http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Andrew Moyo Saturday 21 February
2009
HARARE - At least 40 farms owned by the few remaining
white farmers in
Zimbabwe have been invaded by top government and party
officials since the
opposition MDC agreed to enter into an inclusive
government with President
Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF party, a farmers union has
said.
"There must be at least 40 farms that have been invaded in the past
few
days," Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) president Trevor Gifford told
ZimOnline this week.
The CFU chief said no war veterans were involved
in the latest wave of
invasions but members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police
(ZRP), officials from
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Members of Parliament
(MPs), Senators and
District Administrators had invaded farms owned by white
commercial farmers
in the past few days.
"People are working in
collaboration with the ZRP, MPs and other influential
officials to invade
farms. This will have a serious impact on food
security."
The
invasions, together with arrests and continued detention of political
prisoners and rights activists, cast serious doubts on ZANU PF's sincerity
in the recently formed unity government.
Just over a week ago and
only a few hours before Mugabe swore in the unity
Cabinet, police arrested
MDC treasurer and deputy agriculture minister
nominee Roy Bennett on treason
charges, leaving the whole political
agreement on shaky ground as the MDC
has protested.
"It has got terrible, the invasion is in total disrespect
of the September
15 agreement and the recent (constitutional) amendment
number 19," Gifford
said.
The CFU chief added that "at least 100
farmers are being fast tracked to
court on the instruction of the Attorney
General, the permanent secretary in
the Ministry of Agriculture and the
chief magistrate to make sure they are
evicted by February
21".
Gifford said while the invasions had been countrywide, the most
affected
areas were Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland West, the Vumba area,
Chipinge,
Mwenezi, Chiredzi and Masvingo.
The latest series of
invasions comes in the wake of a spate of occupations
that has seen a number
of white farmers being targeted and attacked by a
number of
invaders.
Two weeks ago a group of people led by uniformed Zimbabwe army
soldiers and
police invaded one of the country's biggest commercial farms
outside Harare,
highlighting the many difficulties in the way of the
country's unity
government.
Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed
Interfresh, who own Mazoe Estates, said the
group of invaders moved on to
the farm and declared themselves owners of
various plots on the
estate.
"Shareholders are advised that on February 7 2009, a group of
individuals
accompanied by ZRP policeman and a uniformed ZNA military
policeman claimed
ownership of plots comprising Yarrowdale Farm, the crops
section of Mazoe
Citrus Estates," Interfresh said in a circular to
shareholders.
There was no immediate comment by both police and army
spokesmen.
Early this month police arrested three white farmers, in what
appeared a
campaign targeting farmers who successfully challenged the
government's
controversial land reforms at the Southern African Development
Community
(SADC) Tribunal.
The three farmers, Chris Jarret, Godfrey
Goosen and Saul Rogers were part of
a group of about 78 farmers that won a
ruling at the Tribunal declaring
Mugabe's chaotic and often violent
programme to seize white-owned land for
redistribution to landless blacks
discriminatory and illegal under the SADC
Treaty.
The Tribunal
ordered the Harare administration not to evict the farmers from
their
properties and to compensate those it had already chased off farms - a
ruling the Zimbabwean authorities have ignored.
Political analyst
Ernest Mudzengi said the developments on the farms showed
that ZANU PF was
not prepared to change to suit the new political
dispensation.
"These
are the symptoms of a party which shows that it is not changing
tactics. It
wants to show that it is business as usual," Mudzengi said.
Analysts say
the unity government headed by Mugabe with MDC party leader
Morgan
Tsvangirai serving as Prime Minister offers Zimbabwe its best chance
in a
decade to end its crisis and begin afresh on the road to sustainable
economic and social recovery.
But many say major differences between
Mugabe and Tsvangirai over
fundamental issues such as the highly contentious
issue of land reform could
yet derail the unity government.
Both men
agree on the need for land reform but differ on the way this should
be
carried out.
Mugabe's land reforms that he says were necessary to correct
a colonial land
ownership system that reserved the best land for whites and
banished blacks
to poor soils, are blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into food
shortages after
Harare failed to support black villagers resettled on former
white farms
with inputs to maintain production.
Tsvangirai has called
for an audit to establish who owns which land in
Zimbabwe before an orderly
land reform programme can be implemented but
Mugabe has in the past accused
the MDC leader of wishing to return land to
former white
owners.
Critics say Mugabe's cronies - and not ordinary peasants -
benefited the
most from farm seizures with some of them ending up with as
many as six
farms each against the government's stated one-man-one-farm
policy.
Government farm seizures, which started in 2000, have resulted in
the
majority of the about 4 500 white farmers being forcibly ejected from
their
properties without being paid compensation for the land, which Harare
has
refused to pay for saying it was stolen from blacks in the first
place.
The government has compensated some farmers for developments on
the land
such as dams and farm buildings and says it is committed to
compensating all
farmers for such improvements. - ZimOnline
http://www.un.org/
20 February 2009 - The
mounting death toll from Zimbabwe's devastating
cholera epidemic has reached
almost 3,800, with more than 80,000 people
infected, the United Nations
World Health Organization (WHO) reported today.
Some 3,759 people have now
died from cholera since the outbreak first hit
the besieged southern African
country in August last year, with all 10 of
Zimbabwe's provinces having been
affected by the water-borne disease, which
has spilled over to neighbouring
countries.
WHO noted that South Africa, which has a relatively strong
health care
system, has been able to limit the number of fatalities to below
one per
cent of people infected by the deadly disease, compared to four per
cent in
Zimbabwe last December and between one and two per cent in recent
weeks.
A high number of cholera cases have also been reported in Malawi,
Mozambique
and Zambia, all countries where the disease is
endemic.
There are 365 cholera treatment centres operating in Zimbabwe
and WHO has
set up a Cholera Command and Control Centre in the capital,
Harare, with its
partner agencies to provide technical support in the areas
of
epidemiological and laboratory surveillance, case management, social
mobilization, logistics, and infection control and water sanitation in
treatment centres.
WHO warned that containing the rate of infection
remains a significant
challenge given the country's dilapidated water and
sanitation
infrastructure and a weak health system.
Its priorities
now include decentralizing the emergency response,
particularly to areas
with no active non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
and strengthening
social mobilization within communities to improve access
to health services
and earlier treatment. The agency will also focus on
resource mobilization
and greater involvement of partners in the field.
