The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
Copyright © 2003, Dow Jones Newswires
HARARE, Zimbabwe
(AP)--The Zimbabwe government defied a court order
Friday to allow the
country's only independent daily newspaper to resume
publishing, when riot
police shut down its printing works.
Editor of the Daily News,
Nqobile Nyathi said that after a court
ruling earlier Friday permitting the
paper to reopen, the staff were
preparing an eight-page edition to be
printed.
Armed riot police sealed off entrances to the printing
works in
western Harare and ordered all staff to go home, Nyathi
said.
"We are trying to sort it out but it doesn't look as if
there's much
hope," she said.
Scores of staff were cleared from
the factory. There were no arrests.
Police and government spokesmen
weren't immediately available for
comment.
Earlier Friday a
judge ordered Zimbabwe authorities to allow the
country's only independent
daily newspaper, banned in September, to resume
publishing, the newspaper's
lawyers said.
Judge Selo Nare, presiding over an appeal against the
closure of The
Daily News, upheld an Oct. 24 ruling by the Administrative
Court that the
newspaper be allowed to reopen.
That ruling
wasn't enforced while the state lodged its appeal.
Nare said Friday
the Oct. 24 ruling stood, even if state attorneys
launched a fresh
challenge.
During a series of legal battles, the paper launched an
Internet
edition in neighboring South Africa.
Police shut down
The Daily News and seized its equipment in September
after it was banned
under strict media laws imposed by the government last
year.
No
comment on Nare's ruling was immediately available from the
government.
Authorities have ignored at least three court orders against
them this
year.
Since its launch in 1999, the Daily News has been a platform
for
criticism of President Robert Mugabe's 23-year rule. The state controls
the
country's two other dailies, and the only television and radio
stations.
In January 2001, The Daily News presses were destroyed in
a bomb
attack hours after Information Minister Jonathan Moyo described the
paper as
"a threat to national security which had to be
silenced."
Earlier Friday, Nare said he was seeking police
protection in his
court room in the second city of Bulawayo after receiving a
threatening
letter Thursday.
(END) Dow Jones
Newswires
December 19, 2003 11:31 ET (16:31 GMT)
VOA
Zimbabwean Judge Rules Independent Daily Must be Allowed to
Publish
Tendai Maphosa
Harare
19 Dec 2003, 16:59
UTC
In Zimbabwe a judge has ruled that Zimbabwe's only
independent daily
newspaper, The Daily News, must be allowed to publish,
regardless of a
Supreme Court appeal by a government appointed media
commission to keep it
off the streets.
Administrative court
president Sello Nare ruled in favor of The Daily
News, which sought the
court's authority to publish.
The Daily News has been kept off the
streets by a series of legal
moves, most recently an appeal filed by the
government's Media and
Information Commission.
Associated
Newspapers of Zimbabwe, which publishes The Daily News had
staff members hard
at work Friday afternoon, preparing a newspaper for
Saturday. The paper has
made such preparations before, but editor Nqobile
Nyathi feels that things
are different this time around.
"What we had done is to ask the
court to allow us to publish while the
case before the Supreme Court was
pending and the courts have very clearly
given us that right and even gone
further as to say that even if the
commission is to appeal the decision that
order will be upheld so we are
keeping our fingers crossed that all the
parties concerned will abide by the
law," she said.
It is not
yet clear what the government will do. But the
state-controlled Herald
newspaper quoted Information Minister Jonathan Moyo
as warning against any
backdoor attempt by the courts to allow the paper to
publish.
The Daily News was shut down in September after the Supreme Court
refused to
hear its complaint that sections of the Access to Information and
Protection
of Privacy Act are unconstitutional. Among other things, the Ace
requires
newspapers and journalists to register with the media commission.
The newspaper's executives have been in and out of court since then.
On
October 24 another administrative court judge ruled that the commission
was
improperly constituted and that if a new commission did not license the
paper
by November 30 it would be considered licensed.
The Daily News
published the next day, but its directors were arrested
for disobeying a
court order, and the newspaper stopped publishing again.
The executives are
free on bail. Friday's ruling upholds the initial
administrative court
ruling, allowing the newspaper to publish.
From The Times (UK), 19 December
Harare ‘inciting hatred’
From Jan Raath in Harare
Zimbabwe's state-run
media are whipping up hatred and violence in a way that
echoes Rwanda radio
in the genocide there, according to a report. The
Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Corporation and the Herald daily had been accomplices
in "the theft of a
nation’s democratic rights" and "accomplices to murder"
over the past three
years, the report said. As in Rwanda in 1994, when Libre
des Milles Collines
radio - known as "Radio Machete" - beamed anti-Tutsi
propaganda, journalists
in the state media had "abandoned the most
elementary standards of
truthfulness" to create stories that "seemed
calculated to incite a violent
response to the Government’s opponents",
according to the report by the local
Media Monitoring Project. "No longer is
it adequate to say they are
politically biased," it added. The 203-page
report is the first to dissect
the controlled campaign of incitement to
violence that has successfully
instilled a climate of "fear and panic" to
buttress President Mugabe’s
dictatorship. At least every half hour, state
radio broadcasts a jingle
urging Zimbabweans to adopt "liberation" values
and repeats the word "war"
five times.
The state media had made no attempt to report reality.
Their aim was to
"fire up" a hard core of ruling party militants against the
opposition, as
Radio Machete mobilised a relatively small group of Hutus to
genocide, the
report said. This month the International Criminal Court for
Rwanda, sitting
in Arusha, Tanzania, passed life sentences on two of the
station’s
journalists and a 35-year sentence on another. It was the first
time since
the Nuremberg trials that journalists had been convicted of crimes
against
humanity. "The Zimbabwean echo is so uncanny, it would hardly be
surprising
to find a copy of the (Radio Machete) manual on Jonathan Moyo’s
(the
Information Minister) bookshelf," the report said. "When, one day,
the
perpetrators of violence are held to account, those who incited them
with
‘hate speech’ should not be forgotten." The media issued a barrage
of
reports and commentaries that hammer out the myth of a British conspiracy
to
overthrow Mr Mugabe and return the country to white rule.
What's the Truth About Zimbabwe?
Daily Champion
(Lagos)
OPINION
December 19, 2003
Posted to the web December 19,
2003
Tony Okerafor
Lagos
AT last year's Commonwealth Heads Of
Government Meeting, CHOGM, which was
held in early March, Zimbabwe was the
dominant subject-albeit for the wrong
reasons. Again, the just-concluded
CHOGM summit, at our Federal Capital
Territory, did focus almost exclusively
on Robert Mugabe and the plight of
the 12 million people he has ruled since
April, 1980, and I dare say, much
to the displeasure of this
writer.
It's most hurtful, if not annoying, that the high-powered
delegations from
fifty-two nations of the Commonwealth allowed themselves to
be bogged down
by an issue that was fairly straight and clear. On March 9, 10
and 11, last
year, Zimbabwe held its fiercely-contested presidential election
since
independence some twenty-three years ago. Six weeks before the polls,
the
Commonwealth Action Group, which was a meeting of eight Commonwealth
foreign
ministers, agreed that pre-election Zimbabwe had reached
pressure-cooker
proportions. What else? They recommended that the country be
suspended from
the fifty-four-nation organization if President Mugabe and his
Zimbabwe
African National Union, ZANU PF, didn't remove those oppressive
policies and
legislations that were sure to undermine the fairness and the
credibility of
the presidential election.
Exactly one week to the
election, CHOGM took place, and a majority of the
heads of government present
decided that there was no point in assenting to
the British argument to have
Zimbabwe suspended from the Commonwealth when,
in actual fact, the election
had yet to be held, and Mugabe and ZANU PF
couldn't rightly be accused of
fixing the outcome. What did they do instead?
They selected a committee (an
Action Group) of three or four presidents and
prime ministers, and
"delegated" to it the authority to suspend Zimbabwe if
it thought that the
polls had neither been free nor fair... The polls came
and went. Mr. Mugabe
was re-elected to serve a fifth successive term.
Of course, the committee
did meet after the elections. What did they agree
on? That the polls had been
fraudulently organized, and as such, the outcome
was far from credible.
Resultantly, the Mugabe-led ZANU PF government, which
the same committee
accused of not living up to the Harare Declaration of
1990 on human rights
and good governance was ripe for suspension from the
Commonwealth of
Nations.
It's perhaps crucial to point out here that the president of the
Republic of
South Africa, Mr. Thabo Mbeki, is about one of the most outspoken
opponents
of the Commonwealth taking a hardline on Zimbabwe. But,
interestingly, he,
alongside another less aggressive advocate colleague of
his, Nigeria's
Olusegun Obasanjo, was in the same committee that had agreed,
last year,
that the Zimbabwe election in March had been everything but free
and fair.
Again, but more crucially, it's relevant to remind ourselves of
a
pre-condition which a more recent Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group
had
set for Zimbabwe's re-admission into the association. The government
of
Zimbabwe, it said, must first begin meaningful and fruitful
negotiations
with the opposition. So, the all-important question is: has
President Mugabe
taken the slightest steps towards compliance? The answer, to
my mind, is
unmistakeable; it's "no." Then, what is the basis of the argument
of those
who came to the CHOGM summit in Abuja to agitate for Zimbabwe's
immediate
re-admission? What justice might be behind their cause? If one may
ask: Is
it one that goes beyond the often-wielded argument that a former
colony,
namely Zimbabwe, and a powerful ex-colonizer, in this case, the
United
Kingdom, are engaging in an uneven political contest? Or is it being
seen as
one dimension to the racial struggle between blacks and whites -
Mugabe
representing the blacks, and Tony Blair standing for the white
cause?
Whatever it was and still is, it's the honest view of this writer
that those
African heads of state who came to Abuja to ask for
Zimbabwe's
"unconditional" re-admission have done the oppressed citizens of
that
long-suffering southern African country a great disservice. Besides,
their
positions on how the dispute over Zimbabwe can best be handled by
the
Commonwealth appears to be ridiculing the principles of democracy and
the
fundamentals of the rule of law, such as our governments and leaders
are
still professing. Let's start with the race issue. Perhaps, race was
an
issue in Zimbabwe before the Lancaster House Constitution which ushered
in
the country's independence in 1980. But, even Mugabe, on becoming
Zimbabwe's
first black leader, did say it himself that racial discrimination
in this
country was now dead and buried. In any case, the war of
independence, in
which Mugabe emerged as a hero, was said to have been fought
over land, not
race. Since 1980, Zimbabwe's 400,000-strong white community
have lived in
relative harmony with the dark-skinned majority. It was not
until Mr. Mugabe
introduced his controversial method of land re-distribution
that a section
of the international community, led by the British, took
offence. Also, it
was not until the ZANU PF began to face its biggest
political challenge,
following the birth of the MDC back in 2000, that Mr.
Mugabe realized that
his monopoly of power was no longer a foregone
conclusion. Then, he
introduced the racial card and played it - with much
success, I dare say.
Why was Mugabe so successful with playing the race
card since the year 2000?
Simple: the newly-formed party, the Movement for
Democratic Change, or MDC,
enjoys the support of Mugabe's trade unions, as
well as the wealthy white
minority. Even though its leadership is mostly made
up of black Zimbabweans,
President Mugabe calls the MDC a party of white
racists and puppets of
Britain whose only goal is to seize power and
re-establish white minority
rule in the country.
If you ask me, I'll
say ZANU PF has in the question of land re-distribution
a much more potent
weapon than that of race. But, even that requires a lot
of clarification,
especially in the eyes of an uneducated assessor. Everyone
is agreed that the
British, many generations back, ruthlessly took away the
lands of many
indigenous people in what is today Zimbabwe, as they also did
across the rest
of southern Africa. In fact, it's an injustice before any
sane and humane
mind that just under 80,000 white farmers, those whom
President Mugabe has
derisively called "Britain's children," should be in
possession of ninety per
cent of the country's entire arable farmlands.
But, where many
right-thinking people have differed from Mugabe is how he
has chosen to go
about it. See! it's possible that the British, and
particularly the Blair
government in London, have "more personal scores of
their own to settle with
Mugabe"; but, whatever it is, they are backing
their arguments with logic.
The "seizures," as President Mugabe calls them,
must be done in an orderly,
organized and compensated manner. Look! What has
happened, has happened.
Logic, commonsense and good political sense do not
support that you
"compensate" one act of injustice with another. The land
seizures have long
started, with the government relying on the intimidation
and the violent
tactics of the police, the army and the ZANU youth militia
to threaten and to
force out the occupants of those farms.
TO BE CONTINUED
New Zimbabwe
Mugabe arrest warrant sought in UK
By Mduduzi
Mathuthu
19/12/03
GAY rights campaigner Peter Tatchell who famously tried
to arrest Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe has launched a daring legal bid
for an arrest
warrant and extradition order against the 79-year-old tyrant
for human
rights abuses.
A hearing is set for January 7 at the Bow
Street Magistrate’s Court in
London before Justice Timothy Workman.
"I
am applying for an arrest warrant and extradition order on charges of
torture
under UK and international law: Section 134 of the Criminal Justice
Act 1988,
and the UN Convention Against Torture 1984,” Tatchell said in a
statement
issued Friday.
"If an arrest warrant and extradition order is granted, it
would mean Mugabe
could be arrested and extradited to Britain from any of the
100-plus
countries with which Britain has an extradition treaty,
including
Switzerland, France, Malaysia, Thailand and South Africa - all of
which he
has visited recently.”
Mugabe already faces possible
indictment in Canada for human rights abuses,
deliberate deprivation of food
and the Matabeleland genocide which claimed
20 000 lives in the first decade
of his 23-year-rule.
The federal government has been asked to approve a
genocide indictment
against Mugabe. The case, observers say, could be the
first real test of
Canada's Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes
Act.
The latest efforts to extradite Mugabe are not unique to Zimbabwe
only.
Similar action has been successfully applied to other dictators,
notably
Chile’s Augusto Pinochet who was arrested in London in 1998 following
a
Spanish extradition request.
