrestling
urban
constituencies from the opposition.
The Zimbabwe Election
Support Network (ZESN), a coalition of
non-governmental organisations whose
mandate is to promote free and fair
elections, accused the ruling ZANU PF
party of busing its supporters from
its rural strongholds to beef up its
thin urban voter base.
In an update released last week on
Zimbabwe's voter registration
exercise which ended on Saturday, ZESN said
ZANU PF was using housing
cooperatives made up mostly of its supporters to
provide letters to rural
voters so they could pose as Harare
residents.
According to the elections advocacy body, some of the
ZANU PF
supporters are coming from as far as Gokwe to register as Harare
voters.
Gokwe is a ruling party stronghold located about 170km
north-west of
Harare.
ZESN said its teams assessing the
just-ended voter registration
exercise came across the scam in Harare North
constituency where hundreds of
ZANU PF supporters were using letters from
the Ernest Kadungure Housing
Co-operative as proof of
residence.
Construction of houses is yet to start at the housing
co-operative and
is expected to take place well after the March 2008
elections.
"One wonders how many hundreds of people have been
registered against
these stands. What is, however clear is that for every
stand, a minimum of
six people get registered in a constituency they do not
reside," ZESN
director Rindai Chipfunde said.
The
Registrar-General's Office, which is responsible for voter
registration,
requires letters from landlords or water and electricity bills
as proof that
those seeking to register as voters reside in the
constituencies where they
want to vote.
"What this means is that we have a situation where
people are being
registered in a constituency where they do not belong
simply because they
have been allocated stands in the particular
constituency," said Chipfunde.
ZANU PF has since 2005 been
parceling out housing stands under the
banner of housing co-operatives at
various urban farms to its supporters.
Most of the housing stands
have remained unoccupied because of
non-existent service
provision.
ZESN said beneficiaries of the housing stands were now
being asked to
provide five additional people who were also registered in
the urban
constituencies against a single stand number.
This
has enabled ZANU PF to register rural people in urban
constituencies, hoping
to boost its dwindling urban support base. Additional
inquiries by ZimOnline
indicated that the exercise was rampant and
widespread throughout the
country.
ZANU PF has systematically bused rural supporters to
register in urban
areas such as Mutare, Kadoma, Chegutu, Gweru, and Masvingo
since the voter
registration exercise began on June 18.
In one
case in Mutare Central, 12 people from outside the constituency
used the
same address to register as voters.
"Sometimes we have like 10
people using a single water bill to
register in the constituency. ZANU-PF
officials simply accompany these
people and we cannot ask questions in such
intimidating circumstances," a
Registrar General Office official told
ZimOnline.
It was not possible to get a comment from the
Registrar-General
Tobaiwa Mudede, who has in the past denied assisting
President Robert Mugabe
rig past elections.
Home Affairs
Minister Kembo Mohadi, under whose ministry Mudede falls,
refused to take
questions on the matter.
"I can't respond to that. You want to
tarnish an exercise going on
smoothly," he said before switching off his
phone.
The ruling party has since 2000 played second fiddle to the
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party in urban
constituencies.
Zimbabwe is set to hold joint parliamentary and
presidential elections
next year. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 20 August 2007
By Justin
Muponda
HARARE - President Robert Mugabe is seen intensifying a crackdown
on
opponents to consolidate power in national elections expected next March
after escaping censure from regional leaders who backed his controversial
policies at a summit in Zambia last week, analysts said.
A Southern
African Development Leaders (SADC) meeting in Lusaka that ended
on Friday
failed to pressure Mugabe to account for his human rights record
but instead
pledged to help his government ride through a debilitating
eight-year
economic crisis that has left the country on political knife
edge.
Human rights groups have chronicled thousands of cases of human
rights
violations but Mugabe, 83, and in power since independence in 1980,
routinely dismisses accusations that his government violates human rights,
accusing former colonial master Britain of masterminding a hostile
propaganda campaign to end his rule.
"We did not expect SADC to speak
against Mugabe's excesses but by showing
solidarity it gives him the drive
to bash his opponents as it were," John
Makumbe, a University of Zimbabwe
senior political science lecturer said.
"He will come hard on the
opposition, civil society and all the democratic
forces with renewed vigour,
fully aware that the region is behind him and
that's really tragic," Makumbe
added.
The opposition and civic groups had expected SADC leaders to take
a tough
line against the longest serving leader in the region by urging him
to end a
harsh clampdown on opponents, including the media, address concerns
on human
rights violations and ease tough security laws that have fractured
opposition politics.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) party charges that
Mugabe has used violence and intimidation tactics
against its supporters
since 2000, manipulated the voters' roll and rigged
the ballot to remain in
power.
In March, police beat up and injured
MDC and civic society leaders -
including Morgan Tsvangirai - after they
attempted to attend a banned prayer
vigil in Highfield, a move which drew
international condemnation against
Mugabe and forced SADC leaders to convene
an emergency summit in Tanzania to
resolve the crisis.
But SADC
leaders last week stood by Mugabe, endorsing his policies and
analysts saw
the veteran leader walking with a new spring in his step as he
pushes ahead
with amendments to the constitution, a major sticking point
within the
ongoing Thabo Mbeki-led talks initiative between the ruling ZANU
PF party
and the MDC.
The amendments will, among other things, enlarge both Houses
of Parliament
and empower Parliament to pick Mugabe's successor if he
decided to leave
office voluntarily.
Analysts said unlike the current
provision in the constitution where a
presidential vote is required within
90 days of an incumbent leaving office
before the end of his term, the new
amendment would give Mugabe leeway to
choose a successor to allow a
dignified exit since he has a hold on ZANU-PF
legislators and his party is
likely to continue dominating both Houses of
Parliament.
