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From The Star (SA), 15 February

Uruguayan journalist ordered out of Zimbabwe

Harare - A Uruguayan journalist who is correspondent for the South African Mail and Guardian weekly, Mercedes Sayagues, is being barred from working in Zimbabwe after nine years in the country, the state-controlled daily, The Herald, reported on Thursday. Sayagues left early on Thursday for Johannesburg on a 36-hour-business trip after failing to obtain clarification of her status on Wednesday from officials of the newly-established department of information in the office of President Robert Mugabe.

If a department of immigration statement to the Herald is correct, that Sayagues has 24 hours to quit the country, she may be barred from re-entry on Friday. She would then be separated from her nine-year-old daughter Esmeralda who is at school in Harare and left temporarily in the care of friends. No clarification was available from the department on Thursday. Friends noted the letter given to the Herald was not given to Sayagues and believe the move is the latest effort to intimidate independent journalists following the bombing of the Daily News, the only daily outside state control.

Mugabe's propaganda supremo Jonathan Moyo has announced he intends some new form of "accreditation" for all journalists, which many believe will amount to state licensing. Sayagues made repeated visits on Wednesday to officials, trying to obtain renewal of her temporary employment permit which expires on February 26. Sayagues came to Zimbabwe in 1992. Last month Sayagues filed detailed reports of attempts by self- styled "war veterans" to terrorise journalists and voters during a by-election at Bikita, south eastern Zimbabwe, narrowly won by Mugabe's Zanu (PF) party. She was herself threatened by the activists, who are funded by the ruling party, and alleged to be responsible for the murder of over 40 opposition supporters in the past year.

"We are working on the rules and regulations of the new accreditation exercise. We should complete it soon," Munyaradzi Hwengwere, an official of Moyo's department of information and publicity told The Herald. "Before the new rules are in place no employment permits will be renewed and this means those with expired ones will have to leave the country. Everyone should wait until we make a statement to apply. The laws of the country require that those without the requisite documents should leave."

From The Daily News, 15 February

Rival says Chiyangwa spent millions on votes

Silas Matamisa, the MDC candidate for Chinhoyi, who lost the seat to Phillip Chiyangwa in June, yesterday told the High Court that two of his election agents refused at the last minute to give evidence in court on his behalf. Matamisa said that one of them was harassed and threatened with death by CIO agents. He said Ndoni Mutema and Prisca Kapita had suddenly turned hostile. Initially the two had written affidavits supporting Matamisa. But last Friday Mutema suddenly wrote an affidavit supporting Chiyangwa. Kapita did likewise on Monday.

Matamisa said: "I only got to know of this on Tuesday when I went to fetch Mutema for the hearing. He refused to come, saying he had been assaulted by the CIO and could no longer assist me." Matamisa said Mutema told him CIO agents tied him up before taking him to Karoi where they beat him up. The CIO agents are said to have threatened to kill him if he reported to the police, Matamisa told Justice Paddington Garwe. Matamisa, represented by Advocate Pearson Nherere, said Mutema then demanded $10 000 from him if he was going "to sacrifice his life by giving evidence in court against Chiyangwa". He said Kapita submitted her affidavit in support of Chiyangwa only on Monday, when the hearings started. Matamisa said he only got to know about Kapita's defection yesterday. "These are the works of Chiyangwa," said Matamisa. "There are so many irregularities by Chiyangwa that one would need to write a book thicker than the Bible to tell the story."

Matamisa told Justice Garwe that Chiyangwa set aside $4,7 million to induce voters to vote for him and donated $2 million to Sabina Mugabe, President Mugabe's sister, for her own election campaign in Zvimba South. Advocate Adam Kara, for Chiyangwa, said Matamisa's claims were false because he did not witness the alleged episodes. Chiyangwa won the election by 574 votes. Matamisa claims the winning margin and the whole electoral process were flawed. "There was massive vote-buying by Chiyangwa," he said. "Loan forms were distributed to people in the constituency so that they could vote for him. Chiyangwa also distributed money at election campaign rallies and three beasts were slaughtered at some of the rallies."

Chiyangwa allegedly put up posters, which enticed people to vote for him for money. One of the advertisements in The Makonde Star, a weekly paper circulating in Chinhoyi and submitted as an exhibit, said: "Vote Chiyangwa for Money and Development, Munondiziva (You know me)". Matamisa told the court that at Chikonohono Primary School and at Chinhoyi Hall polling stations, Augustine Chihuri, the Police Commissioner, ordered polling agents out and remained in the polling booth with presiding officers. They were asked to return after about five minutes. The hearings continue today.

From The Star (SA), 15 February

Zim farmers call for congress on land reform

Harare - The union representing Zimbabwe's white farmers has decided to meet next month to debate how to break the impasse over the government's controversial land reform scheme, the group's president said on Thursday. "I recognise that the government and the CFU are deadlocked over the land issue to the detriment of the nation," CFU president Tim Henwood said in a statement. "I will be encouraging my members to become part of the solution to land reform. ...I urge all stakeholders in this sensitive and emotional issue to urgently come to the table in order to reach common ground so that the nation can move forward," he said.

CFU, which represents 4 500 mostly white large-scale farmers, has successfully challenged in court President Robert Mugabe's plan to resettle five million hectares of white-owned farmland with poor blacks. But the government has so far ignored the court rulings, which found the government had failed to follow its own laws on land reform. The rulings also ordered police to evict the squatters who have invaded hundreds of white-owned farms during the last year in a violent, government-backed campaign in support of land reform. Police have generally ignored the order to evict squatters, who are led by self-styled liberation war veterans tied to political violence around the country.

CFU spokesperson Malcolm Vowles said the special congress set for March 21 in Harare was a recognition that "we have reached a crossroads and we need to debate our options to move forward". "It's actually a recognition that there are going to have to be some concessions from farmers to break the deadlock," he said. The need for land reform is widely accepted in Zimbabwe - by blacks and whites - to correct colonial-era inequalities. About 70 percent of the country's prime agricultural land is owned by whites, who make up just 70 000 of Zimbabwe's 12,5 million population.

From The Guardian (UK), 16 February

Mugabe's law

The situation in Zimbabwe isn't improving, reports Simon Tisdall, and the domineering rule of Robert Mugabe shows no signs of waning yet

The continuing, escalating depredations and abuses for which Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe is held primarily responsible pose a challenge to the standards of "international community" that it has so far failed miserably to meet. Some people think Mr Mugabe is mad and therefore beyond the reach of reasoned argument. Others say he is merely old and angry - he will be 77 next week. Whatever the cause of his behaviour, Zimbabwe's business and farming community and many former supporters are convinced he is ruining the country.

The United Nations and the Commonwealth have been sharply critical of his conduct of elections. Independent observers fret about human rights abuses. Britain, the former colonial power, got into a futile shouting match with the president last year. His neighbours, led by South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, have tried a gentler, comradely approach, concerned above all at Zimbabwe's economic implosion and spiralling debts. Even Nelson Mandela has lent his weight to efforts to halt the central African war, centred on Congo, in which Zimbabwean troops are deeply embroiled.

But all apparently has been to no avail. Mr Mugabe's objectionable activities continue unchecked, his latest targets being the country's independent judiciary and free press which he seeks to neuter and muzzle. Members and supporters of the opposition MDC that made significant gains in last summer's general election are also singled out for intimidation and worse by thuggish elements linked to the ruling Zanu-PF. Mr Mugabe pays no heed, takes no notice as the storm rages around his head. His critics and accusers are dismissed as traitors, stooges and, of course, racists. In power for nearly 21 years, he seems to see himself straddling a founding father's podium, looking down with disdain on the political pygmies at his feet.

Perhaps he thinks he is indispensable. Perhaps he has come to think of power as a right, not a responsibility. There is no doubt that his achievements in the early post-Rhodesian years were substantial. Equally, there can be little doubt now that he is Zimbabwe's biggest single problem. But will he go? He will not. He clearly intends to run again in the presidential poll due about one year from now. And in the meantime he will do all he can, by fair means and foul, to ensure the election goes his way. Zanu-PF fiddled the last poll. There is no reason to believe the next one will not be fiddled, too.

Mr Mugabe's rule is not exactly a tyranny, not yet at least. But it is an autocracy with very unpleasant tendencies. So what, if anything, is to be done? If, by common consent, a man is driving his country down the drain, he and his self-serving clique of henchmen must surely be stopped? But how? The options are as familiar as they are uninspiring. The first is persuasion and dialogue. This has been tried and it has signally failed. The second is some form of international ostracism or sanctions. Some such curbs are already in place. The IMF and World Bank, for example, have frozen aid over the illegal land seizures of the past year. Britain has withheld bilateral assistance. But this has not modified Mr Mugabe's behaviour one whit.

