The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
Britain's attitude towards President
Robert Mugabe's regime was denounced as
"intolerant" and "rigid" by southern
African countries yesterday, reigniting
the row over Zimbabwe's withdrawal
from the Commonwealth.
The 12 Commonwealth members from southern Africa
closed ranks behind Mr
Mugabe with a statement condemning Zimbabwe's
suspension from the group.
Earlier, Tony Blair angrily denied
that Mr Mugabe's regime was the victim of By By
Lester Holloway New Home Office
statistics show that visa refusal rates have doubled in just one year for people
from Kenya, Nigeria and Gambia. The situation is
even worse for Zimbabwe, which has seen a four-fold increase in the number of
Zimbabweans denied entry for a short-term visit to Britain. But the most
startling increase in entry clearance is Jamaica, which has witnessed a massive
500% increase. Critics say the
increase is down to racism from British immigration officials and visa refusals
cannot be separated from new harsh government anti-asylum measures. They claim
innocent visitors are being denied entry for important family reunions such as
weddings and funerals due to an unofficial policy of tightening up on overseas
visitors from developing countries. Despite the huge
increases in visa refusals, the Home Office claimed there had been no change in
policy and ‘strongly refuted’ any suggestion of racism or prejudice. But the government
cannot explain why visitors from many African countries have seen a sudden and
dramatic increase in visa refusals while predominantly white countries like
Australia and Canada have seen no change. Professor Nigel
Harris, author of ‘The Immigration Myth Exposed’ said the increases were caused
by a right-ward shift in the governments’ stance towards overseas visitors of
colour. He told Blink:
"The government is contributing to the public’s embrace of xenophobia. They
don’t want to be caught being liberal." He accused the government of ‘lying’ by
claiming there was no change in policy. "There quite
simply appears to be a systematic attempt on the part of the government to stop
people coming from certain countries. It’s quite fair to say that African and
certain parts of Asia are in the target line." Only 55
Australians were refused entry to Britain in 2002, compared to almost 30,000
granted access. And just 120 Canadians were denied entry in the same year whilst
16,800 were allowed in. This contrasts
dramatically with Jamaica, where the number of visitors refused entry has risen
more than 500%, from 425 in 2001, to 2,635 the following year. Much of this
increase is due to the imposition of visas. Critics pointed out that the
government claimed at the time that the visa regime would not affect ordinary
law-abiding Jamaicans. Last year Labour
MP Diane Abbott criticised the imposition of a visa regime on Jamaica, claiming
it would only penalise innocent visitors and would do little to halt drug
smuggling and crime. Criminals, she said, would simply find other routes to
import drugs. Since then
Metropolitan Police chief Sir John Stevens has admitted that drug gangs are
smuggling cocaine into Britain through other smaller Caribbean
islands. Critics of the
visa policy also said officials would turn down applications to visit Britain on
prejudice and stereotypes rather than evidence. There were separate drug laws
and enforcement agencies to deal with criminals, and that visas would have no
impact on crime at all. Immigration
campaigners are also concerned that some overseas visitors, particularly
Jamaicans, are denied entry are detained in immigration holding centres along
with asylum seekers before being sent back. Home Office
figures contained in the report ‘control of immigration’ published last month
compared the number of visitors refused entry to Britain in 2001 compared to
2002. In those years, nationals from Nigeria who were denied entry doubled from
16,270 to 32,810. A similar pattern
emerged with visitors from Kenya, where refusal rates doubled from 2,140 to
4,770. Zimbabweans denied access quadrupled from 550 to 4,160. Increases in visa
refusals far outstripped any increase in overall applications in many African
countries. This situations was not reflected in visitors from ‘white’
Commonwealth countries, Latin America or Eastern Europe. Asked to explain
the large rises in visa refusals for African countries, a Home Office spokesman
said: "There’s certainly not any policy that I know of. I would certainly refute
[the accusation of racism] in terms of Home Office policy position." While refusal
decisions affecting African visitors as increased, other figures show that
around 80% of all refusals that were contested were eventually overturned on
appeal. Campaigners say
that often a person appealing against a decision to deny entry to Britain often
find their appeal uncontested because the British government fail to send anyone
to defend the British case. As a result scores of visitors win ‘by
default’. This ‘tactic’ by
the government has brought accusations that officials are making decisions
against black visitors they have no intention of defending before an independent
adjudicator. Heaven Crawley, a
migration expert with the think-tank the Institute of Public Policy Research,
said that her studies showed there was a change in the way visitor applications
were dealt with. She said that in
the past British officials used to advise would-be visitors when they did not
have sufficient papers to support their application, and ask them to go away and
come back with more papers. But more recently
officials have been logging the application to travel to Britain straight away,
and that if the applicant did not have the right papers they were turned down
without having the opportunity to seek more documentation. Crawley told
Blink: "Despite the fact that entry clearance officers are supposed to operate
in the same way across the world, the reality is that they don’t. "People have much
more informal economies, often very hard to prove you have the kind of money you
need to sustain yourself, or that you have even a job to go back to. "You could say
that entry clearance officers assume because you haven't got that information
they're much less likely to want to return, and that may be an assumption on
their part, so it's a kind of prejudice if you assume someone's going to behave
in a particular way.' But Crawley did not believe this was 'blatant prejudice or
racism' - BLINK
a racist plot. Ending Zimbabwe's
suspension would have been "inconceivable",
he said.
Mr Mugabe had
appealed for the "solidarity" of his neighbours and the
Southern African
Development Community duly rallied to his support. It
blamed Zimbabwe's
withdrawal from the Commonwealth on the "dismissive,
intolerant and rigid
attitude" of Britain and other member states.
"The present situation in
Zimbabwe calls for engagement by the Commonwealth
and not isolation and
further punishment," it said.
Botswana is among the countries which
endorsed the statement, yet it backed
Zimbabwe's continued suspension from
the Commonwealth during the summit in
the Nigerian capital,
Abuja.
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa is believed to be the prime
mover
behind the criticism of Britain. His persistence with his policy of
"quiet
diplomacy" towards Mr Mugabe's regime has baffled and enraged his
critics.
Zimbabwe's economy is in ruins, with inflation above 500 per
cent and
unemployment at 70 per cent. Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans
have fled
to South Africa and Botswana.
Reporting to the Commons on
the Commonwealth summit the Prime Minister
strongly defended Zimbabwe's
suspension. He said it had made no effort to
address international concerns
and was going "backwards."
He said Mr Mugabe's "ruinous economic
policies" were "driving the country
further and further into
chaos."
Mr Mugabe's regime raised the possibility of breaking all
diplomatic ties
with Britain. The Herald, the government daily, said: "There
is no need for
us to continue pretending that there is a semblance of
diplomacy with
Britain or its Australian appendage."
But the regime
can ill afford to cut links. Britain has given the country
more than £62
million in humanitarian aid since September 2001.
ABC Australia
Press freedom group bombards UN summit with pirate
radio
An international media freedom group, barred from a UN summit on
the
information society, has set up a "pirate radio" service to tell
delegates
what was happening at the gathering.
Robert Menard,
Secretary-General of the Paris-based group Reporters Without
Borders, told a
news conference the service - Radio Non Grata - would put
the organisation's
point of view to delegates throughout the three-day
conference.
"We
will also be broadcasting details of press freedom violations by many of
the
countries taking part in this meeting, like Tunisia and Zimbabwe,"
he
declared.
The gathering, the World Summit on the Information
Society, was called by
the United Nations in an effort to speed the spread of
information
technology and the use of the Internet to poorer
countries.
But critics from some human rights groups say it is a costly
sham that will
bring no benefit to ordinary people.
Reporters Without
Borders, which says one-third of the world's people live
in countries with no
media freedom and that many journalists around the
globe are in prison "for
doing their job", is handing out tiny portable
radios and earphones to
delegates so they can receive its broadcasts.
A leaflet with each
receiver declares: "Dictators think mice are dangerous
creatures" and shows a
computer mouse caught in a spring trap. "Don't let
them [the dictators]
decide the future of the Internet," it adds.
The organisation, which has
chapters in dozens of countries, was barred from
the summit after losing its
UN accreditation this year for staging a protest
over the appointment of
Libya to chair the world body's Human Rights
Commission.