Mugabe's
ZANU-PF will also table an Indigenisation Bill to transfer all
majority
business ownership into local hands, which economic commentators
say the
veteran leader will use to strengthen his system of patronage
despite its
impact on an already tottering economy.
The World Bank says Zimbabwe's
economy is the fastest shrinking outside
countries at war, with official
inflation the world's highest at nearly 5
000 percent last May, shortages of
basic commodities and foreign currency
and rising poverty
levels.
SADC leaders have however pledged to end the economic meltdown
with an
undisclosed rescue package.
Economic analysts said this could
prove difficult without resolving the
political crisis and without
government commitment to respect private
property rights, cut excess
spending, curb rampant graft and end price
distortions in the
economy.
"These are the issues that have to be addresses but they are
amenable to the
government as already shown by the ill-advised price freeze
which has had a
devastating effect on the economy," consultant economist
John Robertson
said.
Robertson was referring to a price cut enforced
in June to tame galloping
inflation, which has paralysed businesses as
production of all commodities
has nosedived with manufacturers fearing heavy
losses.
Political analysts said Zimbabwe's neighbours could pay heavy
price for
failing to rein in Mugabe as already shown by thousands of illegal
and
desperate Zimbabweans flocking mainly to South Africa, Botswana and
Namibia
in search of better jobs.
Communities in these countries and
lower level authorities have often blamed
the influx of locals for
escalating crime rates. Pretoria, despite its quiet
diplomacy stance on
Harare, has continued to tighten entry requirements into
that country for
Zimbabwean nationals.
"What some of these leaders have failed to grasp is
that the Zimbabwe mess
will also mess them up because they are the ones with
better economies and
attract multitudes of our people there. I am not sure
they will be able to
cope," Makumbe said.
Mugabe has consistently
accused Western powers of punishing his government
for his seizures of
white-owned commercial farms, which has accelerated the
collapse of
Zimbabwe's agriculture-driven economy. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 20 August 2007
By Taruona
Dhewa
HARARE - For 34-year-old Mary Masvosva, last week's Heroes' Day
holiday was
a holiday to forget.
Masvosva, like thousands of other
Zimbabweans, struggled for two long days
at Mbare Musika long distance bus
terminus in Harare to catch a bus to her
rural home in Rusape, some 200km
east of the capital Harare.
On the third day, tired and hungry, she gave
up.
In Chivhu, Gamuchirai Kamocha spent two days stranded at the bus
terminus
where she wanted to catch a bus to Zaka, some 120km away, to attend
her late
mother's memorial service.
"By the time I got transport on a
haulage truck, I had used on food part of
the bus fare for my return
journey," said Kamocha.
Apart from Christmas, Zimbabweans generally
travel to their rural homes
during the Heroes Day holiday in August on a day
dedicated to honoring
veterans of the country's 1970s anti-settler
war.
For most Zimbabweans battling a severe eight-year economic crisis,
the
holiday was a big yawn, what with the transport crisis that has grounded
most buses around the country and food shortages worsened by an ongoing
government crackdown on prices.
Zimbabwe's transport operators have
over the past eight years struggled to
maintain their fleet on the roads due
to a serious fuel crisis as well as a
shortage of spare parts.
But
the transport crisis took a turn for the worst last June after President
Robert Mugabe, whom critics say is the author of Zimbabwe's misery, ordered
transport operators to reduce bus fares as part of a general crackdown on
prices of basic commodities.
The government crackdown, code-named
Operation Dzikisa Mutengo (Operation
Reduce Prices) has seen Zimbabweans
take advantage of the bargains to hoard
basic goods leaving most shop
shelves empty.
Transport operators have responded to the price blitz by
withdrawing their
buses from the roads in protest over the directive,
leaving thousands of
Zimbabweans stranded on the roads.
"I just gave
up as I could no longer keep on waiting at Mbare for transport.
I also could
not go and board the train to Mutare as it was fully booked
throughout the
holiday period," said Masvosva.
In Zimuto area in Masvingo, some people
walked some 60km to catch buses at
Mpandawana rural service centre to travel
to major cities and towns.
Regis Munhenzva, a bus operator in Harare,
blamed the transport crisis on
inadequate fuel supplies.
"The
government only allocated us some 500 litres per bus during the
four-day-long holiday to cover distances totaling more than 800km a trip.
This was just not enough," said Munhenzva.
Another rural bus
operator, who declined to be named, said Zimbabwe's
economic crisis was
slowly taking its toll on transport operators.
He said apart from the
usual shortage of fuel and spares, the rural road
network was in a serious
state of disrepair.
"Our family buses have been plying rural routes for
generations but now we
can hardly manage to let a bus go on a long-distance
route because the roads
out there are nearly impassable.
"Moreover,
if a bus breaks down hundreds of kilometers away, towing it back
is very
expensive," he said.
Zimbabwe's economic crisis, described by the World
Bank as unprecedented for
a country not at war, has manifested itself in the
world's highest inflation
rate of over 4 500 percent last May.
The
Harare authorities, embarrassed over the shocking statistics, have since
ordered a blanket ban on the release of inflation figures.
The
economic crisis has also manifested itself in the general deterioration
of
infrastructure, with Harare residents, for example, being forced to live
with constant burst sewer pipes, shortages of water as well as
electricity.
The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party and
major Western
governments blame the crisis on mismanagement by Mugabe, the
only ruler
Zimbabweans have known since independence from Britain 27 years
ago.
But Mugabe denies the charge, saying the economic crisis is a result
of
sabotage by Britain and her Western allies who he says are unhappy over
his
land reform programme.
