Cape Argus
December 5, 2005
UN humanitarian envoy
Jan Egeland visited a squalid camp housing
thousands of victims of
Zimbabwe's controversial shantytown demolitions
today and heard
complaints of horrible living conditions there.
He waded through
the mud to reach hundreds of plastic-sheeting
shelters where victims live in
the Hatcliffe informal settlement about 20km
from Harare, which owners said
was often water-logged due to heavy rains.
Egeland said nothing to
reporters at the start of his visit, the first
tour by a senior UN official
since the May demolition of the shanty towns.
He kept journalists
at a distance, with aides saying Egeland wanted to
hold private
conversations with the victims.
"He is walking around in the
mud, speaking to victims, taking in their
living conditions," a witness
said.
Most of Hatcliffe's 8 000 settlers have no formal employment.
Their
temporary shelters were erected by the Catholic Church.
President Robert Mugabe's government last month accepted a UN offer to
help
the homeless after initially rejecting it on the grounds that the
demolitions did not
constitute a humanitarian crisis.
Egeland is expected to meet Mugabe tomorrow. - Reuters
[ This report does not
necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
JOHANNESBURG, 5
Dec 2005 (IRIN) - UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan
Egeland visited
Zimbabweans affected by the government's controversial
clean-up campaign,
Operation Murambatsvina, in the capital, Harare, on
Monday.
Egeland
also visited a government housing site and inspected units built for
those
affected by the operation, which has left more than 700,000 people
homeless
or without a livelihood after kicking off in mid-May. Although he
responded
positively to the government's attempts to house those left
homeless,
Egeland said "the needs are far greater". The envoy is also the UN
Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.
The Zimbabwean
government has maintained that the operation was aimed at
clearing slums and
flushing out criminals, and has announced plans to
construct 5,000 homes
across the country by the end of this year.
Zimbabwe initially rejected
UN offers of assistance to build temporary
shelter for people affected by
the operation, only to make an about-turn
last month. Subject to funding,
the UN will construct 2,500 housing units
during the first phase of the
programme, and will eventually build 20,000
units at a total cost of US $18
million.
The UN envoy visited two transit camps housing people left
homeless by the
clean-up operation and also met with donors, church leaders,
and
international and national NGOs on Monday.
Egeland was expected
to meet President Robert Mugabe before leaving Zimbabwe
on
Wednesday.
The envoy arrived in Harare late Saturday and met with Local
Government and
Public Works Minister Ignatius Chombo on Sunday. He had asked
Chombo "to
help us to help you," said UN spokesman Hiro Ueki in Harare,
noting that the
comment had been made in the context of providing "broader"
humanitarian
assistance.
The UN envoy is expected to visit Zimbabwe's
second city, Bulawayo, and
other parts of southern Zimbabwe to inspect food
distribution points. Last
week, the UN launched an appeal for US $276
million for Zimbabwe, saying at
least three million people would require
food aid, as only an estimated
600,000 mt of maize had been harvested,
compared to a national requirement
of 1.8 million mt.
Human Rights
Watch (HRW), the international watchdog organisation, claimed
in a report on
the aftermath of the clean-up that the Zimbabwean government
had "refused to
acknowledge the scale of the crisis precipitated by the
evictions campaign,
and continued to blatantly violate the human rights of
the people displaced
by Operation Murambatsvina".
HRW accused the government of failing to
take measures to house evicted
people, "many thousands of whom continue to
live in the open, in disused
fields or in the bush; or rudimentary shelters
made from the debris of
destroyed houses; or who squeeze into tiny rooms
with family members who
have agreed to shelter them".
Zimbabwe's
Minister of Security, Dydimus Mutasa, reacting to critical
reports on the
clean-up campaign, told IRIN recently, "They [clean-up
campaigns] happen
everywhere in the world - whether it is London and even in
South Africa.
Things have become better, people are able to sleep peacefully
now."
[ENDS]
Turkish Weekly
Some of
the 700,000 Zimbabweans hit by slum clearances are living in
"very bad"
conditions, said a top UN envoy after visiting a squatter camp.
UN's emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland waded through mud to
meet
people living under plastic sheets, reports Reuters news agency.
This is the highest level visit since a UN report condemned the
demolitions.
Mr Egeland was invited to "correct" the bias of
that report, said
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe.
