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http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=10967
February 3,
2009
Jestina Mukoko
By our correspondent
THE High Court will on
Wednesday sit to decide whether or not to grant jailed human rights activist
Jestina Mukoko permission to apply for release on bail
Mukoko has been in
custody since she was abducted from her home in Norton by state security agents
on December 3.
Mukoko is also said to have received limited medical attention
despite pleas by her lawyers to Justice Alphas Chitakunye on Monday to let her
apply for bail pending the outcome of an earlier application. She lodged the
application with the Supreme Court to seek the country’s highest court to
declare her abduction, alleged torture and continued detention as
illegal.
The state has opposed her application saying she can only be allowed
to seek bail after she has been formally placed on remand.
Since she was
abducted and been denied bail fears of what might happen to her have
mounted.
In a statement issued in London, Amnesty International laid the
blame for Mukoko’s disappearance and denial of bail squarely on President Robert
Mugabe’s government, describing the abduction as “part of a well established
pattern of harassment of human rights defenders by Zimbabwean
authorities”.
Mukoko, a former Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation news-caster,
is now the head of a human rights organisation, Zimbabwe Peace Project
(ZPP).
US ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee is on record as calling on
officials in Harare and the police force or whoever was responsible for Mukoko’s
abduction to release her immediately. He did not say what action, if any,
Washington would take if the human rights activist was not freed.
The arrest
of Mukoko is seen as part of an established pattern of harassment and
intimidation of human rights defenders by Zimbabwean authorities in an attempt
to intimidate them from documenting and publicising the violations that are
taking place.
If convicted Mukoko and her fellow detainees could face the
death penalty. It is, however, likely that they could be released after the
Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC demanded their release as a condition for their taking
up of posts in the government of national unity with Mugabe’s Zanu-PF next
week.
The accusations against the activists are widely regarded as being
fabricated.
The statement by Amnesty International said, “Amnesty
International considers Jestina to be a prisoner of conscience and is calling
for an immediate and unconditional
release.”
______________________________________________
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http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=10955
February 3,
2009
By Our Correspondent
Harare
The police on Wednesday arrested
dozens of University of Zimbabwe (UZ) students following protests against steep
examination fees at the country’s highest institution of learning.
Rights
group, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), which deployed its team of
lawyers to represent the students says police assaulted the students who led a
demonstration to oppose the payment of US$ 400 before they can write their end
of second term semester. ZLHR said it was only able to secure the release of
five students on medical grounds while the remainder of the group is slowly
being released by the police.
In a notice pasted at faculty notice boards on
Monday, UZ officials demanded that all students pay US$ 400 before sitting for
their exams which begin in two weeks time.
“… each student is required to pay
an examination fee of $ US400.00. The examination fee must be paid strictly in
cash at the Bursar’s department… no later than 12 noon Wednesday 11th February…
Students are also reminded that end of semester examinations begin on 16th
February…” reads part of the notice seen by The Zimbabwe Times.
The students
were arrested and detained barely a week after the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) agreed to form a coalition government with President Robert
Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.
The violent suppression of the students’ protests and
arrests run counter to the spirit of the power-sharing agreement signed last
year between Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, the
leader of a breakaway faction of the MDC.
In the agreement the three leaders
agreed to guarantee free political activity and people’s freedoms.
Such
police conduct could easily scuttle and cut short the life of the coalition
government which some observers say is the best way to extricate the country
from its current political and economic
quagmire.
______________________________________________
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http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=10946
February 3,
2009
By Chenjerai Hove
IMAGINE a teacher entering a Grade Seven
classroom.
He is eager to prepare the class for the forthcoming final exams
and ensure they all pass. On that particular day the lesson is on General
Knowledge. The following interaction between teacher and ’smart’ children takes
place in a private school somewhere in Harare.
Teacher: Okay children, today
I want us to discuss the functions of our ministers and other important people
in government. First question: What does our Governor of the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe do?
Paul: He removes zeros from the currency today and puts them
back again tomorrow. I want that easy job when I grow up. My uncle says he is
about to remove three zeros from the American dollar.
Teacher: Not bad. But
then what does the Minister of Finance do?
Sharon: He does nothing. He has no
money.
Teacher: Oh, I didn’t think about that! And the Minister of Primary
and Secondary Education?
Shamiso: He closes schools and then sends teachers
to Botswana.
Teacher: And now the big one. I know you are waiting for this.
How about the Minister of Higher Education?
Tom: He closes universities and
gets the students arrested.
Teacher: And the Minister of Culture?
Nehoreka
(Son of a branch chairman): He teaches our mothers the important culture of
kneeling on the tarmac at the airport.
Teacher: You children seem to read
newspapers a lot. How about the Minister of Justice then?
Sibongile: Is he
not the one who changes documents at night and also writes long sentences which
no one understands?
Teacher: The first part of the answer is good, the second
part is not. How about the Minister of Information?
Icho (A Chinese student):
That is the one who writes long sentences, and uses big words that English
teachers have never heard of. His job seems to be to confuse everybody about
everything. Sometimes he arrests journalists and closes newspapers. That is what
my mother says. She was a journalist before her paper was closed.
Teacher:
And the Minister of Transport?
Spiwe: He buys old Chinese aeroplanes and
buses and then throws them away.
Teacher: What does the Minister of Trade do
then?
Tapiwa: He runs a tuckshop next to our house and sells cheap Chinese
clothes and shoes. And these shoes are funny. After wearing them for one day,
our cat is already playing with my peeping toes.
Teacher: (laughs) And the
Minister of Roads?
Jennifer: He makes many potholes.
Teacher: And the
Minister of Economic Planning?
Obama (Name recently changed): He has nothing
to do.
Teacher: And now the big one, the Minister of Agriculture?
Robert:
He takes farms from productive farmers and gives them to his
friends.
Teacher: And the Minister of Women’s Affairs.
Dumisani: She sings
and dances at rallies and wears a dress with pictures of the President’s
picture. My father says if my mother ever wears such a dress he will sue for
divorce.
Teacher: And the Mayor of a City?
Itayi: He wears glittering
chains around his neck and likes to shake hands with everyone including the
President.
Teacher: And the Minister of Local Government and Urban
Housing?
Shamiso: He destroys people’s houses and sends them to the villages
in winter.
Teacher: And the Minister of Agricultural
Mechanization?
Jabulani: He drives tractors on President Mugabe’s
farms.
Teacher: What about a permanent secretary, what does he do?
Todd:
He sits permanently, reads through The Herald newspaper in five minutes then
goes on the Internet to read online newspaper while keeping The Herald open in
front of him, in case the Minister walks in. He also makes numerous phone calls
to save his own company the cost of telephone calls, He then leaves the office
to collect supplies for his business in his government pick-up truck. I know all
this because my father is a permanent secretary.
Teacher: And the Minister of
Posts and Telecommunications?
Tobias: I think he is the one who cuts all the
telephone lines to every house.
Teacher: And the Minister of Water
Resources?
Tererai: He puts mud and dirt in all the water which comes to our
house. My mother says he is the one who causes the cholera that killed my cousin
last week.
Teacher: And the Minister of Industry?
Tinashe: He shuts down
all the factories. That is what my father says. He has no job now.
Teacher:
And the Minister of Tourism?
Shuvai: I suppose he goes to Victoria Falls
every week, with his girlfriend. Then he presides beauty contests once a
year.
Teacher: And the Minister of State Security?
Chmbwido: He wears dark
glasses and travels around the country looking for paranormal sources of diesel
fuels!
Teacher: And the Minister of Defence.
Gideon Junior: He sends
soldiers to fight poor vendors on our streets and to the villagers to deal with
people who do not vote correctly.
Teacher: Finally what does the President
do?
Gwaku: Can I come and whisper in your ear, Sir. My father says we should
speak freely about the President only in the privacy of our home.
Teacher:
(Bell rings.) Okay, it’s time up, class. You children are simply brilliant.
Tomorrow we deal with the arms of
government.
______________________________________________
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http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=10938
February 3, 2009
By
John Robertson
A comment on Dr Gideon Gono’s book, Zimbabwe’s Casino
Economy.
IF YOU could start a sincere discourse in which you could honestly
declare -
that you have received the President’s personal guidance at least
twice a week for five years
that you proudly hold a conviction that every one
of the President’s policy pronouncements met the highest possible moral,
academic, philosophical and practical standards of excellence
that you hold a
firm belief that the only reason for their failures has been the imposition of
sanctions, and
that Zimbabwe’s survival of the international sanctions
onslaught has led directly to your having achieved major breakthroughs in
economic theory
- you too could write a book that would put an
extraordinarily up-beat spin on Zimbabwe’s recent history. You might also be
able to persuade yourself that, now that many banks in developed nations are
having to be rescued, the brilliance of Zimbabwe’s monetary policies is no
longer in doubt.
But first you would have to successfully impose a few new
definitions on certain English words that would completely destroy your claims
if their original meanings were to be used.
The word “sanctions” is the main
one. This word has to be redefined to mean any response from abroad that is not
wholly supportive of Zanu PF-policy decisions, that does not respect the
sovereign rights of the party’s leadership to choose any policies they wish, or
that shows an unwillingness to completely overlook Zimbabwe’s failures to fulfil
contractual obligations.
This means that if any government, donor agency,
international bank or development institution finds that it is not in agreement
with Zanu PF policy objectives, or is agitating for long-overdue debt
repayments, or is dismayed by the conduct of party officials, that body can be
accused of imposing sanctions.
And if any lender expresses concern that new
loans to Zimbabwe might not be repaid, and therefore sets tough conditions or
refuses to lend Zimbabwe the money, it too can be accurately accused of imposing
sanctions.
Points carefully overlooked - Dr Gono’s book is laced with
numerous examples of carefully overlooked points - are that lenders are fully
entitled to base their lending decisions on the assessed credit worthiness of
borrowers, whether that assessment is based on past performance or current
earnings expectations.
Zimbabwe’s score is dismal on both counts.
Consequently, loan refusals are hardly surprising. In such cases, refusals are
standard practice for any banker.
As for the donors, NG0s and aid agencies,
Zimbabwe’s government disqualified itself from receiving direct assistance by
adopting and endorsing conduct that violated human rights. The conduct concerned
includes violent ruling party-supported actions that hit directly at civil
liberties and made direct and deliberate attacks on entirely legal political
movements that tried to attract support for alternative political and economic
policies. These attacks severely affected investor confidence and further damage
was done when the Zanu PF policies began to sharply reduce Zimbabwe’s foreign
earnings by forcing the closure of most of the farming companies that produced
most of the country’s exports.
Unfortunately, these were the earnings that
had supported Zimbabwe’s access to credit. Continuing flows of revenue were
needed to repay the banks offering continuing lines of credit for flows of
imports, and export earnings were also needed to service longer-term debts. The
rapid fall in earnings caused Zimbabwe to become a poor credit risk, so lines of
credit were withdrawn.
But as an expression of his commitment to support
every Zanu PF policy decision to the hilt, Dr Gono has passionately declared
that the land reform policies that led to this decline are irreversible. This
has done nothing to persuade potential lenders that Zimbabwe has improved its
prospects of settling debt. They quickly decided that Dr Gono’s position on land
reform meant that the lost revenues flows would not be restored, so new loans
should not be offered.
Land reform has become a curious title for a process
that caused Zimbabwe’s most productive land to almost stop producing. As it was
highly productive, this was not the land that needed reform. The rest of it did,
or more accurately, the farmers on the rest of the land needed reform. In
choosing not to reform these farmers, but merely to move them to the land from
which good farmers were evicted, the ruling party caused this land to become far
less productive.
Whatever anyone would prefer to believe, the simple fact is
that this land has stopped delivering the former volumes of crops and the former
foreign revenues that helped sustain the whole country.
To be more specific,
this land is no longer delivering the food, the jobs, the exports, the range of
industrial inputs or the taxes that used to support or fund a large proportion
of Zimbabwe’s total economic activity. And ever since this land reform programme
started, Zimbabwe has had to import large quantities of food that, with its loss
of export earnings, it could pay for only by cutting other imports.
To now
claim that aid agencies, international banks and donor countries must happily
and unconditionally accept the obligation to restore Zimbabwe’s spending power
is to exhibit a special form of arrogance. Zanu PF is effectively declaring that
those capable of offering assistance have obligations and those who need help
should never have to account for the actions that placed them in
need.
Further, if the donor countries and aid agencies don’t deliver on these
obligations, Zimbabwe’s leadership will be acting reasonably when it accuses
them of imposing sanctions. In his book, Dr Gono inflates that accusation into a
claim that these unkind donors and institutions have engaged in “sanitised
terrorism” that is being carried out to demolish the whole economy.
However,
another of the points that Dr Gono fails to mention is the fact that, far from
imposing sanctions, aid agencies are now actually supplying food to about half
Zimbabwe’s population.
Had he raised that subject, he might have had to try
to explain why Zanu PF considers aid to be a threat if it arrives in the form of
food for distribution directly to communities that the aid agencies themselves
have identified as vulnerable. Much as Zanu PF would prefer not to discuss this
issue, the facts here have become obvious: Zanu PF wants to be in control over
the distribution of all aid so that beneficiaries only of its choice will
receive it.
This is because part of Dr Gono’s general thesis is that the aid
workers have been complicit in conspiracies to bring about “illegal regime
change”. If a careful analysis of the dozens of references to “illegal regime
change” were to be made, an honest conclusion would have to be that Dr Gono
believes every suggestion criticising a Zanu PF policy and observing that better
alternatives should be adopted, can be described as an illegal effort to unseat
the government.
Only one explanation for this belief can exist: Dr Gono is
clearly convinced that Robert Mugabe is the only person with any legitimate
right to claim the role of Head of State. On his apparent contention that this
is an absolute truth, Dr Gono can claim that all challenges to President
Mugabe’s authority are illegal, and many are bordering on being acts of
treason.
Whether linked to sanctions or to regime change, the word “illegal”
is another that has been given a new definition.
So great is the conviction
that Zanu PF has sole rights over the country, the party wants to be able to
demonstrate that its supporters’ needs will be met, even if only by ensuring
that opposition party supporters’ needs will not be met. Zanu PF claims to feel
insulted when the donors of food, medicine and aid of any other kind bring in
the items as direct imports and carry out the distribution themselves.
This
sidesteps the preferred course of handing the money over to ruling party
officials and trusting them to spend it in the country’s best interests. For
“country”, read Zanu PF. This is another of the word definition changes.
Dr
Gono is accurate in describing the land reform programme as the starting point
for explanations of Zimbabwe’s current difficulties, but most references to land
reform are accompanied by words such as historic, irreversible and inevitable.
With considerable eloquence, Dr Gono shows that he unconditionally throws his
weight behind the entire programme.
None of his references mention the fact
that land reform closed down Zimbabwe’s biggest industry, or that this industry
had been a highly successful contributor to the country’s economy largely
because of the adoption of methods and technologies that had evolved all over
the world in very recent years.
When the country was colonised, most of these
farming techniques did not exist. For that reason, Zimbabwe’s high-tech,
capital-intensive commercial agricultural sector is no more an expression of
colonialism than General Motors or IBM are expressions of the colonial history
of the United States of America.
More importantly, as the effect of land
reform has been to reduce farming activity to patches of small-scale subsistence
cropping, often using out-dated cultivation practices and almost always on a
small fraction of the land that was “recovered” from large-scale commercial
farmers, the whole programme has been a disaster. Dr Gono’s unconditional
support for it, whatever the cost, is therefore misplaced. He, of all people,
should be looking for ideas that work.
A more accurate description of what is
needed to solve the whole land issue could be approached by starting with the
fact that commercial farmers and communal farmers worked to entirely different
systems, Commercial farming companies could lodge title deeds with banks in
support of loan applications. With this financial backing, they could make use
of rapidly advancing technologies and invest in developing their own
skills.
Because the land was marketable and the market value of land was
known, bank loan applications were readily approved. These loans allowed the
companies to buy expensive inputs and equipment, to learn how to apply the
latest scientific breakthroughs and to pay wages to their employees through the
year, even when they had no current income in the months between
harvests.
The system worked because the sale of successfully grown crops
allowed the farming companies to settle their debts and immediately start making
plans for the next season. Imaginative development works that often took many
years to complete could be funded by additional loans. Dams and irrigation
schemes not only helped companies remain efficient during poor seasons, they
also added to the collateral value of the property being pledged in support of
the loans.
The system also worked because of - not in spite of - the fact
that the companies had placed the ownership of their land at risk to obtain the
loans. To avoid any prospect of foreclosure, they had to be successful. So they
worked as hard as they could to ensure success.
But this system was thrown
out with the cancellation of property rights, the destruction of the market for
agricultural land, the forced dissolution of the farming companies and the
allocation of the land - free - to resettlement farmers. With no title deeds to
offer the banks and the disappearance of the land’s market value, the
resettlement farmers could not borrow money against it.
The inputs they
needed had to be given to them as handouts , or they had to be heavily
subsidised. But getting help in the form of money to pay wages proved
impossible. The farmers ended up cultivating only the small areas they could
manage with the help of wives and children, in much the same way as they had in
the communal areas. But on their new plots, they did not have the help of a
support network of their extended families and friends.
Success in the normal
sense eluded them, but they measured their success by a different standard. Bank
foreclosure was not a possibility, but each faced a real threat of dispossession
from more senior member of the party. For some this was best avoided by making
their plot look less desirable by producing mediocre crops, but others felt that
demonstrations of fierce loyalty to the party would better protect them. Neither
of these helped crop yields, but farmers claiming they suffered no threat of
dispossession could claim to be successful.
The word “success” has therefore
been redefined. Its new meaning permits the use of phrases such as “the
successful land reform programme…”.
But the vast majority of farmers did not
achieve real success. Even backing from the business sector became less
effective as the services of agricultural suppliers, with their bulk depots,
workshops and technical experts, went into a steep decline. This soon added to
the difficulties faced by communal farmers too, as it impacted on their access
to inputs and their costs. These directly affected their levels of output and
made food shortages very much worse.
The basic fact here is that two very
different systems were at work and they delivered very different results. But
for some reason, Zimbabwe’s politicians believed they would be praised and
rewarded for choosing to destroy the agricultural system that stood out as the
most successful in Africa, and for replacing it with expensive and severely
disruptive extensions of the subsidy-dependent less successful system.
The
rewards and praise have not been forthcoming. To the ruling party, this is clear
evidence of disrespect for the sovereign rights of the country’s leaders to
formulate the policies it thinks fit without risking international censure. This
lack of respect amounts to sanctions that, according to Dr Gono, have been
motivated by an eagerness to promote regime change. These sanctions, he claims,
are a form of economic terrorism, the purpose of which is to sabotage the ruling
party’s glorious efforts to overcome the evils brought to this country by
colonialism.
The hidden claim that is implicit in the principal arguments put
across by Dr Gono is that any decision ever taken by President Mugabe is never
ever to be questioned, Whatever the decisions, Dr Gono’s position would clearly
be that he - and everybody else - has an obligation to accept all of them
without question and find ways to make them work.
A distillation of page
after page of his basic thesis would be that President Mugabe’s decisions have
always been right and that every one of them would have worked brilliantly but
for the imposition of sanctions. The “illegal” sanctions, he claims, were all
designed to bring about “illegal” regime change by causing the collapse of the
Zimbabwe economy.
But despite the virtual collapse of the economy, it is
clear that Dr Gono would argue that the sanctions have failed. Because President
Mugabe is still the Head of State, he has survived them. So Zanu PF can claim to
have triumphed against the “economic terrorism” attacks launched against them by
the most powerful countries in the world. According to Dr Gono, this proves that
Zimbabwe’s state of collapse is nothing about which Zimbabweans should be
embarrassed as it is the fault of those who imposed the sanctions.
Zimbabwe’s
leaders are not the first to create a mythical threat and follow this with the
generation of highly intrusive and oppressive regulations and punishments, which
they claim to be essential to combat the threat. Triumphant claims can then be
made that the non-existent threat has been contained.
Typically, the full
depths of the dishonesty are achieved the reinforcement of the oppressive
regulations and punishments, supported by the claim that these remain necessary
because, without vigilance, the threat would certainly return.
Whether the
threat was identified as the certainty that the sun would not rise tomorrow
unless an unfortunate family submitted to demands that their child should be
sacrificed, or is now identified as the certainty that Zimbabweans will face
hunger and deprivation unless the world calls off sanctions and stops trying to
depose its rightful leader, the real menace amounts to something rather
different: the determination of the governing authorities to ensure absolute
obedience by imposing and enforcing oppressive policies.
But just as
sacrificing children had nothing to do with making sure the sun would rise and
everything to do with holding the Aztec population in subjugation, calls for the
removal of wrongly defined sanctions has nothing to do with enriching the
Zimbabwean population. It has everything to do with controls and restoring the
leadership’s access to the foreign funding needed to enforce them.
In one of
the more colourfully misleading paragraphs in his book, Dr Gono claims: “…The
country perspired under the gruelling yoke of colonialism for close to one full
century. Before attaining political independence in 1980, the country went
through a bloody armed struggle, as the impoverished indigenous population
resisted, and fought and won over colonial forces.”
From this, he goes on to
describe the many reasons why colonial distortions called for the adoption of
unconventional measures. However, it is the carefully overlooked distortions
that have emerged since independence in 1980 that are very much more in need of
attention. Today, the population is more impoverished than it ever was during
the colonial era, and as for the “gruelling yoke”, all the evidence suggests
that the colonial authorities were never as harsh on the population as Zanu PF
is today.
The colonial era created the most diversified economy and the best
education and health services of any country in Africa. The result was one of
the most developed of all the Third World’s countries. As for the “bloody armed
struggle”, this was sponsored and funded by the USSR and Communist China for
their own ends. One day, an accurate history will show that indigenous people
opposed the incursions in numbers that greatly exceeded the total of the
so-called “colonial whites”. It is perhaps for this reason that Zanu PF has
recently passed legislation prohibiting any possibility that any other political
party might obtain support from abroad, the way its supporters did.
Dr Gono’s
major fear is that the sanctions claims will be proved wrong and cause his whole
thesis to completely fall apart. So in efforts to prevent debate that might draw
people towards such a dangerous conclusion, Dr Gono makes numerous pre-emptive
strikes that are designed to demolish the courage of his critics. He does this
by suggesting that any who deny the existence, or the penetrating damage of his
long list of sanctions will risk being ridiculed for their stupidity, or worse
still, they will risk being accused of economic sabotage.
Regrettably for Dr
Gono, these ploys do not cause the caution of lenders to become definable as
sanctions. Neither do they encourage aid agencies to offer assistance that can
be shown likely to add to the ruling party’s capacity to tyrannize the
population, or would directly compensate ruling party members for the personal
inconvenience their damaging policies have caused them.
All aid organisations
face requests from deserving cases, the needs of which go far beyond the donor’s
resources. The donors know they would face criticisms from their own sources if
they were seen to be using their limited funding to help delinquent governments
escape the effects of self-inflicted problems, specially if they show not the
slightest intention of changing course.
Without question, Zimbabwe needs
help, but the country will not be deserving of help before its authorities have
acknowledged the actual causes of the difficulties and have also made firm
commitments to rectify them. And any effort to identify the actual causes will
take the debate right back to land reform.
On the need for land reform, Zanu
PF agues that their case is proved by the facts that the country was colonised
and the land taken by the colonisers had to be taken back.
But this can be
restated as a different description that also rests securely on facts: a very
small population saw its land colonised; new productive methods bought in by the
colonisers helped that small population to become very much bigger - twenty
times as big - and now that much larger population is said to want the land
back.
It is worth mentioning here that independent studies have called this
politically charged claim into question. The vast majority of the population is
most concerned about job security, not land, according to an extensive survey
carried out by the Helen Suzman Foundation. Now that the land has been returned
to the people and so few of these same people can be seen to be trying to work
it, the truth of the Suzman Foundation’s findings has become starkly
apparent.
But more crucial truths are that the production methods, which were
so successful in building the population’s size, are still needed. This is
simply because the population is now far too big to be sustained by the
pre-colonial methods of production. Population growth rates have increased all
over the world in the past century and they have ushered in dramatic changes
everywhere, not just in Zimbabwe. Most populations know they are in a new world,
and they have moved up, moved on with their lives and moved with the
times.
But Zanu PF clearly has no intention of moving with the times. In
particular, it insisted on a return to the pre-colonial land rights
arrangements. These were feudal in nature and depended upon land being allocated
by those in authority. Individual ownership rights were not permitted then and
they are not wanted now.