"I don't want to imagine what the
situation will be like in December during
the Christmas season if the
government does not act soon to address this
crisis," said one bus operator
who spoke to ZimOnline. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 20 August 2007
By Nqobizitha
Khumalo
BULAWAYO - Industries and companies based in Zimbabwe's second
largest city
of Bulawayo face closure after the local authority announced at
the weekend
that it was immediately extending water rationing to industries
due to
critical water shortages.
The city has with immediate effect
ordered that industry and the city centre
be without water supplies for
three consecutive days in a week.
The council also widened the cut-off
periods for residential areas.
High-density areas will now be forced to
go for up to four days without any
water supplies as part of the new water
rationing regime announced by the
Bulawayo City Council last
Friday.
Previously, the longest period that residential areas have gone
without
water was two days.
The move to ration water in industrial
areas and the city centre would
affect large manufacturing concerns that use
a lot of water.
Bulawayo City Council spokesman Phathisa Nyathi said the
city had with
immediate effect stopped supplying 24-hour water service to
the city centre
and the industrial area.
"Due to falling water
levels, the situation has suddenly gone critical and
we are left with no
option but to be forced to widen water rationing to
include industry and the
city centre," said Nyathi.
No industrial area would be spared from the
water cuts, he said.
He however said the city centre would be without
water during the off-peak
periods while industries would be rationed during
normal working hours.
"The water shedding times for the city centre will
be 6pm and for industrial
areas it will be on Thursday, Friday and
Saturday," Nyathi said.
Bulawayo is experiencing serious water shortages
as a result of poor
rainfall, which affected water levels at the five dams
supplying the city.
This has forced the city council to de-commission
three supply dams -
Umzingwane, and Lower and Upper Ncema - leaving only
Inyankuni and Insiza
dams to supply water to the more than one million
residents.
The situation has seen people in the city's high-density areas
resort to
queuing for water from boreholes sunk by international aid
agencies.
The water crisis has decimated Bulawayo's previously strong
manufacturing
sector.
The city used to be the country's industrial
hub but most companies
relocated from the region when the water shortages
started in the 1990s.
Bulawayo council last June warned residents of a
possible outbreak of
disease as a result of the water shortages.
The
water shortage has been ascribed to drought, a burgeoning population and
the
lack of cooperation between the city fathers and the Zimbabwe National
Water
Authority, a parastatal now in charge of the country's water delivery
system.
The government's reluctance to implement the Matabeleland
Zambezi Water
Project (MZWT) and the Mtshabezi pipeline has worsened the
city's plight. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 20 August 2007
By Regerai
Marwezu
MASVINGO - The ruling ZANU PF provincial executive in Masvingo
province is
pushing for the sacking of former governor Josaya Hungwe from
the party for
allegedly receiving bribes from white farmers during
Zimbabwe's chaotic land
reforms seven years ago.
Hungwe has been
languishing in political wilderness since 2004 after he was
dropped from the
government for backing Emmerson Mnangagwa's political
ambitions for the
vice-presidency.
The former governor was part of a group of ZANU PF
officials who drew Mugabe's
ire for daring to block his choice of Joice
Mujuru for the vice-presidency
of ZANU PF and the country.
Two rival
factions of ZANU PF, one led by Mnangagwa and the other by Mujuru's
husband
and former army commander, Solomon, are battling for political
supremacy to
succeed Mugabe.
In what observers say is the continuation of the bitter
faction fights in
ZANU PF, the Masvingo provincial executive that is backs
Mujuru, wrote a
letter to the party's national chairman John Nkomo demanding
the sacking of
Hungwe.
The party's provincial spokesperson Retired
Major Kudzai Mbudzi confirmed
the plans to kick out Hungwe from the party
following charges that the
former governor had received kickbacks from
former white farmers.
Hungwe, as governor of Masvingo, chaired the
provincial land allocation
committee that identified and recommended white
properties that were to be
spared from compulsory acquisition by government
during the land reforms.
The ZANU PF provincial executive says Hungwe
used his political muscle to
spare some white properties during the land
reform programme in return for
personal financial gains.
"It is true
that we have asked the national executive to fire Hungwe.
Several former
white farmers have complained that they paid bribes to Hungwe
to have their
properties spared during the land reforms," said Mbudzi.
Contacted for
comment, Hungwe scoffed at the charges, saying they were part
of the
factional fighting in ZANU PF.
"I am not surprised that some people are
trying to 'finish me off'
politically," said Hungwe.
"I am sure you
are aware of the bitter factional wars in the province and
these are just
the products of our infighting. But I am ready to defend
myself," said
Hungwe.
Nkomo said he had not yet received the letter from the Masvingo
executive
but stressed that party members were free to bring the matter for
discussion
at the party's annual conference in December.
"I have not
seen any letter from Masvingo to that effect. But we want to go
into the
congress with an open mind and all burning issues from the
provinces should
be brought forward," said Nkomo. - ZimOnline
SABC
August 20,
2007, 06:00
Zambian finance minister Ng'andu Magande wants retired
statesmen like former
SA president Nelson Mandela to influence Zimbabwean
president Robert Mugabe.
He says a little pressure from Mandela and
ex-Zambian president Kenneth
Kaunda could lead to a different approach in
solving Zimbabwe's problems.
Magande's comments follow a SADC summit in
Lusaka. President Thabo Mbeki
told delegates that progress has been made in
talks between Zimbabwe's
government and opposition factions.
Meanwhile,
the United Nations' refugee agency (UNHCR) has made a contingency
plan in
anticipation of thousands of Zimbabwean refugees fleeing their
country's
worsening political and economic situation.
The agency's commissioner
Antonio Guterres says the plan has been developed
in readiness for any major
influx of refugees to neighbouring countries. He
says more than
three-million Zimbabweans have so far left their country and
most of them
are in need of humanitarian assistance.
Government has rejected pleas to
set up refugee camps on its border with
Zimbabwe.