Tougher measures could be applied, such as pressure on assets and bank accounts held abroad, restrictions on foreign visas for government members, reduction or suspension of diplomatic contacts, and trade and arms embargoes. But history suggests such sanctions would hurt ordinary Zimbabweans most, would not be universally enforced or observed, and would serve to entrench the regime. Such treatment would also help Mr Mugabe portray himself in his favourite role as a champion of the developing world's struggle against the wealthy North, a liberation leader defying the capitalist-colonialists. Direct outside intervention in Zimbabwe is not an option for western countries or its regional neighbours. There is no political will and the military means are lacking. However egregious Mr Mugabe's treatment of his own people, and however damaging the regional economic and social impact, other African leaders would not support his forcible overthrow. Apart from anything else, they would object to the precedent such action would set.

Within Zimbabwe itself, the opposition is strong - but not strong enough to oust him. The MDC has so far eschewed a mass campaign of civil disobedience. They fear, with justification, that intensified, violent repression would be the result - and the possible imposition of a state of emergency and suspension of parliament. They would prefer, rightly, to defeat him at the polls. But the likelihood of a free and fair election next year is remote. People's power, as seen recently in Serbia and the Philippines, only works if the armed forces and police are supportive - or at least, are not prepared to oppose unarmed protesters. But the security forces, backed by vigilantes, are firmly in Mr Mugabe's pocket at present. That might change. But nobody should welcome the prospect of yet another African military coup. The continent has suffered too many in recent years and they rarely make things better.

A sudden, unstoppable and widespread deterioration in living conditions could bring matters to a head. But in the absence of that sort of dramatic collapse, there seems to be little the Zimbabweans and others can do now to stop the rot. The sad fact is that Mr Mugabe knows all this very well as he calculates and plots his way towards another presidential term. Even sadder is the consequential, certain prospect of greater suffering before Zimbabwe finally gets a chance to start afresh. So next time a politician is heard urging action by the "international community", think of the people of Zimbabwe. Despite all the fashionable talk about the "internationalist century" and the interconnected "global village', the ability of outsiders effectively to influence or topple a determined and ruthless national leader remains very limited indeed. Just look at Bob.

From iafrica.com, 15 February

Mugabe defiant on eve of DRC summit

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe set a defiant tone on the eve of today's Congo summit in Lusaka, saying he is not prepared to withdraw his troops in favour of the "aggressors" who have invaded the vast central African country. "The aggressors must be prepared to withdraw first. We are ready to withdraw our forces, but not in favour of the aggressors," Mugabe said. The nine signatories to the 1999 Lusaka ceasefire accord, which has never been implemented, are to hold their third summit in the Zambian capital today.

The two-and-a-half-year-old Congo conflict threatens development and security throughout a wide swathe of central and southern Africa. At great cost to its own economy and stability, Zimbabwe has committed more than 10 000 troops to backing the Congolese government, which also receives material backing from Angola and Namibia. Uganda, Rwanda and three rebel groups are fighting the government. The UN is prepared to send about 3 000 troops and observers to oversee the withdrawal of foreign troops from the DRC.

From The Star (SA), 15 February

Africa can ill afford Congo quagmire

The latest attempt to end the Congo war looks set to end in shambles, with the leaders of key belligerents Rwanda and Uganda expected to miss yet another peace summit in the Zambian capital Lusaka on Thursday. African leaders and commentators say the world's poorest continent can ill afford to allow the conflict in the former Zaire to rumble on. The humanitarian costs of the war have been huge, with tens of thousands killed and hundreds of thousands displaced since Ugandan and Rwandan-backed rebels took up arms in the country's east in August 1998 against the late President Laurent Kabila.

Compounding the misery of the long-suffering Congolese and the inhabitants of the other countries drawn into the conflict is the economic cost, as scarce resources are diverted from health, education and poverty relief to the war effort. Badly needed foreign direct investment (FDI) - on a continent that receives less than one percent of global FDI flows - has been further deterred. "The negative perceptions surrounding Africa are among the biggest obstacles to FDI flows and the war in Congo has reinforced these," said Karen Heese, an economist with Johannesburg think-tank BusinessMap.

Pretoria's stepped-up diplomacy to end the conflict has been driven by its perception that South Africa's future prosperity is linked to the rest of the continent, and Africa will not prosper with several countries scrapping it out in the Congo. "The notion of a successful South Africa in an unsuccessful Africa cannot be sustained. It's critical from our point of view that the rest of the continent recovers," President Thabo Mbeki said in an interview published last week in The Star.

Several African nations - none of them very well off - have entered the fray in the DRC. Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia back the government of Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who took over after his father was assassinated last month. Uganda and Rwanda support the fractured rebel groups. Of course, not everyone has lost out. A few individuals have enriched themselves behind the smokescreen of war. "It seems that some senior Namibian soldiers are making money from diamonds," Hannelie de Beer, an analyst with the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, told Reuters. "It also seems that some individual Ugandans are making money from mineral exploitation." But none of this money is making its way back to Namibia, which can ill-afford to participate in a foreign war with around a third of its workforce unemployed and poverty widespread. The same goes for impoverished Uganda.

Analysts also believe that individual Zimbabweans have made lucrative mineral deals in the Congo. Zimbabwe - wracked by shortages of hard currency and fuel amid a worsening economic crisis - cannot justify its spending on the conflict, say observers. "The widely-cited one-million-dollar-a-day price tag for Zimbabwe's involvement in the war has not been strongly denied by the government, which suggests it could be even higher," said one regional analyst who asked not to be named. "Zimbabwe has around 16 000 soldiers in the Congo, so at a million dollars a day, you are talking about $62 per soldier, which is not much when you consider weapon and fuel costs, so it may well be a conservative estimate," he said.

Zimbabwe said in its 2001 budget last November that defence spending would be cut by a third in anticipation of a peace settlement in the Congo, but that assumption appears premature. The analyst said reports that the Zimbabwean army had been paid by the Congolese for services rendered were implausible as the Kinshasa government was desperately short of cash. Oil-rich Angola might be able to keep its soldiers in Congo, but cannot afford to feed its own population after decades of conflict at home. For Angola, as well as extremely poor Rwanda, security concerns are paramount. "Angola doesn't care how much it costs to keep its troops in Congo. It wants to keep a government in Kinshasa that is friendly to it and not the UNITA rebels it is fighting," said de Beer. "The same goes for Rwanda. So long as it is not satisfied that the Hutu militias can be disarmed it will stay there no matter how much it costs," she said. Hutu extremists operating in Congo are largely blamed for the 1994 genocide of an estimated 800 000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

From The Daily News, 16 February

Tsvangirai in court for inciting violence

Morgan Tsvangirai, the president of the MDC, was yesterday formally charged in the magistrates' court in Harare for his alleged call for President Mugabe to be removed from office. He was asked to pay $10 000 bail and to appear in the High Court on 30 April for trial. Tsvangirai's lawyer, Innocent Chagonda, told the magistrate, Shalton Jura, he still wanted to liaise with the Attorney-General's Office on a convenient date for the trial.

The charge arises from a public statement allegedly made by Tsvangirai at a political rally in Rufaro Stadium, Harare, on 30 September last year. He told the meeting Mugabe should either resign peacefully or risk being removed through a violent mass uprising. His assistant, Gandhi Mudzingwa, and Learnmore Jongwe, the MDC secretary for information and publicity, accompanied Tsvangirai to the court. Later, Tsvangirai was ordered to take the witness stand. The prosecutor, Lawrence Phiri from the AG's Office, told the court that he had come to formally prosecute Tsvangirai before presenting legal documents to the magistrate. After reading through the record, the magistrate signed the documents and told Tsvangirai that the State wanted to prosecute him.

The State alleges that Tsvangirai violated Section 51(2) Chapter 11: 07 of the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act or alternatively he contravened Section 58 of the same Act by inciting public violence. If convicted, he faces a possible prison term of more than 20 years. Tsvangirai becomes the fourth senior MDC official to be prosecuted under this Act. His deputy, Gibson Sibanda, and the national youth chairman, Nelson Chamisa, have already been charged for utterances made at public rallies. The two leaders were arrested in separate incidents two weeks ago after they addressed rallies in Bulawayo and Harare, respectively.

From The Zimbabwe Independent, 16 February

Judges refuse to meet Chinamasa

Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa's mission to force two more Supreme Court judges to resign hit a brick wall this week when Justices Wilson Sandura and Simbarashe Muchechetere refused to meet him, the Zimbabwe Independent understands. Chinamasa met Justices Nicholas McNally and Ahmed Ebrahim last Friday when they were told the government wouldn't want them to come to any harm. They were induced to consider early retirement. He was supposed to have met Sandura and Muchechetere on Monday.

