R, G and I have just had a terrifying ordeal
which I report as follows :
At about 9am on the morning of Friday 16th August
2002, we were all at work at Chipinge Diesel, when a mob of some 150-200 Zanu
PF, war veterans and land settlers held us hostage in the building for some
three hours.
They were very aggressive, chantings " chimurenga"
slogans and making it clear that they were after us.
We locked ourselves into the office complex, but
not before both G and I had received blows from sticks and
fists.
This mob also "attacked" the Magistrates Court
situated not far from our offices, and also a black lawyer who has offices just
behind our buildings.
I contacted the police on five different occasions,
using both the "hotline" and the Member in Charge's number. There was little if
any interest in our plight and we received absolutely no assistance from the
police. In fact throughout most of the 5 hour ordeal we had uniformed members of
the police observing what was going on.
By 12 pm it had become obvious that we were not
going to be assited by anyone.
We set about arming ourselves. We had a fire extinguisher, 5 litres of
petrol, two torque wrenches, a pop riveter, and a paper knife.
The five of us had made the decision to make a last stand in the Ladies
Loo, where there was only one door to defend. We had measured and planned to
wedge a small cupboard to bolster the door lock.
Believe me, we thought it was our last few minutes.
We also contacted the Chairman and the security
liason officer of the Farmer Association, who made personal represenattion to
the Member in Charge, and contacted police at provincial level, all to no
avail.
A member of my workshop staff was sent to advise me
to come to a window so that the leader of the mob could talk to me.
I agreed to this, because at this time they were
hacksawing at the padlocks on the front door, had iron bars and were obviously
coming in, if we did not go out.
I was told that " your business is closed and now
belongs to the people". They demanded the keys. A 20 minute negotiation followed
and we finally agreed that :
the leaders would bring the hysterical mob under
control
move them back away from the building
allow us to leave under escourt
we would hand-over the keys to the business to the
Member in Charge.
Seconds before we unlocked the door, I cell phoned
M , told her what we were doing and said good-bye not knowing whether we
would ever see each other again.
At this stage, I realized that we were entirely in
the hands of the "mob" ! Terrifying believe me !
Needless to say, the minute we stepped through the
front door we were seized and bundled into a pick-up truck.
I was told to drive. Still believing that we were
going to the police station we left the premises. I was told to drive slowly.
The mob ran alongside and behind and we were "paraded" through town . With us were two female employees. A black lady of mature
years, Gl , and a 19 year old white girl (D ). During this stage of the
ordeal G bore the brunt of the physical attack. He was sitting in the back
of the pick-up but they had him by his hair and were shaking him around lifting
him off his backside, and slapping him.
We were not allowed to go to the police station,
but were diverted to the Govt. office complex.
( At this stage it is necessary for you to know
that three DDF owned tractors stationed in the district to plough for the
resettled farmers had mysteriously caught fire and were gutted some three weeks
earlier. Arrests had been made but with no evidence the two "suspects" were
released on bail by the magistrate. One of the suspects is employed at Chipinge
Diesel and is an outspoken and actice supporter of the opposition MDC party.
They were represented in court by the black lawyer mentioned
earlier.)
At the Govt complex we were removed from the
vehicle and told to " drive the tractors and plough for the people". So R
G and I had to get onto the burnt out tractors and wre forced to go through
the actions of ploughing / driving for some 15 mins. The minute you stopped
pushing the clutch or attempting to change gear or move the s/wheel you received
a cuff arounf the head. R was even told to put her tractor into 4 wheel
drive.
Once we finished the ploughing ordeal we were put
back into the back of the pick-up truck. G and I were told to remove our
glasses, and our shoes. So called "guards" were stationed around the vehicle for
our protection, but all just a show. This is when the beating started. The mob
danced and chanted round and round the vehicle and the blows came at random.
R was knocked unconcious by a vicious blow to the side of the head. This was
followed by a hand up the dress to the private parts proding. pulling and
pinching , trying to get her to react, so that they could further beat her.
Fortunately she did not react and they lost interest in an unconcious
body.
G was trying to use his body to shelter the
young girl (Do ) from a beating. At this stage she had not been hit, but had
been grabbed by the hair, and pushed around by a group of youths who were
shouting " we are going to fuck you today ".After a few thumps to the head, they
also lost interest in the black lady on the car. The activities then centered on
G and I.
It is amazing how after a while you "hear" rather
than "feel" the blows. At one stage I had attracted the attention of three
gentleman. The first was a boxer and I was the punch bag, the second was an
farmer and was demanding that I supply them with 5 tractors and the third was
demanding a cheque for 50 million dollars right there and then. Whilst I tried
best to survive these three a fourth enthusiast set his teeth into my shoulder
and proceeded to bite away like a dog at a bone. Slightly to the front of me sat
G receiving backhander after backhander to the face. My fear was that G
would react so I kept a tight grip on his leg muutering
" do not react. do not react "
and then suddenly the magic word " Order !
"
and it was all over. The leaders had arrived in
the form of the D.A. and the Chairmen of the War Vets and Zanu PF.
There followed a meeting some yards away from the
vehicle. The three leaders stood in an elevated position on a flight of steps.
After 40-60 minutes of speeches " down with whites" "down with MDC" "down with
etc etc etc
I was summonsed.
As I walked , escourted by two guards, to the
postion indicated to me, on the steps in front of the three leaders, I prepared
mentally for execution or a terrible beating. That did not happen. I was charged
with the act of burning the tractors, or training the persons who burnt the
tractors, of suppling the fuel to burn the tractors and making bombs in our
workshops.
I was given an opportunity to defend myself.
Denying the charges had no effect and I was found guilty of not accepting the
hand of reconcilliation. The judgement of the "people" was that the P.
family was to be stripped of the farm and the business which was forfeited to
the "people" and we were given 48 hours to take what we could and leave the
district.
I was told explicitly that if these instructions
were not followed that we would be killed.
We were then allowed to leave.
The first port of call was the clinic where we all
had medical examinations. R has a perforated ear drum, a black eye, double
vision in the eye and many bruises. The doctors examination did not find broken
skin from the probing hand. G has a black eye, a very bruised and swollen
face, and a nose as close to broken as you can get. I have a painful neck and
bruising and swelling on both sides of the face, and like G , many other
welts and bruises over the body.
We packed well into the night and left Chipinge at
2pm on Saturday afternoon.
The magistrate was severely beaten and had to be
hospitalized. He has fled from the district.
The lawyer ? Long gone !
On the farm all the workers have been chased off
threatened with their lives if they return.
2 days later .
So, having had time to take a deep breath and
recover a little from what was a terrifying experience where do we find
ourselves.?
We are in Harare. Our black staff at both Chipinge
Diesel and the farm have made contact. On the farm these guys are living in the
bush, feeding 128 breeding ostriches and collecting eggs in the early hours of
the morning and disappearing before the hoods arrive. The farm is being pegged
by the hoods, and I have little doubt that the rabble will move on.
Chipinge Diesel is closed with considerable chaos
resulting, but again our staff in contact and totally on sides.
Much support from the white community, and equally
so from the black community. I spoke with the Electricty Supply depot manager
today to get the power turned off at the garage.( we are concerned of them
pumping fuel and setting light to the premises) He told me that the black
community was ashamed of what had happened, and pleaded that we should not run
away, but return.
In Africa, overwhelmed by the odds stacked against
you, one learns to somehow ignore constitutional rights, not depend on legal
rights and wrongs, and NEGOTIATE. ( Sad ? Yes very sad )
I am in contact with a senior man at provincial
level. He has encouraged us to consider what happened last Friday as a peacefull
demonstaration which went horribly wrong. I sense much embarrasment but also
that no-one will admit any wrong.
So we walk delicate tight rope. On his advice we
decided to give Chipinge a miss until next week when we hope the dust will have
settled. I will then return, and seek an audience with the three authorities who
"booted" us from the district , and with support from province be allowed to
return and get on with life as " normally" as possible.
Going somewhere ? Yes, very much in our
thoughts. At last we are highly motivated ! We have four hurdles left
!
Where ? When ? With what ? To What
?
Daily News
The death of a dream: a white farmer's
story
8/21/02 8:43:37 AM (GMT +2)
I sit in a
storage shed in Harare, surrounded by the chaotic elements
of our life and
home and our piles of possessions, and try to reflect on the
past few days.
On Thursday, 8 August 2002, we evacuated our farm - Dahwye -
in Mvurwi,
abandoning the home in which three generations of our family had
lived for
almost half a century.
I sit in a storage shed in Harare,
surrounded by the chaotic elements
of our life and home and our piles of
possessions, and try to reflect on the
past few days. On Thursday, 8 August
2002, we evacuated our farm - Dahwye -
in Mvurwi, abandoning the home in
which three generations of our family had
lived for almost half a
century.
After two years of mayhem, we could not go on.
The
government-sponsored land invasions had begun in March 2000, shortly
before
our 14-month-old son, Oscar, died from cancer. We were unable to spend
his
last days on the farm because of the trouble. He died in an apartment
in
Harare surrounded by refugee farmers from Macheke, 75km to the east of
the
capital, where in April that year David Stevens, a supporter of the
main
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was the first white
farmer
to be killed.
Since that time we have lived through the
unparalleled destruction of
a country and economy, under the corrupt and
dictatorial rule of President
Mugabe and his Zanu PF party. Our farm has been
a microcosm of the
battlefield.
My mother and father came north
from South Africa in the 1950s. They
worked as managers on various farms and
borrowed money to purchase Dahwye in
1957. They nearly went broke, and for a
time my father lived in a tent made
from fertiliser bags while he opened up a
tobacco farm in virgin bush. It
was in an area described on the map as Terra
Incognita, but he made enough
money there to pay off the loan. We returned to
Dahwye in the mid-1960s. I
was born in 1963.