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Wayne Mafaro Saturday 21 February
2009
HARARE - A dogfight for the control of Zimbabwe's
monetary compass has
ensued, with central bank governor Gideon Gono coming
out fighting on Friday
to declare that he alone was the custodian of the
country's monetary policy.
In remarks clearly targeted at new Deputy
Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara
and Finance Minister Tendai Biti -- who have
openly rubbished Gono's
policies -- the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
governor urged the banking
industry to ignore whatever pronouncements were
coming from other quarters
that are not the RBZ.
Mutambara and Biti,
who in their criticism of Gono have stopped just short
of calling for his
dismissal, have on separate occasions declared that the
RBZ chief's monetary
policy announced earlier this month should be reviewed.
In addition
Mutambara was quoted in the media as having told the business
community to
disregard the fiscal and monetary policies recently announced
by then acting
finance minister Patrick Chinamasa and Gono respectively
because they would
be changed very soon.
On Tuesday, Biti also indicated that adjustments
would be made to the US$1.9
billion national budget prepared by Chinamasa
with heavy help from Gono.
Gono said regional partners who had "offered
lines of credit of around
US$500 million on the back of the recent policy
liberalization had
telephoned the central bank seeking clarification on the
latest
developments.
"Against this background, therefore, the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe wishes to
advise all stakeholders locally, regionally and
internationally that the
Monetary policy statement as announced on 2
February, 2009 does constitute
the legitimate position in the affairs of
monetary Policy management of the
Country," Gono told bankers and
journalists in Harare.
"As far as the monetary policy is concerned, which
is my jurisdiction, there
has been no change," he said.
He urged
banks not to heed Mutambara's call to disregard the monetary
policy.
Gono said: "Stakeholders, particularly the banking sector
players are,
therefore, called upon to ensure that they do not break the
standing
legitimate statutory requirements as is set in the Zimbabwean
laws.
"Doing otherwise, for whatever reason, or based on pronouncements
radiated
at variance with the dictates of the law will leave the relevant
banking
institutions, individuals or corporate in needless breach of
standing
legitimate regulations and laws."
Without saying who exactly
he was referring to, Gono urged politicians not
to make disruptive
statements that could subvert efforts to revive the
economy.
"As we
work to stabilize the national economy, we advise our principals in
the
field of politics to carefully weigh their pronouncements, particularly
in
technical areas such as banking and finance that risk destabilizing the
economy," Gono said.
"Engaging in needless brawls, either as a way of
proving the mightier among
ourselves, or as a result of ill-advice from
those around us should be
avoided in the national interest," he
said.
There was no immediate response form either Biti or Mutambara to
Gono's
statement.
Gono, a top confidante of Mugabe, has in recent
years used his closeness to
the veteran leader to control Zimbabwe's
finances and is accused by critics
of exacerbating inflation by recklessly
printing money to fund political
activities of Mugabe's ZANU PF party.--
ZimOnline
http://www.ft.com
By Richard Lapper in Harare
Published: February 20 2009
02:00 | Last updated: February 20 2009 02:00
Frozen for the past three
months, screens at the Harare stock exchange
yesterday flickered back to
life as trading resumed - but in US dollars
rather than the Zimbabwean
dollars rendered worthless by hyper-inflation.
There was just a single
share traded - with business worth about US$30 - and
it will be some time
before the fourth-floor dealing room on Kwame Nkrumah
Street will be back to
normal.
But it was nevertheless another sign that Zimbabwe's new
coalition
government - in which the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change has
agreed to share power with President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF - is
at least
addressing the deep economic problems with some urgency.
On
Wednesday the authorities began issuing foreign currency vouchers worth
about US$100 (€80, £70) each to civil servants, as they began to make good
promises by Morgan Tsvangirai, prime minister, to pay public sector
workers - including teachers, doctors, nurses and policemen - in US dollars
or South African rand.
But much more will be needed if the government
is to reverse a decade-long
decline during which food production has
plummeted, gross domestic product
has shrunk by two thirds and the currency
has collapsed.
Dollarisation - or the replacement of the Zimbabwean
dollar with multiple
currencies - is seen as essential to recovery. But
because the government's
reserves are negligible and its export capacity
depressed, the move's
success will depend on the willingness of donors and
foreign lenders to
extend funds.
All the indications are that the
scale of support needed will be immense.
Hyperinflation - which reached 231m
per cent in July before spiralling
vertically towards the end of last year -
has had a ruinous impact. Many
families have sold assets to support
themselves and have little or nothing
to fall back on. But as shops and
suppliers start to charge in dollars or
rands, many are facing dramatic
increases in costs.
This week, for example, the 21 families that live in
Castille Court, an
apartment block in the Avenues suburb of Harare, received
a rate demand in
dollars for the first time. "When we paid the bills for
security, rates,
water, sewerage and electricity last year it cost less than
US$1 in local
currency. Now we are being asked for US$36 just for rates,"
says David
Gumbo, a 37-year-old former marketing executive. "Not one of us
can afford
to pay."
Clayto Makado, a pastor with the evangelical
Church of Christ, adds: "Most
of the people cannot afford to buy staples
because everything is in dollars
or rands."
Aid agencies are helping
to some extent. Millions are dependent on food aid,
especially in rural
areas.
Expectations are high. Teachers' unions support the MDC but are
demanding
more than US$1,000 a month, way in excess of what the government
can afford.
Economists question the government's ability to meet even
current monthly
commitments - of at least US$60m - to public sector workers,
arguing that
European and US donors are bound to remain sceptical about big
aid packages
until it is clear that money will not be channelled off by Mr
Mugabe and his
cronies.
John Robertson, a local economist, said the
foreign currency vouchers could
go the way of the Zimbabwean currency. "It
has every chance of failing
because the government just does not have enough
money to redeem the
vouchers quickly. The MDC is going to have to persuade
somebody to do a lot
to support this economic recovery."
http://news.scotsman.com
Published Date: 21 February 2009
By
Jane Fields in Mutare
ZIMBABWE'S president, Robert Mugabe, turns 85 today
- but nobody wants to
pay for his party.
So far, fundraisers have been
unable to raise the £17,500 needed to stage a
party in the central town of
Chinhoyi next week.
Mr Mugabe's supporters have arranged a dinner dance
at Harare's plush
Rainbow Towers hotel to try to make up a £10,500
shortfall. A pick-up truck
is also to be raffled to raise funds, with
state-run ZBC radio running
prime-time adverts urging the public to buy
raffle tickets before next
Friday.
Angry members of the 21st February
Movement, which exists solely to raise
funds each year for Mr Mugabe's
party, have complained that businessmen and
farmers who pledged cash and
livestock to feed party-goers haven't kept
their promises.