Tatchell said: "In support of my
application, I have affidavits from three
Zimbabwe torture victims. They
implicate Mugabe in the authorisation and
condonement of torture I also have
affidavits and reports from human rights
groups attesting to the widespread
use of torture with the knowledge and
consent of the Zimbabwean government,
its security and defence forces.
However, Tatchell noted that there were
some legal hurdles to be faced in
executing such action.
"The consent
of the Attorney General is required for a prosecution under
Britain's
anti-torture law, Section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.
However, in
April 2002, at Bow Street Magistrate's Court, I bought a legal
case against
Henry Kissinger, under the Geneva Convention Act 1957, on
charges of war
crimes in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the 1960s and
70s. Under this
Act, the consent of the DPP is required for a prosecution.
”The judge at
Bow Street Magistrate's Court, Mr Nicholas Evans, accepted my
argument that
the DPP's consent was not required for the initial stage of
granting an
arrest warrant. I am hopeful the court will also accept this
argument in
relation to the Mugabe case,” Tatchell said.
He also noted that the
action was not made any easier by the fact that
Mugabe might be protected
under immunity granted to heads of state.
He said: "I have several novel
legal arguments against state immunity. These
range from the Nuremberg
Tribunal precedent that no one has immunity in
cases of crimes against
humanity such as torture, to the UN Rome Treaty
which explicitly directs that
for grave crimes like torture a Head of State
is not exempt from
prosecution.
Tatchell said regardless of whether he won, the case would
help draw world
attention to the human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, and add
pressure on the
world community to do something serious to end the tyranny
there.
"The legal action will also hopefully provoke more and more people
to ask:
what is the point of having human rights laws if the main abusers -
Heads of
State - are exempt from prosecution? I hope it might help begin a
global
movement to end state immunity for Heads of State.
The case is
not related to the Canadian extradition request. In Canada, a
team of lawyers
has used the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act to
craft a
wide-ranging indictment that accuses Mugabe of committing genocide
through
the deprivation of food and committing genocide which killed over
20000
civilians.
But it will come into force only if Canada’s Justice Minister
Martin Cauchon
approves it.
Alliance MP Keith Martin, who has made
several trips to Zimbabwe, said he
was optimistic that the federal government
will give the indictment the
legal force it needs, pointing to a recent
statement by Foreign Minister
Bill Graham that such an indictment is “an
option to consider.”
“In order for it to work, the Minister of Justice
has to simply say that
this indictment, or one like it, will be used against
Mugabe if he sets foot
in Canada or if he's extradited to Canada,” Martin
told globeandmail.com,
adding: “We'll see whether or not our foreign policy
has some muscle or
whether its just a lot of hot air. We've given the
government the path, the
question is whether they choose to take it or
not.”
Martin said that the former guerrilla leader, who took power in
1980, has a
vicious track record dating back through most of his long rule.
The
indictment cites “not only the use of food as a weapon, but the abduction
of
children into the paramilitary training programs, use of children to
commit
atrocities, including torture, rape and murder, the use of rape as a
tool of
terror, gang rape.”
“Here you have one leader, one regime,
committing genocide in his own
country,” he said. “If we don't do anything, a
lot of people are going to
die ... If we don't do something about Zimbabwe,
then our law is just a
piece of paper.”
Zimbabwe teetered to the point
of collapse after Mugabe dispatched his youth
brigades to take over white
farms in the name of decolonization and black
emancipation. Mugabe appeared
blind to the widespread problems this caused,
even as the economy crashed and
the nation had to import food.
Mugabe insists that external opponents are
racists and that internal
opponents are the puppets left over from British
imperialism. His actions
have split the Commonwealth and led to sanctions by
the United States and
the European Union.
“The hope is that other
countries will do the same thing so he becomes boxed
in,” Martin said. “So if
he wants to go on his shopping sprees to Paris or
London, they will have a
similar indictment and that they will serve it to
him if he winds up on their
shores. On the other hand, they could arrest him
and deport him if they chose
to do, along the lines of what happened to
Pinochet.”
The Matabeleland
genocide committed by the North Korean-trained Fifth
Brigade remains one of
the largest scars of Mugabe’s 23-year-rule. He
dispatched the army to hunt
down supposed dissidents but thousands of
civilians were killed and his
political opponents driven into exile.
VOA
S. Africa-Zimbabwe Relations Remain Close but Complex
Delia
Robertson
Johannesburg
19 Dec 2003, 15:25 UTC
South African
President Thabo Mbeki has visited Zimbabwean political leaders
in the wake of
that country's exit from the Commonwealth and harsh criticism
of Mr. Mbeki at
home and abroad for his handling of the Zimbabwe crises.
When he came to
office in 1999 President Thabo Mbeki adopted an approach of
quiet diplomacy -
or what his officials now call "constructive engagement" -
toward African
problems, particularly Zimbabwe.
There are several reasons for this, not
least the humiliating rebuffs handed
to former President Nelson Mandela when
he adopted tough go-it-alone
approach to African issues in the
past.
When he criticized Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, he was
castigated by
regional leaders and Mr. Mugabe refused thereafter to speak to
him on any
issue of substance. When Mr. Mandela urged the international
community to
impose sanctions against Nigeria in 1995 following the execution
of
opposition leader Ken SaroWiwa and eight others - the
international
community ignored his plea.
In addition, President Mbeki
has made it clear that South Africa's destiny
is, first and foremost,
inextricably bound to that of southern Africa.
John Stremlau of the
University of the Witwatersrand says President Mbeki
has two primary concerns
in dealing with Mr. Mugabe - the interests of South
Africa and winning the
support of the leaders of the Southern Africa
Development Community, or
SADC.
"Mbeki has had to walk a very difficult line domestically where the
land
issue is a very sensitive one and he has not allowed Zimbabwe to
divide
South Africans which is his most vital concern, first of all," he
said.
"Secondly he doesn't want to be seen by smaller neighbors - and South
Africa
really is the giant in the sub-region - as throwing his weight around
too
much; he's been trying to build a consensus within the sub-region to try
to
isolate and ultimately promote a transition of power in
Zimbabwe."
Other analysts and senior South African government sources say
that this
year, President Mbeki won general support within SADC for an exit
strategy
for Mr. Mugabe and that part of the strategy entailed the
Commonwealth
readmitting Zimbabwe at its November summit in
Nigeria.
Professor Stremlau says the purpose of that would have been to
allow Mr.
Mugabe to leave the scene with at least the façade of
dignity.
"And clearly [president] Mbeki has been pushing for this quietly
and
strenuously for many, many months and promised that publicly [to]
audiences
earlier this year that we would see Mugabe's dignified departure,"
said Mr.
Stremlau. "That has not yet happened and, I think, one of the
reasons
[president] Mbeki is frustrated is that he thinks that the decibel
level
raised at the Commonwealth and elsewhere has caused Mugabe to dig in
his
heels."
Professor Stremlau says that President Mbeki's critics
misread his policy on
Zimbabwe and that, rather than defending Mr. Mugabe,
the South African
leader's real concern is defending African prerogatives in
dealing with
African problems.
And Moeletsi Mbeki, the Deputy Chairman
of the South African Institute of
International Affairs, says it is a myth
that the ties between the
governments of South African and Zimbabwe are
warm.
He says there are numerous reasons for Zimbabweans to resent their
southern
neighbors - from the invasion of Zimbabwe by a splinter Zulu group
in the
mid-nineteenth century to the support of the white minority government
in
Zimbabwe by South Africa's apartheid government. Most recently, says
analyst
Mbeki, is the rejection in the 1960s by the African National Congress
of Mr.
Mugabe's ZANU-PF as a legitimate liberation movement.
"In the
1960s ZANU-PF, which is Mugabe's party, split off from a party led
by Joshua
Nkomo, which was a close friend of the ANC," said Moeletsi Mbeki.
"So the ANC
saw ZANU-PF as dissident, factionalist, which the ANC rejected.
So throughout
the liberation in Zimbabwe war from the 60s to 1980 when
Zimbabwe became
independent - the ANC never recognized Mugabe's party
because we were aligned
to Joshua Nkomo's PF-ZAPU party."
Even so, there are many South Africans
who think South Africa, given its own
history of overcoming an oppressive
system, has a moral obligation to loudly
denounce abuses elsewhere. Nobel
peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu said
what has happened in Zimbabwe is
unacceptable and reprehensible. He added
that, if South Africa is seemingly
indifferent to human rights violations in
a neighboring country, there is no
guarantee it will one day tolerate such
things at home.
Analyst Mbeki
agrees and adds that there is a cost to democracy. "So in that
respect I
think Tutu is right," he said. "Now - is it a difficult thing to
do - I don't
think so, I don't think its difficult. President Mandela, for
example, in
Nigeria took a very strong stand against the Sani Abacha
military regime
which hanged a number of people in the river states in
Nigeria - so I think a
stand can be taken. Of course it carries a cost to
build a
democracy."
Perhaps the South African leader has taken these criticisms
to heart. Senior
government officials say that when he visited Zimbabwe this
week, President
Mbeki's unequivocal message to Mr. Mugabe was to get serious
about
negotiating solutions with his opposition.
MDC ready to discuss dialogue with Mugabe
HARARE, 19 Dec 2003 (IRIN) - There
should be no preconditions for talks with
Zimbabwe's ruling party, the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
has said.
The MDC
holds its annual conference this weekend, and key issues such as how
the
party responds to Zimbabwe's political, economic and humanitarian crises
are
set to top the agenda.
MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube told IRIN
that "the question of
inter-party dialogue will obviously be discussed at the
conference".
However, he noted that several attempts to get talks going
had failed.
"We conducted two mass actions in March and June this year,
with the view to
bringing [President Robert] Mugabe to the negotiating table.
The national
council report [to be presented at the conference] addresses
this issue,
dwelling a lot on what has happened in the inter-party dialogue
process,
[and] narrating how the churches and other stakeholders like South
African
President Thabo Mbeki have so far failed to bring Mugabe to the
negotiating
table," Ncube said.
He added that the setting of
preconditions for talks would "doom the
dialogue" from the
outset.
"Even though we are the ones who are at the receiving end [of
political
intimidation] ... we will not put any preconditions [on talks]. Let
every
issue be put on the table. We might have different ways of crafting a
road
map of governance, human rights and democracy but we should sit down
and
identify our problems first. We are prepared for dialogue
unconditionally,
any time, anywhere," Ncube said.
Mbeki visited
Zimbabwe this week and held talks with both Mugabe and leaders
of the MDC.
Mbeki reportedly met opposition leaders for 45 minutes on
Thursday, after
spending 3 hours in talks with Mugabe, and assured them that
he had a
commitment from Mugabe "to be serious about dialogue", South
Africa's
Independent Newspapers reported.
FUTURE CHALLENGES
Ncube told IRIN
that party president Morgan Tsvangirai, currently facing
treason charges,
would deliver the keynote address at the
weekend
conference.
Tsvangirai would focus on "outlining not just the
challenges we have faced
in the past, but the challenges we are likely to
face in the future...
particularly, considering that whatever happens, we
face the parliamentary
election in about a year".
Following the MDC's
defeat in the Kadoma by-election - an urban seat - at
the end of November,
some analysts question the party's political strategy.
But Ncube said
"the most important item" on the conference agenda would be
the policies of
the party.
"We need to have clear, well developed policies which will
enable the MDC,
when it comes to power, to reverse the economic decline and
actually ensure
that, as quickly as possible, we begin to deliver a better
life to the
people of Zimbabwe. Hence, there will be debate on the party's
economic
policies," he said.
There would also be debate on the party's
agricultural policy, "with
particular reference to what needs to be
done".
"As you know our agricultural and land policy was developed at a
time when
we were saying the MDC would acquire 5 million hectares of land and
resettle
people in this way, but things have changed. There is a new
situation on the
ground which comes with different challenges," Ncube
said.
He was referring to the government's fast-track land reform
programme.
"You have a situation whereby the Mugabe regime has already
acquired some 11
million hectares of land, which is a fait accompli. But in
the process of
acquiring that land, agriculture is now virtually on its
knees. We need to
find out how we can come up with policies which can ensure
that we once
again produce food sufficient to feed ourselves and to export in
order to
earn money from our neighbours and elsewhere in the world," Ncube
said.
He added that debate around the party's new land policy was likely
to be
"spirited".
SABC
Praise and criticism for Mbeki on Zimbabwe
December
19, 2003, 03:19 PM
The Democratic Alliance (DA) today criticised
President Thabo Mbeki
for his continued stance of "appeasement" towards
Robert Mugabe, the
Zimbabwean President.
However, Njongonkulu
Ndungane, the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town,
took an opposite view and
congratulated Mbeki on his new initiative.
Graham McIntosh, a DA
spokesperson, said Mbeki was an extremely poor
judge of human character "if
he thinks that a policy of appeasement to a
political thug like Robert Mugabe
is going to achieve anything".
During his visit to Zimbabwe
yesterday, Mbeki had the chance to
restore his credibility on the crisis in
Zimbabwe, but sadly let the
opportunity slip through his fingers, McIntosh
said.
"If President Mbeki thinks that the Zimbabwean President has
anything
at all to teach South Africa, I challenge him to repeat his words to
the
thousands of Zimbabwean economic refugees living in the overcrowded flats
of
Hillbrow and the squatter camps of Gauteng and see what their response is
to
his claim."
Mbeki also remained disturbingly quiet about the
Zimbabwean
government's latest effort to seize all farming equipment from
those farmers
who had already had their farms confiscated by the Mugabe
regime.
The South African president said nothing about protecting
the property
rights of South African citizens in Zimbabwe, despite several
promises made
to that effect inside and outside of Parliament.
"One hopes that President Mbeki is not going to be let down once more
by
President Mugabe's undertaking to seriously start talking to the
opposition
(Movement for Democratic Change) MDC.
"The DA sincerely hoped that
President Mbeki would stand up for the
people of Zimbabwe, and also for his
own citizens living in Zimbabwe. This
did not happen. What a waste of a
valuable opportunity," Mc Intosh said.