Menard said
Radio Non Grata - a play on the term used when diplomats are
barred from a
country - would broadcast from French territory just across
the border from
Geneva and its information would be provided by journalists
at the
summit.
-- Reuters
New Zimbabwe
UK to strip Mugabe of knighthood
By Paul
Waugh
10/12/03
TONY Blair said Tuesday that he would consider tighter
sanctions and having
Robert Mugabe stripped of his honorary knighthood in an
attempt to force
"regime change" in Zimbabwe.
The Prime Minister
admitted that the restrictions on the Harare regime were
failing. He said
only £500,000 worth of assets had been seized from Mr
Mugabe's
associates.
In a Commons statement, Mr Blair said he would try to use
February's EU
summit to impose "sharper" sanctions on Zimbabwe. He said he
would
"certainly look at the issue of the honorary knighthood" granted to
the
country's president by the Queen in 1994. Andrew Robathan, Tory MP
for
Blaby, had urged Mr Blair to take "symbolic" action by removing the
honour.
Reporting on his trip to the Commonwealth Heads of Government
Meeting in
Nigeria, the Prime Minister said Zimbabwe had "gone backwards"
since its
suspension from the grouping last year.
He said the
consensus at the Abuja summit gave the lie to one of Mr Mugabe's
"most
outrageous claims ... that the Commonwealth's approach to Zimbabwe is
a white
conspiracy led by the UK against black Africans". "The outcome in
Abuja was
hard fought, but in the end a victory for Commonwealth values," Mr
Blair told
MPs.
Mr Mugabe's subsequent decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth
showed
clearly that he did not accept "Commonwealth principles", and would
increase
Zanu-PF's isolation, he added.
Mr Blair conceded that
attempts to seize the assets of leading members of
the Mugabe regime had
failed. The ministers' funds were instead shipped to
neighbouring states.
"Let's be honest about it. We have only managed to
seize around half a
million pounds. It is important to keep up maximum
pressure to get regime
change. We need to make sure the sanctions in place
are more effective," he
said.
The opposition MDC had said it wanted more sharply focused measures
and more
effective use of the sanctions in place rather than general
sanctions.
Mr Blair said real progress would come only once southern
African nations
realised that it was in their own interests to see the
removal of Mr Mugabe.
He accepted that some neighbouring states, including
South Africa, feared
that Zimbabwe could descend into chaos if Mr Mugabe was
toppled and that
chaos could "spill into their countries". But the Harare
regime had to be
tackled urgently. "This is not just a matter for the EU, it
is a matter for
other countries as well," he said.
Michael Howard, the
Tory leader, welcomed the Government's "strong stand",
but complained that Mr
Blair had been initially "behind the game" on
Zimbabwe. "[The Government]
hasn't led, it has followed and the people of
Zimbabwe are the worse for it,"
he said. Mr Howard said EU sanctions, such
as travel restrictions, against
Zimbabwe were not strong enough. "Why don't
they include the businessmen who
still bankroll Mugabe?" he demanded.
Mr Blair said his response was
guided by what opposition politicians said
about the situation in Zimbabwe.
"It is from within that the main change
will come," he added - THE
INDEPENDENT, UK
SOURCE: BBC
10/12/2003
AFRICAN and Caribbean visitors who
want to enter Britain to attend a family funeral or wedding are much more likely
to be refused a visa, according to shock new figures.
• SA court in landmark
asylum ruling
• Britain to seize our
kids
• Britain and its
minorities
• Visa restrictions a
scandal
And Tauhid Pasha, legal
and policy director of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said:
"These rises in refusal rates are not matched with any correlating rise in
refusal rates from predominantly white countries.
"In
sub-Saharan Africa people often don't have the right type of information in
relation to wage slips and bank accounts unless you are in a particular type of
employment, like a bank.
From The Guardian (UK), 10 December
Zimbabwe threatens to cut UK ties
Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
Robert Mugabe's government
indicated yesterday that it was considering
severing diplomatic ties with
Britain and Australia in response to their
tough Commonwealth stand over
Zimbabwe. "The time has now come for Zimbabwe
to fully engage Britain head-on
by cutting all diplomatic ties with the
former colonial master and its
sidekick, Australia," said an editorial in
the Herald. The newspaper is
regarded as the mouthpiece of the information
minister, Jonathan Moyo. On
Sunday, President Mugabe announced he was
pulling his country out of the
Commonwealth because of the 54-nation
organisation's refusal to lift its
suspension of Zimbabwe's membership. This
was imposed last year after
accusations of fraud and violence during Mr
Mugabe's re-election campaign.
Yesterday, the Herald called for the closure
of diplomatic missions and
ending communication with the British government.
It stopped short of
demanding the repatriation of about 40,000 British
citizens in Zimbabwe and
the closure of the 300 or more British-based firms
operating
there.
If the Mugabe government forced Britain to close its mission
in Harare, it
could set off a chain reaction of diplomatic closures involving
the
embassies of other EU states. The British high commission declined
to
comment on the newspaper's suggestion. In the past, the Herald has
vilified
Brian Donnelly, the British high commissioner to Harare, accusing
him of
plotting to overthrow the government. "If we lost sleep over
every
scurrilous article printed about us in the Herald, we wouldn't go to
bed at
all," one diplomat said. But observers interpreted the Herald's
editorial as
a serious escalation of its campaign against British
representatives in
Zimbabwe. The call to cut all diplomatic ties with Britain
is viewed in
Harare as a reflection of Mr Mugabe's anger over the weekend
Commonwealth
summit in Abuja, but not yet a statement of government
policy.
"This shows the current rancour that Mugabe feels more than
what he actually
plans to do," said Iden Wetherell, editor of the Zimbabwe
Independent, one
of the country's few privately owned weekly papers. "But it
could be a
harbinger of things to come. Now he has quit the Commonwealth,
Mugabe will
want to beat the nationalist drum. That would place Britain in
the firing
line, but it will have implications for Zimbabwe's relations with
other
countries which might lead him to hesitate." The Herald's editorial
said
that by breaking off relations with the British government,
Zimbabweans
would prove to be the "true torchbearers to other African and
third world
countries suffering under the yoke of imperialism". In the
Commons, Tony
Blair said Zimbabwe was being driven further into chaos by
"ruinous economic
policies". Half the population now relied on food aid -
with Britain the
leading cash donor. "In these circumstances, I and others
argued that it was
inconceivable that Zimbabwe should be readmitted to the
councils of the
Commonwealth, and that... it should remain suspended until we
saw concrete
evidence of a return to democracy, respect for human rights and
the rule of
law."
From The Independent (UK), 10 December
Hoogstraten is out - and this time he is angry with 'nearly everyone'
By Danielle Denetriou and Matthew Beard
Be afraid, be very afraid. The message from Nicholas
van Hoogstraten,
dressed in his trademark leather coat, pin-stripe suit and
two-inch Cuban
heels, was as clear as it was chilling. Britain's most
notorious landlord
was back with a vengeance. Yesterday, Mr van Hoogstraten
celebrated the
overturning of his conviction for the manslaughter of a
business rival by
declaring that he was planning to sue "just about
everybody". The man who
received his first criminal conviction at the age of
11 before becoming the
youngest self-made millionaire in Britain at 22 left
no doubt that his legal
crusade would go on. From the Criminal Prosecution
Service (CPS) and the
Metropolitan Police, to his former lawyers and business
associates, Mr van
Hoogstraten ominously suggested that few would escape from
his attempts to
seek justice. One of his targets may well be Michaal Hamdan,
a former
business associate believed to have been instrumental in putting Mr
van
Hoogstraten in the dock. He refused to testify during the trial and
is
thought to have fled the country without giving any evidence at
all.
Speaking to the assembled media at the Old Bailey, Mr van
Hoogstraten said:
"This prosecution should never have been brought. I have
suffered two years
of legal incompetence and dishonesty. Evidence was
deliberately hidden by
the CPS and the police. It would have shown who the
instigators and the
participants in this crime were." It was when asked whom
he was planning to
take legal action against, that he ominously replied:
"Just about
everybody." He added: "I'm not allowed to give further details at
this
stage." But the shock waves that ensued from the release of Mr
van
Hoogstraten, a man with a volcanic temperament and a
notoriously
Machiavellian management style, were not confined to his
business
associates. Residents near his sprawling, unfinished neo-classical
edifice,
Hamilton Palace, in the East Sussex countryside, also expressed fear
at the
prospect of his return. Yesterday, Mr van Hoogstraten, 58, revealed
that his
stint in prison had done little to dent his dogged tenacity and
fiery
temperament. He made his avowal to "sue" immediately after he was
formally
acquitted of the murder of Mohammed Raja, 62, in Sutton, south
London, four
years ago.