"It is
very clear that the needs are great, the needs are tremendous
and the people
are living under very bad conditions," Mr Egeland said after
visiting the
Hatcliffe camp 20km outside the capital, Harare, home to about
8,000
people.
Reuters reports that women ululated and cheered when they
saw Mr
Egeland, hoping his visit might lead to better living
conditions.
Aid accepted
He later went to Whitecliff,
where the government says it is building
new houses for some of those made
homeless.
The government had refused international help for those
affected -
saying far fewer than 700,000 were affected.
But
last month, it accept the offers of aid and has also reached an
agreement to
let the World Food Programme distribute aid to at least three
million people
going hungry after poor harvests.
The government said the slum
clearances were intended to reduce crime
and overcrowding.
Mr
Egeland is due to meet Mr Mugabe on Tuesday. He met Local
Government
Minister Ignatius Chombo and other government officials over the
weekend.
The visit follows a UN report describing Zimbabwe as
being "in a
virtual state of emergency".
It said forced
government evictions of hundreds of thousands of people
earlier this year
had deepened the country's economic problems.
The report, compiled
by Anna Tabaijuka said the forced evictions had
caused untold
misery.
'Untold misery'
Mr Egeland will assess the
performance of UN agencies in their efforts
to help Zimbabweans through the
worsening crisis.
He is also due to meet religious and civil
society leaders, some of
whom are bitterly critical of the
government.
In southern Zimbabwe, Mr Egeland is expected to travel into
rural
areas where people are suffering severe food shortages.
Last week lobby group Human Rights Watch said that since Mrs
Tabaijuka's
report, UN agencies in Zimbabwe have not done enough to help
destitute
people and have been reluctant to confront Mr Mugabe's government.
A senior UN official in the region told the BBC that the agencies are
"caught between a rock and a hard place".
They have an
obligation to maintain a presence in Zimbabwe and, he
said, they cannot
achieve much without collaborating with Mr Mugabe.
The BBC's
Barnaby Phillips says Mr Egeland will get a better
understanding of this
awkward dilemma for the UN - to concentrate on
humanitarian work or confront
the government but risk losing all influence.
BBC News
December 5, 2005
SABC
December 05, 2005,
18:45
About 200 travellers were stranded at the Beit Bridge border-post,
between
South Africa and Zimbabwe today.
There was an acute shortage
of immigration staff. Only two officials are on
duty as the others are
reportedly being investigated for corruption.
There are usually about 14
officials on duty, at the border post. But today,
there were just two,
leading to long queues and delays. Just last week,
police arrested three
officials for corruption. But they denied rumours that
they had done the
same today. Officials would not appear on camera. But
there was talk of more
manpower being called in, to assist with the backlog.
Mail and Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
05 December 2005
03:54
Zimbabwe team manager Babu Meman and test cricketers
Vusimusi
Sibanda and Waddington Mwayenga were released from police custody
on Monday
after being questioned for two days on taxation and foreign
currency issues.
They were arrested Saturday at the Harare
Academy cricket
grounds and held under the Exchange Control Act over their
foreign currency
earnings from test matches and international match
fees.
Babu Meman, who has managed the national team for
several years,
together with batsman Vusimusi Sibanda and seam bowler
Waddington Mwayenga,
were arrested on Saturday following a tip-off about
their foreign currency
earnings from Test match and One Day International
match fees.
But Meman told journalists on Monday: "We are in
the process of
being released right now. I don't foresee any hiccups and
there are no
restrictions on us. I believe the instruction to let us go came
from the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe."
Meman added: "We know
who caused this mischief, but he has
failed except to give anxiety for our
families."
Local government-controlled daily newspaper The
Herald ran a
story Monday with the headline, "Cricketers arrested in forex
scam."
Other test cricketers were warned on Sunday by
Zimbabwe Cricket
(ZC) officials to go into hiding.
The
Herald also ran a statement from ZC chairperson Peter
Chingoka and managing
director Osias Bvute claiming they're still in control
of the country's
cricket administration.
A crisis meeting of ZC got under way
Monday at Harare Sports
Club under senior director Judge Ahmed Abrahim.
About 40-50 directors,
provincial and club chairpersons, the national coach,
players and selectors
met to consider what Ebrahim called "the way forward".
Chingoka and Bvute
were notably absent when the meeting got
underway.
