The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
Copyright © 2003, Dow Jones Newswires
HARARE, Zimbabwe
(AP)--The government has repossessed about 400 farms
from black owners who
occupied more than one property seized from white
farmers under a
controversial land redistribution program, the state-run
Herald newspaper
reported Wednesday.
The farms, covering at least 200,000 hectares,
would be redistributed
to people still waiting for land, the paper said,
citing John Nkomo,
minister of special affairs in President Robert Mugabe's
office. The paper
didn't identify the farms or their owners.
Officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Mugabe's
government has confiscated more than 5,000 white-owned farms
for
redistribution to impoverished blacks since 2000.
However, many
prime properties have gone to government ministers, top
ruling party
officials, military officers and their cronies.
Some ministers and
ruling party officials have acquired more than one
farm, despite a government
promise to enforce a "one man one farm" policy.
The often-violent
seizures, along with erratic rains, have crippled
the agriculture-based
economy and helped plunge the nation into its worst
political and economic
crisis since 1980.
Mugabe says the land reform program is an effort
to correct colonial
era imbalances that gave much of the country's most
productive land to the
descendants of U.K., South African and other white
settlers.
Critics say Mugabe, who lead Zimbabwe to independence
from the U.K. in
1980, has used the program to shore up flagging support in
the face of
burgeoning political opposition.
(END) Dow Jones
Newswires
December 31, 2003 08:58 ET (13:58 GMT)
Zimbabwe: Yearender - Chronology of an Unremitting Crisis
UN
Integrated Regional Information Networks
DOCUMENT
December 31,
2003
Posted to the web December 31, 2003
Johannesburg
If last
year Zimbabweans thought life could not get any tougher, 2003
disabused them
of that faint hope.
Ordinary people struggled to cope through interlinked
humanitarian, economic
and political crises that provided no let up,
deepening their poverty and
vulnerability.
Record levels of inflation
daily eroded people's ability to provide for
their families, while under
funded public services -including the once
impressive health and education
systems - fell into even faster decline.
Humanitarian agencies warn that
more than six million Zimbabweans - over
half the population - will again be
in need of food aid by early 2004,
allegedly as a result of the impact of
fast-track land reform, HIV/AIDS, the
government's economic policies and the
lack of crucial farm inputs.
The following is a chronology of events of
2003.
15 January - Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader
Morgan
Tsvangirai says that he was approached with a deal from the ruling
party
that includes a safe exit for President Robert Mugabe and a national
unity
government to lead Zimbabwe out of its political and economic
crisis.
23 January - UN Special Envoy for Humanitarian Needs in Southern
Africa,
James Morris, visits Zimbabwe to review responses to the
humanitarian
disaster. He reiterates the impact of HIV/AIDS and says
government policies
over land redistribution and the monopoly of the Grain
Marketing Board (GMB)
have also contributed to the crisis.
31 January
- NGOs and humanitarian agencies highlight the need to include
displaced farm
workers in emergency relief programmes. They also point out
the need to
include urban areas in nutrition assessments.
3 February - Tsvangirai's
treason trial commences. He is accused, along with
two other MDC leaders, of
plotting to assassinate Mugabe.
12 February - The UN's Food and
Agriculture Organisation says it will
provide 340,000 vaccines for
foot-and-mouth disease as part of efforts to
control the spread of the
epidemic which has dealt a severe blow to the
country's livestock
industry.
18 February - The government launches its National Economic
Revival
Programme, which seeks to promote economic growth through
home-grown
solutions.
19 February - Dato' Param Cumaraswamy, the UN
Special Rapporteur on the
independence of judges and lawyers, expresses his
"grave concern" over the
arrest of sitting judge Benjamin Paradza.
25
February - The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) says food
aid
to Zimbabwe needs to be extended for another year with urgent steps
taken to
protect people from the consequences of yet another poor harvest.
20
March - The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) organises a
two-day
stayaway in protest against the government's alleged disregard for
labour
rights. Demonstrations are illegal in Zimbabwe without police
clearance.
6 March - Tropical cyclone Japhet hits Zimbabwe severely
destroying crops
and homes.
10 March - Zimbabwe's first urban feeding
programme opens in the country's
second city, Bulawayo.
20 March - MDC
gives government until 31 March to meet a list of demands or
"face popular
mass action to regain the people's liberties, freedoms and
dignity". The
protest action is delayed until 2 June.
24 March - US State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher urges that
government to end what he describes as a
campaign of "violent repression"
against domestic opponents.
26 March
- Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon's announces that
Zimbabwe's
suspension from the 54-member body remains in force, to be
reviewed at the
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Nigeria
in
December.
30 March - MDC wins by-elections in the Harare seats of
Highfield and
Kuwadzana.
4 April - A ministerial meeting in Harare of
the Southern African
Development Community defence and security organ sets up
a task force to
investigate allegations of human rights abuse.
10
April - The UN's Relief and Recovery Unit (RRU) warns that the food
security
situation in the southern province of Matabeleland South
is
"critical".
18 April - Mugabe hints at the possibility of retiring
before his term ends
in 2008. "We are getting to a stage where we shall say
fine, we settled this
matter [land redistribution] and people can retire," he
is quoted as saying.
23 April - Police arrest eight trade union leaders
on the first day of a
three-day strike called to protest fuel price increases
and hyper-inflation.
The stayaway is orchestrated by the ZCTU with the
support of MDC.
25 April - Human Rights Watch criticises the lack of
action by the UN office
of the High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding
alleged abuses in
Zimbabwe.
29 April - The Zimbabwe government denies
reports that Mugabe is preparing
an exit plan for himself, saying the reports
are "at best wishful".