But, Ndungane congratulated
Mbeki, on his initiative in meeting with
Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai in Harare.
"I would also like to affirm and support the
efforts of Zimbabwean
church leaders in the efforts they are making to
resolve the situation.
"It is my prayer and hope that formal
discussions between the two
parties take place as soon as possible to bring
about a solution to the
crisis, and peace and well-being to all Zimbabweans,"
Ndungane said. - Sapa
Zim Independent
Mbeki calls for urgent Zanu PF/MDC talks
Dumisani
Muleya/Blessing Zulu
SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki has stressed the
need for urgent formal
talks between Zanu PF and the Movement for Democratic
Change to solve
Zimbabwe's deepening crisis.
Mbeki arrived in the
country yesterday morning for meetings with President
Robert Mugabe and MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai. He met Mugabe three times,
once at State House and
twice at the Sheraton, while he had an unscheduled
meeting with Tsvangirai
and MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube, also at
the
Sheraton.
High-level sources said there was a new initiative under
way to resolve the
Zimbabwe crisis. They said this was what Mbeki had been
referring to of late
in his upbeat expectations of a political
settlement.
The sources said in his first meeting with Mugabe, Mbeki
got a briefing on
the political and economic situation. He also got an
account of informal
talks between Zanu PF and the MDC.
Mugabe is
said to have told Mbeki that there had been talks with the MDC by
his party
negotiators and that some progress had been made. Mugabe is said
to have
accepted the need for urgent formal talks with the MDC to break the
current
political impasse and end Zimbabwe's economic crisis.
Mbeki is
understood to have briefed Mugabe on the recent Commonwealth
meeting in
Abuja, Nigeria, where Zimbabwe's suspension was extended, leading
to Harare's
angry withdrawal from the 54-member club.
It is thought that Mugabe
and Mbeki agreed that there had to be a solution
in Zimbabwe by June next
year. Mbeki has previously insisted there will be
"leadership renewal" in
Harare by that time.
Mbeki, accompanied by his Foreign minister
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma,
director-general in the presidency, Reverend Frank
Chikane, legal advisor
Mojanku Gumbi, and South African ambassador to
Zimbabwe, Jeremiah Ndou, met
Tsvangirai and Ncube yesterday
afternoon.
Sources said Tsvangirai briefed Mbeki's delegation about
the situation in
the country and talks with Zanu PF. Tsvangirai indicated
that the situation
was getting worse, while there has been no progress on
dialogue.
Mbeki is said to have told the MDC to keep in touch with
him through his
office.
In an interview, Ncube could not disclose
details but said the meeting with
Mbeki dwelt on the need for Zimbabweans to
seriously address their own
crisis.
"We met President Mbeki and he
told us about South Africa's concern over the
need for an urgent solution to
the crisis," Ncube said. "We told him that we
are committed to dialogue and
are ready now. We said we are ready to meet
Zanu PF unconditionally anytime,
anywhere."
-Meanwhile, in a remarkable demonstration of just how far
he is prepared to
go to win over Mugabe, Mbeki tried at the recent
Commonwealth summit to
persuade Club leaders to overturn the findings of the
observer mission sent
to monitor Zimbabwe's presidential poll last
year.
But diplomatic sources say he failed to get leaders of the
grouping to
revise the report.
"Mbeki fought hard for Mugabe's
cause in Abuja. Apart from trying to get
Zimbabwe's suspension lifted, he
wanted leaders to amend the election report
in line with his own observer
team's report," a source said.
"This means the Commonwealth report
would have been changed to say although
the election was not free and fair,
it was legitimate, which is what the
South African report concluded. But this
was rejected outright as it would
have set a bad precedent."
Zim Independent
Gono gets thumbs up
Godfrey Marawanyika
THE
business community yesterday gave new Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono
the
thumbs up for his monetary policy statement saying what was left was
the
implementation phase.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries
president Antony Mandiwanza welcomed
the new monetary policy but said Gono
needed to be given time to implement
it. "It's basically good and it is
something we had recommended. Let's give
him time," he
said.
Mandiwanza's comments come after his organisation's
recommendation of an
auction floor system to address foreign currency
problems was adopted.
Sween Mushonga, director of Highveld Discount
House, said although what Gono
presented appeared to be good on paper, he
would need time to implement his
policies.
"What remains to be
seen is whether he will get the political support he
desperately needs to
make his policies work," Mushonga said.
Former RBZ governor Leonard
Tsumba said the policy was a step in the right
direction.
Gono
promised that whistle blowers would be rewarded for informing the
authorities
on illegal operations in foreign currency and siphoning of
precious
metals.
Zim Independent
Land reform seen as vote-buying gimmick
Itai
Dzamara
MOST Zimbabweans still view President Robert Mugabe's land reform
programme
as a vote-buying exercise which has failed to gain credibility
among members
of the public, a survey has revealed.
The survey,
conducted recently by the Mass Public Opinion Institute (MPOI)
and titled
Zimbabwe's Land Reform, An Audit of the Public Perception, was
compiled
between August and last month with input from over 1 400 people
across the
country.
Funded by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the survey shows
that although
awareness of the land reform was very high, this was not
matched by access
to land itself.
Respondents acknowledged the
debilitating effects of the reform process on
the country's socio-economic
fabric.
More than 96% of those interviewed said they were aware of
the land reform
programme, but only 14% had access to land which was
monopolised by Zanu PF
followers.
"Awareness of the programme is
nationwide (96,2%) but is not matched by
access to land (14%)," the report
says.
The report attributed the low percentage of access to land by
the general
populace, especially in congested communal areas, to
politicisation of the
programme.
"Considering that one of the
objectives of land reform was to decongest the
rural areas, it is important
to note that the people who benefited from the
land allocations are the elite
or people with political connections to the
ruling party," said the
report.
The majority of Zimbabweans have understood the intention of
government to
use the land reform programme as a vote-buying gimmick, the
survey
established.
"The land reform programme as conducted by
government is viewed by
significant percentages as a vote-buying exercise
that is likely to fail.
People feel that the exercise was hurried and
unplanned."
The survey also established that there were fears of
worsening food
shortages due to the instability and uncertainty brought about
by the land
programme. It emerged through the survey that less than 65% of
households
allocated land had occupied it, with even fewer engaged in any
meaningful
production.
"One of the strongest criticism of the land
reform process is its negative
effect on production. Respondents point to the
lack of equipment and inputs
as stumbling blocks," the report
said.
Those interviewed also lambasted government for subverting the
rule of law
in the implementation of the land reform for political
gain.
The controversy about the number of people resettled also came
out strongly
during the survey.
"There is considerable controversy
on the number of people who have been
allocated land. The government claims
that over 300 000 people were
allocated land yet reports from governors
submitted to the portfolio
committee dealing with land recorded about 129 000
people and the Utete
Committee recorded a figure of 127 000. The
discrepancies over the actual
figures of people allocated farms point to the
irregularities surrounding
the allocation of farms."
The majority
of the beneficiaries are aged over 31 years and more between 41
and 50 years.
The youth appear to have been sidelined and yet they are the
future of this
country, the report noted.
President Mugabe unleashed his supporters
onto white-owned farms in
February 2000 after the rejection of the
government-backed draft
constitution. An orgy of violence ensued and Mugabe
converted the chaotic
occupations into a process aimed at redressing
historical land imbalances,
characterised by subversion of the rule of
law.
Coupled with drought conditions in the region, the chaotic land
reform has
resulted in massive food shortages.
Zim Independent
Brain drain reaches alarming levels
Blessing
Zulu
GOVERNMENT'S failure to address political problems in the country
has
resulted in a massive brain drain of skilled labour that is critical
to
economic recovery, a study released last week has shown.
It said
the brain drain had reached alarming proportions.
"The study confirms
the widely held view that the level and trend of the
brain drain in Zimbabwe
has reached unacceptable and unsustainable heights,"
the study
said.
The study examined the trend, rate and level of brain drain,
together with
push factors in Zimbabwe and pull factors
abroad.
"Each year Zimbabwe loses thousands of talented professionals
crucial to its
development needs. Most of these are young professionals who
abandon their
professions in Zimbabwe, often for menial jobs that advance
the
socio-economic interests of their host countries," the report
said.
The professionals mostly involved include doctors, nurses,
engineers,
teachers, financial experts, and other skilled
people.
The study was prepared by the Scientific and Industrial
Research and
Development Centre under contract to the National Economic and
Consultative
Forum, funded by the United Nations Development
Programme.
Most of those leaving go to Britain, the United States,
Australia, South
Africa and Botswana.
"The large numbers
constituting Zimbabwe's loss of skilled and highly
educated manpower are a
phenomenon that policymakers cannot ignore," the
study said.
It
said in the past four years this brain drain had escalated in magnitude
to
levels that had serious implications for the country's capacity to
deliver on
the sustainable development front.
There are about 20 000 scientists
and engineers in Zimbabwe and more are
needed.
"There are now more
Zimbabwean-born scientists and engineers working in the
diaspora than there
are in Zimbabwe. One reason for there being fewer
scientists left in Zimbabwe
is that government and private-sector spending
on research and development
(R&D) is only about 0,2% of the gross national
product. This is one of
the lowest percentages of funding for R&D support in
the world," the
report said.
The health care sector is the most seriously affected.
Many are leaving
because health care and education spending cuts have denied
them reasonable
salary levels.
The United States, for instance, is
using special visas (HB-1 visa) and
higher salaries to attract African
professionals with technical expertise.
As a result it is estimated that the
United States economy gains about
US$100 000 a year from each HB-1 visa
immigrant.
Zimbabweans in the diaspora expressed disappointment that
government did not
have a policy framework to involve professional
Zimbabweans in national
development. Most of them are viewed by government as
disloyal and were
denied their voting rights in the March 2002 presidential
election.
"The resistance was made worse by an article that claimed
that the
government of Zimbabwe was working on a scheme to tax Zimbabweans in
the
diaspora," the report said.
The study said the reason certain
professionals were leaving Zimbabwe was
that working at home was synonymous
with supporting the current government
and not the people. It said nothing
could force them to work in Zimbabwe but
their desire to serve their
country.
"Many professionals leave Zimbabwe for the brighter
opportunities offered
abroad, complaining that Zimbabwe is too corrupt and
needs more politicians
of high moral standards," said the
study.
The economic crisis has forced professionals left in the
country into
moonlighting.
"The deteriorating economy in Zimbabwe
has forced some professors,
lecturers, medical doctors and scientists to
operate minibuses, taxi cabs or
operate beer parlors. It is a form of
internal brain drain to have many
architects, accountants and pharmacists
underemployed," the study said.
The majority of Zimbabweans in the
diaspora since 1990 are in the UK
(36,8%), while 3,4% are in Canada. Botswana
leads the region with 34,5%.
Although data from South Africa shows a
smaller proportion there (4,6%), it
is believed this is a gross underestimate
because the majority of them are
illegal immigrants.
Zim Independent
'Mbeki's appeasement policy won't work'
Dumisani
Muleya
OPPOSITION Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) secretary-general
Professor
Welshman Ncube says South African President Thabo Mbeki's policy
of
appeasement towards Zimbabwe will not help resolve the current
crisis.
Commenting on Mbeki's weekly column on the African National
Congress
website, ANC Today, Ncube said South Africa's "quiet diplomacy"
would only
worsen the situation.
"Mbeki seems to be thinking that
he can urge Mugabe's regime to reform
through a policy of appeasement,
whereas everybody else is saying tougher
measures are necessary to bring Zanu
PF to the negotiating table," Ncube
said.
"Nobody has ever
disagreed that we need dialogue to resolve this crisis but
certainly we can't
achieve anything through misrepresenting issues in order
to appease one of
the parties involved. It's surprising that Mbeki believes
justifying
dictatorship will help resolve this crisis."
Western countries, Mbeki
claimed, were only interested in protecting their
"kith and kin" in Zimbabwe.
He said there were people trying to use the
issue of human rights to
overthrow Mugabe's regime. The incumbent regime, he
suggested, was legitimate
and brought democracy to Zimbabwe.
He attributed Zimbabwe's crisis to Ian
Smith's Unilateral Declaration of
Independence.
"Mbeki's arguments
are as astonishing as they are bizarre," Ncube said.
"From an intellectual
point of view, his article exposed serious scholastic
bankruptcy. It was full
of vague arguments based on distortions and a
blurred
intellect."
Ncube said Mbeki's column was clearly designed to appease
Mugabe.
"It's clear reading through the article that it is not only an
attempt to
justify Mugabe's dictatorship but it also substantially seeks to
appease his
regime and even, more importantly, legitimise the stolen
presidential
election and violation of universal democratic norms and human
rights," he
said.
Ncube said it was irrational to attribute
Zimbabwe's current economic free
fall, hyperinflation, which is now 620%,
shortages of foreign currency,
cash, power, unemployment, poverty and
political impasse to UDI.
"Notwithstanding his dictatorship and
minority rule, Smith managed a stable
economy which, despite distortions and
structural problems, performed
relatively well," he said.
"Our
currency was one of the strongest in the world, inflation was at a
single
digit, foreign currency was there and food self-sufficiency
was
guaranteed.
"We had modern infrastructure and one of the most
industrialised economies
in Africa, which is why (the late Tanzanian
president Julius) Nyerere told
Mugabe at independence that he had inherited
the jewel of Africa.
"But now what do we have, a banana economy in
which everything operates in
the underworld and Mbeki wants to blame that on
UDI."
Ncube said the land issue was being used to camouflage repression
and human
rights abuses by Mugabe's regime and "no amount of whitewash" from
Harare
spin-doctors and allies could cover-up that.
Meanwhile
Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu this week expressed his
sadness
that South Africa declared Zimbabwe's presidential poll legitimate,
if not
free and fair, saying that was a distressing semantic game.
"Had we
had something similar in 1994 here at home with the NNP (New
National Party)
being declared a winner despite the elections not having
been free but
legitimate we could have quite rightly shouted foul," he said.
Tutu
said South Africa should reject Zimbabwe's pleas of sovereignty
and
non-interference in domestic affairs to hide repression.