Pretoria News
August 20, 2007 Edition 1
Hans Pienaar
Amid predictions
that the Zimbabwean economy could collapse within four
months, President
Robert Mugabe's neighbours have offered him a lifeline in
the form of an
economic rescue package.
The leaders of the neighbouring countries,
meeting at the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) summit in
Lusaka on Friday, agreed to implement
a bailout proposed by SADC executive
secretary Tomaz Salamao.
But they are not divulging details of the plan
until SADC finance ministers
have examined it. Then another, extraordinary
summit may be held to approve
the details of the plan.
However, it is
doubtful that Zimbabwe has that much time.
Western officials are warning
that "probably within months, by year-end,
we'll see the formal economy
cease to work". They fear that if Mugabe clung
to power much longer, the
country could descend from authoritarianism to
anarchy, and that Congo-style
warlords could take control.
SADC and SA officials remained tight-lipped
about Salamao's bailout plan
yesterday, fuelling speculation about its
contents and terms.
Some Zimbabwean media reports have suggested that the
rescue package will
only be offered if Mugabe agrees to economic and
political reforms.
These would include co-operating with President
Thabo Mbeki's mediation of
negotiations between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and the
opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) to ensure free and fair
polls next year.
But Mbeki dismissed this in a briefing to SA journalists
after the summit,
saying there would be "no conditionalities" attached to
the Salamao bailout.
He said it was an emergency plan which had to be
implemented swiftly to get
the country back on its feet again so that free
and fair elections could be
held next year.
Mbeki received his
mediation mandate and Salamao his mandate to draw up an
economic rescue plan
at the same special SADC summit on Zimbabwe on March 29
in
Tanzania.
Salamao gave a brief glimpse into his report at the summit when
he said that
he had made key findings.
These included that Zimbabwe
still had a viable economy, but that it was
labouring under sanctions - a
fact that was not being recognised by
Zimbawe's critics, and that its
politics and its economy could not be
separated.
The last point
seemed to contradict Mbeki's assertion that the bailout plan
and his own
facilitation of talks between the main parties were separate
problems. The
Lusaka summit commended Mbeki for the progress he had made in
his mediation
between Zanu-PF and the MDC.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
By Ralph R. Reiland
Monday, August 20, 2007
Readers of The
New York Times got a front-page example recently of
what F.A. Hayek called
"the fatal conceit" -- the idea that some great mind
or committee can do a
better job than the private market in organizing and
directing an
economy.
Hayek argued that the market automatically coordinates the
millions of
individual activities in an economy by way of "natural,
spontaneous and
self-ordering processes of adaptation to a greater number of
particular
facts than any one mind can perceive or even
conceive."
The record of the past century shows that the system
that delivers the
goods, reduces scarcity and improves living standards is
the "spontaneous
human order created by a competitive market," said Hayek,
not the
"deliberate arrangement of human interaction by central authority
based on
the collective command over available resources."
What
works, in short, is freedom and capitalism, not statism and
socialism.
The Times article that supports Hayek's line of
reasoning -- "Caps on
Prices Only Deepen Zimbabweans' Misery" by Michael
Wines -- provides a
perfect illustration of how the "fatal conceit" of
government can turn a
difficulty into a catastrophe.
"Robert G.
Mugabe has ruled over this battered nation, his every wish
endorsed by
Parliament and enforced by the police and soldiers, for more
than 27 years,"
explained Wines. "It appears, however, that not even an
unchallenged
autocrat can repeal the laws of supply and demand."
With prices
doubling weekly, Mugabe's attempt to revoke the laws of
economics came via
an anti-inflationary order, "Operation Slash Prices," on
June 25, ordering
merchants to cut their prices by 50 percent.
"One month after Mr.
Mugabe decreed just that, commanding merchants
nationwide to counter
10,000-percent-a-year hyperinflation by slashing
prices in half and more,
Zimbabwe's economy is at a halt," reported Wines.
Most students
with a passing grade in Economics 101 could have
predicted that Mugabe's
decree would produce shortages. Cut the price of
gasoline by law to a dollar
per gallon, and there'll be less supply and more
demand -- the formula for a
shortage. Cut the price to 50 cents and we'll be
walking.
It's
the same with supply in the labor market. Cap the salaries of
brain surgeons
at $100,000 and there'll be a shortage of brain surgeons.
Predictably, the results of Mugabe's decree were catastrophic.
"Bread, sugar and cornmeal, staples of every Zimbabwean's diet, have
vanished, seized by mobs who denuded stores like locusts in wheat fields,"
reported Wines. "Meat is virtually nonexistent, even for members of the
middle class who have money to buy it on the black market. Gasoline is
nearly unobtainable. Hospital patients are dying for lack of basic medical
supplies. Power blackouts and water cutoffs are endemic."
Similarly, the impact on manufacturing and jobs was ruinous:
"Manufacturing
has slowed to a crawl because few businesses can produce
goods for less than
the government-imposed sale prices. Raw materials are
drying up because
suppliers are being forced to sell to factories at a loss.
Businesses are
laying off workers or reducing their hours."
With three-fourths of
Zimbabwe's labor force already jobless prior to
Mugabe's decree, the
government's prescription for bringing down inflation
only worsened the
nation's poverty crisis. "Factory layoffs and slowdowns,"
reported The
Times, "are bringing new poverty to the 15 percent or 20
percent of adult
Zimbabweans who still have jobs."
To keep critics in line, a new
law gives Zimbabwe's security forces
the right to observe as many e-mails
and tap as many phones as they see fit.
For noncompliance with
Mugabe's edict, business owners are threatened
with jail and the
nationalization of their companies. "We are at war,"
explained one of
Mugabe's vice presidents, Joseph Msika. "We will not allow
shelves to be
empty."