They want
an inventory made of all those who pledged cash and 80 cattle, 70
goats,
pigs, grain and loaves of bread to the party so they can check up on
defaulters, according to a radio report.
Temba Mliswa, the chairman
of the fundraising committee, had promised the
event would be "a thriller".
With Zimbabwe bankrupt, Mr Mugabe's supporters
had already been forced to
scale down their fundraising targets for this
year's celebrations - ahead of
elections last year they raised the
equivalent of £175,000 for the party,
held in the southern town of
Beitbridge.
Mr Mugabe and his family
have got used to lavish presidential birthday
parties while the rest of the
nation starves, stoking tension in this
once-prosperous country.
This
year Zimbabweans are so hungry - and so angry - that seven petty
thieves
have been beaten to death in the last few weeks for robbing
neighbours'
vegetable gardens and farm plots, according to the official
Herald
newspaper.
Seven million Zimbabweans need food aid this month, according
to the UN's
World Food Programme. Zimbabwe's total population numbers around
11 million,
although that figure is being eroded by cholera, Aids,
malnutrition and the
steady flight of tens of thousands of desperate
Zimbabweans, mostly into
neighbouring South Africa.
During last
year's party, protesters just across the southern border in the
South
African town of Messina hung a banner from a helium balloon saying:
"You've
had your cake, now beat it." But Mr Mugabe refused to step down
after his
defeat to Morgan Tsvangirai in the first round of presidential
elections in
March, instead unleashing a brutal clampdown on Mr Tsvangirai's
Movement for
Democratic Change that left more than 200 supporters dead.
Mr Tsvangirai
has now joined a unity government as prime minister.
The former
opposition leader has insisted that this is a transitional
arrangement until
the next elections, but Mr Mugabe has other ideas.
"I do not know if the
forthcoming elections would produce the same results
like the last time and
we would see if the same arrangement can be made in
the future," he told new
deputy ministers at a swearing-in ceremony on
Thursday.
Mr Mugabe,
who has been in power since 1980, was born in poverty on 21
February, 1924
at Kutama Mission north of Harare.
His wife Grace, known scathingly by
locals as "Zimbabwe's First Shopper"
instead of Zimbabwe's First Lady,
caught Mr Mugabe's eye when she was a
20-something secretary.
Three
children later, she has a fetish for shoes, diamonds and recently posh
handbags: her last acquisition during a family holiday in Hong Kong is
reported to have cost nearly £9,000.
Up to $5bn needed to fix broken
economy
REPAIRING Zimbabwe's economy could cost as much as $5 billion
(£3.5 billion)
and foreign direct investment would help, Morgan Tsvangirai,
the country's
prime minister said yesterday.
The Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe said international and regional financiers had
offered Zimbabwe
$500 million in credit lines, but were cautious because of
conflicting
signals on policy.
Zimbabwe's government, formed between Mr Tsvangirai's
MDC party and
President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF, must resolve an economic
meltdown that
has led to hyperinflation and a virtually worthless local
currency. Prices
in the country double every day.
"As for the
long-term economic recovery, it has not been assessed . but I
think it would
run into billions of dollars, maybe as high as $5 billion,"
Mr Tsvangirai
said.
He added: "Obviously as a country that is emerging from such a dire
situation, foreign direct investment is one of the areas of focus. Anything
that is inhibitive for foreign direct investment has to be
reviewed."
Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank is looking at currency options. It has
repeatedly
revalued its dollar and lopped another 12 zeros off the battered
currency
this month.
http://www.independent.co.uk
President turns 85 today -
but the event will be a pale imitation of
previous years
By Daniel
Howden, Africa Correspondent
Saturday, 21 February
2009
While all else in Zimbabwe falls apart, one thing endures:
Robert Gabriel
Mugabe turns 85 today.
The landmark was met with
little celebration in the country which, under his
stewardship, now has the
lowest life expectancy in the world - 34 years.
Attempts by his Zanu-PF
party to raise funds for a national celebration on
28 February have so far
failed to meet the planned cost of US$250,000
(£175,000). The business
community, which faces annual threats and extortion
to fund related events,
could not provide the money, despite funding past
events to the tune of
US$1.2m.
News of lavish celebrations to mark yet another of the
autocrat's birthdays
has sparked anger in a country where more than half the
population is being
fed by international aid and a crumbling sanitation
system has fuelled a
cholera epidemic that has killed more than 3,500
people.
The octogenarian leader's supporters have been busy fundraising
for a party
at his rural home of Chinhoyi. But one Harare resident called
Milton noted
that there has not been much publicity about the birthday this
year. "I don't
believe the party in Chinhoyi will attract the thousands of
people we saw in
years past. If I were to go to Chinhoyi it's a matter of
just taking
advantage of free food and buses since we are so broke and can't
afford to
travel and buy food any more," he said.
"As Mugabe throws
parties in Zimbabwe for his 85th birthday, one in 10
children in his country
are destined to die before their fifth birthday,"
said Sarah Jacobs, a
spokeswoman for Save the Children, one of the foreign
NGOs that has been
working to save lives amid the wreckage of Zimbabwe's
crumbling health
system. "Most of their mothers won't even live to half the
President's age,"
she added.
While the veteran leader's controversial wife, Grace, was
expected to hold
an exclusive dinner party at the couple's mansion in Harare
last night, a UN
assessment team arrived in the country to take stock of the
multifaceted
humanitarian crises.
Mr Mugabe's traditional birthday
address to the nation was the subject of
fierce speculation last night with
fevered reports suggesting that he was
going to resign. Most observers
agreed, however, that this was wishful
thinking.
Senior MDC sources
said the battered unity government, which has been losing
credibility with
each passing day, was hoping for an amnesty for all
political prisoners to
be announced. That would include Zimbabwe's new
Deputy Minister of
Agriculture, Roy Bennett, who has been in jail for the
past week on
terrorism-related charges. Authorities yesterday restricted
visiting rights
to Mr Bennett at the remote Mutare prison where he is being
held. The
outspoken white farmer, whose property was seized during the
disastrous land
invasions, can only have one visit a week.
"[This] is clearly a
vindictive move to punish Roy Bennett, by wardens at
Mutare," said
Nqobizitha Mlilo, an MDC spokesman. Mr Bennett is being kept
in such
"deplorable conditions that one person in his cell died yesterday
and the
body is still to be removed".