Two leading Zimbabwe cricketers and a well-known
official,
arrested Saturday on charges of violating foreign exchange rules,
were set
to be released Monday.
Detectives were expected
to question Chingoka and Bvute as part
of their investigations into alleged
foreign currency violations.
Problems at ZC led to the
resignation two weeks ago of national
team captain Tatenda
Taibu.
He and other players had earlier teamed up with the
country's
seven provincial chairpersons in a bid to have Chingoka sacked and
Bvute
suspended. -- Sapa-AFP
Open Democracy
Netsai Mushonga
5 - 12 -
2005
Fifty hours' detention in Harare Central Police
Station gave
civil-rights activist Netsai Mushonga an unmatched insight into
the decay of
Robert Mugabe's regime
On Monday 7 November 2005, following a weekend peace and
non-violence
training workshop hosted by the Women's Peacemakers' Program
for church
leaders from Epworth and other areas of Harare, I received a call
from the
police asking me to come to the police station. The officer
stressed that it
was to my advantage to cooperate. I went that afternoon,
arriving at
2.30pm.
Surprisingly, the whole section seemed to be waiting
for me.
"She is here", one officer shouted when I introduced
myself.
I am ushered into a dilapidated office, which looks
like a
reception room. An old desk has an even older typewriter on top. One
of the
four officers in the room looks bored and drunk. They ask if I was
responsible for organising the workshop, and tell me that the meeting was a
political one; we should therefore have informed the police in advance under
the Public Order and Security Act (Posa).
I argue that it
was a peace and non-violence meeting and explain
that the WFP operates with
a constitution: all perfectly legal. The officers
believe the meeting was
political since it discussed the history of
Zimbabwe. They seemed worried
that we mentioned Gukurahundi (the military
operation in Matabeleland where
20,000 civilians were killed in the 1980s).
I maintain my
cool. When the other officers discover that I am
not going to be a pushover
they all but one slowly leave the reception room
to find something more
exciting to do. For the rest of the afternoon, I
discuss the meeting with
the officer who had called me. I have lots of work
and am anxious to leave,
so I tell the officer that I have to pick up my kid
from school. But he
detains me until 5pm and asks me to return at 8am the
next
day.
Because I am very sure of my innocence, I do not raise
the
alarm, try to find a lawyer, or even tell my husband, Albert. On Tuesday
8
November I rush to my office to plan for the day, since I have a meeting
to
attend in the afternoon; by 8.30 I am at the police station. This time,
no
one t seems interested in me. But after ten minutes' wait an officer asks
me
to come with him.
We walk through the corridors and I
realise that I am now in the
Central Intelligence Office (CIO) division. The
offices and their personnel
are alike poorly maintained and a pitiful sight;
almost all the staff are
wearing cheap, worn civilian
clothing.
I am taken to the head of the division where a
junior officer
comes to sit with me. The head himself pops in and out,
ostensibly to give
orders to juniors though I suspect really to check up on
me. I chat with
junior officers and ask one of them to phone my husband; he
does so gladly.
My husband is shocked by the news and wants to find a lawyer
fast. I am
still convinced of my innocence and I ask him not to
panic.
After four hours, a woman officer comes to fetch me.
She appears
high-handed but I remain pleasant, feeling sure that behind the
mask is a
decent human being who wants the same things as myself: a happy
life in a
peaceful, prosperous country. She is joined by another woman
colleague, and
together they act as though I am guilty of a big crime, that
under Posa the
police have a right to be informed of any public gathering
(even a birthday
party or church mass), and that I can get a lawyer if I
want. They then
charge me with holding a public gathering without informing
the police.
They take my fingerprints, three copies. I remain
cool. Why
should I worry; no crime has been committed, of that I am sure. My
husband
brings me lunch, and I delve into the meal with gusto. The woman
officer
interviewing me is having black tea and plain bread for lunch. I
feel for
her and she notices it.
The first
night
I am taken to the cells. An officer tells me I should
remove my
shoes since I am now a prisoner. He assigns a woman officer to
supervise me
who order me to remove my bra; I am left in a sleeveless top.
They take my
cell phone and ask me to hand over all my money. I have a few
Zimbabwe
dollars and $13. An officer looks greedily at the United States
money and
asks if I declared it at the border. He realises that he can't get
away with
snatching the money and puts it down.