Chinamasa told the Independent last Friday that he was going to discuss "matters of mutual interest" with Sandura and Muchechetere which he claimed were confidential and not for public consumption. Sources in the legal fraternity said Sandura and Muchechetere had blocked Chinamasa's attempts to twist their arms, and told him in no uncertain terms that they would not have a meeting with him unless the agenda was clearly set out. Government sources said that Chinamasa had sought a meeting in his capacity as Minister of Justice. He did not specify the agenda. The stand-off has brought to a halt for the time being the government' strong-arm tactics against the judiciary unless President Robert Mugabe resorted to the "dirtier tactics" ministers have been hinting at.

Chinamasa yesterday confirmed to the Independent not having seen Sandura and Muchechetere. "I no longer want to discuss anything about the judiciary. I have not yet met them because I am still busy," Chinamasa said. Chinamasa had confidently told the Independent last Friday that he would be meeting the two judges on Monday - presumably to give them the Gubbay treatment. Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay was forced to take early retirement when confronted by Chinamasa wielding a record of a meeting held with Vice-President Simon Muzenda on January 22 at which he had threatened to quit. Chinamasa is understood to have since shelved plans to put pressure on other judges, taking a lesson from McNally who refused to submit to demands that he bow to a resolution of the Zanu PF parliamentary caucus. "Votes of 'no confidence' by a discredited and unpopular ruling party have no relevance to the judiciary who have an obligation to stand up to state terror," a senior lawyer told the Independent this week.

No comment could be immediately obtained from Sandura or Muchechetere yesterday. Chinamasa's unconstitutional campaign to force judges out has generated worldwide condemnation from the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, the International Commission of Jurists and the Law Societies of Zambia and South Africa. In terms of Section 87 of the Constitution, a judge may be removed from office only for inability to discharge the functions of his office for reasons such as infirmity of body or mind or misbehaviour. Before removing a judge from the bench a tribunal would have to be set up to look into the allegations and submit its recommendations to the Judicial Service Commission that would then forward its findings to the president.

Gubbay, McNally and Ebrahim blindly went into meetings with Chinamasa believing he was making a courtesy call only to find themselves confronted by implicit threats. Gubbay, whose wife has been seriously ill, evidently could not take the harassment any longer and succumbed to ministerial pressure. But McNally, after some equivocation, stood his ground and later told Chinamasa over the phone that he was not going to resign. "We were told very nicely and very politely that we should go - take our leave and go, otherwise anything can happen. It was said very frankly that they did not want us to come to any harm," McNally said. Chinamasa however denied ever forcing McNally and Ebrahim to resign saying that the move would have been unconstitutional. But he refused to disclose details of the meetings saying they were "confidential".

Judge President Godfrey Chidyausiku is understood to have indicated that he was not prepared to take up appointment as the country's Chief Justice as long as certain judges in the Supreme Court remained. With the defiance already displayed by Sandura, whom the legal fraternity has endorsed for the Chief Justice's post, it was not immediately clear if Chidyausiku would still consider appointment. Legal sources said that Chidyausiku could be ostracised if appointed after having displayed clear bias towards Zanu PF. "Supreme Court judgements are arrived at through consensus," a source in the legal community said. "He is likely to remain the odd one out and would be frustrated at every turn." He said it was very unwise for the government to vest its confidence in the newly appointed High Court judges and other blacks serving on the bench as their allegiance was by no means guaranteed. Another senior lawyer added: "How can you be an effective Chief Justice when you don't enjoy the confidence of your colleagues?"

Sandura, who headed the 1989 Commission of Inquiry into the illegal purchase of motor vehicles exposing corrupt government officials, is thought to have angered President Robert Mugabe by agreeing with Gubbay that the government's agenda was not binding on judges. They were beholden only to the law. Sandura and Muchechetere were among Supreme Court judges who nullified a statutory instrument issued by Mugabe that sought to invalidate the MDC's electoral petitions. Legal experts told the Independent that Chinamasa now had no levers to take advantage of to force out the last four judges from the bench. "Legally, you cannot force a judge to resign. If they decide not to go, even under pressure, there is no way you can do it unless the country was under a military dictatorship where arbitrary decisions were made willy nilly," a lawyer said. Advocate Edith Mushore said that Chinamasa fully appreciated the unconstitutionality of his mission to remove the judges. "The minister fully appreciates his difficulty in terms of the constitution. That's why he decided to issue those threats behind closed doors," she said. "One cannot just fire a judge, threaten or coerce a resignation because it is unconstitutional. The Minister of Justice has behaved unconstitutionally and Gubbay's resignation is illegitimate," Mushore said.

From The Zimbabwe Independent, 16 February

Mugabe pleads for rescue

Presdient Mugabe last week made a heartfelt appeal to Kuwaiti fuel supplier Independent Petroleum Group (IPG) to release petrol to Zimbabwe after the company steadfastly refused to do so because of Zimbabwe's poor payment record, the Zimbabwe Independent heard yesterday. The plea from the highest office in the land came as Zimbabwe was hit by another bout of shortages which industry players said was likely to be the worst to date. The government is worried about the backlash of fuel shortages in the urban areas which have seen near riots at service stations.

The presidential intervention is however a stop-gap measure as the fuel problem is expected to linger on until the middle of the year. The sources said the little fuel which trickled into the country this week after presidential supplication had not been paid for and the supplier, IPG, needed a guarantee that Zimbabwe would honour its payment obligations. In the face of bankruptcy and a crippling foreign currency shortage there is not likely to be a reprieve for motorists in the current fuel shortages. The National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim) has already started to ration the commodity to fuel companies as only 30% of normal supplies is available.

The current precarious situation has been compounded by news this week that European banks could no longer confirm lines of credit for Zimbabwe. The cancellation of the lines of credit, crucial in fuel imports, means that Zimbabwe is now operating an over-the-counter system in the procurement of the essential commodity. This is an expensive arrangement which will add to Noczim's already unmanageable debt, which has ballooned to Z$18 billion. The last line of credit negotiated by the company was the collapsed US$75 million Absa facility which the country could not exploit as it failed to meet the stringent guarantee conditionalities set by the bank.

Sources said the collapse of the Absa lifeline, first reported by the Zimbabwe Independent last month despite frantic denials at the time from Noczim boss Webster Muriritirwa, put paid to Zimbabwe's hopes of negotiating another facility. "If Zimbabwe is to negotiate another facility, the bankers would want to know what happened to the Absa facility," said an industry source. "The simple fact of the matter is that the country is broke and no banker wants to talk to Zimbabwe." The source said Kuwaiti supplier IPG's monopoly on the use of the holding tanks at Beira had blocked other suppliers wanting to bring in their product via the pipeline through Feruka. The source said the holding tanks were always full of IPG fuel waiting to be pumped to Zimbabwe every time the country paid up. "This means no one else can use the port of Beira to import fuel into the country," the source said.

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COMMERCIAL FARMERS' UNION
Farm Invasions and Security Report
Thursday 15th February 2001
 
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We apologise for the late distribution of this report.
 
Every attempt is made to provide a comprehensive report of ongoing activities in relation to farm invasions, but many incidents are unreported due to communications constraints, fear of reprisals and a general weariness on the part of farmers.  Farmers names and in some cases, farm names, are omitted to minimise the risk of reprisal.
 
NATIONAL REPORT IN BRIEF: 
We are unable to confirm details of an incident at Humani Ranch in the Save Conservancy carried in the Herald which reported that 13 farm guards opened fire on a group of illegal occupiers, injuring seven, three of them seriously. 
Last weekend two farm workers on Gilston in Marondera were handcuffed and assaulted by illegal occupiers after the workers retaliated against attempts by the occupiers to sleep with a worker's daughter.  The following day a woman was assaulted by four illegal occupiers after she refused to sleep with them.  Two of the assailants have been arrested. 
The farm owner and workers of Westfield in Marula were ordered by resident war vets to vacate in 24 hours with all cattle.  The situation was defused.
On Causton in Nyamandlovu, 17 three month old ostriches were killed, representing a production loss of $300,000. 
REGIONAL REPORTS:
 
Mashonaland Central
Horseshoe - Invaders have moved onto Muzhanje Farm, which is unlisted, and have started ploughing and building structures.
Victory Block - During last weekend, an aggressive group of war vets stopped work at Under Cragg and Msitwe after making applications for land with a senior war vet.  Demands for transport and petrol were refused and eventually the group left.  Work has continued as normal on these farms.
Mutepatepa - Invaders at Dimon verbally abused and threatened the farm manager earlier this week.
 