In addition to Mr Bennett, other opposition
activists including the human
rights campaigner Jestina Mukoko have not been
released despite the swearing
in of the new power-sharing administration.
Last week, the MDC laid out a
number of conditions by which the success of
the unity government could be
judged, including the release of political
prisoners, the sacking of the
central bank governor and the attorney
general. As of last night none of
these conditions had been
met.
Despite this lack of progress and continual harassment from
hardliners
within Mr Mugabe's party, the new Prime Minister, Morgan
Tsvangirai, is
attempting to attract foreign investment back into the pariah
state. Mr
Tsvangirai was in South Africa in search of US$5bn, the estimated
cost of
restoring the ravaged economy. "Obviously as a country that is
emerging from
such a dire situation, foreign direct investment is one of the
areas of
focus . anything that is inhibitive for foreign direct investment .
has to
be reviewed," he said in Cape Town.
Accompanied by his Finance
Minister, Tendai Biti, the Prime Minister said
the country would not be
adopting its neighbour's currency. This week the US
dollar was used to pay
key civil servants, and the Harare stock exchange
began trading in the US
dollar. However, Mr Tsvangirai said the country
would adopt a
"multi-currency" solution, deepening the confusion over how it
will
operate.
Mugabe's birthday: What the people think
A housewife,
Harare
I am not bothered by this birthday. Why should we celebrate one
birthday
when millions of people are dying of cholera with no drugs
available? Mugabe
is no longer popular now, so his birthday is
insignificant. We have better
things to think of, such as food, school fees,
shelter and medication.
Chimombe, Bindura
I have lost everything
in the hands of Zanu-PF. People who celebrate Mugabe's
birthday have
something to gain at the end of the day: for example looting
and political
favours. To me 21 February will remain an ordinary day full of
anguish. This
day will only serve to remind me that the worst dictator in
the history of
the world is still surviving. I wish God would give him more
years to live
so that he experiences hell here on earth. We have had enough
of this old
man.
Mobile phone recharge card vendor, Harare
Time is money, I
can't afford to lose a day of work at all, because I won't
be able to pay
rent. Mugabe was a hero of the liberation struggle just after
1980, but now
we can't think of him like a hero. We are not concerned any
more. If he
still insists on having a big party for his party, we should
also expect
another one for the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai.
Shelly,
Harare
I am 29 years old, just as old as Zimbabwe, but I haven't seen
what the
proceeds from Mugabe's birthday are used for. We have a lot of
orphans and
destitutes all over in Harare but it's only Zanu-PF people who
benefit. The
world is changing therefore Mugabe and Zanu-PF should also
change - just
like Barack Obama said.
http://www.independent.co.uk
Morgan Tsvangirai told to
shore up country's ravaged economy and expedite
the release of political
prisoners
By Ben Russell, Home Affairs Correspondent
Saturday,
21 February 2009
Britain is ready to increase its aid to Zimbabwe but
only if the new
power-sharing government takes steps towards towards
economic and human
rights reform.
Gordon Brown has told the new Prime
Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, that the
national unity government must pass a
series of stringent tests to allow
international donors to treat it as an
"ordinary country", and step up
efforts to secure the long-term recovery of
the ravaged Zimbabwean economy.
Key measures include the immediate
release of political prisoners; moves
towards greater freedom of the press;
the opening of talks with the
International Monetary Fund and other bodies
about an economic recovery
plan; and a "road map" towards fresh
elections.
Mr Tsvangirai was in South Africa yesterday to discuss a
recovery package
for his country. He said that Zimbabwe would need US$5bn
(£3.5bn) to help to
repair its battered economy.
The Zimbabwean
power-sharing government was formed last week after months of
deadlock
between President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF and Mr Tsvangirai's
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC).
But fears that Mr Mugabe's "hard men" are trying
to wreck the agreement
appeared to be confirmed last week when Roy Bennett,
Mr Tsvangirai's nominee
to be the deputy agriculture minister, and expected
to be one of two white
men in the cabinet, was arrested.
Aid workers
have warned that immediate action is needed to stem the spread
of disease,
halt food shortages and prevent further collapse of the economy.
The number
of people hit by the cholera epidemic will soon reach 100,000 in
a country
where, according to the UN, 20 per cent of the adult population
has HIV. The
average life expectancy is only 35 years.
There are also warnings that
the country will face a major food shortage
within months unless urgent
action is taken to stabilise the economy. One
British aid official said:
"Zimbabwe is badly broken now. It will get
considerably worse if there is
not very rapid progress. If the fundamentals
are not sorted out things will
go down very, very quickly." Britain is the
largest supplier of aid to
Zimbabwe with a £49m programme delivered through
the United Nations and
local groups, and is to send medical supplies into
the country to tackle the
cholera epidemic.
Britain and other donor countries have made it clear
they will respond to
future humanitarian needs in Zimbabwe. But British
ministers have also
indicated that they need a commitment to reform in
Harare. Mr Brown has told
MPs that he informed Mr Tsvangirai that "until the
government of Zimbabwe
could convince us that there were going to be free
and fair elections, and
at the same time that there was going to be the
removal of repressive
legislation, including the release of political
prisoners, until these
things happen we could not treat Zimbabwe as if it
was an ordinary country."
He also said that "obviously we would want to
see humanitarian aid getting
to people who are in the distressed position
that, for example, the terrible
cholera outbreak has caused". The Prime
Minister added: "I hope there will
be considerable pressure by the
international community to release political
prisoners, to get in a credible
team to deal with the finances and to have a
clear road map to the next
elections that will take place in Zimbabwe. These
will be the indicators of
change that we will be looking for and I fear that
President Mugabe will
still stand in the way of these changes."
The International Development
Secretary, Douglas Alexander, said: "We hope
the new government will bring
an end to the country's spiralling decline but
words must now be turned into
action.
"The UK stands ready to offer further assistance but we must
first see a
change in the policies and actions of the government. The
situation for
millions of ordinary Zimbabweans remains desperate and that is
why we remain
determined to do everything we can to improve their
lives."
The price of aid: Brown's conditions
1. Release political
prisoners
Morgan Tsvangirai stipulated in a speech after his inauguration
that he
wanted the immediate release of all political prisoners. But even as
the
ceremony was under way, Roy Bennett, who was due to be sworn in as his
deputy agriculture minister, was arrested on terrorism and weapons charges.
Contrary to a condition of the power-sharing deal, Mr Bennett is one of 40
political detainees still being held.
2. Press freedom
For the
past seven years, tough laws have barred foreign journalists from
working
permanently in the country and imposed state permits on local
journalists.