2 May - Australia closes the offices of its
overseas aid programme
Australian Agency for International Development
(AusAID) following
Canberra's decision in 2002 to impose smart sanctions on
Zimbabwe. AusAID
moves its operations to Pretoria, South Africa.
3 May
- Amnesty International (AI) launches a report entitled "Zimbabwe:
Rights
Under Siege" to mark World Press Freedom Day. AI says the government
had
introduced and selectively used legislation as a vehicle for
committing
"widespread human rights violations" with impunity.
5 May -
South African President Thabo Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegun
Obasanjo and
Malawi President Bakili Muluzi hold closed-door talks with
Mugabe, followed
by a meeting with Tsvangirai, in a bid to "contribute to
the resolution of
the problems" facing the country.
12 May - Forty-six women are arrested
and detained during a Mother's Day
march. The march is organised by Women of
Zimbabwe Arise to protest violence
and torture and to demand fairer food
prices.
15 May - Mugabe establishes a Presidential Land Review Committee
to examine
the implementation of land redistribution. Former secretary to the
cabinet,
Charles Utete, heads the committee.
29 May - The Zimbabwe
Defence Force warns MDC that it will not be "an idle
observer" during
protests planned for June.
29 May - Mugabe calls for open debate over his
succession within the ruling
ZANU-PF.
2 June - The first day of a
planned week of anti-government protests dubbed
the "final push" starts with
a swoop on the MDC leadership by the police.
Tsvangirai is arrested on
contempt of court charges for allegedly defying a
court order to call off the
stayaway. The mass action is partly successful.
6 June - Tsvangirai is
again arrested and charged with treason, this time
for remarks made in 2002
in which he allegedly called for Mugabe's removal
by force. The security
forces clampdown on the last day of the MDC's
week-long protest.
9
June - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) suspends Zimbabwe's voting
and
related rights over the government's economic policies.
11 June -
Parliament passes two controversial media bills - the Access to
Information
and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act (AIPPA) and the
Broadcasting Services
Amendment Act.
20 June - Tsvangirai is awarded bail and freed after two
weeks in custody.
26 June - Mugabe jets off to Libya to pursue
discussions about fuel supplies
in the wake of countrywide
shortages.
9 July - MDC denies there had been a resumption of talks
between itself and
the government. Talks between the two parties were aborted
in April 2002
when the MDC refused to withdraw its court action over the
presidential
election results.
29 July - UN launches a Consolidated
Appeal for Zimbabwe, requesting US $114
million to help feed 5.5 million
people.
30 July - Mugabe orders ruling party officials with multiple
farms to
relinquish all but one within two weeks.
22 August - Finance
Minister Herbert Murerwa announces a supplementary
budget of Zim $700 billion
(about US $850 million) to resuscitate the
country's ailing
economy.
25 August - The government gives an assurance that the World
Food Programme
(WFP) will remain in control of humanitarian food
distribution, despite a
controversial new policy directive that stipulates
local government
officials and traditional leaders will be responsible for
both beneficiary
registration and distribution.
27 August - Energy and
Power Development Minister Amos Midzi deregulates the
procurement of
petroleum products.
1 September - MDC consolidates its grip in urban
areas after winning the
majority of executive mayoral posts and local council
elections. In two key
parliamentary by-elections, the MDC wins Harare Central
in the capital,
while ZANU-PF takes the rural constituency of
Makonde.
2 September - The government requests that the UN's RRU closes
its
provincial field offices, which coordinate and monitor the use
of
donor-funded humanitarian aid.
11 September - The anti-government
privately-owned Daily News and its sister
newspaper the Daily News on Sunday,
are shut down by the police for
operating without a license after the Supreme
Court rejects an appeal by the
papers' publishers challenging
AIPPA.
18 September - The Daily News wins a court victory allowing it to
resume
publishing, after police twice raid its offices and confiscate
equipment.
The court rules that sections of AIPPA under which the paper is
banned are
unconstitutional.
20 September - Vice-President Simon
Muzenda dies. The veteran nationalist
was aged 80
25 September -
Government and WFP sign a Memorandum of Understanding
reaffirming that WFP
food aid will be distributed on the basis of need
alone, and that WFP can
operate as before with food aid distributed by NGO
partners.
9 October
- Police swoop on ZCTU activists gathered in the capital to
protest high
taxes and soaring inflation.
16 October - The Commonwealth's Don McKinnon
reiterates the call for
Zimbabwe's ruling party to negotiate with its
political rivals. He says
"dialogue and national reconciliation" are
necessary before the country can
be readmitted.
22 October - Members
of the pro-democracy National Constitutional Assembly
gather in Harare's city
centre to lobby for a new constitution. They are
arrested and detained
overnight.
23 October - State hospital doctors go on strike. Doctors who
earn between
Zim $263,305 and Zim $807,735 per month (about US $330 and US
$1,000 at the
official rate, US $48 and US $147 at parallel market rates)
want their
salaries hiked by 8,000 percent. Nurses also say they will not
return to
work until the government responds to their pay proposals from last
year.
24 October - Human Rights Watch releases a 51-page report "Not
eligible: The
Politicisation of Food in Zimbabwe" alleging that MDC
supporters are
sidelined by ZANU-PF officials and village headmen during the
distribution
of GMB food.
24 October - The Administrative Court gives
the government-appointed Media
and Information Commission until 30 November
to register the Daily News, or
the court would deem it to have been
registered.
25 October - The Daily News returns to the streets with an
eight-page
edition headlined "We're back!". Police shut down the paper and
issue
warrants of arrest for the directors.
27 October - The chief
executive and three directors of the Daily News turn
themselves into the
police and are charged for publishing without a license.