Less than 24 hours earlier, Mr van
Hoogstraten had been released from
Belmarsh Prison following a Court of
Appeal ruling that there was no
foundation for a manslaughter case and he
would not have to face a retrial.
He had served 17-months of a 10-year
sentence for the manslaughter of Mr
Raja, who was stabbed five times and shot
in the face with a sawn-off
shotgun at his home in July 1999. While two
small-time thugs, Robert Knapp
and David Croke, were jailed for life for the
murder of Mr Raja, Mr van
Hoogstraten was convicted for allegedly
masterminding the assassination of
his business rival. After Monday's hearing
at the Old Bailey, the property
tycoon appeared to be revelling in his
new-found freedom yesterday. Finally
agreeing to talk after keeping the
gathered media waiting for more than an
hour as he chatted to his entourage,
he did not fail to live up to his
explosive reputation. He revealed that he
had made a formal complaint to the
Metropolitan Police that evidence
revealing the perpetrator of the crime for
which he was imprisoned had been
withheld during the trial. "This
investigation was commenced but it was
stayed pending the hearing at the
Court of Appeal," he said. "I trust that
this investigation into the police
conduct of this case as a result of my
complaints last year will be
diligently pursued. If it is not, I will have
further recourse."
The Metropolitan Police later confirmed that a
complaint was to be
investigated into allegations of the "irregular
practices" of an officer
involved in Mr Raja's murder trial. The next legal
battle on the list for Mr
van Hoogstraten involves the family of the late Mr
Raja, who was in the
process of suing him at the time of his death. After his
family pursued the
civil action and won £5m last December, Mr van Hoogstraten
launched an
appeal which will be heard in the High Court next March. Despite
insisting
that he was sympathetic towards the Raja family, he said: "They
have partly
bought this upon themselves." While Mr van Hoogstraten's fortune
was once
estimated at £500m, his assets of £90m remain frozen in connection
with the
pending High Court case involving the Raja family, while a further
£30m has
been sequestrated. Mr van Hoogstraten, who states that his
political
allegiances lie " to the right of Attila the Hun", refused to
answer any
further questions from The Independent, because he claimed it was
a
"left-wing, anarchist publication". But the family of Mr Raja
expressed
greater disappointment than surprise at the comments of Mr van
Hoogstraten,
possibly in the light of the fact that he has previously told
one of Mr
Raja's six sons: "Your dad is a maggot." Yesterday, his son Amjad
Raja, 42,
told The Independent: "His release does send shivers down our
spines. He has
made these comments against our father as he knows that a dead
man cannot
take action against him. It is very hard for us but we have to
continue
fighting otherwise our father will have died in vain. Someone has to
stand
up to this man."
For many whose paths have crossed with that
of Mr van Hoogstraten, his
unsavoury comments about Mr Raja should come as
little surprise. He once
described a number of tenants who died in a fire in
one of his properties as
"low-life, drug dealers, drug takers and queers -
scum". His own mother was
referred to as "a miserable cow". Robert Mugabe,
the Zimbabwean President,
on the other hand, warranted the description "100
per cent decent and
incorruptible". Meanwhile, for the residents of his home
village of
Uckfield, the prospect of the return continues to instil fear. The
property
magnate had made his mark locally, not only with his £40m home, but
as
landlord to scores of tenants. He is also a vociferous critic of
ramblers,
whom he has described as "perverts" and "the great unwashed". In
the 1980s,
he came to blows with the Ramblers' Association, who represented
local
walkers aggrieved at being denied an ancient right of way across his
estate.
Shelley Garner, 81, from the nearby village of Framfield, said: "I
have
lived here since 1969 and I have never seen him but, at one stage, you
were
frightened to go walking near the estate. It was just very intimidating,
all
the lengths he went to to keep people off his land." The
Ramblers'
Association said full rights of way had been restored on the
footpath, which
takes walkers within no more than half a mile of Hamilton
Palace. A
spokesman for the organisation said: "He went out of his way to
keep out
what he termed riff-raff. I went down there myself to sort the issue
out and
felt pretty scared by his minders."
Mr van Hoogstraten
claimed yesterday that he received up to 900 letters of
support during his
stint in Belmarsh Prison, and admitted that he had
received four negative
letters, two of them from ramblers. During his time
at Hamilton Palace, named
after the capital of Bermuda, he has lived in an
adjacent building while
keeping a careful watch on building contractors.
Work on Hamilton Palace has
come to a halt during the owner's imprisonment,
but locals fear that may soon
change. One neighbour in her thirties from the
hamlet of Palehouse Common, on
the edge of the estate, said: "He was more of
a hate figure for my parents
when he was gaining a reputation in the 1960s.
But he won't be welcome back
here. The main concern is that he's going to
make it his base
now.''
Why is he free?
Nicholas van Hoogstraten has never
admitted sending his henchmen to
intimidate his business rival, Mohammed
Raja. In a pre-trial hearing last
week Mr Justice Stephen Mitchell ruled that
even if Mr van Hoogstraten had
ordered the intimidation he could not have
expected them to use guns to kill
Mr Raja. Before the case against Mr van
Hoogstraten reached the Old Bailey
last year, witnesses for the prosecution
withdrew their co-operation. Police
are still investigating three allegations
of attempting to pervert the
course of justice in connection with the first
trial. Without all their
witnesses the Crown Prosecution Service say the case
of murder was weakened,
and the jury acquitted Mr van Hoogstraten of
premeditated killing. The judge
offered the jury an alternative charge of
manslaughter for which the
multimillionaire was duly convicted and sentenced
to 10 years imprisonment.
The property tycoon appealed against his conviction
and sentence. On 23 July
his conviction was quashed on the grounds that the
trial judge had
misdirected the jury, as the direction did not properly
explain the
relationship between the charge of manslaughter and the possible
use of a
loaded firearm.
MSNBC
Zimbabwe lawyers condemn Mugabe rights record
HARARE, Dec.
10 — The Zimbabwe government's human rights record is worsening
and lawyers
are struggling to cope with a growing caseload of rights abuses,
a local
lawyers' group said on Wednesday.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights
chairwoman Nokuthula Moyo said
dozens of her colleagues had over the past
year defended people arrested
during political protests against President
Robert Mugabe's government.
Moyo said some lawyers had been harassed
or assaulted by police while
performing their duties -- accusations that have
been rejected by the
police.
''In the worsening human rights
climate, tremendous demands have been
made on human rights lawyers,'' she
said at a protest march by about 70
lawyers and law students to mark
International Human Rights Day.
''It is a pathetic human rights record
for our police force that
lawyers have suffered abuse at the hands of the
police,'' she said.
Mugabe's government, battling an economic crisis
critics blame on
state mismanagement, routinely uses tough security laws to
stop
demonstrations by opposition or rights activists.
Mugabe says
the demonstrations are sponsored by Western powers
seeking to overthrow his
government because of its seizure of white-owned
farms for black
resettlement.
The lawyers' protest was one of the few authorised by
police.
The government has denied charges of human rights abuses,
dismissing
them as part of a Western-sponsored propaganda campaign against
Mugabe.
Boston Herald
U.N. tech summit split on press freedom
By Associated
Press
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
GENEVA - Leaders from more than 50
countries Wednesday launched a summit to
"bridge the digital divide" and
expand use of the Internet to poor
countries, but a split quickly emerged
over whether news media should be
free or restricted.
"The right
to freedom of opinion and expression is fundamental to
development, democracy
and peace and must remain a touchstone for our work
ahead," said U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan in opening the conference.
President
Omar Bongo of Gabon said, "Journalists have rights but they
also have certain
duties, and they have to act in a way that is ethically
acceptable. With that
kind of mutual respect we can move forward,
recognizing that the Internet
must not be used to destabilize situations nor
to destabilize the way people
think."
Calls for a free press are a smoke screen, said President
Robert Mugabe
of Zimbabwe.