Over the next 40
years, my parents developed Dahwye and later an
adjoining property, Braidjule
Farm, into fully irrigable units farming
tobacco, maize, wheat and cattle. A
game-farming operation on the marginal
parts of the farm resulted in massive
herds of wildebeest, zebra, impala,
eland and tsessebe. Excess animals were
sold to expand the wildlife business
countrywide. My father conducted more
than three decades of pasture research
work and perfected legume/grass
pastures in the harsh wetlands, increasing
carrying capacities twentyfold.
For him, the farm was not his own, it was a
heritage for us, and our
children. Every cent was reinvested in dams,
irrigation and
development.
In 1999, Sara and I decided to build our home in the
rocks of the
Dahwye Game Park, not far from where we were married. The old
farm cottage
we had lived in was falling apart and we decided to try
to
develop the wildlife and tourism potential of this piece of the
farm
by building a guest lodge and launching a safari operation. It was not
to
be. Soon after our magnificent home was complete, Oscar's long
illness
disrupted our plans. The land invasions put an end to them.Our last
day on
the farm was a nightmare of chaos. We still had tons of household
goods and
machinery to move. Early in the day a mob of Zanu PF youth and
settlers
illegally broke through the homestead fence to erect a flag near the
lorry
we were packing up. The police were called in and the mob was dispersed
as
far as the gates of the security fence, where the police officer
advised
that they should watch us in case we tried to steal anything. (Once a
farmer
has received a Section 8 - a final notice to stop farming - he may
not
remove certain assets from the farm). There they lit fires and hacked
the
word "Zimbabwe" into an old msasa tree standing at the gate. The
waiting
Press people were made unwelcome by the police.
During our
last drive around Dahwye, my father said it looked as empty
of wildlife as
when he had first seen it. As we stopped to open a gate, I
collected a bag of
soil to take to Cape Town. As my father watched me, tears
rolled down his
face.
Finally, we paid off the staff and, at my father's request,
bowed our
heads in a prayer of thanks for the long years we had lived and
worked
together. We had left the workers some cattle and hardware to assist
them in
their new lives. My mother sobbed and tears burned in my eyes as we
said
goodbye to these people we had worked with for so long, and left them
to
their fate. Mum locked the house for the last time. At last, our
final
convoy of four vehicles left the rubbish-strewn thatched house that had
been
a family home for 46 years. We drove towards the gate. The mob locked
the
gate as we approached. Sensing a bad situation my father, in the
lead
vehicle, did not hesitate; he revved the engine and smashed through
the
gate.
And so we left Dahwye, without looking back, our
beloved farm empty
now of cattle, game and equipment, in parts burned out and
already derelict.
Alive only with the sound of axes and dogs. Irrigable land
lies fallow, the
dams stand full of water and soon the spectre of hunger will
stalk the empty
fields, as settlers dig for mice beneath the weeds. The night
we left the
main pump for the housing area was stolen, and the mob broke into
my studio
and office and my parents' home, which I hear is to become a
beerhall. The
Dahwye we have known and loved is dead. Many impressions come
to mind as I
try to recall the events of the past two-and-a-half years.
First, I recall
my son Oscar's memorial service, held at the same rock altar
in the game
park where Sara and I were married and where our children were
christened.
It is a naturally sacred place. As the service began two fish
eagles
appeared overhead, circling and ululating their haunting
cry,
witnessed by the 250 people gathered below.
By April this
year, resettlement pressure on Dahwye was growing. Zanu
PF youth who could
not be paid for their work during the presidential
election were allocated
our farm instead. The youth base commander began to
build his hut at the rock
altar. Our workers were appalled at an act so
sacrilegious to traditional
culture that they appealed to him to stop. But
this was clearly a
psychological strategy designed to cause us maximum pain.
For the next three
months Sara and the children would have to go, daily,
past this obscenity on
their way to school. Huts multiplied across the game
park.
We
watched our game in despair, wandering amid the chaotic
resettlements,
surrounded by dogs, people, huts and fires. Pillars of light
rose into the
night sky from the fires started by the settlers. Entire
segments of the
country were consumed in an orgy of burning.
By a small miracle we
obtained a game capture permit from the
authorities. In a dramatic operation,
over five weeks, we captured, saved
and sold about 180 tsessebe, 75 zebra, 60
wildebeest, three eland, 85 impala
and 12 ostriches. We had already lost
animals to poaching and I am convinced
that many of the settlers in our game
park came with meat in mind.
Our children attended Barwick Primary
School, not far from our farm.
Teachers there have described the deep trauma
that they have observed in
farmers' children who, over the past two years,
have been silent victims of
the baying mobs and the daily humiliations their
families have endured on
the farms. The ever-present anxiety they observe in
their parents is
silently taken on board. I have often seen our own children
trying to work
out ways to protect us from the daily dramas. During the
weekends and
holidays, security briefings on the farm radios do not allay
their fears.
When things have been bad children have expressed fear at
returning to
boarding school as they have had to leave their parents alone on
the farms.
There have been times during this ordeal that have been
worse than
others. When farms were being burned and looted in the nearby
districts of
Chinhoyi, Mhangura, Doma and Hwedza, we waited, expecting the
worst. Some
members of our family were trapped in their home, unable to
escape as their
neighbours were being ransacked. Packed suitcases and
food
rations stood in the hallway at all times, in preparation for
a
hurried exit. The house was emptied long ago of sentimental objects
and
photographs. As a community we tried to plan for worst-case scenarios -
for
example, if violence had erupted after the presidential election.
Community
plans for the evacuation of schools were, and still are, realities
that
those in farming areas face on their own.
From the ashes of
this situation we have managed to save one thing.
Before Oscar died, we
planted a little Christmas tree that we had bought for
him in Cape Town
during his hospitalisation. The day before we left the
farm, we dug up the
tree and replanted it beside the children's ward of St
Anne's Hospital,
Harare, where the nuns (who remember Oscar from his stay
there) have decided
that it will be decorated each Christmas, and that from
now on it will be
called Oscar's Tree.
It is hard to describe the courage I have
witnessed in my own family.
My dad and mum, 73 and 64 respectively, humorous
even amid the destruction
of all they have loved and worked for, battling to
finish the job of packing
up their home and farm. Sara, my wife, determined
even under these adverse
circumstances to raise money for the Red Cross
Children's Hospital, which
looked after Oscar. She trained for the London
Marathon on farm roads
throughout the mayhem, ran the marathon and raised £7
000 (Z$560 000) for
the hospital. My daughter Megan, who is 11 years old, a
rock for all of us,
always smiling and unfazed. My five-year-old son Ben, who
cried often for
the loss of his beloved farm, decided that we should make
crosses and
scatter them around the farm and throughout our house to protect
it in our
absence. Madeleine, who is six months old, is one of the few people
in
Zimbabwe, oblivious to its woes, who has smiled through it
all.
The unreported daily acts of courage and integrity by farmers
in this
impossible time must be mentioned. Their lonely vigils against the
forces of
intimidation have been humbling to observe. One day, I hope it will
be
recognised and saluted. Even now, impossible labour laws and propaganda
have
in some situations turned the labourers against them. Farmers are
barricaded
into their homes by labourers demanding pay and gratuities few can
afford.
In the past two years, I have seen young men take on the visage
of
battle-weary soldiers, with lined faces and grey hair, as they strive
to
protect family, friends and farm workers who were defenceless but for
their
initiative. I have seen their desperation as the authorities and
so-called
new landlords have prevented them from moving their own equipment,
livestock
and household goods from their farms, which have been seized. I was
told,
categorically, by a war veteran leader in front of a mob of 200 people,
that
we would not move one thing off our farm. Fortunately, he
failed.
Now that we are in Harare, and off the farm, there is time to
try to
analyse what we have been through.
We are sharing a house
with another displaced family, the Mitchells
from Beitbridge in the far south
of the country. Billy's father collapsed
and died from a heart attack soon
after they received government papers of
acquisition this year.One thing I
have learnt, as we try to make sense of
these terrible events, is that it is
impossible to judge any farmer or
farming community by the course of action
they have followed. Each farm and
farmer has faced a unique circumstance. All
have fought lonely battles
against overwhelming odds, outgunned by the full
force of State machinery.
FinGaz
Farm evictions spell doom for cricket
By
Darlington Majonga & Blessed Katiyo
8/22/02 8:26:10 PM (GMT
+2)
ZIMBABWE'S chances of sub-hosting the 2003 cricket World Cup
were this
week thrown into turmoil as police swooped on white farmers
defying
President Robert Mugabe's orders to vacate their properties amid
fears
national team skipper Heath Streak could opt out of the side following
the
arrest of his father.Australia earlier this year cancelled a tour
of
Zimbabwe over safety concerns.
It is feared the crackdown on
white commercial farmers may have a
ripple effect on the national cricket
team, whose success hinges on the
experience of Streak and other white
players who are either active farmers
or children of farmers.
The often-violent land seizures have dented further Zimbabwe's chances
of
hosting some of the World Cup matches in Harare and Bulawayo, the two
cities
scheduled to host matches involving Australia, Pakistan, England and
India
during the tournament that kicks off in February.
Uncertainty over
the country's sub-hosting of the tournament has been
mounting, with reports
in the British media suggesting that cricket
officials have taken
"contingency plans" to shift all the matches to the
main host South
Africa.
The cricket fraternity was yesterday left in suspense,
unsure how
national team skipper Streak would react to the arrest of his
father for
resisting to move out of his farm in Matabeleland North. Michael
Huckle,
another former cricketer and father to former Zimbabwe top bowler
Adam
Huckle, was also arrested at his farm in the Matabeleland North
province.
Some sources privy to the goings-on at the Zimbabwe
Cricket Union
(ZCU) feared Streak could opt out of the national team's trip
to Sri Lanka,
but worse still they were worried the captain's performance at
the
International Cricket Council (ICC) Champions Trophy next month could
be
affected even if he travelled.