31 October - The
government forms a special taskforce of nine cabinet
ministers to clamp down
on the foreign exchange black market.
4 November - The High Court
reserves judgment on the petition by the MDC to
have the results of the March
2002 presidential elections annulled.
6 November - The presidential land
review committee says the "fast-track"
agrarian reform programme has
redistributed far less land than has been
claimed in a process dogged by
administrative shortcomings and interference
by officials.
17 November
- The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports a total of 173 cholera
cases in
Kariba (Mashonaland West) and Binga (Matabeleland North) with
26
deaths.
A Save the Children-UK (SCUK) survey of households in the
northwestern
Zvimba district indicate that newly resettled communal farmers
and former
commercial farm workers are in desperate need of humanitarian
aid.
18 November - More than 50 labour and pro-democracy activists are
arrested
as they assemble to protest alleged rights abuses and price
hikes.
19 November - The UN launches an update of its Zimbabwe appeal,
urging
donors to provide the outstanding amount of US $109 out of the
original
appeal of US $114 million.
25 November - Nigerian President
Obasanjo tells journalists that Mugabe will
not attend the December CHOGM in
Abuja.
25 November - Nurses join doctors in another strike for higher
wages,
deepening the crisis of the public health system. Public hospitals in
Harare
and Bulawayo are forced to close wards.
1 December - ZANU-PF's
Ishmael Mutema wins Kadoma central by-election. The
constituency fell vacant
following the death of Austin Mpandawana of the
MDC.
3 December -
Cholera outbreaks claim the lives of about 40 people. SCUK
warns that if the
disease spreads to urban and former commercial farm areas
it could be
disastrous.
4 December - The IMF initiates procedures to expel Zimbabwe
over the
country's failure to meet its debt obligations.
5 December -
ZANU-PF holds its annual conference in the southern city of
Masvingo, but
rules out any debate on the issue of a successor to Mugabe.
7 December -
Zimbabwe pulls out of the Commonwealth after the organisation
indefinitely
extends the country's suspension. It was originally suspended
over its
governance record and the controversial presidential elections.
11
December - FEWS NET reports that the number of Zimbabweans needing food
aid
next year is expected to rise to over 6 million, beyond the original
estimate
of 5.5 million.
12 December - UNICEF warns that Zimbabwe's humanitarian
and economic crises
could dramatically reverse its impressive
post-independence education gains.
18 December - Mbeki arrives in
Zimbabwe for talks with Mugabe on the
country's political and economic
crisis. He also meets briefly with
Tsvangirai.
19 December - The Daily
News wins a court decision allowing it to publish
pending a Supreme Court
hearing.
21 December - MDC's national conference calls for talks with
ZANU-PF to
agree a transitional constitution that would establish conditions
for free
and fair elections. Tsvangirai warns that mass action could be used
to force
the party to the negotiating table.
22 December - Lack of
donor funding forces WFP to halve its December cereal
ration to more than 2.6
million hungry Zimbabweans.
30 December - The government announces that
200,000 hectares of land (about
400 farms) have been recovered from multiple
farm owners by the Presidential
Land Implementation Committee, which was set
up to implement the
recommendations of the Presidential Land Review
Committee.
The Scotsman
Ex-Premier's Daughter Loses Zimbabwe Passport
Battle
"PA"
Veteran human rights activist Judith
Todd accused President Robert
Mugabe’s government today of stripping the
rights of foreign descendants,
saying she had lost a long battle with
authorities to obtain a Zimbabwe
passport.
Todd, the
Zimbabwe-born daughter of former prime minister Garfield
Todd, has clashed
repeatedly with Mugabe’s government over its human rights
and democracy
record.
In 2002, Todd won a prolonged court battle for a one-year
temporary
passport to attend a memorial service for her father in
London.
But Zimbabwean officials have refused to renew the
passport, arguing
she is a citizen of New Zealand, where her father was born.
Todd says she
never took up New Zealand citizenship.
Having
exhausted legal avenues in Zimbabwe, Todd said she was now
reluctantly
claiming New Zealand citizenship so she could obtain a passport
to travel for
business and political purposes.
About two million Zimbabweans,
mostly descendants of migrants from
neighbouring countries, are in a similar
situation, she said.
She accused authorities of being “intent on
wiping out the citizenship
and voting rights of any Zimbabwean of whatever
colour or background thought
to be against the ruling party”.
Mugabe has accused white Zimbabweans and “totemless aliens” of being
at the
core of opposition to his 23-year rule.
Mugabe’s government has
clamped down on dissent, arresting opposition
leaders and shutting down the
country’s only independent daily newspaper,
The Daily News, of which Todd is
a shareholder.
“Frankly, I am worried not only about my own well
being, but about
every person who is living in this country,” Todd said. “I
think the next
year will probably see an unleashing of viciousness that we
haven’t yet
experienced.”
Garfield Todd, the former prime
minister of Southern Rhodesia, as
Zimbabwe was then known, led a reformist
government from 1953 to 1958. He
and his daughter were outspoken supporters
of Zimbabwe’s independence, and
both were detained under the reactionary rule
of Ian Smith.
From: Judith Todd
Date: Wed Dec 31, 2003 12:54:30 p.m
Africa/Harare
Subject: The calculated theft of our birth rights
My
dear friends,
You will find attached an update on my present status
regarding
citizenship and a passport.
With my best regards to you and
hope for the salvation of Zimbabwe from
the perilous evil of the present
-
Judith Todd.
31 December 2003
This letter is for general
information and there is no copyright.