In other words, if supplies won't come forth voluntarily
via the
market, the government will force the production.
"As
many as 4,000 businesspeople have been arrested, fined or jailed,"
reported
Wines, while "state-run newspapers publish lists of telephone
numbers on
their front pages daily, exhorting citizens to report merchants
whose prices
exceed the dictates."
In the Soviet Union, to keep things moving
according to plan, the
government eventually killed 55 million of its own
citizens. In China, 36
million.
To kill in those numbers
required the obedience of many. Said British
philosopher W.K. Clifford,
"There is one thing more wicked in the world than
the desire to command, and
that is the will to obey."
Ralph R. Reiland is an associate
professor of economics at Robert
Morris University and a local restaurateur.
E-mail him at rrreiland@aol.com
Gulf News
The Sunday
Telegraph
Published: August 19, 2007, 23:05
Robert Mugabe has
splashed out on a fleet of luxury cars for each of his 34
ministers at a
state-funded cost of around 3 million pounds (Dh22 million).
Each
top-of-the-range Mercedes S350s is fitted with a powerful V6 engine,
infrared cameras, seat massagers and doors that suck themselves
shut.
Critics expressed disbelief at such purchases amid the growing
economic
crisis.
Mugabe himself is believed have a modified version
of the Mercedes S600L,
described by one reviewer as "the car of choice for
up-and-coming dictators
of small African countries".
It boasts a
12-cylinder engine which can accelerate from 0 to 62 miles per
hour in 4.6
seconds and, with armour and modifications, costs around 700,000
pounds.
Everyone was disgusted by the
television pictures from Lusaka showing the
ignorant support for Mugabe at
the opening of the SADC meeting. We are
bewildered that our African brothers
and sisters cannot see what is really
happening in Zimbabwe, forcing so many
people into exile. We had with us at
the Vigil today a young man who told
us of the horrific situation of
Zimbabweans in South Africa -- of
Zimbabweans there being driven to crime,
including soldiers who had deserted
with their weapons. He spoke of the
exploitation of Zimbabweans fleeing
across the border and said they were
referred to as ATMs (bank cash
machines) because they are always having to
fork out bribes. Zimbabwean
refugees are asked to pay more and more to jump
off trains the closer they
get to Johannesburg. "They are very angry".
Asked about the vigilante
farmers on the border, he said the problem would
disappear if the border
farmers were persuaded to put in gates so the
refugees didn't have to cut
the fences!
We again had brilliant attendance with an exuberant Dumi
leading the
singing. Among those on the drums was Ephraim Tapa, Chair of the
MDC UK. He
urged everyone to campaign for next year's elections. He said
the diaspora
was sending money home and should also send back the demand for
democratic
change. "We must claim back the mandate that we gave Mugabe in
1980". Mr
Tapa added that he was also sickened by the applause given to
Mugabe at the
Lusaka summit and the message that Zimbabweans must remain
calm and
peaceful. "They are asking the victim to apologise" he
said.
Several supporters noted that the Portuguese deputy foreign
minister
indicated at the Lusaka meeting that Mugabe would be invited to the
AU / EU
Summit in Lisbon in December. It was agreed that the Vigil would
write to
the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, asking him to stay away
from this
summit if Mugabe attends. In the wake of the summit the Vigil
also now
plans to go ahead with the presentation of one of its petitions: "A
PETITION
TO EUROPEAN UNION GOVERNMENTS: We record our dismay at the failure
of the
Southern African Development Community (SADC) to help the desperate
people
of Zimbabwe at their time of trial. We urge the UK government and the
European Union in general to suspend government to government aid to all 14
SADC countries until they abide by their joint commitment to uphold human
rights in the region." After all, should European taxpayers' money be used
to underpin SADC aid to Mugabe's kleptocracy? The petition has been signed
by thousands of passers-by and we hope to get a well-known person to present
it to mark the Vigil's 5th anniversary on 12th October.
Francesca
celebrated her 17th birthday at the Vigil today. She has been
keeping a
diary since she first came. A year ago she wrote "this is the
last birthday
I will celebrate at the Vigil" . . . . How many more? All day
had
threatened yet another downpour in this wettest of summers. Rain held
off
until the last 20 minutes. It was fairly light and we didn't think it
was
worth putting up the tarpaulin so we shared our many emergency umbrellas
left behind over the last 5 years - about 10 in all!
For this week's
Vigil pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/
FOR
THE RECORD: 103 signed the register. Supporters from Bedford,
Birmingham,
Bolton, Coventry, Derby, Dudley, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester,
Northampton,
Southampton, Stoke-on-Trent, a large group from Wolverhampton
and many from
London and South East England.
FOR YOUR DIARY:
- Monday, 20th
August 2007, 7.30 pm, Central London Zimbabwe Forum.
MDC-UK Secretary Julius
Mutyambizi Dewa will update us on the MDC-UK's
plans. Upstairs at the
Theodore Bullfrog pub, 28 John Adam Street, London
WC2 (cross the Strand
from the Zimbabwe Embassy, go down a passageway to
John Adam Street, turn
right and you will see the pub).
- Saturday, 1st September 2007, 12
noon - 10 pm. Zimfest 2007 (food,
sports, music). Venue: Prince Georges
Playing Fields, Bushey Rd, Raynes
Park, London, SW20 9NB. For more
information check; www.wezimbabwe.com
- Tuesday,
4th September, 12 - 1.30 pm. The International Liaison
Office of the
Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum will be hosting 'Zimbabwe's
Gukurahundi:
Lessons from the 1980-1988 disturbances in Matabeleland and The
Midlands' at
Chatham House in London. Further information on the Chatham
House website
at: http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/events/view/-/id/572/.
-
Friday, 7th September 2007, 6.30 pm. Debate on human rights opened
by
barrister James Keeley. Discussion on Zimbabwe by Albert Weidemann.