Mashonaland East
Harare South - On the night of Saturday 10th February two farm workers on Gilston were handcuffed and assaulted by illegal occupiers after the workers retaliated against attempts by the occupiers to sleep with a worker's daughter.  Police intervened to defuse the situation.  On the night on Monday 12th February, four illegal occupiers attempted to sleep with another woman in the village.  When she refused they beat her and assaulted some workers.  The police were called in immediately and two of the assailants were arrested.  A delegation arrived the following day to apologise for the unacceptable behaviour of their people.
Marondera North - Two illegal occupiers appeared on Lekkerwater to reoccupy the farm.  Two individuals arrived on Loquat Grove wanting land and said that they were there as a result of the incident at the Marondera Club.
Macheke/Virginia - Illegal occupiers' cattle got into the farmer’s maize on Glen Somerset so the farmer moved the cattle out. The police attended and the illegal occupiers were apologetic.  On Chizanza, the owners cattle are let out onto the main Murehwa road almost every night.  Two shots were fired close to the homestead on Mount Bagota.  The police went to investigate and a settler claimed that he was scaring monkeys away from his crop.  His weapon is licensed for crop protection.
 
Mashonaland West (North)
The Region is generally quiet but numerous Section 8 (acquisition order) and Section  9 (notice to vacate) orders are being issued.
 
Mashonaland West (South)
Kadoma / Battlefields - A game scout was assaulted in the district. Now that illegal occupiers are not getting paid they have resorted to higher levels of poaching, resulting in friction on wildlife properties.
 
Masvingo    
Masvingo East and Central - A heifer and 180m of wire were reported stolen on Chidza Farm. Captain Zimuto has threatened to move into the main homestead at Lothian Farm.
Save Conservancy - Details on the incident at Humani Ranch reported in the Herald today have not been released. The Herald report states that 13 farm guards opened fire on a group of illegal occupiers, injuring seven, three of them seriously.  We are unable to confirm the details at this time.
 
Midlands  Nothing to report.
 
Manicaland 
Mutare District - Conflict with invaders causing disruption to farming on Coldstream Farm, part of Mountain Home, has been resolved.  This was achieved following the meeting between owners, Chief Mutasa, Provisional Authorities and Provisional War Vet Leadership. 
Nyanga - Pangara Ranching received court papers demanding $700,000 compensation for damage caused by the owners cattle to war vets maize.  The owner has put in a counter claim for damage caused by the invaders.
Headlands - 38 head of cattle have been stolen on Lawrencedale Estate.
Chimanimani - Border Timbers have had three properties served with section 8 orders.
 
Matabeleland
Nyamandhlovu - Umgusa R.D.C. Rural Council offices were invaded by war vets and have been closed all of this week.  On Causton, 17 three month old ostriches were killed, representing a production loss of $300,000.  There is tension between two war vet factions on Mindoro which has received a Section 8 Order.
Marula - The farm owner and workers of Westfield were ordered by resident war vets to vacate in 24 hours with all cattle. The police did not react, but negotiations between farmers and the  local lands committee led to a stabilisation of the situation.  Cattle on Home Farm have been restricted to one of the owner's four properties due to communal cattle being driven onto the ranch.
Beit Bridge - Jopempi Lot 10, Ranch has been overrun by communal cattle with the Veterinary boundary fence being totally stolen and removed.  Ranch fencing is being removed daily.  Farm guards have been ineffective in controlling the situation.  Snaring of game is rife with illegal occupiers openly flouting weapons.  Farm bulls are being driven into communal lands to service their cattle.  The owner is having to consider removing all his 500 head of cattle to leased grazing as the 370 tick infested communal cattle represent a disease risk.  Jopempi 8, which has been de-listed and has a court restraining order, was fast tracked over the weekend.   Most of the new settlers have left and the five remaining claim they will start a safari operation. 
Inyathi - Agritex have pegged Redeadale in defiance of a court interdict.  Cattle are being pushed onto Clonmore Ranch in increasing numbers, up to 60 head per day coming from the Fingo high density area.  Neighbouring farm, Battlefields, is facing a severe grazing shortage due to cattle being drive on.
 
 
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Malcolm Vowles, Deputy Director (Admin & Projects) 04 309800-18 ddap@cfu.co.zw
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The tragedy of Zimbabwe rests squarely on Mugabe's shoulders, but Washington's failure to speak out and support democracy and the rule of law in Zimbabwe has contributed to the people's suffering at the hands of the Mugabe government. It is past time for Washington to act.
How Washington Should Respond to Instability in Zimbabwe
By Daniel J. Mitchell (December 20, 2000)

[CAPITALISM MAGAZINE.COM] Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, a member of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, has led his country to the brink of implosion. His policies flout democracy and the rule of law and have ruined a once-healthy economy. Washington should urge Mugabe to resign and withhold U.S. assistance until he does. It should also support the democratic opposition and plan to work with organizations to supervise elections once Mugabe leaves office to restore democracy and stability to the troubled country.

Mugabe had been a guerrilla leader whose efforts helped end the white-minority government of the former Rhodesia in 1979. Under his leadership since then, the country's considerable economic potential--including a relatively diversified economy--has been squandered and its democratic laws openly disregarded.

Squandered Economic Potential. Compared with the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, Zimbabwe was a wealthy nation with a history of manufacturing for export, a thriving tourist industry, and a strong agricultural sector, but Mugabe has all but destroyed the prosperity Zimbabwe's citizens had gained. The economic slide, which began in 1995, came to a critical head this year. Unemployment is now over 50 percent. An acute fuel shortage and an inflation rate above 60 percent have crippled domestic industries and transportation. Prices for bread and fruit have jumped by more than a third since October, according to The Economist.

Zimbabwe's fiscal deficit has increased from its 1998 level of 8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to an estimated 24 percent, largely because of the government's refusal to trim the bureaucracy and its poor fiscal policies, which have led to 70 percent interest rates on government debt. Finally, the government's land redistribution program to aid poor black Zimbabweans has been riddled with corruption and mismanagement. Most land purchased or seized by the government for redistribution has ended up in the hands of high-ranking government officials. Britain suspended funding for the program in 1992, and the United States followed suit in 1998.

Disregarding Democracy and the Rule of Law. Mugabe's greatest political setback came on February 15, 2000, when a referendum to amend the constitution to extend his rule and authorize the seizure of farmland from white Zimbabwean farmers without compensation was defeated by a public vote. Fearful that this foreshadowed difficulties for his party in the parliamentary elections eventually set for June 24 and 25, Mugabe urged his supporters to illegally occupy over 1,000 farms owned primarily by white Zimbabweans and others who opposed him. His government encouraged intimidation of and violence against anyone who supported the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In the five months leading up to the elections, at least 31 persons were killed and hundreds beaten.

Not surprisingly, the June parliamentary elections were neither free nor fair. According to U.N. election monitors, supporters of opposition parties were threatened and 10 percent to 25 percent of the votes were fraudulent. Despite such intimidation and manipulation, the MDC won 57 of the 120 elected seats in the parliament (20 additional seats are appointed by the president and 10 by tribal chiefs). Following the election, Mugabe issued an amnesty for many crimes committed in the months before the election. Many of those who illegally occupied the farms and committed assault, arson, and even murder against innocent civilians during that time are to be made members of the army reserve.

Considering such policies, it is understandable that Zimbabweans are rioting. Mugabe has responded by sending in police and troops to attack the rioters with tear gas and clubs. The riots could lead to national chaos, which could in turn affect Zimbabwe's neighbors. The MDC has introduced a motion to impeach Mugabe out of fear that his continued rule will result in more violence.

What the U.S. Should Do. The Mugabe government has forfeited good relations with the United States. The Clinton Administration and Members of Congress should condemn Mugabe's anti-democratic policies that are crippling the country. Moreover, Washington should:

  • Suspend assistance to the government of Zimbabwe. According to the U.S. Department of State, the United States has invested over $750 million in Zimbabwe since 1980. It has appropriated $14 million in foreign aid for Zimbabwe in 2000, and the Administration has requested $16 million for 2001. All assistance should be frozen until Mugabe relinquishes power. The World Bank suspended its aid to Zimbabwe on May 15 due to its delinquency on debt service, and the International Monetary Fund froze disbursements to Zimbabwe when it learned the government had misrepresented expenditures in support of troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo and failed to meet economic targets. The United States should oppose efforts to resume this aid and debt forgiveness until Mugabe leaves office.
  • Provide support and technical assistance to advance democracy. The Clinton Administration should make support for and technical assistance to the democratic opposition through groups like the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute a priority, consistent with U.S. policy in other countries where democracy has been stifled, such as Serbia and Nigeria. The United States should not be a selective champion of democracy.
  • Plan to assist in elections following Mugabe's abdication or removal from office. Zimbabwe has established opposition parties, as evidenced by the June election of 57 MDC parliamentarians. To help restore democracy, the United States should work with the U.N. and non-governmental organizations to organize and supervise elections soon after Mugabe leaves office. 

