http://uk.reuters.com
Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:46am GMT
By
Nelson Banya
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai said
Thursday he was hopeful a regional summit next week could
end the deadlock
in power-sharing talks with President Robert
Mugabe.
Tsvangirai and Mugabe signed a power-sharing deal last September
to try to
end a post-election crisis, but the pact appears to be unravelling
over
control of cabinet posts.
Monday, regional leaders failed to
nudge the two parties to form a
government but called for a special summit
of the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) in South Africa on
January 26 in another effort
to break the deadlock.
Similar meetings
have failed to persuade the rivals to agree to implement
the pact, which is
seen by many as the best chance of rescuing Zimbabwe's
economy and easing a
humanitarian crisis, including a cholera outbreak that
U.N. agencies say has
killed nearly 2,800 people out of 48,623 cases.
"I hope that if SADC
leaders approach the problem with an objective point of
view, I'm sure we
should be able to resolve the matter," Tsvangirai told
reporters after
touring a cholera treatment centre in a Harare suburb. "I am
anxious that we
resolve these issues and form the government."
But Tsvangirai, leader of
the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was
cautious and stuck to his
earlier demands: "I'm sure that everyone who is
looking at this dispute may
conclude that the MDC is obstructionist. No,
we're not."
"The issues
that we keep on insisting on must be resolved, have to be
resolved. We have
a compelling case for the resolution of the two remaining
issues."
Tsvangirai said the crucial issues were the equitable
allocation of cabinet
positions and provincial governorships, and the
release of opposition
supporters and human rights activists.
He said
the cholera epidemic highlighted the urgent need for a functional
government. "This suffering must end, we'll do everything in our power to
make sure that ... we take the responsibility to fix these problems for the
good of the nation and the good of the people," Tsvangirai
said.
Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in the first round of a presidential
election
last March, but failed to get enough votes to avoid a run-off vote
eventually won by Mugabe after Tsvangirai pulled out citing violence against
his supporters.
Critics say Mugabe's policies, such as the seizure of
white-owned farms,
have ruined Zimbabwe's economy, but the ruler -- in power
since independence
from Britain in 1980 -- blames Western sanctions for the
crisis.
Mugabe's top army commander said Zimbabwe was ready to thwart any
invasion
by Western forces to topple the embattled government, a state daily
newspaper reported Thursday.
http://af.reuters.com
Thu Jan 22, 2009 2:01pm GMT
BRUSSELS
(Reuters) - The European Union will next Monday step up pressure on
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to share power by urging a probe into
whether diamond sales are being used to support his government, a draft
showed.
The bloc's foreign ministers, who meet in Brussels on January
26, will also
add names to a list of Zimbabwean officials banned from
travelling in the EU
because of their links to alleged human rights abuses,
a draft EU paper
obtained by Reuters showed.
"The (EU) Council
supports action to investigate the exploitation of
diamonds from the site of
Marange/Chiadzwa and their significance in
possible financial support to the
regime and recent human rights abuses,"
the document, which will be
presented to EU ministers, said.
The draft urges the Kimberley Process --
an international certification
scheme set up to ensure diamonds do not fund
conflict -- "to take action
with a view to ensure Zimbabwe's compliance with
its Kimberley obligations".
Alongside platinum and gold, diamonds are
among the natural wealth that
Zimbabwe could expect to profit from if it
emerges from a humanitarian and
economic crisis that has seen thousands die
of cholera and inflation rocket
to stratospheric rates.
The World
Diamond Council industry body has put Zimbabwe's production of
rough
diamonds at 0.4 percent of world production, mostly exported with the
Kimberley Process certificate. However in December it raised concern about
possible illegal exports "for the personal gain of a few".
Despite
growing international pressure on him to step down, power-sharing
talks
between Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai remain
deadlocked in
a dispute over cabinet posts.
"The (EU) Council condemns the regime for
its ongoing failure to address the
most basic economic and social needs of
its people ... The Council urges
stakeholders to comply with the power
sharing agreement," the EU draft said.
Critics say Mugabe's policies,
such as the seizure of white-owned farms,
have ruined Zimbabwe's economy,
but the ruler -- in power since independence
from Britain in 1980 -- blames
Western sanctions for the crisis.