Venue:
Ripon, North Yorkshire, Address: YMCA, Water Skellgate, HG4 1BQ. For
more
information, contact: Albert Weidemann on 01765-607900 or mobile 0779
340
1407
- Saturday, 8th September, 2 -6 pm. Special literature event at
the
Vigil as part of a worldwide reading for Zimbabwe. Readings have been
chosen by the International Literature Festival of Berlin to be read and
broadcast around the world on 9th September. We have chosen the nearest
Vigil to do this. For details, check http://www.literaturfestival.com/.
-
Monday, 10th September 2007. The Zimbabwe Solidarity Campaign, as
agreed
with Ian Paisley Jnr, are presenting a petition to Stormont. They
plan to do
a presentation to the assembly members in the long gallery and
then get as
many members as possible to sign the petition in front of the
press. They
are trying to get some high profile campaigners along to raise
the profile
of the campaign.
- Saturday, 13th October, 2 - 6 pm. Zimbabwe Vigil's
5th Anniversary
commemoration followed by a social event. An early marker.
Don't book
anything else for this date.
Vigil
co-ordinator
The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London,
takes place
every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross
violations of
human rights by the current regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil
which started in
October 2002 will continue until internationally-monitored,
free and fair
elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk
The Times
August 20, 2007
Sir, Your report (August 16)
describes a meeting of southern African
political leaders apparently in a
state of complete denial. Dr Mugabe, who
has brought Zimbabwe to its knees,
is applauded. Who now remembers the
praiseworthy principles of the New
Economic Programme for African
Development, honoured since its inception in
the breach rather than the
observance?
Surely it is time to reassess
the amount and form of aid given to Africa.
Taxpayers are not unsympathetic
to good causes, especially the victims of
natural disasters. There is no
moral basis for paying taxes, as we do, to
support massive kleptocracy and
wilful misgovernment. The indifference of
the South African Government to
the catastrophe in Zimbabwe is now costing
South Africa itself a fortune.
The longer the Zimbabwean tragedy is played
out, the greater the financial
demands that will inevitably be made on donor
nations.
Government-to-government aid must be made conditional on honest
politics,
and no comfort should be given to those politicians who accept our
largesse
only to squander it.
ANSELM KUHN, Stevenage, Herts
VOA
By Akwei Thompson
Washington,DC
19 August 2007
These days there is little
cause for optimism in Zimbabwe. Inflation is
running at 9,000 per cent and
over 80 per cent of the 12 million people live
below the poverty line. In
the words of an opposition spokesman, Zimbabwe is
now a country where
everything is in short supply except misery. However, a
recent presentation
by international crisis group (ICG) president, Gareth
Evans to the Royal
Commonwealth Society shows all is not lost for Zimbabwe.
But what is the
basis of this optimism. Sydney Masamvu, a senior analyst of
the ICG
explains.
"I think you have to view it from two ends: besides the doom
and gloom with
the issue of political paralysis, internal political
paralysis and the
deteriorating economic conditions, one should also look at
the SADC
(Southern African Development Community) mediation process. This
should
involve looking at the effects of the paralysis or the economic
implosion.
Can this actually accelerate the need for political change, as it
were?.
" Masamvu felt, however, that Zimbabwe cannot hold free and fair
elections
under the present political climate. "Nothing of substance has
occurred that
would make one feel Zimbabwe can have what you call a credible
election in
March 2008. No wonder why we are always calling for the
leveraging of the
SADC liberation process to ensure that the conditions
which will guarantee a
free and fair elections are on the ground." Masamvu
said the March 2008 date
for the general election must not be cast in stone.
He said there should be
some form of flexibility to ensure that whenever the
election is held, it
will be a credible election that will yield a credible
and a legitimate
government.
On the issue of land resolution Masamvu
said: " you know we have talked to
members of the British government
establishment who are the key players in
this land reform process. They've
really stated that they are ready to be
the key players in any trust fund to
meet their obligations as outlined in
the Lancaster conference. But this
will only happen when there is a
legitimate and an undisputed government in
Zimbabwe.."
New York Times
By HOWARD W. FRENCH and LYDIA POLGREEN
Published:
August 18, 2007
LILONGWE, Malawi - When Yang Jie left home at 18, he was
doing what people
from China's hardscrabble Fujian Province have done for
generations:
emigrating in search of a better living overseas.
This
series explores China's deepening economic and political ties with
Africa.
What set him apart was his destination. Instead of
the traditional adopted
homelands like the United States and Europe, where
Fujian people have
settled by the hundreds of thousands, he chose this
small, landlocked
country in southern Africa.
"Before I left China,"
said Mr. Yang, now 25, "I thought Africa was all one
big desert." So he
figured that ice cream would be in high demand, and with
money pooled from
relatives and friends, he created his own factory at the
edge of Lilongwe,
Malawi's capital. The climate is in fact subtropical, but
that has not
stopped his ice cream company from becoming the country's
biggest.
Stories like this have become legion across Africa in the
past five years or
so, as hundreds of thousands of Chinese have discovered
the continent,
setting off to do business in a part of the world that had
been terra
incognita. The Xinhua News Agency recently estimated that at
least 750,000
Chinese were working or living for extended periods on the
continent, a
reflection of deepening economic ties between China and Africa
that reached
$55 billion in trade in 2006, compared with less than $10
million a
generation earlier.
Even when Mr. Yang arrived here in
2001, he said, he could go weeks without
encountering another traveler from
his homeland. But as surely as his
investments in the country have
prospered, he said, an increasingly large
community of Chinese migrants has
taken root, and now runs everything from
small factories to health care
clinics and trading companies.