30th December 2003
THE
CALCULATED THEFT OF OUR BIRTH RIGHTS
from Judith Todd
I was born
in Zimbabwe in 1943. In 2001 Zimbabwe's Registrar-General of
Citizenship,
Tobaiwa Mudede, refused to renew my passport. Along with his
master and
fellow Zezuru tribesman, Robert Mugabe, Mudede was intent on
wiping out the
citizenship and voting rights of any Zimbabwean of whatever
colour or
background thought to be against the ruling party, ZANU PF. It
is estimated
that this has affected a minimum of 2 million Zimbabweans, and
perhaps even
as much as 25% of our population.
My late father Garfield Todd was one of
the first affected. Stripped of
his citizenship by Mugabe/Mudede just before
our last Presidential
elections in March 2002 his name was put on the special
list supplied to
all polling stations of those NOT ALLOWED TO VOTE, even if
they had been
citizens for decades, even if, like him, they had been a Prime
Minister and
a Senator, and even if their names were still on the current
voters' roll.
In May 2002 our High Court ordered Mudede to treat me as a
citizen by birth
of Zimbabwe and to renew my Zimbabwe passport. Instead he
appealed against
the High Court ruling to the Supreme Court which, like the
voters' rolls
and citizenship records, was being cleansed. He reluctantly
issued a
temporary passport of one year's duration in which he pre-empted
any
judgment by the Supreme Court by declaring that I was a permanent
resident
of Zimbabwe, thus not a citizen.
On 27 February 2003 in an
agonisingly confused and confusing judgment the
Supreme Court found that I
was a citizen of both New Zealand and Zimbabwe
and concluded: "For the
avoidance of doubt, the respondent has two days,
from the handing down of
this judgment, within which to renounce her New
Zealand citizenship in
accordance with the New Zealand Citizenship Act. In
the event of her failure
to do so, she will lose her Zimbabwean citizenship
by operation of the law."
I managed to do what was ordered, painfully
participating in what I knew to
be a charade.
The New Zealand authorities subsequently responded by
saying that they had
received my application on 28 February 2003 for
renunciation of citizenship
but that this application could not be processed
as I had never laid claim
to New Zealand citizenship. In other words, they
could not help me to
renounce what I did not have.
My temporary
passport expired in July 2003 and I was stranded in Bulawayo
with no
citizenship and no travel documents. My lawyers took the matter,
and now the
response of New Zealand, to the Minister, Deputy Minister and
Permanent
Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs on the grounds that
obviously the
Supreme Court had erred in finding that I was a citizen of
New Zealand. My
lawyers were then given the impression that there had been
a conference of
all those officials on this matter and that Mudede had been
instructed by his
superiors to recognise my citizenship of Zimbabwe and to
issue a passport to
me forthwith. If so, Mudede treated his superiors with
contempt - as he
routinely does the Courts of Zimbabwe - and totally
ignored their
instructions.
Instead, he turned to his personal lawyer, Simplisius
Chihambakwe, who has
had the final say, for now. The Supreme Court had told
me to do something
which I had done, and it did not mention any consequences
of success or
failure. But Chihambakwe, on behalf of his client Mudede, has
written my
lawyers to state that as far as they are concerned the matter of
my
citizenship/passport ended at the Supreme Court and any problems
arising
thereafter, such as me not having any New Zealand citizenship to
renounce,
are not their concern.
So at length I have turned to New
Zealand, applied for citizenship and a
passport and received this thoughtful
and generous response from Gary
Basham, Acting Manager of Citizenship,
Department of Internal Affairs.
"This has obviously been a difficult
decision for you to make ...... we
are strongly aware of the importance of
citizenship and what it means to
those who are faced with surrendering their
current citizenship, or indeed
for those who are currently stateless. I hope
that, registering your status
as a New Zealand citizen and receiving a New
Zealand passport will provide
you with the security you are currently
lacking, and provide you with a
sense of attachment to New
Zealand."
This letter is simply an update for everyone but I do also want
to take
this opportunity to express my profound gratitude to all concerned
with
Zimbabwe's Test Case Committee and especially to Eileen Sawyer,
Bryant
Elliot, David Coltart, Washington Sansole for fighting so hard
and
fearlessly on my behalf and for so many others. Thank you!
My New
Zealand passport should arrive by courier on 31 December and then I
shall
take it to the appropriate Government department to have stamped in
it that I
am a permanent resident of Zimbabwe. This means that when I
travel I won't
have to apply for a visa to come back home. Then, all being
well, I shall
fly to Capetown on the afternoon of 31 December where you
will find me at
this same email address or C/O Malcolm King, P. O. Box
27206 Rhine Road 8050,
Sea Point, Capetown for a few weeks or months.
With best wishes to all my
friends for 2004 - Judith Todd
"I have
always had a nagging feeling that for all their propensity to
liberal values
and civilised norms, these people are dirty. In fact, they
are filthy and
recklessly uncouth and actually barbaric" - Information
Minister Jonathan
Moyo, after his shopping spree in South Africa was exposed
"I feel
very sorry for the staff of the Daily News" - Information Minister
Jonathan
Moyo, after refusing The Daily News a publishing licence
"We are not
going to be going around the African continent removing
governments." - SA
President Thabo Mbeki
"My brother, comrade Mugabe, and his Zanu PF
must realise the world is
changing in the direction of democracy. Laws that
don't benefit the people
should be scrapped" - Malawi’s Bakili Muluzi in
December before CHOGM
"If leaders on the continent do not do more to
convince President Robert
Mugabe to respect the rule of law and enter into a
dialogue with the
political opposition, he and his cronies will drag Zimbabwe
down until there
is nothing left to ruin" - United States Secretary of State
Colin Powell
"There are others who are apologetic about our
nationalism….those who fear
to be complete Africans, hesitate to express
solidarity with us" - Robert
Mugabe, after a lack of support for him at
CHOGM
"I am sad that we South Africans declared that the last elections
in
Zimbabwe, though not free were yet legitimate. That is distressing
semantic
games" - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
"My heart simply bleeds for
my country" - Archbishop Pius Ncube
Financial Times
Hunger stalks Zimbabwe as crisis worsens
By John Reed
Published: December 31 2003 4:00 | Last Updated: December
31 2003 4:00
Zimbabwe's hungry season has arrived with this month's
onset of fitful
summer rains.