The EU only last December added 11
names to a list of some 160 officials,
including Mugabe himself, banned from
entering the bloc. The EU draft did
not say how many more would be
added.
http://www.sabcnews.com/
January 22
2009,
8:17:00
Thulasizwe Simelane
Zimbabwe's opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader
Morgan Tsvangirai is calling on
Southern African Development Community
(SADC) leaders to take an objective
approach on Zimbabwe's power sharing
debacle. Tsvangirai says he's anxious
to put an end to the nation's
suffering by resolving the long-standing
impasse over the sharing of cabinet
positions.
Tsvangirai
received a resounding welcome when he visited the
cholera-afflicted Harare
townships, and he immediately offered a quick
reality check ahead of a
deadlock-breaking summit. The raging epidemic has
claimed the lives of more
than 2 000 people, and thousands more are
threatened by hunger and a
collapsing economy.
Tsvangirai says people might think the MDC is
obstructing the talks in
Zimbabwe, but it's not. "The issues we're raising
have to be resolved. It is
SADC who have guaranteed that these issues must
be resolved, and I'm sure
that if the regional leaders take an objective
view of these issues, they
can be resolved, so we can form the
government."
Meanwhile, political analyst Takura Zhanhazha has
warned that the
dialogue must not be allowed to collapse. Zhanhazha says
only SADC must to
resolve this impasse.
http://news.yahoo.com
Thu Jan 22, 10:44 am
ET
HARARE (AFP) - Opposition chief Morgan Tsvangirai said Thursday a
regional
summit could break Zimbabwe's political impasse and end the
suffering of a
nation where an unchecked cholera epidemic has claimed over
2,700 lives.
The latest alarming report by the World Health Organisation
highlighted the
failure of health authorities and aid agencies to rein in
the deadly but
treatable disease, which has infected more than 48,000 people
since August.
The new death toll of 2,755 marks a nearly 25 percent
increase in fatalities
in less than a week, with the disease showing no sign
of slowing.
Many of the deaths have been in Harare, a result of a
devastating breakdown
in the capital's infrastructure, with broken sewage
and water pipes
unrepaired while mountains of uncollected refuse line the
streets of
populous suburbs.
Tsvangirai visited a cholera centre in
Budiriro, the suburb at the epicentre
of the outbreak that has spread across
the country and over Zimbabwe's
borders.
"I am saying that this
suffering must end, for all of us, for the good of
the nation, certainly
this suffering must end," Tsvangirai said.
"You are also aware that the
education system is down, the health system is
down, industries are closed,
the food situation is in a critical state," he
added.
Zimbabwe's
economy has been in freefall for years, but a humanitarian crisis
has
exploded since disputed elections last March, when Tsvangirai defeated
President Robert Mugabe in a first round presidential vote and his Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) seized its first majority in
parliament.
His victory was greeted with a wave of violence blamed on
Mugane's ZANU-PF
party which has left at least 180 dead, according to
Amnesty International,
most of them MDC supporters.
Without a
functioning government for 10 months, Zimbabwe's already battered
economy
has plunged to new, bizarre depths -- a nation where cash loses its
value by
the day and ordinary people use trillion-dollar bills to buy bread.
A
teachers union Thursday warned that school would not open as scheduled
next
week unless they receive their salaries in US dollars. This month they
were
paid 26 trillion Zimbabwe dollars, worth about three US dollars.
Marathon
talks Monday between the political rivals failed to find a
compromise on a
proposed unity government, but now regional leaders are
preparing to meet in
South Africa on January 26 in a new bid to reach a
deal.
Zimbabwe is
also certain to figure prominently when the African Union opens
its summit
on February 1.
Tsvangirai said negotiations between the MDC, a breakaway
faction of his
party and ZANU-PF had once again stalled over the failure to
address issues
related to attribution of key ministries, as well as
allocation of
provincial governors and the release of detained
activists.
But he said he was confident that the Monday summit of the
Southern African
Development Community (SADC) would find a way to save
Zimbabwe's unity
accord.
"I am sure that we should be able to resolve
these issues. I am anxious that
we resolve these issues and form the
government," he said.
The upcoming summit will mark the fourth time that
all SADC members have
gathered to discuss Zimbabwe's crisis since the March
elections.
Human Rights Watch said that if Mugabe's government failed to
end the
political violence and other rights abuses, the African Union should
suspend
Zimbabwe from the 53-nation group.
The international rights
body wants the AU, which meets in Ethiopia next
week, to step into regional
mediation efforts which it says have failed to
solve the political stand-off
or act against rights abuses.
Associated Press
By
DONNA BRYSON - 17 minutes ago
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) -
Zimbabwe's rival political leaders failed
again this week to break their
deadlock over power-sharing, and hopes are
dim that an emergency regional
summit on the crisis will do any better.