Conclusion. The tragedy of Zimbabwe rests squarely on Mugabe's shoulders, but Washington's failure to speak out and support democracy and the rule of law in Zimbabwe has contributed to the people's suffering at the hands of the Mugabe government. It is past time for Washington to act.


-- Brett D. Schaefer is Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs in the Center for International Trade and Economics (CITE) at The Heritage Foundation. Produced by the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies. This editorial was made available through The Heritage Foundation. 


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Mugabe pleads for rescue

Vincent Kahiya
PRESIDENT Mugabe last week made a heartfelt appeal to Kuwaiti fuel supplier Independent Petroleum Group (IPG) to release petrol to Zimbabwe after the company steadfastly refused to do so because of Zimbabwe’s poor payment record, the Zimbabwe Independent heard yesterday.

The plea from the highest office in the land came as Zimbabwe was hit by another bout of shortages which industry players said was likely to be the worst to date. The government is worried about the backlash of fuel shortages in the urban areas which have seen near riots at service stations.

The presidential intervention is however a stop-gap measure as the fuel problem is expected to linger on until the middle of the year.

The sources said the little fuel which trickled into the country this week after presidential supplication had not been paid for and the supplier, IPG, needed a guarantee that Zimbabwe would honour its payment obligations. In the face of bankruptcy and a crippling foreign currency shortage there is not likely to be a reprieve for motorists in the current fuel shortages.

The National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim) has already started to ration the commodity to fuel companies as only 30% of normal supplies is available.

The current precarious situation has been compounded by news this week that European banks could no longer confirm lines of credit for Zimbabwe.
The cancellation of the lines of credit, crucial in fuel imports, means that Zimbabwe is now operating an over-the-counter system in the procurement of the essential commodity. This is an expensive arrangement which will add to Noczim’s already unmanageable debt, which has ballooned to $18 billion.

The last line of credit negotiated by the company was the collapsed US$75 million Absa facility which the country could not exploit as it failed to meet the stringent guarantee conditionalities set by the bank.

Sources said the collapse of the Absa lifeline, first reported by the Zimbabwe Independent last month despite frantic denials at the time from Noczim boss Webster Muriritirwa, put paid to Zimbabwe’s hopes of negotiating another facility.

“If Zimbabwe is to negotiate another facility, the bankers would want to know what happened to the Absa facility,” said an industry source.
“The simple fact of the matter is that the country is broke and no banker wants to talk to Zimbabwe.”

The source said Kuwaiti supplier IPG’s monopoly on the use of the holding tanks at Beira had blocked other suppliers wanting to bring in their product via the pipeline through Feruka. The source said the holding tanks were always full of IPG fuel waiting to be pumped to Zimbabwe every time the country paid up.

“This means no one else can use the port of Beira to import fuel into the country,” the source said.
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Microsoft prepares to bale out

Staff Writer
COMPUTER giant Microsoft is scaling down operations in Zimbabwe amid talk in the industry that the company is preparing for a complete bale-out.
Zainul Khan, Zimbabwe country manager, said the slowdown in business has forced the company to scale down operations.

“We are not pulling out of Zimbabwe as such but cutting down our operations to consolidate,” said Khan.

Khan said he was still waiting for the outcome of negotiations which they were holding with their technical partners before making an official statement.

He said the development might mean the company operating one week a month.
Despite Khan’s assurance that Microsoft was not pulling out of Zimbabwe it is understood that Laura Bath, the country manager for Namibia, will now handle the Zimbabwean market from Windhoek.

Insiders told the Zimbabwe Independent that the bombshell was dropped to staff members on Wednesday afternoon, and since then a series of meetings have been taking place between staff and Bath, Khan and Microsoft human resources director for Africa, Astrid Warren, who came up from Johannesburg.

Workers were told that Microsoft would review the situation in Zimbabwe over the next two years.

Asked whether the political and economic uncertainty had forced their company to pull out, Khan said it was a strategy caused by the slowdown in business and not the current environment in the country.

The possible pull-out comes at a time when several local and international companies are closing down in Zimbabwe due to the poor economic environment exacerbated by state-sanctioned lawlessness.
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Lavish birthday for president at Vic Falls

Dumisani Muleya
ZANU PF has invited regional youth movements aligned to ruling parties
to attend President Mugabe’s birthday bash — to be hosted by the 21st February Movement — on which millions of dollars of public funds are to be spent, it was heard yesterday.

The occasion, which will be attended by senior Zanu PF functionaries and top government officials, is to be held next Saturday at Zimbabwe’s resort town of Victoria Falls.

Principal secretary in the President’s Office Munyaradzi Hwengwere said the host province, Matabeleland North, would fund-raise for the event. However, ruling party sources said part of the money would come from the presidential budgetary vote. The Office of the President and Cabinet got $2,5 billion in the current budget.

Last year the event was cancelled because the money that was earmarked to fund the celebrations was donated to Cyclone Eline victims.
Sources said the ruling party’s youth wing has been working flat out to bring delegates from countries in the region to the biennial conference of the Southern African Youth Forum so that the gathering coincided with Mugabe’s birthday celebrations.

The conference was supposed to have been held last December but was put off.

The Southern African Youth Forum — currently led by Zanu PF’s Lovejoy Kadungure — was formed in Johannesburg in 1998 following a meeting of 15 regional youth organisations.

“It is a grouping of progressive youth organisations in the region form-ed to promote Pan Africanist ideas and the African Renaissance,” according to Kadungure.

The conference starts on Thursday and ends on Friday, a day before Mugabe’s birthday celebrations. His birthday is on Wednesday. The President is expected to open the youth conference before hosting dele- gates to his party. He was expected to hawk his revolutionary credentials to boost his regional image and step up rhetoric against “enemies”.

Kadungure however denied that there were plans to match Mugabe’s birthday party and the conference. He said it was a “coincidence” that the events corresponded — both in timing and venue. But Zanu PF sources confirmed the linkage.

“We would not bring people from the region to attend a national event but they are free to participate if they feel like,” Kadungure said.

Issues to be discussed at the conference include conflict resolution and globalisation as well as political and socio-economic problems.
Researchers from Dr Ibbo Mandaza’s Southern African Political and Economic Series (Sapes) and other government-aligned academics were expected to present papers.

The February 21st event has over the years been criticised as a crude ego trip for President Mugabe. Critics like former Zanu PF stalwart Edgar Tekere have dismissed it as a personality cult event which was unhealthy for the country’s political culture.

Mugabe’s court has however defended it saying it was meant to ide- ntify potential leaders among the youth and groom them for leadership positions.
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Judges refuse to meet Chinamasa

Brian Hungwe
JUSTICE minister Patrick Chinamasa’s mission to force two more Supreme Court judges to resign hit a brick wall this week when Justices Wilson Sandura and Simbarashe Muchechetere refused to meet him, the Zimbabwe Independent understands.

Chinamasa met Justices Nicholas McNally and Ahmed Ebrahim last Friday when they were told the government wouldn’t want them to come to any harm. They were induced to consider early retirement.

He was supposed to have met Sandura and Muchechetere on Monday.
Chinamasa told the Independent last Friday that he was going to discuss “matters of mutual interest” with Sandura and Muchechetere which he claimed were confidential and not for public consumption.

Sources in the legal fraternity said Sandura and Muchechetere had blocked Chinamasa’s attempts to twist their arms, and told him in no uncertain terms that they would not have a meeting with him unless the agenda was clearly set out.

Government sources said that Chinamasa had sought a meeting in his capacity as Minister of Justice. He did not specify the agenda. The stand-off has brought to a halt for the time being the government’s strong-arm tactics against the judiciary unless President Robert Mugabe resorted to the “dirtier tactics” ministers have been hinting at.

Chinamasa yesterday confirmed to the Independent not having seen Sandura and Muchechetere.

“I no longer want to discuss anything about the judiciary. I have not yet met them because I am still busy,” Chinamasa said.

Chinamasa had confidently told the Independent last Friday that he would be meeting the two judges on Monday — presumably to give them the Gubbay treatment.

Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay was forced to take early retirement when confronted by Chinamasa wielding a record of a meeting held with Vice-President Simon Muzenda on January 22 at which he had threatened to quit.
Chinamasa is understood to have since shelved plans to put pressure on other judges, taking a lesson from McNally who refused to submit to demands that he bow to a resolution of the Zanu PF parliamentary caucus.