I join
other women prisoners in a day room and they ask me why I
am in. "Posa", I
sigh. They clap hands and welcome me: "You are a brave
sister and we are
here for Posa too." We sit and introduce ourselves. In the
next two hours,
most of the women arrested under Posa are released. My
husband brings me
more food - half a chicken and some chips. I share it with
two girls who are
in for forgery and shoplifting respectively; the first
explains that she was
desperate to get work and had forged an "O" Level
certificate so she could
get a job as a tailor in the army; the second says
that this is her
profession and even boasts that it pays well.
At around 9pm,
we are sent to sleep in the smelly, filthy cells.
The cells are roughly six
meters squared, containing a toilet that does not
flush; the stench is
overpowering. Ten of us share three dirty blankets full
of lice. With my
short-sleeved blouse, I cannot take the lice bites and
resolve to spread my
newspaper on the floor and sleep there.
After turning and
tossing forever, sometimes just sitting up
straight since the floor is cold,
dawn finally comes. An officer arrives to
take us to the day
rooms.
The second night
Albert and our
friends have found a lawyer for me. But they are
misinformed that I am being
held at Chitungwiza prison, thirty kilometers
from Harare. Rangu, from
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, wastes his
journey there. At noon, my
husband and friends are finally allowed to speak
to me for two minutes.
Albert is angry, and I see him trying to control
himself; my friend Margie
looks serious but composed. We speak briefly and
an officer asks them in
very low tones to bring me something warm to wear.
They bring
lots of food; rice, meat for maybe three people,
potatoes, bread, bananas,
apples, drinks. The officers and other prisoners
look on enviously. I share
it with three women prisoners who seem on the
point of collapse. I also give
some to the crying child of a vagrant woman.
The day is
uneventful. New prisoners arrive, most in various
stages of shock. We laugh,
talk, and counsel one another. At night, it is
back to the excrement-covered
cell. This time, I manage to catch some sleep
on the floor. But I am
becoming angrier by the minute. Why am I in prison?
I get a
hearty breakfast in the morning and share it with three
people, including
one man who says that he is starving. Two young men in
prison under Posa
slip into our day room and we talk and laugh with them;
one of the woman
prisoners is his girlfriend. She looks distraught and
homesick. I try to
cheer them up. I explain non-violence to them and they
gape at me,
interested about the prospects of making soldiers and police
officer their
friends in the struggle for food and jobs.
A longer
version of Netsai Mushonga's experience was first
published in
kubatana.net
Release
Around 12.30
on Thursday 10 November, after two nights in Harare
police station, an
officer comes to tell me that I am free to go. I pack my
bags and after
hasty goodbyes I leave my food with my two new friends: the
shoplifter and
the forger. The senior woman officer tells me that they will
prepare a
docket and later send me a summons. Rangu tells me that the
attorney-general's office threw out the case and therefore they had to
release me after the mandatory forty-eight hours. He says that this is the
end, as there is no case to start with.
We head home. I
feel angry. A fire has been ignited deep inside
me. I expect that people
around me would be angry with me, but they are not.
Instead, my friends and
colleagues are angry with the law and the system.
They realise that I have
been a victim. It's one thing to talk of
injustices, another to be a direct
victim.
I am wary of the suffering and stress that my family
went
through during my ordeal, especially my husband. Thanks to them and all
my
friends' support during this ordeal. I am blessed to have all of
you.
What happens next? I now know what Posa means. I now
know about
unlawful arrests and detentions. Non-violence principle number
four has
taught me that unearned suffering is strengthening. Our society
still needs
non-violence and peace education and we will continue to give
it.
Los Angeles Times
December 5, 2005
GLOBAL REPORT
By John Reed, Financial Times
LIVINGSTONE, Zambia
- A rainbow arcs toward the horizon, just above a sign
saying "Welcome to
Zimbabwe." The colorful spectacle happens when sunlight
is refracted through
the mist thrown up by Victoria Falls, which straddle
the country's border
with Zambia.
Zimbabwe has the best views of the falls, which are about
100 meters high
and known locally as mosi-o-tunya ("the smoke that
thunders"). Visitors can
paraglide over the falls, take tea at the
colonial-era Victoria Falls hotel,
or bungee-jump from a 100-year-old bridge
spanning the Zambezi River.
