The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
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About 1,700 white-owned farms have already been occupied - some violently - by supporters of President Robert Mugabe in the controversial land reform programme that is at the heart of the country's political crisis.
The 8.5 million hectares earmarked for seizure in the run-up to presidential elections next March make up 95% of the land currently owned by white Zimbabweans.
Correspondents say Mr Mugabe believes that seizing land from white farmers is a vote-winner and he has made the policy a key part of his campaign for re-election.
Favouritism denied
The Herald reported earlier that nearly 55,000 black Zimbabweans will receive their own commercial plots, while the rest will be allocated space on communal land.
On Monday, a government spokesman denied that those benefiting were selected on the basis of their support for Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party.
Veterans of the war which ended British colonial rule in Zimbabwe - then Rhodesia - are guaranteed land if they have not yet been allocated it.
The latest move comes amid unconfirmed reports that dozens of farms taken from white owners have been given to high-ranking party officials, rather than redistributed to poor Zimbabweans.
Violent 'reform'
Mr Mugabe's land reform programme has been marred by violence since government supporters, calling themselves war veterans, began occupying white farms 18 months ago demanding that they be redistributed to landless blacks.
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The farm seizures have been declared illegal by Zimbabwe's High Court, but the ruling was reversed after the government appointed four new judges.
However, the first farmer to sue individual Zimbabwean Government ministers over land reform has won a minor victory in his battle to get his farm back.
Guy Watson-Smith launched proceedings against two government ministers and the former head of the national army after he was ordered to leave his farm in early December.
Court battle
Last week, he also appealed for a relief order allowing him to reclaim machinery, animals and game from his farm, which is on prime land 100 kilometres from the capital, Harare.
On Friday, the High Court ruled that Mr Watson-Smith should be allowed to collect his property from the farm.
He will continue his legal battle from South Africa, where he has moved for safety.
Mr Watson-Smith has said he believes his farm will be given to a high-ranking Zimbabwean official close to the government.
His court action comes amid reports of increasing violence and intimidation, including the recent murders of four opposition members.
Gerald Muketiwa, who supported the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had his asylum claim turned down and was deported on 16 December. He arrived in Zimbabwe a day later despite protests from human rights groups.
Muketiwa was picked up at the airport by secret police from President Robert Mugabe's feared CIO and beaten. He escaped through a police station window. He then turned up at a relative's house in the southern city of Bulawayo bleeding and bruised, and wearing only shorts.
'He found the CIO waiting for him [at the airport] and [they] took him to jail. Their main aim was to kill him,' said written testimony obtained from a relative by human rights activists.
Muketiwa has now fled to a neighbouring country. The relatives who helped him flee have been beaten by security police looking for the activist.
Other Zimbabwean asylum seekers with links to the MDC are also awaiting deportation from Britain after having their claims turned down, despite evidence of the killing of opposition figures.
Last week, pro-Mugabe militias killed four MDC activists, including Milton Chambati, 45, who was beheaded by 50 followers of Mugabe's Zanu PF party in the small north-western hamlet of Magunge.
Zimbabwean asylum seekers waiting to be deported from Britain are terrified of the fate that awaits them. 'They are going to take me away and God knows what they are going to do to me,' said Laurence N, whose full name cannot be revealed because of fears for his safety.
Laurence is being held in Tinsley House detention centre near Gatwick, and is scheduled to be deported on New Year's Eve. Gerald B, another Zimbabwean detainee at Tinsley House, is also set to be deported soon.
Gerald, who bears scars on his arm and chest after being knifed by pro-Mugabe militias last year, said he feared for his life if returned to Zimbabwe. 'I don't mind being taken somewhere else that is not England. I just don't want to go home,' he said.
Activists said the deportation of the dissidents was against Britain's own political stance on Zimbabwe which has been critical of Mugabe's actions against the opposition. 'The Home Office is unwilling to recognise the situation is going into freefall in Zimbabwe. It is getting worse every day. The risk to these people who are being sent back is very real,' said Sarah Pennell of the Zimbabwe Association.
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Simon Hughes said the returnees faced a 'very dangerous' situation and that Britain was ignoring the massive human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
A Home Office spokeswoman declined to comment.
COMMERCIAL FARMERS' UNION
'A Ray of hope for law and order in Zimbabwe?'
COMMERCIAL farmer Guy Watson-Smith, 51, shareholder of Hanagwe (Pvt) Ltd, owner of Elim and Alamein Farms in Beatrice, has been granted an Interim relief order by Justice Hungwe High Court Chambers, for the immediate return of all movable property, valued at over Z$ 120 million. The respondents will jointly share legal costs of the suit.
The provisional order sought to force Ministers of Agriculture, (Joseph Made) and Local Government, (Ignatius Chombo) responsible for Zimbabwe's chaotic land seizures, a war veteran named as "Comrade Zhou" and General Solomon Mujuru. A lawyer representing Ministers, Made and Chombo attended the hearing but raised no objection to the order.
In an affidavit filed, Watson-Smith said he feared for the safety of his family and requested that the Deputy Sheriff act on his behalf in recovering the assets, which include tractors, vehicles, irrigation equipment, 430 head of breeding cattle, and approximately 490 head of commercial game, remained on the farm after access to remove them was denied by General Mujuru and Comrade Zhou who threatened to "burn the removal trucks".