During the previous wave of Chinese
interest in Africa in the 1960s and '70s,
an era of radical socialism and
proclaimed third-world solidarity, European
and American companies held sway
over economies in most of the continent.
Here and there, though, the Chinese
made their presence felt, often in
drably dressed, state-run work brigades
that built stadiums, railroads and
highways, crushing rocks and doing other
labor by hand.
Today, in many of the countries where the new Chinese
emigrants have
settled, like Chad, Chinese-owned pharmacies, massage parlors
and
restaurants serving a variety of regional Chinese cuisines can be found;
the
Western presence, once dominant, has steadily dwindled, and essentially
consists nowadays of relief experts working international agencies or oil
workers, living behind high walls in heavily guarded enclaves.
At
first, this new Chinese exodus was driven largely by word of mouth, as
pioneers like Mr. Yang relayed news back home of abundant opportunities in a
part of the world where many economies lie undeveloped or in ruins, and
where even in the richer countries many things taken for granted in the
developed world await builders and investors.
Conditions like these
often deter Western investors, but for many budding
Chinese entrepreneurs,
Africa's emerging economies are inviting precisely
because they seem small
and accessible. Competition is often weak or
nonexistent, and for African
customers, the low price of many Chinese goods
and services make them more
affordable than their Western counterparts.
Chinese Expansion
You
Xianwen sold his pipe-laying business in Chengdu, in southwest China,
this
year to move to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, to join a startup
company
with a Chinese partner he had met only online. "Back where I come
from we
are pretty independent people," Mr. You, 55, said. "My brothers and
sisters
all supported my decision to come here. In fact, they say that if
things
really work out for me, they would like to move to Africa, too."
Mr. You
said he had considered other African countries before settling on
Ethiopia,
including Zambia. "Luckily I didn't decide to go there," he said,
explaining
that he had been frightened by the recent anti-Chinese protests
in that
country.
His new business, ABC Bioenergy, builds devices that generate
combustible
gas from ordinary refuse, providing what Mr. You said would be
an affordable
alternative source of energy in a country where electricity
supplies are
erratic and prices high.
Mr. You's partner here, Mei
Haijun, first came to Ethiopia a decade ago to
work at a Chinese-built
textile factory and has since married an Ethiopian
woman, with whom he has a
child. "When I first came here you could go two
months without seeing
another Chinese person," he said. "But it is a
different era now. There's a
flight to China every day."
The pickup in air traffic between China
and countries like Ethiopia now has
Chinese companies scrambling to add new
routes, as the Chinese government
and big Chinese companies increase their
stake in Africa.
Much of that activity reflects an intense appetite for
African oil and
mineral resources needed to fuel China's manufacturing
sector, but big
Chinese companies have quickly become formidable competitors
in other
sectors as well, particularly for big-ticket public works
contracts. China
is building major new railroad lines in Nigeria and Angola,
large dams in
Sudan, airports in several countries and new roads, it seems,
almost
everywhere.
One of the largest road builders, China Road and
Bridge Construction, has
picked up where the solidarity brigades of an
earlier generation left off.
The company, which is owned by the Chinese
government, has 29 projects in
Africa, many financed by the World Bank or
other lenders, and it maintains
offices in 22 African countries.
On a
recent Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Beijing brimming
with
Chinese contractors, workers from Road and Bridge and other companies
swapped notes on the grab bag of countries they work in, and debated about
the difficulties of learning Portuguese and French in places like Mozambique
and Ivory Coast.
Africans view the influx of Chinese with a mix of
anticipation and dread.
Business leaders in Chad, a central African nation
with deepening oil ties
to China, are bracing for what they suspect will be
an army of Chinese
workers and investors.
"We expect a large influx
of at least 40,000 Chinese in the coming years,"
said Renaud Dinguemnaial,
director of Chad's Chamber of Commerce. "This
massive arrival could be a
plus for the economy, but we are also worried.
When they arrive, will they
bring their own workers, stay in their own
houses, send all their money
home?"
In Zambia, where anti-Chinese sentiment has been building for
several years,
merchants at the central market in Lusaka, the capital, said
that if Chinese
people wanted to come to Africa, they should come as
investors, building
factories, not as petty traders who compete for already
scarce customers for
bottom-dollar items like flip-flops and
T-shirts.
"The Chinese claim to come here as investors, but they are
trading just like
us," said Dorothy Mainga, who sells knockoff Puma sneakers
and Harley
Davidson T-shirts in the Kamwala Market in Lusaka. "They are
selling the
same things we are selling at cheap prices. We pay duty and tax,
but they
use their connections to avoid paying tax."
Although Chinese
oil workers have been kidnapped in Nigeria and in Ethiopia,
where nine were
killed by an armed separatist movement in May, the growing
Chinese presence
around the continent has produced few serious
incidents.
Misunderstandings are common, however, and resentments
inevitably arise.
Africans in many countries complain that Chinese workers
occupy jobs that
locals are either qualified for or could be easily trained
to do. "We are
happy to have the Chinese here," said Dennis Phiri, 21, a
Malawian
university student who is studying to become an engineer. "The
problem with
the Chinese companies is that they reserve all the good jobs
for their own
people. Africans are only hired in menial
roles."
Another frequent criticism is that the Chinese are clannish,
sticking among
themselves day and night.
In Addis Ababa, in what is a
typical arrangement for most large companies,
the 200 Chinese workers for
the Road and Bridge Corporation live in a
communal compound, eating food
prepared by cooks brought from China and
receiving basic health care from a
Chinese doctor.
"After a day off you wonder what you're doing here, so we
like to keep
working," said Cheng Qian, the country manager for the
road-building company
in Ethiopia. He added that his family had never
visited him during several
years of work here.