Apart from the fact that taking land off the market
will permit those with influence to get large pieces of it for nothing, the only
reason that can be discovered for attacking this system is that property rights
are seen to confer power onto property owners. Politicians see this as a threat
because they see themselves as having won power in order to wield power, not to
share power with people who have property rights. The answer, therefore, is to
prevent the dilution of the leadership’s powers by declaring the land to be the
property of the State.
This is why land that was taken from the destroyed
companies has not been sold to new owners. It has been allocated to people who
will never expect to gain total control over it, but who will remain acutely
conscious of the need to remain supportive of the leadership to remain in
occupation. In other words, patronage figures largely in the system.
In
considering more directly the actual content of Dr Gono’s book, it is this
un-stated, but very real issue of patronage that underlies the many unfair,
unjust and inaccurate accusations made against any and every business sector or
individual that is not fully supportive of government polices.
One example is
Dr Gono’s treatment of the banks. He points out that in the late 1990s the banks
were lending about 95% of their loans to farmers, but by 2003 this had fallen to
around 10%, “spelling a very precarious fate for agriculture as the mainstay of
the economy” .
He carefully avoids mentioning that the collateral value of
the land has been destroyed, so the security of title deeds to back the needed
loans no longer exists. He offers no thoughts on why he believes the banks
should be happy to lend to people who will not only be unlikely to pay them
back, but might also seek protection from the ruling party to sidestep their
repayment obligations.
In the same section, Dr Gono makes reference to claims
that Zimbabwe has been isolated, condemned and demonised by the Western world,
and that this has led directly to the withdrawing of development funding and
loans. This justified his perceived need to move away from the conventional
macroeconomic management ideas as “no thinking central banker could simply stick
to the niceties of conventional wisdom and expect a better or meaningful outcome
for Zimbabwe” .
The idea that the suspension or absence of external
assistance in some way absolves a central banker from the need to observe the
rules of basic arithmetic has to set a new absurdity record.
Several themes
recur throughout the book, apart from the claimed sanctions and their claimed
“devastating” effects on the economy. Shortages that forced people to seek
openings that involved gambling on price, exchange rate and market movements
make up one of them, and yet another is “recurring droughts”, which are also
blamed for the low agricultural production figures.
Given the statistical
fact that rains in the past ten years have been better than average and that
most storage dams have been full enough to deal with the crops in the few
disappointing years, it might seem that the normal definition of the word
drought has been replaced by any description of a sequence of wet and dry spells
that did not meet various farmers’ hopes that the season would be
perfect.
However, while seasons can very seldom be described as perfect, the
claimed frequency of droughts does not fit the facts. The country as a whole has
not suffered a severe drought in the past ten years and apart from a serious
lack of rains in the southern half of Zimbabwe in 2002 and a few disappointing
years, the seasons had every prospect of producing reasonable crops.
But as
government officials tried to track the effectiveness of their policies on those
who received subsidies or input handouts, they made a practice of tracking down
the beneficiaries and asking for details of yields and deliveries to the
markets. For many of the farmers, this presented a problem, mainly because they
had cashed in the seed, fertiliser and fuel to meet needs that were far too
pressing to be dealt with by planting crops that might or might not come
up.
Because they could not admit to this unpatriotic conduct, many of them
claimed that they had planted their crops, but were wiped out by drought.
Thousands of separate reports claiming that droughts had affected the length and
breadth of the country, year after year, were enough to confirm to the
authorities that all their sterling efforts had been rendered ineffective by
drought. The authorities have eagerly accepted the claims because having to
admit that the fault might lie with their policies was a far less acceptable
alternative.
Dr Gono makes strenuous efforts to justify his claimed ability
to “think outside the box” and to break free of conventional thinking, which he
clearly believes to be too restrictive to be useful, specially in Zimbabwe’s
extraordinary circumstances. In Chapter Three, he accurately describes the
workings of a market economy, but his purpose is to draw together some of its
essential strands only so that he can trash them.
He expounds upon the forces
of supply and demand, but suggests these can be damaging and frequently need to
be countered by government interventions and subsidies. The pricing of foreign
exchange, he implies, should certainly not be left to market forces when the
central bank’s authority can set its correct price, while the need to balance
liquidity requirements with the value of productive assets has to be done in a
way that will ensure that prices are not influenced by the levels of
liquidity.
He goes further to link these concepts to western thinking and the
Protestant Work Ethic, which is all solid stuff, but it turns out that even this
is designed to set the ideas up for dumping. The capitalist Protestant Work
Ethic is condemned because of its linkage to European or Western thinking, and
the condemning point is that it was the Europeans who did all the colonising in
Africa.
His second point is that the principles of the Protestant Work Ethic
are not working anyway. As proved by the recent banking crises in Britain,
Europe and the USA, they have been abandoned, he says, in favour of the
economics of “manipulative gambling akin to the workings of a casino” .
The
extraordinary choices of examples, accusations, revelations and behaviour
patterns that he then - in several chapters - expounds upon to substantiate his
claim that Zimbabwe has been failed by the Western capitalist system is marked
by one remarkable omission: the massive Zimbabwean distortions that have been
deliberately generated and imposed by the authorities in general and the Reserve
Bank in particular.
According to Dr Gono, he had no option but to intervene
when foreign currency scarcities caused exchange rate movements to add to costs,
but he does not admit that the never plentiful supplies of foreign currency were
drastically reduced because government policies caused massive shrinkages in
export earnings. The cause of the problem was the loss of exports; the foreign
exchange scarcities were an effect. Another the effect was rising
prices.
Bringing in controls and regulations to influence effects rather than
causes simply caused distortions. When one of the treatments of the symptoms was
to demand that government should have access to foreign exchange at preferential
rates, it opened the door to increasingly corrupt arbitrage-related deals, but
when senior politicians and public servants were granted an even more attractive
privileged rate of exchange, the distortions increased and the opportunities for
highly profitable manipulations multiplied vigorously.
Large-scale business
transactions that were dependent upon the existence of different exchange rates
led to schemes and scams that involved imports of food, fuel, luxury as well as
utility vehicles and farm equipment. On the export side, the access to low-cost
US dollars permitted influential people to acquire fabricated gold products at
the same effective discount, and these were exported along with unknown
quantities of foreign currency, but the Reserve Bank’s imposition of low prices
for gold from the mines allowed it to claim some sort of balance.
All of
these distortions could have been overcome by adopting a single market-related
exchange rate. Dr Gono’s frequently repeated remarks disparaging the workings of
markets seem to place the very idea of having the market set the rate beneath
contempt, but at least part of his antipathy to the idea seems more likely to
come from his unwillingness to accept that government should have to compete for
foreign currency against all other market participants.
Of even most
importance, however was and is the fact that the people best placed to
manipulate and profit from controls, regulations, preferential exchange rates
and a variety of privileges, such as duty-free imports, are those closest to him
in positions of authority. In launching his frequent attacks on the business
sector, Dr Gono appears all the time to be directing attention away from the far
greater levels of exploitation and obscene profit-making taking place within the
ranks of those who make the rules and claim the right to privileges.
Part of
his problem seems to be that, while such conduct is described as corruption when
carried out by the business sector, the same conduct, if admitted, would be
described as the legitimate exercise of the privileges of office. As sweeping
legislation that would stamp it out cannot be imposed because so many would
claim exemption, and as the controls and regulations are needed to sustain the
privileges for the important few, Dr Gono is left with the only option of
heaping accusations and more controls onto private sector activities.
A
glaring omission in Dr Gono’s book is any form of analysis on the possible
effects of the controls. He could have made mention of the extent to which the
wholly unjust price controls imposed at the end of June 2007 forced most local
manufacturers to scale down their operations and many to close altogether. He
could have described the way that interest rate controls have completely
destroyed any inclination to save money, and have dramatically changed the
business habits of borrowers.
He could have mentioned the sequestering of
corporate Foreign Currency Account balances by the Reserve Bank and then the
official siphoning of these sums to meet official spending needs. To sustain
their operations, the affected businesses had to bid in the unofficial market
for the hard currency they needed. He could have mentioned that the rising
demand forced up the price of foreign exchange, and then the prices of
everything that was bought with that money.
He could have admitted that these
companies were victims of the officially-approved appropriation of their foreign
currency balances, but instead he hoped to persuade the public that these were
the profiteering and greedy companies that were responsible for Zimbabwe’s world
record-breaking inflation rate.
He could have acknowledged that a fundamental
requirement of sustainable business is that goods should be sold at prices that
exceed their costs of production, but instead his belief in state intervention
had him defending his extremely low cost BACOSSI, or Basic Commodities
Supply-Side Intervention loans, which allowed producers to continue selling at
prices below production costs by closing the recurrent revenue / expenditure gap
with borrowed money.
He could have acknowledged that, as a banker, he would
not normally approve such business practice, but has recommended it in
Zimbabwe’s situation because the Reserve Bank was able to fund such loans with
obscenely high Statutory Reserve Ratios. These were claiming, interest free, 50%
or more of all typical bank deposits. The low cost loans to agriculture, the
ASPEF or Agricultural Sector Productivity Enhancement Facility, and the PSF or
Productive Sector Facility were funded with money effectively confiscated from
banks in the same way.
He could have admitted that these loans, at deeply
negative real rates of interest, were releasing the borrowers from the need to
achieve high efficiency levels because they were getting the money virtually for
nothing. He invited them to make the most of the inflation that was vigorously
eroding the value of the repayment commitments before they had to be met.
He
could have admitted that the whole scheme depended upon inflation continuing at
a very rapid pace, and on depositors being bound, by a lack of options, to
continue depositing money in the banks.
He could have admitted that the whole
process has rapidly destroyed the entire country’s savings stock. He could have
gone on to say that his policies have demolished the normal functions of savers
and lenders, whose funds used to be tapped by investors who were engaged in
creating new productive capacity.
He could have admitted that, at enormous
cost to Zimbabwe, his policies have brought productive investment almost to a
halt. Now almost all business activity involves importing, buying and selling,
not making the goods here. Zimbabwe is now far less a nation of producers of
goods, and much more a nation of traders.
He could have admitted that as so
much of the activity has slipped into the informal sector, its contribution
cannot now be measured, its conduct cannot be monitored or regulated and its
profits cannot be taxed.
He could have admitted that in carrying out his
statutory functions in terms of the RBZ Act, his efforts to regulate the
Zimbabwe’s monetary system has rendered the system almost unworkable, that his
efforts to achieve and maintain the stability of the Zimbabwe dollar have
resulted in a failure of world record proportions, and that his moves to ensure
the smooth operation of the payments system have left it operating anything but
smoothly.
On top of these, his policy measures to foster the proper
functioning of the financial system have sidelined the banks and seem likely to
soon impoverish what is left of the insurance companies and pension funds.
Dr
Gono does have serious grounds for complaining about unacceptable conduct and
had good reason to condemn speculative trading on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange,
specially when it was intended to generate profits of quadrillions on the
strength of cheques written against insufficient bank balances. However, his
attacks on the stockbrokers, the banks and the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange seem at
this stage to be wholly unfair.
People who wrote cheques for sums they did
not have were breaking the law, but the sweeping accusations against any who
were acting on their instructions would be legitimate only if collusion could be
established.
But Dr Gono should also accept that the behaviour would not have
been even contemplated if the distortions caused by the massive imbalances
between the supply and demand for foreign currency were not so serious, if
interest rate returns made the money market as suitable an investment option as
the equity market, if the options facing holders of rapidly depreciating
Zimbabwe dollars extended beyond the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and if the Zimbabwe
dollar was not crashing in the first place.
The fact that all of these issues
have generated antisocial or unpatriotic behaviour might be reprehensible, but
it should not be surprising. People will always be inclined to protect what they
have, and most of what Zimbabweans have left today has never been more in need
of protection.
Perhaps we should not be surprised that Dr Gono has filled his
book with explanations and accusations that are intended to exonerate the
President, the government and the Reserve Bank, but it is this that is most
reprehensible. Attacks on incorrectly identified causes will not solve the
problems.
All of the primary causes and most of the secondary ones too have
been deliberately overlooked or hidden because of their political objectives or
origins, but we will not solve the problems until we correctly identify them and
deal with them in more constructive ways.
Sanctions are not among these
causes, and neither are droughts, regime change conspiracies or attempts to
sabotage the economy. The reason for the foreign exchange scarcity is not
because the lending and development institutions have backed off, it is because
Zimbabwe almost completely scuttled its principal foreign exchange-earning
sectors. Our sharply reduced ability to earn foreign exchange certainly made the
possible lenders very reluctant, but they became much more so when a large
proportion of the funds we wanted to borrow had to be spent on goods for
consumption rather than on investment.
Also, the country’s officially
supported behaviour did nothing to inspire their confidence. The collateral
value of agricultural land was destroyed, removing completely the security that
used to back the vast majority of bank loans. The process caused the
dispossession of highly motivated and productive people, but the allocation of
their physical assets to people with fewer skills and almost no motivation to
work hard for assets they received for free had entirely predictable results:
output dropped to levels not seen since the 1950s.
As this dispossession
process was accompanied by wholly unacceptable attacks on commercial farmers and
their employees, and as these were carried out by militia groups who could carry
out violent and disgraceful acts with impunity because of their backing from the
ruling party, reactions began to surface from the international community. When
opposition party efforts to bring about entirely legal regime change through the
ballot box were also dealt with extremely harshly, the international community
took exception to the contempt the Zimbabwean authorities had for their own
people as well as for the international treaties signed by Zimbabwe to uphold
human rights.
Political sanctions were imposed on identifiable culprits and
their supporters, but until mid-2008, not a single one of the sanctions had any
bearing on Zimbabwe’s economic performance. Since then, the disappearance of
bank note paper is about the only economic sanction that has affected
everybody.
If you were to remove from Dr Gono’s book the paragraphs that rest
on his claims about illegal sanctions, illegal regime change conspiracies,
economic sabotage and droughts, and if you were to also take out the
self-congratulatory explanations of all the policy measures he devised to deal
with unsubstantiated claims that the country was suffering the effects of
ruthless attacks by economic terrorists, I regret to say there would be not much
left to read.
However, he does offer an interesting account of the sequence
of events over the past five years, and provides interesting detail on the
banking crises that led to curatorships, mergers and takeovers. Also, the extent
to which the Reserve Bank has actually become the principal executive authority
in government becomes evident. As tax revenues fell and the separate ministries
became dependent on the so-called quasi-fiscal expenditures for their funding,
the Reserve bank was able to apply increasing amounts of leverage to direct or
regulate almost every facet of public sector activity.
Far from sticking to
core functions, the Reserve Bank has become the country’s major procurement
agency for just about everything, including cheap handcarts, expensive
agricultural machinery, vehicles, food and medicines.
Dr Gono has accepted a
second five-year term as Governor, but this term is starting with what seems
inevitable - the total collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar. Nobody wants to be paid
for anything in Zimbabwe dollars, and Dr Gono has even had to use his executive
authority to force various parastatals to accept Zimbabwe dollars in payment for
things like electricity, water and telephone charges. However, public servants
including employees of the Reserve Bank also don’t want to be paid in Zimbabwe
dollars, and Zimbabwe’s problem is that it is earning even less foreign currency
now, following upon the fall in world metal prices and the suspension of
operations on many Zimbabwean mines.
US dollars are in use all over the
country, but their quantity is insufficient to support salary payments across
the board. All the shops that have managed to acquire reasonable stock have done
so by paying foreign exchange for imports and have no option but to seek payment
entirely in hard currency. Before long, those without it will be unable to meet
basic needs.
But US dollars are not accumulating within the country, and they
are not circulating for long as the shops receiving them must send them abroad
to pay for new stocks. The amount coming is has fallen because of the increased
economic uncertainties overseas and in South Africa, so funding from the
Diaspora is highly unlikely to make the needed difference.
The only thing
that will is financial assistance from abroad. However, many changes will be
needed before that becomes a possibility. Even Dr Gono’s frequently repeated
claim that the developed world’s governments should now take him seriously
because they are employing Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s strategies to rescue their
under-capitalised banks will impress none of them.
While Europe and North
America are fearful that they will see annual inflation rise from 3 percent to
perhaps 8 percent, Zimbabwe’s estimated December figure of more than one
sextillion percent suggests that no useful comparisons can be made.
However,
the real difference is that none of these countries deliberately closed down
their biggest industries, destroyed most of their sources of tax, wiped out
their biggest sources of export revenues, rendered their largest employment
sector jobless or absorbed and spent their country’s total domestic
savings.
These are the actions that the Zimbabwe authorities did take. And
despite the price being so high, Dr Gono, eagerly supported by the rest of the
government, is still defending the policy choices that caused the damage.
So
far, it is clear that we have done nothing to become deserving of the needed
assistance. I regret to have to close this comment with the thought that Dr Gono
has said nothing in this book that will improve our prospects of getting that
help.
Despite the difficulties, please accept my very best wishes, first for
your survival and, very soon, your increasing prosperity during
2009.
______________________________________________
.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=10927
February 3,
2009
By Mxolisi Ncube
“Our economy needs open heart surgery and not
painkillers.” - Elton Mangoma
JOHANNESBURG
Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) has castigated yesterday’s presentation of a
monetary policy review by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor, Gideon Gono,
which it says is a violation of the ground rules of a power-sharing government
it signed with President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF last year.
The opposition
party says that Gono, whose controversial re-appointment to a new five year term
by Mugabe is one of the key issues still under debate, has no locus standi to
present the monetary policy statement.
A critical statement released by the
MDC Secretary for Economic Affairs, Elton Mangoma, Tuesday raises questions as
to whether the much-vaunted unity government will work, as the two parties still
seem to be as antagonistic as ever in terms of policy formulation and
strong-worded criticism.
Mangoma said in the statement that the actions by
the central bank governor casts doubt on Zanu-’s sincerity in complying with an
all-inclusive government initiative brokered by the regional Southern African
Development Community (SADC) bloc last year.
“The purported RBZ governor,
Gideon Gono, yesterday announced a monetary policy statement which violates the
ground rules of normal economics and casts further doubt on Zanu PF’s sincerity
to comply with the Global Political Agreement and the SADC resolutions,” said
Mangoma.
“Firstly, Gono has no locus standi to act as RBZ governor as his
re-appointment is still contentious.
The SADC summit conceded that his
reappointment is subject to fresh negotiations.”
Mangoma, whose party last
week agreed to form the all-inclusive government with Mugabe, says that the
logical position would have been for both the national budget and the monetary
statement to be deferred to allow for the consummation of the inclusive
government.
“Secondly, the decision to lop off 12 zeroes is not a panacea to
the economic ills afflicting the country. The real zeroes that need to be lopped
off are the charlatans and corrupt barons in Zanu PF who are milking the
country.
“The new measures that give unbridled leeway to gold and diamond
traders will create serious leakages on precious minerals that will allow the
big sharks, who are mainly found in Zanu PF, to fleece the country.”
Mangoma
added that the decision to license rural shop owners is at variance with the
reality of the lack of adequate stocks in most rural shops.
“For a rural shop
owner with very few items on his shelves to afford United States dollars in
licence fees is an extortionate measure, to all intents and purposes.
“It
will be a casino economy where even vendors and road-side dealers are all
required to procure licences of US$ 10 from the RBZ to engage in mundane
economic activities that are of no benefit to the national economy,” added the
MDC official.
He accused the RBZ of engaging in “too much rhetoric” on the
central bank’s commitment to deal with corruption.
“Only last week, the
government threatened to name, shame and prosecute all ministers and MPs who
looted the RBZ-sponsored farm input scheme but suddenly there is silence of the
grave on the issue.”
Mangoma says that the removal of zeroes from the
Zimbabwean currency is not the solution, and called on the government to pay its
workers in real money, the use of the voucher system.
“The real solution is a
family of political formations working towards one purpose of addressing the
problems facing the people of Zimbabwe.
“We must stop as a nation the habit
of addressing symptoms and not the real disease affecting our economy.
“Our
economy needs open heart surgery and not painkillers. We need to bite the
bullet. Only a political solution will address the challenges facing the
country,” added Mangoma.
“Gono cannot make fundamental policy decisions
outside the framework of the inclusive government. He cannot claim to be
restructuring the central bank when his own tenure is a subject of serious
political differences.
“His tenure has seen the RBZ being turned into Father
Christmas; doling out largesse to senior Zanu-PF officials while quasi-fiscal
activities have been used to bribe the populace to vote for Zanu PF.”
Mangoma
also accused Gono of using his tenure as the RBZ governor to turn the central
bank into a “Zanu-PF private bank”, whereby he sponsored terror campaigns
against “the innocent people of Zimbabwe”.
“A solution will be found in
Zimbabwe only when Zanu-PF becomes sincere on the issue of the formation of an
inclusive government in line with the resolutions of SADC.
“Zanu-PF should
stop dithering on outstanding issues so that we clear the way for the formation
of an inclusive government which should deal with the political and economic
crisis,” said Mangoma.
The unity government has already been described as a
marriage of convenience, which the MDC agreed to join to avoid being labelled as
spoilers in the effort to resolve Zimbabwe’s multi-facetted political and
economic crisis, which has spanned about a decade.
Questions have also been
raised as to whether Mugabe will listen to the input of a party that he alleges
to be a front formed by the West in a bid to topple
him.
______________________________________________
.
http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/imf-sees-need-for-reform-in-economic-recovery-2009-02-03
ECONOMIC
GROWTH
By: Reuters
3rd February 2009
Africa's economic growth will fall
to 3,25% this year from an average 6% in the last couple of years, the IMF said
on Tuesday, urging African states to agree reforms and to diversify to help
recovery.
Experts say initial hopes the world's poorest continent would avoid
the worst the credit crunch were premature, and that it will be hit by falling
demand for commodities, less foreign investment, reduced remittances, tourism
and taxes.
"There is a need to advance policy reforms even more than before
because of the current situation," Benedicte Christensen, the International
Monetary Fund's deputy director for Africa, told Reuters in an interview. "But
the risk is also whether it is possible to have the consensus for
it."
Christensen said oil producing countries and major commodity exporters
like Zambia and Democratic Republic of Congo had seen growth fall quite sharply,
but the Fund was predicting weaker growth across the board in Africa.
"On the
fiscal side, we see deterioration in the fiscal balances by an average of 6
percent of GDP for countries in sub-Saharan Africa," she said on the sidelines
of an African Union (AU) summit in Ethiopia.
"And on external current account
deficits, we see a deterioration of 4%, so a little less, but still very
significant. These orders of magnitude clearly suggest there will be a serious
crisis hitting the continent."
The Fund's managing director, Dominique
Strauss-Kahn, and the outgoing AU chairman, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete,
will co-host a conference of African leaders, finance officials and policymakers
in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on March 10 and March 11.
Christensen said the
talks would provide a valuable chance for African governments to discuss how to
deal with the economic downturn ahead of a G20 meeting in London in
April.
"DEEPER REFORMS"
While many nations' budgets were already coming
under increased pressure and hard-won gains in macro-economic stability were in
danger of being unwound by the turmoil, Christensen said, the situation
presented opportunities too.
"Perhaps it's time to try to forge consensus for
deeper reforms, particularly for economic diversification, she said.
High
food prices in recent months had shown the need to promote African agriculture,
she added, and there was also the chance to lay a foundation for greater private
sector activity on the continent by slashing obstacles to
investment.
Speaking in Davos last week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
called for the rebuilding of institutions like the IMF and World Bank that were
created in the 1940s when the world's financial landscape was very
different.
Christensen said the Fund had changed a lot in the last decade,
but saw the need to continue to adapt its operations.
The IMF has set up
committees, she said, including one led by South African Finance Minister Trevor
Manuel, to study internal governance issues and how to enhance its
legitimacy.
"There has been reforms going on ... and in a number of areas we
are changing. Early warning signals that tended to focus on emerging markets are
now also being focused on the advanced economies," she said. "We are also trying
to develop our understanding of macro financial linkages, to better understand
how the crisis will hit the real economy."
She said the Fund was currently
reviewing how it worked with low income countries like those in sub-Saharan
Africa: "In light of the needs we see right now, we'll see if there is a need
for new facilities or further changes to existing ones."
Edited by:
Reuters
______________________________________________
http://news.bbc.co.uk:80/2/hi/africa/7869071.stm
.