"Had
the international community invoked the rubric of non-interference then
we
would have been in dire straits in our anti-apartheid struggle. We
appealed
for the world to intervene and interfere in South Africa's internal
affairs.
We could not have defeated apartheid on our own. What is sauce for
the goose
must be sauce for the gander too," Tutu said.
"Human rights are human
rights and they are of universal validity or they
are nothing. There are no
peculiarly African human rights. What has been
widely reported as happening
in Zimbabwe is totally unacceptable and
reprehensible and we ought to say so
regretting that it should have been
necessary to condemn erstwhile comrades,"
he said.
"The credibility of our democracy demands this."
Zim Independent
Mudzuri taking his job back from Chombo
Augustine
Mukaro
SUSPENDED Harare mayor Elias Mudzuri says he should be given back his
job as
government has been unable to prove his alleged
mismanagement.
Mudzuri was suspended eight months ago on allegations of
mismanagement of
city affairs which, it was claimed, had led to a decline in
service delivery
to Harare ratepayers.
In a letter to Local
Government minister Ignatius Chombo this week, Mudzuri
sought to be
reinstated saying Chombo had not substantiated reasons for
his
suspension.
Justice Chinhengo ruled last month that a
committee set up in terms of
Section 311 of the Urban Councils Act could not
investigate a specific
individual but only council affairs in
general.
"The inquiry by a Section 311 committee is general in
nature," Chinhengo
said. "It is necessary to appreciate that a Section 311
committee would have
no mandate to inquire into misconduct allegations
levelled against a
specific individual including a mayor. Its target or
object of inquiry is
not an individual but the general state of affairs of a
local authority."
Mudzuri said the committee appointed by Chombo was
clearly irrelevant and of
no effect as far as the resolution of his
suspension was concerned.
"In plain and simple language, you have failed
in the past eight months to
initiate the necessary process and procedures to
substantiate your
allegations against me," he told Chombo.
"It is
therefore my intention to resume my duties and to fulfil the
mandate
democratically given to me by the people of Harare," Mudzuri
said.
Zim Independent
Mugabe's Geneva jaunt gobbles over $2b
Dumisani
Muleya/Itai Dzamara
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's nine-day junket to Switzerland
and Ethiopia last
week gobbled over $2 billion in travel and accommodation
expenses, as well
as allowances for his large entourage, investigations by
the Zimbabwe
Independent have revealed.
The investigations show that
Mugabe took a delegation of 23 government
officials and state security agents
who were paid US$400 daily for nine days
in allowances.
Official
sources said the Air Zimbabwe 60-tonne Boeing 767-200 aircraft
which he
commandeered for his hastily arranged jaunt to attend the United
Nations
World summit on Information Society in Geneva, Switzerland, last
week used
150 000 litres of Jet A1 fuel.
"The aircraft was filled up with 50
000 litres in Harare before it left last
week. However, it stopped in Cairo,
Egypt, for refuelling," a source said.
"On the way back from Geneva it
stopped again in Cairo to fill up with 50
000 litres en route to Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, where Mugabe attended the
Sino-Africa summit."
Sources
said $150 million was spent in filling up the aircraft in Harare
before its
departure on Monday last week. Jet A1 costs $3 000 a litre on the
black
market from where the fuel was accessed. In Cairo the plane's further
50 000
litres at US$0,50 a litre cost US$25 000.
On the way back from
Geneva, the plane refuelled in Cairo at the same cost.
In total it is
estimated Mugabe's trip cost $450 million on fuel alone.
The sum of
allowances received by each member of Mugabe's entourage during
the tour was
about US$3 600, bringing total allowances to the delegation to
US$82 800
($496,8 million).
While in Geneva, Mugabe and his delegation stayed
at one of the city's
plushest hotels, La Réserve, a country club-style spa on
the shores of Lake
Geneva. The hotel has 86 rooms and offers royal,
presidential, executive and
deluxe suites. Rates start at £380 a night, with
the presidential suite
reportedly costing £4 500.
Mugabe and his
wife Grace would have spent $135 million on their
accommodation during their
three-day stay in Geneva, while the other 21
members of the entourage spent
$239,4 million, bringing the total
accommodation expenses to $374
million.
Overall, Mugabe's delegation got through about $2 billion,
including
expenses during their five-day stay in Ethiopia. Air Zimbabwe had
to lease
an aircraft from a British airline, My Travel Airways, for US$1
million
during Mugabe's trip. The plane was used to ply the Harare-London
route in
the absence of Air Zimbabwe's Boeing 767-200.
Zim Independent
Mapfumo on democracy crusade
Itai
Dzamara
CHIMURENGA music maestro Thomas Mapfumo who returned from exile last
week,
will play his banned songs agitating for the restoration of
democratic
principles and human rights during his stay in the
country.
Mapfumo will perform at the Zimbabwe Music Awards (Zima)
ceremony at the
Harare International Conference Centre (HICC) on Christmas
Eve.
He is expected to fire broadsides at President Mugabe and his
regime through
songs that were banned from the airwaves by Information
minister Jonathan
Moyo. Mapfumo is now based in the United
States.
Mapfumo left the country for the US in 2001 after alleged
harassment by
state agents. Mapfumo is tipped to win the Zima Lifetime
Achievement award
for his consistent fight for democracy, justice and human
rights since the
days of the liberation struggle.
After a short
flirtation with Zanu PF soon after Independence Mapfumo turned
his whip on
the Mugabe regime for betraying the ideals of the
liberation
struggle.
In an interview with the Zimbabwe Independent
yesterday, the veteran
musician said the struggle for liberty was reaching a
climax for Zimbabweans
and he would play his role as an artist.
"I
am still a musician who sings a message reflecting the lives of people,"
he
said. "We must not be misled into believing that things are better or
will
miraculously change," said Mapfumo.
"We have reached a terrible level
of deterioration in the history of this
country in terms of the economy as
well as political and social status."
He said it was in light of this
that he had returned home to preach the
gospel of democracy, human rights and
working together for national revival.
"People are struggling. I will
call for unity in solving the problems, not
violence used to suppress the
masses. Kunodiwa kuti vanhu vese vapihwe
mukana wokureva zvavanoda nokuvaka
nyika kwete kuti munhu mumwe chete
angoramba achiti ndini ndega (All people
should be given the opportunity to
express their desires and participate in
nation building instead of having
one person selfishly dictating the pace),"
he said.
He said a leader must rise above party politics and handle
national affairs
in a mature and balanced manner.
"If one is a
leader of the country, he must cater for the welfare of all
citizens. He must
ensure a fair distribution of all national resources. That
shows
maturity."
Mapfumo said souring relations between Zimbabwe and the
international
community would not help the country solve its
problems.
"It will not help us to continue to alienate ourselves from
the rest of the
world. Not at all! We have to create friends not enemies
because we don't
exist in a vacuum. Already the effects of isolation are
there for all to
see."
Zim Independent
Law Society slams proposed bill
Blessing Zulu
THE
Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) has castigated Home Affairs minister
Kembo
Mohadi's plans to legislate for non-bailable offences as an
infringement of
the rights of individuals.
The Herald on Tuesday
quoted Mohadi as saying he would next year table a
Bill before parliament
that would render certain offences related to
economic sabotage
non-bailable.
But LSZ president Sternford Moyo, in a letter to acting
Attorney-General
Bharat Patel, said the effect of non-bailable offences will
be that a person
charged with an offence specified as non-bailable would
languish in prison
until his case was heard and a verdict
pronounced.
"Quite clearly such legislation would be contrary to the
presumption of
innocence, a cornerstone of our criminal justice and a right
guaranteed by
our constitution. Consequently, such legislation, if
promulgated, would be
manifestly unconstitutional," Moyo
said.
Moyo said Zimbabwe was a signatory to many international
conventions in
which the presumption of innocence was guaranteed. These
include the African
Charter on Human and People's rights.
Moyo
said the government of Botswana attempted to amend the penal code to
impose a
total prohibition on the granting of bail to persons charged with
rape. The
amendment was struck down by the courts as unconstitutional and
inconsistent
with the presumption of innocence. He said the African Charter
on Human and
People's rights was also invoked in Swaziland. Moyo said such
an instrument
would usurp the powers of the court.
Zim Independent
Decree on farm equipment illegal
Blessing
Zulu
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's decree authorising the seizure of farm
equipment
and inputs currently not being used is blatantly unconstitutional,
farmers
said this week.
Statutory Instrument (SI) 273A of 2003,
published in an extraordinary
Government Gazette on Monday, gives the
agriculture ministry the right to
compulsorily acquire any farm equipment or
materials such as fertilisers and
chemicals on any acquired land not
currently being used for agricultural
purposes.
Justice for
Agriculture (JAG) vice-president John Worsley-Worswick described
the decree
as unlawful.
"Needless to say this is totally unconstitutional on a
number of grounds not
least of which is the infringement on the individual
citizens' rights to own
property in Zimbabwe," Worsely-Worswick
said.
In a press statement, the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said
they were
consulting their lawyers. The union said the decree was another
blow for
commercial farmers.
CFU president Doug Taylor-Freeme said
farmers would be hard hit by this
development.
"This latest move
is yet another way for government to dispossess farmers
under the guise of
providing farm equipment to new farmers,"
Taylor-Freeme
said.
"That the Statutory Instrument carries clauses
saying equipment will be
valued by members of the public service who the
ministry feels are qualified
to do so, and that owners will be compensated
for their equipment over five
years, is meaningless. Farmers are still
waiting for realistic compensation
to be paid for the fixed assets on their
farms and now the same is likely to
happen to their moveable assets and
inputs," he said.
The two bodies said the SI had the net effect of
destroying the farmers'
only source of income.
"That this minority
group is surviving economically, to a large extent and
sometimes solely by
virtue of the ability to trade these moveable assets, is
further indisputable
evidence of the illegal, unconstitutional, inhumane and
draconian nature of
this regime," said Worsley-Worswick.
Zim Independent
Zim has fastest shrinking economy
Blessing
Zulu
ZIMBABWE has the fastest shrinking economy in the world, performing
worse
than war-torn Iraq and Liberia.
The respected Economist
Intelligence Unit (EIU) blamed the economic
contraction on President Robert
Mugabe's wayward policies.
"Zimbabwe will continue to be the
poorest-performing country in the world as
the destructive policies of Robert
Mugabe continue," the EIU said in its
latest report.
The EIU said
Mugabe had so entrenched himself in power using security forces
and party
militias that any "political manoeuvring to oust him may take
years to reach
a conclusion".
The EIU forecasting guide covers almost 200 countries,
each with a concise
assessment of the political and economic prospects for
the year ahead,
together with key economic indicators and a summary of
forecast numbers.
Zimbabwe tops the list of the world's poorest
performing economies. The EIU
said Zimbabwe's gross domestic product (GDP)
was estimated to be minus 8,8%
in 2004. Zimbabwe's GDP has been on a slide
for the past six years. Last
year GDP plunged to minus 12,1% courtesy of
Mugabe's intensified attack on
farmers, white-owned companies, the
opposition, human rights and civic
groups and the
media.
Zimbabwe's fortunes are in stark contrast to other countries
in the region.
Angola and the DRC which until recently had been war-ravaged
are poised for
significant growth next year. According to the EIU, Mozambique
expects GDP
growth of 8%.
Zim Independent
Editor responds to threats
Staff Writer
THE Editor
of the Zimbabwe Independent, Iden Wetherell, has responded to
claims by two
Kwekwe Zanu PF officials that they had each filed a $300
million lawsuit
against this paper for publishing a story claiming they were
used as fronts
by Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa in illegal
gold
dealings.
"We will not be silenced by Zanu PF officials
threatening us through
government mouthpieces like the Herald," Wetherell
said. "If they had a
grievance against this newspaper they should have
informed us through their
lawyers. Instead, one of the two named as taking
legal action against us,
George Makombe, phoned our newsroom on December 8
and threatened our
reporters."
Makombe told reporter Blessing
Zulu: "I will come to that paper and shoot
everyone. I will make sure that
the paper is closed."
Makombe denied that he was a Zanu PF official.
He then called news editor
Vincent Kahiya who referred him to reporter
Shakeman Mugari who had
co-authored the story with Zulu.
After a
few minutes Mugari handed the phone back to Kahiya saying Makombe
was
threatening him.
Makombe told Kahiya that he had never spoken to
Mugari on Wednesday,
December 3, a day before the story was compiled. He said
he was in Masvingo
at the time preparing for the Zanu PF conference. Mugari
has a record of
their conversation on December 3.
Makombe asked
Kahiya where Mugari lived and how old he was. He said he had
liberated this
country and had spent years in the bush "dodging bullets".
"I
liberated this country," said Makombe. "You are lucky that I am in
Kwekwe. If
I was in Harare I was going to come there and shoot everybody.
How old is
that young man? Does he know that I can destroy him completely? I
can inflict
violence on him," he said.
Kahiya reminded Makombe that he was making
threats on the phone, which was
an offence, to which Makombe replied the
story in the paper was a bigger
offence.
He said that MDC Kwekwe
MP Blessing Chebundo had passed on the information
to the Independent because
his party had lost the Kwekwe mayoral election in
October.
"You
have to ask yourself why Chebundo lives in Kadoma when he is the MP
for
Kwekwe," said Makombe. "I chased him out of Kwekwe. You can ask him.
He
knows all about me and the terror I can cause," he said.
In the
Independent's report of December 5, Mines minister Edward
Chindori-Chininga
said the three men named had not been authorised to issue
gold licences.
"Those three officials are illegal and their syndicates are
also illegal," he
told this paper. Mnangagwa denied any involvement.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
Mbeki muddled
THANK goodness for Desmond Tutu. His thinking is crystal clear and
when
President Thabo Mbeki descends into the depths of self-serving
obfuscation,
Archbishop Tutu (now retired but retaining the title of
Archbishop Emeritus)
shines a bright light through the murky darkness of
presidential double-speak
(See Page 9).