The retired General is named as a respondent. He was previously known as Rex Nhongo (a war name), leader of Mugabe's ZANLA forces during the independence war and then head of the post independence army and later Defence minister. He already owns a clutch of Commercial farms, but remains in Mugabe's inner circle as member of the ruling Zanu PF politburo and central committee. His wife, Joyce Mujuru is the rural resources and water development minister in Mugabe's cabinet.
No representative was present in the High Court today for Mujuru although he was served with the papers. It is understood that Mujuru now frequents the farm and has been supplying fertilizer for the tobacco crop since Watson-Smith left.
This is the first case brought by a commercial farmer against a member of Mugabe's inner circle implicated in illegal seizure of land and assets, who is also one of the most feared men in the country with a reputation for unpredictable behavior.
Watson-Smith is among the top ten percent of productive Commercial farmers, was unlawfully forced to abandon his sophisticated agricultural enterprise, leaving him with no livelihood. As his lawyer filed the urgent order on Friday, Watson-Smith, his wife Vicky 44, son and daughter, Adam 17 and Alice 15, fled the country for fear of further victimization.
"I am delighted that Justice Hungwe has seen fit to grant the provisional order and sincerely look forward to the Sheriff going out there with the willing assistance and protection of the police - then we will finally know that law and order still exists in Zimbabwe. We have suffered great loss as a result of this entire episode and are considering legal options with regard to loss of income, fixed assets and improvements and costs incurred in the planting of the 80 ha tobacco crop, valued at Z$ 26 million. We were not even allowed the 90 day notice period, nor was an official eviction order received " Watson-Smith said from Pretoria where is staying with relatives.
He said he did not know what would happen to his 120 permanent and 180 odd seasonal workers, who rely on Watson Smith to provide them with their only means of livelihood and sustenance.
A perplexed Watson Smith said, "They have been told that they now work for Mujuru but he seems to insist that they must be paid by me. I now have no income with which to pay 300 salaries which normally amounted to a million Zimbabwe dollars monthly."
Watson-Smith states in the Affidavit that the family was chased off the farm on 18th September 2001 by "Comrade Zhou" who was in the company of two other Comrades, identified as Chris and Joe.
He said, " My wife and I were ordered to leave the farm immediately by these words from 'Comrade Zhou'. He said, "we don't want any more deaths" (referring to tragic events on neighbouring farms). I was threatened further when I tried to protest. My wife and I packed a suitcase and left shortly thereafter. I did not return to the farm until 5th December 78 days later, under their escort, to briefly address the farm labour. I was allowed no time there and have not been allowed back since."
In mid September 'Comrade Zhou' in the company of Joe and General Mujuru arrived in a Pajero. They demanded records of fertilizer, chemicals, coal and diesel stocks. What followed was an instruction to the manager to grow crops at Watson-Smiths expense. Under fear of reprisals from "Comrade Zhou", an 80-hectare Tobacco crop was duly planted. If this crop looked after it will in all probability fetch a selling price in excess of US$720 000.00 at current estimates.
Watson-Smith was told to remove all his moveable assets on 17 November by "Comrade Zhou" who confirmed, "We are taking over." Watson-Smith appealed to Gen. Mujuru for a "civilized withdrawal" which was ignored.
"I also asked him if I would be allowed to remove ALL of my moveable assets, and he told me that I had paid for them, they were as much mine as "the shirt on your back", and that I would be paid for the crop in the ground, because as he said, "Zhou has told me that he will pay from the 9th November. I thanked him, feeling relieved." Said Watson-Smith.
Despite these assurances Mrs Watson-Smith and son Adam with some neighbour's wives were ONLY allowed to move household goods. "Comrade Zhou, refused permission for Watson-Smith to attend.
Alamein Farm, where the family homestead is, was gazetted for compulsory acquisition on the 25th August 2000. An objection letter was then lodged by Watson-Smith with the Acquiring Authority. A Section 8 Acquisition Order was only served on the 5th December 2001. During the current land acquisition exercise, the second farm, Elim was gazetted for compulsory acquisition on the 2nd June 2000. The matter has not yet been heard and is still pending before the Supreme Court, although events seem to have superceded a hearing.
The combined farming operation has a state-of-the-art curing and tobacco handling facilities for a tobacco crop of 500 000 kgs, and five owner/manager homesteads within the main security complex. The labour accommodation is extensive and of a high standard.
Mujuru is amongst 20 Zanu PF stalwarts, civil servants, businessmen and members of the armed forces, who have taken land and assets under the Model A2 land reform programme.
At the SADC meeting in November, Government presentations stated that 54 000 beneficiaries had been identified under this scheme.
In his presentation to the ministers, CFU Acting President Doug Taylor-Freeme said " Some recipients of land under the A2 resettlement scheme include the commissioner of police, other senior ranking police and defence forces personnel, ministers, members of parliament, senior civil servants and ruling part officials."
Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri, a leading Zanu PF member chose a farm in Shamva, 80 kms north of Harare and is now moving into it after the owners were forced to pack up and go. They too received no eviction notice nor were they allowed 90 days in which to wind up their affairs, physically, financially or legally.