The wrangling keeps politicians
from grappling with Zimbabwe's dizzying
economic decline. That means more
death from disease and hunger in a nation
that once exported grain and
boasted health, sanitation and education
systems that were the envy of its
neighbors in southern Africa.
Leaders of the Southern African Development
Community nations will discuss
the crisis Monday, but they are unlikely to
do more than make their usual
call on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and
his main rival, Morgan
Tsvangirai, to implement a power-sharing agreement
stalled since September.
In their latest face-to-face meeting, Mugabe and
Tsvangirai remained at an
impasse after talks that stretched from Monday
afternoon into the early
hours of Tuesday. Since then, Zimbabwe's factions
have only hardened their
stances.
Mugabe, in power since independence
from Britain in 1980, says Tsvangirai
should join him in a unity government
and work out any reservations later.
Tsvangirai refuses to enter a
government before attacks on his supporters
end and until he is assured
members of his party will have an equal share of
key Cabinet seats and other
government posts.
Zimbabwe has been virtually without a government since
an inconclusive
presidential election last March. The power-sharing deal was
signed amid
great fanfare and high expectations in September, but questions
were raised
almost immediately about whether it could work.
Some of
Tsvangirai's allies say he never should have agreed to serve as
prime
minister in a government that left Mugabe as president. Mugabe,
meanwhile,
is being held back by aides in the military and government who
don't want to
give up power and prestige to the opposition.
Tsvangirai won more votes
than Mugabe in the opening round of presidential
balloting nearly a year
ago, but he pulled out of a June runoff because of
violence aimed at
opposition supporters.
Tsvangirai has little reason to trust Mugabe, who
is accused of overseeing
Zimbabwe's decline, trampling on democratic rights
and killing opposition
supporters.
Mugabe, who turns 85 next month,
has shown little respect for Tsvangirai,
calling him a puppet of the West
and repeatedly pointing to the much younger
union leader's lack of
experience fighting colonialism.
On Thursday, state media in Zimbabwe -
the only source of news for many of
the country's people - repeated charges
that Britain and the U.S. want to
invade to topple Mugabe and replace him
with Tsvangirai.
The opposition says Mugabe is engaging in "hate speech"
by trying to tie the
president's foes to white-ruled nations and has
included stopping such
rhetoric on a list of matters that must be addressed
before it joins any
unity government.
Tsvangirai, visiting a cholera
clinic Thursday, said he was sticking to his
conditions. He said the
regional leaders meeting Monday in Pretoria, South
Africa, "should not be
arm-twisted by Mugabe."
It has become increasingly clear that the
opposition believes the regional
group has failed, largely because it
refuses to publicly condemn Mugabe. The
opposition wants the Zimbabwe issue
handed over to others - perhaps the
African Union or a special U.N.
envoy.
The regional group itself could call for the AU to step
in.
Neighboring leaders have hinted they are losing patience with Mugabe,
and a
logical next step would be to move the discussion to the larger
African
forum. The AU has a summit in Ethiopia at the beginning of February,
and
Zimbabwean activists are already gathering in Addis Ababa.
Mugabe
may not wait for the AU to weigh in, especially if he fears it will
be more
demanding of him than his immediate neighbors have been.
Mugabe could
unilaterally name a government, freezing the opposition out of
the Cabinet.
That would mean more impasse, because the opposition dominates
parliament,
and it could spark street protests.
The only certainty is more
uncertainty - and more misery for ordinary
Zimbabweans.
Donna Bryson
is The Associated Press bureau chief for southern Africa.
Source: World Health Organization (WHO) Date: 21 Jan 2009 Any change will then be explained. ** Daily information on new deaths should not imply that these deaths
occurred in cases reported that day. Therefore daily CFRs >100% may
occasionally result A. Highlights of the day: - 1125 cases and 38 deaths added today (in comparison 894 cases and 37 deaths
yesterday) - 53.4% of the districts affected have reported today (31 out of 58 affected
districts) - 88.7 % of districts reported to be affected (55 districts/62) - One case denotified for Hurungwe after data cleaning. - Daily Institutional Case Fatality Rate 1.6%
* Please note that
daily information collection is a challenge due to communication and staff
constraints. On-going data cleaning may result in an increase or decrease in the
numbers.
http://www.iol.co.za
January 22 2009 at
10:40AM
Geneva - The cholera death toll in Zimbabwe is approaching 2
500, according
to World Health Organisation statistics published on
Thursday.