"Beneath the rhetoric of free press
and transparency is the inequity of
hegemony," said Mugabe, who is listed by
the Paris-based Reporters Without
Borders as one of the world's "predators of
press freedom."
Mugabe, who came to Geneva soon after pulling out of
the Commonwealth
because the bloc extended his nation's 18-month suspension,
was combative.
"The rich, imperious and digital north remains on the one end
of the
development divide," he said. "The poor, disempowered, underdeveloped
south
remains on the other end of that divide."
President Paul
Kagame of Rwanda, also on the Reporters Without Borders
list, focused on his
goals to provide all Rwandans with access to the
Internet. "We plan to
transform Rwanda into a technological hub," Kagame
said and appealed for help
from "our development partners."
Some developing countries have been
trying to use the summit to put
control of the U.S.-dominated Internet system
into the hands of the United
Nations. But most of the contentious issues,
including media freedom, were
resolved - at least on paper - in negotiations
before the summit or
deferred, and U.S. officials said they were
satisfied.
The World Summit on the Information Society is helping by
drawing the
world's attention to "the importance that new technologies,
whether the
Internet or other mechanisms, have for helping people around the
world,"
said Ambassador David Gross of the State Department, head of the
American
delegation.
President Bush was one of many Western
leaders staying away, but Gross
said the United States was lending strong
support by having its speech
delivered Thursday afternoon by White House
science and technology adviser
John Marburger.
Gross said
documents that were hammered out in months of negotiations
for the summit
"reflect many of the issues we think are critically
important," including
free expression, Internet governance and the
importance of intellectual
property.
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin was one of the
few Western
leaders to address the opening session. "We must build an
information
society for everyone - a society open to all," Raffarin said.
"This is a
wonderful opportunity to help less fortunate countries. We must
bring down
the digital barriers."
At the same time, he said,
governments should guard against the spread
of pornography and pedophilia on
the Internet.
Even as the gathering began, organizers were lowering
expectations,
noting that a follow up summit will take place in Tunisia in
2005.
"Geneva is the beginning, the beginning of a process," said
Marc
Furrer, the Swiss state secretary who helped broker talks among
government
negotiators ahead of the summit. But campaigners for press freedom
said the
follow-up meeting should be canceled or moved to another country on
grounds
that Tunisia "does not respect free speech and press
freedom."
"The Tunisian press is censored, journalists are jailed
along with
hundreds of other political prisoners, and organization of the
Tunis summit
has been assigned to a military general alleged to be
responsible for the
torture of political prisoners," said a joint statement
from the World Press
Freedom Committee, the Inter American Press Association,
the World
Association of Newspapers and other groups.
Pending
approval from the world leaders is a declaration that
challenges them to use
technology in promoting development goals such as
eliminating poverty,
fighting AIDS and curbing child mortality. It calls for
connecting schools,
public libraries and health centers in poor countries to
the Internet by
2015.
Key decisions on the way the Internet works, such as domain
names and
addresses, now reside in a private agency spun off from the
U.S.
government - and the United States wants to keep it that
way.
China, South Africa, India and Brazil - the main proponents of
wresting
control of the Internet from the United States - have offered only
vague
blueprints for an alternative.
RWANDA-ZIMBABWE: Harare, Kigali and UNHCR sign tripartite agreement
KIGALI,
10 Dec 2003 (IRIN) - The governments of Rwanda and Zimbabwe and the
Office of
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) signed a tripartite
agreement
on Tuesday on the voluntary repatriation of an estimated 350
Rwandan refugees
in Zimbabwe.
Signing the agreement in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, the
parties pledged to
support the repatriation that is scheduled to begin in
mid-2004. They
assigned each other roles and responsibilities to ensure the
success of the
process.
The Zimbabwean government was mandated to
ensure that the refugees were well
informed about the security situation in
Rwanda, to enable them decide
whether or not to repatriate.
On its
part, the government of Rwanda would ensure that the refugees
returned home
in safety and that it would encourage a few of them to return
to Zimbabwe to
sensitise those remaining on the need to repatriate.
The UNHCR would
provide support for travel as well as initial settlement for
the
returnees.
The parties announced that an information campaign would soon
be launched to
inform the refugees in Zimbabwe about the situation in
Rwanda.
"The year 2004 will be the year of enhanced voluntary
repatriation for
Rwandan refugees from an operational point of view," Wairimu
Karago, the
UNHCR regional coordinator for the Great Lakes region,
said.
She said that during the first quarter of 2004, the UNHCR would
finalise the
establishment of a legal and operational framework with the
remaining
countries of asylum in west and southern Africa, which host
significant
numbers of Rwandan refugees.
"At the end of next year,
UNHCR would like to be in a position to say that
it has done everything
possible to facilitate and assist Rwandan refugees to
return home," she
added.
Rwanda has signed similar agreements with the governments of the
Malawai,
Namibia, Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
It
is due to sign a similar agreement with Mozambican officials on Thursday.
Zimbabwe Cabinet Endorses Decision to Leave Commonwealth
VOA
News
10 Dec 2003, 11:44 UTC
Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe's cabinet has endorsed his decision
to leave the Commonwealth,
paving the way for a debate on the matter in
parliament, Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge said the cabinet approved the decision
on
Tuesday, and that a motion seeking parliamentary endorsement was being
sent
to lawmakers.
President Mugabe withdrew his country from the
Commonwealth on Sunday
after learning its suspension would be extended. He
accused a white alliance
within the Commonwealth of punishing him for his
forced redistribution of
white-owned farms to blacks.
In a
statement Tuesday, the 14-nation Southern African Development
Community
(SADC) also expressed deep concern at what it called the
dismissive,
intolerant and rigid attitude by some Commonwealth members.
Zimbabwe was
first suspended in 2002 after President Mugabe was re-elected
in a vote
widely seen as rigged.
Many African nations pushed for Zimbabwe's
reinstatement -- saying
further isolation would harm efforts toward
democracy. But on Tuesday,
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the
economic policies of the ruling
ZANU-PF party have driven the nation further
and further into chaos. While
warning of more isolation, Mr. Blair also said
there will always be a place
for a democratic Zimbabwe in the
Commonwealth.
Kenya urged Zimbabwe to reconsider its withdrawal
from the
Commonwealth -- saying the group is vital for the democratization
process.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo says he is determined to do
everything
possible to return Zimbabwe to the now 53-member grouping of
former British
colonies.
SABC
Zimbabwe's return to Commonwealth
'inconceivable'
December 10, 2003, 08:36 AM
Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, says it is inconceivable
for Zimbabwe
to be re-admitted to the Commonwealth while the situation there
remains
chaotic.
The Southern African Development Community (Sadc)
has accused
countries like Britain and Australia of prejudging Zimbabwe's
pull out from
the organisation. Updating parliamentarians in London, Blair
said Zimbabwe
had gone backwards since its initial suspension, imposed after
a
widely-criticised election last year.
Blair said
Zimbabwe "should remain suspended until we see
concrete evidence of a return
to democracy, respect for human rights and the
rule of law, which are the
very principles of which the Commonwealth is
founded".
Daily News
Rights abuses on the rise
Date:10-Dec,
2003
ABOUT 292 violations of freedom of expression, movement
and
association were recorded in October, according to a report by the
Zimbabwe
Human Rights NGO Forum (ZHRF).
The Forum, which groups
non-governmental organisations working in the
field of human rights, also
recorded 94 cases of torture, 44 reports of
political discrimination and
intimidation and 36 assaults.
Also reported between 1 and 31
October were 18 death threats, nine
cases of unlawful arrest, a similar
number of unlawful detentions, six
displacements due to political violence,
three cases of attempted murder and
one abduction.
"Zimbabwean
citizens’ enjoyment of freedom of expression and
association remains
extensively curtailed," the Forum said in a report
released last
week.
"Widespread national, regional and international calls for
the
Zimbabwe government to respect these freedoms and protect them through
their
law enforcement arm, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), have evidently
been
unfruitful. The apparent attempt by the Zimbabwe government to restrict
the
right to freedom of expression and association has manifested itself in
the
continuous harassment of human and labour rights activists through
arrests
whenever they attempt to peacefully demonstrate."
The
report cited the frequent arrest of National Constitutional
Assembly (NCA)
chairman Lovemore Madhuku and other NCA members, saying this
had become a
regular form of harassment.