ZCU communications manager
Lovemore Banda could not shed any light on
Streak's reaction, but only
revealed the captain had had a private chat with
Vince Hogg, the managing
director of the cricket body.
"He only talked to Hogg and you can
contact him for any queries," is
all Banda could say on the
issue.
However Hogg, who was reportedly locked in a meeting the
whole of
yesterday afternoon, could not be reached for comment by the time of
going
to print.
Denis Hilton Streak, the father of the recently
appointed Zimbabwe
captain, this week spent some days in detention after he
failed to vacate
his property in Matabeleland as per the government's Section
8 deadline that
passed last weekend.
"He (Denis) spent three
days and three nights in prison but he has
been released on bail until he
appears in court maybe next month," a close
relative who was at the Streaks'
residence in Bulawayo confirmed to the
Financial Gazette yesterday.The
whereabouts of the 53-year-old Denis, a
former top cricket player himself,
could not be established yesterday.
"This is a serious issue.
Obviously it is difficult for any player to
concentrate when his parents or
relatives are being persecuted back home," a
cricket commentator who
preferred anonymity said.
"The unfortunate developments may not
only cause despondency in the
national team, but also dent Zimbabwe's chances
of hosting some of the 2003
World Cup matches," he added.
Only
last week former Zimbabwe captain and coach Dave Houghton also
warned of the
impact of Mugabe's roundly criticised agrarian reforms on the
national team,
saying the forced removal of farmers from private land could
have a negative
impact on the side and cricket in general.
"It will get into
cricket. At the moment, the side needs the likes of
the Flower brothers, the
Streaks and the Whittalls to bolster the side.
"They're the boys
with the experience but I can see it being quite
difficult for them to
represent their country with heart and passion and
that makes a big
difference," Houghton, now a television commentator in
England, was quoted as
saying.
The arrests come a few days before the ICC's
anti-corruption team jets
into the country to assist with preparations of the
World Cup tournament.
Although the tournament's director, Ali
Bacher of South Africa,
earlier this month visited Zimbabwe and expressed
confidence that the
country was capable of hosting some of the matches, he
also hinted that
contingency plans were in place should the situation in
Zimbabwe
deteriorate.
Tickets for the tournament went on sale in
South Africa in July and
those for the Zimbabwean matches will only go on
sale in December, further
buttressing the belief that organisers have
developed a wait-and-see
attitude.
If the tournament is
eventually moved out of Zimbabwe, it will not be
the first time that
political events have disrupted a World Cup. When India,
Pakistan and Sri
Lanka hosted the tournament in 1996, Australia and the West
Indies refused to
travel to Colombo, claiming the civil war in Sri Lanka
endangered their
lives.
Zimbabwe also stands to lose billions of dollars the
tournament is
expected to spin
FinGaz
Mozambique welcomes evicted Zim farmers
8/22/02 8:11:15 PM (GMT +2)
MAPUTO - White landowners who had been
evicted from their farms in
Zimbabwe were welcome to farm in neighbouring
Mozambique, the government
said at the weekend.
"We have a law
on investment," Mozambican Foreign Minister Leonardo
Simao told state
television. "If someone wants to come here and invest, and
respects our
investment laws, he is welcome. Be he or she white, black,
yellow, green - if
it is possible - he is welcome."
Zimbabwe's government has ordered
thousands of white farmers from
their land, saying it is to be distributed to
landless blacks, and a number
have expressed interest in moving to
neighbouring countries.
The farm seizures have plunged Zimbabwean
into political and economic
chaos, and contributed to widespread food
shortages.
Twelve Zimbabwean farmers had moved to central
Mozambique over the
past 18 months, and were farming corn and tobacco, said
Mozambican
Agriculture Minister Helder Muteia.
While some
Mozambicans have expressed fear that a large influx of
Zimbabweans would
create land shortages, the government believes they will
bring much needed
foreign investment into the impoverished African country.
A project
started last year aims at bringing about 400 Zimbabwean
farmers to
Mozambique, and land has been set aside for them.
"There is no mass
influx of Zimbabwean farmers in Mozambique. The
situation is under control,"
Muteia said.
Earlier this month Botswana, which lies east of
Zimbabwe, told a
delegation of Zimbabwean farmers there was no land available
for them to
farm, but they could form partnerships with local
residents.
- Sapa-AP
FinGaz
Food aid propping up Mugabe
Sydney Masamvu
Political Editor
8/22/02 7:48:17 PM (GMT +2)
IN the past
three years when Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis
deteriorated
rapidly, there has been lot of advice coming from across the
world on the
need to stem the rot before it slides into anarchy, which
unfortunately it
has become.
Indeed many attempts have been made both on the
domestic and
international fronts to try to knock some sense into President
Robert
Mugabe's regime and right its wrongs. Unfortunately, all the
well-meaning
advice has fallen on deaf ears.
Leaders of our
neighbouring countries have also tried to give advice
within their limits but
all this has not achieved any positive result.
When the government
began to implement its fast-track land
resettlement scheme, it was warned
from the outset that the exercise would
lead to famine unless it was
conducted in a manner that sustains food
production.
Because of
the political mileage which Mugabe's ZANU PF imagined to
gain from such an
exercise, especially after it was clear that Mugabe faced
an election which
he would lose, the implementation of the land reforms had
to be carried out
at whatever cost.
As if the Gods were indeed angry, a devastating
drought has also hit
us, a situation which further compounded the effects of
the chaotic land
reform programme.
The effects of the drought
and of the land reforms have become even
more serious because there is a
dysfunctional government in Zimbabwe.
In all the efforts being made
to save the situation, the international
community has all but blocked the
important message of bad policies causing
the current problems.
By giving food to an irresponsible regime, the European Union, the
United
States and Britain are helping Mugabe, now literally clutching at
straws, to
stay a day longer in office. By giving food aid, they are
literally propping
him up.
This is a regime that claims it does not need any help
from
neo-colonialists and yet it is unable to feed its own
people!
Mugabe's hypocrisy is borne out by the fact that, during
daylight, he
calls European food aid donors names and yet, during the night,
he goes
around with a begging bowl to the same donors.
A leader
who cannot feed his own people should shut up in
these
circumstances.
By giving food aid, the international
community is prolonging the
suffering of Zimbabweans at the hands of this
arrogant and repressive
regime.
It is better for Zimbabweans to
suffer once and for all and rid
themselves of oppression than to be gradually
made to suffer in phases by a
regime which is even surprised that it is still
in power.
I do not care about the humanitarian aspect which is
cited by the
international community in extending the food aid. The bottom
line is that
this gesture is sustaining a regime which is not capable of
planning to
ensure that its citizens are at least adequately fed, let alone
properly
governed.
It is high time the international community
left Mugabe and starving
Zimbabweans to their fate.
In fact, by
coming with the so-called aid, aren't these Europeans
interfering in the
internal affairs of Zimbabwe, as Mugabe would have us
believe when it suits
him?
In any case, why hasn't Mugabe told them to back off in line
with
Zimbabwe's all-encompassing but empty sovereignty?
Why are
the Western countries falling over themselves to
feed
Zimbabweans?
If Zimbabweans have to starve to death to
appreciate the way they are
being misgoverned and for them to wake up to take
corrective measures, so be
it.
It is not the duty of the
Americans or the British or any other nation
to feed Zimbabweans. It is the
duty of Mugabe and his government, and you
cannot call yourself a government
if you cannot feed your people.
The cause of the current famine is
not the drought but the result of
Mugabe's experiment with the very lives of
people.
If the food aid donors had not intervened to save starving
millions,
Zimbabweans would surely by now have taken corrective measures
about
governance in this country.
As long as docile Zimbabwe can
afford even at least one meal a day,
courtesy of the donors, they will tend
to forget about their plight.
As long as the donors come with food
aid to Zimbabwe in whatever
quantities, even on humanitarian grounds, the
more they are prolonging the
suffering of many Zimbabweans by aiding a regime
whose time is up.
The international community should end the food
aid nonsense and let
hungry Zimbabweans confront their plight. Then the
citizens can free
themselves from their oppression.
FinGaz
1 000 single-farm owners face arrest
By Joseph
Ngwawi Business News Editor
8/22/02 10:34:31 PM (GMT +2)
MORE than 1 000 white Zimbabweans owning a single farm are among the 2
900
farmers ordered to quit their properties, contrary to assurances by
the
government that only multiple farm owners are being evicted, the
Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) said this week.
At least 215 of the
farmers had by Tuesday this week been arrested for
defying an order by the
government to vacate their properties by August 10
to make way for blacks,
most of them supporters of President Robert Mugabe.
"We have made
215 arrests as of this afternoon (Tuesday)," police
spokesman Wayne
Bvudzijena said.
CFU president Colin Cloete, one of the farmers
arrested this week for
defying the order to vacate their farms, said more
than 60 percent of those
so far affected by the eviction orders are
single-farm owners and that the
government has reneged on its pledge to
ensure no farmer is left without
land or a home.
"At least 1 000
single-farm owners are among those who will be
arrested for defying the
orders and one also wonders where the government
would get the land on which
they hope to resettle single-farm owners ordered
to leave their properties,"
Cloete said.
Mugabe and his Agriculture Minister Joseph Made have
on separate
occasions assured groups of visiting foreign delegations that no
farmer with
a single property will be affected by the current land
reforms.
More than 2 900 of the 4 500 remaining white farmers were
told to
vacate their properties by August 10 to make way for landless blacks
but
more than two-thirds of the farmers have defied the order and are
refusing
to leave.
The nationwide swoop on the farmers has
further dented Zimbabwe's
image as an investment destination and damaged the
country's commercial
agriculture at a time when more than 7.8 million
Zimbabweans, or half
the population, are staring
starvation.
The crackdown on farmers intensified this week as it
emerged that the
newly resettled farmers, grouped under the Zimbabwe Farmers'
Union (ZFU),
did not yet have inputs to prepare the land ahead of the
2002/03
agricultural season, which starts in October.