A total of 2 495 people have died since the outbreak which
started last
August, while 47 499 others are suspected to be
infected.
The new toll is 270 more than the 2 225 reported by the WHO a
week ago,
while the number of people affected soared by 4 824 from 42
675.
The United Nations' humanitarian co-ordination office (OCHA) said
last week
in Geneva that preventions measures were not working and that a
growing
number of deaths were occurring beyond the reach of health workers
in rural
areas. - AFP
http://hararetribune.com
Thursday, 22 January 2009
17:37
Zimbabwe's top army general, reacting to suggestions by Western
countries to
send an international peacekeeping force to the country, said
Thursday that
his troops would fight off all such foreign forces.
Gen.
Constantine Chiwenga, a card-carrying member of ZANU-PF and a
chief
beneficiary of Mugabe's policies over the years, said that the
plans,
suggested by Britain and other powerful Western countries, were
intended to
topple President Robert Mugabe and replace him with a pliant
leader.
The Western countries made the suggestion late last year at the
height of a
cholera outbreak which was widely blamed on mismanagement by the
government.
But Chiwenga called the plan a disguised regime change which
the army would
fight off if implemented.
"There are no questions about
it and it shall not change. We fought and
defeated them (white rule) in 1980
and what do they still want? We will not
be slaves in our own country. This
is our motherland," he said.
Mugabe's stay in power in Zimbabwe, critics
and sympathizers agree, has
largely been secured by the support Mugabe
receives from senior army
commaders led by Gen. Chiwenga.
At one point
ahead of the March 29 elections, Gen. Chiwenga told the world
that his army
would not work with any other leader of Zimbabwe except
Robert
Mugabe.
In recent years, Gen. Chiwenga has allowed his soldiers
to join ZANU-PF
militia units in persecuting MDC activits in the name of
protecting Mugabe's
power base.
http://hararetribune.com
Thursday, 22 January 2009
16:36 Ivene Cheunga/ Herald
The chairman of the farming logistics
sub-committee Brigadier-General
Douglas Nyikayaramba has admitted that
ZANU-PF is a den of thieves owing to
wanton misappropriation and theft of
government handouts that were meant to
boost agricultural production in the
current farming season under Operation
Maguta/Inala.
Nyikayaramba said
that ministers, legislators and civil servants were the
main culprits that
would shortly be named and shamed. The looting of the
farm inputs has spun
out of control following the donation of agriculture
aid by South African
late last year that was worth millions of dollars.
ZANU PF has made it a
policy that the beneficiaries of farming inputs should
wholly be of their
camp and no MDC official stood to benefit. The thieves
are from that
stables of losers.
With revelations of the unspeakable in the ZANU PF,
Nyikayaramba who is also
the chairman of the National Resource Mobilisation
and Utilisation Committee
said that year-after-year, improper handling of
inputs, alleged corruption
and diversion of inputs has frustrated Government
efforts to boost
agricultural productivity, giving "detractors" of the land
reform programme
ammunition to attack the Government.
He said that
police had already questioned several of Mugabe's ministers and
eight MPs,
who will be named as soon as their statements have been
recorded.
According to official confirmations some of the State
officials, including
ministers, MPs, police, army officers and other civil
servants implicated in
the scam have already been summoned by police to
tender statements.
Nyikayaramba also fingered some of the culprits,
including members of the
uniformed forces who were leading Operation Maguta
programmes across the
country.
The list includes farmers who
benefited from Government programmes but sold
the inputs to other farmers or
shop owners, who subsequently sold the inputs
on the illegal parallel
market.
"We have started legal proceedings against these people and some
of them
have already started appearing in court while the names of the
senior
Government officials will be exposed by the end of the week,"
Nyikayaramba
said.
"There are eight members of the House of Assembly
who have been summoned to
the police and their names would be made public as
soon as police have
finished working on their dockets."
Mashonaland
East province leads in the number of cases being dealt with by
police,
Matabeleland North has four while Masvingo and Mashonaland West have
three
cases each.
Two cases have been handed over to the police in Harare and
Matabeleland
South while Bulawayo has one case.
In some cases
recorded in Mashonaland East, a transport operator, C. S.
Mudhokwani
allegedly stole two tonnes of Compound D fertilizer he had been
contracted
to ferry. The fertilizer was recovered and Mudhokwani is on
trial at the
Marondera Magistrates' Court.
Lance Corporal Zunguza of the Zimba-bwe
National Army defrauded Maguta of
eight tonnes of Ammonium Nitrate, which
was stored at GMB Marondera.