In Bimha, a village about
140km south of Harare, rural dwellers clad
in their Sunday best unloaded
sacks of European Union-donated maize next to
a shop front advertising
coffins for sale.
The United Nations World Food Programme, which
co-ordinated the
distribution, gives priority to groups such as the
terminally ill,
single-parent families and what it calls "child-headed
households" - minors
orphaned by HIV/Aids who are raising their
siblings.
Lois, a 10-year-old with her six-year-old sister in tow,
was among the
people collecting rations in Bimha this month. Her father died
in 2000 and
her mother this year, bequeathing the girls a vegetable garden
from which
they eke sustenance.
The WFP is targeting 4m of the
most vulnerable Zimbabweans for food
aid, but estimates that up to 5.5m need
help. The C-Safe consortium,
grouping the Care, Catholic Relief Services and
World Vision charities, is
feeding another 400,000 people, but will increase
numbers in the months
preceding the southern hemisphere's
harvest.
Zimbabwe's plight is not unusual for Africa, where the WFP
also runs
large feeding programmes in Ethiopia and Angola. But it marks a
sharp
setback for a country that once boasted some of the continent's best
social
services and grew enough crops in most years to feed its
neighbours.
Now it is feeding up to 45 per cent of the 12m
population at some
point of the year, compared with about 20 per cent of
Ethiopia's 66m people.
Angela Tseriwa, queuing for rations, recalled her
region's bumper harvests
of pumpkins and cereals in years past. "We never
thought this would be
happening," she said.
President Robert
Mugabe has blamed the food crisis on drought. Three
years of poor rainfall in
southern Africa have taken a heavy toll on
Zimbabwe and its neighbours, with
this year's harvest 85 per cent below
normal in Bimha's district of
Chikomba.
Yet whereas food production is rebounding in countries
such as Zambia,
Zimbabwe's shortages are worsening. The state's Grain
Marketing Board, once
an important artery for food distribution, is nearly
bankrupt because of
Zimbabwe's economic crisis, making maize scarce and
expensive.
The government's land reform programme, under which more
than 4,000
commercial farms have been seized since 2000, has contributed to
the
collapse in food production.
Despite government pledges to
assist them, many of those settled on
the land lack the seed, machinery,
draught animals or knowhow to grow crops.
Hunger is spreading to
urban areas, with poor city dwellers cutting
meat from their diets and
reducing from three meals a day to two or one.
Compounding the problems
caused by government policies, illnesses related to
HIV/Aids - the infection
rate is an estimated one in three adults - kill
about 3,000 Zimbabweans a
week.
The disease has put thousands of rural orphans in relatives'
care and
rendered some farmers too weak to work. Clophas Mahaingahawe, a
chronically
ill farmer collecting food rations in Bimha, said he was "not
energetic
enough" to plant or plough, and missed last year's
harvest.
In Zimbabwe, the WFP gives adults corn-soya blend because
it is
nutritious and easily digested by sick people. But the WFP has had to
halve
its monthly allotments of maize from 10kg to 5kg per head this month
due to
a shortfall in donations.
Donors led by the US and the
European Commission's EuropeAid have
pledged $98.7m (€79m, £55.6m) for
Zimbabwe this year, or half the $197m the
WFP is seeking. One UN official,
requesting anonymity, warns of a "major
pipeline break" for food aid next
year if donations do not resume.
Foreign countries' fatigue with
Zimbabwe's worsening political
crisis - and its impact on the food supply -
may be to blame. In September
the government issued a directive on
non-government organisations that gave
local councillors a leading role in
deciding who would get food aid. The UN
and NGOs later negotiated a memo of
understanding with the state which they
claim precludes political
interference in food distribution.
But aid officials privately
acknowledge that the incident, coupled
with Zimbabwe's seemingly intractable
political stalemate, may have deterred
some donors. "This is a
government-made crisis, and [Mugabe's] recalcitrance
is not endearing him to
the international community," said one.
Business Day
Break the
silence
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan Katzenellenbogen has written an excellent piece, Time is
running out
for SA's quiet diplomacy (December 29). He reports the "intense
displeasure"
of South African churches and trade unions over SA's policy of
quiet
diplomacy towards Zimbabwe.
He points out that, "Quiet diplomacy has
widened Mugabe's options to
say no to talks, no to early retirement, and no
to an early election".
Mugabe will try and stick around till the
end of his term, still five
years away in 2008, hoping to ensure that his
successor can win an election.
SA, a democracy, must make clear that no
political party, not even Zanu
(PF), has a "liberation" right to rule
forever.
Mbeki's quiet diplomacy has been silent as far as
Zimbabweans and
South Africans are concerned since it has denied open
information to those
most hurt and interested in a democratic solution. It
has caused great
unease about Mbeki's real values.
The crucial
issue now is that quiet diplomacy does not lead to the
privilege that Mugabe,
heading an illegal regime, can name the date when he
goes and when Zanu (PF)
feels ready to fight an election. Mugabe must go now
and the constitutional
requirement that a presidential election follow
within three months must be
enforced. The danger is that SA is being drawn,
through its ineptitude over
Zimbabwe, into a blatant interference in
Zimbabwe's affairs, granting Mugabe
a privileged election.