The Forum added: "Sections of the
Public Order and Security Act (POSA)
and the Miscellaneous Offences Act (MOA)
are being continuously and
consistently used to impede freedom of expression,
movement and association.
“This was clearly manifested in the
arrest of over 170 members of the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions on 8
October 2003 demonstrating over high
taxation and violations of trade union
and human rights.
"Approximately 150 members of the NCA were
arrested on 22 October 2003
for participating in a demonstration to call for
a new democratic
constitution. Members of both groups were charged either
with violating
sections of POSA or of MOA.
“These arrests also
display the contempt for labour rights which has
also been accommodated under
POSA and MOA. The Congress of South African
Trade Unions noted, in a
statement released on 8 October 2003, as
"regrettable that the Zimbabwe
government sees trade unions as one of its
main opponents…Instead of
understanding that workers are duty bound to
protest against attacks on their
living standards, it sees them as
antagonists."
The Forum said
it deplored the excessive use of force by members of
the ZRP when effecting
arrests, and noted with concern the prevailing
climate of impunity for
certain police officers who are alleged perpetrators
of human rights
violations.
"This selective impunity for perpetrators of human
rights violations
within the ZRP has simply had the effect of perpetuating
further human
rights violations," the report noted.
"The Human
Rights Forum strongly condemns the harassment and
alternatively the arrest of
individuals when they attempt to report an
incident in which they have in
fact been the victim. This can have no other
outcome than the establishing a
culture in which Zimbabwean citizens, acting
on their diminished faith in the
police force, desist from reporting crimes
committed against
them."
The Forum cited a shooting at the Harare offices of the
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change in October, where police officers
attending
to the scene reportedly spent an hour searching for "hidden guns"
before
emerging with the suspected gunman, who was not
handcuffed.
The police indicated that they would charge the three
victims of the
shooting with attempted murder and "claimed that the youths
had "shot
themselves" with (the suspect's) gun".
The ZHRF said:
"Prior to this incident on 12 October 2003, human
rights lawyer Beatrice
Mtetwa was assaulted as she attempted to report an
attempted car-jacking
perpetrated against her. The police officers from
Borrowdale Police Station
in Harare accused Mrs Mtetwa of being under the
influence of alcohol and yet
failed to conduct a breathalyser test.
"As the World Council of
Churches noted in a letter to the Minister of
Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs, Patrick Chinamasa, "the case of
Mrs Mtetwa is not an
isolated incident of police excesses. There have been
several such incidents
resulting in grave and serious human rights
violations of human rights
defenders."
Daily News
Mugabe*s bodyguards scuffle with
journalists
Date:10-Dec, 2003
GENEVA - Preident
Mugabe's bodyguards scuffled with journalists and BBC News Online asked commentators from six Commonwealth member states to
reflect on whether the body does indeed have a role in the 21st Century, or
whether it is a legacy of colonialism which should have vanished with the
British Empire. Please click on the quotes to read more and use the form at the
bottom of the page to send us your opinions.
"The Commonwealth does nothing, is nothing,
and seems to cause the UK nothing but problems, so why bother?" Sandy, UK
The notion that the body is an ineffectual one in comparison with other
international organisations does not in fact stand up to the force of logic.
True enough, there are a large number of powerful bodies - the United
Nations, the World Bank - but there are very few that are prepared to suspend
their members for not having an acceptable democratic government, and there are
few more powerful statements than throwing someone out.
Zimbabwe, for example, is still a member of the UN, although it has been
suspended from the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth also has its own monitoring
groups for overseeing electoral processes - not so the UN.
It also provides a forum for issues that often do not get onto the mainstream
world agenda - one of its main advantages is in fact that the United States is
not party to it and so members can air concerns that they might not otherwise be
able to.
The US may be interested in what the Maldives for example is doing to fight
terrorism, while the Maldives itself is more interested in discussing on an
international level how it can stop itself sinking. The Commonwealth provides
the opportunity to do this.
The Commonwealth may have its roots in colonialism but it has long since
transcended this. Nonetheless, it does need a kind of leadership which Britain -
handicapped by history - is unlikely to be able to provide. We should look to
countries like India, South Africa and Canada to take the Commonwealth into the
future.
The Commonwealth does not serve any purpose in the world today. We joined in
1980 after we gained our independence as a mark of respect to the British but in
the years since it has become clear that the sole purpose of the body is to
promote white interests - that is why it was founded and that continues to be
the case today. Measures taken against Zimbabwe have been imposed to protect the
interests of white farmers.
We have seen some incredible double standards on the part of Britain. Britain
dares to criticise Zimbabwe over the presidential elections in 2002, while Prime
Minister Tony Blair is swanning around hand-in-hand with the US president, who
himself had to go to court to win an election.
I do not believe there are any circumstances in which we could return. What
would be the point? We are more distant from Britain as a result but that does
not bother us.
As for our African Commonwealth partners, our relations with them will not
suffer as a result of leaving the Commonwealth. Trade with our neighbours will
continue. Britain's greatest fear is that we will pull ourselves up while we are
outside of the Commonwealth, and that is precisely what we intend to do.
South Africa, like Zimbabwe has just done, also withdrew from the
Commonwealth between 1961 and 1994 and as such it provides an interesting
example as to what extent isolation from the body effects change.
In the South African experience, withdrawal did not make much difference. It
retained useful ties with those it wanted to, notably Britain and Australia. It
wasn't until the anti-apartheid era kicked in and the United Nations took a
stand with sanctions that South Africa really felt isolated and suffered
economically. Being outside the Commonwealth had some symbolic significance, but
it was really the actions of other bodies that had the impact.
There are many important organisations in the world today with which the
Commonwealth cannot hope to compete. The United Nations, the World Bank, the
World Trade Organisation, GATT - to name but a few. Nonetheless, we shouldn't
underestimate it.
It is still important. It has cultural significance for one - Commonwealth
science and education programmes and exchanges are still going strong. But it
also provides a forum - the fact that prime ministers, foreign ministers,
finance ministers meet and share views is certainly not insignificant -
particularly for smaller countries which do not otherwise have a chance to speak
on the world stage.
The Commonwealth has successfully managed to get over the notion that it is a
relic of colonialism - only people like Mr Mugabe come out with that line. Why
would former colonies and indeed countries which have no historical ties with
Britain, such as Mozambique, keep wanting to join if it was such a colonial,
racist organisation? They sign up freely, and leave freely.
The problem with the Commonwealth is that it appears irrelevant to so many
people. It has been unable to influence world events in any way, whether
positive or negative.
Pakistan was suspended from the body after a coup led by General Pervez
Musharraf. President Musharraf would like to be readmitted to the body purely
for symbolic reasons - it would prove that there have been democratic
developments and provide greater legitimacy. But the Commonwealth itself has no
great political sway and in that sense is of no real interest to him. Pakistan
has other friends in the world.
But that is not to say that the Commonwealth is doomed. People always point
to the United Nations as a rival power which has stripped the Commonwealth of
its reason to be. But just look at some of the problems the UN is having in
terms of credibility. One of the reasons that we are seeing attacks on UN
buildings and workers around the world is that increasingly it is seen as a
lackey of the United States.
The Commonwealth isn't, and that is its greatest strength. But it needs to
get its act together. Britain needs to distance itself from the United States,
and take on a key role in steering the Commonwealth.
It is the only country in the position to do this and it should not worry
about the old allegation that the Commonwealth is a relic of colonialism. That's
history, and Britain needs to throw that off. The Commonwealth should do exactly
what the name says - spread the wealth and forge a proper political voice with
clout on the world stage.
There is a real problem of double standards within the Commonwealth - it is
one rule for some members and one rule for others. Britain and Australia
launched an illegal war against Iraq - contradicting the principles of the
Commonwealth's Singapore and Harare declarations - and there has been virtually
no opportunity to press the two countries on the matter.
These double standards do not however render the Commonwealth redundant. It
can and should be a useful forum for the English-speaking world, bringing
together Africa, Asia and the Caribbean in a unique body. That is something to
be celebrated.
But that is not to say it could not be improved: there does need to be more
equality within the body. I for one would like to see a rotating Commonwealth
figurehead rather than the position being confined to the British Queen.