“Votes of ‘no confidence’ by a discredited and unpopular ruling party have no relevance to the judiciary who have an obligation to stand up to state terror,” a senior lawyer told the Independent this week.

No comment could be immediately obtained from Sandura or Muchechetere yesterday.

Chinamasa’s unconstitutional campaign to force judges out has generated worldwide condemnation from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, the International Commission of Jurists and the Law Societies of Zambia and South Africa.

In terms of Section 87 of the Constitution, a judge may be removed from office only for inability to discharge the functions of his office for reasons such as infirmity of body or mind or misbehaviour. Before removing a judge from the bench a tribunal would have to be set up to look into the allegations and submit its recommendations to the Judicial Service

Commission that would then forward its findings to the president.Gubbay, McNally and Ebrahim blindly went into meetings with Chinamasa believing he was making a courtesy call only to find themselves confronted by implicit threats.

Gubbay, whose wife has been seriously ill, evidently could not take the harassment any longer and succumbed to ministerial pressure.
But McNally, after some equivocation, stood his ground and later told Chinamasa over the phone that he was not going to resign.

“We were told very nicely and very politely that we should go — take our leave and go, otherwise anything can hap- pen. It was said very frankly that they did not want us to come to any harm,” McNally said.

Chinamasa however denied ever forcing McNally and Ebrahim to resign saying that the move would have been unconstitutional. But he refused to disclose details of the meetings saying they were “confidential”.

Judge President Godfrey Chidyausiku is understood to have indi- cated that he was not prepared to take up appointment as the country’s Chief Justice as long as certain judges in the Supreme Court remained.

With the defiance already displayed by Sa- ndura, whom the legal fraternity has endorsed for the Chief Justice’s post, it was not immediately clear if Chidyausiku would still consider appointment.
Legal sources said that Chidyausiku could be ostracised if appointed after having displayed clear bias towards Zanu PF.

“Supreme Court judgements are arrived at through consensus,” a source in the legal community said. “He is likely to remain the odd one out and would be frustrated at every turn.”

He said it was very unwise for the government to vest its confidence in the newly appointed High Court judges and other blacks serving on the bench as their allegiance was by no means guaranteed.

Another senior lawyer added: “How can you be an effective Chief Justice when you don’t enjoy the confidence of your colleagues?”

Sandura, who headed the 1989 Commission of Inquiry into the illegal purchase of motor vehicles exposing corrupt government officials, is thought to have angered President Robert Mugabe by agreeing with Gubbay that the government’s agenda was not binding on judges. They were beholden only to the law.

Sandura and Muchechetere were among Supreme Court judges who nullified a statutory instrument issued by Mugabe that sought to invalidate the Movement for Democratic Change’s electoral petitions.

Legal experts told the Independent that China-masa now had no levers to take advantage of to force out the last four judges from the bench.
“Legally, you cannot force a judge to resign. If they decide not to go, even under pressure, there is no way you can do it unless the country was under a military dictatorship where arbitrary decisions were made willy nilly,” a lawyer said.

Advocate Edith Mushore said that Chinamasa fully appreciated the un-constitutionality of his mission to remove the judges.

“The minister fully appreciates his difficulty in terms of the constitution. That’s why he decided to issue those threats behind closed doors,” she said.

“One cannot just fire a judge, threaten or coerce a resignation because it is unconstitutional. The Minister of Justice has behaved unconstitutionally and Gubbay’s resignation is illegitimate,” Mushore said.
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Govt’s economic policy burden to public - MDC

Forward Maisokwadzo
THE opposition Movement for Democractic Change (MDC) has condemned recent economic policy manoeuvres by government which they say have been deliberately crafted to enable the political establishment to maintain its policies while transferring the cost to the public.

The new measures concern the reduction in interest rates, exchange rate regulation and monetary policy controls.

Eddie Cross, MDC secretary for economic affairs, in a presentation to the recent Nyanga retreat of the party’s executive said the ruling party had created an economic crisis which had resulted in social misery and economic decline.

“Zanu PF has created an economic crisis of such proportions that they are being forced to take measures that will enable them to maintain their policies while transferring the cost to the Zimbabwean public,” said Cross.
He said government’s main targets in the past few weeks had been the civil servants, people who save and exporters.

The MDC estimates that the contribution of the three groups to the economy on an annual basis is over $84 billion which is more than the budgeted total taxes on incomes and profits for the year 2001.

On civil servants’ salary adjustments, Cross said the 15% wage increases forced on civil servants was ridiculous as the government had projected inflation to be above the 70% mark.

“It means a one-third cut in the standard of living of all civil servants, including teachers and health workers in 2001,” he said.

He said the savings sector was being forced to accept interest rates well below the rate of inflation.

Cross said what was worrying was that government had indicated that the prescribed asset rules were going to be applied to force pension funds to buy government stock at 25% per annum.

“The combined effect of these measures taken only weeks after the Reserve Bank had issued a statement of monetary policy for 2001, will impoverish every working Zimbabwean who is a member of a pension fund,” said Cross.
“This is a tax in all but name and will have a disastrous effect on every person who depends on interest for income purposes. It will also discourage savings and distort a wide range of investment activity.”

Cross said the fact that exporters had been required to surrender 100% of their forex to the Reserve Bank was a desperate attempt to secure further resources to fund the importation of fuel in an environment where government’s own actions have halved the availability for foreign exchange in three years.
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Candid Comment

Diana Mitchell
IT seems that Supreme Court judge Justice McNally has consistently and repeatedly been directed by a capricious fate to encounter and fight racist injustice on his own account as well as in his illustrious career, as lawyer, advocate and judge, on behalf of countless victims from amongst all races.

Justice ‘Nick’ McNally’s unsought clash with a government, which he and his colleagues in the Supreme Court have ordered on several occasions to obey the country’s constitution, has been most unfortunate to put it mildly.

This devoutly Roman Catholic lawyer, altruist and family man has served the Zimbabwean public with diligence and dignity. At present, he courageously continues to do so — in spite of being threatened with death by lawless elements let loose upon Zimbabweans in general and all white Zimbabweans in particular. Toge- ther with his fellow judges of the Supreme Court, he has simply done his duty.

In passing recent judgements that the government must obey its own laws in respect of the land issue and of the constitutional rights of members of an opposition party to appeal against what they perceive as unfree and unfair general elections, McNally and his collea-gues have been subje- cted, for the first time in the country’s history, to much personal abuse.

This has emanated from government officials and their cronies — ruling party politicians and their followers who appear to have lost all respect for the rule of law. They have attempted to justify this by foolish claims, endorsed by ruling party members of parliament that they have ‘no confidence’ in the members of the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, the five top judges, including the forcibly retired Chief Justice Gubbay, remain highly esteemed in the eyes of law-abiding people — both within and beyond the borders of Zimbabwe — as men of the highest integrity. Witness the United Nations and the International Commission of Jurists, and the Law Society of Zimbabwe.

McNally last week showed real courage in refusing to relinquish his post, in spite of an illegal attempt by government to remove him from office. It was none too subtly suggested that he should follow Chief Justice Gubbay into ‘retirement’. He has not lost his sense of humour either. “I suppose they can try to sack me,” he said with his characteristic calm, “but if they do so, I wonder who I would be able to appeal to?”

The Supreme Court being the highest court of appeal in the land, this is a good question.

Justice Nicholas John McNally was born in December, 1931, in Gibr- altar where his Irish-born parents were stationed in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was educated in Ireland and at St Aidan’s, Grahamstown in South Africa where the family moved when his father retired.

At the University of Cape Town (1949-54) he studied the law, graduating with a BA, LLB before he migrated to Southern Rhodesia.
His Zimbabwean-born wife, Sarah Forder recalls that she had no need to entice her future husband, whom she met at the university, to make their future home in the young Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

She says with characteristic, wry humour that he was idealistically imbued with great hopes for the success of a unique experiment in building a multiracial political ‘partnership’ between the two major races — whites of European descent and black, indigenous Africans.

South Africa had gone in the opposite direction and the young, red-headed graduate could see no satisfaction in serving the law in a racist South Africa, headed backwards under a notorious apartheid regime. This had become clear to many South Africans after the 1948 defeat of the United Party of General Jan Smuts by the right wing National Party of Dr Daniel F Malan.

Many of Rhodesia’s most idealistic and well-educated immigrants arrived from South Africa after South Africa veer-ed sharply towards con- servative and racist nationalist politics at that time.

McNally joined the Federation’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1954 and for the next ten years was stationed in Pretoria and then Cape Town, and finally in London until he was called to the bar in 1964.