When Mugabe first failed to keep promises
made to Mbeki, some three
years ago, Mbeki did nothing.
Every
parent knows better. When a child fails to undertake an
agreement or keep a
family rule, you re draw that line as openly as possible
and add clearly
stated sanctions if there is any further transgression.
Moreover,
one goes back publicly to the initial promises and demands
that they be
undertaken.
After causing what experts have called "genocide"
within SA over
HIV/AIDS, Mbeki's inability to deal with Mugabe does call into
question his
fitness to lead the country.
Dr Norman
Reynolds
Johannesburg
Dec 31 2003 06:41:31:000AM Business
Day 1st Edition
Wednesday
31 December 2003
Daily News
After 2003 trust politicians at your peril
Date:31-Dec, 2003
OPINION: HOW many politicians do you know?
Real politicians, men,
women who make their living from politics -national or
local?
Politics is not a profession, although one dictionary
describes it as
"science and art of government".
The same
dictionary concedes that "politics is a dirty business" is a
common reference
to this so-called art.
You have never heard people say, routinely,
that "journalism is a
dirty business" - tough, yes, but dirty?
There are other people who prefer to call politics "the oldest
profession",
relegating prostitution to "the second oldest profession".
So,
which came first here - the chicken or the egg and which the
chicken, which
the egg?
While you mull over that conundrum, let us accept that the
art of
government would not be much of an art if it were not loaded
with
politicians, which many people might say is the tragedy of it
all.
If the art of government consisted of priests, nuns and monks
and
other such sworn celibates, there would not be so much dirt in it,
would
there?
Unfortunately for humankind, we are stuck with
politicians in the art
of government. I some times wonder if Picasso or
Michaelangelo would have
called politics an art.
I also wonder
if the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, decided on
his "movement" kind of
politics because he was disgusted with politicians
not to ever think of them
as artists or artistes.
Perhaps he himself did not start off as a
politician.
So, what creatures inhabit his weird, controversial and
suspiciously
autocratic system of government without political parties and
hence without
politicians?
My theory is that Museveni is having
trouble with the Lord's
Resistance Army in a part of his country because even
they cannot accept
that their country is being run by strange, political
eunuchs who still
steal public funds with the same impunity as politicians in
other countries
do.
But to know a politician can be quite a
challenge. Do you know them
enough to vote for them on the basis of their
honesty and integrity? Or only
on the basis of their ethnic affinity with
you? Or on the basis of their
good works in the past?
Zimbabweans must be in something of a quandary as they contemplate
their
political future, as presumably to be decided in the next general
election in
2005.
In 2003, they put up with shortages of everything. They put
up with
the arrogance of Zanu PF, a party which kept telling them everything
was
fine as long as they believed in the land reform programme.
One poilitician, a former member of academe, Jonathan Moyo, was booed
when he
made snide references to The Daily News management. His audience of
young
people did not believe he meant the remark as a joke, but they laughed
at him
for saying what he did.
If he thought they were laughing with him,
rather than at him, then
there is a tragedy brewing here.
But
the impunity with which the ruling party illustrated its arrogance
was
sometimes quite breath-taking.
Enoch Kamushinda, for instance, was
paraded on public television as an
example of an indigenous tobacco farmer
doing as well as any of the white
farmers kicked off their properties in the
murderous campaign of 2000.
Kamushinda owns a commercial bank, is a
real estate baron and is
connected with the government-owned Zimbabwe
Newspapers (1980) Limited media
conglomerate.
If the naive among
us believe that all this is totally unrelated to
his success as a tobacco
farmer, then we must be the same people who believe
that Philip Chiyangwa's
spectacular rise in business owes little or nothing
to his political career
in Zanu PF.
Or that Gideon Gono, the new governor of the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe,
would still have reached this pinnacle of success in the
cut-throat world of
banking even if he never flown anywhere with President
Robert Mugabe, the
president and first secretary of ZANU PF.
Gono announced that the bearer's cheques would be phased out by
December
2004. Fair enough. But he also announced that he would re-engage
both the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in talks to bail out
his
government from the consequences of its fiscal profligacy.
But will
they be willing to talk to him, as long as his boss, the same
ZANU PF
supremo, insists they are part of the grand imperialist plot hatched
against
his country by Britain and the United States?
What if they make
certain demands before giving him a cent? Can he
guarantee future foreign
investors the sanctity of their private property?
Would he be
willing to reverse the abuses of the past few years in
this regard? What
would happen to the alleged "irreversible" nature of the
bloody, chaotic,
corrupt land reform fiasco?
The IMF and WB officials, while
publicly admitting they made mistakes
in the past in demanding almost
impossible conditions before lending the
poor countries their money, still
have to account for every cent.
This is especially urgent in the
case of Zimbabwe, whose government
has such an appalling record as a bad
debtor Gono himself would not lend
them any money if he personally owned a
bank, not the so-called Jewel Bank,
which is ultimately owned by Mugabe's
government.
This same Mugabe is considered by many the
quintessential, consummate
politician who learnt his lessons from the
writings of that great Florentine
philosopher of 1527, Machiavelli, whom some
have called the Father of Dirty
Politics.
Mugabe has been in
power for almost 24 years. In that period, he and
his fellow politicians in
ZANU PF, have reduced Zimbabwe to a
poverty-stricken, non-developing country
now begging the world for food to
feed its people.
Why the
people would want his bunch back in 2005 must be a question
only the spirit
mediums of Chaminuka, Nehanda and Kaguvi can answer...if
they haven't joined
ZANU PF.