The Commonwealth should be a forum - a place in which there can be debate and
an exchange of ideas, maybe even a place to cut Britain down to size. No-one
expects the Commonwealth to ever take on a legislative role, but it would be
excellent to expand its consultative capacity.
Despite all my reservations I do want the Commonwealth to continue: I want it
to be something my children and grandchildren can make use of too.
Commonwealth summits attract very little interest - and the issue of Zimbabwe
seems very remote indeed. Nonetheless, it has started people thinking - what
does it mean to be a member of the Commonwealth? What is the importance of Mr
Mugabe deciding to leave the body?
For most people, being in the Commonwealth is barely something that
registers. It leave the man on the street cold. It is totally unclear what we
gain from membership.
In this sense, it is hard to understand why people say that Commonwealth
membership is of particular use to the smaller countries as a means of
expressing their opinions on the world stage.
People in St Lucia do not think of the Commonwealth when they think of
organisations in which they have a voice. It is a distant body - a hangover from
a time past - which means little to the majority here.
What are your thoughts on the future of the Commonwealth? Please scroll
down to the form below to send us a message.
The following comments reflect the balance of opinions we have received.
I can't see any point in the Commonwealth even existing. If Blair really
thinks he can criticise Zimbabwe for its poor human rights, and insists Zimbabwe
should not come back to the Commonwealth while Mugabe is in power, then why is
it that the UK government has got good relations with Iran, the country with the
worst human right record in the world?
It is not irrelevant as such when we consider such issues as good governance,
but the manner in which it is dominated by white countries means it may become
irrelevant just like the UN where the US and Britain are calling the
shots.
Commonwealth? What's the point - all the members seem to hate us and lecture
us with the same old boring argument about colonialism so why don't we just
leave them to whine about the past so we can move forward with our real friends
and allies. These European and North American relationships are mutually
beneficial. The Commonwealth does nothing, is nothing, and seems to cause the UK
nothing but problems, so why bother? The Commonwealth clearly is an archaic institution that serves no real
purpose in the 21st century. Britain decided long ago, for good or bad, that its
future lay in Europe. Thus, we should participate fully in Europe so we have an
accountable democratic institution that does have relevancy to us.
It stands to the honour of Great Britain's quest for democracy that this body
exists - nations from all corners of the world stand side by side, overcoming
inequalities, faces from every race and religion and economic standpoint on the
planet, stepping out of the shadow of imperialism - together with common goals.
To its credit, the Commonwealth nations have been able to face the past - name
it for what it is - with the kind of grace and humility seen no where else in
the world - and use it as a force for good embodied with hope for the
future.
We as Zimbabweans are suffering because of Mugabe's continued rule. We don't
think the Commonwealth is serving its purpose. Joining such a body is
unnecessary. The body has come to be a platform where former colonial power
Britain and its white racist cousins bully the former colonies for their own
interests. Although Mugabe is a failure in Zimbabwe it does not mean he has not
done anything good for his own citizens. He brought us education, freedom,
although he has also brought us poverty. The UN should be the body to oversee
world affairs.
We say down with the Commonwealth and down with Mugabe.
cameramen as he left his
hotel in Geneva, Switzerland for the world's first
summit on the information
society.
Mugabe, whose government shut down Zimbabwe's top-selling
daily paper
was due to address the inaugural session this
afternoon.
Meanwhile, top UN officials criticised Western leaders
for cold
shouldering the world's first summit on the information society as
critics
hit out at press repression under many governments taking
part.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who was to open the
conference, has
warned of the dangers of harassing and censoring journalists,
saying this
put everyone's rights at risk.
"Many of the
principal barriers and obstacles to development of the
Internet as a platform
for free expression have been erected by the very
governments who are in
attendance," said Timothy Balding, director general
of the Paris-based World
Association of Newspapers.
The conference sets out to bring poorer
nations of the world into the
so-called information age and speed their
economic development by boosting
access to information technology such as
mobile phones and the Internet.
Organised by the UN's International
Telecommunications Union, the
three-day meeting has attracted officials from
175 countries, but few of the
60 heads of state or government attending come
from Europe or North America.
"For those who did not come, all I
can say is you have missed an
opportunity," said Shasi Tharoor, United
Nations Under Secretary-General for
Communications and Public Information,
who played a key role in organising
the event.
"This summit is
meant to address (the issues) from a policy level, not
just a technological
level," he added.
Roughly 90 percent of the world's population
remains unconnected to
the Internet, depriving them of a vital 21st century
resource and spurring
fears of a growing "digital divide" between rich and
poor.
Poorer countries, particularly from Africa, had been pressing
for the
launch of a "Digital Solidarity Fund" to help finance the
infrastructure
they say is needed to close the gap.
But the idea
was opposed by richer countries and the summit
declaration to be approved
formally at the close of proceedings Friday
merely commits states to
concluding a study on the issue before a second
summit due to be held in
Tunis in 2005.
Other topics range from how to battle the spread of
spam and
pornography on the Internet to whether administration of the
Worldwide Web
should be put under international control.
The
latter idea, backed by Brazil and other developing countries, but
again
opposed by the richer states, was also effectively put on hold
after
negotiators agreed to set up a committee to review Internet
management.
But the growing role of the Internet as a vehicle for
news and views
has focused attention on press freedom and the fact that many
governments
present are widely accused of hobbling their media and
restricting access to
the Web.
Activists are incensed the
follow-up summit is to be held in Tunisia,
whose President Zine al-Abidine
Ben Ali has been particularly targeted by
rights groups for allegedly
violating press and Internet freedom. - Reuters
The withdrawal of
Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth and the divisions among participants at the
recent Abuja summit have raised questions about the relevance and purpose of the
body in the post-colonial era.
Tim Shaw, Institute of Commonwealth Studies
Noel
Garson, South African history scholar
Bala Usman
Nigerian political analyst
Sam, UK
Ozias Moyo, Zimbabwe
Sandy, UK
John
George, UK
J. E. Seaman, USA
Patrick
Tsodzo, youth chairman for NGO Crisis Zimbabwe,
Zimbabwe
Yahoo News
Poor Countries Said Posing Worst Threat to
Media
GENEVA (Reuters) - Some developing country leaders
attending a United
Nations summit set to declare media freedoms a universal
right are
themselves persecuting independent journalists at home, a leading
press
advocate said on Wednesday.
"It is largely in the
poorest, least-developed nations where this repression
of information and
opinion is at its most severe," Timothy Balding,
Director-General of the
World Association of Newspapers, told a seminar at
the
meeting.
And he said the Internet, focus of what the U.N. has dubbed
the "World
Summit for the Information Society," was often the front line
between
oppressive governments and reporters and editors seeking to use it to
escape
official censorship.
The Internet, and the worldwide
information web that it supports, was
increasingly the recourse of developing
country "cyber-journalists" seeking
to gather or disseminate news suppressed
by state-controlled media, Balding
added.
The summit -- and a
follow-up set for Tunisia in 2005 -- was called by the
U.N. as part of an
effort to help spread the benefits of information
technology and the Internet
more evenly between rich and poor states.
In a final declaration on
Friday, the three-day gathering is due to endorse
provisions on press freedom
enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration on
Human Rights.
But
Western-based press and rights organizations say the summit can do
little for
ordinary people in the Third World unless their leaders stop
efforts to
censor what have been dubbed as the "new media"
"Many of the
principle barriers and obstacles to development of the Internet
as a platform
for free expression have been erected by the very governments
who are in
attendance," Balding told hundreds of journalists and officials
at a
seminar.
"The biggest obstacle to a prosperous information future may
be sitting next
to you in this hall."
On Tuesday, U.N.
Secretary-General used a pre-summit meeting to issue a
pointed and passionate
plea for an end to harassment and persecution of
journalists -- just as
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe arrived in Geneva
to attend the
summit.
Mugabe, criticized for abusing human rights and muzzling
newspapers, radio
and television, was due to address the gathering later on
Wednesday.
Balding, whose Paris-based body represents newspapers on
five continents,
made no direct reference to Mugabe, or to Tunisia's
President Zine
al-Abidine Ben Ali who, critics say, also enforces strict
media control.
"Governments all over the world, their pens poised to
sign this
declaration," he said, "are dreaming up new ways to gag and break
the spirit
of those men and women who are daring to put into practice these
ideas and
principles," he declared.