Campaigners are putting pressure on the unity government to
guarantee press
freedom.
3. Open talks with the IMF
The inflation rate, last
officially estimated at 231 million per cent, has
left the Zimbabwean dollar
worthless. Mr Tsvangirai is asking foreign donors
for $50m in hard currency
a month for six months to pay civil servants who
have been on
strike.
4. "Road map" to fresh elections
Mr Tsvangirai's orders
are already being contradicted by Mr Mugabe. It has
been difficult to
re-establish the rule of law in a split cabinet where Mr
Tsvangirai's
ministers are outnumbered by Mr Mugabe's party 16 to 13.
http://www.washingtonpost.com
By Karin
Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, February 21, 2009;
Page A08
HARARE, Zimbabwe
It was a steamy day, but Kempton
Mugova proudly wore a smart sky-blue sport
coat, purchased with the hundreds
of dollars a day he reaped as a dealer on
inflation-racked Zimbabwe's black
market for foreign currency.
His was a lucrative but short career. Last
month, the government approved
the already widespread use of foreign money.
That essentially killed the
beleaguered Zimbabwean dollar. And Mugova's
market.
"It's now different," said Mugova, 22, who dreams of returning to
computer
classes but instead ekes out a living selling gasoline coupons,
cornmeal and
dried fish. "At the moment, I'm trying by all means to make
money."
Any crisis breeds profiteers. As Zimbabwe's economy eroded in
recent years,
rendering Zimbabwean dollars scarce and virtually worthless,
money traders
were among the most prominent. A few merchants and companies
continued
demanding local cash, even as prices for goods sometimes doubled
overnight,
but a rising number wanted more stable U.S. dollars or South
African rand.
So everyone swapped like mad.
Mere months ago,
fast-talking dealers swarmed a downtown intersection that
serves as a
long-distance bus depot called Roadport. They waved handfuls and
bagfuls of
cash near the Holiday Inn. They turned a parking lot in a Harare
suburb into
a trading floor that became known as the World Bank.
Now those places are
quiet, no shops accept Zimbabwean dollars, and many
dealers are broke like
most other people in a nation where the United
Nations estimates that just 6
percent of the population is formally
employed.
"It was an
opportunity which has arisen, and we grabbed it," said Mugova's
friend Diva,
35, who did not want his last name published for fear of
government
reprisal. Now back at selling stationery after saving none of his
earnings
as a dealer, Diva concluded: "We were not thinking too much."
The death
knell for the Zimbabwean dollar came as it does for currencies in
all
hyperinflationary markets, said Steve H. Hanke, a professor of applied
economics at Johns Hopkins University.
"That is that people just
refuse to use the money. It really is a nuisance.
So it just disappears on
you," said Hanke, who recently wrote an online
article for the Cato
Institute, where he is a senior fellow, titled "R.I.P.
Zimbabwe
Dollar."
Officially, Zimbabwe's monthly inflation is an unfathomable 231
million
percent. Economists scoff at that figure as far too minute. In
November, the
last time reliable data were available, Hanke calculated it at
79.6 billion
percent and proclaimed Zimbabwe "second place in the world
hyperinflation
record books" -- surpassed only by Hungary in
1946.
Meanwhile, the nation is in an odd currency limbo, as its new
coalition
government makes plans to rescue the economy and mulls whether to
euthanize
the Zimbabwean dollar. Tendai Biti, the new finance minister, has
vowed not
to officially adopt the rand, despite encouragement from South
Africa's
president and Zimbabwe Reserve Bank Gov. Gideon Gono, the man
widely accused
of ruining the currency by printing too much of it in ever
more colossal
denominations, such as the $100 trillion note.
At the same
time, Zimbabwe seems to retreat from its dollar each day. This
week, the
nation's stock exchange reopened after three shuttered months --
trading
only in U.S. dollars. Last week, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai,
leader of
the main opposition party, vowed to pay civil servants in foreign
currency.
On Friday, he told reporters in Cape Town that Zimbabwe would move
toward a
"multi-currency denominated approach."
"We are looking at the U.S.
dollar, rand and so on," he said, without
offering specifics.
For the
money dealers who found riches in greenbacks, it all meant a return
to the
Zimbabwean norm of scraping by.
The high life already seems like a
distant dream, Mugova and Diva said. Both
worked at a low-slung string of
downtown shops that turned into fronts for
dealing foreign cash when the
market rose.
Police often raided the place, but they were easily bribed,
Mugova said.
Runners from the Reserve Bank stopped by regularly, too, they
said -- to buy
up the foreign cash.
By pulling in as much as $300 a
day in profit, Diva said he was able to buy
a new sitting-room set and
television, eat meat every day and take frequent
trips to his rural home,
where he bought food for poor relatives.
Some dealers "even managed to
get two wives -- even three!" he said,
smiling. But he acknowledged that he
did not save.
"It just comes on a silver platter," Diva said with regret.
"If you work
hard for your money, you will use it wisely."
Webster
Bhere ditched his job selling tires in 2004 to begin trading under
the trees
at the Roadport. Once, he said wistfully, he made $1,300 on a
single
transaction, when a religious charity needed to convert $8,000 in
donor
funds to Zimbabwean dollars.
Bhere bought a Nissan and built a house. He
sold the Nissan and purchased
two Toyota Corollas. He went to nightclubs and
helped pay for relatives'
funerals.
He knew his boom time was coming
to an end last fall, when Zimbabwe's rival
political factions signed a
power-sharing deal and the government licensed
some stores to charge in
foreign currency.
"There's no way we can be making profit when there's a
government that can
run," said Bhere, 33, sipping a Coca-Cola at a Harare
bar.
Dealers who "used to move around with big cash" now hawk vegetables
and
congratulate one another when they meet in the city, he said -- a sign
they
could afford the $1.50 bus fare from the townships.
Bhere took
his earnings and converted a Corolla into a taxi. Trouble is, he
makes $20
profit on good days, which is not bad in Zimbabwe but still barely
pays for
groceries.
But if the dealers reminisce for the glory days, they do not
necessarily
wish for their return. Even some teachers and nurses abandoned
their jobs
for dealing, Mugova said with frustration.
"It is no way
to live. Parents should not hustle," he said. "We just need
formal jobs. Not
this informal, illegal economy."
http://www.hararetribune.com
Written by
RadioVOP
Friday, 20 February 2009 18:24
Former
Zimbabwe Information and Publicity minister, Jonathan Moyo,
predicts that
ZANU PF faces inhalation in the next elections.