By Mbaiso
Business Day
Zimbabwe pay rise row sparks threat to
strike
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
HARARE
Another public service strike is looming in Zimbabwe, following a
lengthy
dispute with the government over low pay increases in a country
where
inflation is rampant.
The Zimbabwean government has awarded public
servants a 250% pay rise far
less than the galloping rate of inflation and
referred to an arbitrator
their demand for a larger salary increase. The
increases demanded by public
servants are less than half those recently
awarded to Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe and his cabinet
ministers.
The southern African country, struggling with a severe
economic crisis which
Mugabe's critics blame on government mismanagement, has
seen inflation
rocket to more than 650% one of the highest rates in the
world. Zimbabwe has
had several strikes this year as unions say the soaring
prices, from food to
transport, are making everyday life
impossible.
Public Service Commission officials yesterday confirmed a
report in the
state-owned Herald newspaper that the government had increased
public
servants' salaries 250% and their housing allowances
100%.
Public service unions had earlier demanded a pay hike of at least
600%,
similar to that awarded to Mugabe and members of his
cabinet.
"The government has resolved to implement a salary increment of
250% across
the board whilst the process of [abrupt end of item]
Re: A Look at Zimbabwe: A Visit and Subsequent Thoughts - published on
https://www.zimbabwesituation.com/old/dec30_2003.html
A
reply:
To the person who was obviously hell-bent on justifying why he
is no longer
living here in Zim and whose advice to all of us is to "Jump!"
..... if we
don't stay here and we all jump, who is going to make the change
or rebuild
the future????? Stay in your comfortable world my friend, be sure
not to
call yourself an ex-Zimbabwean because you have absolutely no capacity
to
see the wood for the negative trees.
Ours is a Zimbabwe which is
fundamentally home in every sense of the word.
I
ask, if your football
team is losing do you walk off the pitch with five
minutes to go? No, you
stay with the team and give it your everything until
the whistle blows ....
no matter the outcome. One of the worst feelings in
the world is to look
back on your life and know that you could have made a
difference ... I and
so, so many of us (black, white ... across the board)
have dug our heels in
and decided that a man should die where he is born
(Nelson Mandela) ....
until God himself decides that I need to "Jump" ... I
will be here
contributing, struggling on a daily basis but with my friends,
my family and
my country men around me and we are an awesome team.
I am sorry I never
met you during your stay .... we could have spoken and
seen a different
Zimbabwe! I suggest you dedicate the same amount of
energy
and time to
analysing the society within which you live now .... I'm
certain it's not a
pretty picture .... because the lens through which it is
being seen is
distorted. This is my reality - that one day Zimbabwe will
flourish once
again ... perhaps I won't get to see it in my lifetime ... but
I am busy
planting the seeds so that one day my children will be able to
have the
wonderful, fulfilled and happy foundation to life that I had.
Now, get an
attitude and in so doing, get a life. You don't live here ....
send me your
analysis of where you're living now and I'll send you
my
"perception"!
Proudly Zimbabwean
Debbie Jeans
Panic Grips Banking Sector
The Herald (Harare)
December
31, 2003
Posted to the web December 31, 2003
Leonard Makombe And Maria
Mudimu
Harare
THE honeymoon could now be over for some banks who have
been posting
billion-dollar profits, with a number of them now said to be
selling assets
amassed over the past few years to maintain the required
liquidity levels as
enunciated in the new monetary
policy.
Investigations have shown that all is not well in the banking
sector as most
of these banks have suddenly found the going
tough.
There has been an unprecedented panic in the banking sector amid
fears that
some of the newly established banks, the so-called nouveau-riches,
are
expected to either go under or be placed under curatorship if the
liquidity
problems persist.
Sources within the banking sector said the
new monetary policy sounded the
death knell for the industry's "bad
boys".
One commercial bank is believed to have sold all its foreign
currency
reserves on the black market in a bid to raise cash to improve its
liquidity
levels.
"We have a situation whereby one financial
institution bought around 20 posh
cars from a foreign car dealer and a lot
more from a local car assembling
plant but they have now been sold as the
bank wants to have its liquidity
levels sound.
"The announcement of
the new monetary policy has sent shock waves throughout
the financial
services sector and at first people thought it was only the
asset management
companies which were going to be affected, but it has
emerged that other big
players could be in trouble," said a source in the
banking sector.
It
had become characteristic for financial institutions, particularly banks,
to
buy some of the latest and posh cars in tandem with the huge profits
they
were making, albeit through illicit means.
Some were also
investing into other assets such as houses and there are
allegations that one
of the banks had also bought thousands of bricks from a
local brick
manufacturer for speculative purposes.
While it is prudent to come up
with such mechanisms to sail through under
hyper-inflationary environments,
it is the source of the funds which makes
the whole exercise
imprudent.
These banks were alleged to have abused the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe's
liquidity support and diverted funds to non-productive and
speculative
activities.
The liquidity support now attracts penalties
leaving the banks with no
option but to seek salvation from the interbank
borrowing, whose rates were
at a record 800 percent last week.
Most of
the commercial banks have been hit hard by the new monetary policy
announced
mid this month.
Those not affected were said to have strict treasury
departments, which made
dealings in foreign currency impossible.
Some
analysts have pointed out that the new monetary policy has lifted the
veil
off the huge profits, which have been made by financial institutions
over the
last three years.
The huge profits running into billions of dollars have
gone against the
grain of the performance of the entire economy, which has
been contracting.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr Gideon Gono told
financial
institutions, when he announced the monetary policy, that banks'
overnight
accommodation would be limited to "lender of last resort" function
of the
central bank.