In some of the poorest
countries "thousands of journalists -- more and more
of them cyber-reporters
-- are each year persecuted, murdered, beaten,
arrested and imprisoned, often
for doing no more than for questioning the
right of their governments to take
information hostage and to deprive their
fellow citizens of the right to
debate," Balding added.
News24
Nigerian envoy off to Harare
10/12/2003 16:17 -
(SA)
Harare - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo is expected to
send a
high-ranking envoy to Harare in the next two weeks, after Zimbabwe
quit the
Commonwealth, a diplomat said here on Wednesday.
"Our
president will send an envoy before Christmas, but when the man is
coming, I
am not informed, who is coming, we don't know yet," a diplomat at
the
Nigerian embassy in Harare said.
He dismissed local media reports that
Obasanjo himself would head for Harare
next week.
"He will send an
envoy, he did not say he is coming," said the official.
Obasanjo was last
in Harare three weeks ago before he took the decision not
to invite President
Robert Mugabe to the Commonwealth Heads of Government
Meeting (CHOGM), which
was held in the Nigerian capital at the weekend.
The Commonwealth decided
on Sunday to prolong Zimbabwe's suspension from the
grouping of mainly former
British colonies and appointed a seven-nation
committee made up of Australia,
Canada, India, Jamaica, Mozambique, Nigeria
and South Africa to undertake a
dialogue with Mugabe.
Mugabe said if any of them visited him, he would
"welcome them in a
brotherly and friendly way as leaders of their respective
nations, but not
as representatives of the Commonwealth".
News24
Zim parliament in uproar
10/12/2003 20:31 -
(SA)
Harare - Uproar broke out in Zimbabwe's parliament on Wednesday
as
government and opposition MPs debated the country's withdrawal from
the
Commonwealth.
Through a barrage of interjections from MPs of the
opposition Movement for
Democratic Change and repeated demands for order from
speaker Emmerson
Mnangagwa, Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge opened debate by
dismissing
criticism of issues of human rights and democracy and declaring
that the
decision was taken in preference "to being treated as a
lackey."
He called Australian prime minister John Howard "the butcher of
Baghdad" and
Commonwealth foreign secretary-general Don McKinnon "the
liar."
An enraged President Robert Mugabe made the decision on Sunday
night,
immediately after he was told that the Commonwealth summit in
Abuja,
Nigeria, had decided to continue indefinitely the government's
suspension
from the 54-member body.
On Tuesday Mugabe's cabinet
approved withdrawal from the 54-member body of
mostly former British
colonies.
Both cabinet and parliamentary endorsement have to be given for
the pull-out
to be legally effective, lawyers said.
Mudenge also said
that Commonwealth membership brought no benefits, and said
that scholarships
and preferential visas for subjects of Commonwealth
nations were "as good as
dead" as "(former British prime minister Margaret)
Mrs Thatcher did away with
all that."
About 100 000 Zimbabweans have fled to Britain, Australia,
Canada and New
Zealand in the last four years of economic and political
mayhem and secured
residence there on the strength of being Commonwealth
citizens, many of them
on scholarships provided by the
"club."
Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party has a comfortable majority in the
150-seat
legislature, although party officials had to broadcast orders over
state
radio today to its MPs to attend parliament, in an apparent bid to
avoid
previous embarrassing defeats by the MDC when ruling party MPs didn't
bother
to turn up for debates.
MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube
praised the Commonwealth's decision to
extend Zimbabwe's suspension, but said
that Mugabe's response "shows his
determination to maintain dictatorship,
violation of human rights, and
denial of people's democratic
rights."
Zimbabwe was suspended in April last year, after Commonwealth
election
observers reported that Mugabe's victory in a presidential ballot a
month
before was the result of violent intimidation and fraud.
The
Commonwealth secretariat said shortly before the Abuja summit that
Mugabe's
government had done nothing since the suspension to merit having
it
lifted.
The government has since attacked the Commonwealth as an
"imperialist" body
controlled by "the racist white Commonwealth."
The
committee recommending the suspension was openly backed by East and
West
African, Caribbean and Pacific nations, as well as India.
New Zimbabwe
Mbeki feeding off Mugabe's mess
By Charles
Onyango-Obbo
10/12/03
FROM the "very concerned" feelings Commonwealth
leaders are expressing over
Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe's decision to
quit the Club after it voted
at the just-ended Abuja summit to continue his
country's suspension, you
would think Harare would really be
missed.
However, it should be remembered that Mugabe has slowly been
making his
country irrelevant internationally.
When a government
brings down its country to a position where it has no
moral and political
authority at home or in its region, and bankrupts the
economy, it becomes
inconsequential in world politics.
Mugabe has made Zimbabwe largely
irrelevant, and it will not really be
missed in the Commonwealth.
It
is like when dictator Idi Amin got Uganda suspended from
the
Commonwealth.
Despite the regular international headline-grabbing
antics he would put on,
threatening to attend the Commonwealth though he was
not invited, the Club
seemed to be much better off without
him.
Zimbabwe reached the no-turning point when Mugabe plunged headlong
into the
conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
All the
countries that dug in too deep in the DRC conflict, and were unable
to pull
out early, like Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Rwanda, have paid a big
political
price.
The fact that their foreign intervention descended into what the
UN and
other international organisations allege is an orgy of looting and
plunder,
and also became a humanitarian catastrophe in which up to three
million
people have died, damaged the international prestige of these
countries.
Small wonder then that Uganda's application to hold next
year's Commonwealth
Summit, was wrecked by the difficulty that the Museveni
government rules as
a quasi-one-party regime and wants to amend the
constitution to allow a
president to rule for life.
In an unusual
step, the Club said Uganda can have it in 2007. It lost out to
late entrant
Malta. Uganda deserved to host the Commonwealth summit, if only
as a gift for
our resilience.
Hopefully, if by 2007 the government has washed its
political hands clean,
it will happen.
If the Harare government has
been haemorrhaging internationally for many
years, why then were respected
leaders like South Africa's president Thabo
Mbeki, fighting against the
exclusion of Mugabe, one might ask.
The conventional wisdom is that
because South Africa has the same land
problem as Zimbabwe, by engaging
Mugabe, Mbeki hopes to push Harare to
resolve the land question before it
inflames the blacks in South Africa to
rise in similar fashion against their
white farmers.
That, however, is a simplistic view.
Quite a few
people in Africa who believe that the land situation in Zimbabwe
was
unacceptable, going by what one reads in newspapers and from the
Internet,
are nevertheless horrified at the violence and corruption with
which the
campaign has been marked.
But most of all, the near economic collapse
that has happened in Zimbabwe
partly as a result.
So, far from
exciting the landless in South Africa to rise against white
farmers, the
Zimbabwe land crisis has probably instead weakened the case for
a similar
beat-and-seize "solution" in South Africa.
In that way, Mbeki has
benefited from Mugabe's mess, and probably bought
himself more time to work
on a more creative land distribution plan in South
Africa.
Secondly,
the Mugabe government was the only one in the South African
Development
Community (SADC) that used to confront South Africa strongly on
its appalling
failure to reciprocate the access other countries give it to
their markets by
opening its own.
While it is by far Africa's leading economy, South
Africa also has some of
the continent's highest protectionist
barriers.
Now with Zimbabwe deliquent, and largely dependent on South
Africa to limp
along, Mugabe can least afford to confront Pretoria on its
anti-free market
ways.
More importantly, Zimbabwe used to be the one
economy in the region that was
more efficient than South Africa in
agriculture, for example, and had an
independent industrial base.
The
others in the region, with the exception of Angola in the oil sector,
largely
thrive on South African capital and industrial supplies to run
their
economies.
Zimbabwe's descent into a derelict agricultural and
industrial economy, only
helps South Africa to seal its dominance in the
sub-region.
Mbeki's posture mostly enables him to escape criticism that
he has turned
traitor and stabbed a country that supported the anti-apartheid
struggle in
the back.
It also helps Mbeki maintain credibility - and
thus be able to influence -
the sections of South African society who would
like some "serious action"
taken to solve their own land problems.
The
pro-Mugabe position of most southern African countries therefore does
not
help Zimbabwe.