Moyo, who
is hated by the country's media due to tough media law he
put in place while
he was in charge of the media before he was fired in
2004, said President
Robert Mugabe's recycling of dead wood in the new
cabinet does not augur
well for the former ruling party.
He said President Mugabe would
find it very difficult to revive
fortunes of ZANU PF which has gone into bed
with the two political
formations of the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) to form a new
inclusive government.
"ZANU PF is now a
dead party just waiting to be buried and I believe
the burial will be in the
next elections," said Moyo in his address to
journalists at the Quill Club
on Thursday night. More was fired from ZANU PF
in 2008 after the infamous
Tsholotsho Dinyane meeting in which six ZANU PF
chairpersons allegedly
plotted to oust President Mugabe.
Together with the six ZANU PF
chairpersons, Moyo was suspended from
the party before he was subsequently
dismissed from his job as Information
and Publicity
minister.
On Thursday, Moyo laid into his former
party.
"Mugabe is on record as saying his past cabinet was the
worst in
history but he has resurrected deadwood in the new government," he
said.
Moyo said ZANU PF expected to use the transitional
government to
revive itself. However, the former minister, said the
continued recycling of
deadwood threatened its
rehabilitation.
"May be ZANU PF hopes at some point to pull a
fast one and do a
Lazarus and rise from dead," he said. Moyo, the
independent legislator for
Tsholotsho, dismissed media speculation that he
harboured intentions of
being appointed information minister by President
Mugabe. He said with the
ZANU PF/MDC coalition government he was now the
opposition leader in the
House of Assembly.
"The actual
situation in the House is that there are three political
parties which are
now the ruling parties. We have moved from one ruling
party to three ruling
parties. In fact, I am the official opposition and I
can sustain the claim
to be the leader of the opposition in the House of
Assembly," he
said.
http://newledger.com
by Roger Bate
Friday, February 20th, 2009
There is new
hope in Zimbabwe, or at least that is what everyone wants to
believe. The
opposition has joined a coalition government; formerly exiled
opposition
politicians are now in charge of education, finance, health, and
other
important portfolios. Yet U.S. and EU sanctions remain on key
political
figures, and the floodgates of aid have not yet opened. Cholera
cases are
over 80,000; by latest count, close to 4,000 people have died.
While people
hope for the best, they expect the worst, and with good reason.
Robert
Mugabe celebrates his 85th birthday on Saturday, and unbelievably, he
is
still president of Zimbabwe. He and his ZANU PF party have lost every
contested election in the past five years to Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC
party; Mugabe and ZANU PF have overseen a cholera epidemic, the collapse of
the Zimbabwean dollar (all trade is now done in foreign currency), the
closure of all major schools and hospitals, and the exodus of perhaps a
third of the country's population.
A power sharing agreement was
reached last month, but it is a weak
compromise at best. Tsvangirai is prime
minister, but Mugabe, who is backed
by powerful generals like Airforce
Marshal Perence Shiri, oversees all
security forces. The police are supposed
to be part-controlled by MDC,
though practical power rests with ZANU PF.
Police are still detaining at
least 30 opposition politicians, and last
week, they arrested MDC's Roy
Bennett for treason just before he was to be
sworn in as deputy agriculture
minister. While this charge has been dropped,
Bennett still faces
unsubstantiated charges of "terrorism, banditry and
insurgency," and remains
in prison. It is a familiar place for the
opposition politician, who was
jailed for 8 months in 2004 for pushing
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa
after the Mugabe crony verbally abused
him in parliament.
Still, MDC knows it has limited time to demonstrate
leadership before it is
blamed (along with ZANU PF) for failing to restore
Zimbabwe's economy or
improve the people's health. MDC recognizes that the
country needs outside
assistance, and Tsvangirai is already preparing to
meet with South African
President Mothlante to request a $5 billion aid
package. He may solicit
Western support as well.
But MDC must tread
carefully. In the past, Mugabe artfully used Western
assistance to undermine
MDC's perceived legitimacy. When 40 MDC supporters
were kidnapped, arrested,
and tortured at the end of 2008, MDC received no
regional help; MDC
criticisms were reported almost exclusively in
international media,
alongside the denouncements of Western leaders. This
ironically helped
Mugabe, who claimed that MDC was simply the stooge of the
West. ZANU PF
Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu has shamelessly
described Zimbabwe's
cholera outbreak as a "genocidal onslaught on the
people of Zimbabwe by the
British." Mugabe has claimed that Britain and the
U.S. are using cholera as
cover for an invasion.
Western donors have little assurance, meanwhile,
that their resources would
reach people in need and would not merely
continue the despotic rule of ZANU
PF. The private sector is wary, and will
only engage along its own narrowly
defined interests. To loosen the spigot
of foreign aid (and ensure its best
use), Tsvangirai must establish a
transparent system for international
donors to contract directly with the
ministries he controls.
Post-conflict Liberia provides a model. Like
Zimbabwe today, Liberia in the
wake of Charles Taylor's rule had seriously
flawed governance structures.
Corruption was rampant. The country was also
in dire need of assistance. In
2005, the government of Liberia, along with
international partners and
Liberian civil society, created Liberia's
Governance and Economic Management
Assistance Program (GEMAP) to offer a
system of accountability for incoming
revenue and government expenditures.
Internationally-recruited advisors were
posted in the financial offices of
several key Liberian institutions; these
advisers were required to cosign
with Liberian officials for major
transactions. Despite whispers of
"neocolonialism" and slow progress in its
first year, GEMAP has enjoyed
significant success.
In April 2008, Antoinette Sayeh, then Minister of
Finance for Liberia,
praised GEMAP for helping to improve transparency and
the performance of
state-run enterprises ; Tom Woods, a senior official at
the U.S. State
Department at the time GEMAP was created, says that "since
2003, the U.S.
has put $750 million into Liberia's recovery and the country
is a stable
democracy making steady economic gains."
Now is the time
for Tsvangirai to spearhead a Zimbabwean Economic Management
Assistance
Program (ZEMAP). A ZEMAP would offer assurance to international
donors and
transparency to Zimbabweans eager to realize gains from foreign
aid. MDC
cannot afford to rely exclusively on its regional partners, who in
the past
showed little resolve in combating the ravages of Mugabe's rule.
And to
attract the aid of the international community, MDC must demonstrate
a
compelling break with the policies that created those ravages-the
corruption, cronyism, and poor governance of Mugabe rule. A ZEMAP would be a
strong first step.