Banks were told to cover their positions through
intra-day repurchase
agreement (repos).
"With effect from January 1
2004, banks in short positions will be required
to provide justification for
seeking overnight accommodation," said Dr Gono
when he announced the monetary
policy.
Police Smash Cattle Rustling Syndicate
The Herald
(Harare)
December 31, 2003
Posted to the web December 31,
2003
Harare
POLICE in Gweru have smashed a cattle-rustling
syndicate that has been
terrorising farmers around the city in the past few
months resulting in nine
suspects being nabbed by last Friday.
Farmers
in the Midlands province had lost cattle worth nearly $800 million
of between
August and November this year.
The officer-in-charge of Gweru Rural
Police Station, Inspector Shadreck
Mam-ombe said the first two suspects were
caught selling meat at Kudzanayi
Bus terminus.
"Police manning the
terminus became suspicious when they saw meat being sold
from travelling bags
and questioned the two, who admitted to stealing cattle
from a nearby farm,"
he said.
The suspects revealed to the police that there were two other
gangs
operating in the area.
The two, who were arrested selling meat
at the terminus on Friday, he said
led the police to a house in Southdowns
where three other members of the
gang were caught cutting the meat into
pieces meant for sale at Kudzanayi
terminus.
The suspects confessed
that they killed a cow at Willow Run Farm. The cow
was valued at $1 million,
he added.
On Saturday, police acting on a tip off from members of the
public arrested
four other members of another gang for allegedly stealing
five head of
cattle from Long Cliff Farm. The cattle are valued at $9 million
and they
have not been recovered.
Insp Mamombe said the thieves took
advantage of the ready market at
Kudzanayi Bus Terminus where food vendors
bought the meat for low prices for
resale.
He said to avoid carrying
the whole carcass, the thieves would cut large
pieces and stash them in
bags.
Police have intensified the fight against stock theft, he
said.
"We have mounted road blocks on all roads leading into the city
and police
officers are thoroughly searching all bags," he said.
Insp
Mamombe said members of the public should stop buying meat on the
streets as
this encouraged cattle rustling and is also a health hazard.
Some Nurses Resume Duties
The Herald (Harare)
December 31,
2003
Posted to the web December 31, 2003
Harare
NURSES at some
referral centres in Harare have resumed duties in compliance
with the
Government's order for them to return to work.
A visit to Harare Central
and Parirenyatwa Hospitals by The Herald yesterday
revealed that some nurses
had returned to work and were attending to
patients. The large number of
nurses who have returned to work was at Harare
Central Hos-pital.
At
Parirenyatwa Hospital, nurses could be seen attending to patients at
the
referral centre's casualty department.
Health professionals from
the uniformed forces and student nurses were
assisting the available health
staff at the referral centres. However,
striking junior and middle-level
doctors continue to defy the Government
directive to return to
work.
Hospital Doctors Association president Dr Phibion Manyanga
yesterday said
the doctors had not reported for work because they were still
to receive a
written undertaking from their employer, the Public Service
Commission, over
their grievances.
On December 16, the PSC ordered
striking junior and middle-level doctors and
nurses to return to work before
December 19 or face termination of their
contracts. The PSC said it was
common law that an employer would not retain
an employee's job position when
they have discontinued their duties.
In an interview yesterday, the PSC
secretary Mr Ray Ndhlukula said the
majority of striking doctors and nurses
in the country had returned to work.
"We have not dismissed any of the
health professionals who are on strike,"
said Mr Ndhlukula.
The major
hospitals most affected by the strike are those in Harare and
Bulawayo.
Health workers at hospitals in other parts of the country briefly
went on
strike before returning to work.
Junior and middle-level doctors went on
strike in October demanding a
monthly salary of $30 million.
Nurses
also went on strike since last month demanding a review of
their
salaries.
VOA
In Zimbabwe, Malnutrition's Effect On People With
HIV/AIDS
Elizabeth Kiken
Washington
31 Dec 2003, 18:14
UTC
Food shortages throughout Zimbabwe continue to put people at risk
for
malnutrition. But for those suffering from H-I-V and AIDS, malnutrition
can
be deadly.
More than two and a half million people in Zimbabwe face
malnutrition after
food rations were cut in half. The United Nations World
Food Program says
rations were cut because of insufficient donations from the
international
community. This harsh reality for Zimbabweans is even worse for
those living
with H-I-V and AIDS. A lack of food weakens the immune system
and therefore
makes it easier to catch an infection. Francesca Erdelmann of
the World Food
Program in Southern Africa, says malnutrition could trigger a
quicker
progression from H-I-V to AIDS.
"Our fears are that with
malnutrition, visible or invisible malnutrition
among adults, we may find
that the disease is progressing much faster from
H-I-V to AIDS for example.
Now, this is not a very visible progression that
you see within a few days
for example, but it’s definitely something that
over time will have a major
impact on the ability of the adult population to
be productive and to also be
able to care of their children for example, and
especially also part of the
elderly population."
While food shortage is a major problem, Ms. Erdelman
says the problem goes
beyond food.
The lack of AIDS drugs is also part
of the crisis. All this in a country
where over thirty percent of the
population is infected with H-I-V/ AIDS.
"If we consider that many of the
people who are infected with H-I-V/ AIDS
also do not have access to the
relevant drugs for example, and even those
who do have access to the drugs,
if they don’t have access to proper food,
we’re not so sure that the drugs
will actually have the required impact. So
all these things are somehow
inter-related."
Experts do not see an end to Zimbabwe’s food shortage in
the near future. As
a result, H-I-V/ AIDS support groups are working to
provide food to those
with the disease.