Arriving back in Rhodesia and commencing in practice as an advocate in Salisbury, only two years after the white supremacists of the Rhodesian Front were swept into power, the young McNally was to experience once again the dashing of his hopes for his liberal ideals. But his hope was restored when a group of young professionals — lawyers, academics, engineers and businessmen — came together after UDI (Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain) to form the Centre Group. This was joined by the Rhodesia Constitutional Association to form a small
but significant pressure group which included in its ranks and leadership the remnants of Sir Edgar Whitehead’s defeated United Party (led in its final days by David Butler).

The nucleus of a future party opposed to the Rhodesian Front was finally launched but it was McNally, the persuader in the Centre Group who insisted that there was only one way to fight the Rhodesian Front. Take them on with a formal opposition political par-ty, he declared. Shortly after, the Centre Party was launched in Bula-wayo in August 1968.

I experienced the privilege of working closely with McNally during those years of political activism which ended two years after Zimbabwe’s Independence, in 1982. Possibly the most difficult task he had to face was to hold together a party comprising white liberals, moderates and radicals and black members separated at the polls (the large majority of blacks were disenfranchised) and forced by electoral laws under the Rhodesian Front’s constitution to conduct separate, apartheid-like election campaigns.

Nick McNally, like many of his colleagues in the law profession, dedicated himself to an unremitting fight against the injustices of a racially divided Rhodesian society. His political leadership was to continue for the next 15 years, commencing as vice-president of the multiracial Centre Party led by Karoi farmer, Pat Bashford, and concluding as vice-president of the Rhodesia Party.

The RP was founded in 1973 by Tim Gibbs, son of Rhodesia’s last Governor, and later led by the enigmatic Alan Savory. Finally, in 1977, after Bashford had retired and Savory had fled the country, McNally was elected president of the successor to these two opposition parties which merged with Bob Stumbles’ National Pledge Association to form the NUF (National Unifying Force). During the final years of Ian Smith’s rule McNally was heavily involved with the party’s search for a settlement of the RF’s constitutional dispute with Britain through a call for Rhode-sians to return to legality and bring an end to a destructive civil war.

From the start Nick had shown his talent for politics and his gift for measured and persuasive oratory.

He had stood for parliament and been defeated, as we all were, more than once, in the Mt Pleasant constituency where he lived and brought up his large family (five daughters and two sons). During the years of his political leadership, Nick McNal-ly became an essential interpreter of the legal aspects of the many Anglo/Rhodesian settlement talks and of the half-dozen constitutions debated and ushered in from 1961 to 1978. But it was his fate, as a liberal, as with the rest of us, to be marginalised in politics, never to achieve his idealistic objectives of a non-racial society while in opposition to the ruling RF party.

But amongst us, McNally was undoubtedly the most eloquent and erudite in addressing many audiences with his plea for white Rhodesians to put aside their prejudiced attitudes towards their black compatriots. His most memorable address came when he warned whites that their retrogressive legislation would come back to haunt them once blacks were in charge.

During the height of the liberation struggle, when the notorious Indemnity Act (designed to protect the armed forces from charges of murder) was passed, I heard him say to a predominantly white audience: “God help you if a future black government should ever use your bad laws against you.” The supreme irony that followed was the 1981 unconditional release of Edgar Tekere from a hanging charge under that very Indemnity Act. The defence lawyer in the case was none other than Nicholas John McNally.

l Mitchell is a writer and civil rights activist.
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Muckraker


“IF the laws of the land say two plus two equals four then judges have a duty to deliver a four. If the government does not like an interpretation to the law then it should change the law.”

Justice Wilson Sandura’s pithy remarks, made at a meeting with Vice-President Simon Muzenda and ministers John Nkomo and Moven Mahachi on January 22 and reported in the Sunday Mail last weekend, provide a timely reminder of where the judiciary stands in response to blandishments by politicians that judges should be more sympathetic to the government. Sandura was accompanied by Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay at the meeting.

“The bench could not be expected to adjust judgements to suit the political thinking of the executive,” Sandura pointed out.

His comments go to the heart of the matter. The government, claiming to be representative of “the people”, wants the judiciary to be more accommodating. The judges say they are there to uphold the law as passed by parliament, not to further a specific political agenda.

Ministers do not understand this basic reasoning because they have not been schooled in democratic norms. We can understand an old fool like Muzenda not grasping how the system works. But Nkomo has no excuse. He knows that a government that subverts the law to suit its electoral needs is opening the door to anarchy. He said judgements from the bench had to “have realism” lest they triggered instability. The bench had to realise that the government had a political programme to resolve the land issue, he said.

Of course the judges know only too well that government has a political programme. But so what? So does the MDC and other parties which together won a majority of votes in the June election. If the government wants its political programme to succeed it must enact laws consistent with the constitution to secure the orderly implementation of its policies. It can’t just do what it likes.

Nkomo complained that the courts had ruled against the government on such matters as police raids on the MDC offices, the arbitrary detention of foreigners, the carrying of identity cards, and the validity of sections of the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act.

Mahachi, arguably one of the dimmest ministers in the cabinet, said he failed to understand why a law which was used to convict Africans in colonial times could no longer be relied on to convict “offenders” in independent Zimbabwe.

This tells us all we need to know about the quality of thinking at the top. Because “Africans” were harassed and convicted by the colonial authorities using oppressive laws, ministers cannot understand why they shouldn’t be able to do the same! The courts are guilty, they say, of defending the rights of Zimbabweans against arbitrary and overweening powers wielded by a regime attempting to emulate its colonial predecessors!

“The problem is not that of the law but that of the wrong attitude of the bench,” Mahachi declared, rather imprudently exposing his cards.
Muzenda revealed that “the Chief Justice had become a subject of discussion at cabinet meetings”, clearly implying that Gubbay should be duly impressed by this. Muzenda said it wasn’t surprising that “groups like the MDC, CFU, and some partisan political activists in the legal fraternity now talk of the Supreme Court in particular as ‘in our pocket’.”

Needless to say, Muzenda didn’t supply any evidence to support his claim. This isn’t “surprising”. There isn’t any. It is a lie repeated by Zanu PF spokesmen who believe that the more they repeat it the likelier it is to be believed. That’s why we had Hwedza MP and “historian” Aeneas Chigwedere repeating it on Monday. “MDC MPs boast to us that the judges are theirs,” he declared, without producing a scrap of evidence. “As a historian I view the Supreme Court’s judgements as being influenced by their personal feelings,” Chigwedere told the Herald.

In fact his conclusions are far from historical. He is one of the MPs whose election is being challenged in the courts!

Instead of unambiguously repudiating Muzenda’s fatuous claims and those of his threadbare party, Gubbay wallowed in self-pity and threatened to resign, a response that played right into the hands of his interrogators.

Gubbay should, like Sandura, have spelt out the role of the judiciary in a democracy: to uphold laws passed by parliament; to defend the rights of all citizens as enshrined in the constitution; and to afford protection from arbitrary and illegal measures passed by an unpopular and delinquent regime that long ago lost the confidence of the people it now terrorises rather than serves. Why didn’t he spell it out so it could be seen in the record of the meeting that the President’s Office passed to the Sunday Mail?

In the meantime Patrick Chinamasa has been reportedly visiting judges and threatening them.

“We were told very nicely and very politely that we should go; take our leave and go, otherwise anything can happen,” Justice Nick McNally told reporters last Friday after he had received a visit from the Justice minister. “It was said very frankly that they didn’t want us to come to any harm.”

McNally, after some equivocation, finally screwed up his courage and told the minister he would not be going. But he should actually have booted Chinamasa out of his office, telling him unambiguously that he will not be bullied by an unpopular, corrupt and delinquent regime.

The judges have the people of Zimbabwe behind them. Ministers don’t. Nobody elected Chinamasa to anything. Judges are not expected to surrender the trust placed in them just because Mugabe’s minions threaten them. The next recipient of a menacing ministerial visit should bear that in mind.

We are delighted to hear that Phillip Chiyangwa has been commissioned by Zanu PF to provide funding for lawyers who are sympathetic to the ruling party. Chiyangwa provided the Herald with a long list of firms he alleged were hostile to the party. Can we now have his list of names of those lawyers who will benefit from Zanu PF sponsorship — as he has done — so the public know which individuals to avoid.

If there are lawyers, such as Terence Hussein, Adam Kara and Paul Mangwana, who wish to advertise their hostility to democratic principles such as the right to appeal to the courts where election outcomes have been procured by violence or fraud and have chosen instead to support an increasingly oppressive executive, then let’s have their names published. The public will then know where to take their business. And please let’s stop pretending that Inyika Trust is a genuine grassroots organisation of the landless. It is a Zanu PF front funded and manipulated by ministers and their partisan lawyers.