Roger Bate is the Legatum Fellow in Global
Prosperity at the American
Enterprise Institute.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=12098
February 20, 2009
By James
Makuwire
ON 12 February, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe appended a
signature to a
document that confirmed the swearing in of Morgan Tsvangirai
as Prime
Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe.
He looked
uncomfortable, even bewildered and in his mind, must have been
thinking as
he will have been all along, that he would still control
events.
Tsvangirai and his MDC are monsters that have refused to
go.
Containment is the second line of defence. In this case, absolutely
the last
line. But for some reason, Mugabe has fallen in love with Arthur
Mutambara.
At the swearing in ceremony, a historic moment recorded for
posterity,
watched live by millions across the globe, Mugabe's
absent-mindedness, or
carelessness, got the better of him. Some fool placed
sensitive microphones
on the table and linked them to the broadcast system
and some even bigger
fool forgot to warn the ageing leader that the
microphones would be picking
up even the sound of his heart
beating.
So, after Mutambara made a fool of himself, and not for the
first time, and
he sat down to sign the obligatory documents accepting his
appointment,
Mugabe leaned over and whispered, "Waonaka zvinoita kudzidza.
Ndizvo
zvakanakira kudzidza". (You see what education can do for you. This
is why
it is good to be educated.)
All those who understand Shona
fidgeted in embarrassment, much the same way
ministers in the previous
government fidgeted at cabinet meetings when the
President dozed off
mid-meeting and none of them dared nudge him.
It is fast turning out
Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara is the old
enough a son Mugabe didn't
have who would take over from him.
Unfortunately, Mutambara has a very
short shelf life. His MDC faction is
only being propped up by the GNU. Come
next elections and he will be
history. Zanu-PF is beckoning, dear friend.
But watch the fight to the death
about to begin between Emmerson Mnangagwa
and Sydney Sekeramai. The former
has long since staked his claim on the
succession but Sekeramai is no longer
a dark horse. He is the sober face of
the internecine fight in the new
opposition party.
Talking about
opposition parties, Prof Jonathan Moyo has been telling
everybody that he is
now the one-man opposition in Parliament since the MDC
and Zanu-PF are all
in government!
Talk of sick minds!
Back to Mugabe. Events have not
followed the script since he swore in the
PM. First, as Prime Minister and
very much as he was entitled to do,
Tsvangirai went from the ceremony
straight to a rally to "explain" it all to
"the people". Tens of thousands
turned up to hear him. And they did not have
to be coerced, or made to shut
down their market stalls in order to be
there. The terminologies "explain"
and "the people" are important.
Tsvangirai banned party regalia and party
symbols at the rally. He was
attempting to graduate from activist and
opposition leader to Prime Minister
and head of government. The
terminologies are important because MDC (and
Zanu-PF) ministers now are
obliged to travel the length and breath of the
country holding rallies
explaining this GNU animal to the people!
However, Tsvangirai's
graduation to statesman had its immediate, albeit
beneficial drawbacks. As
Zanu-PF publicly dithered on its list of cabinet
officers, MDC mainstream
started wondering for different reasons what was
happening.
On the
other side of the night President Mugabe was facing his first real
challenge
from within. Vice President Joseph Msika had been telling friends
that
Saviour Kasukuwere's not-so-privately declared ambition to be president
by
2015 had been "curbed". He would remain deputy minister. And when Saviour's
name and that of Olivia Muchena, among other favorites, failed to appear on
the list of
those summoned by the Cabinet Office to report for swearing
in as ministers,
Joyce Mujuru, the other VP of Zimbabwe, was on the blower
angrily demanding
to know why her beloved Mashonaland Central, the bastion
of Zanu-PF had been
allocated just one minister, Nicholas
Goche?
Twice on the night of February 12 Zanu-PF revised its list ending
up with
just about everybody from the previous cabinet being
recalled.
When Mrs Mujuru rightly asked how the President was going to
get away
with it, his answer was simple: only the Cabinet was restricted by
the MoU.
He could appoint as many ministers as he liked as long as they did
not sit
in cabinet. So he was genuinely surprised when this sleek young
lawyer
called Tendai Biti, being the most senior of the MDC man at the
swearing-in
ceremony got all his colleagues to refuse to join the Zanu-PF
ministers-to-be who were already lined up, bibles in hand, and happily
rehearsing the Oath of Office.
All this in full view of bewildered
guests and adoring family members.
Someone must have secretly phoned the
facilitator Thabo Mbeki at his Harare
hotel, alerting him of the unfolding
crisis. It was Mbeki who told his
handlers to "take me now to State House."
He could not be stopped. At State
House, the new Prime Minister was
half-heartedly trying to convince his
ministers-to-be not to embarrass
visiting dignitaries. They should go on
with the swearing in and sort out
the issues afterwards. They literally told
him he was PM and part of the
government. They were MDC and not yet part of
the government and they would
have none of this nonsense of trusting Robert
Mugabe.
The rest is
history.
What part of the story that has not been told is how Arthur
Mutambara's
Gibson Sibanda ended up being in the line-up.
Simple. The
good professor and his No. 1 Fan, Mugabe, had agreed that
Mutambara would
have a minister of state if he supported The Fan's idea of a
few ministers
of state of his own. The spoilsports on MDC mainstream argued:
if Mutambara
were to be accorded a minister of state, then Thokozani Khupe
would also
deserve one being senior to Mutambara. Right? Then the vice
presidents,
though supposedly senior, but now quite irrelevant under the
terms of the
GNU, would also need their own ministers of state. Right.
This was
farcical and the MDC were not going to agree to such stupidity.
Mugabe
didn't see it. He was made to see it. He could rightly have his
Minister of
State (Security) sitting in cabinet as has been the tradition.
He could have
his minister of state for presidential affairs in the same way
that the PM
could also have a minister of state in his office.
The fiasco helped
Tsvangirai and exposed Mugabe for what he really is.
Tsvangirai grabbed
the opportunity to address the Matabeleland
representation which he had
truly messed up while at the same showing that
he did listen to his
constituencies. But Mugabe cannot say he emerged from
all this holding the
lolly pop. He humiliated a whole bunch of people, some
of them elderly, who,
though fully deserving of being left out, did not have
to be undressed in
full view of all the guests and their own families.
Both John Nkomo and
Gibson Sibanda are not in the best of health and this
was simply unfair to
them.