The Commonwealth followed well-established procedures
in extending the
suspension of Zimbabwe, he pointed out on Monday in reply to
Mbeki's ANC
Today contribution. Tutu expressed his sadness that South Africa
had
declared last year's presidential poll legitimate, if not free and
fair,
asking what the reaction of South Africans would have been if their
1994
election had been stolen by the incumbent National Party.
Mbeki is understandably piqued that South Africa was isolated in its
policy
of constructive engagement towards Zimbabwe at the recent
Commonwealth heads
of government meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. While other
regional states also
opposed the club's continued suspension of Zimbabwe, it
was South Africa that
held out on the committee of six appointed at Abuja to
resolve the matter.
Mbeki insisted on Zimbabwe's readmission even though it
was clear to all that
Harare had not made any attempt to meet the concerns
set out in the
Marlborough House Statement of March last year following
President Robert
Mugabe's disputed re-election.
But Mbeki's palpable irritation
should not allow him to get away with
downright distortions of the
record.
In his ANC Today foray published last Friday, Mbeki makes a
number of
claims that are at variance with the facts. He appears to think
John Howard
of Australia, chair of the troika of government heads appointed
at the
previous Chogm in Coolum, Australia, to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis,
had no
mandate to call an "unscheduled" meeting to impose new sanctions on
Zimbabwe
half way through its one-year suspension. He also says
secretary-general Don
McKinnon never explained what he meant by the "broadly
held view" of member
states when extending the suspension in March this year
and claims the
Zimbabwe government was not given a chance to respond to the
report of the
Commonwealth election observer team.
Mbeki said he
had studied and taken seriously the points raised by
South Africa's own
observer mission relating to "political violence,
legislation and state
institutions relevant to the elections (and) the role
of the
media".
Over 21 months later, political violence remains a feature
of
Zimbabwean elections as opposition candidates are attacked by
ruling-party
gangs and prevented from registering; there is no independent
electoral
commission; army officers continue to supervise polling; and voters
are
deprived of the right to make an informed choice by the closure of
the
country's only independent daily newspaper.
The troika was
mandated at Coolum in February last year to adopt
measures on Zimbabwe based
on the report of the Commonwealth observer group.
It was entirely within the
remit of Howard as both Commonwealth and troika
chair to propose fresh
measures if it was felt Zimbabwe was refusing to
comply with the Marlborough
House terms.
Howard was perfectly entitled to schedule meetings if
necessary. And
McKinnon spent most of February meeting and discussing
Zimbabwe's suspension
with Commonwealth heads of government. The "broadly
held view" he arrived at
was for Zimbabwe's suspension to be continued until
the Abuja Chogm earlier
this month.
That decision was validated
by the recommendation of the committee of
six, which included Mugabe allies
such as prime minister Percival Patterson
of Jamaica, to maintain Zimbabwe's
suspension. The resolution was adopted by
Chogm as a whole in its final
communiqué. In other words the "broadly held
view" remained the broadly held
view.
As Tutu asks, why should Mbeki question a democratic
majority? And as
Obasanjo has pointed out, Mbeki should understand that not
everybody in a
club of 54 can have their way.
Contrary to
Mbeki's claim, the Zimbabwe government was given every
opportunity to respond
to the report of the Commonwealth observer group and
to engage with McKinnon
on areas of concern but, as Mbeki conspicuously
omits to mention, McKinnon
and his envoys were refused visas to visit
Harare.
But it is on
the vexed subject of land reform that Mbeki's account
shifts from the merely
disingenuous to the flatly dishonest. The large sums
of money promised by the
British and US governments at Lancaster House never
materialised, Mbeki
claims.
In fact Britain provided over £47 million in the period
1980-85 for
land reform. But few of the farms acquired found their way to the
deserving
poor. Most ended up in the hands of Mugabe's cronies. And when the
United
Nations Development Programme decided after the 1998 donors conference
that
land reform was not following approved procedures, donors felt they
could no
longer justify funding a programme that lacked transparency, failed
to
address poverty alleviation, and undermined self-sufficiency in
food
production.
When Mbeki visited London in 2000 he was told
Britain had set aside a
further £36 million for land reform if the UNDP was
prepared to approve a
workable land reform plan.
He left that
bit out of his account as well. And he claimed it was the
SABC's fault that
the world was not informed of his opposition to forcible
land
seizures.
He complains that "those who fought for a democratic
Zimbabwe" had
been turned into "repugnant enemies of democracy". But he
nowhere
acknowledges that is perhaps because they have become repugnant
enemies of
democracy! It is not the minority of British descent that are
currently
under siege but trade unionists, women's groups, lawyers, and
students. But
Mbeki, while lamenting Zanu PF's fate, has no words of
compassion for the
victims of Mugabe's violence.
What is most
revealing in Mbeki's commentary is his resentment of
foreign policy that is
driven by concern for human rights. He appears
shocked that the US should
want to "foster the infrastructure of democracy,
the system of a free press,
unions, political parties, universities and
allow people to choose their own
way…"
Mbeki is clearly resentful that the Commonwealth should have
declined
to buy Mugabe's land mantras and instead turned to issues of human
rights.
But that is why Abuja is seen as a watershed. The stale liberation
rhetoric
peddled by Mugabe as a smokescreen for perpetuating his misrule has
passed
its sell-by date. Nobody was buying it except Mbeki.
Nowhere in his article does Mbeki say what happened to South Africa's
human
rights-based foreign policy unveiled with much fanfare only seven
years ago.
Perhaps he could tell us in his next edition where he has hidden
it!
Zim Independent
Mbeki accused of compounding Zim’s crisis
Dumisani
Muleya
NO longer an honest broker, South African President Thabo Mbeki
has become
part of the Zimbabwe problem, political analysts said this
week.
Commenting on Mbeki’s weekly column on the African National
Congress’
website, ANC Today, analysts said his latest contribution was
nothing more
than a self-serving attempt to defend his failed “quiet
diplomacy” policy on
Zimbabwe and justify President Robert Mugabe’s
dictatorship.
Mbeki suggested in his article last Friday that Mugabe was
legitimately
elected although millions of Zimbabweans dispute this. He
questions “the
untested assumption that the Commonwealth observer report was
correct” and
cites his own country’s observer mission report to support his
views.
Analysts said Mbeki’s rambling arguments were shocking testimony
to his
shallow appreciation of the Zimbabwe crisis.
They said Mbeki
was pretending to be an impartial mediator in the Zimbabwe
crisis when he had
turned into a Mugabe apologist and a sore loser in
international
diplomacy.
The University of Zimbabwe’s Institute for Development Studies
political
analyst, Professor Brian Raftopoulos, said Mbeki was lashing out in
all
directions in defence of his failure to help resolve the political
impasse
in Zimbabwe.
“Mbeki is clearly justifying his self-evident
failure to deal with the
Zimbabwe crisis through his so-called quiet
diplomacy,” Raftopoulos said.
“Instead of addressing real issues in
Zimbabwe, he has moved into a laager
from which he is parroting Mugabe’s
shallow arguments.”
Following his diplomatic drubbing at the Commonwealth
meeting in Abuja two
weeks ago, Mbeki last week tried to obfuscate his
failure to smuggle Mugabe
back into the now 53-member club against the will
of the organisation’s
majority.
He argued it was better to accommodate
than isolate Mugabe, saying Zimbabwe’
s continued suspension was unhelpful
because by the time the Abuja summit
meeting ended “Zimbabwe had left the
Commonwealth, rendering this decision
meaningless”.
He quotes the
Southern African Development Community (Sadc)’s wail of
protest after the
Abuja summit about Zimbabwe’s continued suspension but
does not mention that
Sadc is deeply divided over Mugabe.
Botswana, which has always stood firm
on the Zimbabwe crisis, distanced
itself from the Sadc statement which
Commonwealth chair, Nigerian President
Olusegun Obasanjo, described as
“unethical”. The statement was released by
Mbeki’s foreign affairs department
in Pretoria after Obasanjo refused to
allow it to be released in
Nigeria.
In his contribution, which repeats most of Mugabe’s facile
rhetoric, Mbeki
makes a hotchpotch of claims about events in Zimbabwe,
working from the
premise that “the current Zimbabwe crisis started in 1965
when the then
British Labour government, under prime minister Harold Wilson,
refused to
suppress the rebellion against the British Crown led by Ian
Smith”.
He quotes from Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s book, Decolonising the Mind,
that “some
Africans help to rationalise Europe’s upside-down way of looking
at Africa”.
Analysts said while Ngugi was making an intellectual
observation in good
faith, Mbeki has tried to twist that to suit his
self-serving views in
support of Mugabe.
Mbeki also claimed that
Mugabe and his regime brought democracy to Zimbabwe.
“Those who fought for a
democratic Zimbabwe, with thousands paying the
supreme price during the
struggle, and forgave their oppressors and
torturers in a spirit of national
reconciliation, have been turned into
repugnant enemies of democracy,” he
said.
Analysts say this argument failed to appreciate that those who were
part of
the struggle for majority rule have indeed turned into “repugnant
enemies of
democracy” by perpetrating gross human rights abuses against their
own
people.
Mbeki further quotes from former United States Secretary
of State Henry
Kissinger’s book, Diplomacy, written during the Cold War era,
to dismiss
complaints of well-documented human rights abuses by Mugabe’s
regime.
“It is clear some within Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the world,
including our
own country, are following the example set by (former US
president Ronald)
Reagan and his advisors to treat human rights as a tool for
overthrowing the
government of Zimbabwe and rebuilding Zimbabwe as they
wish,” he says. “In
modern parlance, that is called regime
change.”
National Constitutional Assembly chairman and UZ law lecturer,
Lovemore
Madhuku, said Mbeki was out of his depth about what is happening
in
Zimbabwe. He said his views were scandalous.
“Mbeki doesn’t
understand the complex situation in Zimbabwe, especially
Mugabe’s human
rights record,” Madhuku said.
“His historical arguments, which
Zimbabweans know about only too well, are
just as irrelevant as his quiet
diplomacy. No amount of whitewashing will
spruce up Mugabe’s repressive
regime. The fact is people are suffering from
the regime’s dictatorship and
its policy failures.”
Mbeki complains that Zimbabwe’s chaotic land reform
programme was not
discussed at the Commonwealth Abuja summit. He points out
that the land
issue has actually disappeared from the global discourse on
Zimbabwe.
Furthermore, he says, Mugabe’s violent seizure of white-owned
farms was
“perhaps inevitable”. Mbeki also accuses Britain of stalling land
reform in
Zimbabwe, claiming it failed to provide a mere £9 million for
resettlement.
He overlooks the fact that Britain provided £47 million and
pledged a
further £36 millions for the same programme if the UNDP was
prepared to
endorse it.
UZ’s Professor Eliphas Mukonoweshuro said
Mbeki was right in saying the land
issue had disappeared from serious
discussions about Zimbabwe, but wrong on
the reason why.
“He is right
that the land issue has disappeared from informed discourse on
Zimbabwe. The
land issue was a smokescreen to cover up Mugabe’s brutal
campaign to maintain
power at all costs. It was used to camouflage human
rights abuses and
economic mismanagement, to which Mbeki is blind,”
Mukonoweshuro
said.
“Land is no longer the issue because everybody now realises it was
being
used to divert attention from repression and human rights abuses. It
is
shameful for Mbeki not to realise this. Mbeki’s opinions are
unmitigated
nonsense. They raise serious doubts about his capacity to help us
in
resolving our problems.”
Graham McIntosh, Democratic Alliance
spokesperson on Africa, said Mbeki’s
article “offers a fascinating but
frightening insight into the president’s
disturbed logic and devotion to lost
causes”.
“Any informed individual who has visited Zimbabwe and seen the
reality of
the Mugabe regime’s disastrous policies and programmes will agree
that the
sentiment expressed by President Mbeki is utter nonsense,” McIntosh
said.
“The president’s letter is a disgusting defence of a disgraceful
tyrant. He
should be ashamed of the way he has used race and smear tactics
against
other members of the Commonwealth and its secretary-general (Don
McKinnon)
and the astonishing trashing of the world’s commitment to human
rights as ‘a
tool of US foreign policy’.”
However, local political
commentator Ibbo Mandaza said Mbeki was right in
most of his observations.
“His views were consistent with his policy on
Zimbabwe. Mbeki is right in
observing that regime change is Britain’s and
Australia’s major aim in
Zimbabwe. The idea is to keep Mugabe under pressure
while strengthening the
opposition,” he said. “I also agree with him
entirely that the issue of human
rights is now being used to try to
overthrow the government.”
Mandaza
said Western countries were committed to defending their “kith and
kin” in
Zimbabwe for electoral gains back home where the issue of race is
important.
He also said it was true that Zimbabwe’s problems began in 1965.
But
South African Institute for Security Studies director Jackie Cilliers
said
Mbeki’s claims unmistakably “sounded like President Mugabe’s
usual
ideological and racial arguments, which are always difficult to
rationalise”
.
“Mbeki’s views actually inform South Africa’s position
on Zimbabwe. But they
are doing South Africa and the president himself a
great deal of damage
internationally,” he said. “It is simplistic to suggest
that repression and
human rights abuses have to be justified under the banner
of land reform.”
Zim Independent
Comment
Chinese cornucopia unlikely to be
forthcoming
SALVATION will soon be coming from China, we are assured.
This will replace
evaporating support to Zimbabwe from the
West.
State-media columnists are in all seriousness advancing the
government’s
current line that China can substitute in trade and investment
for the loss
of balance-of-payments support from the IMF and the absence of
investment
from traditional trading partners in Europe and North
America.
If the Chinese are permitting this deception to gain ground they
will be
accountable for the disaster that is likely to follow.
China
indeed has a booming economy. It has one of the highest growth rates
in the
world. But it has attained this success by cultivating investment
from the
world’s three largest economies — the United States, the European
Union and
Japan. While the investment climate is not ideal, it is
sufficiently
attractive to entice some of the West’s largest companies.
The benefits
accruing from China’s growth enable its leaders to play Santa
Claus to poor
African states that have admired China’s international stance
but followed
none of its economic examples.