As is the case with 84% of commercially owned farms, Watson-Smith purchased his farm after 1980. He moved to the Beatrice farms three years after independence, when his parents' land was bought by the government for resettlement. That farm now lies derelict, unproductive and unoccupied.
In November, news of amendments to the Land Acquisition Act, Statutory Instrument 338 was viewed by farmers as proof that government was suffering from a 'drought of reason' and using political power as "a tool to subvert the last vestiges of property rights".
The last word must go to a wheat farmer - Mr Neville Hoy (63) of Hunyani Farm (turnover of ZD$ 100 mil) in Chinhoyi. He recently told journalists during a tour his farm:
"At the personal assurance of President Robert Mugabe in 1980 when he toured some Chinhoyi farms, I purchased Hunyani and began to farm. I am totally disappointed at the manner in which Government is implementing land reform - it is the destruction of a production machine, which sustained the Zimbabwean economy. We are going backwards from organised agriculture to subsistence farming."
Mr Hoy grew 5 percent of Zimbabwe's wheat needs. 60% of wheat grown last year will not be planted due to disruptions from land invasions.
Ends - 28th December 2001
About 1,700 white-owned farms have already been occupied - some violently - by supporters of President Robert Mugabe in the controversial land reform programme at the heart of the country's political crisis.
The 8.5 million hectares of land now earmarked for seizure in the run-up to presidential elections in March make up 95% of the land currently owned by white Zimbabweans.
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Veterans of the war which ended British colonial rule in Zimbabwe - then Rhodesia - are guaranteed land if they have not yet been allocated it, he said.
The announcement comes amid unconfirmed reports that dozens of farms taken from white owners have been given to high-ranking party officials, rather than redistributed to poor Zimbabweans.
But the spokesman denied that applicants for land were selected on their affiliation to Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.
Violent 'reform'
Mr Mugabe's land reform programme has been marred by violence since government supporters, calling themselves war veterans, began occupying white farms 18 months ago demanding that they be redistributed to landless blacks.
|
The farm seizures have been declared illegal by Zimbabwe's High Court, but the ruling was reversed after the government appointed four new judges.
However, the first farmer to sue individual Zimbabwean Government ministers over land reform has won a minor victory in his battle to get his farm back.
Guy Watson-Smith launched proceedings against two government ministers and the former head of the national army after he was ordered to leave his farm in early December.
Court battle
Last week he also appealed for a relief order allowing him to reclaim machinery, animals and game from his farm, which is on prime land 100km from the capital, Harare.
On Friday the High Court ruled that Mr Watson-Smith should be allowed to collect his property from the farm.
He will continue his legal battle from South Africa, where he has moved for safety.
Mr Watson-Smith has said he believes his farm will be given to a high-ranking Zimbabwean official close to the government.
His court action comes amid reports of increasing violence and intimidation, including the recent murders of four opposition members
A man peers out through an open door, staring at the rain, no expression on his face. He is far from home and family, and he feels the helplessness of exile.
He is one of hundreds of Zimbabwean men sleeping in a government hostel on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
We want our country to pick up ... but the problem is that
the ruling party doesn't want opposition |
Felix Ndlovu |
They came to South Africa looking for jobs, but they have discovered they are not welcome here. Now they are dependent on hand-outs and charity, and they don't know what future awaits them.
Until recently, they were living in the Sandspruit squatter camp, to the north of Johannesburg, in a collection of rough, homemade shacks. But long-running tensions between the Zimbabweans and the local community erupted in October.
Local people accused the Zimbabweans of stealing their jobs - and their women.
At least 100 shacks were burnt down, and the Zimbabweans fled to the government hostel.
No future
But despite their hardships and disappointments, I couldn't find any one of them who was contemplating returning to Zimbabwe.
"There are no jobs in Zimbabwe," said Raymond, a secondary school graduate who arrived in South Africa this year.
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He, and all the others here, are fundamentally economic refugees, but they also express concern about the worsening political situation at home.
Felix Ndlovu, who left Zimbabwe several years ago, said: "We want our country to pick up, and human rights to improve, but we hear the problem is that the ruling party doesn't want opposition, that is why they are having problems."
Felix's analysis is not far off. Back in Zimbabwe, on the streets of his home town, Bulawayo, tensions between the ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition MDC party are running high.
In November, fighting between the parties broke out on the streets.
The MDC headquarters was burnt down.
It was attacked by Zanu-PF supporters with the blatant support of the Zimbabwean police, according to Moses Ndlovu, a local MDC leader.
"We heard noise from a group of people who were singing, chanting Zanu-PF slogans ... We all ran in different directions, but what I managed to see was police actually in uniform getting down from their van carrying petrol that was used to douse this building."
Widespread crackdown
President Mugabe is using everything at his disposal to try and crush the MDC. State institutions - the army, the police and the judiciary - are all being co-opted.
And with elections just months away, the president's rhetoric is increasingly wild.
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At a recent funeral he warned "MDC perpetrators of political violence and crime against humanity ... that their days are numbered".
Human rights groups say that in fact it is President Mugabe's government which is responsible for the vast majority of abuses in Zimbabwe - at least 38 people killed in political violence this year, although the real figure may be much higher.
Farmers's gloom
It is Zimbabwe's precious land which is at the heart of the country's political crisis, and where black subsistence farmers and white commercial farmers see their country's future heading in very different directions.