But an increasing number of foreign visitors
is choosing to view the falls
from Livingstone, Zambia. Like Zambia's
broader economy, the town is
profiting from the economic and political
crisis afflicting Zimbabwe.
On a recent weekend, several dozen foreign
tourists crowded into Zambia's
Mosi-o-Tunya National Park to view the falls,
which have been reduced to a
trickle on its eastern cataract by southern
Africa's severe drought.
In less than five years several new hotels and
tour operators offering river
cruises or game drives have sprung up in
Livingstone, transforming it from a
provincial backwater into a growing
tourist hub.
"Five years ago you could stand on Mosi-o-Tunya road and see
only one car in
half an hour," says Misozi Tembo, a local spokeswoman for
Sun International,
which in 2001 opened two hotels in Livingstone. "Now it's
difficult to cross
it."
A shopping mall and two new hotels are under
construction, and the town's
tiny airport will be refurbished by the end of
the year to allow Boeing 747s
and other big aircraft to land, said Ngandu
Peter Magande, Zambia's finance
minister.
"Three quarters of the
falls are in Zambia," said Magande. He says French,
South African and U.S.
hotel groups have also expressed interest in building
hotels in Livingstone,
named after David Livingstone, the Scottish
missionary and explorer who
sighted the falls 150 years ago.
Zimbabwean farmers, driven abroad by
President Robert Mugabe's seizure of
commercial farms, have also flocked to
Zambia, alongside other neighboring
countries.
The migrants have
brought capital and intensive methods rare in Zambian
agriculture and caused
the country's tobacco production to more than double
in two years to 45
million kilograms.
"The impact they have made on tobacco farming in less
than two years has
been tremendous," says Dipak Patel, Zambia's minister of
commerce, trade and
industry.
Precise figures are not available on
how many Zimbabwean farmers, many of
whom leased rather than bought land,
are now in Zambia.
Many Zimbabwean farmers have struggled to make money
in Zambia where
long-term finance and skilled workers are in shorter supply
than in their
homeland. Many have been hurt by the drought, which the
government says has
left 1.7 million Zambians facing food
shortages.
The white migrants, after their eviction from Zimbabwe, have
also made it
clear that they are in Zambia only to farm. Zambian officials
appear to be
largely pleased with their presence. Zambia, called Northern
Rhodesia under
British rule, was joined in a federation with Zimbabwe until
its
independence in 1964.
Zim Online
Tue 6
December 2005
HARARE - Zimbabwe High Court Judge President
Paddington Garwe has
given opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai 10 days to
show cause why a final
order, sought by lieutenants in his Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC)
party, to bar him from being party president should
not be granted.
MDC deputy secretary general Gift Chimanikire last
night told
ZimOnline that he and other leaders of the party opposed to
Tsvangirai
yesterday appealed to Garwe - a top ally of President Robert
Mugabe - to
interdict Tsvangirai from performing duties as president of the
opposition
party.
"Mr Tsvangirai was served
with summons this afternoon by the Judge
President through a messenger of
court," said Chimanikire, who is part of a
faction led by MDC secretary
general Welshman Ncube that is pushing for
Tsvangirai's ouster from the helm
of the opposition party.
According to Chimanikire, they also want
Garwe to order Tsvangirai to
surrender party property in his custody because
he was suspended by the
MDC's disciplinary committee that is headed by party
deputy president Gibson
Sibanda.
Tsvangirai has rejected the
suspension and party national youth leader
Nelson Chamisa, who is siding
with the MDC leader, last night said
Tsvangirai was still to see the summons
from Garwe, adding the opposition
leader would vigorously oppose in court
attempts to topple him.
Chamisa said: "I have heard that papers
have been served but Mr
Tsvangirai is yet to see the papers. We are
currently awaiting delivery of
the papers.
"We will have to
file opposing papers but this (application for
interdict against Tsvangirai)
is just like flogging a dead horse because
there is no basis for this court
action to hold."
Giving out a hint of what is likely to be one of
Tsvangirai's major
defence planks in the impending court battle, Chamisa
said the MDC was
focused on its congress set for next February which he said
had the
mandate - and not the courts - to choose new leaders for the
party.
But that both Tsvangirai and Ncube must now bow before Garwe
to be
told who should lead the MDC is testimony of how the six-year old
opposition
party - that had offered Zimbabweans the only viable alternative
to Mugabe's
rule - has fallen apart.