Zimbabwe has been given “approved tourism
destination” status, we are told.
The government media went so far as to
suggest that China “compels” its
citizens to visit countries benefiting from
this status.
Despite the totalitarian character of the Chinese state, we
doubt that it
goes that far! But Zimbabwe will at least be able to promote
its attractions
as a tourist destination in China.
The problem is that
Chinese tourists prefer package holidays to individual
forays abroad. They go
round in a gang and spend as little as possible. And
they prefer destinations
they know such as those in the Far East. Getting
them to come here will be a
tall order.
The same goes for Chinese investment. While China will help
out with a few
flagship projects such as rehabilitation of Wankie, they will
soon discover
that without a railway system to transport coal to industrial
customers the
best of intentions will be thwarted.
Very simply,
because of poor policy choices, macro-economic distortions, and
zero
accountability, money that should be underlying national revival is
going
down the drain. We are literally wasting resources, that is when — as
in
agriculture, horticulture and wildlife — we are not destroying them.
The
Chinese say they support Zimbabwe’s land reform programme. Does that
mean
they support the theft of farm equipment under the legal figleaf of
a
presidential statutory instrument? Do they support the wholesale
destruction
of wildlife conservancies and the seizure of safari
concessions?
President Mugabe is reported to have asked for more tractors
when he met
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao in Addis Ababa this week. Have the
Chinese asked
what happened to the last consignment of tractors they sent
here?
The first rule of trade and investment is to provide a
conducive
environment. That means political stability, impartial enforcement
of the
law, an independent legal system and convertibility. Can it be said
Zimbabwe
has any of these prerequisites?
As Colin Powell has remarked,
international capital is a coward. It goes
where it feels safest. With
Mauritius offering attractive terms, Namibia
still stable despite its
unstable ruler, and Botswana providing a regional
paradigm, who will want to
come to Zimbabwe? This is not revenge for land
reform by US or British
companies. Their directors and shareholding
structures are in any case
increasingly transnational. They would love to
see a workable land reform
programme that doesn’t sabotage productive
agriculture and downstream
industries.
The Chinese, we can be sure, will ask others first before
they take the
plunge. Like the Malaysian millions that never materialised,
the Chinese
cornucopia will be less than the Zimbabwean public is being led
to expect.
Getting the economic landscape in order is the first trick, as
yesterday’s
statement by Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono spells out.
Re-engagement
with the international community will follow.
The
government is currently attempting to put the cart before the horse.
Mugabe
seriously believes he can go on ruining the country and then
find
unsuspecting investors to leap where others fear to tread.
He is
as wrong on this assumption as he is on everything else he is
currently
attempting including the latest own goal of a unilateral
withdrawal from an
organisation that has benefited thousands of Zimbabweans
and given the
country a network of useful connections.
Let’s see just what the Chinese
produce in the way of a miracle cure for
Zimbabwe’s badly poisoned economy.
Like everybody else, they will soon
discover that this particular fish rots
from the head.
Zim Independent
Eric Bloch
Zimbabwe faces very bleak prospects in
2004
THIS being the last “Eric Bloch Column” for 2003, thoughts
inexorably focus
on the outlook for Zimbabwe’s economy in 2004, and the
consequential outlook
for the Zimbabwean people. Regrettably, the outlook for
much of the year
ahead is extremely bleak. The prospects for an early
economic upturn are
remote in the extreme, and therefore those for the
population very
distressing, save for some prospect of a marginal change for
the better late
in the year.
The facets of a continuing economic
decline are many. Inflation will
continue to rise during the first half of
2004, no matter how the Reserve
Bank may, under the able leadership of its
new governor Dr Gideon Gono,
implement constructive inflation targeting, and
no matter that government
may not act counter-productively to the Reserve
Bank’s endeavours. Although
all indications are that the Reserve Bank will
strive to curb inflation, it
cannot succeed instantaneously. Numerous factors
will occasion continuance
of the hyperinflation environment into
2004.
The first of such factors is the very magnitude of current
inflation. With
actual inflation estimated to be in excess of 800%
(official figures put it
below 600%), that inflation must unavoidably trigger
further inflation, for
it fuels demands for increased wages and salaries, and
it causes price
increases which are necessary to cover rising costs. If
inflation targeting
is successfully pursued, there are real prospects of
inflation reaching its
peak by mid-2004, probably at an official level of
between 1 200 and 1 500%
(in contrast to Minister Murerwa’s projection of
700% in March). Actual
inflation will continue to exceed official figures,
for the latter are based
on a 1994-based “spending basket” which is no longer
reflective of actual
spending patterns, and on official prices of commodities
in short supply,
instead of actual prices prevailing.
Inflation must
also continue to rise for so long as Zimbabwe continues to
suffer excessive
government spending, corruption remains unchecked,
productivity in the
economy is contained by erratic and inadequate
availability of foreign
currency, and by worker demoralisation, and for as
long as foreign currency
shortages continue to inflate the costs of
accessing such currency. That
inflation of foreign currency costs will
continue for so long as the demand
for it exceeds availability, and there is
little or no likelihood of a
sufficiency of foreign currency in the
foreseeable future.
Until
inflation comes under control, intending exporters must continue to
increase
prices for their goods, unless exchange rates move sufficiently to
compensate
the exporter for increased production costs, or government
provides export
incentives (which it cannot readily afford) sufficient to
counteract the
escalation of costs. In consequence, foreign currency
generation through
exports will continue to be severely constrained, and
particularly so as
concurrently a further decrease in agricultural exports
is inevitable, thanks
to government’s stubborn pursuit of a disastrous land
reform programme, and
due to government’s failure to address adequately the
needs of new
farmers.
The shrinkage of the economy is causing a lessening of revenue
flows to
government, in real terms, and that combined with an insufficiency
of
necessary foreign exchange, must compound the collapse of much of
Zimbabwe’s
infrastructure. Tel*One and Net*One are no longer able to service
the nation
’s needs. Zesa is no longer able to supply all electricity
required, or to
repair rapidly any transmission breakdowns. NRZ does not have
the capacity
to transport essential quantities of coal from Hwange. Air
Zimbabwe’s
adherence to flight schedules becomes ever more erratic due to
inadequacy of
its fleet. Local authorities have increasing difficulties in
effecting
necessary water delivery and treatment, in safe management of
sewerage
without prejudice to health, in maintaining roads, street lighting,
traffic
lights, and the like. And these are but a few examples of an
intensifying
infrastructural collapse.
The decline of the economy, the
collapse of infrastructure, and the
progressive destruction of educational
resources by irrational policies and
directives of the Ministry of Education
are causing in a continuing “brain
drain”. More and more skilled Zimbabweans
are seeking greener pastures
within the region and abroad to maintain and
improve life style, to meet the
educational needs of their children, and to
provide critically needed
support to families remaining in Zimbabwe. The loss
of skills is immense,
impacting on all sectors of society, including the
provision of essential
health care services, the viable operation of
parastatals, and the ability
of private sector enterprise to maintain
standards and productivity.
It is an unfortunate certainty that as the
economy’s decline continues,
crime will intensify, for greater and greater
numbers will resort to crime
to meet their needs. White collar crime has been
sharply on the increase in
recent years, with more and more employees turning
to fraud and like crimes.
Burglary, theft, car-jackings, armed robbery, and
similar crimes are also on
the increase. And corruption, which has long been
a cancerous plague
afflicting the Zimbabwean economy is intensifying and is
allowed to do so
free of any hindrance by the authorities. All such crime is
not only of
harsh impact upon the security and wellbeing of the populace, but
is also an
erosion of the economy.
All of these economic ills will be
exacerbated by continuing fiscal
indiscipline on the part of government.
Despite the genuinely intended
assurances by the Minister of Finance and
Economic Development Murerwa when
he delivered his 2004 budget statement to
parliament last month that there
will be stringent measures to ensure that
all ministries will operate very
within their Votes, save only in instances
of natural emergencies and
disasters, and that government will not fund
recurrent expenditures with
borrowings, few if any, believe that will be the
case. Murerwa and his
predecessors have frequently given like assurances with
good intent only to
have their intents disregarded by the president and the
cabinet, so it must
be assumed that that too will be the case in
2004.
Unfortunately, if trends heretofore are any indication, as all
these dire
projections for the 2004 economy materialise, government will
not
acknowledge its culpability and resolve to do the necessary to
achieve
reversal, until it is almost too late. Instead, it will once again
look for
scapegoats to blame. (And it may well need new ones for, having
immaturely
stamped its foot in fury and departed from the Commonwealth, the
ability to
blame Britain, Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Brian Donnelly is
diminished!).
Government has never had difficulty in finding scapegoats, no
matter how
tenuous and mythical are its allegations. Undoubtedly, once
again
government will include in its victims for blame the white population
in
Zimbabwe, and those countries in the world whose populations
are
predominantly white.
The pre-1980 anti-black racism that prevailed
in Zimbabwe was unforgivable
and needed to be overturned. But the recent
anti-white racism which has
characterised so many speeches of many in the
upper echelon of the
Zimbabwean government is as bad. Two wrongs do not make
a right! The result
is that the great racial harmony that developed in
post-Independence
Zimbabwe is being destroyed, and a racial divide created.
That is
accelerating the brain drain, is impacting upon morale with
consequential
prejudice to productivity and to investment, is a deterrent to
foreign
direct investment, discourages international tourism, and thus
is
contributing to the economic collapse.
However, all is not lost
despite the bleak outlook for the immediate future.
As the economy continues
to weaken, it is inevitable that the polarisation
of government and the
population will intensify. That will stimulate
government to reconsider its
policies, and its implementation of those
policies, albeit reluctantly. It
will not do so in recognition that it is
wholly responsible for the
distraught state of the economy, for it believes
itself to be omnipotent and
infallible. It is incapable of admitting error.
But it will do so when it
recognises that there is no alternative if it is
to have any chance of
survival.
Thus, Zimbabwe has nothing positive to hope for in the
immediate future, but
it has much to justify expectation of eventual,
positive change. Justifiable
hope remains, even if Zimbabwe must first
continue to struggle through an
increasingly great economic morass.
Zim Independent
Muckraker
Choice channels for the First
Family
DURING the recent postal strike DStv had difficulty getting copies
of its
Dish magazine to customers. People were encouraged instead to go to
DStv
offices to collect their copies. But postal addresses had already
been
stamped on the packets so customers got somebody else’s
copy.
Which is how Muckraker ended up with a copy addressed to Hon RG
Mugabe,
Zimbabwe House, 7th Avenue, Harare. We don’t know whose copy Hon RG
Mugabe
has, but if he would like the one belonging to him he is free to
call
Muckraker and ask for it.
What intrigues us about this is why the
president should want to subscribe
to satellite television, with all its
subversive British and American
stations transmitting “lies” about Zimbabwe,
when he could be watching ZTV
with its good news about the success of the
land programme, not to mention
its entertaining gyrating
jingles.
Zimbabweans will be curious to learn that after a hard day’s
work, Bob and
Grace like nothing better than to put their feet up and watch
Will and
Grace, and other American or British TV programmes. Perhaps they
just have
it for the kids, switching across to Newshour once the little ones
have gone
to bed?
Somehow we doubt it. It looks as if, like the rest
of us, they can’t stomach
ZTV! What’s the betting they watch BBC World, Star
Trek, Outer Limits, The
Drew Carey Show, and CSI Miami? Who knows, Grace may
even pick up a few tips
from Nigella Lawson on the Food
Channel!
Following Mugabe’s appearance at the Geneva World Summit on
Information
Society last week a reader has written in to ask: “Does this man
even know
how to turn on a computer? His only interest in information
technology is
tapping people’s phones and reading their e-mails.”
Our
reader may be right. While Grace probably knows how to use it for
Internet
shopping and the kids can play Fantasy Football, it is doubtful if
Bob,
unlike his South African counterpart, spends his spare time surfing
the
Net.
Thabo Mbeki is addicted to his computer, we gather, surfing
into the early
hours and reading all those rude responses to his ANC Today
column.
European newspapers reporting Mugabe’s address to the conference
delegates
in Geneva pointed out that five people had been arrested in
Zimbabwe and
charged under Posa for sending e-mails urging participation in
protests
against the Mugabe regime. Hardly what is meant by the “Information
Society”
!
Then there was the person charged with sending a fax to the
UK about the
human rights situation here. Somebody looking over his shoulder
reported him
to the police. And we are pleased newspapers have been quick to
point out
that, under the Postal and Telecommunications Act, Internet
Service
Providers are required to hand over transcripts of e-mail
communications.
The Act makes it an offence for ISPs to reveal that they have
been
instructed to disclose such messages to the authorities.
Perhaps
instead of warming up his standard speech on US and British
imperialism,
Mugabe could have read a few passages from Animal Farm or 1984.
Because
Zimbabwe’s information cul-de-sac is about as Orwellian as it
gets!
Zimbabwe’s state-owned fixed line provider, Tel*One, rose to the
occasion by
losing its connection to South Africa via the Mazoe earth station
link
during much of the period Mugabe was in Geneva pontificating on
the
information super-highway. As a result, e-mails were down for two
days.
Readers may be interested to know what Zanu PF founder Enos Nkala
has to say
about his old party.
Now a born-again Christian, Nkala says
a break with his past has changed his
perspective on life and politics. He
believes that Zanu PF is in a fix with
an economy on its knees, massive
starvation, political instability and
lawlessness.
“Zanu is on its
death bed, it is dying, it is disintegrating and the purpose
for which it was
formed has been lost,” he said in a recent interview.
“The economy is
gone, the party itself is disintegrating, the war vets
themselves are running
the party and some of them are ignorant human beings.
Fighting the war does
not make you a leader.”
Thanks for that insight Enos!
Not
everybody believes Zanu PF is dying. Cde Under the Boot, writing in
the
Sunday Mail, thinks the ruling party is led by a “hero who
continues
shining”. Because the BBC’s Mark Doyle reported that President
Mugabe’s
speech in Geneva stood out from the bland contributions of other
heads of
state, meaning it was controversial, Cde Under spun this as a speech
that
“stunned” the BBC, CNN and Reuters.