Agricultural experts say that at least 80 percent of those allocated
plots
under the agrarian reforms are still to move onto their new pieces
of
land.
Officials at the ZFU, whose members are the main
beneficiaries of the
land reforms, were this week tight-lipped on whether
their members allocated
plots had moved onto the land and been assisted with
inputs for the coming
season.
The government has promised to
provide the inputs in a deal costing
nearly $9 billion.
Justice
Minister Patrick Chinamasa was this week the latest senior
government
official to urge the new farmers to move onto their plots.
"Those
who have been allocated land should move to the farms and
utilise it,"
Chinamasa told the state-controlled Herald newspaper.20
Meanwhile
agricultural seed manufacturers this week said they had
approached the
government with a request for a price increase.
"In view of
increased costs of raw materials used to produce seed,
negotiations are
currently taking place between the government and the seed
industry to review
the prices of seeds," a spokesman for Seed Co, one of
Zimbabwe's largest
agricultural input producers, said in response to
questions from the
Financial Gazette.
He denied that Seed Co and other agricultural
input suppliers were
withholding seed in an attempt to press the government
for higher prices,
arguing that current shortages are partly due to tests
presently being
carried out on seed stocks carried over from last
year.
The tests are done to check if the seeds can still
germinate.
He said Seed Co also buys seed from seed growers who
traditionally
deliver the commodity between August and November.
"The main selling period is therefore September to about December,"
he
said.
FinGaz
Forex crisis threatens Wankie Colliery
Staff
Reporter
8/22/02 10:31:17 PM (GMT +2)
ZIMBABWE could be
forced to spend an additional US$4.4 million ($242
million at the official
exchange rate) to import power from neighbours this
year unless the
government helps the sole coal producer to mobilise foreign
currency to buy
equipment and spare parts, the Financial Gazette established
this
week.
Coal producer Wankie Colliery Company (WCC) says the import
bill for
the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) to the end of this year could
balloon from
about US$447 383 to more than US$4.8 million if the government
does not
assist WCC to get hard cash.
The ZPC is a
subsidiary of the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority
(ZESA) formed in 1999
to act as the investment arm ZESA, the national power
utility. It is in
charge of ZESA's power generation plants such the
coal-fired Hwange Power
Station.
Insiders say the WCC, which feeds Hwange Power Station
with coal,
urgently requires US$5.3 million to purchase new machinery to
improve
production at its opencast mine and return to full
capacity.
Monthly coal deliveries to Hwange Power Station average
150 000
tonnes, just enough to last eight days if five power units there are
running
and six days when all six units are up.20
"The quantity
of coal at ZPC Hwange Power Station at the end of July
2002 (about 59 000
tonnes) is way below the expected monthly strategic level
of 250 000 tonnes,"
WCC says in a report submitted to the government earlier
this
month.
It warns that coal stock reserves at the Hwange Power
Station are
running out fast, adding: "In fact, the reserve at ZPC can only
sustain the
power station for one week."
The WCC wants the
government to assist it to get foreign currency to
import equipment from
South Africa or the United States.
Noting that it appreciated the
government's decision to retain all its
foreign currency earnings, the WCC
says its export-earning capacity is being
hampered by the inability to
operate at optimal levels.
The coal miner, which has shelved
capital expenditure in the past 18
months due to the foreign currency crisis,
also has pressing offshore loan
commitments that it needs to service from its
export earnings.
"The obligations are such that augmentation of the
foreign currency
earnings from other sources would no doubt normalise the
productive capacity
of the opencast mine and hence the continued strategic
supply of coal fuel
to industry in Zimbabwe," it says.
Officials
at the colliery's head office in Hwange this week confirmed
the company had
approached the government for assistance in mobilising the
hard
cash.
"We have made presentations to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe,
the
Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Mines and Energy on our plight,
but
I am not aware of the outcome as of now," one official said.
The foreign currency shortage is expected to hit power generation by
ZESA,
which receives 50 percent of WCC's coal through the Hwange
Power
Station.
Others likely to be affected by Wankie's problems
are the Zimbabwe
Iron and Steel Company, which already owes the coal miner
more than $2
billion, plus farmers, sugar processors and Sable
Chemicals.
Sable Chemicals is one of the largest consumers of
electricity in the
country.
Zimbabwe already imports nearly 50
percent of its power from South
Africa, Mozambique and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
FinGaz
South Africa intervenes in Zimbabwe land grab
crisis
8/22/02 10:35:45 PM (GMT +2)
CAPE TOWN -
South Africa intervened on behalf of its citizens caught
up in
Zimbabwe's controversial land grab yesterday.
But the move was not
enough to silence critics of President Thabo
Mbeki who say his lack
of action on the Zimbabwe crisis is a key factor
behind the rand's
slide.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has ordered 2 900 white
farmers to
hand over their land for redistribution to blacks, but
most have ignored
the August 8 deadline.
Around 200
white farmers, including two South Africans, have been
arrested in the
last week for defying eviction orders.
South African Foreign
Ministry spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said the
country's High Commissioner
in Harare, equivalent to an ambassador,
had been in touch with the
Zimbabwe Foreign Ministry yesterday.
"The South African High
Commissioner has made representations to the
Zimbabwe Foreign Ministry
regarding six farms owned by South Africans
in Zimbabwe and
earmarked for redistribution," he said.
Mamoepa declined to
elaborate or say whether Pretoria was asking for
an exemption from
the land reform drive.
"The mission remains in contact with the
Zimbabwean authorities to
find an early resolution to this matter,"
he said.
Mbeki's critics said South Africa's mission in
neighbouring Zimbabwe
had not done nearly enough to bolster
confidence in the region.
"What is happening in Zimbabwe is having
a big effect," one trader
said.
Tony Leon, leader of South
Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance,
said > Mbeki's response had
been completely inadequate.
"Our lack of any cogent and coherent
response is costing us badly in
terms of the rand and in terms of our
regional credibility," he said.
"Our silence is a continuing
failure on our behalf."
Officials could not confirm a statement by
US assistant secretary of
state for African affairs Walter Kansteiner
that South Africa was
cooperating in a programme to isolate Mugabe. "We
are looking at that
statement," said Mamoepa.
Mugabe, in
power since 1980, says he is seizing farms to reverse the
legacy of
British colonial rule, which left about 70 percent of the
best land
in the hands of a tiny white minority.
A senior government source
said Pretoria believed the Zimbabwe crisis
was a domestic
issue.
"The guiding principle is still that this problem should
rest where it
belongs - with Britain. It is a British problem, a
British history
that got Zimbabwe where it is today," he
said.
However, he added that the government was becoming
increasingly
frustrated with Mugabe and the effect his policies were
having on
business confidence.
Stellenbosch Univeristy
political scientist Willie Breytenbach said
the arrest of two South
African farmers had given Mbeki a key chance to
send a strong signal
to Mugabe.
"Should Thabo (Mbeki) have been looking for an excuse to
change tack
or to get involved more directly, then, if he is clever,
he will use this
opportunity," he said. - Reuter
FinGaz
US courts Zim's neighbours to isolate
Mugabe
8/22/02 10:35:01 PM (GMT +2)
WASHINGTON -
The United States does not consider Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe a
legitimate leader and is working with South Africa, Botswana
and Mozambique
on ways to isolate him, a senior US official
said this
week.
The United States and Zimbabwe's neighbors are also looking
for ways
to help the internal opposition to Mugabe change the system,
Walter
Kansteiner, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told
a
briefing.
After controversial presidential elections in
Zimbabwe in March, US
President George W Bush said that Washington did not
accept the results
because the voting was flawed.
For the last
few months, while critical of Mugabe's policies toward
the opposition and
white commercial farmers, the United States has not
pressed hard for a change
of government in the southern African country.
But Kansteiner said:
"We do not see President Mugabe as the
democratically legitimate leader of
the country. The election was
fraudulent, and it was not free and it was not
fair."
"So we're working with others, other countries in the region
as well
as throughout the world, on how we can in fact together encourage the
body
politic of Zimbabwe to go forward and correct that situation and
start
providing an environment that would lead to a free and fair
election,"
he added.
"We're continuing to work with the
South Africans and the Botswanans
and the Mozambicans on what are some of the
strategies that we can use to
isolate Mugabe in the sense that he has to
realise that the political status
quo is not acceptable," Kansteiner
said.
The official, who runs US policy toward Africa, said
strategies could
include more travel and financial restrictions aimed at
Zimbabwean leaders
but not trade sanctions, especially during a time of food
shortages in
southern Africa.
The United States imposed some
travel and financial restrictions
earlier this year and Kansteiner said
dozens of Zimbabwean officials had
been denied US visas.
Kansteiner and a colleague, Agency for International
Development
administrator Andrew Natsios, coupled their criticism of Mugabe
with
criticism of the way his government has handled the food shortages,
which
are expected to affect more than six million Zimbabweans later this
year.
Natsios announced that the United States was contributing an
extra 190
000 tonnes of food to southern Africa, bringing the US total for
the year to
about 500 000. The United Nations says the region as a whole will
need 1.2
million tonnes between June 2002 and March 2003.
He
added: "Unless the commercial markets in Zimbabwe are freed of
the
restrictions the Mugabe government is putting on them we will not be able
to
respond adequately to the famine."
Mugabe has ordered white
commercial farmers to abandon their land
without compensation, purportedly to
make way for landless peasants. But
Mugabe's opponents say much of the land
has gone to political favourites.
- Reuter
FinGaz
GMB to mill genetically-modified maize
By
Nqobile Nyathi Assistant Editor
8/22/02 10:30:32 PM (GMT
+2)
THE Zimbabwe government and the United Nations' World Food
Programme
(WFP) have reached an exchange agreement that will see the
country's Grain
Marketing Board (GMB) milling a shipment of previously
rejected biotech
maize, it was learnt yesterday.