Garwe became president of
Zimbabwe's High Court bench only after
Mugabe had purged independent judges.
He last year exonerated Tsvangirai of
treason charges but he is, as is the
case with most of the new judges
appointed by Mugabe in the last five years,
still regarded by many as never
truly independent from the
government.
The wrangling tearing apart the MDC began after the
party's senior
leaders could not agree on whether to contest last month's
senate election.
Tsvangirai ordered the MDC to boycott the poll and
launched a vigorous
campaign to mobilise grassroots supporters to stay away
from the election
which he said was a waste of money in a country that
should be using its
meagre resources to fight hunger threatening a quarter
of its population.
The MDC leader also opposed the election saying
it was pointless to
take part in a poll that would be rigged by Mugabe and
his government.
But Ncube and his faction insisted that the MDC
should contest the
poll because its national council had voted for it to do
so, adding that
Tsvangirai was violating the party's constitution by
rejecting the council
vote.
The pro-senate group also argued
that boycotting the election would be
unwise as that would be tantamount to
surrendering political space to Mugabe
and his ruling ZANU PF
party.
But Ncube and his group were thrashed by ZANU PF in the
November 26
poll that most Zimbabweans largely ignored with less than 20
percent coming
out to vote, a development political analysts said appeared
to suggest that
Tsvangirai had read the national sentiment better than his
MDC rivals.
But the Ncube faction that controls the MDC
disciplinary committee
immediately announced it had suspended Tsvangirai for
breaching the party's
constitution by campaigning against the senate
election. They had to seek
help from the courts after Tsvangirai ignored the
suspension. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Tue 6 December 2005
HARARE - A leading Zimbabwean
opposition politician, Roy Bennett, is
suing the government's Agriculture
and Rural Development Authority (ARDA)
for allegedly looting US$244 000
worth of coffee from his Charleswood farm
when it invaded the property in
April last year.
According to papers filed at the High Court,
Bennett - whose farm was
seized despite a court order prohibiting ARDA and
the government from
expropriating it - left behind on the farm 107 560kg of
coffee that was
ready for export.
There was also a further 34
880kg of coffee in various stages of
processing at the time Bennett, a
former member of parliament of the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) party, was forcibly evicted
from Charleswood.
Bennett
alleges in his court papers that on August 26, 2004 an ARDA
official, one
Simoye, who was running the farm on behalf of the state
agricultural
authority, broke into the coffee warehouse and illegally
removed 107 560kg
of coffee valued at US$132 298.44 which he sold to a
private firm called
Predomn Investments.
The MDC politician is also suing the directors
of Predomn, a Misheck
Makandiwa and a P M Jongwe, who he says bought the
coffee knowing full well
that it was stolen.
According to
Bennett, Simoye on various occasions later stole another
84 680kg of coffee
worth US$111 944 which he sold away.
Bennett, who has asked the
court to order ARDA to "disclose and
deliver the quantity of coffee picked
at Charleswood Estate from April last
year", wants the government farming
company to return whatever amounts of
his coffee it is still holding onto
and to pay up for whatever it illegally
sold.
This is not the
first time that ARDA or an arm of the government is
being sued for looting
property and produce from white-owned farms during
President Robert Mugabe's
chaotic and often violent programme to seize farms
from whites for
redistribution to landless blacks.
Former white safari operator
Wally Johnson is suing Police
Commissioner Augustine Chihuri and Defence
Minister Sydney Sekeramayi after
soldiers and policemen allegedly took
advantage of the chaos and lawlessness
during farm invasions to loot US$25
000 worth of property from his Mawenje
safari lodge.
There have
also been countless reports in the past in which police and
army officers
were accused of either standing by while pro-government mobs
looted farm
equipment and household property from white farms or actively
participated
in the theft of property themselves. The government and its
security forces
have however denied such reports.
Mugabe's controversial land
redistribution programme under which he
chased most of Zimbabwe's about 4
000 white farmers from the land is blamed
for destabilising the mainstay
agricultural sector, causing a 60 percent
drop in food
production.
Zimbabwe has survived on food handouts from
international relief
agencies since the farm seizures began six years ago
with an estimated three
million of the 12 million Zimbabweans requiring more
than a million tonnes
of food aid between now and the next harvest around
March/April 2006 or they
will starve. - ZimOnline