It is a really sorry state of affairs |
Vernon Nicolle, white farmer
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Vernon Nicolle was one of Zimbabwe's most successful white farmers - he and his family produce wheat near the town of Chinoyi, north-west of the capital Harare.
But Vernon's farm - like hundreds of other white farms - has been invaded by government supporters, who are threatening to kill his workers, and are insisting he abandons large parts of his property.
Now he is overseeing the dismantling of his irrigation equipment.
In his heart, he seems to know that the days of Zimbabwe's white farmers are numbered, and he finds it hard to keep his composure when asked what the future holds.
'A sorry state'
"For the first time in my life there's a tear in my eyes, I'm sorry ... it is a really sorry state of affairs," he says, before asking that the interview be stopped.
But the men who have invaded Vernon's land say they are only correcting an historic injustice.
It was the whites who took this land by force at the end of the 19th century, and moved blacks onto crowded, infertile tribal homelands.
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Zamian Manginjiwa is one of those who is reclaiming his heritage. He and his family are using an ox-drawn plough, moving slowly across the vast fields which Vernon used to drive across by tractor.
"The government and the donors are going to help us farm this land...and we are happy, very, very happy", says Zamian.
Not so lucky are the farm labourers - and there are hundreds of them. If and when Vernon's farm closes, they will have nowhere to go.
One woman says she doesn't know where the money will come from, and has no idea what the future holds.
Her plight is no different from that of tens of thousands of farm workers across the country. Land is being redistributed- but the process is badly organised, and favours government supporters.
Cities in decline
And there is no solace in Zimbabwe's cities. Once an African success story, Zimbabwe now has one of the fastest shrinking economies in the world.
Money is worth less and less, every day; annual inflation is running at about 100%.
In the townships people are reluctant to talk about politics openly, but do not hide their dismay at the economic situation.
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"Each day we wake up and don't know how much a loaf of bread will cost," says one man. Another says, "People who have money are leaving the country".
Economic decay and political conflict are entwined - the land invasions and violence are frightening investors and destroying confidence.
The outside world's response to Zimbabwe's crisis has been hesitant and confused.
Pressure
The Commonwealth and Southern African governments are trying to negotiate between the government and the opposition. The United States is threatening sanctions if political repression continues.
In South Africa President Thabo Mbeki is starting to move away from his policy of quiet persuasion, and is talking openly of the threat of a "civil conflict" in Zimbabwe if next year's presidential elections are not seen as legitimate.
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But it is impossible to see how Zimbabwe can hold elections which could remotely be described as fair.
Foreign observers are likely to be severely restricted, and most independent journalists will probably not even be allowed into the country.
The government withdrew the BBC's accreditation earlier this year.
For almost 20 years Zimbabwe confounded the critics; its economy thrived and racial tensions were managed. But that legacy is collapsing with frightening speed - and its people now fear a desperate future.
From The Saturday Star (SA), 29 December
New Zim recruits accused of torturing MDC men
Harare - Zimbabwe's national service officers have been accused by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change of political violence and terror over Christmas. Sekai Holland, an senior MDC official, brought three severely injured supporters to hospital in Harare on Wednesday after, she claimed, a rural government clinic refused to treat them. She said on Thursday that they were kidnapped from their homes about 250km south-east of Harare, and were tortured by servicemen. "Some of them had their hamstrings and tendons cut, others have been chopped all over their bodies," said the distraught Holland. The first man allegedly attacked by national service officers, MDC activist Laban Chiweta, died in hospital on Wednesday from injuries sustained on December 6. Three other opposition activists were killed a few days before Christmas, allegedly by war veterans and national servicemen, bringing the total number of MDC supporters killed since the June 2000 election to about 90. About 1 000 national service officers were recruited by the government after one of Mugabe's militant cabinet ministers, Border Gezi, died in a car crash in April. A national service training camp was established in his memory and the first 1 000 graduates were sent into service six weeks ago. Jacob Thabane, an MDC MP, said rural people had reported increased army patrols in their areas. "They're becoming frightened."
From Associated Press, 30 December
Zimbabwe to name thousands of blacks to get farms of whites
Harare - Zimbabwe's government plans to publish the names of tens of thousands of blacks slated to gain ownership of 20 million acres of farmland, much of it now owned by whites, a state-owned newspaper reported today. The land, 95 percent of the farmland owned by whites in the former British colony once known as Rhodesia, has been earmarked for seizure ahead of presidential elections in March. President Robert Mugabe's project to return land taken by whites during the colonial era to the country's blacks has set off violent clashes between farmers and governing party militants, and has brought production on many farms to a standstill. Many view the land redistribution program as a desperate attempt by Mr. Mugabe to win popularity for the election. The president, 77, has ruled Zimbabwe since it gained independence in 1980, and is seeking another six-year term.
The names of nearly 55,000 blacks cleared to receive plots of land will be published next week, The Herald reported. More than 44,000 others who lack the capital for commercial farming will be given land in new, communal farming areas, the newspaper said, quoting an unidentified government spokesman. Veterans of the war against all- white rule in Rhodesia are guaranteed land if they have not received a previous allocation, he said. The spokesman asserted that the farm seizures would be vindicated by record production. Agriculture Minister Joseph Made last week predicted a bumper grain harvest of three million tons next April, but United Nations experts say the country needs to import up to 1.5 million tons of grain to avert famine.