Sources said
the agreement, finalised last week, involved the WFP
delivering 17 000
tonnes of GMO maize to the GMB in exchange for an
equal amount of maize that
the United Nations agency would distribute to
non-governmental organisations
involved in the distribution of food aid in
Zimbabwe.
The GMB,
the sole trader in grain because of the country's food
crisis, will then mill
the GMO maize, which was donated to Zimbabwe by the
United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) and had initially
been rejected by the
government.20
The government feared the possible planting of the
GMO grain and the
subsequent contamination of future maize crops, which might
be difficult to
export to countries with stringent policies on importing
genetically
modified food.
"The GMB will mill the GMO maize and
then distribute it," a source
told the Financial Gazette.
"The
idea is to make sure that the GMO maize is milled because the
Zimbabwean
government had said GMO maize could be imported but had to be
milled
first."
There was no immediate comment from the GMB. WFP
spokeswoman Makena
Walker said the agency would only be able to comment on
the matter next
week.
However, sources said the exchange
agreement would also get around
USAID's and the WFP's reluctance to release
the donated GMO maize directly
to the government to mill.
The
ruling ZANU PF has been accused of using food aid as a weapon
against its
main opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and
international
agencies have preferred to distribute food through
non-governmental
organisations.
USAID administrator Andrew Natsios said this week:
"This is an
exchange of food - our maize for their maize. They mill it at
their own
expense and distribute it through their mechanisms. We take the 17
000
tonnes of maize they give us and we distribute it through the NGO
community
and the UN."
It was however not possible to ascertain
this week if the memorandum
of understanding on GMO maize would extend to
other exports of genetically
modified grain.
About half of
Zimbabwe's 13 million population faces starvation
because of food shortages
partly attributed to drought and to the
government's controversial land
reform programme.
Walker said the WFP had received US$79.7 million
of the US$229.4
million humanitarian assistance the UN had appealed for in
July on behalf of
Zimbabwe.20
She said: "WFP has received
contributions amounting to US$115 million
against the appeal for US$507
million (for southern Africa as a whole).
This is just 22.7 percent of
the appeal sum.
"The Zimbabwe portion of the regional appeal was
US$229.4 million. To
date, donations to Zimbabwe under the appeal stand at
US$79.7 million, or 35
percent of the appeal figure. WFP is very grateful for
the response to the
appeal, but calls for urgent donations in order to
provide food to the 3.9
million hungry Zimbabweans that WFP is targeting by
December this year."
The food crisis is expected to continue into
next year because of the
eviction of commercial farmers who produce a large
portion of Zimbabwe's
food crops, the inability of the settlers replacing
them to finance their
crops and the possibility of another El Nino- induced
drought.
MDC shadow minister for agriculture Renson Gasela told
journalists
yesterday: "We understand that a ship is arriving in Beira
in
September with about 20 000 tonnes of wheat. But there'll be nothing
between
now and until the ship arrives.
"From the government's
point of view, there is 55 000 hectares under
wheat, but the fact of the
matter is that no more than 30 000 hectares is
under wheat. This will be
sufficient to take us (from the harvest in
October) to November or December
and from then on, there will be no wheat to
take us to October
2003."
He said the country was also likely to run out of soya beans
used to
produce cooking oil at the end of August, while resettled farmers
were
unlikely to grow enough maize to feed the nation.
"It will
cost about $70 billion for the farmers to grow their own food
but the
government has provided $8.5 billion," Gasela said.
"This will not
even begin to cover the food of these people and I'm
not even talking about
feeding the nation. We know that there is talk of an
El Nino, but even
without an El Nino it's going to be impossible for farmers
to grow any
maize."
FinGaz
July Moyo guilty of contempt of court
Staff
Reporter
8/22/02 10:29:47 PM (GMT +2)
ZIMBABWE'S High
Court has convicted another government minister of
contempt of court after he
refused to comply with an earlier order to
process an application by a local
financial institution to retrench former
workers.
High Court
judge Justice George Smith last week sentenced Labour
Minister July Moyo to a
wholly-suspended three months' jail term and fined
him $50 000 for ignoring
an order issued by Justice Yunus Omerjee on January
25 2002 after Beverley
Building Society challenged the ministry's decision
to oppose an application
to retrench some of its managers.
The order by Justice Omerjee
compelled Moyo, who had by that time
withdrawn his opposition to the
retrenchments, to urgently process the
application by the building society
and to ensure that the outcome did not
disadvantage the affected
workers.
A copy of the court order was served on the minister on
February 4 and
he was supposed to make a decision within 14 days as required
by Section Six
of Zimbabwe's retrenchment regulations.
He
however ignored the order, resulting in the latest court action
by
Beverley.
Justice Smith said Moyo's failure to comply with
the court order
financially prejudiced Beverley, which continued to pay
the 17
managers it had already retrenched and left the affected workers in a
state
of uncertainty while their case remained unresolved.
"The
respondent is declared to be in contempt of court," Justice Smith
said in the
judgment handed down on August 15.
"The respondent is ordered to
pay a fine of $50 000 and, in addition,
is committed to prison for three
months which is suspended on condition that
the respondent complies with the
order granted by Justice Omerjee on 24
January 2002 within 14 days of the
date of this order."
But the Attorney General's Office, which
represented Moyo in the case,
yesterday said it had received instructions to
appeal against Justice
Smith's judgment.
"We have been
instructed to appeal against the judgment and the papers
should be filed by
the end of day today (Wednesday)," one official told the
Financial
Gazette.
No comment was available from Moyo yesterday.
He becomes the second Zimbabwean government minister in a month to
be
convicted of contempt of court.
Justice Minister Patrick
Chinamasa was convicted by Justice Fergus
Blackie on July 17 and sentenced to
three months' imprisonment after
trivialising a judgment by Justice Mahomed
Adam in a case involving three
Americans accused of possessing illegal
arms.
Chinamasa has challenged the sentence and High Court judge
Charles
Hungwe yesterday confirmed an order by Justice Ben Hlatshwayo setting
aside
the conviction.
Justice Hungwe ordered that a fresh trial
be held after lawyers
representing Chinamasa argued that the minister
was not given the
opportunity to defend himself.
"It is ordered
that leave be and is hereby granted to the registrar of
this honourable
court, in consultation with the applicant (Chinamasa) and/or
his legal
practitioners, to set down the matter in the main citation for
contempt of
court for a hearing on the merits," says part of the order
granted
yesterday.
Another senior civil servant, George Charamba, the
permanent secretary
of the Ministry of Information and Publicity in the
President's Office, is
also facing charges of contempt of court. Judgment on
the matter was
reserved at the end of last month.
FinGaz
Anglo finalises Zambian mine pull-out
8/22/02 7:55:20 PM (GMT +2)
LONDON/JOHANNESBURG - Minerals giant
Anglo American Plc said this week
it had reached final terms for quitting
Zambia's Konkola Copper Mines (KCM)
and would pay US$30 million in cash to
keep the operations running while new
management took over.
Anglo said in January it would invest no further cash in the Zambian
miner,
casting a cloud over the country's copper production and the southern
African
country's economy, which relies on the metal for the bulk of its
hard
currency revenues.
Anglo said this week it would provide for a
further US$34 million
against KCM, in addition to US$350 million already
written down against the
poorly performing investment, which had been a drain
on Anglo because of
poor global metal prices.
Anglo said in a
statement that since January it had contributed US$82
million to keep KCM
running while discussing its future with other
stakeholders.
In
addition to US$30 million in cash, Anglo would give KCM US$26.5
million as a
loan on favourable terms, in order to keep the mines operating.
"We
expect the cash contribution of US$30 million and US$26.5 million
to be fully
drawn this year. Presuming they will be fully drawn this year,
there will be
no further obligations on Anglo of any nature," Anglo Base
Metals CEO Simon
Thompson told a conference call to analysts and
journalists.
Transitional management arrangements had been agreed and Anglo would
continue
to provide some services until the end of next March, to ensure a
smooth
handover to the new management.
Anglo said it had agreed the
restructuring with the Zambian government
and investors and financiers,
including ZCCM Investment Holdings Plc, the
International Finance Corp, CDC
Group Plc and Anglo's subsidiary Zambia
Copper Investments Ltd.
Under terms of the agreement, ZCI would own 58 percent and ZCCM 42
percent of
KCM, which operates the Nchanga and Konkola copper and cobalt
mines and the
Nampundwe pyrite mine. They account roughly for 67 percent of
Zambia's copper
production.
Anglo said it would set up an independent company, the
Copperbelt
Development Foundation, and transfer to it 41.4 percent of ZCI.
Any income
to the new company will be used to invest in diversifying the
economy of
Zambia's copperbelt from its reliance on the metal.
At the conclusion of the transactions, both KCM and ZCI will be
substantially
debt-free, Anglo said.
Zambian Finance Minister Emmanuel Kasonde
this week welcomed the final
agreement.
"I am happy to announce
that after protracted and lengthy negotiations
we have finally signed an
agreement with Anglo American which will put KCM
on a sound footing," Kasonde
said.
"Six months ago the mines were threatened with closure
following a
unilateral decision by Anglo to leave. But after strenuous
negotiations,
(the) government has put in place a plan that will see KCM
operate viably."
- Reuter
FinGaz
Libya's Tamoil faces bankruptcy
8/22/02
10:27:20 PM (GMT +2)
LIBYAN state-run oil firm Tamoil faces
bankruptcy over its dealings
with Zimbabwe, according to media
reports.
In an interview with freelance South African journalist
Jean Jacques
Cornish on SW Radio Africa, a station owned by Zimbabweans and
beamed from
London, the Libyan firm has been forced to sell some of its
assets and could
be forced to lay off workers.
Cornish, who has
investigated the impact of Tripoli's fuel deal with
Zimbabwe and has
written articles on the implications on Tamoil, told
SW Radio Africa that
Gaddafi had allowed the Libyan firm to run to the
ground.