“No wonder why (sic) the
British war-monger Tony Blair and that Australian
coward Howard fought tooth
and nail to make sure the president was not
invited to Chogm in Abuja,” Cde
Under spat.
“They knew that once the hero was in the house they would be
reduced to
size, like what happened in Johannesburg and New York some time
ago.”
“Some time ago”? Aren’t political editors supposed to know when?
And are
they now reduced to saying what might have happened if their dear
leader had
been afforded a soap box to perform his grandstanding?
The
fact is a clear majority of Commonwealth members declined to buy his
claims.
Is it seriously suggested countries like India, Nigeria, Ghana,
Kenya,
Jamaica and Malaysia were all “bulldozed” into excluding Zimbabwe?
That
Britain and Australia command that sort of power?
Munyaradzi Huni claims
Oluse-gun Obasanjo’s strategy of not inviting
Zimbabwe left “his face with a
lot of egg” (sic).
In fact Obasanjo’s standing has increased considerably
as he managed the
debates at Chogm. But the best thing to have come out of it
was not just the
resistance of the Commonwealth as a whole to Mugabe’s
pretensions, it was
the refusal of a number of significant African states to
join Sadc in
insisting on Mugabe’s attendance. Then of course there was the
collapse of
the Sri Lankan challenge to Don McKinnon.
Zimbabwe’s
supporters have been reduced in number and isolated from the rest
of Africa
and the progressive world. Just one Caribbean state supported
Mugabe. And
that was a tiny island (actually one and a bit). And well done
to Nigeria,
Ghana, Gambia and Kenya. They finally put to rest the myth of
African
solidarity.
The picture in the Sunday Mail said it all. While it was
captioned “Listen
brother…President Mugabe hammers a point to Nigerian
President Olusegun
Obasanjo”, the Nigerian leader is in fact looking at the
camera with an
expression that says: “Would you believe this guy”!
The
other “big loser” was Tony Blair, Huni inventively suggested.
Really? Was
Britain excluded from Abuja? Was it Blair’s allies who deserted
him? Was it
Blair’s agenda that was defeated at Abuja?
Come on Cde Huni, when you
have lost it is sometimes better to concede
defeat gracefully than continue
to make a fool of yourself. Don’t you
remember telling us not so long ago
that Mugabe would attend Abuja and we
would all get a rude shock?
The
Herald’s Presidential office boys have been suggesting Zimbabwe should
look
towards improving ties with Francophone and Lusophone countries. In
other
words, having discarded one parent they are looking for another.
But do
these little orphans not understand that France and Portugal have the
same
position as Britain on events in Zimbabwe? The French might indeed
make
remarks about Britain’s flea-market following OECD figures showing
France
falling behind Britain in the GDP stakes, but Jacques Chirac and Tony
Blair
have been working closely on foreign and defence policy while EU
ambassadors
in Harare meet regularly to coordinate their response to events
here.
Do Francophone and Lusophone states really want such a sore loser
in their
midst who will sooner or later disgrace them? Muckraker will be
putting it
to the prospective parents when we next see them.
And our
commiserations to the office boys for the loss of Saddam Hussein. We
mean the
Iraqi one, not theirs. For some weeks now they have been
advertising their
solidarity with the Baathists in their resistance to the
coalition. Every
bombing has been cheered on. But like so many cowards who
bully their own
people, Saddam proved ready to throw up his hands when he
saw the game was
up.
Let’s hope the office boys are learn-ing how. Meanwhile, listen out
for
burrowing noises at Munhumutapa Building.
Home Affairs
minister Kembo Mohadi could at least have the courage of his
convictions when
threatening productive minorities. His menacing speech to
senior police
officers last week, redolent in the discredited mantras of
Mugabe’s
spin-doctors, had to be read by the Secretary for Home Affairs
because Mohadi
couldn’t make it to the function.
It was all about dismantling “the
economic hegemony of the white settler
colonial minority” in order to deliver
“total emancipation”.
In fact it is the entire economy that the
government is busy dismantling.
The “total emancipation” Mohadireferred to
has been the emancipation from
food self-sufficiency, emancipation from the
rule of law and emancipation
from good governance.
But it was useful
to have his remarks on record so as to assess his
culpability in Zanu PF’s
misrule when the day comes.
Exactly who is it, Cde Mohadi, who has
“distorted the political and economic
domains”? Who has “led us up the garden
path” so per capita GDP is today
lower than it was in 1980 and unemployment
over 70%?
Mohadi has been obliged to parrot the Moyo line that economic
difficulties
are “Western-contrived”. In other words Mugabe’s well-documented
misrule is
not to blame!
But he was right about the need for a new
paradigm, one in which public
funds are spent wisely and don’t disappear into
the pockets of a parasitic
political class, one in which the public can trust
the state security forces
to enforce the law professionally and impartially,
not selectively, and one
in which justice and decency prevail instead of
state terror, brutality and
torture. What has Mohadi got to say about lawyers
being assaulted in police
stations on the orders of generals’
wives?
Perhaps we should be a little more indulgent towards Mohadi. In
declining to
read the address himself, he might have been distancing himself
from the
worst excesses of Zanu PF’s destructive rule!
Under
the heading “Tambaoga: Zimbabwe’s bad boy”, the Sunday Mail carried a
puff
piece on the controversial singer last weekend. When the Sunday Mail
visited,
Last Chiyangwa (his real name) was watching the Zanu PF conference
in
Masvingo on TV. Which may explain why, in the accompanying picture, he
was
unable to keep his head upright.
He complained that he should have been
invited given the fact they were
using such Tambaoga phrases as “the Bhureya
that I know is a toireti”.
In case you may conclude from this that
Tambaoga is several bricks short of
a barrrow-load, he produced this
philosophical gem to show us why he is so
highly regarded in ruling-party
circles.
“Have you noticed that when you go to work in the morning the
sun blinds
your eyes and when you return it will be setting and still it will
be
blinding your eyes? It’s because the colonialists wanted to blind us —
kuti
tipuse tisanyanye kuonesesa.”
“The man’s philosophy is just
amazing,” the Sunday Mail’s writer enthused!
Indeed, deep. In fact as deep as
a pit toireti!
Zim Independent
Forex auctions begin
Godfrey Marawanyika
THE
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) will introduce a controlled foreign
exchange
auction system on January 17 throwing out the fixed exchange rate
system,
governor Gideon Gono said yesterday.
He said the move had been done in
consultation with both government and
business.
He said the fixed
exchange rate had been considered "inappropriate for the
short, medium to
long-term good of the country".
The system has been in place for the past six years.
"Under this system foreign exchange will be auctioned
through a currency
exchange - an independent body that will operate under the
supervision of
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe," Gono
said.
"Exporters will discharge CD1 forms on the basis of gross
export proceeds
and 50% of their foreign exchange earnings can be retained in
foreign
currency accounts. Of the remaining 50%, 25% would immediately be
sold to
the auction market at the ruling auction rate."
The
governor said the remaining 25% would be surrendered to the RBZ at
the
current exchange rate of $800 to the United States dollar for
critical
imports and other government requirements.
"External loan
repayments will thus be met from the exporter's 50% share and
other purchases
from the auction," he said.
The proposal came from the Confederation
of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), which
said this would help improve Zimbabwe's
crippling foreign currency shortage.
The controlled auction approach
involves the setting up of an auction market
where buyers and sellers of
foreign currency are matched.
According to "CZI Recommendations to the
Foreign Currency Management
Committee" made on November 16, buyers of foreign
currency will submit
sealed bids to buy the hard currency.
The CZI
had also recommended that the RBZ increase the foreign currency
retained by
exporters from the current 50% to 80% if government and the
central bank do
not adopt a controlled auction system.
"We recommend that foreign
currency is auctioned through a central currency
exchange," the CZI said.
"These auctions would be overseen by the Reserve
Bank. We recommend that if
we adopt the currency exchange system, the 50%
retention for the Reserve Bank
is abolished and that the Reserve Bank
sources currency from the currency
exchange. This is to eliminate
distortions on parallel market
activities.
"We envisage that a Zimbabwe Currency Exchange is set up
as an independent
body under the RBZ. All foreign currency would be channeled
through this
currency exchange. Importers would bid for foreign currency
using a
controlled auction system."
Since 1999, Zimbabwe has been
facing a serious foreign currency shortage
that has largely been caused by
poor export performance and fiscal planning.
The problem has been
worsened by lack of political will to implement
meaningful economic
proposals.
In October government formed a task force to investigate
foreign currency
leakages.
But like many other government task
forces it is still to announce what it
has achieved.
The
controlled auction approach is used where foreign currency exchange is
in
short supply.
The system has been used in Nigeria and Zambia.
Zim Independent
Colin Powell blasts Zimbabwe again
Ngoni
Chanakira
UNITED States secretary of state Colin Powell has once again
removed his
gloves and hit out at Zimbabwe for what he terms the country's
"deplorable
situation" increasing further the diplomatic wrangling between
the two
nations.
Harare and Washington have openly expressed
displeasure about each other's
policies resulting in a war of
words.
Powell has also threatened that Zimbabwe would definitely miss
the boat as
far as President George Bush's Millennium Challenge Account (MCA)
- the new
international consensus on how best to approach development aid for
Africa.
In his remarks on the effectiveness of the African Growth and
Opportunity
Act (Agoa) at a meeting in Washington on Wednesday last week,
Powell said
with the exception of Zimbabwe, African countries had already
taken many
steps towards political and economic freedoms and "we urge you to
work
through African regional and sub regional organisations to support
greater
democracy throughout the continent".
Last year Powell
stirred a hornet's nest in Johannesburg, South Africa when
he spoke out
strongly against President Robert Mugabe and his government,
accusing them of
being dictators at the World Summit for
Sustainable
Development.
Addressing the Third Annual
US-sub-Saharan African Trade and Economic
Cooperation Forum in Washington
Powell told world leaders that the
deplorable situation in Zimbabwe required
concerted regional and global
attention to ensure that the country's citizens
had a voice to bring about
effective change.
"African countries
already have taken many steps toward political and
economic freedoms, and we
urge you to work through African regional and sub
regional organisations to
support greater democracy throughout the
continent," Powell said in his
maiden address to the meeting.
"Use of peer review mechanism of the
New Partnership for Africa's
Development can help ensure that the principles
of accountability and good
governance are adopted and applied as universal
standards across Africa. The
deplorable situation in Zimbabwe requires
concerted regional and global
attention to ensure that the people of the
once-productive and now
economically crippled country have a voice in their
government to bring
about new and positive change."
While South
Africa and Nigeria have agreed to peer reviews of their nations
Zimbabwe has
refused such a policy questioning why "foreigners should
scrutinise the
affairs of a sovereign state".
Commenting on Bush's MCA initiative
Powell said: "MCA assistance, as you all
know, will only be available to
developing nations that demonstrate a strong
commitment to the principles of
just government, nations that invest in the
education and health of their
citizens and nations which have adopted wise
trade, economic and
environmental policies."
He said MCA could be a powerful tool for
spurring reform and bringing real
improvements to the daily lives of people,
people who want to believe in
democracy but have yet to reap its
benefits.
Powell said all the hard won progress toward democracy and
development in
African countries was challenged by the HIV/Aids pandemic, by
unresolved
conflict and by terrorism.
"The spread of HIV/Aids has
spawned a colossal development crisis across the
continent," Powell
said.
In Zimbabwe the Aids scourge is wiping out at least 3 000
citizens weekly,
the third largest in southern Africa after Botswana and
South Africa.
During US President George Bush's trip to Africa in July,
he referred to
Africa as the "last great emerging market of the
world".
"And Africa's economic emergence will not only be good for
Africans, but
good for people all around the world, across the international
community,
whose future well-being depends on global growth," Powell said.
"As Uganda's
President Yoweri Museveni so rightly noted in the Wall Street
Journal, aid
alone is 'a recipe for permanent poverty. The only way (Africa)
can break
out of this vicious cycle is through trade and thorough export-led
growth'."
Economists point out that in the three short years since
Agoa went into
effect it is estimated that Agoa-related trade and investment
has created
more than 190 000 jobs worth over US$340 million in new
investment.
They say Zimbabwe is losing out of this because of its cold
war with the US.
Powell said in Ghana, for example, two American
companies had invested in
plants to export socks to the US.
"These
first-time investors in Africa are employing 400 Ghanaians," he said.
In
Tanzania, business for a small handicraft company has boomed as a result
of
Agoa.
"Before Agoa, the company employed 25 people and exported US$20
000 a year
in arts and crafts to the United States," Powell said. "Since
Agoa, the
company has hired 100 new employees, mostly women, and its exports
to the US
have increased 10-fold."
He said however not all
Agoa-related successes involved export to the US.
"For example Namibian
plants produce parts that are included in South
African cars which are then
exported to the US," he said. "Zambian cotton
exports to South Africa more
than doubled in 2002 thanks to increased demand
generated by Agoa. We have
also seen increased intra-African investment."
The secretary of state
said Agoa was only "one of the ways the US was
working with the nations of
Africa to build a better future for Africans and
Americans alike".
Zim Independent
Mutasa warns America
Ngoni Chanakira
FORMER Speaker
of Parliament and Zanu PF external affairs secretary Didymus
Mutasa says
while Zimbabwe's economy is struggling and citizens facing a
tough time,
President Robert Mugabe's government is still
"extremely
popular".
Mutasa, who was interviewed by the
Washington-based Voice of America on
Monday night, said there was no way the
United States or any other "foreign
nation" could tell Zimbabwe what to
do.
Answering questions on the collapsing economy and how Zanu PF
felt about the
downfall of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Mutasa said
Zimbabwe would "take
the US on if it tries to do anything of that sort
(topple Mugabe) to
Zimbabwe".
The US-led forces captured Saddam
Hussein on Saturday night after the
dictator went into hiding having been
overthrown by US-British forces.
"Yes our country is going through a very
trying period and we are all aware
that we are under siege," Mutasa said.