Zimbabwe's High Court had declared the farm seizures illegal in December 2000, but ruled this month that they were lawful. The decision did, however, leave the door open for farmers to challenge the seizures on a case-by-case basis. In the first legal challenge since then, the High Court on Friday ruled that one farmer, Guy Watson-Smith, had the right to remove cattle and machinery from his farm, now occupied by a former army commander, Solomon Mujuru. Mr. Mujuru, who also owns four other farms, is a member of Mr. Mugabe's inner circle and the husband of a cabinet minister, Joyce Mujuru. She was recently quoted saying, "Africa is for black people only." Mr. Watson-Smith, a local chairman of the 4,500-member Commercial Farmers' Union, fled with his family to South Africa after receiving death threats. He testified that Mr. Mujuru had expected him to continue paying 300 workers and raise a tobacco crop, despite barring him from the property.
From The Washington Post, 30 December
Digging up Congo's dirty gems
Kinshasa - For much of the past decade, radical Islamic organizations have increasingly turned to a shadowy, lucrative means of survival: diamonds from this vast, war-torn Central African country. Interviews with diamond dealers, intelligence sources, diplomats and investigators in Belgium, the United States and Western and Central Africa open a window on how such groups have exploited the corruption and chaos endemic to Congo to tap into the diamond trade and funnel millions of dollars to their organizations back home. The most prominent of these groups is the radical Lebanon-based movement Hezbollah, these sources said. In some cases, the militant groups have worked in Congo with Lebanese diamond dealers who also conducted business in Sierra Leone with men identified by the United States as key operatives for Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, international investigators and regional diamond dealers said.
European and US investigators have been working to untangle the finances of bin Laden's network, and the complex diamond trail may shed light on the flow of money and treasure that are outside the conventional banking and financial systems, the officials said. "While we have seen little overlap between the operations or finances of Hezbollah and al Qaeda, we see some overlap among the dealers we believe worked with both groups," said one European investigator. "We are only now beginning to see the interconnectedness of criminal organizations across the region that are willing to deal with anyone if the price is right and ask no questions. Those are the people different terrorist organizations sought out." Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, President Bush has repeatedly said that choking off the funding for terrorist organizations was one of his priorities in the global war against terrorism. Now US and European officials say that tracing and disrupting profitable terrorist enterprises in African countries that have virtually no functioning governments will be an important component of the next phase in that fight. US officials said they had vastly underestimated the amount of money al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations controlled, and that they were investigating terrorist links not only to the Congo diamond trade, but also to Congo's gold and uranium trade, as well as the trade of diamonds and the semiprecious stone tanzanite in neighboring Tanzania. "We are beginning to understand how easy it is to move money through commodities like diamonds, which can't be traced and can be easily stored," said one US official. "One thing we are learning is not to ignore the obvious."
Johan Peleman, who monitors the illegal weapons and diamond trades in West Africa for the United Nations, said "failed or collapsed states" such as Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone "become free-trade zones for the underworld," where the actors are "international players in the field of chaos, violence and intimidation: organized crime networks and terror groups." "The black market in arms and in diamonds, but also trafficking in human beings, passports, gold and narcotics, is what connects the local players to the global underworld economy," Peleman said. "It is fascinating but especially frightening to see how these international networks have assimilated these areas into their worldwide structures, while the international community has had to withdraw from them." Diamond dealers and intelligence sources said Hezbollah and other groups buy diamonds in Congo - sometimes through middle men, sometimes directly from miners, but always at a fraction of their market value. They are then smuggled out of the country. The best-quality stones are sold in Antwerp, Belgium's diamond-marketing hub, while the bulk of the stones go to such emerging diamond centers as Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Bombay. The diamonds are sold for sizable profits, allowing the groups to finance their operations. Over the past two decades, Hezbollah's Iranian-backed military wing has been infamous for its attacks on US targets, including the 1983 bombings of the US Marine barracks and US Embassy in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, and for the kidnapping of Americans in Lebanon during the 1980s. "It is in the past three years or so, as the Congo really became the Wild West, that we see the influx of hard-core Islamist extremists here," said one intelligence source. "We know Hezbollah is here, we know other groups are here, but they can probably operate a long time before we know enough to stop them."
Congo, a country about the size of Western Europe with a population of 46 million, has been riven by insurrections, war and corruption since its independence from Belgium in 1960. Ruled from 1965 to 1997 by dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, then effectively partitioned by a pair of rebellions, Congo has few roads, hospitals or schools. Kinshasa, a sprawling city of 5 million, was relatively untouched by the years of warfare, but what is left of its colonial-era infrastructure is crumbling in the tropical heat and moisture. Electricity is intermittent, the once-paved roads are rutted and washed out, telephone service is almost inoperative, and armed soldiers from various armies patrol the streets. But Congo also has immense natural wealth: diamond fields, abundant timber and rich deposits of gold, uranium, tantalite and copper. Rather than enrich the country, Congo's resources have put money in the pockets of a relative few. First, Mobutu and his cronies split the treasure; now the armies of various neighboring countries have carved out portions of rich Congolese territory. They did so after the 1998 rebellion aimed at toppling Mobutu's successor, Laurent Kabila. Though Kabila was assassinated a year ago, his allies – principally Angola and Zimbabwe - were rewarded with mineral concessions. Rwanda and Uganda, backers of the rebellion, also have laid claim to portions of Congo's riches. A report to the UN Security Council, written by a panel of experts and released in April, found that "exploitation of the natural resources of the Democratic Republic of Congo by foreign armies has become systemic and systematic. Plundering, looting and racketeering and the constitution of criminal cartels are becoming commonplace. These criminal cartels have ramifications and connections worldwide, and they represent the next serious security problem in the region."