"He
has run it or he has allowed it to make too generous a deal with
(President
Robert) Mugabe and as a result they have had to sell bits of it
off, they've
had to curtail other deals they were going to do and they are
going to have
to lay off staff," said Cornish, who last week wrote a story
in South
Africa's Business Day newspaper alleging that Tamoil was facing
cashflow
problems.
He alleged in the article that Tamoil temporarily cut
supplies to
Zimbabwe for 21 days in May after Harare failed to make the
US$90
million quarterly payment.
"Unless Libya negotiates a
US$500 million soft loan for Tamoil, more
of the company's US$2 billion in
assets might have to come under the
hammer," he wrote in the Business
Day.
However, Zimbabwean oil industry sources yesterday dismissed
the
claims that the country was in default on the Libyan fuel
deal.
Cornish also alleged that Tamoil was likely to pull out of a
deal to
buy 40 percent of Egypt's Midor refinery and that some executives
from
Tamoil, which has offices in Monaco, London, Milan and Geneva, had
been
sacked for complaining and for providing information to the
international
media.
They included former Tamoil chief executive
Muhamed Abdul Jawad.
Mugabe, who has been banished from most of the
international community
over allegations of promoting lawlessness in
Zimbabwe, has offered the
Libyans stakes in some state-run firms and
farms.
Cornish alleged that more than 1 500 Libyans had been given
land on
farms acquired from white farmers by the government while more than
10 000
Zimbabwean passports have been issued to the North Africans so that
they
could travel and get around sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe's
leadership.
There was no immediate comment from the government on
Cornish's
charges.
FinGaz
Government admits eviction orders invalid
Staff
Reporter
8/22/02 10:26:39 PM (GMT +2)
THE government,
which is arresting white commercial farmers for
defying its Section 8 orders
to vacate their properties by August 10, has
acknowledged that the orders are
invalid.
This emerged in the High Court yesterday where about 58
farmers sought
the court's intervention to declare Section 8 orders null and
void.20
It emerged that the civil division of the Attorney
General's Office,
which is representing the government, had written to
more than 30
commercial farmers challenging the validity of the orders saying
the state
had no objection to the applications made by the
farmers.
"The respondent (the state) doesn't oppose the relief
sought by the
applicant (the farmer). The respondent reserves the right to
argue on cost
of the application," says most of the government's responses to
the farmers'
application challenging Section 8 orders.
Despite
the government's admission that the orders were heavily flawed
and not served
properly, it has directed police to descend heavily on the
farmers, arresting
hundreds who have remained on their farms, including
those not served with
the eviction orders.
State lawyers who have not lodged any
opposition to the farmers' court
applications yesterday implored High Court
judge Justice Charles Hungwe to
postpone the matter for two weeks, saying
there were some serious security
issues that needed to be addressed
first.
State lawyer Nicholas Mutsonziwa of the Attorney General's
Office said
although the state was not opposing the farmers' applications,
there was
need to first ensure the security of the farmers and their property
before
the court granted the farmers' applications.
Justice
Hungwe, who was reluctant to postpone the matter saying since
most of the
farmers concerned were in the Hurungwe area and therefore the
state could
address its security concerns within a day or two, later decided
to postpone
the matter for only a week.20
Jeremy Callow of Harare law firm
Stumbles and Rowe and Lewis Uriri of
Honey and Blanckenberg are representing
the majority of the farmers.
The court has in the past nullified
dozens of Section 8 orders, but
the farmers were still arrested after defying
the August 10 deadline.20
As of yesterday afternoon, 217 commercial
farmers had been arrested,
with some still held at police stations while
others had been released on $5
000 bail.
FinGaz
Libya ups stake in Zimbabwean bank
Staff
Reporter
8/22/02 10:26:09 PM (GMT +2)
THE Libyan Arab
Foreign Bank (LAFB) is now the third largest
shareholder in the Commercial
Bank of Zimbabwe (CBZ), according to the
Global Credit Rating Company,
indicating growing influence of the Libyans in
Zimbabwe's
economy.
The Libyans, who first took up a stake in the Zimbabwean
commercial
bank in August last year, now control 12.4 percent of CBZ and are
third only
to South Africa's ABSA Group Limited and the government of
Zimbabwe.
ABSA is still the single largest shareholder, controlling
25.9 percent
of CBZ while the government owns 17.3 percent.
Other major shareholders are the National Social Security Authority,
First
Mutual Life Assurance Society of Zimbabwe and Zimnat
Investment
Corporation.
Individuals and other small investors
own about 28 percent of
Zimbabwe's third largest commercial bank, which is
also known as the jewel
Bank.
The Libyans have benefited from
the disposal of the 15 percent stake
previously held by the International
Finance Corporation, the private sector
arm of the World Bank.20
"During the period under review, International Finance Corporation
disposed of its stake in CBZ and 12.4 percent of the bank was
purchased by
Libyan Arab Foreign Bank," says South African-based
Global
Credit
Rating Company in a report released
yesterday.
Government critics view the investment by the Libyans in
the CBZ and
other firms in which the state has a stake as President Robert
Mugabe's
reward to Tripoli for its role in easing Zimbabwe's fuel
crisis.
The CBZ has in the past two years been in the forefront of
efforts to
mobilise resources to deal with the country's fuel crisis, which
began in
1999 after international financial lenders cut off balance of
payments
support in protest against the government's policies.
The LAFB, the international arm of the Libyan central bank, came to
the
rescue of Zimbabwe last year by offering the cash-strapped National
Oil
Company of Zimbabwe a US$360 million loan for the purchase of fuel
from
Tripoli.
In return, the Libyans were to get shareholding in
key government
companies and a range of food products from
Zimbabwe.
Commentators also allege that Mugabe has parted with
farms seized from
white farmers and some of Zimbabwe's most valuable assets
to ensure that
Tripoli continues to supply fuel to the troubled southern
African country.
FinGaz
Libyan spy spills the beans
By Sydney Masamvu
Political Editor
8/22/02 10:13:46 PM (GMT +2)
LIBYAN spy
Yousef Murgham, summarily deported from Zimbabwe last week,
has revealed
startling details of Libya's growing economic and military
stranglehold on
Zimbabwe, which is immersed in its worst crisis for
survival.
Murgham's details are revealed in a letter he wrote to President
Robert
Mugabe before his abrupt deportation to Libya last Thursday amid
accusations
he was engaged in activities which threatened Zimbabwe's
security and
interests.
His letter is now part of court documents which his
lawyer in Harare,
Jonathan Samkange, is using to legally challenge the spy's
deportation,
which Murgham says was engineered by Zimbabwe's spy Central
Intelligence
Organisation (CIO).
Murgham wrote to Mugabe on
April 16 this year explaining several roles
which he said he had played to
foster solid ties between Zimbabwe and Libya
since he was posted to Harare as
a diplomat in 1986.
At the time of his deportation, Murgham had
resigned from working as a
diplomat of the Libyan Embassy in Harare, although
he had forged strong ties
with senior officials of Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF
party.
It could not be ascertained this week whether Mugabe
personally read
the contents of Murgham's letter but intelligence sources
said the President
was fully briefed about the Libyan's
deportation.
Murgham's letter to Mugabe was prompted by letters
written by State
Security Minister Nicholas Goche and CIO director-general
Elisha Muzonzini
to Mussa Kosa, a director of Libyan Security in Tripoli,
detailing his
alleged misconduct and frosty relationship with Mahmoud Youseff
Azzabi,
Libya's ambassador in Harare.
In the letter to Mugabe,
Murgham says security authorities in Harare
had in actual fact made a request
to have him recalled.
He points out that he handled a range of
assignments for Zimbabwe's
government, including the first meeting involving
Mugabe and ZANU PF's
publicity boss Nathan Shamuyarira and Kosa in Windhoek,
Namibia, on March 21
in 1990 which resulted in US$100 000 being contributed
by Libya to ZANU PF's
election campaign.
Murgham also points out
to Mugabe that he coordinated the visit of
Shamuyarira to a conference in
Tripoli, where Shamuyarira met Kosa and
another official, resulting in ZANU
PF being given another US$4 million.
He states that US$1 million
had been deposited into the account of
Jongwe Printers, which publish ZANU
PF's propaganda material, helping the
party to weather a financial crisis it
was facing at the time.
He states that he arranged for a Zimbabwean
delegation to visit oil
companies and banks in Libya in 2000 to facilitate
the supply of fuel to
Zimbabwe and initiate discussions on the export of beef
to Libya.
The spy reminded Mugabe that he coordinated and
accompanied Foreign
Minister Stan Mudenge, Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi
and army commander
Constantine Chiwenga to Libya in 2000 where a deal was
struck to supply
Zimbabwe with two MiG-23 fighter jets and other weapons and
ammunition.
He said he coordinated a meeting held at Mugabe's
Zimbabwe House
between the Presideny and Colonel Mustafa Habishe, a Libyan
official, in the
presence of Chiwenga in July 2000 which resulted in support
for Zimbabwe in
the following areas:
- agreement that the Libyan
army invests in Zimbabwe;
- receiving a request of the Zimbabwe
army to get weapons and
ammunition;
and
- arranging the
training of pilots and technicians on the use of
MiG-23 fighters in Libya in
liaison with Zimbabwe's Air Force head Perence
Shiri and his deputy Henry
Muchena.20
Murgham says he played a crucial role in establishing a
company on
behalf of the Libyan army in Zimbabwe to invest the money of the
Libyan army
owed by Zimbabwe in the sectors of transport, real estate, farms
and general
trading.
He says he arranged the visit of Libyan
officials Rajab Sowan and
Mohamed Mussa, both from the Revolutionary Guard of
Libya, for talks with
Mugabe in the presence of an official from the CIO,
where an agreement was
reached to start the building of the Revolutionary
Guard in Zimbabwe and
launch its investment in the country.