The final humiliation was Mugabe refusing to go and tell them in
their face
that they could not take the oath after all. He assigned Joice
Mujuru to do
that for him. No apologies from The Leader. No explanation. He
was already
scheming a way to sneak them back into cabinet through the back
door. After
all, the previous cabinet had included such ghost ministers as
Timothy
Stamps (famous for his statement before becoming minister that
HIV/AIDS was
a media event), Dr Felix Muchemwa and Richard Hove.
As
for Mutambara, he was exposed for what he really is: a charlatan, no
less.
Whoever called him the luckiest politician on earth was spot-on. Not
Ms
Khupe. She beat the both the Zanu-PF and the MDC-Mutambara candidates
Tshinga Dube and, yes, Prof Welshman Ncube hands down. She has always won
her election, that one. She is a woman, a Ndebele and a fighter.
She
deserves her position.
Where does all this leave the Reserve Bank, Gideon
Gono and Zanu-PF?
That's a subject of another submission. Watch this
space.
http://www.nationalpost.com/
MDC member languishes in prison as
Cabinet sworn in
Peter Goodspeed, National Post Published: Saturday,
February 21, 2009
Roy Bennett, treasurer of Zimbabwe's Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC),
missed getting sworn in as the country's deputy
agriculture minister this
week. He was spending his seventh day in jail on
terrorism and sabotage
charges.
It is not the first time the burly
51-year-old former farmer has been
incarcerated. He spent eight months of
hard labour in Zimbabwe's prison
system four years ago, after he was
convicted by a parliamentary
disciplinary committee of contempt for a
shoving match with Justice Minister
Patrick Chinamasa.
During a
debate, Mr. Chinamasa had called Mr. Bennett's ancestors "thieves
and
murderers" and taunted the former coffee grower, saying he would never
see
his family farm, Charleswood Estate, again.
The farm had been seized
three years earlier by a gang of
government-sponsored "war veterans" who
murdered two of Mr. Bennett's farm
workers, manhandled his pregnant wife and
held her hostage-- she later
miscarried -- and looted and destroyed his
home.
Over the next two years, while Mr. Bennett tried to regain control
of his
farm through Zimbabwe's courts, the estate was invaded seven times,
farm
workers were beaten and tortured and three young female farm workers
were
gang raped.
Mr. Bennett reacted to Mr. Chinamasa's taunts by
rushing across the floor of
Zimbabwe's Parliament and shoving the Justice
Minister to the ground.
That gave Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's
party, the Zimbabwean African
National Union-Patriotic Front, the
opportunity it needed to drag Mr.
Bennett before a ZANU-PF-dominated
parliamentary hearing which stripped him
of his seat in Parliament and
jailed him.
If Mr. Bennett had been tried in a criminal court, he
probably would have
rated a $15 fine or a conditional discharge.
But
the fluent Shona-speaker has long been a thorn in Mr. Mugabe's side. As
a
leader of the opposition, he was repeatedly re-elected to parliament with
large majorities.
When he finished his prison term, he toured the
world, denouncing Mr. Mugabe
and comparing Zimbabwe's prisons to the country
in general.
"In prison you really see the full effect of what Mugabe has
done," he said
in Toronto in 2005.
"Virtually every prisoner is in
for petty crimes -- the theft of a chicken,
theft of a goat, theft of maize
[corn] -- all are survival things," he said.
"They're just trying to live.
They are all young, vibrant people with
absolutely no hope."
When Mr.
Bennett returned to Zimbabwe, the police accused him of plotting to
overthrow the government. Faced with the prospect of life in prison, he fled
and sought and obtained political asylum in South Africa.
In the
three years he was in exile, he served as the MDC's chief fund-raiser
and
spokesman, and constantly chided Mr. Mugabe for corruption and presiding
over the destruction of Zimbabwe.
The power-sharing deal that finally
brought the MDC into government last
week, making MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai Zimbabwe's new Prime Minister, was
supposed to open the country
to new opportunities. But it is rapidly
becoming apparent little has changed
and Mr. Mugabe has no intention of
sharing power in a meaningful
way.
Mr. Bennett flew back to Harare, ready to be sworn in as a deputy
minister,
only to find himself thrown into jail for an already discredited
accusation.
Then Mr. Mugabe showed up at the initial Cabinet swearing-in
with a long
list of previously unannounced Cabinet appointments for his
ZANUPF
officials.
By the time he finished yesterday, Mr. Mugabe had
sworn in 61 Cabinet
ministers -- from a parliament with only 210
MPs.
The bloated Cabinet, with its 33 full ministers, 20 deputy ministers
and
eight ministers of state, has 15 more members than Zimbabwe's
constitution
authorizes and is stuffed with former ZANU-PF officials,
including Mr.
Chinamasa, who remains Justice Minister.
Mr. Bennett
did not make the cut. He is being held in prison, pending a bail
hearing
next month.
His wife, Heather, says her husband was offered a chance to
have the charges
against him and 30 other jailed MDC activists dismissed,
provided the MDC
agreed to an amnesty deal that would protect all ZANU-PF
officials from any
prosecutions for their entire 29 years in
power.
In the meantime, Mr. Tsvangirai has stood by helplessly, demanding
Mr.
Bennett's release, while complaining the arrest is an attempt by
hard-liners
in Mr. Mugabe's party to derail the unity government by
provoking the MDC to
quit the unity government.
But nothing seems to
faze Mr. Mugabe or his supporters.
Today, Mr. Mugabe turns 85 and ZANU-PF
members are planning to stage a
US$250,000 birthday party in his honour next
Saturday.
The celebration has become an annual event in spite of a
massive economic
and humanitarian crisis that has left half of all
Zimbabweans dependent on
foreign food aid.
The country is also in the
throes of Africa's worst cholera outbreak in 20
years, with the World Health
Organization reporting yesterday more than
80,000 people have been infected,
while 3,759 have died from the disease.
Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors
Without Borders) issued a report this week
that declared the cholera
epidemic is only the most visible manifestation of
a much broader crisis,
since Zimbabwe also faces food shortages,
malnutrition, collapsed
infrastructure, political violence, 80% unemployment
and inflation that is
running at an estimated 89.7 sextillion per cent (that
is 89.7 followed by
21 zeros).
Mr. Bennett made much the same point last year, when he led
200 Zimbabwe
exiles to protest Mr. Mugabe's 84th birthday at a South African
border
crossing into Zimbabwe.
Then, the protesters wore T-shirts
with the slogan, "The party's over." They
also waved a banner reading, "Bob,
you've had your cake, now beat it."
pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com