Robert Mugabe
will remain as president under the proposed unity government
The US says it
will only consider easing sanctions against Zimbabwe when it sees evidence of
real power-sharing between the rival parties.
A state department spokesman
said new aid for Harare was dependant on inclusive and effective
governance.
The statement comes a day after a similar announcement by the
UK.
Meanwhile, parliament has delayed a debate on changes to the constitution
to allow opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to become prime minister.
The
session was postponed until negotiators from President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF
party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) return from South
Africa, where they have been trying to reach an agreement on details of a
power-sharing deal.
The MDC agreed on Friday to join a national unity
government with Zanu-PF after months of bitter wrangling.
'True power
sharing'
US state department spokesman Robert Wood said "the success or
failure of such a government will depend on credible and inclusive power sharing
by Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party".
"The US will only consider new
development assistance and easing of targeted sanctions when we have seen
evidence of true power sharing as well as inclusive and effective
governance."
He added: "We will continue to provide humanitarian assistance
to the Zimbabwean people in their time of suffering."
Mr Wood also called on
the international community to "continue to scrutinise actions by Mr Mugabe to
ensure adherence to the letter and spirit of this agreement, including respect
for human rights and the rule of law".
The UN says cholera has infected
65,000 people in Zimbabwe
On Tuesday, a British cabinet member said sanctions
must be maintained to "keep the squeeze" on Mr Mugabe and his inner circle until
they show they have changed course.
Africa Minister Lord Malloch-Brown spoke
to the BBC from an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where leaders
had called for the sanctions to be lifted.
"There is a misunderstanding of
what these sanctions are. They are aimed at the individuals - and the companies
supporting these individuals - around Mr Mugabe," he said.
"They are not
aimed at the country of Zimbabwe or its people."
Donors have said they would
only provide aid once a unity government is in place.
New deal
Under last
week's deal, Mr Tsvangirai will be sworn in as prime minister on 11 February and
Mr Mugabe will stay as president.
A power-sharing deal between the MDC and
Zanu-PF was signed last September, but got mired in ever more bitter
disputes.
The unity government is intended to ease Zimbabwe's economic
meltdown but correspondents say this is largely dependent on the restoration of
foreign aid and investment.
Zimbabwe is enduring rampant inflation and an
escalating food crisis.
Meanwhile an outbreak of cholera, fuelled by the
collapse of infrastructure, has now infected nearly 66,000 people and killed
more than
3,300.
______________________________________________
.
http://abcnews.go.com/OnCampus/story?id=6786596&page=1
Frank
Chikowore Discusses Harrowing Experiences Fighting for Free Speech, Calls
Journalists to Action
By JASON TARR
SYRACUSE, N.Y., Feb. 3, 2009
He was
arrested for journalism.
Journalist Frank Chikowore received the 2009 Tully
Center Free Speech Award at Syracuse University.
(Courtesy Syracuse
University)In Zimbabwe, Frank Chikowore sat in an overcrowded jail cell where
feces flowed on the floor. He was denied access to his lawyers, his relatives,
and even to food. He knows what it is like when government officials in a
country that limits freedom of the press are not happy about the stories he
writes.
"Upcoming journalists must try to promote the freedom of the press,"
Chikowore urged students, many of them aspiring journalists, at Syracuse
University last week. "We must be courageous enough because if we bow down to
submission, who will say it?"
Chikowore is a freelance journalist in
Zimbabwe, a nation in southern Africa where the internationally infamous regime
of President Robert Mugabe has sharply limited the freedom of the press. For
example, in 2002, Zimbabwean authorities closed down four newspapers after the
government passed a law forcing journalists to acquire expensive registration
papers from the government. Just three years after the law passed, the
government shut down the "Weekly Times" where Chikowore worked as a senior
reporter. He now maintains a blog that provides articles and information on
Zimbabwean politics.
Last week, Chikowore was on the campus of Syracuse
University to receive a 2009 Tully Center Free Speech Award. Barry Bearak, a
reporter for The New York Times who works in Johannesburg, South Africa, is the
other recipient of the 2009 award. Bearak was not able to attend. The award,
which carries a $ 2,000 prize and covers travel expenses, is given annually to
people whose work represents the importance of free speech.
The center, which
works closely with the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, paid for
Chikowore to visit Washington, D.C., where he will take in political sites and
the new Newseum.
Chikowore drew a packed house. Students, faculty, and guests
sat on the stairwell, on the floor, and stood in the doorway of a packed
Syracuse University auditorium to hear him speak. Chikowore told the audience
harrowing stories about his personal experiences, stressed the importance of
forcing a change in laws to regain freedom of speech, and called student
journalists to action.
Many students were stunned by his stories of how the
Zimbabwean government has taken away freedom of the press.
"I was kind of
shocked to hear that this type of thing still goes on," said junior Nikita
Chinnery, a senior public relations and international relations major from
Atlanta, Ga.
The story of one of Chikowore's incarcerations particularly
resonated with students like Chinnery.
Arrested for Journalism
The story
started with Chikowore's arrest on Feb. 15, 2008. Chikowore was covering the
Zimbabwean elections and was covering a strike led by the opposition party,
Movement for Democratic Change. Government officials pounced on him, he said,
taking him into custody for "practicing journalism."
Officials held him in
detention for 17 days, charging him with many different crimes. Eventually, they
accused him of 78 counts of attempted murder for a bus fire that had occurred
earlier in the day. It was at that point he became "disturbed." He feared he
might go to jail for life, leaving his wife and children without a husband and a
father. He was eventually released after the state failed to prosecute
him.
He fears for his freedom because he is a journalist.
"The freedom of
the press is under siege in Zimbabwe and as journalists we can't operate
freely," Chikowore said. "Many of us have been arrested. I have lost count of
the number of times I have been arrested."
But, more than anything, Chikowore
said, it is the laws of his country that must be changed if conditions are going
to improve for journalists and the people of Zimbabwe. He sharply criticized
Zimbabwe's press law, called the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy
Act. It requires journalists to apply for, and pay for, a government-issued
journalism license. The law made it a crime to practice journalism without a
license. The cost of these licenses may be as much as $ 50,000, he said. In a
poor nation like Zimbabwe, Chikowore said, that cost severely limits the number
of independent voices in the press. Major network news stations like CNN and the
BBC are not allowed to have reporters on the ground in Zimbabwe, either.
"The
situation in Zimbabwe will never change unless the laws change," Chikowore said.
"My conscience tells me that anyone must be in a position to disseminate
information without hindrance."
Changing laws in Zimbabwe will most likely be
up to the sovereign people of his nation, he said. But he stressed it is also
important in places like the United States to protect against laws that harm the
freedom of the press, and to create international support.
Chikowore uses the
Internet as a way to reach people. The blog he writes allows for him to get
around some of the Zimbabwean laws and restrictions on the press, he said. He
resists the term "blogger" but said he is a media reporter providing access to
information. The problem, he said, that he and other Internet journalists in
Zimbabwe face is that most Zimbabweans still do not have access to the
Internet.
Avoiding Persecution
But Chikowore said it didn't necessarily
matter how many people received the information. It is more important that they
have access to it, he said. He urged students and journalists alike to strive
for the freedom to publish that information without fear of persecution.
His
words served as a call to action for many students, like journalism graduate
student Brittni Smallwood of Somerset, N.J.
"He makes me think that when I go
out to do journalism, I need to say I am not going to deliver anything but the
truth. I'm not going to deliver anything but solid journalism," Smallwood said.
"He makes me think that being a journalist is much more than just the title. It
really is a lifestyle."
Chikowore left students with a piece of advice that
he said is one of the keys to working toward freedom of speech.
"We have an
important role in society and we have a responsibility to inform people of what
is going on around them," Chikowore said. "So, just get your pen and tell the
story."
______________________________________________
.
http://bentrovato.book.co.za/blog/2009/02/04/grace-mugabe-in-perfect-mental-health/
February
4th, 2009 by Ben Trovato
From: Professor Benjamin Trovato
Sent: 30 January
2009 07:56 PM
To: His Excellency President Robert Mugabe
Dear Mr
President,
As per your request, I examined your wife, Grace, upon her recent
return from China and may I say what a lovely woman she is. You are a very lucky
man.
Having said that, however, I would be failing in my duty if I did not
admit to having detected one or two interesting anomalies in her psychiatric
make-up.
While Grace admits to having attacked a man upon leaving a Hong Kong
shopping mall, she maintains that she was stricken by an episode of snow
blindness and mistook the photographer for a Ninja assassin working for British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
I find her version of events entirely plausible.
History has shown us that the Chinese cannot be trusted. You only have to ask
the Japanese. Or place an order at my local takeaway. You ask for stir-fried
shrimp and they give you chicken that smells like fish. But I digress.
During
our session, Grace used her lipstick to draw several organograms on my office
wall, proving that the triads are controlled by the House of Lords. This makes
perfect sense given that Britain ruled Hong Kong with an iron fist for 150
years.
Grace told me her primary concern was that Hong Kong, her preferred
shopping destination, would now be closed to her.
I assured her that these
fears were unfounded. All it would take is a call from you to President Hu
Jintao threatening to cut off their rhino horn and close down the shoe
shops.
Complete article in the Sunday
Times
______________________________________________
.
http://www.cw.ua.edu/a_quest_for_justice-1.1353104
Crimson
White
Alan Blinder
Published: Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Late last
week, word came out of Zimbabwe that Robert Mugabe, the nation’s dictator for
more than two decades, and Morgan Tsvangirai, the longtime opposition leader,
had yet again forged an agreement to share power after a flawed election last
spring. Regardless of whether the agreement holds - and given Mugabe’s pungent
lack of character, there is no guarantee that it will - Tsvangirai has proven
himself to be a leader of remarkable poise and unwavering courage, traits that
together are rarely matched among the world’s statesmen. While far from perfect,
Tsvangirai, through his words and deeds, has given his beloved Zimbabwe its best
chance for a semblance of justice.
Three days after Zimbabweans went to the
polls last year, I arrived in neighboring South Africa. Picking up a newspaper
in Johannesburg, I found a stirring headline: “Mugabe Teeters.” Despite not
being on the streets of Harare, I felt like I was hearing a desperate cry for
help through exit poll results.
A desperate cry for help that soon grew into
shrieks of pain as Mugabe supporters, according to the New York Times, “armed
with iron bars and sticks, beat up people who had come to cheer for Mr.
Tsvangirai.” The Mugabe assault on democracy did not last a day; rather, each
day was a part of a broad, fatal reign of state-sponsored terror. Tsvingirai, in
a selfless bid to halt the bloodshed, withdrew from the runoff.
The United
States verbally threatened the Mugabe regime in the wake of this most ardent
breach of democratic ideals, but the trouble with such an approach is that
dictators are anything but ignorant of geopolitics, and they often cling to
their power until they breathe their last. An infamous example of such audacity
comes from one of the last century’s most repressive dictators, Mao Zedong of
China, who watched seventy million of his countrymen die during his tenure.
Despite that statistic, one biographer, Jung Chang, writes, “His mind remained
lucid to the end, and in it stirred just one thought: himself and his
power.”
Mugabe might be a sociopathic autocrat, but he is, and always has
been, an astute political tactician. He recognized that the United States would
do little more than to slap him on the wrist with another round of sanctions.
Economic sanctions do not unnerve dictators who have sent their economies into
eleven-figure inflation. It’s not as if the African nations were going to force
Mugabe out; the region’s most powerful leader, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa,
never seemed to find the desire to find his voice to send his friend, Mugabe,
into exile.
Enter Morgan Tsvangirai, who went into self-imposed exile after
winning a plurality of votes in the first round of elections, but not the
majority required to avoid a runoff. He is not as shrewd a strategist as Mugabe
and is perhaps a bit naïve, but Tsvangirai has proven his grit and, moreover,
his commitment to a just Zimbabwe. He has seen the presidency stolen from him
twice, yet he has remained nonviolent and ceded power, seemingly, in an effort
to make peace. He has been tried for treason after his nation’s own intelligence
service allegedly framed him, but he has not betrayed the ideals that made him a
target of the government he sought to change. He has proven himself to be one of
the great champions of democracy in Africa and elsewhere.
We are in desperate
need of leaders who champion the idea of justice.
Tsvingarai might not merely
be the best hope of his nation, but he might be the voice the world needs to
turn to for courageous, altruistic leadership. First, though, we need to help
him save Zimbabwe.
Alan Blinder is a freshman majoring in history and
journalism. He is a regular contributor to The Crimson
White.
______________________________________________
.
http://www.africasia.com:80/services/news/newsitem.php?area=africa&item=090204060901.85zz8kox.php
News
from Africa
04/02/2009 06:09
ADDIS ABABA, Feb 4 (AFP)
Rescuing
Zimbabwe's shattered economy will be the test of the unity government due to be
installed next week, South African President Kgalema Motlanthe said in an
interview Wednesday.
Motlanthe led the latest round of talks among southern
African leaders to press Zimbabwe's long-time President Robert Mugabe and
opposition chief Morgan Tsvangirai into a unity deal.
After marathon talks
last week, they agreed to form the government to end months of political strife
following disputed elections in March.
Critics have questioned whether Mugabe
and Tsvangirai would be able to work together effectively, after years of deep
mistrust and political violence that has targetted mainly opposition
supporters.
Motlanthe said that he saw the unity government as a transitional
power whose main job would be to salvage the economy that has crumbled under the
world's highest inflation rate, last estimated at 231 million percent, but
believed many times higher.
"Essentially the inclusive government is a
transitional authority," he said in a joint interview with AFP and South African
television SABC.
"Depending on how it goes, and whether by agreement this
inclusive government decides to call early elections... that's a matter that
they would be able to resolve as Zimbabweans," he said on the sidelines of the
African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital.
"The main tasks were really to
stabilise the political situation and embark on economic recovery for the
country," he added.
Zimbabwe once boasted one of Africa's most dynamic
economies, but since Mugabe began resettling black farmers on white-owned lands
in 2000, his country has fallen into a seemingly endless spiral of
decline.
Mugabe told the summit Tuesday that western sanctions - which
consist mainly of a travel ban and asset freeze on him and his inner circle -
had destroyed Zimbabwe's economy.
"Our condemnation, our isolation is because
my government took the necessary measures to create conditions for equal
opportunities, for decolonisation, for creating conditions in which our people
could regain their lost resources," he said.
No-one has disputed the need for
land reform in Zimbabwe, but Mugabe's programme left black farmers with little
experience and little support to maintain the vast commercial farms that were
the backbone of the economy.
Now a country that once exported food is
dependent on food aid, with nearly seven million people - more than half the
population - facing hunger.
Hyperinflation has left the local currency
worthless, forcing Zimbabweans to pay trillions of dollars for a loaf of
bread.
With little foreign currency, basic services have broken down.
Crumbling sanitation systems have sparked the world's worst cholera outbreak in
over a decade, claiming more than 3,000 lives.
"Once the inclusive government
is in place, part of the responsibility will be to go and try to attract
investments, particularly in the infrastructure," Motlanthe said.
"The
telling part in terms of the implementation of the economic recovery plan would
be to get investment in infrastructure," he said.
Western countries last year
promised billions of dollars in aid if Mugabe were to leave power. So far,
donors like the United States and Britain are waiting to see if the unity
government succeeds before taking out their chequebooks.
©2009
AFP
______________________________________________
.
http://www.independent.co.uk:80/news/world/africa/the-big-question-will-power-sharing-in-zimbabwe-work-and-is-it-time-to-lift-sanctions-1544956.html
By
Basildon Peta, Southern Africa Correspondent
Wednesday, 4 February
2009
Why are we asking this now?
The African Union (AU) leaders who are
meeting in Addis Ababa for their annual summit have called for an unconditional
lifting of all EU and US sanctions against Zimbabwe. This would enable the new
unity government to begin the unenviable task of reconstructing Zimbabwe's
battered economy. President Robert Mugabe's long-time allies in the regional
body, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which was mandated by
the AU to find a solution to the long-running crises in the former British
colony, have always opposed sanctions and have also called for their lifting.
They point out that it would be virtually impossible to begin the task of
rebuilding Zimbabwe's economy unless new aid flows to the unity
government.
What is Zimbabwe's unity government?
On September 15 a
power-sharing agreement was signed between Mr Mugabe, who remains President, and
the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who becomes Prime Minister. It gives Mr
Mugabe control of 15 of the 31 government ministries in Zimbabwe, while Mr
Tsvangirai was given 13, a further three are administered by a smaller splinter
faction of Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Arthur
Mutambara. The Global Political Agreement also states that the 10 regional
governor positions in Zimbabwe will also be distributed among all three parties
- though a formula is yet to be agreed. The September agreement seeks the
overhauling of national security legislation to depoliticise security forces
that have been routinely manipulated by Mr Mugabe in his desperate efforts to
cling to power.
Why has the agreement taken so long to implement?
No
sooner had the ink dried on the agreement than Mr Mugabe started violating it -
taking a number of unilateral decisions. He appointed loyalists to all of the 10
governor posts - contrary to the deal, and unilaterally gazetted the allocation
of all powerful ministries to his Zanu-PF party, leaving Mr Tsvangirai with what
he later called "unstrategic ministries" of "crumbs". Mr Mugabe proceeded to
make senior government appointments, including that of central bank governor and
attorney-general, without consulting the Prime Minister-designate. He also
refused to renew Mr Tsvangirai's passport. The result was that the opposition
leader was exiled for two months after he left the country to receive a human
rights award with a temporary passport.
What happened next?
Mr Tsvangirai
declared that he would never join Mr Mugabe in government as long as his demands
for an equitable distribution of ministries, governorships, ambassadorships and
other senior government posts, as well as the introduction of new security
legislation to overhaul the workings of partisan security forces, were
met.
While the power-sharing deal faltered, Zimbabwe's economy collapsed with
official inflation, last announced in July 2008, reaching a global record of 231
million per cent. It has since spiralled even further. SADC leaders then called
an emergency summit in Johannesburg last week at which they effectively
arm-twisted Mr Tsvangirai into agreeing to be sworn in as Prime Minister on 11
February. The rest of the government will be sworn in two days later.
Why did
Mr Tsvangirai take up a position when his demands have not been met?
Many
analysts say the MDC leader's lack of a plan B - should the power-sharing deal
collapse - forced him to capitulate. Throughout his decade-long struggle against
Mr Mugabe, Mr Tsvangirai has failed to harness the swelling anger against the
regime into an either peaceful or violent revolution that could oust Mr Mugabe.
His only strategy has been to ask for help from African leaders who have been
hesitant to attack the president publicly. They still revere his contribution to
anti-colonial struggles. Mr Tsvangirai tried unsuccessfully to win the support
of the ousted South African President Thabo Mbeki, whose country has sufficient
influence over Mr Mugabe to force him out of power within hours if it so chose.
Mr Mbeki passionately shares the 85-year-old President's anti-racism and
anti-Western rhetoric and would not be moved. So Mr Tsvangirai decided to fight
to achieve change the old tyrant from within government.
What is the state of
the country now?
A cholera epidemic has officially killed 3,295 Zimbabweans
and 64,000 others are infected with the disease. Zimbabweans no longer go to
state hospitals and clinics because of lack of medical staff and drugs. Most
choose to die in their homes. Meanwhile, the once-proud education sector has
collapsed with pupils being sent home at the opening of the new term due to a
lack of teachers. Inflation, last officially announced at 231 million per cent,
is no longer calculable as prices increase by the hour and most shops no longer
accept worthless Zimbabwean dollars. The central bank has just knocked off 12
zeros from the local currency in an attempt to give it value but the move is
likely to be to no avail.
So will the power-sharing agreement actually work
in practice?
The UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and many other world
leaders have been making impassioned pleas to all the parties to ensure the
agreement actually works and provides relief to Zimbabwe's suffering masses. But
it is doubtful if Mr Tsvangirai and a new government can, by the February
deadline, proceed as planned. Mr Tsvangirai's MDC has accused Mr Mugabe of
acting in the "utmost bad faith" and of violating the undertakings he gave to
SADC leaders last week. Yesterday Mr Mugabe's negotiators refused to discuss the
issue of the re-appointments of the 10 provincial governors and the introduction
of new security legislation of which the MDC has already compiled a draft.
Agreement on those two issues would have led to the passing of the
constitutional amendment giving effect to the power-sharing agreement this week.
And in turn this would set the scene for the swearing-in of Mr Tsvangirai and
his ministers later on.
Can any agreement now take place?
The tone of the
MDC statement would make even the most optimistic analyst doubt that Mr
Tsvangirai and Mr Mugabe could ever work together. Even if the new government is
sworn in, Mr Mugabe is, in any event, unlikely to agree to the policy overhauls
required to put Zimbabwe back on track. In any case, many believe that serious
policy differences between the two men would kill the coalition government
within months.
Should sanctions against Mr Mugabe be lifted?
While African
leaders want them lifted, many think this would be a very bad idea. Most of
these sanctions are targeted at travel to halt members of the regime from
pursuing lavish spending in America and Europe. And there remains a fundamental
issue: the unity government agreement does not confer legitimacy on Mr Mugabe
after he lost the first round of balloting in both presidential and
parliamentary elections last March. And since the President is illegitimate, the
sanctions against him should remain.
So can Mugabe and Tsvangirai
co-operate?
Yes...
* Provided Mugabe uses it to find an escape route into
retirement and thus leave Tsvangirai in charge
* Provided Tsvangirai gives
immunity to Mr Mugabe against future prosecution for human rights abuses
*
Provided African leaders find money to bankroll Zimbabwe's recovery in place of
Western aid
No...
* The policy differences are vast, and they will not be
able to agree on questions of law, and investment
* Mugabe's violations of
the agreement thus far bode ill. He is not minded to loosen his grip on
power
* Similar agreements in the past have only resulted in Mugabe
swallowing up or destroying the
opposition
______________________________________________
Sokwanele
- Enough is Enough - Zimbabwe - 4 February 2008
(
Sokwanele - Enough is
Enough - Zimbabwe
PROMOTING NON-VIOLENT PRINCIPLES TO ACHIEVE
DEMOCRACY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sokwanele : 4 February 2008
Zimbabwe
Inclusive Government Watch (ZIG Watch) is tracking articles and reports which
provide examples of violations of the agreement between Zanu PF and the two
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Formations signed in Harare on 15 September
2008.
A great weight of responsibility rests on the shoulders of Zimbabwe's
new Joint-Monitoring Implementation Committee (JOMIC), which began work in
Harare on Monday.
JOMIC was set up to ensure that the unity government
proceeds according to the Global Political Agreement (GPA) signed by all three
political parties on 15 September last year in an effort to resolve the
nine-year crisis.
The 12-member committee comprises eight senior Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party members drawn from both formations, and four
senior Zanu PF party members.
JOMIC will monitor compliance with, and
progress on, items agreed within the GPA. The panel is tasked with resolving
existing and emerging disputes among the parties or government agencies through
dialogue. It will also receive reports and complaints in respect of any issue
related to the implementation, enforcement and execution of the agreement.
In
cases where it fails, the disputes are to be referred to the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU).
In a statement
released last week, SADC said the committee was required to be a catalyst in the
creation and promotion of trust and understanding.
In view of Zanu PF's track
record, this will prove to be a significant challenge. To date Sokwanele's
Zimbabwe Inclusive Government Watch monitoring project has logged a total of 770
breaches of the 25 "Articles" contained in the agreement.
Of these, Zanu PF
has committed 757 (97.4%), MDC (T) 11 (2.2%) and MDC (M) 2 (0.4%)
The
breaches range from the most appalling and inhuman forms of torture to the
denial of food aid to MDC supporters - or perceived supporters - or even the
outright theft of food aid.
Corruption continues to be endemic and includes
the ruthless plundering of mining resources. On 13 December, it was reported
that nearly 80 people had been murdered by the Zimbabwean army in its campaign
to take control of a diamond field near the eastern city of Mutare.
In this
second issue of ZIG Watch, released in the wake of Friday's signing of the
power-sharing agreement, we highlight 11 media articles detailing violations.
They are drawn from a list of 130 compiled between 10 December and 31
January.
Jestina Mukoko, project director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, who
was abducted and severely tortured almost three months ago by the Mugabe regime,
remains in detention and her bail hearing has been postponed.
Over 30 MDC and
civil society activists who face a range of dubious charges are also being
detained in appalling prison conditions. State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa
has signed an affidavit confirming the abductions were officially
sanctioned.
Nigel Mupfuranhehwe, a two-year-old toddler who was abducted with
his parents and beaten by security agents - to the degree that he needed medical
attention - was only released after 76 days in jail. His parents remain in
prison.
Shortly after Nigel's release, the Zimbabwe Association for Crime
Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender released a report revealing the
inhuman conditions existing at most prisons across the country.
Released on
13 January, the Physicians for Human Rights report detailed the dramatic
reversal of the population's access to food, clean water, basic sanitation, and
health care under the Mugabe regime. It also accused the regime of abrogating
the most basic state functions in protecting the health of the
population.
Less than two weeks later, it was reported that council clinics
had started charging patients in US dollars. According to Health Minister David
Parirenyatwa, the fees had been approved by the Mugabe government.
Despite
escalating starvation countrywide, a Zanu PF-controlled food task force has
plundered thousands of tonnes of mealie-meal and maize (corn) using helpless
millers to swindle the Grain Marketing Board. It is being sold at massively
inflated prices on the black market.
Earlier in the month, newly appointed
Attorney General Johannes Tomana said he would proceed with the prosecution of
all commercial farmers who had acted in breach of government's order to vacate
gazetted land. This was in spite of a November 2008 ruling by the SADC Tribunal
in Windhoek, Namibia, barring the government from continuing with its eviction
of the farmers in question.
Fresh farm invasions have been instigated by
Themba Mliswa, the Zanu PF secretary for Lands in Mashonaland West province. At
a provincial meeting for A2 farmers in Chegutu on 28 January, those with offer
letters were told to grab the farms before Tsvangirai took up office.
Gideon
Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank, has again been embroiled in an embarrassing
financial scandal. It has emerged that he gave licences pegged at US$ 20 000 for
Foreign Exchange Licenced Warehouses and Shops to Zanu PF members, friends and
relatives free of charge.
Once again journalists have been targeted, this
time by being charged "astronomical" accreditation fees. Under Zimbabwe's harsh
media legislation, which has yet to be repealed, journalists can be arrested for
practising without accreditation.
A detailed breakdown of all these breaches
on the Global Political Agreement, by clauses per article, is available at
www.sokwanele.com/zigwatch. This includes other breaches not included in this
email. If you do not have access to the internet and want to view the
sub-clauses within each article breached, please send a blank email to
documents@sokwanele.com. This will trigger an auto-respond email containing the
full-text of the Global Political
Agreement
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What
follows is a selection of media articles highlighting breaches of the Global
Political Agreement (the articles breached are listed below each media
extract).
Mukoko bail hearing postponed again, as legal games continue
SW
Radio Africa (ZW): 30/01/2009
Zimbabwe’s political rivals agreed to a unity
government on Friday, but for abducted and detained activist Jestina Mukoko
nothing changed as Justice Anne-Marie Gowora postponed her bail hearing. The
legal technicalities thrown up in all the cases have ensured the state succeeds
in holding the activists in custody for as long as possible. On Friday Justice
Gowora said the defence had to file a written response to the issues raised by
state in opposing bail for Mukoko. Almost 3 months into her abduction and
detention the Zimbabwe Peace Project Director is still to be charged for the
offences Mugabe’s regime claims she committed. In a cruel twist of events the
state is claiming that a bail application cannot be heard because Mukoko has not
been charged yet. Defence lawyer Harrison Nkomo said they would file the
requested written response on the same Friday. The case will now be heard on
Monday.
ARTICLE XIII : STATE ORGANS AND INSTITUTIONS
ARTICLE XVIII :
SECURITY OF PERSONS AND PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE
Toddler, 2, beaten in
prison
Independent Online (RSA): 04/01/2009
Horror stories are emerging
from Chikurubi Maximum Security prison in Zimbabwe where at least 16 human
rights activists are being held. In a shocking revelation, activists report the
youngest prisoner, Nigel Mupfuranhehwe, a two-year-old - who was abducted with
his parents Violet Mupfuranhehwe and Collen Mutamagau - was beaten by security
agents and needed medical attention. The lawyers of Jestina Mukoko, the director
of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), have also called for a toxicology report
for fear the Zimbabwe government is poisoning her. Mukoko is being force-fed
drugs by the army doctor who oversaw her torture.
ARTICLE XI : RULE OF LAW,
RESPECT FOR THE CONSTITUTION AND OTHER LAWS
ARTICLE XIII : STATE ORGANS AND
INSTITUTIONS
ARTICLE XVIII : SECURITY OF PERSONS AND PREVENTION OF
VIOLENCE
Zimbabwe security minister says abductions sanctioned by
state
VOANews (USA): 31/12/2008
Zimbabwean State Security Minister Didymus
Mutasa has declared in court documents that agents of Harare's security
apparatus carried out the seizure of opposition and civil society activists,
lawyers defending the currently jailed activists said on Wednesday. The lawyers
said Mutasa signed an affidavit to the effect that the seizures or abductions as
they have been characterized by the Movement for Democratic Change, dozens of
whose members were abducted in recent months, were officially
sanctioned.
ARTICLE XI : RULE OF LAW, RESPECT FOR THE CONSTITUTION AND OTHER
LAWS
ARTICLE XIII : STATE ORGANS AND INSTITUTIONS
ARTICLE XVIII : SECURITY
OF PERSONS AND PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE
Report paints horrifying picture of
conditions in prisons
Zimbabwean, The (ZW): 24/01/2009
The government has
established a cemetery at one of its biggest jails to bury hundreds of prisoners
dying from disease and hunger. Last month, prison officials had to conduct a
mass burial of the decomposing bodies of prisoners who had been kept in a room
at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison for six months because a mortuary at Harare
Central Prison was full, the report said. According to the report, 2008 was "the
most horrific and traumatic year" for both inmates and prison wardens. Prisoners
went for days without a meal and were occasionally supplied with food "only
meant to keep a person alive" such as the staple porridge, sadza. The report
continued: "The death impact of prisoners saw the opening of a cemetery at
Chikurubi Prison Farm. The main causes of prisoners' deaths included reduced
meals, shortage of drugs and the poor health environment in our prisons," it
said.
ARTICLE XVI : HUMANITARIAN AND FOOD ASSISTANCE
Health in Ruins: A
Man-Made Disaster in Zimbabwe
Physicians for Human Rights:
13/01/2009
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) witnesses the utter collapse of
Zimbabwe's health system, once a model in southern Africa. These shocking
findings should compel the international community to respond as it should to
other human rights emergencies. PHR rightly calls into question the legitimacy
of a regime that, in the report's words, has abrogated the most basic state
functions in protecting the health of the population. As the report documents,
the Mugabe regime has used any means at its disposal, including politicizing the
health sector, to maintain its hold on power.
ARTICLE XVI : HUMANITARIAN AND
FOOD ASSISTANCE
Zimbabweans seeking medical treatment forced to pay in
forex
Harare Tribune, The: 22/01/2009
Ordinary Zimbabweans continue facing
a bleak future as council clinics have started charging in foreign currency. The
clinics, which are depleted by both staff and medication, are demanding fees in
United States dollars. Clinics are the first port of call for patients before
they can be attended to at referral hospitals and the foreign currency fees are
a major blow to many. The fees have been approved by the President Robert
Mugabe’s regime, according to Health Minister David Parirenyatwa. He defended
the position saying of late, many patients were opting to pay in foreign
currency.
ARTICLE XVI : HUMANITARIAN AND FOOD ASSISTANCE
Zanu-PF food
taskforce plunders grain
ZimEye: 24/01/2009
A Zanu-PF controlled food
taskforce has plundered thousands of tones of mealie-meal and maize in Bulawayo.
Sources revealed that the Zanu-PF taskforce was working using a group of
helpless millers to swindle the GMB of large quantities of maize. The food
taskforce is said to be asking for over 70 percent of the maize and mealie-meal
from the small millers. Revelations are that the Zanu-PF food taskforce was
making a killing by selling a 10kg bag of mealie-meal for 60 Rands or US$ 6. The
majority of Zimbabweans cannot afford to buy mealie-meal because they have
restricted access to foreign currency, leaving the corrupt Zanu-PF members to
benefit at the expense of many. The sources said the taskforce, which is chaired
by the Bulawayo Provincial administrator, Leonard Ncube, was responsible for the
disappearing of maize from the state-run Grain Marketing Board.
ARTICLE VII :
PROMOTION OF EQUALITY, NATIONAL HEALING, COHESION AND UNITY
ARTICLE XI : RULE
OF LAW, RESPECT FOR THE CONSTITUTION AND OTHER LAWS
ARTICLE XIII : STATE
ORGANS AND INSTITUTIONS
ARTICLE XVI : HUMANITARIAN AND FOOD
ASSISTANCE
Tomana vows to prosecute farmers
Zimbabwe Times, The (ZW):
14/01/2009
Zimbabwe’s newly appointed Attorney General, Johannes Tomana, says
he will proceed with the prosecution of all commercial farmers who have acted in
breach of government’s order to vacate gazetted land. This is in spite of a
November 2008 ruling by the SADC Tribunal barring government from continuing
with its eviction of the farmers in question. In passing the judgement, the
President of the tribunal, Judge Mondale, said the Zimbabwe government had
violated the treaty governing the 15-nation regional bloc by compulsorily
acquiring their land. But in a letter written to lawyers representing the
farmers, Tomana, an ardent supporter of President Robert Mugabe, is adamant that
he will go ahead with the prosecutions. Commenting on the ruling, the Minister
of State for National Security, Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement in the
President’s Office, Didymus Mutasa said government would continue to appropriate
more la nd from the white farmers.
ARTICLE III : RESTORATION OF ECONOMIC
STABILITY AND GROWTH
ARTICLE V: LAND QUESTION
ARTICLE XI : RULE OF LAW,
RESPECT FOR THE CONSTITUTION AND OTHER LAWS
ARTICLE XIII : STATE ORGANS AND
INSTITUTIONS
Mliswa urges last-minute farm invasions
Zimbabwe Times, The
(ZW): 30/01/2009
Fresh farm invasions have been witnessed in Mashonaland West
province as frustrated Zanu PF supporters try to grab pieces of land before the
inception of an all inclusive government by Zanu PF and MDC in two weeks' time.
The invasions are said to have been instigated by Themba Mliswa, the Zanu PF
Secretary for Lands in Mashonaland West province at a provincial meeting for A2
farmers in Chegutu on Wednesday. Witnesses told The Zimbabwe Times that Mliswa
openly told Zanu PF supporters who were still holding onto offer letters that
they risked not owning any farms in their lives if they did not forcibly take
ownership of land before February 11. Mliswa, a staunch supporter of President
Robert Mugabe, told the farmers that it would be difficult to occupy their land
once MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai had been sworn in as Prime
Minister.
ARTICLE III : RESTORATION OF ECONOMIC STABILITY AND
GROWTH
ARTICLE V: LAND QUESTION
ARTICLE XI : RULE OF LAW, RESPECT FOR THE
CONSTITUTION AND OTHER LAWS
ARTICLE XIII : STATE ORGANS AND
INSTITUTIONS
ARTICLE XVIII : SECURITY OF PERSONS AND PREVENTION OF
VIOLENCE
Gideon Gono engulfed in another embarrassing scandal
Afrik.com:
30/01/2009
Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, has again
been fingered in an embarrassing financial scandal as it has emerged that he
gave the Foreign Exchange Licenced Warehouses and Shops (FOLIWARS) free of
charge to Zanu PF members, friends and relatives. The licenses are pegged at US$
20 000 but to date not one of those who is trading has paid such an amount. Said
a source at the RBZ headquarters, “Nobody has paid for the RBZ licences because
most of those trading in forex are relations and friends of Gono. We are angry
about the development because we are being denied an opportunity to trade in
hard currency when the economy has been dollarised.” According to the source,
Gono was empowering his Zanu PF cronies as part of a looting strategy.
Businesspeople linked to opposition politics are said to have been sidelined in
getting licences to sell wares in United States dollars and rands. “If you a Zan
u PF member, you are quick to be granted a licence without going through
hassles. That’s an instruction we received from the Governor (Gono).
ARTICLE
III : RESTORATION OF ECONOMIC STABILITY AND GROWTH
ARTICLE VII : PROMOTION OF
EQUALITY, NATIONAL HEALING, COHESION AND UNITY
ARTICLE XI : RULE OF LAW,
RESPECT FOR THE CONSTITUTION AND OTHER LAWS
ARTICLE XIII : STATE ORGANS AND
INSTITUTIONS
Zimbabwean journalists criticize 'astronomical' fees
Earth
Times: 11/01/2009
Journalists in Zimbabwe on Sunday criticized recent
"astronomical" accreditation fees by President Robert Mugabe's government. Last
week, a government-run media commission imposed a fee of 4,000 US dollars on
local journalists working for the foreign media in Zimbabwe in 2009. Foreign
media houses pay 10,000 dollars for the application and 20,000 for
accreditation, payable only in foreign currency, with an administration fee of
2,000 dollars. Under Zimbabwe's harsh media legislation, journalists can be
arrested for practising without accreditation. "The increase is indicative of
the contempt the government feels towards the press in general, and the
international media in particular, and its desire to engineer a news blackout
about political, economic and public health developments in Zimbabwe," said a
statement from press freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders
(RSF).
ARTICLE VII : PROMOTION OF EQUALITY, NATIONAL HEALING, COHESION AND
UNITY
ARTICLE XVIII : SECURITY OF PERSONS AND PREVENTION OF
VIOLENCE
ARTICLE XIX : FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND COMMUNICATION
We have a
fundamental right to freedom of
expression!
-------------------------
.
http://www.iwpr.net:80/?p=zim&s=f&o=349826&apc_state=henh
Controversial
reserve bank governor fighting for his political life as the MDC takes charge of
finance portfolio.
By Chipo Sithole in Harare
(ZCR No. 179,
4-Feb-09)
Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, seems
determined to cling onto his job amid mounting opposition clamour for his
removal.
Zimbabwe’s economy cannot recover without outside support but it
seems, for as long as Gono is in charge, western donors will be deeply reluctant
to fund the new government, in which MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and President
Robert Mugabe share power.
Asked if Gono's sacking was a necessary step
before aid was released, a prominent western diplomat said, "Everyone knows it
is. It's one of the key indices [of whether Zimbabwe is a fit recipient of aid].
Tsvangirai has said it is one of the first things he will do."
Analysts
believe Gono, 49, has played a central role in the collapse of Zimbabwe’s
economy.
As controller of the country's finances since 2003, Gono has played
a key role in fundraising for Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party, printing money with
reckless abandon to sustain the Mugabe administration’s profligate spending. As
recently as February 2, the central bank knocked 12 zeroes off the local
currency and introduced seven new notes
Gono’s policies have been one of the
main drivers of the country's hyperinflation, officially over 231 million per
cent, but estimated by independent analysts to be 6.5-quindecillion
novemdecillion per cent, or 65 followed by 107 zeroes.
Donor funds have also
disappeared under his watch, including 7.3 million US dollars donated last year
by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, and intended to provide
anti-retroviral drugs for Zimbabweans living with the deadly HIV
virus.
Gono's mandate was renewed for a second five-year term in December
2008, sparking opposition outrage. Elton Mangoma, the MDC’s deputy secretary for
economic affairs, said Gono’s re-appointment went "against the spirit of the
September 15 power-sharing agreement" between the MDC and ZANU-PF, and the MDC
would not join the inclusive government while he remained head of the central
bank.
After four months of resisting intense pressure from leaders across
southern Africa, Tsvangirai announced on January 30 that he would join an
inclusive government as prime minister, but demanded that Gono be removed from
his position before he takes the oath of office on February 11. Tsvangirai says
he cannot fulfil his mandate to revive Zimbabwe's moribund economy with a
central bank chief who is incompetent and has become overly powerful and usurped
the power of the finance minister by dabbling in “quasi-fiscal policies”.
The
power-sharing deal sets out that all executive appointments must be made after
consultation between Mugabe and his prime minister. According to the agreement,
the MDC will take charge of the finance ministry, under whose aegis the central
bank falls, and, according to MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa, "in the eyes of the
Zimbabwean people and the MDC, a reserve bank governor is yet to be
appointed".
Commentators believe that Mugabe’s aim in keeping Gono was to
exclude the MDC from economic policy and to block reform.
As the MDC
announced its decision to join an inclusive government, Gono was reportedly
meeting with Mugabe, seeking assurances that he will keep his job. While details
of that meeting are not immediately available, Gono has come out with all guns
blazing, receiving acres of editorial space in the state-controlled media
dismissing calls for his removal.
"I am aware that there are some both
locally and externally who have been and are calling for my head for whatever
reasons, but the seriousnesss of the matters at hand requires that any
level-headed individual ignore such petty calls and rise above trivialities,"
Gono is quoted as saying in a lengthy front-page article in The Sunday Mail on
February 1.
"Many Zimbabweans agree that over the past five years, the
reserve bank's various programmes, in many ways helped Zimbabwe forestall and
foreclose total collapse amid the tightening grip of the illegal sanctions
imposed on the country."
Leading economist John Robertson says "it appears
Gono still does not understand the source of the country’s economic problems, as
he continues to claim Zimbabwe is under an economic embargo", when in fact the
so-called sanctions comprise a travel ban on regime officials precluding them
from visiting the United States and Europe for shopping trips, and an arms
embargo banning the sale to Zimbabwe of military hardware, which has been used
to put down peaceful opposition protests.
As pressure on Gono has grown with
the collapse of the economy, he has blamed sanctions, banks, the stock exchange,
black-market currency dealers and insurance companies. As well as firing
bankers, he has blacklisted more than 20 investment companies and frozen their
accounts.
Exiled Zimbabwean businessman Mutumwa Mawere said he fears
Zimbabweans will endure another five years of "political manipulation" by Gono
if the MDC is not steadfast in its call for his ouster.
"During his first
term, he was able to divert attention from the core source of the political and
economic crisis by manufacturing enemies of the state," Mawere said. "His tenure
witnessed the centralisation of executive power and the emergence of the RBZ
(Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe) as the super state."
Mawere said Gono was
preoccupied with blaming others for the collapse of the economy, yet he was to
blame for most of the damage. On February 2, Gono presented a first-quarter
monetary policy review statement laden with his supposed achievements and
rubbishing the opposition for heightening calls for his dismissal.
"In
Zimbabwe," Gono said, "a common tactic in this blame game has been to single out
the central bank and central bank governor with easy-to-make claims that I am
personally to blame for the self-evident and very painful economic situation
afflicting just about everyone in our country today.
"Against this background
I wish to place on record, and to do so with a sense of personal and national
pride, that as governor of the central bank I have no regrets about the fact
that my team and I have not hesitated to put out the fires that some vested
interests have been setting up to burn our country’s economy in the hope that
the ‘bus can crash’."
Gono was referring to controversial remarks by the
MDC’s policy coordinator, Eddie Cross, that the party is prepared to see the
“bus” - meaning the state - "crash and burn" if there is no equitable
power-sharing.
Branding MDC officials "snakes in suits”, Gono asserted "this
bus is not about to, and will not crash”.
"Furthermore," he continued, "the
message needs to be delivered that the bus driver is also not about to take any
leave of absence, least of all before the job is done and done well."
Gono
pledged to stop the central bank’s widely condemned quasi-fiscal operations by
returning it to its core business of monetary policy formulation and
implementation.
He also promised to streamline the bank, laying off some
workers in what he termed "a massive restructuring and realignment
exercise”.
Economists said Gono’s promises to turn over a new leaf were not
new and should be dismissed with contempt.
"Its just posturing and he just
wants to keep his job and then revert to his old ways. No one should buy this
nonsense," said one. "We need a new broom."
The MDC expressed shock at Gono’s
presentation of the monetary policy statement when his tenure was in dispute.
"This idea of jumping the gun and hurriedly and nocturnally presenting the
monetary policy is worrisome," said Chamisa. "That was not a monetary policy
statement - it was a manifesto, and a bad one at that."
Hope that the foreign
aid tap will be turned on again to help the country recover from its current
economic chaos was one of the most powerful pressures that forced Mugabe finally
to share power with Tsvangirai.
According to one diplomat, Gono has no
credibility whatsoever and, while the international community has offered
billions in aid to a reforming Zimbabwe, it is essential that the power-sharing
agreement reached last week is seen to work. "And it won't work as long as Gono
remains at the helm of the central bank," he said.
Chipo Sithole is the
pseudonym of an IWPR-trained reporter in
Zimbabwe.
______________________________________________
.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/4447091/Robert-Mugabes-wife-Grace-seizes-Zimbabwe-farm.html
President
Robert Mugabe's wife Grace has seized a farm from a high court judge, according
to legal and agricultural sources.
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare
Last
Updated: 12:54AM GMT 04 Feb 2009
Mrs Mugabe has a string of properties across
the country
Photo: REUTERS
Mrs Mugabe, who at 43 is more than four decades
younger than her husband, already has a string of properties across the country,
taken after Mr Mugabe's loyalists began evicting white farmers in 2000.
Her
latest acquisition - said to be for a son, Russell Goreraza, from her first
marriage - comes as Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party prepares to form a coalition with
the opposition Movement for Democratic Change next week.
It demonstrates that
the ruling hierarchy have yet to change their behaviour, and are even turning on
their own supporters to satiate their greed.
Gwina, about 50 miles north of
Harare and close to Mr Mugabe's rural home, was once a prize-winning farm until
Judge Ben Hlatshwayo, who presides in the High Court in Harare, forced off its
owner, Vernon Nicol.
Mr Nicol - who is now in Australia, along with most
members of his large family, who also lost their farms - won a court order to
prevent Mr Hlatshwayo seizing the premises in 2002, but the judge ignored it and
broke into the homestead.
Now he has received similar treatment, and is said
to be "absolutely furious".
According to farming sources the judge was an
exception among the Zanu-PF elite who helped themselves to farms, employing a
qualified manager, growing decent crops, and even spending some time living on
the farm.
By contrast at least 90 per cent of formerly white-owned farms -
more than 20 million acres - lie fallow since Mr Mugabe began chasing whites off
their rural properties, while agricultural exports, which once earned 40 per
cent of Zimbabwe's foreign exchange, have collapsed, and more than half the
population needs food aid.
Mr Hlatshwayo's downfall came after he held an
"open day" at Gwina last year, when visitors included some connected with the
first lady.
The details of how she forced him off are not clear, but
according to legal sources in Harare the judge decided to go to his own court to
seek "justice" shortly before Christmas.
He tried to bring an urgent chamber
application before a fellow member of the bench, Judge Joseph Musakwa, but was
persuaded "one way or another" to drop the case before it was heard.
Mr
Hlatshwayo was contacted by The Daily Telegraph and was given all the details in
this article. He did not deny anything and said only that he had "no
comment".
Once one of the country's youngest judges, he chaired the
commission which drew up the constitution that was rejected in a referendum in
2000. It was Mr Mugabe's first electoral defeat, which presaged the start of the
land invasions two weeks later.
Now the judge is due to be given another
farm, south east of Harare - so that either another of the few remaining
productive white farmers will be evicted, or one of his Zanu-PF colleagues will
be in danger of losing "their" land.
Mrs Mugabe was married to an air force
officer when she worked as a typist in State House and had two children with Mr
Mugabe while his popular first wife Sally was dying of kidney failure.
They
married after her death and had a third child together. Mrs Mugabe is now
renowned for her prodigious spending ability on overseas shopping trips, and
recently attacked a British photographer outside a £2,000-a-night hotel in Hong
Kong.
Her spokesman Laurence Kamwi did not answer his telephone and State
House said there was no one in her office to
comment.
______________________________________________
http://changezimbabwe.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1942&Itemid=2
Written
by Makusha Mugabe
Wednesday, 04 February 2009
The folly of SADC heads
trying to micro-manage the power-sharing in Zimbabwe on behalf of Robert Mugabe
has become apparent with the deferring to next week of the passing of
Constitutional Amendment 19.
Passing of the Bill that will create offices of
the Prime Minister and his deputies to accommodate the Movement for Democratic
Change which won the March 27 election, was postponed because outstanding
negotiations had not been concluded.
SADC Troika deputy chair Mozambique
President Armando Guebuza and SADC chair Kgalema Motlanthe's bid on behalf of
Mugabe scuttled.
But why did the SADC Summit set the dates, for passage of
the Bill, and even the swearing-in dates, when negotiations had not been
concluded?
This was done at the behest of Zanu (PF) before the negotiations
about outstanding issues which concerned the MDC were resolved - including
equitable sharing of ministerial portfolios and Governors.
The MDC has
insisted that these have to be concluded before passage of the Bill, which
cannot be passed without the MDC's support.
But Zanu (PF) was happy to go
away from the SADC Summit with the hollow victory; that the SADC had ordered the
unity government, forgetting that the MDC would have to agree. As Graca Machel
said, and she should know after having two Presidents for husbands, it was all
an ego problem.
Joram Gumbo, ZANU PF chief whip, was quoted by Zimonline this
morning saying, the tabling of the Bill was postponed because Justice Minister
Patrick Chinamasa had left Zimbabwe for South Africa on Tuesday night to attend
a meeting of the negotiators.
The SADC Summit last week ordered, over the
MDC's protests, formation of a government of national unity and gave dates,
including dates for the formation of a joint monitoring committee, passing of
the Constitutional Amendment and the dates for the swearing in of the Prime
Minister and the Ministers.
Chinamasa initially wanted to say there was no
more need to negotiate as the SADC had ordered that the government be formed on
the basis of Mugabe's unilateral allocation of ministerial portfolios, that it
would be reviewed after six months, and that governorship would be allocated to
the MDC as vacancies arose.
This has obviously been rejected by the MDC,
causing the meeting in South Africa to held to resolve the outstanding issues,
including appointment of governors, ambassadors and permanent secretaries and
passing of the National Security Council Bill.
MDC-T negotiators Tendai Biti
and Elton Mangoma and their counterparts from the smaller MDC faction - Welshman
Ncube and Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga - flew to South Africa on Tuesday
morning, but they were told that ZANU PF representatives would not join them
because they were still waiting for instruction from Mugabe who was still in
Ethiopia for the African Union summit.
The state media quoted Chinamasa
yesterday saying that ZANU PF negotiators had not traveled to South Africa on
Tuesday because they were not aware they were to meet their opposition
counterparts there.
It is clear that Chinamasa only decided to go to South
Africa after realising that the MDC was not going to accept it the SADC-imposed
settlement, and in his climb-down claimed that he did not know that the meeting
was going to be held in South Africa.
The Bill will now be introduced into
the House of Assembly and the Senate next Tuesday and Wednesday the 10th and the
11th, which will also mean that the swearing in, set for the 11th by SADC Summit
will have to be postponed.
In fact there was no need for the SADC to set the
dates, because after full agreement has been reached, the MDC should also be
consulted on the form of the swearing in ceremony and plan for it - after all it
is a milestone in the development of Zimbabwe and should be a national
day.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 04 February 2009
)
______________________________________________
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/zimbabwe/1481.html
04 February,
2009 10:47:00
Reuters
HARARE
Zimbabwe's parliament will delay debate on
a law to create a unity government, a senior opposition official said on
Wednesday, a setback that could further hold up a solution to a political and
economic crisis.
Parliament was expected to start debate on constitutional
changes creating a prime minister post for Movement for Democratic Change leader
Morgan Tsvangirai on Wednesday, but a fresh dispute erupted this week, with the
MDC accusing President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF of backtracking on the unity
deal.
MDC chief whip Innocent Gonese told Reuters the rival parties'
negotiators would meet on Wednesday in a bid to settle outstanding matters
before the proposed constitutional amendments were brought to parliament.
The
first round of negotiations between ZANU PF and the MDC, since last week Friday
when Morgan Tsvangirai received approval from his party to join the inclusive
government hit a brick wall just as talks began on Tuesday.
This latest
impasse puts into jeopardy Wednesday’s plans to push constitutional changes
through parliament to pave the way for a power-sharing government between Mugabe
and the two MDC’s.
The Bill is expected to be introduced in Parliament and
seeks to give legal effect to the setting up of the proposed government by
namely creating the post of Prime Minister for Tsvangirai.
This is now in
doubt following the latest stalemate. A source in the MDC told us,
parliamentarians and senators from the MDC-T will meet to consider postponing
the introduction of the Bill until the two issues of the National Security
Council composition and governors have been worked out.
It’s believed
negotiators from all the parties will fly to South Africa on Wednesday for a
‘crisis’ meeting with the facilitating team to try and iron out their
differences. ZANU PF negotiators on Tuesday refused to deal with some of the
issues, saying they could not talk about them because they had no mandate from
Mugabe.
Despite MDC worries, Mugabe on Tuesday told leaders at the African
Union summit that he's committed to forming a national unity government with the
MDC. He said the country is ‘on the path to creating an all-inclusive
government.
“The ZANU PF caretaker government has begun to backtrack on the
inclusive government by dithering to discuss contentious issues in line with the
SADC resolutions,” party spokesman Nelson Chamisa said after the meeting ended
early Tuesday.
He expressed regret that in spite of concessions made by
Robert Mugabe last week during a full SADC summit in Pretoria, ZANU PF has
remained intransigent. SADC leaders resolved that negotiators from the three
major parties must meet ‘immediately’ to consider the NSC Bill, and the
modalities and formula for the distribution of governors.
“Today, (Tuesday)
the ZANU PF negotiators said they could not talk about the issue because they
have no mandate from their leader who is attending the AU summit in Ethiopia. We
in the MDC are convinced that there is no intention on the part of ZANU PF to
put all these issues to rest. There is no wish to consummate an inclusive
government in line with SADC resolutions,” Chamisa said in a statement.
Trudy
Stevenson, a senior member of the MDC-M said she was surprised by ZANU PF’s
sudden U-turn on the talks. She bemoaned the ‘delaying tactics’ by ZANU PF and
described as ‘strange,’ reasons that the negotiators didn’t have a mandate to
discuss the issues on the table.
“When they agreed with the SADC resolution,
it meant they had the mandate to discuss all outstanding issues. They agreed to
all SADC conditions and suddenly they say they don’t have the mandate. Something
is wrong somewhere,” Stevenson said.
The MDC-T believes ZANU PF is
‘panicking,’ and that they have been caught flat-footed by their decision to
join the inclusive government. Chamisa added; “ZANU PF never budgeted that the
MDC would agree to be part of the inclusive government and now they are in sixes
and sevens, while trying desperately to scuttle the deal.”
For the record, he
added the contentious issue of governors was supposed to be dealt with last
Tuesday in South Africa but ZANU PF negotiators said their tickets did not allow
them to stay a day longer and returned with their principal to Zimbabwe. Then on
Wednesday last week, nothing further was discussed as they said they were
preparing for the budget.
The spokesman said ZANU PF negotiators then
suggested that discussions on the matter be deferred to Tuesday, ahead of the
passage of Constitutional Amendment number 19 on Thursday, ‘but true to culture
and tradition; they have shifted goal posts and are now saying they have no
mandate.
“ZANU PF is spoiling to scuttle the inclusive government which SADC
directed should be in place by 13 February 2009. We are ready to clear all
outstanding issues so that we collectively confront the challenges facing the
people of Zimbabwe, ZANU PF is not. We are ready to tackle cholera, unemployment
and the collapse of basic services such as education and health. ZANU PF is
not.” Chamisa
said.
______________________________________________
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=4204
by
Cuthbert Nzou
Wednesday 04 February 2009
Harare
Zimbabwe has deferred
to next week passing a constitutional amendment Bill that will give legal effect
to a power-sharing agreement between President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF
party and the opposition.
Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment No19 Bill that
should have been tabled in Parliament tomorrow will create the office of prime
minister to be occupied by main opposition MDC party leader Morgan Tsvangirai
and the offices of two deputy prime ministers.
Arthur Mutambara, head of the
smaller MDC formation and Thokozani Khupe, who is Tsvangirai’s deputy in the
main MDC, will be the two deputy prime ministers in a government of national
unity headed by Mugabe.
Joram Gumbo, ZANU PF chief whip in the House of
Assembly, said the tabling of the Bill was postponed because Justice Minister
Patrick Chinamasa had left Zimbabwe for South Africa on Tuesday night to attend
a meeting of negotiators of the power-sharing deal.
The meeting in South
Africa is meant to resolve the outstanding issues of the power-sharing pact,
among them, appointment of governors, ambassadors and permanent secretaries and
a draft National Security Council Bill.
Chinamasa was charged by the
government to steer the constitutional amendment Bill through the House of
Assembly and the Senate, according to Gumbo.
"The Bill will no longer be
introduced into the House of Assembly on Wednesday and Thursday as earlier
planned," Gumbo said. "It will be tabled next Tuesday and Wednesday in the
respective houses. The postponement was a result of the meeting of negotiators
in South Africa."
Chinamasa is ZANU PF’s chief negotiator. He left Harare in
the company of his co-negotiators - Nicholas Goche and Emmerson Mnangagwa.
On
Tuesday, the MDC-T complained that ZANU PF was backtracking on the
implementation of the inclusive deal after Chinamasa and Goche failed to attend
a meeting of negotiators in South Africa.
MDC-T negotiators Tendai Biti and
Elton Mangoma and their counterparts from the smaller MDC faction - Welshman
Ncube and Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga - flew to South Africa on Tuesday
morning where they were told that ZANU PF representatives would not join them
because they were still waiting for instruction from Mugabe.
Mugabe was away
in Ethiopia for the African Union summit.
State media quoted Chinamasa today
as saying ZANU PF negotiators had not travelled to South Africa on Tuesday
because they were not aware they were to meet their opposition counterparts
there.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) last week directed
Zimbabwe’s rival political parties to urgently form a unity government, ordering
that outstanding issues on power-sharing be dealt with between the parties’
negotiators before a unity government is put in place by February
13.
Regional leaders hope a unity government will help ease Zimbabwe’s
political crisis and allow the country to focus on tackling an unprecedented
economic and humanitarian crisis marked by hyperinflation, acute shortages of
food and basic commodities, amid a cholera epidemic that has killed more than 3
000 Zimbabweans since August.
But many are skeptical that the unity
government will last or work, given the mistrust and deep-seated animosity
between especially Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
A lukewarm response to the idea of
a unity government by Western countries - whose financial support is critical to
any programme to revive Zimbabwe’s comatose economy - has raised fears there may
be no instant flow of aid to the southern African
country.
ZimOnline
______________________________________________
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=4205
by
Hendricks Chizhanje Wednesday 04 February 2009
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
HARARE
Police on Tuesday brutally crushed a
demonstration by University of Zimbabwe (UZ) students, arresting about 60 of the
students who were protesting against exorbitant fees at the institution.
Most
of the arrested students were later released from police cells after the
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights intervened on their behalf.
Students had
staged protests after the UZ authorities published a notice requiring students
to pay US$ 400 to sit for the end of first semester examinations scheduled for
this month.
Zimbabwe’s once proud public education sector is in a state of
near total collapse due to years of under-funding and mismanagement.
Protests
have become routine at the UZ and other state universities as both students and
lecturers press for better facilities, stipends and
salaries.
ZimOnline
______________________________________________
http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=5235&cat=1
(Reuters)
By
a Correspondent
Zimbabwe's cholera crisis has reached unprecedented levels
with nearly 63,000 people being infected by the epidemic, according to a report
by a United Nations agency.
The epidemic, which began in August, has already
killed more than 3,000 people - the deadliest outbreak in Africa in 15 years,
the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
The report said lack of awareness
about the disease, inaccessibility to clean water and medicine shortages have
made stopping the spread of cholera impossible.
UN figures show only 23 per
cent of the population has access to safe drinking water - a percentage likely
to be worsening because of drought.
The UN's Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) said more than one million people were at high risk of
infection in the absence of safe drinking water.
More than 70 per cent of
springs, irrigation canals and rivers around the country have dried up.
Eric
Laroche, the assistant director-general of the WHO, has called for drastic
action to be taken over the cholera outbreak.
Laroche warned the outbreak
would continue unless "political differences are put aside," impoverished
Zimbabwean health workers are paid, and the country's health system is
bolstered.
In one area of the country visited by an Al Jazeera correspondent,
state morgues have stopped functioning and communities were burying bodies that
had been lying there for more than a year.
Bright Matonga, Zimbabwe's deputy
information minister, said the bodies were not those of cholera vicitms.
"The
report that you have just aired refers to bodies that were not collected from
the mortuary since January 2008, [and] there was no cholera at that time," he
told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.
"We had a cholera outbreak. It was very intense
at the end of last year. We called for help and the help came from the World
Health Organisation and other NGOs. Really the situation now has improved
vastly.
"We are able to quickly detect, quickly prevent, quickly educate
people. We are on top of the situation although you can never say it is under
control. "
Paul Garwood, a WHO spokesman, told Al Jazeera "we are in the
middle of a major outbreak and we are seeing increasing cases".
"On most days
the outbreak is on a national scale with cases being recorded in eight of the
country's 10 provinces," he said.
"It's not yet under control. There are
intensive efforts to try and bring it under control. It must be realised that
this is an extraordinary outbreak - a public health emergency - and an
extraordinary response is required."
Overloaded medical services have also
been hit after health workers went on strike to demand higher wages.
Zimbabwe
suffers the second-worst maternal mortality rate in the world after Sierra Leone
with about 130 out of every 1,000 babies dying shortly after birth, experts
say.
Hyperinflation and a downward-spiralling economy have added to the
humanitarian disaster.
With an official inflation rate of 231 trillion, the
Zimbabwean dollar has been rendered practically worthless, leading to severe
shortages of food and foreign exchange.
Zimbabwe's central bank devalued its
dollar on Monday by 12 zeros, turning one trillion dollars into one dollar, and
issuing seven new notes in an attempt to counter the economic
degradation.
The crisis also comes amid a backdrop of political
deadlock.
Robert Mugabe, the president, and Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition
leader, are just beginning to agree on a power-sharing deal after disputed
elections in March last year.
The sticking point has been the distribution of
key ministerial positions within the government between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic
Change.
______________________________________________
http://www.zimbabwemetro.com/news/zanu-pf-back-tracks-on-unity-government/
Local
News
February 4, 2009
By Metro Staff Writer
© zimbabwemetro.com
⋅
Zanu PF has asked for a delay in forming a coalition government because
there isn’t time to change the nation’s constitution within a timeframe set by
the Southern African Development Community, the Chronicle reported.
The
state-controlled newspaper, based in Bulawayo, cited Patrick Chinamasa, chief
negotiator for ZANU PF.
Parliament was expected to start debate on
constitutional changes creating a prime minister post for Movement for
Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Wednesday, but a fresh dispute
erupted this week, with the MDC accusing President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF of
backtracking on the unity
deal.
______________________________________________
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=vn20090204120541438C132729
February
04 2009 at 03:34PM
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
*
Related Articles
Grace in punch-up over photos
'Mugabe's wife raids
bank vaults
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
There
seems no end to Grace Mugabe's appetite for farms.
But having seemingly run
out of white farmers to plunder, Zimbabwe's First Lady has helped herself to one
belonging to a pro-Zanu-PF High Court judge who in turn seized the farm from a
top maize producer, Vernon Nicol, six years ago.
Mugabe, 43, already has a
string of farms which she has taken since her husband, President Robert Mugabe,
launched his campaign against white farmers in 2000.
Now she has taken former
prize farm Gwina, about 80 km north of Harare, in Zimbabwe's most fertile
province, Mashonaland West, from Judge Ben Hlatshwayo of the Harare High
Court.
Grace Mugabe, like Judge Hlatshwayo before her, took over crops in the
ground, harvests in sheds and some equipment.
She has reportedly taken the
farm as a present for her son, Russell Goreraza, from her first marriage, who is
now in his mid-20s and who studied at the University of Cape Town.
Judge
Hlatshwayo, who was given the details in this report, did not deny anything but
said only that he had "no comment".
Before Christmas he tried to bring an
urgent application before a fellow member of the bench, Judge Joseph Musakwa, to
get "his" farm back, but was persuaded "one way or another" to drop the case
before it was heard.
Farmer Nicol did seek protection from the courts and had
a high court order at the time to prevent Judge Hlatshwayo from taking his farm.
The judge ignored it and broke into the Nicols' large, locked
homestead.
Nicol is now in Australia with most members of his extended
family, who all had their farms taken.
Now Judge Hlatshwayo has received
similar treatment, and is said to be "absolutely furious".
According to
farming sources, Judge Hlatshwayo was an exception among the Zanu-PF elite who
helped themselves to farms and failed to use even 10 percent of the land they
took.
At first he struggled as a new farmer but with handouts of equipment
and money from the government, and a good manager, he managed to produce decent
harvests. His downfall came after he held an "open day" on Gwina last year and
visitors included people connected with the First Lady.
She was married to an
air force officer when she was working as a typist in State House and had two
children by Mugabe, while his then wife, Sally, was dying of kidney failure.
They married after her death and had a third child together.
She was recently
in Hong Kong where she attacked British photographers who tried to take pictures
of her as she emerged from a R20 000-a-night hotel.
This article was
originally published on page 1 of Cape Argus on February 04,
2009
______________________________________________
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=11013
February 4,
2009
HARARE (CNN)
A Zimbabwe High Court judge is trying to take the
country’s first lady to court, accusing her of using political muscle to wrest
from him a farm he was given during the land seizures.
The judge says Grace
Mugabe effectively took his farm by force.
The matter has not been given a
date, however, amid reports that other judges have been refusing to hear
it.
High Court Judge Ben Hlatshwayo is suing a company owned by Grace Mugabe,
wife of President Robert Mugabe, for grabbing Gwina Farm in Banket, about 100
kilometers northwest of Harare. The farm is near Mugabe’s rural home.
The
judge said he acquired the farm in December 2002 as part of President Mugabe’s
controversial land grabs, in which Mugabe took land from white commercial
farmers and distributed it to black Zimbabweans.
In an affidavit, filed at
the High Court in Harare, the judge said the “unlawful conduct” by Grace
Mugabe’s company, Gushungo Holdings, amounted to spoilation - or taking of the
farm by force.
He said emissaries of the first lady have been visiting the
farm frequently and issuing instructions to workers, according to court
documents.
“There is clearly no lawful basis for such interference, which
conduct, by its very nature, amounts to spoliation,” Hlatshwayo wrote in the
papers.
Lands and Resettlement Minister Didymus Mutasa said the judge had
been given alternative land as compensation for the farm that Grace Mugabe wants
to have. Mutasa opposes the judge’s affidavit.
Hlatshwayo said he had been
operating his farm in “quiet, undisturbed, peaceful possession, occupation and
production” since it was allocated to him.
Since the land grabs, Zimbabwe has
been facing acute shortages of food that critics say is a result of Mugabe
giving the land to inexperienced peasant farmers. But Mugabe blames the West for
the shortages, saying Western countries are sabotaging him after he took the
land for his people.
Mugabe says the land reform was meant to reverse
http://www.edition.cnn.com:80/2009/WORLD/africa/02/04/zimbabwe.mugabe/index.html
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Story Highlights
Zimbabwe High Court
judge sues country's first lady over seized farm
Judge accuses Grace Mugabe
of using political muscle to wrest from him farm
Judge said he acquired farm
in 2002 as part of controversial land grabs
Formation of Zimbabwe unity
government delayed as debate postponed
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
*
HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN)
A Zimbabwe High Court judge is trying to take the
country's first lady to court, accusing her of using political muscle to wrest
from him a farm he was given during the land seizures.
Judge says Grace
Mugabe, pictured with her husband, effectively took his farm by force.
The
matter has not been given a date, however, amid reports that other judges have
been refusing to hear it.
High Court Judge Ben Hlatshwayo is suing a company
owned by Grace Mugabe, wife of President Robert Mugabe, for grabbing Gwina Farm
in Banket, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northwest of Harare. The farm is near
Mugabe's rural home.
The judge said he acquired the farm in December 2002 as
part of President Mugabe's controversial land grabs, in which Mugabe took land
from white commercial farmers and distributed it to black Zimbabweans.
In an
affidavit, filed at the High Court in Harare, the judge said the "unlawful
conduct" by Grace Mugabe's company, Gushungo Holdings, amounted to spoilation -
or taking of the farm by force.
He said emissaries of the first lady have
been visiting the farm frequently and issuing instructions to workers, according
to court documents.
"There is clearly no lawful basis for such interference,
which conduct, by its very nature, amounts to spoliation," Hlatshwayo wrote in
the papers.
Lands and Resettlement Minister Didymus Mutasa said the judge had
been given alternative land as compensation for the farm that Grace Mugabe wants
to have. Mutasa opposes the judge's affidavit.
Hlatshwayo said he had been
operating his farm in "quiet, undisturbed, peaceful possession, occupation and
production" since it was allocated to him.
Since the land grabs, Zimbabwe has
been facing acute shortages of food that critics say is a result of Mugabe
giving the land to inexperienced peasant farmers. But Mugabe blames the West for
the shortages, saying Western countries are sabotaging him after he took the
land for his people.
Mugabe says the land reform was meant to reverse
colonial imbalances remaining after British rule.
The legal wrangle comes
after Grace Mugabe was accused of assaulting a journalist in Hong Kong who
wanted to take photos of her while she was on a shopping spree.
Meanwhile on
Wednesday, Zimbabwe's parliament postponed debate on crucial details of a
power-sharing deal leading to the formation of a national unity
government.
Lawmakers were supposed to debate a bill next week for a
constitutional amendment that would create the new posts called for under the
deal, including the post of prime minister for opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
The delay could prolong the country's political and economic
crisis.
The delay comes a day after the MDC accused Mugabe's ZANU-PF of
backtracking on the implementation of a power-sharing deal the party signed with
Tsvangirai in September.
Tsvangirai agreed last week to join the unity
government if "outstanding issues" were addressed.
While government officials
could not be reached for comment, Zimbabwean Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa
was quoted by the state media as saying the delay in debate on the
constitutional-amendment bill would push back next week's deadline.
A
coalition government is seen by many as a panacea to halt the meltdown of
Zimbabwe's economy. The country is also facing its worst humanitarian crisis,
with acute shortages of all essentials such as fuel, food, electricity and
public-health delivery system.
A ravaging cholera outbreak has affected
65,000 people and claimed close to 3,500 lives since its outbreak in
August.
______________________________________________
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=10979
February 4,
2009
Jestina Mukoko
By Raymond Maingire
Harare
The High Court on
Wednesday threw out an application by incarcerated Zimbabwe Peace Project
director, Jestina Mukoko, who is seeking her release from custody on bail.
In
his ruling, Justice Alphas Chitakunye said he agreed with the state’s contention
that the accused person could not seek release on bail as she was yet to be
advised by a court on her charges.
Justice Chitakunye also attacked the
defence which he said has, since December 24, 2008, unnecessarily inundated the
courts with court challenges involving the same accused person, in the process
jeopardizing their own attempts to seek their clients’ liberty.
Chitakunye
cited the numerous instances with which the defence has filed court applications
since the accused persons were handed over to the police by state security
agents on December 22, 2008.
“At this rate, one is left wondering whether the
defence wants to discredit the justice delivery system and portray it as one in
disarray,” said Chitakunye.
After the ruling, human rights lawyer Harrison
Nkomo, who is representing the former broadcaster, immediately sought leave to
appeal against Chitakunye’s judgement at the Supreme Court.
He argued that
Chitakunye erred in dismissing Mukoko’s bail application and was thus seeking
authority through the same court to lodge an appeal at the Supreme
Court.
“This court is not a superficial being and is bound to make errors in
its judgement” he said.
“We believe we are setting the rights of the accused
person as enshrined in the constitution and as enshrined in international human
rights instruments.
“The court has given restrictive interpretation of the
laws that say an accused person cannot seek bail before being formally advised
of her charges.”
Nkomo contended that the matter was very important in that
it was the first such matter to be brought before a court and was thus, supposed
to be allowed to sail through to the Supreme Court which should decide on its
constitutional merits.
Appearing for the State, Florence Ziyambi, the
director of public prosecutions opposed the application to refer the matter to
the Supreme Court.
“The court did not err in dismissing the bail application
by the applicant on the basis that remand proceedings have to take place before
any bail application,” she said.
“I urge this court to dismiss the
application for referral to the Supreme Court as there are no prospects of
success in the matter.”
After listening to both submissions, Justice
Chitakunye proceeded to dismiss the application.
“After listening to both
submissions, I have considered both the merits and demerits of the case,”
Chitakunye said.
“It is my view that the demerits far outweigh the merits. I
will dismiss the application.”
Meanwhile, Justice Chitakunye also threw out
another bail application that was also filed through the same court in respect
of six MDC activists who are jointly charged with Mukoko on alleged acts of
banditry.
Chitakunye contended that the courts could not automatically grant
the accused persons bail as they were first supposed to be charged before any
determination on whether the accused persons could be released on bail.
The
six others are Concilia Chinanzvavana, Fidelis Chiramba, Violet Mupfuranehwe,
Collen Mutemagawu, Peata Kaseke and Manuel Chinanzvavana.
They are all
accused of attempts to recruit persons for purposes of training as bandits and
insurgents to overthrow President Robert Mugabe’s government. The MDC says the
charges are trumped
up.
______________________________________________
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Zimbabwe/0,,2-11-1662_2464104,00.html
04/02/2009
17:31 - (SA)
Harare
Zimbabwean negotiators joined hastily arranged talks
in South Africa on Wednesday in an effort to ensure a unity government is formed
this month.
Party officials said their negotiators were called to South
Africa on Tuesday, after the main opposition complained that President Robert
Mugabe's party was delaying and endangering chances that a power-sharing
agreement, which has been stalled since September, would finally be
implemented.
Making agreements
Last week, regional leaders pressed
Mugabe's Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change to start
making their agreement a reality in parliament by passing a constitutional
amendment creating a prime minister's post.
Under the new government, MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai is to be prime minister and Mugabe, in power since
independence from Britain in 1980 is to remain president.
The Southern
African Development Community has endorsed that Tsvangirai should be sworn in by
February 11 and that the rest of the unity Cabinet be sworn on February
13.
South African presidential spokesperson Thabo Masebe said the negotiators
were called to South Africa on Wednesday "to ensure that they are ready to meet
all the deadlines that were set by SADC."
-
AP
______________________________________________
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/mbeki300.19348.html
By Lebo
Nkatazo
Posted to the web: 04/02/2009 12:31:12
ZIMBABWE’S parliament
delayed debate on a law to create a unity government on Wednesday, a setback
that could further hold up a solution to a political and economic
crisis.
Parliament was expected to start debate on constitutional changes
creating the post of Prime Minister for Movement for Democratic Change leader
Morgan Tsvangirai, but negotiators from the three main parties scurried to South
Africa to tie up discussion on outstanding issues.
Zanu PF chief whip Joram
Gumbo told state television that Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, who was due
to move the motion in the House, left for South Africa on Wednesday morning.
Negotiators from the two rival MDC factions were already in South Africa, which
has been playing a mediation role.
A source close to the negotiations in
South Africa said former South African President Thabo Mbeki, the regional
appointed mediator, was pushing the negotiating teams to wind up discussions
around the issues of the allocation of governors and ambassadors, the National
Security Bill and executive appointments made by Mugabe since September 15 by
late Wednesday.
Mbeki is keen to stay within a timetable set by leaders of
the regional trade bloc, SADC, and wants the negotiators back in Zimbabwe by
Thursday to pass the Constitutional Amendment 19 Bill which paves the way for
Tsvangirai to be sworn in on February 11 2009.
Legislators in the House of
Assembly and Senate are expected to support the proposed legislation, as their
respective parties have already confirmed their participation in the all
inclusive government.
Professor Jonathan Moyo, the only independent MP in the
210-member House of Assembly, said Zanu PF and the two MDC factions risked
eroding confidence in the unity government by veering off a SADC timetable, no
matter how temporarily.
“Confidence in this process is the most important
currency right now,” Moyo said. “If you erode it, you are creating
problems.
“Technically speaking, there is nothing wrong in postponing a
debate; things do go wrong and you want to believe there are good reasons for
postponing. But substantively speaking, there is everything wrong because the
dual currency of this whole thing is confidence… public confidence, regional
confidence and international confidence. If you dent that confidence or erode
that confidence, you end up adding kerosene to a fire that was dying
out.”
Moyo said failure to stick to the SADC timeline would “promote
cynicism”, adding that the three parties strategically needed each other to
ensure the agreement works.
“Here are people in a very deep hole; they must
stop digging and get out. This deal is a rope for the three parties to use to
get out of that hole, but the more they continue bickering, you begin to think
they want to go back and dig, which is
crazy.”
______________________________________________
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18240&Itemid=103
Wednesday,
04 February 2009
THE formation of Zimbabwe’s agreed unity government next
week might be in jeopardy after a parliamentary debate on constitutional
amendments scheduled for today was called off.
The unity government,
comprising the ruling Zanu-PF and both wings of the Movement for Democratic
Change, is due to be formed on February 13, in terms of a deadline set by the SA
Development Community.
The constitutional amendments were meant to be
concluded by tomorrow to allow main MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai to be sworn in
as prime minister.
However, last night state radio said Zanu-PF would not be
able to move the motion for the amendments because its chief negotiator, Patrick
Chinamasa, would not be available until the weekend.
Zanu-PF chief whip Joram
Gumbo was quoted as saying former president Thabo Mbeki, the SADC mediator , had
summoned Chinamasa and MDC negotiators.
It is understood that Chinamasa, who
is both the justice minister and the acting finance minister, won’t be available
until the weekend.
Last month, the SADC issued a strict time table for
Zimbabwe’s political foes to form a unity government, but the latest development
might derail the plan.
The MDC agreed to form the power-sharing government
last Friday - four months after a stalled deal brokered by Mbeki. - The
Times
______________________________________________
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18239&Itemid=104
Wednesday,
04 February 2009
Gono says rest of world is now following his
example
ZIMBABWE’S inflation rate is running at an astonishing world record
five sextillion percent, making everyday transactions in the local dollar
currency all but impossible, according to economists monitoring it s
economy.
Economists Steve Hanke, of Johns Hopkins University, put it as high
as 89.7 sextillion percent.
But he gave up calculating the inflation rate in
November last year, owing to the lack of reliable data.
On Monday, Gideon
Gono, widely regarded as the world’s most disastrous central banker, knocked
another 12 zeros off the Zim dollar in an attempt to bring the national currency
back from the realm of the fantastical.
In an interview published in Newsweek
yesterday, Gono defended his excessive printing of money and made the
extraordinary claim that he has been vindicated by God, saying the global
financial crisis has forced other countries to follow his lead.
Gono said he
printed money simply so that the Zimbabwean people could survive. He noted that
the rest of the world was now following his example because of the credit
crunch.
“I had to print money,” he said. “I found myself doing extraordinary
things that aren’t in textbooks. Then the IMF asked the US to print money. The
whole world is now practising what they have been saying I should not. I decided
that God had been on my side and had come to vindicate me.”
Asked by Newsweek
if he considered his governorship a success, Gono replied: “I am modestly
credited with the survival strategy of my country. No other [central bank]
governor has had to deal with the kind of inflation levels that I deal with.
[The people at] my bank [are] at the cutting edge of the country.
“What keeps
me bright and looking forward to every day is that it can’t be any
worse.”
Economists have poured scorn on Gono’s move to slash the street value
of the Zimbabwean dollar - from Z$ 250-trillion to one US dollar to 250 - but
locals are happy because computers, calculators and people could not cope with
all the zeros.
One US dollar would now buy Z$ 2.5-octillion had Gono not done
so.
“The zeros are too many for our machines to handle,” said Obert Sibanda,
chairman of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce.
Economists pointed out
that four months after he knocked 10 noughts off the Zimbabwe dollar last year,
they had all returned.
Tony Hawkins, a University of Zimbabwe economist who
taught Gono 20 years ago, observed that the governor was not the student of whom
he was most proud.
“He was a good student but forgot whatever economics he
learnt when he became a political player.”
Gono, 49, recently published an
autobiography - sold only in US dollars, in violation of his own currency
regulations - in which he claimed that former US president George Bush had
offered him the post of senior vice-president at the World Bank last
July.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change, is trying to make Gono’s removal a condition of his party joining a
unity government next week.
Gono’s record is also coming under fire from
within his own Zanu-PF party.
His slashing of zeros came as Zimbabwe’s
cholera death toll rose to more than 3 200, raising fears that the outbreak,
considered the worst ever in the world, could take several months to control.
The World Health Organisation said the outbreak remains “uncontrolled”. - The
Times
______________________________________________
http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=3780
Wednesday,
4th February 2009. 4:13pm
By: Kumbirai Mafunda.
Zimbabwean authorities
have set themselves on a fresh diplomatic row with the United States (US) after
they denied a traveling visa to a former US Ambassador.
George W Haley, the
former US ambassador to The Gambia between 1998 and 2000, was scheduled to
conduct a series of lectures and programmes on the civil rights movement: the
role of non-violent action in advancing civil rights in the US.
Haley was
scheduled to begin his lectures in Harare on Tuesday (yesterday) but failed to
do so after failing to secure the relevant travel documents to enable him to
travel to the troubled southern African country. US Public Affairs Officer
Timothy Gerhardson confirmed that Haley had failed to deliver his first lecture
in Harare after officials at the Zimbabwean embassy in Washington turned down
his visa application last Friday without giving any reasons.
“Ambassador
George Haley is a US speaker that was coming to Zimbabwe to give lectures on the
role of non-violent action in advancing civil rights in the US. He was denied a
visa by Zimbabwean officials in Washington. There was no reason for the denial
of the visa,” said Gerhardson.
Besides lecturing in Zimbabwe Haley was also
scheduled to conduct similar lectures on the role of non-violent action in
advancing civil rights in the US in Ethiopia.
Analysts had hoped that the
election of Barrack Obama, the first African-America to head the US and the
consummation of a coalition government between President Mugabe and veteran MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai would result in the thawing of strained relations
between Washington and Harare.
Relations between Harare and Washington have
been frosty since Zimbabwe’s discredited and controversial parliamentary and
presidential elections of 2000 and 2002. The placing of targeted travel
sanctions against President Robert Mugabe and his lieutenants and the enactment
of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001, which would have
provided for US economic assistance in exchange for an improvement in the
country’s human rights situation further worsened the strained
relationship.
Since the souring of diplomatic relations between the two
countries President Mugabe has used his address at public gatherings such as
funerals of former freedom fighters to bash the US and its western allies for
authoring the country’s economic catastrophe. However, Washington denies any
wrongdoing and instead blames Mugabe’s administration for pursuing populist
polices that had turned the former bread basket into a basket
case.
______________________________________________
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82753
Photo:
IRIN
Sanctions target President Mugabe's money men
JOHANNESBURG, 4
February 2009
(IRIN)
The former captain of the Rhodesian rugby side and an
alleged "sanction-buster" for Ian Smith's white minority government in what is
now Zimbabwe, as well as a South African-born businessman wanted in his home
country for fraud, are some of the latest additions to the European Union's (EU)
sanctions targeting Zimbabwe's ruling elite.
John Bredenkamp - appointed
rugby captain in 1965, the same year Smith announced Rhodesia's Unilateral
Declaration of Independence from Britain - and 18 of his companies were
blacklisted by the EU on 27 January 2009 for his "strong ties to the Government
of Zimbabwe ... [and providing], including through his companies, financial and
other support to the [Zimbabwe] regime."
The sanctions against Bredenkamp,
68, and Muller Conrad (Billy) Rautenbach, 50, said by the EU to have "strong
ties to the Government of Zimbabwe, including through support to senior regime
officials during Zimbabwe's intervention in DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo]"
- mark the beginning of a strategy to isolate those seen as propping up
President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF government.
The EU has frozen assets, and
imposed travel bans on 203 people, from Mugabe to Caesar Zvayi, a journalist
working for the government-controlled daily newspaper, The Herald, and has also
blacklisted 28 companies based in Zimbabwe, mainland Britain and the tax havens
of the Isle of Man, the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands.
John
Clancy, spokesperson for the European Commission for development and
humanitarian aid, told IRIN: "The measures [sanctions] do not impact on the
general population of Zimbabwe. They are targeted measures against individuals
of the Zimbabwe government and its associates."
Mugabe blames the sanctions
for his country's economic meltdown. Annual inflation is measured in the
sextillions of percent by independent economists, unemployment is running at 94
percent according to the UN, while more than half the country's citizens require
emergency food aid, and a cholera pandemic that shows few signs of abating has
killed more than 3,000 people in six months.
Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF
party have been joined by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a
regional body, and the African Union, in calling for the EU to drop sanctions
after a power-sharing government was agreed.
Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for
the Movement for Democratic Change, Zimbabwe's main opposition party, led by
Morgan Tsvangirai - who is expected to assume the prime minister's office on 11
February - told IRIN: "The sanctions are an issue to be resolved between ZANU-PF
and the European Union."
Clancy said the EU supported the "positive move" of
the inclusive government, "but it is a little early in the process to say the
situation is wholly resolved."
Any decision to lift sanctions would be taken
by the ministers of the EU's 27 member countries. EU member state missions in
the capital, Harare, recommend those eligible for targeted sanctions.
'I was
a Rhodesian; I am now a Zimbabwean
Bredenkamp was ranked among Britain's
richest people in 2002, with an estimated fortune of US$ 1 billion. According to
the website of one of his blacklisted companies, Breco, he is living in
Zimbabwe, having left Britain in 2000.
He "was imprisoned by the Zimbabwe
Government in 2006 for alleged passport violations [though he was subsequently
acquitted in court] and has recently had his passport withheld by that
Government," the website said.
The EU said Bredenkamp had three passports:
one from the Netherlands (expired), one from Zimbabwe and one from Surinam, a
former Dutch colony.
Bredenkamp reportedly fell foul of Mugabe in his
attempts as king-maker in 2004. He allegedly tried to convince Mugabe to retire
and make way for the former security minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, a strategy
that underestimated the intensity of the succession race and resulted in a
fierce ZANU-PF backlash.
His companies were investigated for tax and exchange
control violations and he reportedly fled Zimbabwe in 2006, but on his return he
was charged with using a South African passport, in contravention of citizenship
laws that do not permit dual nationality. Bredenkamp was born in South
Africa.
"I was a Rhodesian; I am now a Zimbabwean. I was a tobacco merchant;
I am now an investor in many different sectors," Bredenkamp says on the Breco
website.
As a "tobacco merchant", Bredenkamp founded the Casalee Group of
companies, which focused primarily on leaf tobacco, in Antwerp, Belgium, in
1976; it also engaged in general trading, with branches in a multitude of
countries and tobacco-processing factories in the Netherlands, Zimbabwe, Malawi
and Brazil.
By 1993 it had become the world's fifth largest leaf tobacco
merchant and was bought for $ 100 million by the world's largest leaf tobacco
company, Universal Leaf Tobacco. Brian Murphy, a former Casalee executive in
Zimbabwe, said of Bredenkamp in an interview with Sports Illustrated in 1996:
"he's always been an arms dealer."
Bredenkamp has consistently denied the
arms dealer moniker, although a British investigative television programme,
broadcast in 1994, claimed that one of his companies sold anti-aircraft guns to
Iraq and land mines to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Mike
Pelham, former financial officer of Casalee Zurich, told the television
interviewer: "The objective was to arrange an introduction between a supplier
and a purchaser. Casalee would do that. The arms would then be transferred from
the manufacturer directly to the purchaser and on the deal having been
finalized, then a commission would be paid from the manufacturer to the agent,
in this case, Casalee."
In the 1970s, Bredenkamp reportedly broke sanctions
imposed by the UN against the white minority government during the liberation
war by supplying spare parts for the Hawker Hunter ground-attack aircraft of the
Rhodesian air force. These aircraft also saw service during Zimbabwe's
intervention in the DRC in the late 1990s.
"We tend to stay out of politics
and get on with our everyday business, but we have to work with governments of
the day, just like multinationals the world over - it is naive to suggest that
other courses are open to us. It is only by having good working relations with
the Zimbabwean government, built up over the last 22 years, that I have been
able to engage in constructive criticism," Bredenkamp says on the Breco
website.
Bredenkamp's name has also been linked to a billion-dollar arms deal
in neighbouring South Africa, involving the British arms company BAE, which
local commentators say has poisoned the political groundwater of the fledgling
democracy.
Muller Conrad Rautenbach, otherwise known as Billy
Billy
Rautenbach, another individual identified by the EU as financially supporting
Mugabe's "regime", fled South Africa in 1999, facing numerous charges of theft,
bribery and fraud, and now reportedly lives on a farm near Mazowe, about 70km
from the capital, Harare.
His company, Ridgepoint Overseas Developments,
registered in the British Virgin Islands, has also been blacklisted by the EU.
The South African-born former rally driver, who holds Zimbabwean citizenship,
has enjoyed the patronage of Mugabe since the 1990s.
Rautenbach was appointed
by DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila as the chief executive of the state-owned
mining company, La Générale des Carrières et des Mines (Gecamines) in 1998.
Mobuto Sese Seko, president of the then Zaire, had been deposed the previous
year.
Rautenbach's position at Gecamines was reportedly secured in direct
negotiations between Kabila and Mnangagwa, as payback for Zimbabwe's military
backing.
George Forrest, son of Belgian businessman Malta Forrest, replaced
Rautenbach as Gecamines chief in 2000 after an apparent spat in which Kabila
accused Rautenbach of allegedly siphoning off cobalt and copper profits to
Ridgepoint. Kabila senior was assassinated and replaced as president by his son,
Joseph, in 2001.
Rautenbach maintained his interests in the mining sector
during the second Congo war (1998-2002), at a time when Zimbabwean troops were
fighting in support of Kabila.
In 2002 the UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal
Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, described Rautenbach as a man "whose personal and
professional integrity is doubtful."
The report found a network of "Congolese
and Zimbabwean political, military and commercial interests [that] seeks to
maintain its grip on the main mineral resources - diamonds, cobalt, copper,
germanium - of the [DRC] Government-controlled area.
The DRC
connection
"This network has transferred ownership of at least US$ 5 billion
of assets from the state mining sector to private companies under its control in
the past three years, with no compensation or benefit for the State treasury of
the Democratic Republic of the Congo," the report said. "Its representatives in
the Kinshasa Government and the Zimbabwe Defence Forces have fuelled
instability."
This network has transferred ownership of at least US$ 5
billion of assets from the state mining sector to private companies under its
control in the past three years, with no compensation or benefit for the State
treasury of the Democratic Republic of Congo
Among the Zimbabwean
military-political elite involved in plundering DRC resources the report named
Rautenbach, Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe Defence Force Commander Gen Vitalis Zvinavashe,
as well as his family members, Air Marshal Perence Shiri, Brig-Gen Sibusiso
Moyo, former security minister Sidney Sekeramayi, and chief executive of Oryx
Natural Resources, Thamer Bin Said Ahmed Al-Shanfari, an Omani national. All
appear on the EU sanctions list.
Not on the EU sanctions list, but identified
in the UN report as those assisting the Zimbabwe political and military elite to
extract minerals were DRC ministers and businessmen.
The complex web of
resource mining concessions in DRC saw Rautenbach again fall out of favour with
the DRC authorities in 2007, when he was arrested and deported from Lubumbashi,
in the mineral-rich southern province of Katanga.
"Mr Rautenbach has amassed
a large number of mineral and other assets in the DRC during the civil war and
subsequently. The government of the DRC is making strenuous efforts to clean up
the mining sector," the DRC authorities reportedly said in a
statement.
Rautenbach issued a statement shortly after the incident saying
reports of his arrest as a "major shareholder of Central African Mining and
Exploration Company (CAMEC)" were totally unfounded.
The chairman of CAMEC,
which has a present market capitalization of about $ 72 million, is Zambian-born
Phil Edmonds, who played international cricket for England during the 1970s; its
managing director is Andrew Groves, who was born in Zimbabwe.
There is no
suggestion that CAMEC has any corrupt links with Mugabe and his associates, but
it does have platinum concessions in Zimbabwe - as does the South Africa-based
mining company, Anglo Platinum - and it also has mining interests in the DRC,
South Africa, Mozambique and Mali.
Ben Brewerton, of the public relations
company, Financial Dynamics, which acts for CAMEC, told IRIN that Rautenbach had
a six percent shareholding, worth about $ 4.3 million at the current share
price, and held no executive positions with the company. He said the EU
sanctions had had no impact on Rautenbach's CAMEC shareholding - "It's business
as
usual."
go/he/oa
______________________________________________
http://www.swradioafrica.com/news040209/zbc040209.htm
By Lance
Guma
04 February 2009
Six more Zimbabwean journalists were slapped with
European Union (EU) targeted sanctions on the 26th January according to the
latest list published from Brussels. Recent additions include ZBC chief
correspondent Reuben Barwe, diplomatic correspondent Judith Makwanya, senior
producer Musoro Wegomo Mukosi, board chairman Justin Mutasa and Acting Chief
Executive Happison Muchechetere, who will not be able to travel to any EU
country.
The targeted sanctions which include a freeze on assets were
introduced several years ago to target individuals aiding and abetting the
brutal regime of Robert Mugabe. Barwe, Makwanya and Mukosi were accused of
whipping up violence during the government-orchestrated terror campaign before
and during the 2008 elections.
According to the list Muchechetere and Mutasa,
who chairs the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings and is Chief Executive of Zimbabwe
Newspapers, (owners of the Herald and Chronicle newspapers among others) are
accused of having ties to the Government and being involved in activities that
seriously undermine freedom of expression and the media in Zimbabwe. Also on the
list is Pikirai Deketeke who chairs the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe and
is editor of the official pro-government newspaper - The Herald.
He also has
ties to the regime, which further compromised freedom of expression in the
media. Last year Herald journalists Caesar Zvayi and Munyaradzi Huni were the
first journalists to make it on the list.
The EU said the measures were being
extended for another 12 months and took into account the situation, including
the violence organised and committed by the regime, and the continued blocking
of the implementation of the unity deal signed by ZANU PF and the MDC last
year.
Previous additions on the list include businessmen like John
Bredenkamp, who is said to have provided, through his companies, financial and
other support to the regime. Sekesai Makwavarara the former opposition mayor who
later joined ZANU PF is also on the list, and is accused of ‘bearing wide
responsibility for serious violations of human rights.’ Other key people in the
army, police, intelligence, media, political circles and business are on the EU
list which has 203 people and 40 companies aligned to Mugabe.
This week
Mugabe tried to use the African Union summit to lobby for a removal of the
targeted sanctions, but western countries said they would remain in place until
‘real progress’ was made in sharing power with the opposition. Many people are
still suspicious of Mugabe’s sincerity in the unity government, convinced he
wants to use the MDC to win international acceptance for his rogue regime, and
relieve pressure on his embattled stay in
power.
______________________________________________
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Zimbabwe/0,,2-11-1662_2464183,00.html
04/02/2009
22:43 - (SA)
Harare
Zimbabwe's rival parties on Wednesday postponed a
parliamentary debate on constitutional amendments which would pave the way for
the formation of a unity government, party officials said.
Both the ruling
Zanu-PF and opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the debate had
been postponed to allow negotiators more time to discuss outstanding
issues.
Zanu-PF chief whip Joram Gumbo told AFP "there are some sticky issues
which are being raised by other members of the house" and that the negotiators
had been summoned to talks by South African mediators.
"The negotiators were
summoned by the convener in South Africa to finalise the outstanding issues on
the talks," he added.
"The negotiators are supposed to be coming back on
Saturday. Although the parliament is supposed to re-convene on February 17, it
can be recalled for any urgent business."
"Since the negotiators are
somewhere finalising issues related to the constitutional amendment... the
motion on the amendments will not be moved today pending the finalisation of
those issues which we feel have to be addressed," said MDC chief whip Innocent
Gonese.
He said he hoped the discussions would be completed before the
February 11 swearing-in of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as prime
minister.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) last month set a
February 5 deadline for parliament to pass the necessary constitutional
amendments to allow implementation of the power-sharing deal signed last
September.
On Tuesday, the MDC accused Zanu-PF of backtracking from the SADC
mandate after the ruling party's negotiators failed to turn up for a
meeting.
-
AFP
______________________________________________
http://dailyguideghana.com/newd/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1903&Itemid=248
Wednesday,
04 February 2009
Morgan Tsvangirai Zimbabwe's opposition said Tuesday that
President Robert Mugabe's party has begun to backtrack on the inclusive
government set to form next week and is dithering on discussions of contentious
issues.
Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC), said in a statement that Mugabe's Zanu PF party had said it was
awaiting Mugabe's return from Ethiopia, where he is attending the African Union
summit.
"We in the MDC are convinced that there is no intention on the part
of Zanu PF to put all these issues to rest. There is no wish to consummate an
inclusive government in line with SADC (Southern African Development Community)
resolutions," said Chamisa.
"There is no wish to alleviate the suffering of
the people of Zimbabwe through a negotiated political process. In short, there
is no wish to tackle the outstanding issues as directed by the SADC Heads of
State. Zanu PF is panicking. It has been caught flat-footed. Zanu PF never
budgeted that the MDC would agree to be part of the inclusive government and now
they are in sixes and sevens while trying desperately to scuttle the deal," he
said.
Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai signed a power-sharing deal in
September. Under the deal - brokered by former South African leader Thabo Mbeki
on behalf of SADC - Mugabe would retain the presidency while Tsvangirai would
become the prime minister.
The deal has yet to get off the ground, because
Tsvangirai accused Mugabe of taking all the key ministries. Tsvangirai says he
wants the issue of who controls the security forces to be addressed before a
government is formed.
Last week Tsvangirai said he was committed to the
inclusive government, set to be formed by February 13 - a date set by SADC last
month - if the outstanding issues are addressed.
Chamisa added: "Zanu PF is
spoiling to scuttle the inclusive government which SADC directed should be in
place by 13 February 2009. We are ready to clear all outstanding issues so that
we collectively confront the challenges facing the people of Zimbabwe. Zanu PF
is not. We are ready to tackle cholera, unemployment and the collapse of basic
services such as education and health. Zanu PF is not."
Repeated efforts to
get a comment from Zanu PF spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira were fruitless, while
Patrick Chinamasa, the Zanu PF negotiator in the talks, referred all questions
to Mugabe.
CNN
______________________________________________
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0205/1233713219541.html
Thursday,
February 5, 2009
A mother takes her children home from a school closed
because of unpaid teachers
Chronic food shortages, hyperinflation, a cholera
epidemic, people abducted for speaking out against President Robert Mugabe’s
regime - all the stuff of daily life for ordinary Zimbabweans, as related here
by a journalist in Harare.
The reporter’s name has been withheld for her
safety.
December 5th, 2008
- Disappeared
THE SHRILL ring of my phone
awakens me. Sleep does not come easily these days. I’d like to turn off my
mobile at night, but what if my son should call?
I miss him but cannot risk
living near him. My profession makes me a target.
It’s a colleague, and she
has bad news. Jestina Mukoko, a human-rights activist, is missing. She was
abducted from her home not far from Harare two days ago, my colleague tells me.
Her teenage son watched as the armed intruders shoved her, barefoot and still in
her pyjamas, into a car.
Mukoko, one of the few women to have made it in the
Zimbabwean media, was a role model for me during my college days. She worked for
the country’s only television station, run by the state-controlled Zimbabwe
Broadcasting Corp. When Mugabe tightened his grip, she quit her job as a
newscaster, ultimately joining a human-rights organisation called the Zimbabwe
Peace Project (ZPP).
Mukoko and the ZPP, with their countrywide network of
secret volunteers who provide information about politically motivated violence,
are invaluable to what is left of our independent press.
Abductions such as
Mukoko’s were common leading up to the run-off election last June. Facing
certain defeat in a fair fight, Mugabe turned to violence. At least 86
supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition party were
killed, and 10,000 were injured, according to party leader Morgan Tsvangirai. I
suspect that the numbers are actually much higher. The attacks abated last
September, when Mugabe and the MDC reached a tentative settlement. But he
quickly went back on his word. Now the terror has returned.
December
20th
- The billion-dollar bread line
The government recently introduced a
10-billion-dollar bill, but with inflation at 89.7 sextillion per cent , it soon
will barely buy a loaf of bread. So at 4am I set off for the bank, where my $
100 billion monthly salary has just been deposited. I even feel a little happy.
I will be the first person to arrive, I think to myself. After withdrawing my
money, I will rush to the supermarket to buy whatever I can find before the cash
loses its value.
When I reach the bank, people are already waiting. The
security guard gives me a number: 105. It’s not long before the sun comes up and
the temperature rises. There are whispers that the bank doesn’t have enough cash
to go around. Everything is in short supply these days: milk, bread, meat, salt,
sugar, gas, even toilet paper.
At 5.45pm, after 13 hours in line, it’s my
turn. But the bank is giving only $ 10 billion to each customer. I dash to the
supermarket. The $ 10 billion buys one loaf of bread. I could have bought two
that morning. Afraid that one of the thousands of starving people will beg for
my loaf or that a neighbour will see it, I wrap it in old newspaper. I can’t
believe my own tightfistedness. But my husband and I have gone without bread for
a week.
December 24th
- Mukoko surfaces
A source phones me. The
government has produced Mukoko. I rush to the courtroom, but the hearing is
already in progress, so I wait outside. When the doors open, Mukoko is escorted
out. She walks with a limp but holds up her head. Beneath a wig, her face is
swollen. Her usual blazing expression is gone, replaced by blankness and fear. I
suspect that she has been tortured. I pull my cap over my eyes and cry.
The
judge orders that Mukoko be seen by a doctor before any further court
proceedings. But she is whisked away - not to a hospital but to the notorious
Chikurubi maximum-security prison.
The same government that for three weeks
had denied any knowledge of her abduction now hauls her into court and charges
her with plotting to overthrow Mugabe.
December 31st
- Disease and
denial
On a bleak New Year’s Eve, I think about my father’s brother, who
succumbed last month to cholera.
Not long after his death, I attended a
government news conference on the disease that the World Health Organisation
estimates has killed more than 1,500 and sickened nearly 30,000 since
August.
Mugabe’s information minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, called the epidemic
“a calculated, racist attack on Zimbabwe by the unrepentant former colonial
power, which has enlisted support from its American and western allies so that
they can invade the country”.
Part of me wanted to burst out laughing. But I,
too, worry about contracting the disease. I’ve had no water at my house for more
than three months. Like many of my neighbours, I have dug a shallow well in my
backyard. None of us can afford to purify the water.
January 20th, 2009
-
A day for hope
Only 20 days into the new year, and what a hard one it has
been so far. Last week the Reserve Bank issued yet another bill, worth $ 100
trillion, to cope with inflation. The number of cholera victims is approaching
3,000. Mukoko is still in prison.
Nonetheless, today is a day for hope. For
many Zimbabweans, the inauguration of Barack Obama, whom they consider a fellow
African, promises a brighter future.
As I prepare to watch the ceremony on my
little television, I cringe at the sound of an unexpected knock. But it’s just
my neighbour, Mai Kudzi. “My sister, I have come so that we may witness this
together,” she says.
Ten minutes before the inauguration is to begin, we’re
in darkness. We wonder whether Mugabe has cut off the electricity because he
fears that Obama will call on him to relinquish power.
Mai Kudzi and I sit
with our heads tilted toward my crackling battery-operated radio, the dial set
to an independent station that operates illegally, and strain to hear Obama take
the oath of office. As soon as he finishes his speech, we rejoice and dance in
the dark. We have not had anything to be happy about in a long time. Help is
coming, Mai Kudzi says.
Later, I eat my supper of dry bread alone. My husband
is on a trip to neighbouring Mozambique. We have run out of rice. At least we
can still afford to buy more.
January 27th
- More bad news
For the
first time in six months, I enjoy a hot shower with running water - something my
son may never experience. I am in South Africa for another summit on
Zimbabwe.
This time, the Southern African Development Community is trying to
hammer out a powersharing agreement between Mugabe and the opposition. Last
night my phone kept ringing until I finally turned it off. Everyone at home
wants to know the outcome of the talks. The news is not good. In the wee hours
of the morning, negotiators emerge with conflicting statements.
Some say that
an agreement has been reached, others claim the opposite. The confusion means
that Mugabe is still in charge. I wonder how much longer we can hold
on.
January 30th
- Still waiting for help
It’s late afternoon. I just
got the news. The opposition has agreed to join Mugabe’s government, with
Tsvangirai to become prime minister within weeks. From South Africa, I watch on
television as people gather outside the MDC’s headquarters in Harare, cheering
at the announcement.
The police are too stunned to make any arrests. For the
crowd, today is another day for hope.
But like many Zimbabweans, I find it
hard to celebrate. Mugabe remains powerful under the new government, still
controlling the state coffers, the military, the police and the media.
I sigh
as I think of the problems ahead. The United Nations estimates that seven
million Zimbabweans - as much as 80 per cent of the population - need food aid.
The cholera death count creeps ever higher. Yesterday the government announced
that citizens may do business in the US dollar, the British pound, the South
African rand, and even the Botswanan pula, effectively abandoning the worthless
Zimbabwean currency.
As I wait at the airport for my flight home, the light
at the end of the tunnel seems so far away.
The writer reports for US public
radio PBS, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. - ( LA
Times-Washington Post service)
This article appears in the print edition of
the Irish
Times
______________________________________________
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=11021
February 4,
2009
Geoffrey Nyarota
Dr Simba Makoni ousted.
By Raymond
Maingire
Harare
Simba Makoni, a former Finance Minister and one of the
losing presidential candidates in last year’s elections, was on Wednesday
dramatically ousted from the helm of his Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn (MKD) Movement by a
group of senior party executives.
The master-mind of the ouster is Makoni’s
former director of operations director, Retired Major Kudzai Mbudzi.
Mbudzi
and the rest of the party’s leadership accuse Makoni of abusing the party’s
financial and material resources, coupled with an alleged refusal too sever
links with President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF, a party he deserted in
spectacular fashion on the eve of the March 29, 2008 elections.
“He continued
to be manipulated and therefore gets constant guidance and comfort from some
hidden forces within Zanu-PF,” Mbudzi told journalists at a press conference on
Wednesday.
Makoni, together with Mbudzi and publisher Ibbo Mandaza, fronted
an abortive rebellion against President Robert Mugabe on the eve of the March 29
elections.
But one year down the line, Makoni angered his colleagues by
allegedly renewing his ties with Zanu-PF, a party that nurtured his political
career from his early twenties.
“He therefore regularly holds clandestine
meetings with Zanu-PF heavyweights. So Simba Makoni is not his own person,” said
Mbudzi.
Mbudzi said the leadership of the Mavambo Movement was now in the
hands of its National Coordinating Committee (NCC) that shall lead the party to
its first internal elections since its emergence in December 2008.
Although
Makoni had not yet been officially elected as leader of the group, he remained
strategically ensconced at the apex of the ambitious group prior to his seeking
a full mandate from the party’s national membership.
Mbudzi also accused the
former Zanu-PF politburo member of lacking political clout; a situation that he
says had dampened the spirits of his support base, which was mostly drawn among
professional Zimbabweans.
He said the Mavambo Movement was disgruntled with
Makoni’s failure to seize the opportunity for crucial political space during the
protracted unity talks that have since yielded an agreement aimed towards the
formation of a unity government fronted by Zanu-PF and MDC.
Makoni, who
contested the March 29 elections as an independent, scrapped a paltry 8, 3
percent of the national vote against his adversaries, Morgan Tsvangirai of MDC
who won 47, 9 percent of the vote while President Robert Mugabe trailed with
nearly 43 percent of the vote.
He did not qualify for the run off elections
that saw Mugabe declared winner despite a last minute pull-out by Tsvangirai who
cited state sponsored violence against the MDC.
Said Mbudzi, “Simba also
lacks one of the fundamental values and core principles of honesty, transparency
and therefore integrity in handling the movement’s funds and
resources.
“Simba and his two other cronies abused more than 250 000 litres
of fuel donated to the movement and do not accept a forensic financial audit for
all resources raised and are within the coffers of the movement and yet our
campaign used less than 50 000 litres of fuel.
“Makoni has been a finance
minister as we appreciate that he is a chemist by profession.
“But through
his constant and long association with finance guys, should at least have
embraced the importance and the cleansing role of the professional forensic
audit in a public organization where the vectors of public office and public
funds converge.
He accused Makoni of concealing from his colleagues, huge
amounts of money ranging from US$ 1, 5 million and US$ 3 million sourced through
donations from well wishers and further refusing to open an audit on the use of
the funds.
“We hear of some foreign bank accounts in South Africa and
Botswana and some substantial amount close to US$ 1, 5 million being deposited
in a local bank,” said Mbudzi.
“U$ 100 000 dollars worth of stationery were
surprisingly transferred from Mavambo’s official offices to a factory premises
owned by Makoni’s wife were later reported as having been stolen.”
Makoni is
also accused of unilaterally directing huge amounts of his party’s funds towards
his personal and family security despite what is perceived to be a clear absence
of any threat against his life.
“He allocated his personal and family use,
two luxury Cherokee vehicles, five Mazda BT50 and two Nissan 1 tonne
trucks.
“Dear colleagues and friends,” Mbudzi said, “you would agree with us
here that one of the minimum common denominations of few African despots is
their love for self aggrandizement through abuse of public office, an
overemphasized, hallucinated self-importance concept, and exasperated on the
personal security.”
Makoni is also accused of being aloof through surrounding
himself with a group of people from his home area.
“He promotes a system of
patronage and division within the movement on the basis of primitive and
maritime values of tribalism and ethnicity,” he said.
“Out of a total number
of 10 members of the national management committee, seven can be traced to Simba
Makoni’s tribal roots and villages of origin.
“The situation presented above
obviously smacks of lamentable tale of vacuum of leadership and indeed of a
movement which is over-managed and under-led hence the proclamation today in our
collective conscience as the movement’s surprise decision in policy making
bodies.
“With immediate effect we have recalled Simba Makoni to ordinary
membership and basic level political activism of our movement.
“We have
therefore withdrawn his mandate to speak and act on behalf of the movement
pending the outcome of investigations, explanations and clarifications which
would be done in a fair and transparent manner.
“Unfortunately some of these
investigations are involving engagement of the police and the law enforcement
agents.
“We therefore as members and senior leadership of MKD hereby declare
that Simba Makoni is with immediate effect relieved of his coordinative and
administrative duties, the functions and responsibility at a strategic apex of
MKD movement.
“It is then primarily the same powers now punctuated in the
force of the full NCC which is recalling Simba back to ordinary membership
awaiting further and probably simpler assignments.
Mbudzi accused Makoni of
“insidiously showing disdain and disrespect” for his members who tried to call
him to order.
“In the meantime as I have alluded to, we have instructed the
police, our lawyers and a firm of accountants to begin a comprehensive forensic
audit and investigations into our funds and resources of Mavambo’s being
privatized by Simba Makoni.”
Makoni could not be reached for
comment.
______________________________________________
http://www.nehandaradio.com/zimbabwe/opinionwriters/mutemeri/altar040209.html
Picture:
Doreen Mutemeri argues this unity deal can be equated to a rape victim going to
the altar to marry the rapist.
04 February 2009
By Doreen
Mutemeri
Everyone seems to appreciate why Morgan Tsvangirai entered the
government of national unity with Robert Mugabe’s regime and what he is hoping
to achieve in terms of a better Zimbabwe. Those who have been married however
will tell you a marriage without sincerity and honesty will never work.
It is
on this premise that I want to argue that the political marriage with Zanu PF
despite all the good intentions of the MDC will never work. They say history
repeats itself over and over again because we are not paying attention the first
time. Our history is littered with examples that show Mugabe never keeps any of
his promises.
In 1980 Mugabe had a similar government of national unity deal
with PF ZAPU’s Joshua Nkomo but 2 years into the arrangement Nkomo was fired as
Home Affairs Minister. Over 20 000 people in the Midlands and Matabeland were
butchered during the Gukurahundi Massacres that targeted so-called dissidents
but ended up affecting known PF ZAPU sympathizers.
Only last year close to
200 people lost their lives in a carefully orchestrated campaign by the Joint
Operations Command (JOC) to overturn the people’s election victory in March. It
is hard for many ordinary Zimbabweans to believe a regime that has killed so
many people in order to remain in power can ever form a partnership with its
victims.
This unity deal can be equated to a rape victim going to the altar
to marry the rapist. What must be going through the mind of the victim?
Is
the victim simply bidding his or her time and trying to lull the rapist into a
false sense of security before striking back in revenge in the future. All these
are the typical questions MDC supporters are asking.
A few days after the MDC
committed to the power sharing deal, Mugabe and his Zanu PF machinery were
already clamouring for targeted sanctions to be removed. We understand the
negotiating parties are still haggling over the small print but this has not
stopped Mugabe from using the African Union summit in Ethiopia this week to call
for a lifting of targeted sanctions.
So here the rapist is going to the
courts and saying ey…look, I have married the rape victim so remove all the
legal sanctions placed on me. We all want what is best for Zimbabwe but
unfortunately here we have simply bowed to the bully boy tactics of Zanu PF and
Mugabe and allowed them to remain in power when we voted them out 10 months
ago
Some might forgive, but we will never forget!
Nehanda Radio: Serving
Zimbabwe since June
2006
______________________________________________
South Africa demands that the West aid a 'unity' government
under Robert Mugabe. How to
answer?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020403173.html
Thursday,
February 5, 2009; Page A16
SOUTH AFRICA has won a round in its relentless
campaign to preserve Robert Mugabe's hold over a dying Zimbabwe.
With the
help of its allies in the Southern Africa Development Community, South Africa
succeeded last week in coercing opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai - the winner
of last year's presidential election - into accepting a subordinate role in a
"unity" government led by the 84-year-old strongman. The deal, which Mr.
Tsvangirai bravely resisted for months, will leave Mr. Mugabe in charge of the
country's last functioning institutions - army and police forces that have been
waging a campaign of murder, rape and torture against the opposition and human
rights activists.
Mr. Tsvangirai relented because he believed that the
frightful humanitarian emergency in Zimbabwe left him with little choice. The
United Nations estimates that 7 million of the 9 million people remaining in the
country need food aid this month. A cholera epidemic has so far infected more
than 62,000 and killed 3,100. Schools, hospitals and most businesses have
closed, the national currency has been discarded and unemployment is over 90
percent.
The opposition will be placed in charge of the finance, health and
education ministries, which it hopes will allow it to solicit and distribute aid
to prevent mass death from starvation and disease. As South Africa and its
client more cynically calculate, Mr. Tsvangirai's appointment will compel the
United States, Britain and other Western governments to lift sanctions and renew
economic support, thus preventing what would otherwise be the inevitable
collapse of Mr. Mugabe's regime.
The misery of Zimbabwe is indeed compelling
- but the Obama administration and other Western governments should reject South
Africa's demands. It long ago became clear that Zimbabwe cannot recover as long
as Mr. Mugabe remains in power. South Africa and other neighbors who insist on
supporting the criminal regime are free to supply aid. But Western governments
must maintain their sanctions - especially those aimed at individual members of
the Mugabe regime and the companies they control.
A State Department
statement this week said the administration would consider new assistance and
the lifting of sanctions "when we have seen evidence of true power sharing as
well as inclusive and effective governance." What should that include?
Mr.
Tsvangirai himself is demanding the freeing of more than 30 opposition activists
from prison. Legislation must be passed giving the opposition a measure of
control over security forces, and replacing the central bank president - a
Mugabe crony - with a technocrat. Restrictions on the press must be lifted and
foreign journalists admitted. Perhaps most important, the government must agree
on a plan for a new presidential election, with guarantees for fairness and full
international monitoring.
If these steps were taken, Western aid to Zimbabwe
might serve some purpose. But they won't be. "Zimbabwe is mine" is Mr. Mugabe's
only principle. The first step in any rescue must be prying the country from his
grip.
______________________________________________
http://www.nehandaradio.com/blog/?p=367
UK
Parliament
House of Lords
Wednesday, 4 February
2009
Zimbabwe
Question asked By Baroness Northover
To ask Her Majesty’s
Government what is their response to the reported agreement to form a Government
of national unity in Zimbabwe.
The Minister of State, Foreign and
Commonwealth Office (Lord Malloch-Brown): My Lords, we are cautious about the
workability of the agreement, but this is a solution that has been agreed
between the Zimbabwean parties. Our hope is that those parties can make it work.
Our formal engagement, including the provision of donor support, will depend on
the new Government’s ability to demonstrate through their actions a commitment
to reform.
Baroness Northover: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that
reply and for all his work on the issue. Does he share-it sounds as if he may-my
sinking feeling about the agreement and whether it has any real chance of
bringing peace and prosperity to Zimbabwe, given that Mugabe still controls the
police, the army and the central bank?
Does he think that SADC feels that it
has now washed its hands of the problem?
If so, how does the international
community now best support and protect the people of Zimbabwe?
Lord
Malloch-Brown: My Lords, perhaps “sinking feeling” is the wrong phrase. All of
us have great scepticism towards this, but we should all devoutly hope that the
agreement can work. I met a range of African leaders at the AU summit in Addis
Ababa during the past few days, many of them people who have privately been very
critical of President Mugabe. All of them felt that the desperate nature of the
humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe meant that one more try at power-sharing was
enormously important, that the suffering of the people required the politicians
to overcome their differences and try one last time to see whether the
power-sharing arrangement could be made to work. Although the noble Baroness
makes very important points about how control is shared, we have to give this a
chance, while setting very stern conditionalities for what we expect in terms of
political freedoms and economic reform before we can provide support additional
to our generous humanitarian assistance.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords,
can the Minister reassure us that when it comes to resuming aid to that poor
country, 75 per cent of whose people are currently starving-I know that he is
cautious, and he is right to be-and funds start flowing again, whether directly
from Britain or through the EU or other agencies, we will take steps to see that
they do not fall into the hands of Mr Gideon Gono, the central bank governor,
who seems to regard the central bank as a private ZANU-supporting agency and is
quite willing to distort the distribution of funds from it for purposes that
have nothing to do with the recovery of the people of Zimbabwe?
Lord
Malloch-Brown: My Lords, one of the conditions that Mr Tsvangirai has pressed
for is that he has control of the economic team that he was assured under the
agreement, and that therefore he has the right to select a central bank
governor. It will be an early test of the credibility of the power-sharing that
he be allowed to do so. I agree with the noble Lord that it is utterly
implausible that we could put British taxpayers’ money into the hands of Gideon
Gono.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, it was depressing that the Minister had to
explain yet again to the participants at the AU meeting the actual meaning of
sanctions. Did the participants understand that Mugabe himself is the main cause
of the bankruptcy and universal starvation of the people of Zimbabwe?
In any
AU fallback plan that may become necessary as a result of the failure of the
SADC initiative, will the first priority be to remove Mr Mugabe from
office?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, when you are trying to make the current
plan work, you do not want to undermine it by immediately discussing
hypothetical alternatives should it fail. Again, our emphasis should be on
making this work. The AU summiteers called for sanctions to be lifted because
they believe that they interfere with humanitarian support to Zimbabwe. As the
noble Lord observes, I explained to them again that the sanctions are targeted
only at individuals and the corporate entities that are controlled by those
individuals; they are not aimed against the people of Zimbabwe. Indeed, Britain
is the second most generous humanitarian donor to that country, and I suspect
that we will be putting in even more resources for humanitarian assistance by
routes that we can control, due to the growing crisis.
The Earl of Sandwich:
My Lords, there have been appalling assaults on Zimbabwean parliamentarians in
the past. Does the Minister have any confidence that they will not
continue?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, I have publicly said, as have my
colleagues, that the release of political prisoners and the end of abductions
and of political violence are the first test of the credibility of this
agreement.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the Minister is clearly right to say that a
humanitarian catastrophe on this scale means that political principle must be
put second, but does he see a danger in the significant survival of Mugabe,
albeit in a reduced state, setting a precedent for other outgoing, or should-be
outgoing, new democratic Governments to reduce their own countries to penury to
secure their own survival?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, we need to hope that
Mr Mugabe is sui generis. Certainly, the mood of the summit was that there was
no great enthusiasm for the agreement, just an acceptance that a pragmatic
solution needed to be found in the interests of the people of the country. I
very much hope that it will not lead to the precedent of the kind to which the
noble Lord refers.
The Duke of Montrose: My Lords, no doubt the Minister is
aware that, under the Lancaster House agreement, we entered into a commitment to
transfer funds to Zimbabwe in return for certain actions that we had to cut
short because they were not being properly fulfilled. Is there any way in which
the money that we now transfer to Zimbabwe could be seen to be completing our
undertakings under the Lancaster House agreement so that that is never used
against us?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, we feel that we met our commitments
under the Lancaster House agreement. It is correct that some resources for land
reform were not transferred because the Government of Zimbabwe at that time
failed to give priority to land reform or to utilise the resources available to
them. They are a Johnny-come-lately on this issue. It is important that the
economic assistance that we very much hope we will be able to provide in the
future to a new and effective Government in Zimbabwe will be less about paying
an unmet debt under the Lancaster House agreement-a debt that we really do not
accept there is-and more a demonstration of commitment from the people of
Britain to the people of Zimbabwe to restore that beautiful country to the
wealth and democratic opportunity that it has
lost.
______________________________________________
http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/hartley/2009/02/05/zimbabwe-economy-the-end-is-nigh/
The
Times
5 February 2009, 00:01 GMT + 2
YESTERDAY we published news of
Zimbabwe’s astronomical inflation rate.
Actually, the term astronomical is
not strictly speaking correct as there are fewer than five sextillion planets,
stars and astroids in the universe.
But we should not make light of this
statistic.
The awful truth is that the Zimbabwean economy is entering its end
days. It has, for some time, ceased to serve the needs of the majority of
Zimbabweans who are living from hand to mouth in a barter economy.
It has
failed as an investment destination as the risks have outweighed potential
returns.
Robert Mugabe and his somewhat deluded central bank governor, Gideon
Gono, have been putting it out that “sanctions” are to blame for the Zimbabwean
economy’s parlous state.
But this is dissembling. Sanctions have been imposed
on Mugabe and his henchmen, not on foreign investors.
The truth is that
Zimbabwe has ceased to offer the opportunities and the infrastructure needed to
inspire investors.
An inflation rate of five sextillion percent and a
currency that has lost 22 zeros over the last year do not inspire
confidence.
What is needed now is a sense of urgency around rebuilding
Zimbabwe’s economy by firstly ensuring political stability.
The swearing in
of the MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai as the country’s Prime Minister would greatly
assist this quest.
But it would have to be followed by a series of
far-reaching and rapid policy changes to inspire confidence.
These would have
to include the end of state interference in corporate ownership, the removal of
restrictions on the repatriation of capital by investors and an end to
restrictions on capital flows.
And South Africa must develop a programme to
help rebuild this economy with
urgency.
______________________________________________
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page72308?oid=116539&sn=Marketingweb%20detail
Robert
Wood
04 February 2009
State department spokesman says no plan to lift
targeted sanctions yet
Zimbabwe: Unity Government
The Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) has agreed to join a unity government with Robert Mugabe
under the conditions called for in the Southern African Development Community
(SADC) January 27 Communiqué. The success or failure of such a government will
depend on credible and inclusive power sharing by Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF
party. The international community must remain engaged and continue to
scrutinize actions by Mr. Mugabe to ensure adherence to the letter and spirit of
this agreement, including respect for human rights and the rule of law. We urge
SADC to fulfill its obligation to guarantee that Mr. Mugabe proceeds on a new
path toward reconciliation and genuine partnership with the MDC.
The U.S.
will only consider new development assistance and easing of targeted sanctions
when we have seen evidence of true power sharing as well as inclusive and
effective governance. We will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to the
Zimbabwean people in their time of suffering.
Statement issued by Robert
Wood, acting deputy spokesman for the US Department of State, Washington DC,
February 3
2009
______________________________________________
http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/Zimbabwe/2009-02-04-voa63.cfm
By
Marvellous Mhlanga-Nyahuye
Washington
04 February 2009
The decision by
the Zimbabwean government to transfer control of public water systems back to
local authorities from the Zimbabwe National Water Authority, widely considered
an inept parastatal, has been hailed as an important step toward providing clean
water and thereby bringing a continuing and deadly cholera epidemic under
control.
Heneri Dzinotyiweyi, a member of parliament for the Harare suburb of
Budiriro, an epicenter of the epidemic in its earlier stages, said the move will
address the root cause of the spread of the disease which the World Health
Organization says has taken 3,323 lives.
Months-long water cutoffs in Harare
and other municipalities under ZINWA management led residents to dig open wells
that were easily contaminated with the cholera bacterium from human fecal matter
deposited in the open due to the unavailability of flush toilets.
The central
government took control of local water supplies in 2006 in a step many observers
said was intended to capture a significant source of public revenues while
denying those funds to city councils of larger municipalities dominated by the
opposition.
Dzinotyiweyi told reporter Marvellous Mhlanga-Nyahuye of VOA's
Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that he wants to see government tackle the epidemic at its
source in the collapsed water and sanitation infrastructure and be more active
in boosting public
awareness.
______________________________________________
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/zimbabwe/1487.html
05
February, 2009 02:22:00 Staff Report
John Nkomo party chairman and others
have threatened to quit the party
JOHANNESBURG
The Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai and President Kgalema Motlanthe held
secret emergency talks on Wednesday to try to overcome new obstacles to
Zimbabwe's troubled power-sharing deal, amid reports of Robert Mugabe facing
resistance from his henchmen and unconfirmed assassination attempts of Zanu PF
key negotiator Patrick Chinamasa.
Tsvangirai rushed to Cape Town to meet
Motlanthe after the MDC threatened to pull out of the unity government deal
because of what it called Zanu-PF's continuing bad faith.
Zanu-PF negotiators
last week failed to attend talks to resolve two major outstanding issues that
Tsvangirai wanted addressed before he being sworn into office by February
11.
President Robert Mugabe had agreed to these urgent talks at the Southern
African Development Community (SADC) summit in Pretoria last week.
Motlanthe
and Tsvangirai's talks were described as 'strictly private
Motlanthe and
Tsvangirai's talks were described as "strictly private" and no-one was willing
to go on record about them.
Zanu-PF's tardiness in coming to negotiations has
set back the timetable for the establishment of a unity government which the
SADC leaders set last week.
Constitutional amendment 19 to create the post of
Prime Minister for Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister for Arthur Mutambara,
leader of a smaller MDC party, was supposed to be adopted by Thursday but has
now been postponed to next week to give negotiators time to resolve the
outstanding issues.
This seems likely also to delay the swearing in of
Tsvangirai and Mutambara beyond the scheduled date of February 11 and the launch
of the unity government by February 13.
The SADC leaders also ordered the
Zimbabwean parties to distribute provincial governorships more fairly among
themselves and to agree on legislation to establish a new national security
council by today.
'The success or failure of such a government will depend on
credible and inclusive power sharing.
These two matters have not been
resolved because Zanu-PF's negotiators said they did not have a mandate for
negotiating because Mugabe had been at the AU summit in Addis Ababa. It is
believed that there is a new wave of resistance from within Robert Mugabe's
party. Remaining members of Zapu in who are still Zanu PF, are threatening to
quit the party if Governors appointment in Matabeleland are
withdrawn.
Yesterday they finally showed up in Johannesburg for negotiations
with their MDC counterparts which were still on yesterday evening.
Zanu-PF
has also hinted that it does not wish to discuss the immediate re-distribution
of the governorships - now all held by Zanu PF officials - but only when
vacancies arise. This infuriated Tsvangirai and prompted him to seek Motlanthe's
help.
Meanwhile the US government has declared that it will only lift
targeted sanctions against Mugabe and his officials and support the new unity
government with development aid "when we have seen evidence of true power
sharing as well as inclusive and effective governance."
"The success or
failure of such a government will depend on credible and inclusive power sharing
by Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party," said spokesman Robert Wood.
"The
international community must remain engaged and continue to scrutinize actions
by Mr Mugabe to ensure adherence to the letter and spirit of this agreement,
including respect for human rights and the rule of law.
"We urge SADC to
fulfill its obligation to guarantee that Mr Mugabe proceeds on a new path toward
reconciliation and genuine partnership with the MDC."
Wood added that the US
government would continue to provide humanitarian aid to the Zimbabwean people
in the meantime.
Earlier British Foreign Secretary David Miliband had said
much the same, saying the new government would be judged on its actions which
would determine whether Britain provided development support in addition to its
present humanitarian support.
The required actions included the release of
all political prisoners, an immediate end to political violence and
intimidation, the repeal of repressive legislation and the appointment of a
credible financial team and a clear roadmap to the next national elections to be
conducted freely and fairly "in full view of the international
community".
______________________________________________
http://changezimbabwe.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1944&Itemid=2
Written
by CZ Correspondent
Wednesday, 04 February 2009
Delegates to an
all-Zimbabwean churches meeting with Movement for Democratic Change President,
Morgan Tsvangirai, said the release of political prisoners was more of a
priority for the government of national unity than the removal of
sanctions.
Church representatives from the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, the
Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference and
the Christian Alliance attended the meeting on Monday.
The church leaders
said they would be praying for the success of the GNU before and after 11
February - the expected date of the Prime Minister's inauguration and also on
Sunday February 15 which has been set aside as the day the Church in Zimbabwe
will "thank God for having taken us such far."
Delegates were, however, not
amused by the reported calls by SA President Montlante and his assistant, Frank
Chikane for the immediate removal of sanctions - a move which casts doubt on
South Africans' sincerity in wanting to see genuine power-sharing.
A
delegate, wary that the South Africans were only after rescuing Mugabe and his
cronies, asked, "who gave them the mandate to call for the removal of
sanctions?
"They are on record that they are not in a position to prescribe
anything for Zimbabweans."
Instead delegates thought the priority should be
the release of political prisoners who “should not be in custody a day longer,”
said a rapporteur at the meeting.
He also said Tsvangirai showed confidence
in the new set up, though he was aware of the challenges of the expectations of
people who had been brutalised for such a long time.
The priorities he had
set out for the church leaders were education, health, food and revival of the
economy.
"I know once you finish one aspect of peoples' needs the bar of
expectation is moved up," said Tsvangirai before he thanked the church for the
confidence it had shown in him and asked the delegates to remember him and the
new government in their prayers.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 04 February 2009
)
______________________________________________
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=4208
by
Cuthbert Nzou
Thursday 05 February 2009
MUGABE Robert. . . Directed
Parliament to pass constitutional bill today
Harare
Plans to form a
government of national unity in Zimbabwe got back on track after President
Robert Mugabe directed Parliament to pass requisite constitutional amendments
today while the opposition immediately indicated it would support the
amendments.
Parliament had deferred considering Constitution of Zimbabwe
Amendment No19 Bill to next week because Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa
tasked with steering the Bill through the House was away in South Africa
attending talks to conclude outstanding issues that must be resolved before
formation of the unity government.
But state radio reported Wednesday evening
that Mugabe, who had been away in Ethiopia where he was attending the African
Summit, had upon arrival in Harare ordered Parliament to pass the Bill today,
allowing formation of the unity government to proceed according to a timetable
set by regional leaders.
The main opposition MDC formation’s parliamentary
chief whip Innocent Gonese said the party would back the Bill that will create
the office of prime minister to be occupied by its leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai.
The Bill will also create the two offices of two deputy prime
minister to be occupied by Arthur Mutambara, head of the smaller MDC formation
and Thokozani Khupe, who is Tsvangirai’s deputy in the main opposition
formation.
Gonese said: “We will support the Bill in line with the (MDC)
national council resolutions.”
A constitutional amendment requires two-thirds
majority to pass but the unity government Bill is expected to receive backing
from all three parties who have agreed on its contents in advance.
Meanwhile
unconfirmed reports suggested that negotiating parties from Mugabe’s ruling ZANU
PF and the two MDC formations meeting in South Africa were making progress on
the contentious issues still on the table.
According to the reports, the
parties were close to sealing agreement on national security legislation as well
as on the issue of how to share provincial governorships and other top
government posts.
The Zimbabwean negotiators were summoned to South Africa,
tasked by the regional SADC bloc to mediate in the Zimbabwe political crisis,
after the MDC-T complained that ZANU PF was stalling on discussing outstanding
issues and could derail the formation of the unity government.
Regional
leaders hope a unity government will help ease Zimbabwe’s political crisis and
allow the country to focus on tackling an unprecedented economic and
humanitarian crisis marked by hyperinflation, acute shortages of food and basic
commodities, amid a cholera epidemic that has killed more than 3 000 Zimbabweans
since August.
Under a plan drawn up the SADC, Parliament should pass
constitutional amendment Bill by today, while Tsvangirai and his two deputies
should be sworn in on February 11. The rest of the unity Cabinet should be sworn
on February
13.
ZimOnline
______________________________________________
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=4206
by Own
Correspondent
Thursday 05 February 2009
JOHANNESBURG
Zimbabwe’s unity
government faces a huge and urgent task of trying to rescue the country's
economy shattered by a decade-long decline, South African President Kgalema
Motlanthe told the media on Wednesday.
The South African leader said the
unity government was essentially a transitional vehicle whose main task would be
to salvage the economy that has crumbled under the world's highest inflation
rate of over 231-million percent.
"Essentially the inclusive government is a
transitional authority," said Motlanthe who is also the current chair of the
regional Southern African Development Community (SADC) that facilitated
Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal.
"The main tasks were really to stabilise the
political situation and embark on economic recovery for the country," Motlanthe
told journalists on the sidelines of the African Union summit in the Ethiopian
capital.
SADC leaders resolved after a marathon summit last week that
President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF party and the opposition should form a
government of national unity outlined under a September power-sharing agreement
to end months of political strife following disputed elections in March.
But
many are skeptical that the unity government will last or work, given the
mistrust and deep-seated animosity between Mugabe and opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
"Depending on how it
goes, and whether by agreement this inclusive government decides to call early
elections . . . that's a matter that they would be able to resolve as
Zimbabweans," Motlanthe said.
Once a regional breadbasket, Zimbabwe is in the
grip of a severe economic crisis and food shortages that Mugabe blames on poor
weather and Western sanctions he says have hampered importation of fertilizers,
seed, and other farming inputs.
But critics blame Zimbabwe's troubles on
repression and wrong polices by Mugabe such as his land reforms that displaced
established white commercial farmers and replaced them with either incompetent
or inadequately funded black farmers, leading to a massive drop in farm
production.
The economic collapse has also made it difficult for aid agencies
to work in Zimbabwe because of high prices for supplies, troubles in paying
salaries, difficulty in accessing food for staff and fuel shortages.
With its
value eroded by the world’s highest inflation, the Zimbabwe dollar is nearly
worthless and every worker, consumer or trader is increasingly shunning the
currency in favour of hard cash.
Crumbling sanitation systems have unleashed
a deadly cholera outbreak that the UN says has killed 3 229 people and infected
62 909 others across the country - the worst death toll in Africa from an
outbreak of the normally preventable disease in 15 years.
Zimbabweans hope a
unity government will help ease the political situation and allow the country to
focus on tackling the economic crisis and humanitarian crisis that is seen in
acute food shortages, hyperinflation and deepening poverty and an outbreak of
diseases such cholera and anthrax.
"Once the inclusive government is in
place, part of the responsibility will be to go and try to attract investments,
particularly in the infrastructure," Motlanthe said.
"The telling part in
terms of the implementation of the economic recovery plan would be to get
investment in infrastructure," he said.
However, there has been lukewarm
response to the unity government from Western governments whose financial
support is critical to any programme to revive Zimbabwe’s comatose
economy.
The United States and Britain, who are Zimbabwe’s biggest donors,
have said they will adopt a wait-and-see attitude to the unity government, with
UK Africa minister Mark Malloch-Brown saying on Tuesday that London would
maintain sanctions against Mugabe and his top lieutenants.
Malloch-Brown told
the BBC Britain was sceptical about the new coalition government in Zimbabwe but
believed it should be given assistance to tackle the humanitarian crisis in the
country.
The UK government would continue to give such support but would not
lift sanctions on Mugabe and his top officials until it was convinced there were
committed to power-sharing and democratic
change.
ZimOnline
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http://www.hararetribune.com/business/7-news/120-agribank-employees-in-scam-.html
Business
- News
Written by Ivene Cheunga
Wednesday, 04 February 2009 19:29
More
than ten employees of Agribank have been dismissed following a long running
financial scam in which they were illicitly accessing funds from clients’ bank
accounts, Harare Tribune has unearthed.
According to a well-placed insider,
the employees at the height of the web of “burning” currency (Kupisa) the
workers most of them bank tellers were overwhelmed by huge deposits into some
personal and business accounts and they hatched an ulterior plan to externalise
the funds without the clients’ knowledge.
“The workers, most of them bank
tellers hatched a plot to forge signatures of individual and corporate clients
and successfully withdrew funds and intermittent levels,” he said.
The source
said the scam was unearthed by an internal audit system coupled with tip offs by
inside sources and the workers were given the option of resigning if they were
to go away with anything in terms of terminal benefits.
The workers were
alleged to be in the habit of buying foreign currency with their loot on the
black market at a time most ordinary people were eking out to access token
amounts from their accounts.
An official comment could not be furnished from
Agribank as the management chickened out and could not entertain this
publication on the issue.
The bank’s public relations directorate said that
the issue was too sensitive, refused to disclose the identities of the accused
only saying it was premature for them to comment as the matter was still under
investigation.
However financial specialists have said that under such
circumstances, Agribank might have been prejudiced of multi-millions of dollars
in foreign currency as the bank becomes the ultimate bearer of the burden to put
back clients’ funds.
They said that normally the case is treated as fraud and
the criminal arm of the justice board would deal with the matter implying that
it is the state that eventually benefits.
During the cash crunch that
worsened early last year, most bank officials were diverting medical and funeral
documents from clients purporting that the central bank had not furnished
feedback to various applications of bulk cash yet they would have diverted the
funds to the black market for personal gains.
The central bank governor
Gideon Gono once fired warning shots to defaulting banks as RBZ eventually
became a dart board of accusations from the
public
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http://www.hararetribune.com/our-town/1-news/121-chra-harare-city-weekly-update.html
Our
Town - News
Written by CHRA
Wednesday, 04 February 2009 19:37
HRE Intl.
Airport
Most parts of Harare are still experiencing dry spells and chances of
the water situation improving soon are slim as the ZINWA staff is currently on
strike due to the non-availability of protective clothing and competitive
remuneration. Areas like Glenview, Budiriro, Glen Norah, and Msasa Park,
Mabvuku-Tafara, Mandara, Glen Lorne, Marlborough and parts of Hatfield have gone
without water supplies for the past two weeks. CHRA has received reports from
ward(s) leadership in Highfield that the Lusaka and Paradise areas have not
received water supplies since mid-December last year.
UNICEF is still
providing water to residents but residents have pointed out that water is not
enough hence they are supplementing by fetching water from Mukuvisi River.
Kuwadzana 3 is experiencing water cuts on a daily basis and supplies are only
available for a maximum of seven hours a day (usually between 10pm and 5am).
However, some parts of Kuwadzana (especially Kuwadzana 4, 5 and 6),
Dzivarasekwa, Avondale, some parts of Highfield and the Avenues area in the city
centre receive regular water supplies.
Most high density areas in Harare
remain plagued with pools of raw sewerage as ZINWA has failed to attend to burst
sewer pipes. A snap survey of the state of the sewer system is tabulated
below;
Area Location Problem and Duration
Kuwadzana 4 55 Avenue and the
area close to the Kuwadzana 4 Shopping centre. Raw sewerage has been flowing
into the yards of the houses that are along 55 Avenue. The burst sewer pipes
around this area have not been fixed since the beginning of 2008.
Highfield
Lusaka, Jerusalem and Paradise Unabated sewer bursts for more than six
months.
Kuwadzana 2 An area called the ‘Callbox’ and near Bulawayo Road Four
weeks
Dzivarasekwa ward 40 Robert Mugabe and Pasipanodya Roads, Musika Road
(which stretches into ward 39), Gushungo Street and Mutanga Road. Raw sewer has
been a problem since the beginning of 2008
Glenview Area 7 along Zambezi
Street, 24th and 23rd Avenues in Area 3. Six months
Other affected areas
include Glen Norah, Budiriro, Mbare, Mufakose, Kambuzuma and Warren Park.
The
2009 National Budget Highlights on water and sewer management.
Return of
water and sewer management (from Zinwa) to the Harare City Council
US$ 31, 2
million for water and sewer provision in both urban and rural
authorities.
US$ 12,9 million allocated to the Harare City Council
US$ 4,3
million allocated for the resuscitation of Morton Jeffray Water Works
US$ 1
million allocated for pipe replacement
The return of water and sewer
management to the City of Harare, potentially means, among other
things:
Increased revenue for the City Council (more than 89%).
Effective
management of water and sewer systems.
Increased residents` participation in
policy making regarding service delivery
Residents` realization of value for
their money
Improved health, recreational, social welfare and other service
provision
Improved capacity of the City of Harare to attract
investment.
Return of council asserts.
Electricity supply
The
distribution of power supplies has not been uniform throughout the city with
some areas experiencing power cuts on a daily basis while others experience
power cuts occasionally. There are areas in Mabvuku-Tafara (especially Mabvuku
ward 19) that have not been receiving supplies for more than a year now.
Electricity transformers that serve the Muchirinji and Nyamaturi and areas
around Simudzai Primary School area in Mabvuku got burnt early last year due to
a fault and they have not been fixed to date; a situation that has seen
residents who live in these areas being forced to make do without electricity.
There are also reports from Mabvuku that a syndicate of ZEDC electricians are
stealing fuses from transformers so as to stop them from working so that they
can demand money (in foreign currency) from unsuspecting residents to ‘fix’ the
same transformers. Residents along Chipita, Manyashe, Gurudzi, around Batanai
Primary School and Muda Roads in Ward 19 have fallen prey to the daylight
robbery.
Kuwadzana 5 and 6 is experiencing constant power cuts due to faults
that occur at least twice a week. Residents in Lusaka, Highfield get power for
only four hours on a daily basis. However most areas in the Northern suburbs,
e.g. Mabelreign, Emerald Hill, Sunridge, Greecroft, Masasa, Greendale, Highlands
and Avondale had regular supplies of electricity during the past week.
Refuse
collection
Generally, refuse has not been collected in almost every suburb of
the city and informal dumping sites have increased as a result. In Glenview, for
example, there are piles of refuse along 2nd and 3rd Avenues, Glenview 3 Primary
School and at most open spaces in the suburb. In Kuwadzana, refuse is being
dumped near Kuwadzana 8 Primary School, Kuwadzana Sub-District Office, at the
local clinic and at most street corners. Open spaces that surround Mbare Musika
and the Matapi area are now an eyesore due to uncollected refuse.
The bread
basket
The semi-dollarisation of the economy has made the cost of living
unaffordable to most residents who still get their income in Zimbabwean dollars.
Most retail outlets (licensed and unlicensed) are now charging their goods in
US$ or the South African Rand. Even basic commodities are being charged in
foreign currency. What makes matters worse is the fact that there is virtually
no means through which residents who get their income in the local currency can
access foreign currency as the banks are not selling hard currency and those who
try to access the much needed cash through the black market are being harassed
by the police.
The following table shows the cost of living for the past
week; for an average family of six, living in Harare.
Goods/Service Price
(US$ ) ZAR
1 10 kg Mealie meal $ 7 R70
2 2litres Cooking oil $ 3,50
R35
3 6 kgs Economy Beef @ $ 3 /kg $ 18 R18
4 Transport per week @ $ 0,50
per trip (where 1 person works in town, and 3 children commute to school, 5 days
a week) $ 20 R200
5 4 loaves of bread @ $ 0,80 per loaf x 7 days $ 22,40
R224
6 2 kg sugar $ 2 R20
7 6 litres of drink @$ 3 per 2litres $ 9
R90
Total $ 81,90 R819
The political atmosphere
Zimbabwe is still
without an official government and the implementation of the September 2008
Global Political Agreement (GPA) which will culminate in the formation of an
inclusive government by the MDC formation and ZANU PF is yet to materialize. It
is the residents` hope that the GPA will provide the basis for socio-economic
recovery and culminate in institutional reforms that will culminate in a clear
trajectory towards a democratic Zimbabwe. The continued delay in the
implementation of the GPA has seen the city of Harare and the country sinking
deeper into the myriad of socio-economic and political crises. The residents
have born and continue to bear the burdens of a collapsed Social Services
system.
Conclusion
The delivery of quality municipal services remains a
challenge, mainly due to the amount of damage that was done by the illegal
Makwavarara-led Commission. CHRA hopes that the elected Council will work
tirelessly to restore the city to its sunshine status. The Association also
urges the Harare city Councilors to ensure the maximum participation of
residents in Council projects and holding regular consultative meetings with
residents so that they can also contribute to the policy formulation and
decision making processes of the city. The Association will continue to closely
monitor the service delivery situation in the city and also to advocate for good
governance and quality service delivery.
----
Combined Harare Residents
Association (CHRA)
145 Robert Mugabe Way
Exploration House, Third
Floor
Harare
ceo@chra.co.zw
www.chra.co.zw
Landline: 00263- 4-
705114
Contacts: Mobile: 0912 653 074, 0913 042 981, 011862012 or email
info@chra.co.zw
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