It only profits its neighbours. And Mugabe's withdrawal of
his country from
the Commonweath has handed his successor a quick future
diplomatic victory -
using the readmission of post-Mugabe Zimbabwe into the
Club as a stamp of
international approval - THE MONITOR
Extract from http://www.savethechildren.org.uk
Humanitarian
situation
ZIMBABWE
Despite more favourable rainfall in 2003,
millions of Zimbabweans continue
to face food insecurity. Poduction prospects
for the 2003/4 season have not
been improved by shortages of fertilizer,
seeds, fuel and agricultural
equipment spare parts. The national Grain
Marketing Board has drastically
increased selling prices of maize (in some
cases several times), preventing
people from buying it. Water shortages,
particularly in southern areas,
remain critical for both humans and
livestock. Large numbers of livestock
have died from lack of food and water
or foot and mouth disease. Throughout
Zimbabwe people’s coping mechanisms
have been eroded from the succession of
difficulties they have been facing,
including drought, cyclone, land issues,
economic decline and HIV/AIDS.
Regular means of earning alternative income
have disappeared and millions of
people remain highly vulnerable. According
to a report by the Confederation
of Zimbabwe Industries the economy is
currently in its fifth year of
recession with no signs of recovery. Large
numbers of Zimbabweans have poured
into South Africa in recent years. A BBC
reporter wrote on the 21st October
2003 that South Africa is now
transporting 2,000 Zimbabweans back home every
month . With unemployment in
Zimbabwe estimated at an all time high of 70%
many will not find work at
home and are likely to try to return to South
Africa or go elsewhere. There
are approximately 100,000 displaced people
inside Zimbabwe - the majority of
whom are ex farm-workers – requiring food
aid assistance as well as non-food
items.h no signs of recovery. Large
numbers of Zimbabweans have poured into
South Africa in recent years. A BBC
reporter wrote on the 21st October 2003
that South Africa is now transporting
2,000 Zimbabweans back home every
month . With unemployment in Zimbabwe
estimated at an all time high of 70%
many will not find work at home and are
likely to try to return to South
Africa or go elsewhere. There are
approximately 100,000 displaced people
inside Zimbabwe - the majority of whom
are ex farm-workers – requiring food
aid assistance as well as non-food
items.
SC(UK ) response
Food aid
Within the current
political climate in Zimbabwe international agencies have
come under intense
scrutiny and suspicion, particularly in relation to food
aid distributions.
There have been restrictions imposed by the Zimbabwe
government on work in
key areas at different times including a 7 – 8 week
suspension of all Save
the Children’s activities in October/November 2002.
In 2003 Save the Children
resumed food aid activities. In April/May 2003
Save the Children conducted a
Household Economy Assessment Study in Binga
district. Based on the results of
that study food aid distributions to
communities in Binga, beginning in 2002,
will continue to March/April 2004
reaching up to 800,000 people. Save the
Children is a core member of the
Vulnerability Assessment Committee (VAC) of
Zimbabwe and has influenced food
distribution methods and succeeded in
getting the children of resettled
farmers included in food aid programmes.
Moreover, Save the Children’s work
has made a major contribution to
persuading donors to look into the broader
effects of increasing food
insecurity on children’s welfare including for
instance on increased child
labour, decreased school attendance and
increasing engagement in commercial
sex work. uading donors to look into the
broader effects of increasing food
insecurity on children’s welfare
including for instance on increased child
labour, decreased school
attendance and increasing engagement in commercial
sex work.
Water
92 schools participate in Save the Children’s
water programme in the Zambezi
Valley. The programme focuses on practical
operation and maintenance of
water points (providing more pump mechanics and
minders) as well as health
and hygiene education for the
children.
Reproductive Health
Save the Children has carried out
research on children and young people’s
sexual health in Binga, Nyaminyami
and Mutorashanga and intends to use the
findings to advocate for specific
issues to be included in the reproductive
health policy currently being
developed by the Ministry of Health and Child
Welfare. Save the Children has
fed back results of the research to affected
communities. Some groups in
Mulindi, Pashu, Chinonge, Nagangala and
Sinampande in Binga District have
formed child sexual abuse committees to
deal with some of the problems
highlighted therein. For example how some
traditional practices are impacting
negatively on children.
Save the Children has completed seven youth
friendly centres for
reproductive health advice in the district and peer
education groups have
been established to help spread messages. In Chinonge
one peer education
group chose to launch a fundraising campaign to pay the
2003 school fees for
some HIV/AIDS orphans who had been forced to drop out of
school.
News24
Museveni: Zim pullout 'serious'
10/12/2003 10:38 -
(SA)
Kampala - Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Tuesday said
Zimbabwe's
decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth was "a serious matter
and a
dangerous turn" for the club made up mostly of former British
colonies.
Museveni said efforts were underway to reconcile the opposing
positions
taken on the issue by Commonwealth states during their summit in
the
Nigerian capital, Abuja.
"There is an effort to merge the two
positions because this is a serious
matter, but we shall know the position in
the next few days," Museveni told
a press conference in Kampala after
returning from Nigeria.
"But surely these are dangerous turns for the
Commonwealth," he added.
Zimbabwe pulled out of the Commonwealth on
Monday, a day after delegates at
a summit in Abuja, the Nigerian capital,
indefinitely prolonged its
suspension from the club's organs.
Uganda
is a member of the Commonwealth.
Also on Tuesday, the state-owned New
Vision newspaper criticised Mugabe and
the southern African countries that
were reluctant to condemn Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe.
"Both
Zimbabwe and other African nations should welcome constructive
criticism,"
the paper's editorial noted.
"They (African Nations) should not delude
themselves that the country
(Zimbabwe) will recover just because Mugabe is
readmitted to the
Commonwealth and we pretend everything is better for
Zimbabwe," it added.
Museveni told the news conference that Uganda had
been chosen to host the
2007 Commonwealth summit.
Uganda will not
expire
"My work has been to invite the Commonwealth, but it will be
hosted under a
different government not this one. Life has to continue,
Uganda will not
expire," Museveni said.
Museveni declined to say
whether he meant he had decided to abide by the
constitution and leave office
when his second elected term ends in 2006.
Museveni's plans on this point
are a constant source of debate in Uganda.
In October, the president, who
first came to power at the head of an armed
rebellion in 1986, suggested he
might remain in office.
"The more you talk about my staying in power, the
more I may change my mind
about leaving, as it makes me wonder why you are
interested in my leaving
yet you are not showing a vision for the future,"
said Museveni, whose
entourage has been lobbying for the two-term limit to be
lifted.
Toronto Star
Dec. 10, 2003. 01:00 AM
Editorial: Mugabe hurts Africa
Robert Mugabe has done Zimbabweans no
favour by quitting the
Commonwealth. Their unhappy political isolation will
now be complete.
And the manner of his leaving, after a bruising
Commonwealth summit in
Abuja, Nigeria, hurts all of Africa. In the twilight
of a too-long
presidency that began in 1980 at independence, Mugabe, now 79,
has betrayed
not only his 12 million people, but many millions
more.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and the other leaders spent too
much time
debating Mugabe's autocracy, and too little grappling with poverty,
AIDS,
barriers to trade, and debt.
Mugabe wasn't welcome, or
present, in Abuja. He watched from a
distance and announced Zimbabwe would
quit when the 54-nation club refused
to lift his suspension, because he
continues to subvert democracy after
stealing last year's election, to
persecute rivals like Morgan Tsvangirai,
to weaken the courts and suppress
the media.
Despite a push by South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique and
other countries
to lift Zimbabwe's suspension, and Mugabe's bogus assertion
that Zimbabwe is
under attack by the old "white" Commonwealth, the club
avoided a fatal split
and held firm, rightly refusing to readmit Zimbabwe, or
Pakistan's
discredited regime.
To do otherwise would have
betrayed the club's democratic principles,
inviting lawlessness
elsewhere.
Exclusion from the Commonwealth deprives Mugabe of
legitimacy, travel
options, an international stage and trade and aid.
Zimbabwe also may be
expelled from the International Monetary Fund, losing
financing at a time
when jobs, food and fuel are in short
supply.
Absent direct Commonwealth pressure, Mugabe may feel freer
to harass
his political foes. But he cannot hang on forever, pariah that he
is. Those
who are manoeuvring to succeed him have been put on blunt notice
that
democratic reform is the ticket back into the family.
That
should give Zimbabwe's democrats hope in a bleak season.