Authorities in Antwerp - where more than 90 percent of the world's diamonds are bought, sold, polished or cut - estimate that about $600 million in diamonds are exported annually from Congo but that only about $180 million worth of the gems are exported legally. The rest is smuggled out and sold in different markets. "How much of those smuggled diamonds go to these [terrorist] organizations is impossible to say," said a European investigator in Kinshasa. "And how much of what they take goes to terrorist activities and how much goes to their other work like hospitals and feeding programs is even more difficult to determine. We are only now really beginning to look at this and it will take a long time to have a clear understanding of the operations." The Congolese government acknowledges that in a country where flight plans, customs, and immigration and passport control can easily be avoided, smuggling is difficult to combat, and terrorist activity hard to detect. "We know Congo is a very fertile territory for terrorist activities," said Information Minister Kikaya Bin Karubi. "We have a huge country with a huge jungle where people can do anything and we don't know anything about it. So many people bring dirty money to Congo, Congo being in its current state of affairs. We are very concerned."
In the past 18 months, two Belgian intelligence reports have linked the Congolese diamond trade to the funding of terrorist organizations, specifically Hezbollah. Belgian and US officials familiar with the reports said they warned that Antwerp was becoming the financial headquarters for radical Islamic groups and urged that more intelligence resources be dedicated to monitoring and investigating the groups' finances. After being ignored for months, those requests are only now being addressed, Belgian officials said. Among those now under criminal investigation in Belgium are Samih Osailly and his cousin, Aziz Nassour, Lebanese diamond merchants linked by witnesses to dealing with al Qaeda in Sierra Leone, according to Belgian law enforcement officials. The two men said in separate interviews that they were involved in the diamond business in both Sierra Leone and Congo but strongly denied any ties to radical Islamic organizations or al Qaeda. Osailly and Nassour are of particular interest to European and US investigators. They have a long history as important middle men in the diamond trade in Congo, mostly in rebel-controlled regions. The sources with direct knowledge of the deals said they began working closely with al Qaeda operatives in West Africa last year, shipping millions of dollars of diamonds from rebel-controlled areas of Sierra Leone through neighboring Liberia. Both men, Belgian and US officials said, are important middle men for a wide variety of Islamic organizations. According to sources with direct knowledge of the transactions, Osailly and Nassour sold large quantities of diamonds to Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed - all of whom are identified as al Qaeda operatives on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list. Because of their ties to the illegal diamond trade in Sierra Leone and Liberia, both men earlier this year were barred from international travel under UN sanctions imposed on participants in the illicit diamonds-for-weapons trade in West Africa.
Business associates who know the two men well said Nassour was a gruff, hardheaded businessman who made a fortune in the diamond trade, while Osailly worked for Nassour and was not particularly successful in his own right. The report to the UN Security Council on Congo identified Nassour as one of the main dealers of "conflict diamonds," or diamonds used to finance Africa's wars, in eastern Congo and said he provided about $2 million a year in tax revenue to Rwandan-backed rebels in the area where he operated. In a telephone interview from Beirut, Nassour said the allegations of his ties to al Qaeda or other terrorist groups were "absolutely incorrect and untrue" and have "seriously hurt me and my business." Nassour, who diamond dealers said had survived longer than most in the cut-throat world of diamond-dealing in Africa, said the allegations were spread by competitors in the diamond trade. Nassour, who had a monopoly on diamond exports from rebel-held territory in Congo's north-central Kisangani region until December 2000, said he did not always know who was buying his diamonds. "Guys are calling us all the time," Nassour said. "We don't know if they are Qaeda or not Qaeda. We are selling diamonds."
The Washington Post reported last month that sources with direct knowledge of the sale of Sierra Leonean diamonds to al Qaeda operatives said the sales were directed by Nassour, who used the code name Alpha Zulu. The sources said Nassour and Osailly ran the operation from a safe house in Monrovia, the capital of neighboring Liberia, and that the diamonds were bought and shipped by people Nassour sent from his diamond operation in Congo. Nassour said in the interview that he was widely known in Congo as Alpha Zulu but had not used the name elsewhere. He also said he had long-standing working relationships in Congo with the men who then staffed the house in Monrovia. But Nassour said that he did not know they had gone to Monrovia and that he did not meet with them when he visited there in July. He said the visit was tied to a prospective deal for mobile phones. But sources involved in the diamond trade said the visit was made to cement his diamond-dealing relationship with the Sierra Leone rebels. Osailly, in an interview, also denied dealing with the al Qaeda operatives, but said he did not always know the identity of his buyers. He said he lived in Monrovia and was in the diamond trade there for several months last year and this year. Osailly, 35, a soft-spoken resident of Antwerp, said he received funding for his diamond-buying venture from Nassour. But Osailly said the reports of his ties to Hezbollah were fabricated by his ex-wife during a custody battle for their children.