"However, what happened in Iraq
cannot happen in Zimbabwe because we are very
well prepared for any such
happening. We won the liberation struggle using
sticks and stones, but now
the situation is very different."
He
said the economy would gradually pick up since the leadership had dumped
the
West to engage "better friends with Zimbabwe's interests at
heart".
Newspapers across the world, including in Africa, expressed
relief at the
capture of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, saying it was a suitable end
for the Iraqi
leader who had tormented his citizens and abused his
powers.
Zim Independent
Be afraid, be very afraid
IF I lived in South
Africa, I would liquidate my assets and emigrate at the
earliest opportunity.
While many may have suspected that President Thabo
Mbeki wasn't quite the man
he should be, recent events have flushed him out
and proved it beyond doubt.
At first there were suspicions about his
approach to the problem of Zimbabwe
and Mugabe, but he kept assuring the
world that his quiet diplomacy was
working behind the scenes to rein in
Mugabe and restore prosperity and the
rule of law.
He even managed to con George Bush and Tony Blair into
believing this
fiction, though the citizens of Zimbabwe became ever more
suspicious as to
his true motives. Every time Mugabe was criticised, Mbeki
was sure to spring
to his defence with tales of "promising progress". He
persisted with these
stories even as the situation deteriorated, and the MDC
denied the talks he
repeatedly said were taking place.
At Abuja he
vigorously defended the indefensible conduct of his ally, who
had broken
almost every tenet of civilised behaviour, let alone those of
the
Commonwealth as rather ironically expressed in the Harare Declaration.
He
mobilised others in an attempt to readmit Zimbabwe even though to do
so
would be to instantly destroy any moral credibility the organisation
may
hold.
Additionally, he was a willing tool in the move to unseat
Don McKinnon as
secretary-general of the Commonwealth.
Now, in his
latest frothings in his weekly ANC newsletter he is parroting
Mugabe, and
claiming that "land is the core of the problem" even when this
holds no
credibility with Zimbabwe itself. If you close your eyes its now
impossible
to tell the difference between Mbeki and Mugabe or Jonathan Moyo.
The
Australians are vilified, as are the Americans and the British. He seems
to
have memorised all the tired old Zanu PF lies that have been propagated
over
the years, and now disgorges them at every opportunity.
How on earth does
Mbeki think that Nepad or his African Renaissance will eve
r materialise if
he castigates all those most able to assist in his dreams?
How sad
too that a man of such world-renowned stature as Nelson Mandela
should be
succeeded by this self-serving little squirt? I truly fear not
only for South
Africa, but also for the whole region while he remains in
power. Those South
Africans who rather arrogantly told us, "It can never
happen here" should now
think deeply.
We said that too in our hubris, but nemesis followed
very quickly. The time
span between majority rule and total collapse in
Africa is between 20 and 30
years. Look at your history, and think about it.
Only then, once the
destruction has taken place, can sanity return and the
process of rebuilding
a devastated country start.
The long list of
African idiots now has a new and distinguished member,
Thabo Mbeki, the
future destroyer of South Africa. He joins other luminaries
of this august
body such as Idi Amin, Mugabe, Kenneth Kaunda, Emperor
Bokassa and a host of
lesser-known African villains. Hooray for Mbeki,
African
liberator!
Charles Frizell,
UK.
Zim Independent
Politics and religion make strange bedfellows
By Chido
Makunike
EGG all over the face award: I present this one to President Robert
Mugabe
for campaigning hard to be invited to the Abuja Chogm, then on being
spurned
by Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, acting like he never wanted
to go
there in the first place! Everybody had a good laugh while being
careful not
to incur his destructive wrath.
-Bootlicker of the year:
Primrose Kurasha, new vice-chancellor of the
Zimbabwe Open University. Caused
many to wince with her overdone praise of
Mugabe upon her appointment,
beating a long list of strong contenders for
the Mugabe bootlicker award and
its associated prize of political favour and
patronage. At this rate Kurasha
is likely to go very far in her career, at
least as long as Mugabe
rules.
-The Fiction award of the year goes to the Sunday Mail,
followed by close
runners-up and stable mates the Bulawayo Chronicle and the
Herald for
featuring crudely concocted plots, commentary, opinion and
demagoguery as
front page "news". However, these newspapers are useful for
their crossword
puzzles and classified adverts!
-Most hypocritical
religionist of the year: Many qualified, strong
contenders as usual, but the
winner is Norbert Kunonga, a high priest of the
Zimbabwean branch of the
Church of England. He has been accused of
shockingly unchristian behaviour by
many of his fellow Anglicans, bringing
shame and disrepute upon the church.
Some religious leaders pray for those
they lead, Kunonga is accused of
preying on his flock by justifying
political violence, sowing discord and
even plotting the elimination of
rebellious fellow religionists. A
frightening current example of the
terrible misery that religion when twisted
and in the wrong, cynical hands
has caused humankind throughout the ages.
Believers and heathens alike were
shocked and appalled by blatant examples of
sickness and corruption in the
religious establishment. When there is little
difference between politicians
and religious leaders, you know a country is
in deep trouble.
- Bully of the year: Jocelyn Chiwenga, who has
earned a permanent place in
the Zimbabwean hall of hate and infamy for
inexplicable bitterness coupled
with political impunity to act out her pet
hates. Trying to hypocritically
put as much distance between her being once
married to a white man as
possible, she has tried to pose as more African
than the rest of us in the
most negative ways. Then there was the shocking
incident of her physically
abusing a Daily News lawyer at a police station of
all places, reportedly
crudely sneering, "you stupid Ndebele
girl!"
In threatening the white owners of a farm she had her eye on,
she reportedly
boasted of being untouchable and "filthy rich". I guess no
matter how rich
one gets, one cannot buy the "African values" she used to
tout together with
Jonathan Moyo under the so-called Heritage Trust. It is
not known how her
expressed prejudice against Ndebeles has affected her
friendship with Moyo
and whether the trust still exists.
-So near
and yet so far award. To Emmerson Mnangagwa for starting the year
with a bang
by a well-orchestrated campaign by certain ruling party factions
and some
media houses to sell him as the logical successor to Mugabe. The
efforts then
stumbled amidst foreign newspaper reports of dirty hands that
refuse to go
away. He must be presumed to be an outstanding citizen until
proven
otherwise, but even if he isn't, he could still get to rule Zanu PF
and
Zimbabwe. After all, right up to the top the ruling party is full
of
characters with questionable human rights and honesty credentials that
have
not harmed their careers in any way.
-The ideas bankruptcy
award goes to Mugabe's regime for being so desperate
for forex and ideas on
how to make Zimbabwe export-productive again. A few
weeks ago they cooked up
the ridiculous idea to put up police roadblocks and
then body and
wallet-search citizens to confiscate any foreign currency they
may have been
carrying. This predictably only drove the parallel market
further
underground, worsening the problem and making the regime look even
more
brutal and unimaginative to the whole world.
-Worst propagandist
award. A tie between Jonathan Moyo, Zimpapers and ZBC.
Despite their valiant
efforts to whitewash Mugabe's cruel, ruinous and
hypocritical government,
more of Zimbabwe and the world is turned off by his
regime than at any time
during his long reign of literal bloody disaster,
fear and
decline.
-Doormat award goes to Zanu PF for being in such terror and
awe of one man
that no single party member had the guts to challenge Mugabe,
telling him
off for ruining Zimbabwe and selling out the revolution. I
decided that
calling them "Mugabe's wives" like someone once did in the past
would be
harsh, crude and sexist. I chose "doormat" because they allow him to
wipe
his feet all over them whenever he likes while they cheer and
ululate,
crying "more, more!"
-Foot in mouth award. Perennial
winner Mugabe propagandist Jonathan Moyo was
this year beaten to this award
by Mugabe himself, who hurt his own interests
and stature virtually every
time he opened his mouth by saying all the wrong
things. Moyo was the
runner-up, followed by Foreign minister Stan Mudenge.
Together these three
have achieved much to make Zimbabwe more diplomatically
isolated and
ridiculed than ever before.
-Empty title award. To David Parirenyatwa,
the Minister of Health who works
so hard to put up a front of everything
being normal when health
professionals are leaving the country in droves and
nurses and doctors have
been on strike for a living wage for a good part of
the year. He looked so
ridiculous to me when I recently saw him regally step
out of his spanking
new ministerial car at a local hotel, smartly dressed in
a natty suit. In
typical banana republic style, all the ministers and other
top officials put
on an impressive show to cover up how institutions under
their portfolios
are dying, causing untold suffering of the ordinary people.
Some say
statistics showing lower HIV infection rates were cooked for
political ends.
-Sovereign hunger and dependency award. Joint winners
are Mugabe and
Minister of Agriculture Joseph Made. One reason Zimbabwe has
become such a
world laughing stock is for destroying its agriculture,
boasting about
"sovereignty" incessantly, whining about being mistreated by
the white world
for reclaiming land from white farmers but then being more
dependent on
those countries every month for food handouts!
-Empty
tough talk award was won by Chemical Ali, the deposed Iraqi dictator
Saddam
Hussein's Jonathan "Comical" Moyo equivalent. Chemical's macho
bluster went
up in smoke as the Iraqis cheered the brutal dictator's fall,
which proved
that no matter how repressive, seemingly powerful and
invincible, an
unpopular regime is ultimately only a paper tiger.
Space does not allow
me to mention all of this year's most notorious
characters, but I am
confident readers will have no problem carrying on from
where I have left
off. May all of this year's sorry winners try to be better
people, causing
less misery in 2004 than they did this year.
Chido Makunike is a
regular columnist based in Harare.
Zim Independent
Nothing to celebrate about 2003
By Phillip
Pasirayi
AS I write there are no medical doctors to take care of our ailing
brothers
and sisters in hospitals because the doctors are on strike, and
there are no
drugs in most hospitals and clinics.
Prices of basic
commodities such as sugar, mealie meal, bread and milk
continue to skyrocket
and the majority of Zimbabweans are living below the
poverty datum
line.
Garbage in the streets, which can rightly be blamed on Local
Government
minister Ignatius Chombo's interference in local governance,
especially in
Harare, has become people's daily bread. Harare is no longer a
sunshine
city.
The crisis in the country continues to deepen with
Zanu PF doing nothing
about it. The MDC candidate in the recent Kadoma
by-election may claim the
poll was free and fair but I am convinced it was as
flawed as the June 2000
parliamentary and 2002 presidential
elections.
Fairness and freeness of an election should not be
analysed only at the
level of the ballot or the prevailing circumstances at
the polling station.
A free and fair election is one that is conducted in an
open manner and with
all participating candidates given unfettered
opportunity to meet with their
supporters. I get confused when Mupandawana
says the election was free and
fair and yet the MDC president, Morgan
Tsvangirai, was detained in Kadoma
while campaigning for him. How about MDC
youths who scurried for their lives
with marauding Zanu PF vigilantes baying
for their blood?
Despite the talk about talks between Zanu PF and the
MDC, the situation for
Zimbabweans in the year 2003 has continued to
deteriorate. Zanu PF is not
willing to engage in dialogue with the opposition
to find a solution to the
economic malaise. Instead some overzealous elements
in the ruling party who
are intoxicated with power and fear losing all they
have auquired if a new
government comes in, are determined to thwart efforts
to get to the
negotiating table. This is true of people such as Patrick
Chinamasa and
Jonathan Moyo, who think they know it all in Zanu
PF.
There is nothing for Zimbabweans to celebrate about the advent of
2004. The
year 2003 saw the entrenchment of Mugabe's dictatorship through
muzzling of
the independent media, political interference in the judiciary,
thwarting of
fundamental rights of association, expression and assembly, the
mobilisation
of Green Bombers to beat up opposition activists, and the use of
the army
and the police to narrow the democratic space.
The Daily
News was closed down and there are no signs of it coming back any
time soon.
Judge Michael Majuru who was presiding over the Daily News case
has been
frustrated out and the Tafataona Mahoso-led Media and Information
Commission
is determined to ensure that the Daily News does not
publish
again.
On the other hand, people continue to be bombarded
by Information minister
Jonathan Moyo's propaganda of the so-called Third
Chimurenga. This has seen
three jingles being composed in the year, starting
with Rambai Makashinga,
then came Bearers Cheques and now Sendekera (two
versions). These are
exchanged from time to time with pictures glorifying
Robert Mugabe for his
role in the liberation struggle. These are juxtaposed
with pictures of
Tsvangirai clapping hands and receiving money from white MDC
supporters.
But Zimbabweans ought to ask who has been Mugabe's
friends from 1980 to the
early 1990s? What is the difference between the
money that the MDC may be
getting now with the money that Zanu PF got a
decade back from the same
people? Why would the public be hoodwinked by the
gibberish that suggests
the MDC is white-sponsored and white-dominated? Are
Zanu PF's friends in
Asia black?
Mugabe must realise that people
want bread and butter issues addressed. The
food security situation in the
country poses a greater threat to Zanu PF
than the MDC per se. Gone are the
days of independence euphoria when Zanu PF
could get away with political
sloganeering without addressing the
socio-economic issues that are at the
heart of people's lives.
The political impasse between Zanu PF and
the MDC is because Zanu PF is
unwilling to resolve the country's political
and economic woes. The MDC has
shown that it is not interested in taking up
arms against a despotic black
government but committed to the democratic
option.
The MDC leadership wants to go to the talks with Zanu PF
despite the
disapproval of the majority of its followers. It has proved to
the African
Union and Sadc that it is Zanu PF that is not willing to talk. If
threats by
Tsvangirai that 2004 will bring with it more mass action, then the
new year
spells more trouble for the regime.
The situation in
Zimbabwe needs all the stakeholders to come together in
seeking a solution to
the political quagmire and economic malaise that we
find ourselves in. This
means that the polarisation between the MDC and Zanu
PF and civil society
needs to be resolved urgently and the church can play a
pivotal role in this
regard.
-Phillip Pasirayi is a Harare-based writer and a human rights
activist
currently with the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition.