Zim Online
Thu 19 January
2006
HARARE - Several of Zimbabwe's cash-strapped public schools are
now
requesting pupils to bring along chairs and desks from home or they will
have to sit on the floor, ZimOnline has established.
In yet another
example of how Zimbabwe's state education sector has
dramatically collapsed
under the weight of the country's six-year economic
crisis, school
authorities ask parents of newly-enrolled pupils to "donate"
a chair for
their child because the school cannot provide one.
Alternatively parents are
asked to pay a "donation" to the school which then
uses the money to buy a
chair for their child.
School authorities cannot increase fees to include
the cost of chairs and
desks or openly demand parents to pay extra cash for
the purchase of
furniture after the government imposed a cap on fee and levy
hikes. Schools
can only receive extra cash from parents if it is
donated.
For example, in a circular to parents the headmaster of
Blackstone Primary
School in Harare, a Mr A T Muzariri, asks parents to come
to the school to
donate chairs for their children.
"I once again,
appeal to all parents to come to the school immediately and
pay for their
child's chair. Your donation of a chair to the school is
greatly
appreciated," the circular reads in part.
According to the circular, the
price for an infant chair suitable for Grades
1-3 pupils costs $1 684 284
while a standard chair for Grades 4-7 age groups
costs $2 205
690.
Blackstone, located in Harare's well-to-do Avenues area, was once a
whites-only school before independence in 1980 and is regarded as one of the
top primary schools in the capital.
But it has since lost all the shine
after years of under-funding and like
all government schools lacks
everything from textbooks to toilet paper for
pupils.
Parents with
children at other government schools also confirmed they were
being asked to
buy furniture, textbooks and even chalk for teachers.
"Basically, on top
of paying school fees we still have to donate everything
the school needs
for the term and you wonder what they use the fees for if
we still have to
donate money for chalk," said a parent, as he shopped
around for textbooks
for his daughter doing her second year of high school
education at Mufakose
high school in the capital.
Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere however
defended school authorities who
ask parents to "donate" chairs and other
equipment, saying there was nothing
wrong with parents assisting schools at
a time the government was unable to
do so because it faced many
challenges.
"The schools belong to the parents. They are duty bound to help
their
respective schools. I don't see anything wrong," said
Chigwedere.
But the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, one of two
teachers'
representative bodies in the country, said while parents' help was
welcome,
the fact that school authorities were requiring parents to donate
chairs or
their children would sit on the floor was testimony of the state
of
disrepair at most public schools.
"It simply goes to show the
extent of the chaos in the education sector,"
said Majongwe whose
organisation has threatened to call a strike by teachers
in coming weeks for
more pay.
Zimbabwean teachers on average take home between $2.5 and $5
million, when
according to the government's Central Statistical Office, an
average family
of five people requires about $17 million for basic goods and
services per
month.
The collapse of Zimbabwe's public education
sector - which together with the
health sector was an example of Mugabe's
achievements since independence in
1980 - mirrors the state of
near-total-collapse of the entire economy after
six years of a recession
described by the World Bank as unseen in a country
not at war.
The
economic crisis has spawned acute shortages of food, fuel, electricity,
essential medical drugs and just about every basic survival commodity
because there is no hard cash to pay foreign suppliers. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Thu
19 January 2006
HARARE - Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, is in danger of
having water supplies
disconnected, a development that analysts said would
not only expose
residents to diseases but would also highlight the perils of
political
meddling in management of cities by President Robert Mugabe's
government.
Founded by British settlers in 1890, Harare developed over
the years to
become one of Africa's model cities. But the city that once
proudly called
itself the 'Sunshine City', has in the past few years leapt
from crisis to
crisis as an acute cash crunch and interference in its
affairs by the
government have derailed local government and
management.
Signalling more woes for Harare, an official of the Zimbabwe
National Water
Authority that supplies the city with water on Tuesday this
week told the
press that the water authority could fail to supply water to
the capital and
its satellites because of non-payment of debt accrued from
previous
supplies.
"We might get to a point where we may fail to
supply water. It will be
impossible to supply," said the
official.
Recently, a cholera outbreak was reported in the city which led
to the
closure of Mbare Musika, the largest market for fresh farm produce in
the
country but farmers say the temporary location is even worse. Water cuts
would simply worsen the situation as more residents are forced to resort to
unprotected community wells for drinking water.
Analysts told
ZimOnline that Harare was a ticking time bomb, which if not
carefully
addressed would soon explode putting all residents at risk of
multiple
epidemics of infectious diseases such as cholera, typhoid and
dysentery.
For example, they noted that water tanks at the city's
Morton Jeffrey water
treatment plant have not been cleaned for five years
and sludge has risen to
one metre and that residents regularly complain that
water from their tapes
sometimes comes out with algae.
"A fish starts
to rot from the head and that is precisely what we have
because it is the
capital city that has collapsed," Harare consultant
economist John Robertson
said. He added: "The tale-tale signs of a
catastrophe are there for all to
see.
"If you closely examine Harare's problems, they will go back
straight to
government's door. The systems have broken
down."
Mugabe's government has moved in to oust opposition mayors and
councils, the
latest being the Executive Mayor of the country's third most
populous city
of Chitungwiza, Misheck Shoko, who was suspended allegedly for
misconduct
and for disobeying government instructions.
But political
analysts insist that the suspension of Shoko is only part of a
wider scheme
by Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party to regain political
control and
influence in major cities where they failed to dislodge the main
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change party through elections.
Besides Shoko the
government, which claims it has only acted against
councils to protect
residents, has over the past three years also dismissed
the mayors of Harare
and Mutare who were all members of the MDC.
The analysts said whatever
the motive of the government, its constant
meddling in local authority
affairs and its knack for imposing commissions
that are not accountable to
residents, plus a lack of cash has worsened the
plight of urban
residents.
For example, in the case of Harare the state-appointed
commission has
applied to borrow over $15 trillion to finance various city
development
projects. But the analysts said the money is likely to go into a
bottomless
pit chiefly because of lack of sound management and proper
planning by the
commission and also because the state-appointed body does
not have to
account for its actions to residents.
"While one
understands the necessity for Harare to have funds, the way it
has managed
its finances does not bring hope for residents," James Jowa, an
economist
with a local financial institution said.
"I don't think anyone is
confident that money will be used for its intended
purpose."
But it is
not only Harare that has to grapple collapsing infrastructure. In
fact, the
state of decay in most cities and towns is only a reflection of
how the
southern African nation's entire infrastructure is finally giving in
after
six years of an unprecedented economic recession.
The economic crisis,
which critics also blame on mismanagement by Mugabe's
government, has
paralysed the country which is also facing rising
unemployment, and
shortages of fuel and food. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Thu 19
January 2006
HARARE - China on Wednesday gave Zimbabwe a US$50
million aircraft as
a "thank you" after Harare last year purchased two
similar planes from the
Asian country to augment a depleted fleet at the
embattled national
airliner, Air Zimbabwe.
The aircraft, a
50-60 sitter turboprop MA60, was handed over to
Finance Minister Herbert
Murerwa at a ceremony at the Harare International
Airport.
"It
is an aircraft wholly developed by China itself which is a gift to
the
people of Zimbabwe," said Zhang Xianyi, the Chinese ambassador to
Zimbabwe.
Xianyi said the aircraft manufactured by CATIC, a
Chinese firm which
has established an office in Harare, was a gift to
Zimbabwe as promised when
Harare acquired two MA60 light aircrafts last year
in a deal sealed between
President Robert Mugabe and his Chinese
counterpart, Hu Jintao.
"I wish the MA60 aircraft bring happiness
and fortune to the
Zimbabwean people and the friendship between our
countries and peoples last
for ever," said Xianyi. But the aircraft gift is
unlikely to lift up the
fortunes of Air Zimbabwe, amid reports the
struggling carrier is considering
retrenching some of its 2 000-member
workforce to reduce costs and stay
afloat.
The state-owned
airline, that was already in deep financial problems
because of government
interference and mismanagement, was hit hard by
Zimbabwe's isolation from
the international community as bookings dropped as
tourists shunned the
southern African nation because of reports of human
rights abuses and
political violence.
As would be expected, Air Zimbabwe has embraced
to the hilt the
government's new Look-East policy, under which Harare has
sought to
strengthen political and business relations with the East after
falling out
with traditional trading partners in the West.
But
the results of the Look East policy have so far not been very
encouraging
for the Zimbabwean airliner which last year set a new aviation
record when
it flew a single passenger for 6 000km from Dubai to Harare.
However, Chinese companies of every description have reaped a windfall
from
Mugabe's new policy with last year's US$100 million aircraft supply
deal
only one of several such lucrative deals where Beijing-based firms have
received vast sums of money for supplying equipment, textiles and other
products to Zimbabwe.
This has prompted criticism of the new
foreign policy with local
economists saying only China was benefiting while
Zimbabwe was being turned
into yet another dumping ground for the Asian
giant's overheating economy.
But officials in Harare and Beijing
insist their relationship is of
mutual benefit to both.
Meanwhile, China has also donated 3 000 tonnes of yellow maize to
Zimbabwe
to help the southern African country that is grappling hunger
threatening a
quarter of its 12 million people. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Thu 19 January 2006
MASVINGO - At least 500 villagers in
Gonarezhou National Park have
vowed to resist attempts by the Zimbabwe
government to evict them from the
area to pave way for the multi-billion
dollar Great Limpopo Transfrontier
Park.
The villagers moved
into the wildlife sanctuary from the nearby
Chikombedzi communal lands at
the height of farm invasions endorsed by
President Robert Mugabe's
government six years ago.
The proposed Great Limpopo Tansfrontier
Park will see Gonarezhou,
South Africa's Krugger and Mozambique's Limpopo
national parks merge into a
giant sanctuary to boost tourism in the three
countries.
But before the project can begin, the Zimbabwe
government must, among
other things, first remove the illegal settlers in
the park.
A spokesman for the settlers, Naison Chirilele, told
ZimOnline on
Wednesday that they will resist government efforts to evict
them from the
national park.
"We invaded this farm in 2000. We
will resist any orders to vacate
the park unless we are given land and
money to relocate elsewhere.
"We are prepared to fight to keep our
land because this is a clear
case of discrimination. Some people who invaded
farms like us have long been
given land and we question: Why remove us
only?"
Contacted for comment, Tourism Minister Francis Nhema said
his
ministry was forging ahead with plans to establish the park and would
leave
the issue of the eviction of the villagers to the responsible
ministry.
"The responsible ministry has to deal with the evictions.
We have made
positive moves towards the establishment of the Great
Transfrontier Park. We
have secured foreign funding to build
lodges.
"We as government have explained to the settlers the
importance of the
park and I do not think there is a problem (with the
villagers)," said
Nhema.
Zimbabwe's tourism sector, among the
country's biggest foreign
currency earners before the land invasions, is in
the doldrums after
tourists mainly from Western countries shunned the
country because of
political violence and repression by Mugabe. -
ZimOnline
IOL
January 18
2006 at 03:24PM
Harare - At least 15 Zimbabweans are feared drowned
after they were
swept away by the Limpopo River as they tried to cross
illegally into South
Africa, the state-run Herald reported on
Wednesday.
The incident happened on Friday last week in the Dite
area, 60km from
Beitbridge border post, the newspaper said.
A
17-member underwater team from the South African police and two
helicopters
scoured the area on Tuesday to look for bodies, Zimbabwe police
spokesperson
Bethel Magora said.
South African police believe as many as 18
border jumpers may have
perished, though their Zimbabwean counterparts put
the casualty figure at
15.
"Right now it is a bit difficult to
confirm the incident as we are
still in the preliminary stages of our
investigations and again nobody has
been retrieved as of now," Magora
said.
Anxious villagers from Dite told the Herald that they
believed some of
their relatives were among the casualties.
With inflation running at 586 percent and the looming prospect of food
shortages, life is getting harder for most ordinary
Zimbabweans.
Growing numbers try to sneak into neighbouring South
Africa to look
for jobs and money. Some try to get employment on farms in
Limpopo Province,
according to recent reports.
South Africa
deported around 97 000 illegal Zimbabwean immigrants last
year. The Herald
said many Zimbabweans try to re-enter South Africa after
they have been
deported.
The Limpopo River is a particularly dangerous crossing
point. At this
time of year it is flooded and infested with
crocodiles.
Last week, a suspected border jumper from Zimbabwe died
after he was
shot in the leg by a South African soldier patrolling the
border. - Sapa-dpa
From George Nyathi in Bulawayo
18 January 2006
The
Zimbabwe Conservation Taskforce (ZCT) has castigated the Zimbabwe
National
Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZPWMA) for bureaucratic
tendencies
it claims have contributed to the death of a number of animals at
the Hwange
National Park in Matabeleland North. This follows a serious stand
off
between the taskforce and the authority over a donation made to the
latter
by international donors via the former.
The donation includes tyres
and engines for some of the authority's
vehicles, said to have been grounded
for long, and engines and spare parts
for water pumps as well as other
materials. ZCT chairperson, Johnie
Rodrigues told SW Radio Africa in
Bulawayo that the donation was still at
his association's offices as the
authority was refusing to accept it. He
said that the authority's director
general, Morris Mtsambiwa had written
letters to all departmental heads at
the park instructing them not to
entertain the association's
members.
'We have tried all we can to have that donation sent to
the park but
we have failed to do so. We understand that the authority's
director-general, Morris Mtsambiwa has written to all senior wardens at the
park instructing them not to entertain us. 'We find it really strange that
this situation has come to this end,' said Rodrigues.
He added
that the equipment was from a donor who appreciated the
problems faced by
the authority, adding that it was meant to save wildlife
from perishing in
case of drought. Rodrigues said: 'The Parks and Wildlife
Authority has been
faced with a critical shortage of parts for both the
vehicles and water
pumping engines. Their vehicles have been grounded for
some time and we had
sourced this donation to help them solve the crisis.
'It is
surprising now that they are declining to accept the donation
that we wanted
to make to them. One thing has to be borne in mind is that
this is not all
about personal or organizational benefits but simply for the
animals that
might perish in case water problems come again,' said
Rodrigues.
Recently, the association and the authority have
been at loggerheads
over the utterances that the latter suspects are aimed
at drawing
retribution from wildlife advocacy groups such as World Wildlife
Forum
(WWF).
Rodrigues said the donors had pledged to support
the parks with a US
500 000 ($45 billion) investment into infrastructural
development at the
park.
A further $2 billion was readily available
to the park's authority as
soon as they accept the donation.
Responding to our questions, the authority's public relations office
said
they were ready to accept any donations that were forwarded to it
through
'normal channels'. He said: 'We have had situations where some
people go
around the world claiming that they are raising donations on
behalf of the
park and the authority so to speak, donations that are at the
end of the day
pocketed by individuals.
'We have also encountered situations where
some people deceitfully
gain entry into the park and dump equipment there on
the pretext that they
are donating to the authority and the park. At the end
of the day, we are
asked about donations that we did not even receive,' said
a statement from
the authority.
The statement further added
that the authority had informed the
taskforce leadership of its concerns,
adding that the taskforce was supposed
to write to its director general
about the donation.
'We accept any donations that come to us on
condition that they come
through the right channels. What we want to make
clear to that organization
is that they should write to the director general
and inform him about the
donation. In that way we won't encounter these
problems that we are facing
with this
organization,'
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
africasia
CAPE TOWN, Jan 18 (AFP)
The South African government on Wednesday held
consultations with scientists
on a plan to lift a 10-year ban on elephant
culling, seeking to inject some
cold hard science into an impassioned
debate.
Environment and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk met with
10 top
scientists who were to present evidence on the elephant conundrum
facing the
government.
"This is an enormously complex issue with a
wide range of opinions that are
passionately advocated by various
stakeholder groups," spokesman J.P. Louw
of the environment and tourism
ministry said after the meeting.
"The minister has undertaken to consider
all opinions carefully before
reaching a decision."
South Africa is
considering lifting a 10-year ban on elephant culling to
prevent the
pachyderm population from spiralling out of control and to
safeguard other
species.
The problem is particularly acute in South Africa's largest and
best-known
reserve, the Kruger National Park, where the elephant population
is
increasing at a rate of seven percent a year, which means there will be
some
20,000 elephants in 2012.
Elephant culling in Kruger started in
1967 and was halted in 1995 after an
outcry from animal rights groups. There
are currently some 12,500 in the
park and between 14,000 and 15,000
countrywide.
But scientists participating in Wednesday's discussions said
"there is no
compelling evidence to suggest the need for immediate,
large-scale reduction
of elephant numbers in the Kruger National Park",
according to a statement
issued by the ministry.
However, there is a
need for the management of elephants in other parts of
the country,
according to one of the scientists attending the meeting.
"We have also
agreed that in other places there may be a need to manipulate
ways they
(elephants) use their space and interact with biodiversity," said
Rudi van
Aarde of the University of Pretoria.
South Africa's national parks
service contends that the elephant population
must be brought under control
to protect vegetation and other wildlife, and
also to safeguard communities
bordering Kruger Park who have been harassed
by the amimals.
The
environment and tourism ministry announced in September that it was
considering lifting the ban but would first consult the public and other
players before taking any action.
The move drew criticism from some
animal rights and conservationists who
argued that options other than the
slaughter of elephants, one of the "Big
Five" animals, should be
considered.
Two groups said Wednesday that they were disappointed with
the makeup of the
scientific panel that they charged were
pro-culling.
"Our concern about this meeting is: will it be a discussion
on how to cull
or will they look at whether culling is necessary,"
spokeswoman Michele
Pickover of Xwe African Wildlife told AFP.
"The
meeting is composed with the pro-culling lobby. There were a lot of
international scientists who were meant to come to this meeting," said
spokesman David Bilchitz of the group Elephants Alive.
"We think the
department is under a lot of pressure to make a decision. We
call on the
department to have another round where a full range of
scientists can be
represented," said Bilchitz.
The 10 scientists from South Africa and
Zimbabwe were to debate evidence on
whether there are too many elephants,
whether they are causing damage to
biodiversity, and look at which
management options are the most appropriate.
Other consultations with
scientists were expected to take place before a
final policy was to be
drafted, the ministry said.
Besides culling, other population control
measures would include capture,
translocation and
contraception.
©2006 AFP
Sokwanele Report: 18 January
2006
Dumisani - not his real name - is a young man in his early 30's. He is
but
one of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Mugabe Tsunami,
officially called "Operation Murambatsvina" - another "moment of madness" in
which the dictator destroyed the homes and livelihoods of 700,000 of the
poorest of the poor, with severe consequences for another 2.4 million
Zimbabweans. Dumisani himself lost a wife, a home, and a source of
livelihood in that man-made disaster. Less tangibly but of no less
significance, he also lost his dignity as a human being and any hope for the
future.
A clearly troubled Dumisani stands on the pavement outside a
Bulawayo
Church, waiting to see his pastor who has been summoned from a
meeting. In
his arms he carries the only thing he cares for in the world -
his baby son,
Themba. The baby is a little under three months old,
thin-faced, clearly
malnourished and restless in his father's
embrace.
The Pastor emerges from the Church. Pastor Andrew - again not
his real
name -greets Dumisani and enquires after the baby's state of
health. Despite
the courtesy he can see well enough for himself the grim
state of both
father and child. He has been their pastor ever since Dumisani
and his late
wife were living at the Killarney informal settlement on the
outskirts of
the city. Pastor Andrew has a vivid memory of that fateful day
in June 2005
when Dumisani and his young wife, pregnant at the time,
together with
hundreds of others were violently herded together like so many
cattle by
Mugabe's uniformed thugs, who then torched their makeshift
dwellings. On
that sad day the poor but once-contented community of
Killarney was brutally
destroyed, the 1000 or so resident families
ruthlessly dispersed.
Dumisani and his wife had been rescued by one of
the Bulawayo churches that
bravely offered hospitality and a place of refuge
to the displaced residents
of Killarney and Ngozi Mine. But that blessed
tranquillity had lasted only
until midnight on July 21 when Mugabe's armed
militia invaded the church
sanctuaries and violently abducted the startled
victims. In the case of
Dumisani and his wife they were forcibly removed,
first to a temporary
holding camp and then on to what became a squatter camp
mid-way between
Pumula and St Peter's Village. There in the bitter cold of
mid winter they
were abandoned by the state, without food, water, shelter or
any provisions
whatsoever. And there, some months later, and in those
wretched conditions
Dumisani's wife gave birth to their first child, Themba.
Miraculously the
baby survived though, soon after the birth, Dumisani's wife
finally
succumbed to the trauma and unremitting hardship.
Pastor
Andrew knew all this well enough, as he could recall the plight of
countless
others of his flock. What he did not know however was how the
young father
had managed to protect and provide for the baby. Dumisani
explained. He
himself was earning a few dollars a day by selling vegetables
on the
streets. (Back in Killarney he had earned significantly more, as well
as
having a modest home to call his own). His new life as a street vendor
however meant that he could not care for his infant son any more. He had
therefore come to an arrangement with another destitute Murambatsvina
victim, a young woman who agreed to care for Themba during the day in
exchange for a share in the pathetic daily meal purchased with his meagre
earnings as a street vendor. He had been coping said Dumisani until the
young stand-in mother had informed him that she was going back to her
ancestral home in Malawi. This news was the reason for his obvious
consternation.
The compassionate pastor listens attentively to the
tale of woe - not unlike
so many others he hears every day. Then he asks
quietly, "What help do you
want?"
"Tell me what I should do, Pastor",
says an anguished Dumisani. What indeed
should a young father do - a
widower, homeless and destitute himself - with
a little baby, scarcely
weaned, to care for?
A long conversation ensues between the pastor and
the desperate parent. In
the end it is agreed that that Dumisani should take
the baby to his
grandmother (Dumisani's own mother) to see if she can care
for him. They
talk about an arrangement for a few months though both know it
may continue
indefinitely. What resources Gogo (the grandmother) has and how
many other
grandchildren she has already have taken on responsibility for,
the pastor
dares not ask. The fact is there is no realistic alternative for
Dumisani.
He cannot himself provide the care and nurture little Themba
requires.
But where does Gogo live and how is Dumisani to reach her?
Another problem
emerges at once because she lives at Buhera, more than 350
kilometres to the
east. The journey will cost well over a million dollars
each way and of
course Dumisani has nothing to put towards it. Who will pay?
Can the church
assist? Pastor Andrew is not sure if the much depleted
reserves of his
church will be sufficient but he refers Dumisani to the
secretary's office
to find out...
Such is the daily struggle to
survive for Dumisani, Themba and countless
thousands like them in Zimbabwe.
This is what it means to be so poor and
vulnerable that you lose control of
your own life and are forced to rely
completely on others on a daily basis -
assuming that is, someone will be
there for you. This is what it means to be
one of the disempowered people of
Zimbabwe who have lost hope of any better
future.
And, make no mistake, this is precisely what the dictator
intends. A major
thrust of the Mugabe regime's socio-political programme of
the last five
years has been the progressive disempowerment of the people of
Zimbabwe.
From the chaotic land invasions orchestrated by ZANU PF in 2000 to
what U.N
Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the "catastrophic injustice" of
Operation Murambatsvina in 2005, this has been the regime's one overriding
objective. In the most cynical and calculating manner the ruling elite has
first identified every section of the community thought to pose an immediate
or potential threat to its hold on power, and then systematically set about
disempowering that group. This has been ZANU PF's grand strategy.
In
the year 2000 it was the turn of the farm workers. Justice for
Agriculture
(JAG) estimates that prior to the land invasions some 350,000
workers were
employed full-time and a further 250,000 as casual workers on a
seasonal
basis on the commercial farms. They with their families numbered
about 2
million people which translated into close on 1 million votes. ZANU
PF was
probably correct in supposing that the farm workers' employers were
largely
MDC supporters and that they, the workers and their families, would
also
tend to vote for the opposition. Hence the brutal and calculated
displacement of these people from the farms. At a stroke they became
unemployed and homeless and between 1.5 and 2 million people were added to
the list of destitute internally displaced persons. As Pius Wakatama wrote
in 2002 in a moving piece describing their plight,
they have become
part of the 'wretched of the earth', described so
graphically by Franz
Fanon. The only difference is that their wretchedness
is not caused by white
xenophobia, but by the heartless cruelty and greed of
their own black
brothers and sisters.
A section of the community who, on any reckoning, have
made a major
contribution to the development and prosperity of the country,
find
themselves displaced, disenfranchised and disempowered.
So it
was again in 2005 with the victims of Operation Murambatsvina.
Accepting the
figures of the U.N. Special Envoy Anna Tibaijuka whose
estimate has never
been seriously questioned, this upheaval produced another
700,000 internally
displaced people, without home or livelihood. Here was a
major segment of
the population, this time drawn largely from the urban
centres in which the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)'s
influence was greatest,
again displaced, disenfranchised and effectively
disempowered. Aware no
doubt of the seething discontent at the increasing
hardships caused by their
own misrule - aware also that popular revolutions
tend to start in the
cities rather than in rural areas - ZANU PF moved
decisively to counter the
perceived threat Never mind the appalling
suffering inflicted on so many of
the poorest of the poor - in the final
analysis never mind the huge damage
inflicted on their own already
besmirched reputation in the international
community - it had to be.
According to the grand strategy it simply had to
be in order to remove
another potential threat to ZANU PF's hold on
power.
One can of course trace the same grand strategy all the way back
to the
Gukurahundi genocide in the early 1980s. Aware that he could never
hope to
win the willing support of those who had rallied behind the ZAPU
leadership
both in the liberation struggle and subsequently, Mugabe took the
action he
deemed necessary to neutralise the potential threat he saw from
this
quarter. Never mind that it was to cost an estimated 20,000 lives and
that
the barbarities perpetrated by his Fifth Brigade were to traumatise a
whole
generation of those living in Matabeleland and the Midlands, it was a
price
Mugabe was quite willing to pay in order to disempower those who might
otherwise have challenged his own supreme authority one day. And with the
so-called Unity Accord of 1987 the emasculation of ZAPU was
complete.
The problem for Mugabe and his strategists has always been that
as one
perceived threat to his rule has been removed so another has sprung
up in
its place. "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" and, with
apologies
to Shakespeare, we should perhaps rephrase that: "uneasy lies the
paranoid
head that wears the stolen crown"! ZANU PF has therefore felt
obliged to
attack, covertly if possible though openly if necessary, one
group after
another in society. Just in the last few years, in addition to
the millions
of farm workers and the urban poor, they have taken on
teachers, students
and women's groups, to say nothing of a wide range of
civic groups, the
whole trade union movement and the MDC. After 25 years of
corrupt, elitist
and increasingly authoritarian rule the ruling ZANU PF
clique finds itself
in a state of undeclared war with virtually the whole of
civic society in
Zimbabwe.
It is this essential fact that Zimbabweans
must not lose sight of as they
battle the pervading sense of hopelessness
resulting from the systematic
disempowerment of the population. Otherwise we
shall be doomed to remain
helpless spectators before the unfolding tragic
drama - the collapse of the
rule of law, meltdown of the economy and last
dying spasms of the education
and heath-care systems. If we ever forget that
we who oppose this
destructive tyranny are the majority - the vast majority
- and that those
driving the nation to the edge of the precipice are a tiny,
tiny minority,
we shall of course give up hope.
Frankly, this is
where many Zimbabweans are today - without hope. They watch
the tragic drama
moving into the final scenes with a sense of fatalistic
despair, not
thinking for a moment that they have it in their own power to
avert the
final tragedy and bring about some different outcome. They watch
like so
many dazed spectators observing a national catastrophe, thinking
that only
the too-long delayed death of the dictator or some spectacular
divine
intervention might change the pre-determined ending. Yet in so doing
they
overlook the elementary fact that they who oppose the trashing of
Zimbabwe
are the vast majority.
Those who courageously fought against the Smith
regime (that is the previous
dictatorship) did not forget. They knew that
they were the majority and that
knowledge gave them untold strength. They
knew that one day they would wear
down Smith-the-dictator and his minority
forces, and sooner rather than
later, they did just that. By the same token
we, black and white, Shona and
Nedebele, young and old, who oppose the new
form of tyranny, know that one
day we shall wear down Mugabe-the-dictator
and his small clique of
reactionary supporters. The future is ours, not his.
The days of the
dictator are numbered. The future belongs to those who
believe in - and yes,
are ready to sacrifice for - freedom, democracy and
peace. One day Zimbabwe
will be a proud nation again, a nation not run for
the exclusive benefit of
a small ruling elite but in which all the little
people - including the
likes of Dumisani and Themba - will have a share in
the sunshine of security
and opportunity.
Mugabe has almost succeeded
in creating a disempowered people whom he and
his chosen successor might
keep in bondage for ever. Almost - but not quite.
For we know that WE ARE
THE MAJORITY. What is more we have truth and justice
on our side. Therefore
we know WE SHALL OVERCOME!
Anti-Mugabe protests in Bulawayo
Early on
Monday 16 January on the approach roads to Bulawayo from the
western suburbs
groups of protesters tried to turn the traffic back, away
from the city.
Protesters were out on the roads from 7.00 a.m. at the time
when commuters
are normally heading to work. On Luveve Road approaching the
high density
suburb of Mzilikazi protesters were attempting to block the
traffic and
stoning vehicles that would not stop or turn back. At the same
time they
were chanting slogans such as "Mugabe must go". It is understood
that the
protest may have been related to a letter that was circulating
covertly,
urging workers to stay away from work when commerce and industry
would
otherwise have returned to full strength after the Christmas and New
Year
break.
By 2.00 pm Monday the protesters had left the streets but for the
rest of
that day and the day following a heavy police presence was noted in
both the
city centre and the western suburbs. Riot police, armed and in full
combat
gear, were observed patrolling the streets in large
numbers.
Our enquiries have revealed that there were several other
incidents of
youths throwing stones at passing vehicles in the western
suburbs of
Bulawayo the previous week. The riot police again intervened to
restore
order. It is not known if any of the protesters were arrested or
charged.
The state media are yet to report any of the protest
incidents.
28th December 2005
President Robert Mugabe,
Commander-in-Chief of the
Zimbabwe Defence Forces,
State House,
Harare.
As the Commander-in-
Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF), you are no
doubt acutely aware of
the Constitutional provisions and the relevant Acts
of Parliament governing
the conduct and operations of the Zimbabwe Defence
Forces (ZDF) and the
Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP).
There are neither constitutional nor
legal provisions in either the
Constitution or the Defence Act and the Police
Act which empower you to
transform these national institutions into combative
political units of your
political party ZANU PF. Instead, in the Constitution
and relevant Acts of
Parliament, an impregnable line is clearly drawn between
the areas of
military operations and competence and those that are within the
province of
competence of political and civic authorities. You are
constitutionally and
legally bound to maintain and uphold that
line.
Where that line is drawn is not a matter of interpretation,
argument or
haggling. The line is cast in stone. To equivocate on this
fundamental
principle is to overthrow a critical provision of the
Constitution and
subvert the relevant Acts of Parliament.
The ZDF and
the ZRP are specifically and explicitly barred from
participating in the
politics and political processes of the country as
organized units with
distinct political preferences operationalised in the
context of military and
police formations aligned to a particular political
party. They can only
participate in politics as individual private citizens
entitled to cast their
votes in secrecy of the ballot box.
This line between military and
political/civil matters is designed to ensure
the perpetuation of
representative civilian government as opposed to the
imposition of an
unrepresentative military junta. For the record, I have to
restate that we in
the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have committed
ourselves to this
sacred principle and on numerous public occasions we have
stated that under
an MDC government, the professional standing, hierarchy
and integrity of the
Army and the Police will be jealously guarded. The Army
and the Police will
be insulated from the negative effects of competitive
politics on their
esprit de corps.
Tragically, the record of your regime displays a
deliberate strategy to bend
the Constitution and warp the relevant
Parliamentary statutes in order to
obliterate this critical separation
between civilian and military affairs,
as a way to thwart and neutralize
legitimate and peaceful democratic
political challenges. In the result, you
have now created a civil-military
junta, which acts as an illegal bulwark
against democratic political
opposition in general.
This is amply
demonstrated by the undeniable fact that since 2001, you have
remained silent
when senior members of the of the ZDF and ZRP officer corps
make public
political pronouncements singling out the MDC as an enemy
political formation
that must be destroyed, while at the same time, the same
officers profess
unqualified allegiance to your political party, ZANU PF. In
December 2001,
General Zvinavashe, then overall commander of the ZDF,
flanked by the
commanders of the Zimbabwe National Army, Air Force, Police
and the Directors
of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and
Prisons, openly announced
at a press conference, their partisan and
unqualified allegiance to your
political party and their unflinching
hostility to the MDC, pointing out that
they neither accepted an MDC victory
in the then forthcoming presidential
poll nor were they to take orders from
or salute an MDC government and
president respectively.
This was a clear announcement to rebel against a
legitimate popularly
elected representative government should it come to
power. It was a direct
threat to mount a coup d'etat against an MDC
government should it come to
power. Again you remained silent in the face of
the public pronouncements of
service commanders who had openly expressed
their intention to negate the
popular will and overthrow the Constitution. As
Commander-in-Chief of the
ZDF we can safely assume that they were acting
under your direct orders. If
the opposite is true, why was there no action on
your part? Is that the
legacy you want to bequeath
Zimbabwe?
Zvinavashe's successor General Constantine Chiwenga reiterated
the same
political position soon after his appointment; and subsequently
Police
Commissioner Augustine Chihuri, made it abundantly clear in public
that he
was an active member of your political party, ZANU PF; that members
of the
ZRP who did not support ZANU PF should leave the force and that he
himself
would not serve under an MDC government. This was an open invitation
for the
police to rebel against a government, which would have been
constitutionally
elected. Again you said and did nothing.
Recently, on
December 12, 2005 while addressing a pass out parade at
Thornhill Air Force
Base in Gweru, these insurgent and rebellious political
positions were given
a sharper focus, renewed urgency and active intent by
Major-General Chedondo.
Chedondo announced an operational instruction or
military order that the MDC
must be destroyed and that I, Morgan Tsvangirai,
its leader must be regarded
and treated as National Enemy No. 1. This cannot
be interpreted in any other
way except as a call for the structural
destruction of a legitimate and legal
political party, commanding the
allegiance of millions of Zimbabweans and the
physical elimination of its
president and leadership. This was a more
focussed and more direct threat to
the MDC as a peaceful democratic political
party and the continued physical
existence of its leadership. Up to now, you
have done nothing about the
Chedondo's clearly criminal
pronouncements.
Is it your order and command that the Army and the Police
should rebel
against any future government that does not emanate from ZANU
PF? Is it also
your order that every other political party that aspires to
and eventually
comes to power in Zimbabwe must be destroyed and its
leadership physically
eliminated?
Let me say this to you for the
record: A physical elimination of myself and
some of my colleagues in the MDC
leadership will not solve your political
problems. If anything such a
dastardly and cowardly act will definitely have
an incendiary and therefore
totally destructive effect on the country. How
will history remember and
judge you?
It is therefore quite clear that under your direct command,
and under the
present ZDF and ZRP officer corps, the Army and the Police are
being
transformed into organized armed combat units of your political party.
You
are destroying the future political environment/terrain for
democratic
politics and civilian rule in Zimbabwe. In fact, by your
instigation you
have virtually destroyed the terrain for civilian competitive
politics in
the country. It is not too late for you to alter the specific
character of
the legacy that you will one day leave behind.
We are
aware that your instructions as expressed by the officer corps of the
Army
and the Police have not percolated to the lower levels of patriotic
ordinary
soldiers and policemen and women, whose loyalty to the Zimbabwean
nation
undoubtedly goes beyond narrow allegiances to political parties.
However, by
pushing senior Army and Police officers into active politics,
you are
creating a potentially dangerous and explosive situation, which
constitutes a
serious threat to the future stability and integrity of
the
country.
You are no doubt aware that Africa is replete with
examples of the
disastrous consequences of deliberately politicising the
officer corps of
the army and the police and the bloody fractious outcome of
that. Is this
the legacy you want to leave behind?
It is common
knowledge that in addition to subverting the command structures
of the police
and the army, your regime has transformed the CIO into an
intelligence wing
of your political party, bend on harassing, brutalising
and murdering MDC
supporters with impunity; while senior civil servants are
required, at the
pain of severe sanctions, to be active and card carrying
members of your
political party, engaging in ferocious political battles
against the MDC.
These organs of the Zimbabwe public service are now
operating virtually as
active partisan units of your political party in what
is supposed to be a
civilian political contest between two civilian
political parties. It has
become, instead, a contest between the civilian
political formation that I
lead and the civil-military junta that you
preside over.
We are well
aware that this politicisation of the Army, Police, CIO and
Senior Civil
Servants are a product of your desperate attempt to ruthlessly
quash all
political opposition, both inside and outside your party, ahead of
your
inevitable departure from office. This will enable you to craft,
engineer and
implement an illegitimate succession plan to the position of
State President
in which a hand picked successor will inherit your despotic
rule. We are
further aware that this militarization of the political terrain
is intended
to create a context in which you will use your party's contrived
two-thirds
majority in the House of Assembly to once again tamper with the
Constitution
and push the scheduled presidential poll from 2008 to 2010,
thereby
nullifying the constitutional requirement for your handpicked
successor to
seek a popular mandate to govern -- a mandate which you very
well know the
people of Zimbabwe will never grant. You seem to be bent on
sacrificing the
stability and integrity of the country on the altar of your
succession
plans.
This particular policy of your regime and the current survival
strategy of
your political party in the light of your inevitable exit from
active
politics, are combining to usher in a visible and ominous threat to
the
stability and integrity of the country. You are charting a disastrous
path
for the future of the country. The people of Zimbabwe will continue
to
resist any political formulae imposed on them solely in accordance with
the
whims of your temper.
We make a minimal plea to you in the name of
the people of Zimbabwe, to
abandon these games and let the people of
Zimbabwe, at your expected
departure, choose a government and political
leaders of their choice without
your interference and unwanted
tutelage.
I Remain,
Morgan Tsvangirai,
MDC
PRESIDENT.
Cc: Chairman, African Union
Secretary
General, United Nations
Chairman, SADC
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Impoverished students try to escape hardship and hunger by
selling sexual
favours.
By Benedict Unendoro in Harare (AR No.
51, 19-Jan-06)
Young men in Zimbabwe are angry, very angry. They have
lost their manhood,
and are liable to resort to anything in attempts to
regain it. This - in
Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe - includes beating up their
wives.
It's a few days before New Year and in the spirit of the
festive season men
are carousing in a sports bar playing pool and watching
European soccer on
pay TV. Despite the biting hardships endured in a country
with the fastest
declining economy in the world, the mood in the pub (and
the country as a
whole) is genial.
But the geniality is
superficial. It masks a huge and simmering crisis that
is deeply affecting
young men.
Joseph Bhobho is seated at the counter nursing a beer. He
is neither
watching TV nor playing pool. Next to him is his friend Patrick
Dube. They
are both young and intelligent and should have very bright
futures, given
the level of their education. Both have just finished
post-graduate studies.
"I think I should just go back home and beat
the daylights out of her," said
Bhobho to Dube. A middle-aged man, also
seated at the counter drinking a
beer, overhears him. From experience, he
knows the young man is having a
domestic problem. And he asked, "What the
hell is the matter?"
Bhobho is keen to talk. He tells of how he and
his newly-wed wife went into
town that morning to do some shopping. They had
passed through an internet
café to check their mail. His wife had opened her
mail while he watched.
There, in front of him, was a message from her
university lecturer. It read,
"I'm missing sex."
Bhobho, 26, is
distraught. The middle-aged man offers sympathy because he
knows that
prostitution in his country's institutions of higher learning is
virtually
out of control.
There are two main reasons.
First, students, like
millions of their countrymen, are going hungry on
campuses. Universities and
colleges simply cannot provide enough food for
them. The government is broke
and the meagre allowance it doles out to
students is not enough to
supplement the miserable food provided, let alone
to buy books. Grant
payments are frequently made months late because the
government is
cash-strapped and inefficient.
Second, students feel they have to
pass at all costs, even if it means
sleeping around with lecturers.
According to a social studies lecturer at
Harare's University of Zimbabwe -
where sexual harassment of women students
is rife - this has turned the
whole concept of manhood upside down. "Young
women at campuses want men who
can provide for them," she said. "They want
men who can supplement the
little food provided on campus. They want men who
can take them to movies.
They want men who can pay to have their hair done
at the hairdressers. They
want men who make them feel like ladies."
Such men are known as "sugar
daddies" and are deeply resented by other male
students.
The social
studies lecturer recalls a tragic incident not so long ago when
an
impoverished female first year undergraduate, Tecla Tom, committed
suicide
in a student hostel as an apparent way out of entrapment by a "sugar
daddy".
She left a note for her husband, which said in part, "It does
not matter,
Innocent, my husband, the time had come."
When students
subsequently went on the rampage against the hold of sugar
daddies on women
students, 20-year-old science undergraduate Batanayi
Madzidzi was beaten up
and killed by police.
The massive economic crisis gripping Zimbabwe -
with inflation approaching
600 per cent and eighty per cent of the
population living below the poverty
line - has not spared the education
system, and students are the chief
victims of the malaise.
"A
real man is no longer judged on his potential," said the social studies
lecturer. "In our day we looked at the potential a male student had - what
he could do when he left
university. We looked at the degree programmes
the young men were reading
and simply from that we chose our future
husbands."
But the situation is completely differently now. "A 'real'
man has to have
money, and money now," said the lecturer.
"Then there
is the question of 'sex for exam and course work marks'."
Most of the
country's talented lecturers have left the country for greener
pastures. The
average age of their successors has dropped to below thirty.
Often people
who have just completed their Master's degrees are immediately
co-opted into
the system as assistant lecturers. They are poorly remunerated
and are very
short on self-esteem. They know of no standards since they
themselves are
products of a weakened education system.
"They will sleep with female
students and pass them without any qualm," said
the social studies academic.
"Like everyone else, female students just want
to get the hell out of
university. They cannot contemplate being failed and
having to spend another
year at the institutions."
So, she says, it is common practice for female
students to have a sugar
daddy as well as a regular boyfriend. After
finishing college, they quickly
want to erase the memory of the sugar daddy
and marry the young boyfriend.
"But sometimes it is not easy to make
the transition from the sugar daddy to
the boyfriend because the boyfriend
is still a young man struggling to get
his feet squarely on the ground," she
continued.
In Bhobho's case, his wife is still a Master's degree
student, and that
gives him sleepless nights. "I've already paid 120 million
Zimbabwe dollars
(USD 1500) in lobola (bride price), and I deserve respect,"
he told his
older fellow drinker. "But look at the messages her lecturer is
sending her.
It means she is sleeping around with him."
Nor are
male students exempt from prostitution. They hang around with "sugar
mummies" - older women who are either divorced or widowed but who have the
means to maintain a "toy boy".
"It is common for older women to
drive into campus and pick up these young
men. The situation is desperate,"
said the social studies lecturer.
"Campuses have become the epicentres of
the spread of diseases such as
AIDS."
There are wider social
consequences. Increasingly, young men are unwilling
to marry college
graduates and the divorce rate among graduate couples has
risen
astronomically.
The toy boys have become social misfits and
rarely socialise with young
women of their age. With AIDS rife in Zimbabwe,
affecting an estimated
quarter of the population aged 15 to 49, their sugar
mummies are often
HIV-positive, and the boys themselves are left to die
lonely deaths from
AIDS after the women have passed away.
There is no
easy answer for Bhobho. His friend, Patrick Dube, says he has
been luckier
than his friend, "I introduced my girlfriend to my family when
we were still
kids and both our families saw us through college. We never
really had any
reason to prostitute ourselves."
But until the economic and political
situation changes and parents can earn
enough money to give their children
decent allowances, the decline in
education standards and the high level of
prostitution among Zimbabwe's
students will continue.
Benedict
Unendoro is the pseudonym of an IWPR contributor in Zimbabwe.
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Political graffiti surges in popularity because of the crackdown on
nearly
every other means of expression.
By Dzikamai
Chidyausiku in Harare (AR No. 51, 19-Jan-06)
A few streets away from
Robert Mugabe's heavily guarded official residence
is a wall painted with
screaming red graffiti telling Zimbabwe's president
that "At 80, it's time
to go".
Mugabe - who will actually celebrate his 82nd birthday next month
with a
multi-million dollar bash - passes the scarlet advice almost daily as
he is
driven in his huge heavily-armed motorcade to his ruling ZANU PF party
headquarters in the city centre.
Other graffiti insulting the
president and ZANU PF have multiplied recently
on walls in Harare and other
major cities and towns. Along a street named
after the president himself, a
dissident artist has scrawled, "Mugabe is a
dictator."
With nearly
all avenues of protest closed, Zimbabweans frustrated by the
Mugabe regime
use graffiti to express their anger with the system. The words
on the walls
are a clear indication that the majority of the people in the
towns and
cities are completely fed up with the ruling party and yearn for
change.
Graffiti writing started off as a minor case of delinquency
common to all
the world's urban centres, but in Zimbabwe it has blossomed
into a major
form of protest and self-expression for people who find
themselves with
fewer liberties with each passing day.
So popular has
this type of protest become that nearly every wall along the
streets of
Harare is painted with graffiti. Some hurls insults at the
president's young
wife, Grace, known as "The First Shopper" for the way she
spent huge amounts
of money in the top boutiques of London, Paris and New
York before Britain,
France and the United States banned her and her husband
from entering their
countries. Grace, a former secretary, was once
photographed at Singapore's
Changi International Airport with fifteen
trolley-loads of exotic foods and
electronic goods at a time when the World
Food Programme said half the
Zimbabwe population was starving.
But mostly the writings implore the
president to leave office for the sake
of the country. For example, along
Samora Machel Avenue, named after
Mozambique's first president, the slogans
say minimally, "Please go." And as
the democratic space continues to shrink,
the activists have become more and
more fearless and cunning, even painting
walls only a few metres away from
State House, Mugabe's heavily guarded
residence.
When underground activists were campaigning to stop England,
Australia and
New Zealand playing matches in Zimbabwe during the 2003
Cricket World Cup,
they targeted a wall less than 50 metres from State
House. The guards rubbed
them out overnight, but in the course of the
following night the graffiti
reappeared. The slogans included, "Mugabe has
killed this country", "Never
trust ZANU PF" and "Mugabe's hands are full of
blood."
Mugabe finally put a stop to the graffiti writing by putting a
24-hour armed
guard on the wall.
But since then the messages conveyed
by the graffiti have grown angrier and
stronger - and multiplied on road
signs, advertising billboards and in
toilets, as well as on
walls.
Chirikure Chirikure, one of Zimbabwe's most popular poets and
songsters,
believes the graffiti is a sign of people trying to communicate
their pain
to both the leadership and the rest of the public. "It is an
expression of
anger, pain and at times dialogue," he said. "For myself,
staying silent is
impossible, even though protest poets get assaulted by
government thugs at
public readings. I have to speak out. It is my duty to
my people."
Chirikure said that although graffiti had its origins in
Ancient Rome and
was revived in the inner cities of modern America,
Zimbabweans have woken up
to its effectiveness as a means of protest in a
country where street
demonstrations are illegal and ruthlessly suppressed.
"It has become a voice
for the voiceless," he said.
The graffiti
increasingly takes the form of an exchange of ideas, with other
graffiti
artists responding to earlier slogans. "That is the dialogue that
the people
are yearning for," said the poet. "They used to write letters to
the papers,
but now that those papers have been closed they have turned to
graffiti."
Graffiti writers, who face up to five years imprisonment
if caught going
about their work, say they hope their art will help convey
to the outside
world the desperate state of the nation, where millions are
hungry and
jobless, where inflation is touching 600 per cent and
unemployment 80 per
cent. Its beauty is that it is one of the few types of
art that the
government finds difficult to control and censor.
ZANU
PF has tried, though without success, to counter the graffiti either by
rubbing it off or writing counter-messages, which suggests that the critical
graffiti is unnerving the regime. British premier Tony Blair is a favourite
target of Mugabe's graffiti teams.
Graffiti has become so widespread
because of the crackdown on nearly every
other means of expression. Mugabe's
government has closed four newspapers
since 2002. The state has also
promulgated laws that outlaw public meetings
and street demonstrations
without permission from the police. Several
citizens have been arrested for
criticising the president in public.
Critical plays have also been
censored. Dave Guzha, a leading theatre
producer and playwright, said the
emergence of graffiti "is a sign that the
people are desperate to
say
something to the Establishment".
Guzha has had his plays censored or
banned. One satirical work, Super
Patriots and Morons, was outlawed in the
middle of last year's Harare
International Festival of Arts. It pokes fun at
an iron-fisted African head
of state who is intolerant of opposition and
sees all dissenters as enemies
and "neo-imperialist stooges" who have to be
"eliminated". Mugabe's ban
ensured that the play would enjoy international
success, including rave
reviews at the Edinburgh International
Festival
Guzha said Zimbabwe's crumbling economy and the withdrawal of
funds from
cash-strapped donors has forced many artists, for whom graffiti
has become a
vital outlet, onto the streets. More than 330 community theatre
groups have
shut down over the past three years. "For me, graffiti is
filling the gap
left by newspapers, musicians, theatre groups and street
demonstrations,"
said Guzha.
The art of graffiti has also been
institutionalised by underground
opposition groups who use it to protest
against the regime. One particularly
active subversive group, Zwakwana,
Shona for "Enough is Enough", has become
the leader in this type of protest.
Zwakwana now has a website and also
prints dissident pamphlets which are
widely distributed.
Zwakwana has also produced a CD of anti-Mugabe and
anti-government protest
songs, while the authorities themselves have cracked
down hard and
tirelessly on dissenting musicians. Thomas Mapfumo, Zimbabwe's
best-known
musician, who achieved fame singing protest songs against
pre-independence
white rule, is now in exile in the USA after being hounded
out by the
government.
Mapfumo was banned from the airwaves of the
four state-controlled radio
stations for his new flood of critical songs,
including the wildly popular
and regionally famous "Mamvemve", a Shona word
that translates as "tatters".
In Mamvemve, Mapfumo sings, "The country
you used to cry for is now in
tatters. Let's get out of here. The country
you used to cry for is now run
by crooks."
Mapfumo, who now lives in
Oregon with his family, said it was easier to get
his protest songs played
in the days of the former white Rhodesian
government. "Today we have a black
government and it's even worse," he said.
"You are trying to tell the people
the truth, what is happening in their
country, and somebody is trying to
shut you down. Everything [the government
says] is just propaganda. They are
trying to fool the people."
Those dissident musicians that remain in
Zimbabwe like Leonard Zhakata,
Portia Gwanzura and Raymond Majongwe, the
target of a botched assassination
attempt last year by government agents,
have also been censored and are not
played on the national radio
stations.
Musicians willing to become Robert Mugabe's praise singers are
heard
endlessly on government-controlled radio. In one such song, singer
Tambaoga
complains about Tony Blair's alleged efforts to recolonise
Zimbabwe. Since
the British leader's surname also happens to be the brand
name of
rudimentary pit toilets common across rural areas, Tambaoga suddenly
switches out of Shona to sing his punch line in English, "The only Blair I
know is a toilet." The joke used to amuse even those who hated Mugabe, but
has now worn thin.
Dzikamai Chidyausiku is the pseudonym of an IWPR
contributor in Zimbabwe.
The Herald (Harare)
January 18,
2006
Posted to the web January 18, 2006
Harare
HARARE City
Council owes the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) a
staggering $119
billion in unpaid water bills -- a situation which could
result in the
disconnection of supplies to the city and its satellite towns.
Zinwa
voiced concern that if Harare did not pay the money on time, it could
result
in the failure to buy water treatment chemicals, thereby exposing the
lives
of millions of people in the capital city and its satellite towns to
disease
outbreaks.
Zinwa senior officials said the authority could also fail to
pay salaries
for its workers if the ballooning debt was not
settled.
Furthermore, six water pumps imported from South Africa had been
kept by the
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) until recently because duty
had not been
paid -- another direct result of the cash crunch.
For
purifying water for Harare, Zinwa is now being financed through water
tariffs paid by irrigation farmers countrywide.
Zinwa urgently needs
over $1 trillion for the complete overhaul of the
city's water
infrastructure and another US$300 000 to commission the Odis
sludge
reclamation plant built by the Israelis several years ago.
"The
non-payment of that money is affecting us seriously. We now cannot buy
anything for Harare water. Recently we bought six pumps from South Africa
and we were failing to pay duty for them. If we had got what we are owed, we
would have paid Zimra easily," said an official in an interview
yesterday.
He said the debt started accumulating from May last year when
Zinwa took
over the city's water management and treatment.
"We might
get to a point where we may fail to supply water. It will be
impossible to
supply," the official said.
The Minister of State for Water Resources and
Infrastructural Development,
Engineer Munacho Mutezo, confirmed the
existence of the debt.
"Zinwa is facing cashflow problems mainly because
of the late payment or
non-payment of water bills by local authorities.
Currently the authority is
owed about $119 billion, which is a lot of money
that could go a long way in
improving service delivery," he
said.
Harare town clerk Mr Nomutsa Chideya also confirmed the debt
yesterday.
"The debt is not in dispute. The debt came about because we
were selling
water at $600 per megalitre to residents yet Zinwa was charging
us $2 000
for the same quantity.
"We should be able to pay the debt
in three months subject to approval of
new tariffs," said Mr
Chideya.
Addressing a Press conference yesterday, Eng Mutezo said Zinwa
would
continue to effect water demand management to allow all areas to have
supplies while maintenance work at the various treatment plants was
undertaken.
The minister said Zinwa was producing 550 megalitres of
water daily against
demand of 750 megalitres, and a total production
capacity of 600 megalitres.
He defended the city's water quality, saying
Zinwa had at no time released
low quality supplies to the residents although
there was documentary
evidence from council that the water failed to meet
standards specified by
the Standards Association of Zimbabwe and World
Health Organisation (WHO) on
numerous occasions last year.
"We want
to assure the public that our water supplies meet WHO standards and
that at
times they exceed our own standards. We religiously adhere to
standards," he
said.
A total of 163 water samples drawn from the metropolitan province's
various
wards would be tested each week to establish whether the water met
WHO
quality guidelines.
"Residents are, however, urged to provide
feedback on water quality
characteristics like colour, taste and smell. The
importance of this
feedback cannot be over-emphasised since the final water
is prone to
recontamination during transmission and distribution," said the
minister.
He said his ministry, which oversees Zinwa operations, was
mindful of the
cholera outbreak in the city and would do all in its capacity
to contain the
spread of the water-borne disease.
Eng Mutezo said
water shortages experienced in the Harare Metropolitan
Province were a
result of inadequate storage facilities. As a result water
pumping has to be
on a 24-hour basis, overstraining plant and equipment
through continuous
use.
He said Zinwa had undertaken massive repairs to the Morton Jaffray
Treatment
Plant, Prince Edward Waterworks and Warren Control
Station.
The minister also said that despite the cashflow problems, Zinwa
had enough
chemical stocks.
Daily Mirror, Zimbabwe
The
Daily Mirror Reporter
issue date :2006-Jan-18
HARARE is losing between
40 and 60 percent of its treated water daily and
needs at least $1 trillion
to refurbish its poor reticulation system that
has compounded the shortage
of the precious liquid in the city and its
dormitory towns of Chitungwiza
and Ruwa.
In addition, the city also needs US$300 000 (Z$27 billion) to
commission its
Odis reclamation treatment at the Morton Jaffray Water-works
constructed by
the Israelis in the 1990s to boost the capital's water
supplies.
The Minister of State for Water Resources and Infrastructural
Development,
Munacho Mutezo, said this after meeting officials from Harare
City Council
including commission chairperson Sekesai Makwavarara, Town
Clerk Nomutsa
Chideya, Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) chairman
Willie Muringani
and Harare metropolitan Governor and Resident Minister
David Karimanzira.
"We are aware that the city of Harare has grown in the
past 20 years, but
capacity has not grown. The treatment works have an
installed capacity of
600 mega litres. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has come
in terms of financing
and a lot of equipment has been rehabilitated.
"We
are currently producing 550 mega litres a day although we still have
lots of
leakages. We are losing between 40 and 60 percent of water through
leaks,"
Mutezo said.
The minister added that the city council and Zinwa would be
attending to all
burst pipes with a toll free line being set up to allow the
public to
timeously report these incidences.
Currently, the demand for
water in Harare and its environs stands at 750
mega litres daily, but the
city is producing far less than that.
Mutezo said the current water shortages
were due to the closure of one of
the reservoirs at Morton Jaffray for
routine clean up exercises.
"One of the reservoirs (at Morton Jaffray) was
shut down for routine clean
up. Sludge had become one metre high and
absorbed chemicals especially
chlorine, which is imported. There was,
however, inadequate notice given to
residents because the process was
supposed to take one hour, but took
longer," he added.
On the timing of
the exercise in light of the cholera outbreak, the minister
said: "The
reservoir had to be shut down because of the sludge, but we are
mindful of
the outbreak and we will continue to make sure that it is
contained and we
will do anything we can within the demand managed schedule
to make sure
there is water available."
The minister said the demand management system was
meant to ensure that no
residents went for more than a day without water,
adding council and Zinwa
would soon come up with a blueprint on water supply
for the city.
Mutezo also bemoaned the polluting of water supplies by
industry and
commerce saying this had increased the cost of treating
water.
"There is a lot of pollution from sewage as well as affluent from
industry
and commerce. We are currently using eight treatment chemicals
(four
imported) instead of two. The raw water quality is poor. We urge
companies
to install pre-treatment chemicals on site and we are also
engaging the
ministry of environment on the levels of pollution," he
said.
Harare and its dormitory towns have been facing persistent water
problems
since last year due to obsolete equipment at its water works,
leakages,
vandalism and high demand.
Some parts of Chitungwiza, Tafara,
Mabvuku and Budiriro have been facing
acute water rationing since last
weekend.
Bulk water treatment for Harare was taken over by Zinwa last year
after the
city had faced crippling shortages of the commodity with the
council
battling with little success to resolve the situation.
Daily Mirror, Zimbabwe
The Daily
Mirror Reporter
issue date :2006-Jan-18
AS schools remain defiant to
growing outcries by parents over the recent
hikes in school fees, some
pupils have not attended lessons two weeks into
the new term as their
parents are battling to raise the new fees.
Boarders, who have failed to pay
the required fees and those who have not
yet secured places at alternative
schools, are still on "extended holiday"
with their fate now uncertain, The
Daily Mirror can reveal.
The situation is disturbing considering that others
have already started
learning and it would be task to catch up. A survey in
the city showed that
it's business as usual with lessons at most schools
already in full swing.
However, it was a sorry story for other pupils still
struggling to raise the
required fees.
Others are just waiting for their
parents to get paid this month to be able
to raise the required
amount.
"There is nowhere I can get that kind of money from anywhere this
time of
the month considering we are just coming from the festive season.
The hikes
were just too much and I have no choice, but to wait for pay day,"
said a
Lazarus Muringe whose son attends a mission school in Chivhu.
Said
another parent: "My friend, you have to understand that things are not
alright. The government has let us down. While we need the best education
for our children, but the rate of increase is just absurd considering our
earnings."
Most parents interviewed agreed that education had indeed
become
unaffordable and beyond the reach of the majority.
Some pupils are
still criss-crossing from one school to the other hoping to
find a place
which their parents can afford.
"It's now almost two weeks since schools
opened and we have been moving from
one school to the other trying to secure
a form four place for my daughter.
I am almost losing hope and if things
come to the worst, I will have to take
my daughter to a college in town
something I did not want to do."
Most vacant places in urban schools have
been filled up as the institutions
have gone out of their way to accommodate
affected pupils.
For instance, Kuwadzana High School in Harare just like
other city schools
has placed a reminder on the notice board that it no
longer has any vacant
places for pupils.
However, some headmasters said
parents should appreciate that the cost of
living has gone up considerably
so fees have to be adjusted accordingly.
"Yes, we have had incidences of
movements of pupils from one school to the
other, but reasons vary,
including that of increase in school fees," a
Chitungwiza headmaster said on
condition he was not
named.
Daily Mirror, Zimbabwe
The Daily Mirror Reporter
issue date
:2006-Jan-18
NYADIRE Teachers' College in Mutoko last week expelled an
unspecified number
of final year students for allegedly demonstrating over
hiked fees.
However, impeccable sources said at least nine students had
indeed been
expelled. The students protested last year after the primary
school
teachers' training institution reportedly hiked fees by 300
percent.
Yesterday, the college principal, who only identified herself as
Dhliwayo,
confirmed to The Daily Mirror that some students had been
expelled, but
would not be drawn to to give the specific number.
Dhliwayo
then referred all questions to the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary
Education
in Harare.
She said: "About 600 students from intake three and six boycotted
classes
last year after the college had hiked fees. As a result of the
boycotts, the
college closed early last year. Investigations are still in
progress and you
can contact the Ministry of High and Tertiary Education for
more
information."
Following the class boycott by the estimated 600
students, the college
reportedly instituted investigations leading to the
expulsion of the
students.
"Disgruntled students boycotted classes not
only because of the hiked fees,
they also complained over the quality of
food the college was serving which
they said did not match the increase in
fees," a well placed source said.
Efforts to get a comment from the parent
ministry were fruitless all day
yesterday.
The responsible minister Stan
Mudenge was not reachable on his mobile phone,
while his deputy Sikhanyiso
Ndlovu was said to be on his way to Masvingo for
a meeting.
Most schools
and colleges raised fees beyond the reach of many this year
igniting a
public outcry.
Daily Mirror, Zimbabwe
The
Daily Mirror Reporter
issue date :2006-Jan-18
THIRTEEN Kariba District
Hospital staffers were on Friday last week slapped
with a wholly suspended
62 months imprisonment for defrauding the district
hospital of $50
million.
The convicts, who were sentenced by Kariba magistrate, Ernest
Mukonoweshuro
committed the offence in October last year.
The staffers,
who included the Deputy Administrator, a pharmacy technician,
two assistant
accountants, the acting matron, the environmental technician,
a
physiotherapist and six senior nurses got a four year jail term each after
they were convicted on their own plea of guilty to theft by conversion
charges when they appeared before the Kariba magistrate.
However, their
jail terms were suspended on condition that they pay
restitution of the
money by January 31 this year.
In passing sentence, the magistrate put into
consideration that all of the
staffers were first offenders who did not
waste the court's time when they
pleaded guilty.
Prosecutor Ruth Chirema
said on October 27 last year, operations at Kariba
District Hospital were
almost brought to a halt following the arrest of the
13 staffers in
connection with the disappearance of $50 million.
She said the three were
caught after they misrepresented that they had
travelled to Omay district in
the same province for an outreach programme
for the Child Health Day.
He
told the court that all the 13 staffers did not go to Omay but later
claimed
travel and subsistence allowances amounting to $50 million. He said
authorities sanctioned the payment believing that they had indeed travelled
to Omay on business.
The scam only came to light weeks later when some
officials who were
co-ordinating the Child Health programme asked the
hospital authorities why
they had not sent representatives to the
programme.
The case was reported to the police leading to their
arrest.
Daily Mirror, Zimbabwe
Paidamoyo Chipunza
issue date :2006-Jan-18
HEALTH
services at government hospitals remain below standard forcing
cash-strapped
patients to pay more at private institutions.
This is despite the coming on
board of the Hospitals Services Trust (HST) in
March last year to assist the
government in addressing major health
concerns.
To date, the committee
has received financial assistance from a number of
private companies,
allocated to central hospitals for refurbishment.
But patients have raised
complaints that government machinery and other
equipment were either minimal
or not in service at all, disadvantaging
patients who would have travelled
long distances seeking treatment.
"I wanted some tests for my Hepatitis
blood, but was referred elsewhere as
the hospital machinery was out of
service," said a patient on condition of
anonymity at Chitungwiza Central
Hospital.
She said she ended up forking out $8,2 million at a private
institution in
the dormitory town after public laboratories were reportedly
temporarily out
of order.
"Out of order machines are the order of the day
in this country. Whether
this situation will ever normalise leaves a lot to
be desired," she added.
At Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, some patients
claimed there were no
mosquito nets in some wards, exposing them to the risk
of contracting
malaria.
"Mind you they sleep with windows opened to
enable air circulation, which is
good. But all the same, because of the
rains, mosquitoes are rampant posing
patients to high risk of malaria," said
Osweld Madondo of Glen View 7.
He said they had to bring a mosquito net and
some repellents for their
relative admitted at Parirenyatwa.
Another
patient at Harare Central Hospital complained that even the
outpatient and
casualty departments had limited wheelchairs or stretchers
for bed-ridden or
critically ill patients.
Some relatives carry their patients on their backs
from each department
until they receive treatment- a long and tiresome
process.
Patients called on the government to computerise all administrative
functions for easy record tracking and efficiency.
Back at Chitungwiza
Central Hospital, people spend most of the day queuing
for a hospital
card.
"Getting treatment at a government institution requires patience and
persistence. It takes the whole day to see the doctor," Mavis Matapura of
Zengeza 4, said.
Other hospital apparatus such as drips were also said to
be in short supply.
The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare has since
admitted that the country's
health delivery system was in a bad state, hence
the appointment of the HST,
chaired by Lovemore Kadenge.
Contacted for
comment on progress so far made by his committee, Kadenge said
he was on
study leave and referred all questions to Minister Parirenyatwa,
who, in
turn, requested for a face-to face interview.
By Violet Gonda
18 January 2006
Raymond Majongwe,
the Secretary General of the Progressive Teachers
Union and a member of the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions General Council
finally had his passport
back in his hands on Wednesday. This was after the
Zimbabwe lawyers for
Human Rights gave the police 48hrs to return the
passport or face legal
action. The human rights group who were representing
Majongwe, received the
passport on Tuesday from the police, a month after
the travel document was
impounded when the activist arrived in Harare from
Nigeria.
Arnold Tsunga the Director of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights
said a
letter of demand was sent, stating the seizure was unlawful and that
the
police had no legitimate or legal basis to be holding onto Majongwe's
passport.
The outspoken activist had his passport confiscated
on the 16 th of
December at the Harare International Airport, as he arrived
from an
International Labour Organisation workshop on HIV and AIDS in
Nigeria.
Earlier that week the authorities had confiscated the
passports of two
government critics, newspaper owner Trevor Ncube and MDC
official Paul Temba
Nyathi. These were later returned after the High Court
ruled that it was
illegal for the government to seize the passports of its
critics. Tsunga
said clearly the police and the Chief Immigration Officer
were acting on the
basis of political instructions, which had no legal
basis.
It is believed that the 3 are on a list of 64 people whose
passports
the government intend to seize. This incident follows the
amendment of the
Zimbabwe constitution, which provides for the withdrawal of
travel documents
from all Zimbabweans who are perceived to be enemies of the
state.
Tsunga said the return of Majongwe's document is a small
victory which
has no political significance in terms of the broader
political process in
the country but significant in that the government will
comply with the rule
of law where there is no threat to the balance of the
political mapping in
the country.
He warned that once
they have sorted out the regulatory framework,
which is the precondition for
the amendment to work, it will not be a
surprise to see the government,
"begin to selectively target individuals
especially human rights defenders;
who are seen as an impact in terms of the
world knowing what is happening in
the country and in terms of influencing
the grassroots
communities."
Tsunga believes the government will use that to fix
political
opponents who are seen as having the biggest impact in terms of
the need for
society to transform itself to a better
state.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
Reuters
Wed Jan 18, 2006
6:35 PM GMT
HARARE, Jan 18, (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's embattled cricket
administrators
voted on Wednesday to suspend their struggling national team
from test
cricket at the first meeting of a government-appointed interim
committee.
"The interim board decided to suspend Zimbabwe's participation
in test
matches until early next year," said a statement from Zimbabwe
Cricket (ZC).
"The decision... was reached by ZC after consideration of
the recent
performances by the national and A teams," it added.
Seven
of the last 10 tests contested by Zimbabwe have been lost by an
innings and
26 of the last 28 one-day internationals have also ended in
defeat, many by
huge margins.
The African nation has, however, decided to continue
playing international
one-day cricket for the next year.
The interim
board was formed after a government takeover of cricket on Jan.
6 following
allegations of mismanagement by administrators.
YOUNG
TEAMS
The statement added: "The young teams remain full of potential and
hopes
abound for their development into a strong and competitive performer
on the
test arena.
"ZC is now putting in place a programme to
galvanise the development of the
Zimbabwe squads. It will work with other
test nations and the ICC
(International Cricket Council) itself to realise
this objective."
"While the side goes through the programme to prepare it
adequately for the
rigours of test cricket, ZC has no doubt the team will be
competitive in its
ODI commitments under the Future Tours Programme," said
ZC interim board
chairman Peter Chingoka.
Zimbabwe Cricket will now
approach the West Indies Cricket Board with a view
to playing only
one-dayers and not test matches on their scheduled tour to
the Caribbean in
April.
The statement said it would do the same with other international
boards "for
the other fixtures under the Future Tours Programme
(FTP).
"The Zimbabwe cricket team will then only resume its full
programme during
the tour to Sri Lanka in February 2007, subject to the
finalisation of the
FTP for which the chief executives are meeting in Dubai
next month," the
statement added.
(Writing by Neil Manthorp in Cape
Town)
---------
New cleansed Zimbabwe board states its
aims
Martin Williamson
January 18, 2006
Send us your
feedback on this story
The first meeting of the interim board of Zimbabwe
Cricket ended with a
number of announcements in addition to the decision to
suspend the country
from Test cricket.
Since a controversial AGM
last September, the ZC board has not been able to
meet as opponents of Peter
Chingoka, the embattled chairman, boycotted all
meetings. It took government
involvement - the removal of most of those
opposed to Chingoka on race and
political grounds and their replacement with
pro-Zanu-PF supporters - to
enable the board to achieve a quorum. Given the
less-than-democratic
constitution of the new board, embarrassing questions
or criticism were not
going to be the order of the day.
The main issue, that of the
players, was the one that needed addressing but
it was brushed aside
"pending the finalisation of player issues". The
reality is that ZC remains
aware that despite the end of the strike, there
is every chance that many of
those involved are ready to walk away. It had
been speculated that a new
captain would be named to replace Tatenda Taibu,
but Andy Blignaut, the
favourite, is not in the country and is rumoured to
be about to quit
anyway.
The board did name Kevin Curran as coach, but that too will
not go down
well. The players have been training with Phil Simmons - sacked
last year by
ZC but fighting his dismissal in the courts - and are said to
have little
time for Curran who is seen as too closely allied to ZC
officials. Andy
Pycroft was appointed to run the A team and Walter Chawaguta
the national
Under-19 side.
Bruce Makovah was named as head of
the selection panel previously headed by
Max Ebrahim - one of those culled
on the basis of his race - with Curran and
Zimbabwe Cricket Academy Manager
Kudzai Shoko as the other two members. In
September last year Makovah was
accused of stopping a match in Harare and of
racially abusing and
threatening players.
The board also appointed various sub-committees.
Chingoka was named to chair
the International Relations Committee; Wilson
Manase the Constitution Review
Committee with Sylvester Matshaka, Tavengwa
Mukuhlani and Stanley Staddon as
the members; Oliver Kanhukamwe the
Development Committee with Levy
Hombarume, Charles Maunze and Crispen
Tsvarayi as members. Mike Weeden, who
is involved with women's cricket, will
be an ex-officio committee member.
Reading though the lists of other
committees made the degree of the
cleansing of almost all white and Asian
people all too clear.
The other issue which has attracted the most
media attention - the financial
affairs of the board - was also addressed
with the board deciding to appoint
"a firm of auditors of international
repute". Their brief will be to
investigate alleged financial mismanagement
and/or irregularities, if any,
and to advise ZC on the way forward, and to
audit ZC's accounts for the
period May-December 2005, because some of the
allegations fall outside the
period of the last audited accounts which was
up to the year-end of April
2005.
There was a passing reference
to Ozias Bvute, the ZC managing director
identified by many as being to
blame more than anyone other than Chingoka
for the current crisis, but that
was enough to show that he was firmly in
situ.
But the creation
of five new provinces - all expected to be pro-Chingoka -
and the
dissolution of the old County Districts - who have been leading the
fight to
have him removed - which was expected to be pushed through appears
to have
been delayed until the next meeting in February.
Martin Williamson is
managing editor of Cricinfo
© Cricinfo
Cape Argus
January 18, 2006
By Basildon
Peta
Zimbabwe police say they have asked Interpol to help them
arrest a
High Court judge convicted of corruption.
The police
said they had launched a manhunt for Judge Benjamin Paradza
after he fled
Harare ahead of his sentencing last Friday.
They believe he is
abroad.
The Foreign Service was told by a friend of the judge that
Paradza
skipped Zimbabwe to London via South Africa.
Police
spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena told state media yesterday that
police suspected
Paradza had left for Britain via South Africa.
He said Zimbabwe police
had approached countries with Interpol offices
for help in tracing the
judge.
It remains to be seen whether Britain would co-operate with
Harare,
considering the strained relations between the two
countries.
The judge's friend, who refused to be named, said
Paradza feared for
his life if he went to jail.
He faced a
maximum of 10 years on charges that he tried to influence
other judges to
favour his business partner.
Paradza had alleged that he was being
victimised because he passed
judgments against President Robert Mugabe's
government.
These included nullifying eviction orders served on 50
farmers whose
land had been earmarked for seizure and freeing a jailed
former opposition
mayor of Harare.
But the state prosecutor
argued that the judge had tried to corruptly
influence other judges who were
handling a case involving his business
partner.
MEADOWS. KEITH GEOFFREY
Beloved husband, father and friend. We loved you so much. Your humour, wit, generosity and free spirit
are legendary. “It is better to light a
candle than to curse the darkness”. We
will miss you always. Angie and
Mana