Control of much of the diamond trade in Congo has shifted in recent years from well-established Lebanese businessmen who had been in the country for decades, to a new group of younger, violent middle men who muscled their way into the business and are closely tied to Hezbollah and other radical Islamist groups, according to diamond dealers and intelligence officials. Intelligence sources here said some of the new businessmen were Palestinians who were active in Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war and were given Lebanese passports after the war in exchange for promises to leave the country as it stabilized. "The face of the business has changed," said one source in the diamond business in Kinshasa. "Hezbollah and the others have always been here, but not like in recent years. Now we have all these people who say they are not known to us or our families, and they are much more political. They even extort money from other dealers for the cause."
As the importance of conflict diamonds has grown over the years, so have efforts by activists around the world to keep such gems off the international market. The Kimberly Process, a series of meetings among diamond-producing states and countries that are major markets, resulted last month in a draft agreement that would theoretically make all diamonds traceable to their points of origin. The agreement is to be presented to the United Nations early next year. Belgium has moved in the past two years to make the importation of conflict diamonds more difficult. But while conflict diamonds make up less than 10 percent of the $10 billion global diamond trade, senior Belgian officials said they were afraid the growing international outrage would cause the diamond trade to decline, and that controls would only prompt dealers in conflict diamonds to seek new markets. "There is nothing wrong with the legal trade in diamonds, it is a beautiful product," said a senior Belgian official who deals with the diamond trade. "But the illegal trade is a big problem. Conflict diamonds are used to some extent to finance terrorist networks. We are trying to plug the holes here, but unless all the holes are plugged at once, the money just flows through another hole."
Many of the diamonds bought by Hezbollah and other radical groups in Congo are sold in less-regulated diamond markets that have sprung up in countries where the organizations can operate relatively freely, such as Dubai, Mauritius and India, according to diamond dealers here and diplomats and intelligence sources monitoring the trade. As an example of just how unregulated the diamond trade is, diplomats and diamond dealers here said, there now are direct charter flights to Dubai from some of Congo's richest diamond and gold areas. The planes file no flight plans and no cargo manifests. "Borders here, in terms of control, are a joke," said a senior diplomat in Kinshasa. "Who is going to control charter flights from diamond fields when there are not even radars to cover most of the country? Basically this is a country without authority."
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1990: Poland's insignia in exile go back to Lech Walesa |
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IF YOU feel your country is run by usurpers, what could be more tempting than simply to declare them illegitimate? All the more so if you yourself used to be in charge there, or would like to be. That is the thinking, more or less, that sustains one of the weirdest corners of international politics—the world's two dozen or so governments in exile.
They are as varied as the countries they purport to rule. By far the most serious is the Indian-based Tibetan government in exile, headed by the Dalai Lama. The best proof that it matters is that China, the occupying power in Tibet since 1949, detests it. At the other end of the spectrum is the politically incorrect but amusing Rhodesian government in exile, which is in effect an Internet-based pressure group devoted to lampooning misrule in post-independence Zimbabwe. A pseudonymous representative, Shangani, says by e-mail: “We accept any and all donations to our Swiss bank accounts. Highest bid wins a [government] post and losing donations are non-refundable. On slow days a crate of Castle [beer] will do the trick.”
A few are too shrill to be taken seriously. The so-called American government in exile turns out to be neither a government, nor in exile, only an outdated website protesting about President George Bush's election victory last year. But most reflect some sort of reality, ranging from an all-but-forgotten quirk of history to a grievous contemporary wrong.
There are three big categories. One reflects Europe's tangled history in the past century, as seen in all the governments in exile from the fringes of the Soviet empire. Another lot seek independence for Epirus, once a Greek-speaking principality but now part of southern Albania. A fiery German from Danzig, the independent city-state seized by Hitler in 1939 and later given to Poland, runs a soi-disant government in exile in distant Australia.
The second category reflects the confusion and arbitrariness surrounding the end of European colonial empires. A France-based group seeks independence for Cabinda, a Portuguese colony invaded by neighbouring Angola at the time of independence; the Polisario, from its sandy refugee camps in Algeria, maintains its claim to authority over the Western Sahara. In 1986, India's Sikh diaspora proclaimed a government in exile for their self-described country of Khalistan.
A third category stems simply from oppressive rule, whether imposed by occupiers or home-grown. Burmese opposition politicians have a government in exile based in Washington, DC. A German-based outfit purportedly governs a not-yet-existing state for Egypt's persecuted Coptic Christians.
Any government, whether in exile or not, matters mainly when it is recognised by real governments in real countries. The last time that exiled governments really mattered in world politics was during the second world war, when the rightful rulers of Nazi-occupied countries such as Czechoslovakia, France, the Netherlands and so forth squatted in London until they could be restored to power.
The other main test is clout. If a government in exile has guerrillas fighting for it, or controls at least a bit of territory back home, or carries a lot of weight in the affairs of a numerous and vocal diaspora, it matters much more than an outfit that meets only to issue press releases and appoint new members.