African
Ambivalence
Sometimes, the Chinese approach has created serious frictions
with African
workers. At a leading hotel here in Lilongwe, breakfast guests
stared as an
agitated Chinese traveling salesman, sweating profusely,
screamed at his
staff minutes before his pitch on nutritional supplements
was set to begin.
"You say it is not your fault, but the way you are
doing things is just
stupid, stupid," the man sputtered before a clutch of
African assistants,
who looked humiliated. "You people are
unbelievable."
When the salesman finally left the room, members of the
restaurant staff
gathered near the door and vented their disgust. "We don't
need people like
that to come here and colonize us again," one
said.
After nearly seven years in Malawi, Yang Jie, the ice cream maker,
seems to
have learned better. Greeting his workers at the ice cream factory,
he
begins the day by asking, "How did you sleep last night?"
One
quickly replied, "Very well," sounding a bit formal.
"Don't tell me a
lie," Mr. Yang answered with a sly, friendly smile. "It's
O.K. to tell me
your worries."
Howard W. French reported from Lilongwe and from Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia, and
Lydia Polgreen from Lusaka, Zambia, and Dakar,
Senegal.
OhMyNews
[Opinion] Thabo Mbeki has an 'Us vs Them' mentality
Nicolas van der
Leek
Published 2007-08-20 10:39 (KST)
South Africa's
President Thabo Mbeki made a cardinal error when he fired his
Deputy-Minister of Health, Madlala-Routledge. In itself, he might have
thought he was entirely justified. On Saturday night's SABC news he was
interviewed saying, quite reasonably, that any person who works in
government commits themselves to serve, including, serving within
government. Any person who does not do that, must leave. Well said, Mr.
President, but how utterly ironic.
A colleague recently echoed
Mbeki's sentiments, saying that any person who
slanders the company they
work for should be fired, as they ought to be.
True. But in this case, the
Deputy was unhappy about a government that
wasn't doing its job, and so in a
sense, she was speaking 'for the people',
especially since what she said
happened to be true.
What my colleague doesn't see is the fact that
Mbeki's actions here, while
in the microcosm of the actual process they make
sense, in the wider context
of government efficacy he has been exposed (at
least in the eyes of the
populace) as a hypocrite.
The irony couldn't
be more acute. At the same time that the Deputy-Minister
of Health,
Madlala-Routledge was fired, the Health Minister (charged with
solving an
AIDS epidemic that has infected more South Africans than any
other country
on Earth) was undergoing surgery to replace an alcohol induced
cirrhotic
liver.
Reports that the Minister (dubbed Dr. Beetroot for her
unconventional advice
on AIDS treatments)
was abusive to staff in the
Clinic where she was treated didn't help her
case. Neither did allegations
that she had been drinking alcohol whilst in
hospital.
Serious doubt
has been cast not only on Health Minister Tshabalala-Msimang,
but on a
President who has firmly supported her (despite obvious failings)
thus far.
Meanwhile, the president has dismissed Deputy-Minister of Health,
Madlala-Routledge despite wide ranging reports that she was committed and
involved and doing solid service to the community, particularly in the area
of AIDS. Her work has been so effective in fact, that AIDS activists were
outraged at her dismissal, saying they now felt 'vulernable' and intended to
sue the government.
The President's response has been to point out
legalistic details and brand
Madlala-Routledge a liar on his website,
meanwhile Health Minister
Tshabalala-Msimang is taking to court the
newspaper that published her
escapades in hospital.
Recently the
Sunday Times published an article indicating
Tshabalala-Msimang, while
working at a hospital in Botswana in the 70s, had
stolen personal items from
patients (including a watch, shoes, linen etc).
Opposition Party leader
(and mayor of Cape Town) Helen Zille has said: "In
any properly functioning
democracy... Dr Tshabalala-Msimang would have been
removed from her position
a long time ago. That she has not been, says more
about our President than
about the health minister."(*)
The cardinal error the President has made
is in underestimating the public's
resentment to almost perpetual government
intransigence on a host of issues
in South Africa, from AIDS to Zimbabwe. At
the recent SADC conference, the
leaders who gathered there decided the best
course of action on Zimbabwe was
'to do nothing' and to 'wait for the
election' to allow the problem to sort
itself out.
The question must
then be asked: what is a government actually for? The
answer is usually
something like this: to serve the people. What happens is
citizens elect
leaders, and then leaders effectively isolate themselves from
the voters,
and attempt to fortify or defend their positions. To actually
answer to the
electorate is so far beneath our leaders to be laughable. This
is obvious
across the board, from Mugabe to Bush.
The result of this arrogant and
narcissistic attitude towards the nation of
voters, is a schism between
citizens and those ostensibly in place to govern
them. The average citizen
knows that officials riding around in expensive
cars, living on inflated
salaries (taxpayers money) etc. couldn't care less
about sorting out
important civil problems, for example in less affluent
suburbs (or rural
areas) because effectively, this is a world away from
where they live their
lives in hardhearted comfort.
Our president's Us vs Them mentality is
evidenced elsewhere in the world.
The dangerous result is a slow growth of
subversion in communities. At first
it is harmless. A mass of people who
simply doesn't trust its own
government, but tolerates it because it feels
it is 'stuck' with it.
Populaces everywhere are free to enter the streets
and as a form of popular
protest, vote their feelings. We don't do this
probably because we have
better things to do, and anyway, how does a
President influence us anyway?
We're not necessarily any better or worse off
whatever we do.
But there are those who are less inclined to roll over.
We call them
terrorists. Terrorists are also people who feel strongly about
not wanting
to be ruled by people who ruthlessly impose their rule, despite
having lost
the popular mandate to do so. So an attitude of disconnectedness
from
government can inculcate a similar attitude from the most destitute,
from
the most extreme segments of a community.
In that sense our
leaders have a far greater responsibility towards us than
they imagine.