Murgham says he helped ZANU PF with the establishment of what he calls
the
Gaddafi Sisters Foundation in Zimbabwe in conjuction with ZANU PF
politicians
Shuvai Mahofa, Nyasha Chikwinya and Jocelyn Chiwenga, the wife
of the army
commander, during a visit by ZANU PF's women league to Tripoli
in August
2001.
He says this led to the three women having a meeting with
Mugabe and
Gadaffi during celebrations held in Libya at the
time.
He states that in the field of coordination with the CIO, he
monitored
activities of Lebanese, Islamic, Western, Libyan and opposition
groups in
Zimbabwe.
He says the team involved in these
activities involved CIO officers
Sydney Nyanungo, Godfrey Madzorera, Mernard
Muzariri and a Libyan national
identified only as F Utah.
Murgham left Harare in a cloud after the government accused him of
working
with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and
British
intelligence and of seeking to unwind a key deal under which Libya
is
supplying fuel to Zimbabwe.
Unconfirmed Zimbabwe media
reports also say he was being punished by
Harare for turning his back on a
plot to eliminate MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai ahead of the March
presidential ballot, controversially won by
Mugabe.
The
government has not commented on this charge.
It was not known this
week when the Libyan's challenge to his
deportation would be heard in
court.
FinGaz
Commonwealth gears up to expel Zimbabwe
By Abel
Mutsakani News Editor
8/22/02 10:23:47 PM (GMT +2)
ZIMBABWE could be expelled from the 54-nation Commonwealth and a
trade
embargo slapped on the country on top of smart sanctions already
imposed on
President Robert Mugabe and his chief backers, it was established
this week.
The tough action was reported as tension rose
dramatically between the
Commonwealth and Mugabe, who was reportedly refusing
to even respond to
telephone calls from Commonwealth secretary-general Don
McKinnon.
Mugabe is also said to have snubbed efforts by McKinnon,
the
London-based Commonwealth secretariat as well as those of a
three-member
special Commonwealth panel on Zimbabwe to resolve the country's
deepening
crisis, triggered by Mugabe's land policies and a disputed
March
presidential ballot.
Willard Chiwewe, senior permanent
secretary in Zimbabwe's Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, confirmed yesterday
there was a breakdown of cooperation
between Harare and McKinnon, but denied
Mugabe had not responded to
telephone calls from McKinnon.
He
spoke as the United States for the first time publicly announced it
was
working with three southern African countries to isolate Mugabe for
what
Washington terms his fraudulent re-election in March.
The
15-nation European Union, the US, Canada, Switzerland and New
Zealand have
already imposed targeted sanctions against Mugabe and 72 of his
officials
over the poll which they have blasted as deeply flawed.
In a sign
of growing impatience by the international community over
Harare's conduct,
US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter
Kansteiner this
week said Washington did not recognise Mugabe's presidency
and wanted him
isolated further.
He specifically mentioned Africa's powerhouse
South Africa, Mozambique
and Botswana as countries he said Washington was
working with to isolate
Mugabe, in power for the past 22 years.
Pacific Commonwealth nations also ratcheted up the pressure for
Zimbabwe's expulsion from the group, demanding at the weekend that the
club
must act on Zimbabwe as it did on Fiji, which it suspended and slapped
with
trade sanctions after a coup in May 2000.
The 11 Pacific states
made the call during their annual Pacific Island
Forum held in
Fiji.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who heads the
Commonwealth
troika on Zimbabwe which earlier this year suspended Harare from
meetings of
the Commonwealth's councils, boldly endorsed the position of the
Pacific
nations in a move which others said could be a signal of the way
the
committee would act on Zimbabwe.
"The rule book was thrown
at Fiji. There is no reason why other
countries should be treated more
sparingly in a situation like this
than Fiji was treated," Howard told
journalists after the Pacific nations'
meeting.
South Africa's
President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian leader Olusegun
Obasanjo are the
other members of the Commonwealth special committee
on Zimbabwe.
Howard said: "The countries gathered here comprise one fifth of
the
membership of the Commonwealth so this is no small expression
of
Commonwealth opinion (on Zimbabwe).
"I think there would be
some countries in Africa that would be less
sympathetic to the point of
view put here but even many of them would
agree with it."
Howard
said ties with Zimbabwe had hit their lowest ebb, with Mugabe
"utterly
unresponsive" to overtures by the Commonwealth, a club of Britain
and its
former colonies.
"President Mugabe has been utterly unresponsive to
the approaches of
the secretary- general of the Commonwealth and quite
indifferent to world
opinion," Howard said.
He noted that even
Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf, whose country
was suspend by the
Commonwealth after his 1999 military coup, had cooperated
more positively
than Mugabe.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who spoke to
journalists
together with Howard, said relations had soured to the
extent that
Mugabe was not even returning McKinnon's telephone
calls.
"It is a matter of public record that Mr Mugabe will not
respond to Mr
McKinnon's calls. Zimbabwe is simply not engaging either with
the
secretary-general, the secretariat, or with Mr Howard and his group at
this
time."
Chiwewe dismissed as hypocritical and racist
assertions that Harare
was unresponsive or uncooperative.
"They
(Clark and Howard) are very dishonest and hypocritical because
they are
deliberately ignoring the context within which the actions they
allege are
supposed to have occurred," he told the Financial Gazette.
"On the
issue of McKinnon, Zimbabwe has been suspended from the
councils of the
Commonwealth so against such background under what umbrella
would he want to
contact Zimbabwe?"
Chiwewe said the Commonwealth troika had wrongly
suspended Zimbabwe,
basing its action on a report produced by election
observers who concurred
with several other international missions that the
March poll was a fraud.
The Commonwealth Group Observer Mission
(CGOM) was led by former
Nigerian head of state Abdulsalaam
Abubakar.
Said Chiwewe: "They are ignoring Zimbabwe's argument that
the CGOM
report was seriously flawed, knowing that to accept it would be to
betray
the white Commonwealth and their kith and kin in Zimbabwe. This is not
about
democracy; it is all about racism."
Howard sikirted
questions by journalists on whether expulsion and
sanctions were the
next course of action given Harare's refusal to
cooperate with either
McKinnon or the troika.
"I find the situation completely
unsatisfactory and obviously could
have significant consequences as far as
the relationship between Zimbabwe
and the Commonwealth is concerned," the
prime minister would only say.
As well as imposing limited trade
sanctions and expelling Fiji, the
Commonwealth appointed a special
envoy to the Pacific nation who
helped facilitate dialogue between various
interest groups there.
Analysts said Commonwealth trade sanctions
against Zimbabwe - even at
a limited level - would spell doom for the
government because such embargoes
could starve Harare of critical support
from its neighbours, all of whom are
members of Commonwealth.
Others noted a 1986 blockade of Lesotho by South Africa, which
eventually
triggered a coup in Lesotho, toppling long-ruling prime
minister Chief
Leabua Jonathan.
South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana encircle
landlocked Zimbabwe.
The analysts noted that it was the support of
Pretoria, as well as
that of Zambia, Botswana and Mozambique which had kept a
financially
crippled Harare just afloat.
University of Zimbabwe
political science professor Masipula Sithole
said: "If there are
Commonwealth sanctions against Zimbabwe, then
there would be nothing to wait
for except a slow but sure collapse of the
government."
But
Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party have refused to stand by and
watch the
international community's noose tightening around the neck.
Two
weeks ago a ZANU PF delegation was in South Africa for talks with
that
country's ruling African National Congress (ANC).
Observers say the
talks - followed barely seven days later by another
round of talks this time
involving ZANU PF and Botswana's ruling Botswana
Democratic Party (BDP) -
were an attempt by Mugabe to marshal Pretoria and
Gaborone's help to resist
Harare's possible expulsion from the Commonwealth.
Pretoria is also
the chairman of the Africa Union and Gaborone is the
head of the influential
Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, whose voice
is critical in any
decision to expel Zimbabwe.
ZANU PF's national chairman John Nkomo
refused this week to disclose
the subject of discussions between the
Zimbabwean party and the BDP and the
ANC.
ANC secretary-general
Kgalema Motlanthe denied Zimbabwe was seeking
South Africa's help to fight
off mounting calls that it be expelled from the
Commonwealth.
"No, there has been no such discussion," Motlanthe told the Financial
Gazette
by telephone from South Africa.
"As a member of the Commonwealth,
we would have to hear out those
calling for Zimbabwe's expulsion and then
relying on our understanding of
the situation we would then have to decide
what position to take," he said.
Sithole said Zimbabwe was unlikely
to muster enough support over its
expulsion because it had worsened its
pariah image by continuing to evict
and arrest hundreds of white farmers who
have refused to leave their farms
because they have no other
homes.
The government is expelling the farmers to make room for
landless
blacks, most of them its supporters, under controversial
reforms which
deny compensation to the farmers.
Ross Herbert, a
senior researcher on Africa at the South Africa
Institute for
International Affairs, said Commonwealth sanctions
against Harare would be "a
further step in isolating Mugabe but he may not
immediately fall as result of
that".
"But it would be merely a matter of time before that flash
point is
reached when people rebel because of the negative effect of
the
sanctions, coupled with the deteriorating economic situation
and
worsening food shortages," Herbert said.
lZimbabwe
accused the United States and Britain yesterday of a
"racist" campaign to
isolate Mugabe internationally and maintain white
economic dominance in
southern Africa.
The US said this week it did not consider Mugabe,
who won a
controversial election in March, a legitimate leader and was
working
with governments in the region to isolate him.
"The
legitimacy of our political system or our President is not
dependent on
America, Britain or any other country but on
Zimbabweans," a senior
Zimbabwean foreign affairs official said.
"The bullying tactics
that America and Britain are using against us
are meant to frustrate our
quest for social and economic justice, to stop
our programme to redistribute
some of the very large tracts of land held by
whites here to the indigenous
black people," he said. - Reuter
The Times
Letters to the
Editor
August 22,
2002
Mugabe's academic
life
From the Vice-Chancellor of the University of
London
University of London Sir, It is
true that President
Mugabe holds four University of London degrees (letter,
August 16), all
obtained by private study as an external
student.