Applied harshly, these tests leave few modern governments in exile with much to write home about. None are currently recognised by real countries; only the Tibetans and the Polisario have real clout. But it would be a mistake to dismiss the rest as eccentrically-titled pressure groups. Events can quickly move a government in exile to a central place in a country's politics, or at least to an honoured place in its rewritten history.
The best recent example is in East Timor, where leaders of the government in exile are now the country's top politicians. The country was occupied by Indonesia in 1975. The former top guerrilla commander, Xanana Gusmao, who is set to be head of state when the United Nations administration winds up next year, was elected president of the government in exile while in prison in Indonesia. A former justice minister of the Estonian government in exile is now a senior civil servant. In Lithuania, Stasys Lozoraitis, a former diplomat, ran for president in 1993, and a rival from another exile outfit is now a senior member of parliament.
When the communists took power in Eastern Europe, many of the pre-war leaders fled abroad. Some, like the representatives of the Baltic states, maintained a dwindling clutch of musty embassies around the world. For decades, communist propaganda denounced these outfits as irrelevant husks. But as the Soviet empire collapsed, opposition figures and dissidents visited them eagerly.
When the same people took power, they made a point of treating the exile governments, not the outgoing communist politicians, as their real predecessors. On December 22, 1990, Poland's newly-elected president, Lech Walesa, sent a plane to London to fetch members of the Polish government in exile, a dusty, seemingly pointless body that for 46 stubborn years had preserved the ghost of the prewar Poland betrayed to Stalin at Yalta. Its last members, a decent but uninspiring bunch of Polish emigrés, solemnly handed over the state insignia that their distant predecessors had salvaged in 1939 (see our lead picture). Estonia's government in exile provided the legal bases for a new citizenship law, a paramilitary home guard, and, in 1992, a formal handover to the new, freely elected authorities.
For prize-winning doggedness, take a look at the Belarussian government in exile (in Canada). The version of Belarus it represents was an independent country for only nine months in 1918, before being squashed into the Soviet Union, with a chunk ending up in pre-war Poland. Memories of it are dim by now. Moreover, Belarus—though unattractively run, and heavily under Russia's thumb—is now once again an independent state.
Not only is the theoretical justification for the government in exile flimsy, but the people running it have very little physical connection with the state they represent. All the insignia of statehood were lost during the second world war, when the then-president had to flee Prague with a small suitcase. Only the government's oldest member, now aged 85, can claim to have been alive when the republic existed. The current president, a personable Canadian artist named Joanna Survilla, was born in a Belarussian-speaking family in pre-war Poland.
Never mind, say Mrs Survilla and her colleagues. They will keep going until Belarus's independence is no longer threatened. There are risks in being hasty. The Ukrainian government in exile, they point out, kept going in exile for nearly 70 years, but now feels it may have been a bit rash in handing over so promptly to a post-Soviet ruling elite that many now see as a bunch of crooks and traitors. So long as Russia still shows an appetite for gobbling up its neighbours, and so long as the local regimes are easily manipulated, Mrs Survilla argues, her government is still needed.
So what do she and her colleagues actually do? They preserve links with some of the wackier bits of the Belarussian opposition (chiefly the bit whose leaders are also, as it happens, exiled). One quite good idea was to start issuing citizenship documents, on the Estonian model, to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the country's de facto rulers. But money is limited, and the real effort goes into publishing. The Belarussian government in exile has published two massive volumes of its archives, which it is currently trying to collate from libraries all over Europe. Several more gripping instalments are planned.
For most governments in exile, there is nothing very much useful to do. “The whole purpose of our government was existence, not to make decisions,” recalls Peeter Luksep, a suave Swedish-Estonian businessman who served as his exiled government's last finance minister. Almost any decision involves exercising authority; but disobey a government in exile, and the worst that can happen is a spluttering press release, or perhaps suspension from some frowsty club in New Jersey or west London. The only exceptions are those outfits with some sort of military and security arm, like the Palestine Liberation Organisation, or those lucky enough to have a leader like the Dalai Lama, whose moral stature lends the whole organisation weight.
The innate absurdity of a government with nothing to govern is never far away, especially as time passes and new members are needed. A bunch of serious politicians fleeing totalitarianism is one thing. Digging around for someone to be minister of transport in a government that may have, at best, a rented minibus at its command looks ridiculous.
This combines with a third danger. If governments in exile are rich in one thing, it is symbolism. The Polish government in exile made a lot of Polish emigrés happy by awarding them medals for service to the diaspora, and these are recognised by the current (real) Polish state. But it is easy to get carried away in this lucrative business. A surprising number of people are prepared to pay good money for a document, bogus or not, awarding them the order, say, of the crowned white eagle with crossed laurels. One former minister in the Polish government is still happily, and profitably, issuing orders and decorations from a town on Britain's south coast.
Exile organisations are also easy for spooks of all sides to infiltrate, and may otherwise embarrass their reluctant hosts as time goes by. As a result, some countries would rather not have them on their territory. Belgium has stopped a Kurdish parliament in exile meeting on its soil. In 1968 Harold Wilson, a British prime minister eager to cosy up to the Soviet Union, handed over the Baltic states's gold reserves held in the Bank of England. France and Italy both handed over Baltic embassy buildings to the Soviets. In the case of the Baltics, history turned the tables, and Britain repaid their money in 1991. Other exiled governments wait and hope that history will pay dividends on their patience as well.