Vice-President Joseph Msika appears to be competing with his vice-presidential colleague to see which of them invites the most public ridicule. Having alienated the people of Matabeleland with some remarks on Gukurahundi victims that will guarantee Zanu PF’s burial in that part of the country, Msika has now crowned that oratorical success with a public declaration that the government of Zimbabwe will not obey the law, even when it comes from a judge appointed recent-ly in the fond expectation that she would be more obliging than some of her colleagues.

Not content with this slap in the face for those within his own government trying to restore the country’s reputation, Msika went on to proclaim that government had a “well-thought-out land reform programme”. And what did he mean by that? Well, he meant that “in the case of those who are on farms already gazetted for acquisition, there will be no need for any movement as they will be resettled where they are presently”.

Clearly, he has given this a lot of thought!

When he is not visiting judges expressing concerns as to their safety, Patrick Chinamasa is busy proposing restrictions on press freedom.
Last week he told the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association seminar in Bulawayo that there should be a media complaints council which would force the press to make “corrections” where it had failed to report accurately.

Does he have anything particular in mind we wonder? When contacted last week to comment on his habit of dropping in on judges, he insisted it was not true that he had said the government could not guarantee the safety of the judges if they declined to fall in with his plans for a judicial cleansing. Then we had Justice McNally’s version of events. But no “correction” was forthcoming!

What we clearly need is a ministerial complaints commission which is empowered by the public to fine ministers such as Chinamasa who claim to be representing the public interest when in fact they are pursuing a pernicious and partisan agenda on behalf of a discredited president.

The council could also fine Jonathan Moyo for threatening law-abiding Zimbabweans he happens to disagree with. He should also be fined for abusing the state media to fight his private wars.

Last Thursday evening, realising that the Independent was going to carry a story on his soured relations with his former employer, the Ford Foundation, he summoned the Herald to give them a story appearing to counter the Ford Foundation’s charges and instead empha- sising that it was he who was suing them. The ZBC was even induced to report this as a case of Moyo’s lawsuit cancelling out the one the Independent was reporting on!

To its credit the Herald declined to put the minister’s rebuttal on its front page and instead consigned it to Page 7 where it looked rather lonely and abandoned. But why should Moyo’s private litigation again-st his former employer be required reading for Herald customers?

What part is this of the government’s information policy? More to the point, will newspapers want to call him for comment when they know he will abuse his authority as Information minister to try and anticipate a story that may be unflattering to him?

We were appalled to see that within a week of the bombing of the Daily News French ambassador Didier Ferrand paid a courtesy call on Moyo. Did he say France deplored threats against newspapers or that Zimbabwe should observe elementary standards of governance if it was to receive French support?

No, nothing of the sort. In the clearest message of “business as usual” that France could have sent, the ambassador expressed “solidarity” with Zimbabwe and said his country had a policy of “non-interference” in the internal affairs of others. Translated from the French that means “go on bombing newspapers and harassing the judiciary and we will turn a blind eye”.

Ferrand’s timing was impeccable. He will have gladdened some very dark hearts at Munhumutapa Building. But what will the people of Zimbabwe say about the land of liberty and equality when they get their own freedom?

Nothing could emphasise Zanu PF’s descent into desperation more than the proposal by a Bulawayo churchman who supports the party and two of its MPs to ban the open-hand salute. One of the MPs represents a constituency — Kariba — which had the worst record of killings and beatings in the country during the run-up to the June election. A hotel in the town run by the husband of a prominent Zanu PF politician was used as a torture centre.

The churchman says he will be taking a delegation overseas to promote the country’s image. He will presumably be mentioning last year’s events in one of our premier tourist resorts!

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority’s Leslie Gwindi should be appraised of the vicious assaults taking place in townships by soldiers. The Daily News this week carried reports of savage attacks by the army on people in Chitungwiza. Even MPs and their pregnant wives have not been spared.

Zimbabwe was “a safe destination contrary to negative international press reports”, Gwindi said, apparently oblivious to events around him. “Zimbabwe was the safest place to be in the world.”

If you don’t happen to live on a farm, or in a conservancy, or in a Harare township!

And let’s hope something is done to improve the army’s intelligence-gathering capacity. Finnish authorities are still trying to locate the training camp where MDC youths are alleged to have received military training.

Finally, an observation from the Johannesburg Sunday Times’ columnist Justice Malala who was present at the recent Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum.

“It was a good party until Zimbabwe’s Finance minister, Simba Makoni, begged to be allowed to ‘thank’ (Thabo) Mbeki for all his efforts to bring about peace and prosperity in Africa,” Malala wrote. “He was sycophantic but, thankfully, had the guts to admit that his government was lousy, saying ‘we don’t have as much lustre as you do south of the Limpopo’.”

Perhaps somebody could point out the minister’s remarks to Leslie Gwindi.
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Comment


FINANCE minister Simba Makoni’s announcement this week that an IMF team would visit the country next month to establish targets for the government to meet is intriguing to say the least. Are these targets likely to be any different from all the other targets the government has failed to meet over the past 10 years?

Makoni appears to be living in a different world from his cabinet colleagues. Despite departmental spending ceilings, they are busy spending money hand-over-fist compounding the budget deficit and expanding the national debt.

The IMF, like every other donor, has made spending on the Congo war the litmus test of Zimbabwe’s fiscal responsibility. It is a test the government appears determined to fail. Despite rather naive attempts in the budget statement last November to tie an improved fiscal position to an end to hostilities and the withdrawal of our troops, the fact is that the war continues to drain on a daily basis vital foreign currency reserves.

Estimates vary but even if the government’s own figures are to be believed the war is bleeding Zimbabwe dry. In the midst of fuel shortages and power cuts, millions of dollars a day are being spent on maintaining Zimbabwe’s participation in a war that has produced no benefits whatsoever for this country. On the contrary it has deprived the region of much-needed aid and investment.

But the IMF will be concerned as well with a budget deficit which, because of state incontinence, has never even approached the targets the government, let alone the IMF, has set.

Projected variously in budget speeches at between 5% and 8% of GDP, it is currently over 15% and heading north. With a presidential poll pending and the need for extending largesse across drought-afflicted provinces, there is little indication of government tightening its belt.

The IMF has been particularly firm in its opposition to the fixed exchange rate of the dollar but there is still no sign of a free downward float of the national unit. Some economists estimate the artificial exchange rate could cost exporters as much as $45 billion if it remains in place. They lost millions last week in an arbitrary raid by the Reserve Bank on forex revenues when their holdings were converted at the official rate.

Tackled at his press conference on Tuesday about the scale of the national debt, Makoni proved coy. Asked what his estimate was, he replied that “I don’t have an estimate, I have an exact figure”. Pressed to say what that might be, reporters had to content themselves with the response that it was “very big”. The domestic debt alone is thought to be in the region of $170 billion.

Makoni’s invitation to the IMF is a follow-up to talks held in Prague and Davos. He admitted on Tuesday that lawlessness and land invasions were prominent in his Washington discussions. He said out of every hour spent in discussions with IMF officials 50 minutes was taken up talking about democracy, land and the rule of law.

“I tried my best to assure (them) it is our intention to proceed in a manner that supports the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe and the revival of the Zimbabwean economy,” Makoni said despite evidence that the land programme has displaced more people than it has resettled and effectively sabotaged the economy.

The official press appears heartened by the pending visit which it thinks could lead to the release of much-needed balance-of-payments support. We hate to rain on their parade but it’s not going to happen.
No donor will part with their funds in the midst of officially-sanctioned lawlessness. Despite Makoni’s grasp of the fiscal realities and his apparent willingness to get things done the fact remains that he and his colleague Nkosana Moyo are hostage to an incorrigibly delinquent regime.

Just last week Vice-President Joseph Msika told a press conference that under no circumstances would government permit the police to enforce court orders on land. The government remains in violation of its own laws. And given the desperation of the party in power to remain there, there is little prospect of any change in the situation on the ground.

Now that law and order has broken down and the country’s leaders have pledged not to restore it, the chances of any economic reform plan succeeding are more than remote. The Millennium Recovery Plan is already a dead letter along with the redundant terminology it contains.

Successful economies are built on the rule of law. The framework within which investors and business leaders operate has to be stable and predictable. Seizing forex revenues at will and allowing ruling party supporters to invade successful agricultural and tourism enterprises is a recipe for national failure.

That is already evident in declining exports and contracting forex receipts which in turn impact of fuel and power supplies. Zimbabwe is committing national hara-kiri.

In the circumstances the IMF visit is pointless. That Makoni, Moyo and others have failed to influence the direction of events at home is a reflection of a power structure that allows the aged and the ignorant to hold sway. They should never have deceived themselves in the first place that they could make a difference. It is time for them to admit as much now and quit before their reputations, like those of their colleagues, are irreparably tarnished.
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