He obtained a BSc (Econ) in 1958 when
working as a
teacher; the LLB and LLM while in detention in the late Sixties
and early
Seventies; and the MSc (Econ) in 1985 when already Prime
Minister.
Our external programme, which even now
has 30,000
students around the world, has a unique record in offering
degree-level
opportunities to people denied access to conventional higher
education,
including political prisoners (such as Nelson Mandela) and
prisoners of war.
Neither intellectual ability
nor academic training
offers any guarantee of ethical or civilised behaviour,
but perhaps it was a
mistake in 1958 to grant Mr Mugabe an exemption from the
paper in
constitutional law by virtue of his earlier studies in South Africa,
since
he might have acquired a better appreciation of the value and
importance of
the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, the freedom
of the
press, the separation of powers and fundamental human
rights.
We may not be proud of Mr Mugabe as one
of our
external graduates, but we - and British higher education generally -
can be
proud of our external programme.
Yours
faithfully,
GRAHAM
ZELLICK,
Office of the
Vice-Chancellor,
University of London, Senate House,
Malet Street,
WC1E
7HU.
vice-chancellor@lon.ac.uk
August 19.
Is Zimbabwe And the Region Immune to the Amin Tragedy?
Financial
Gazette (Harare)
OPINION
August 22, 2002
Posted to the web August
21, 2002
Masipula Sithole
I WAS browsing the Internet
searching for situations where "loyal" generals
moved to occupy state houses.
My purpose, as always, was to weave an article
warning against the view that
it will never happen here, notwithstanding my
stated position in the past
that a military coup in Zimbabwe was unlikely.
What I found on Idi Amin
of Uganda was amazing. But I won't tell you how
Amin outfoxed Milton Obote,
the founder leader of independent Uganda - maybe
I might later. For now, I
want to share with you what Amin did during the
eight long years he was in
power (1971-1979) - laying waste a beautiful and
prosperous country - and the
international community's response to him.
Upon assuming power in a
popular coup in 1971 in which he was assisted by
British and Israeli
intelligence in Uganda, Idi Amin Dada (as he is some
times known) is said to
have appointed "well-qualified administrators" to
most of the positions in
his first cabinet, but he "paid no attention to
their advice".
To
control the army, Amin relied on the support of soldiers he had
recruited
from the northwest corner of Uganda, his home area. In his first
year as
president, he ordered massacres of large numbers of Langi and Acholi
troops
who were suspected of being loyal to the ousted Obote.
Amin
made demands to the British and Israelis for large increases in
military
assistance. He was rebuffed. He then reacted by expelling British
and Israeli
advisers and turned to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi who gave him
immediate
support.
In doing so, Amin became the first black African leader to
renounce ties
with the Jewish state of Israel and side instead with Islamic
nations in the
Middle East conflict over possession of the historic region of
Palestine.
As such, Amin made anti-Semitic outbursts, including praising
Adolf Hitler
for killing Jewish people during the Second World
War.
Later, Amin announced that God had told him in a dream to expel
Uganda's
Indian and Pakistani populations, who owned most of major businesses
in the
country. At first, only non-Ugandan citizens were affected, but
eventually
even those with citizenship were also expelled.
Officially,
about 40 000 Indians and Pakistanis were expelled, although many
others fled
across the borders. Their homes and businesses were allocated to
Ugandans
connected to Amin in what was popularly called the
"nationalisation" and
"indigenisation" of the Ugandan economy.
Because many of the new business
owners lacked experience running profitable
enterprises, corruption and
mismanagement quickly caused many of these
businesses to fail. Shortages
developed leading to high prices, more
corruption, as greater involvement by
the state in the economy occurred.
Meanwhile, Amin responded to the
ever-rising inflation by ordering his
minister of finance to simply print
more paper money.
After a counter-coup attempt orchestrated by Obote from
Tanzania, Amin grew
more paranoid and brutally repressive. Ugandans who
criticised Amin or whom
the government considered potentially dangerous to
the regime were seized by
roving squads of soldiers and summarily killed;
their bodies were often
found dismembered and horribly
mutilated.
Members of the Acholi and Langi ethnic groups, who had formed
Obote's
support base, were particularly targeted. The number of civilians
killed by
the Amin regime is disputed - it is often estimated at 300 000 and
some say
it may have been as high as 500 000.
Among those killed were
Uganda's chief justice, murdered just after he had
ruled against the
government by ordering a British businessman who had been
arrested without a
warrant to be released; the vice-chancellor of Makerere
University; several
ministers who served in Amin's government; and the
Anglican
archbishop.
However, most victims were ordinary citizens from targeted
ethnic groups or
districts, or were simply killed at the whim of Amin's
militia. Amin was
condemned by much of the international community for his
brutality, but when
Britain and the United States cut aid to Uganda in 1972,
he successfully
turned to Libya and the Soviet Union. However, he was able to
purchase
luxury goods and military and communications equipment from private
British
and US companies during most of his rule.
In 1975 fellow
African heads of state elected Amin chairman of the
Organisation of African
Unity. He started calling himself the "Hero of
Africa" and "Conqueror of the
British Empire".
In 1976 Palestinian and West German terrorists hijacked
an Air France plane
with a large number of Israeli passengers, and Amin
allowed them to land at
Entebbe Airport and use it as a base. An Israeli
commando raid successfully
rescued more than 100 hostages; but three
hostages, all of the terrorists,
an Israeli commander and about 40 Ugandan
soldiers were killed in the raid.
In revenge, Amin had a remaining
passenger, an elderly woman who had been
taken to a Ugandan hospital,
murdered. The United States government did not
pass a trade embargo on Uganda
until 1978, a year before the overthrow of
the Ugandan regime.
Amin
harboured territorial ambitions over Kenya and Tanzania, which would
result
in Uganda having access to the Indian Ocean. Accordingly, he
threatened to
invade Kenya; the Kenyans reminded him of Mau Mau. Then he
invaded Tanzania,
seizing a strip of Tanzanian territory north of the Kagera
River in late
1978. That was a fatal mistake.
The Tanzanian government swiftly
mobilised its army and forced out the
Ugandan soldiers. Then, joined by a
contingent of anti-Amin Ugandan rebels,
the Tanzanian army invaded Uganda in
early 1979. By April they had fought
their way to Kampala, the Ugandan
capital, and overthrown Amin's fragile
government, which had alienated the
majority population through its
murderous ways.
Amin fled to Libya
where he was offered asylum, but after an altercation
between his security
guards and the Libyan police, he was forced to leave at
the end of 1979. He
then accepted asylum in Saudi Arabia, settling in Jiddah
where he remains up
to this day.
Amin's rule had many lasting negative consequences for
Uganda and perhaps
for the whole East African region: it led to low regard
for human life and
personal security, widespread corruption and the
disruption of trade and
commerce.
Up to this day, 31 years since the
coup incident, Uganda and the East
African region has not quite recovered
from the era of the "Hero of Africa"
and "Conqueror of the British Empire",
Idi Amin (Dada).
Is Zimbabwe and the region immune to the Amin tragedy
which started with
laughter?
Professor Masipula Sithole is a political
science lecturer at the University
of Zimbabwe and director of the
Harare-based Mass Public Opinion Institute.
Daily News
Feature
Not any more.
8/21/02
9:09:44 AM (GMT +2)
With HIV/Aids grandparents find
themselves struggling to feed the
children of their dead sons and daughters.
Zimbabwe used to be
self-sufficient in maize.
But this
year, drought and farmer intimidation have caused production
to plummet by 70
percent. Under current plans, a famine can be averted if
the government, aid
agencies and private traders each import one-third of
the maize deficit. The
aid agencies should keep their part of the bargain,
at least until Christmas.
But the government is broke, so scepticism abounds
that Mugabe will be able
to import 500 000 tonnes of maize in the coming
months, as
promised.
He is refusing to allow private traders to bring in food
from abroad,
because prices would inevitably rise, perhaps as much as
tenfold. Foreign
donors are desperately trying to persuade Mugabe that this
is the only way
forward. Those with money, mostly in urban areas, could
become
self-sufficient, leaving the aid agencies and government to
concentrate on
the most vulnerable people in rural areas. But this would also
highlight to
Mugabe's supporters how poor his policies have been, so he has
refused to
listen. Instead, his cronies have been accused of playing dirty
politics
with food aid. In June, war veterans shut down a Catholic Church
project to
feed 40 000 people in the western Binga province.
They claimed that the project, which is funded by the British agency
Cafod,
was being run by supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change
party. Some 13 million people in Southern Africa, across Malawi,
Zimbabwe,
Zambia, Malawi, Swaziland and Lesotho, are threatened with famine
in the
coming months. Zimbabwe should be anchoring the region; instead it is
pulling
it down.
While the suffering is most extreme in Malawi, the sheer scale
of
numbers makes Zimbabwe the most vulnerable country. But Mugabe has
acted
with an arrogant cool towards international aid. He recently
warned
Parliament of the need to "remain wary of countries and organisations
which
seek to take advantage of our hour of need".
There were
"sinister interests", he claimed, that wanted to use the
"cover of
humanitarian involvement". The irony is that foreign money is the
only thing
keeping his country from slipping into starvation. One frustrated
diplomat
said: "Things are getting worse and worse, yet it appears he is
more
interested in power politics than helping his own people." Speaking
at
Heroes' Acre, the national shrine for liberation fighters, Mugabe vowed
last
week to ensure that "no Zimbabwean starves to death". It is
increasingly
clear that the ageing autocrat is running out of both money and
ideas. But
if he does not find a way of getting food into Zimbabwe, fast, a
preventable
disaster may soon become an inevitable famine.
The
Observer