The fertilizer was recovered while he was
convicted and fined $50 billion or
10 days in prison.
An Agritex
official, Spain Katema, who allegedly demanded from farmers in
Mutoko
payment of $10 million for the transportation of each 25kg bag of
seed in
November last year was also arrested and $520 million recovered.
Mutoko
police were still investigating the case. In another case, 18 GMB
Timber
Mills workers allegedly connived with a security guard at the company
and
stole 94 bags of maize seed between October 13 and November 15 last
year.
They was arrested and appeared at Marondera Magistrates' Court
where they
were remanded out of custody to January 29 this
year.
Police in Macheke are also investigating a case in which nine bags
of maize
seed were stolen at U9C Farm while investigations are also underway
into the
theft of 126 bags of fertilizer and 100 bags of maize seed from a
railway
wagon in Marondera.
In Mashonaland West, a guard at GMB Lions
Den, Clever Taruona, allegedly
stole 15 bags of maize seed but the case was
not pursued because of lack of
evidence.
A general hand at Chinhoyi
University of Technology, identified as Muponda,
allegedly stole 49 pivot
sprinklers at Hunyani Farm in Chinhoyi. The case is
still pending at
Chinhoyi Rural Police Station.
On November 16, four soldiers were
arrested on allegations of stealing 20
bags of maize seed and seven bags of
Compound D fertilizer from Hunyani
Farm.
All the inputs were
recovered and Lance Corporal C. Gurira, Private T.
Shayawabaya, Private B.
Tshuma and Private A. Chidume were arraigned before
a magistrate in Chinhoyi
and remanded in custody pending trial.
In Masvingo, Boniface Makura,
Herbert Mise, Tamuka Matimba and Muphai Muphai
were arrested for selling
urea and ammonium nitrate fertilizers at a
shopping centre in the
province.
The case is being heard at the Masvingo Magistrates'
Court.
Livison Kwangwari, a farmer in the province, was allotted 160 bags
of maize
seed under Operation Maguta but allegedly later sold it to
villagers in
Chehudo Ward 26. The matter is still pending at the courts in
Masvingo.
Police in the province are also investigating a case where 40
litres of
Diamathoate, 120 litres of Dicamp, 125 litres of MCPA, 410 litres
of
Paraquat, 48 litres of Triadiamenol and 50 bags of fertilizer were stolen
at
Mushandike.
In Matabeleland North, Hlamulani Ndebele and Sipho
Mkwananzi allegedly stole
eight bags of maize seed, four litres of
Trialmenol and 40 litres of
Altrazine at Arda Balu.
Ndebele is on
trial while Mkwananzi is still at large.
In another case under
investigation, Mkwananzi allegedly stole 18 bags of
maize seed, two bags of
millet seed, five packets of pearl millet seed, 5kg
of roundnuts, a
knapsack, 20 litres of Diamethoate, 20 litres of Altrazine,
five litres of
Shavit, and three litres of Thiokill at Arda Balu, but the
inputs were
recovered.
Saurstown police arrested Danisa Nkomo over the theft of 120kg
of maize
seed, 30kg of cowpea seed and 2kg of jatropha seed from Arda Balu
and the
case is still under investigation while Nyamandlovu police were
investigating the theft of a portable battery charger from Arda Tendele in
Bulawayo.
An army officer, Warrant Officer 1 I. Kadzima, is alleged
to have stolen 60
litres of diesel at Shashe Irrigation Scheme in
Beitbridge. The case will
proceed by way of summons.
Filabusi police
are investigating the theft of 35 500 empty bags belonging
to Operation
Maguta at Mthwakazi Hall in Insiza.
Over the years Government inputs
meant for farmers have ended up on the
parallel market, undermining
agricultural production at a time Zimbabwe is
battling to regain its former
status as the breadbasket of Southern Africa.
http://www.apanews.net/
APA-Harare
(Zimbabwe) Zimbabwe's state media on Thursday said that President
Robert
Mugabe's government would release names of several cabinet ministers
and
lawmakers accused of stealing from a state-sponsored agricultural inputs
programme.
The official Herald daily reported that the country's
National Resource
Mobilisation and Utilisation Committee would by the end of
this week "name,
shame and prosecute cabinet ministers, members of
parliament, civil servants
and other people" accused of abusing subsidised
inputs distributed to
farmers under a government programme to improve food
production.
Several ministers and eight MPs have already been questioned
by the police,
according to the committee's chairperson, Douglas
Nyikayaramba.
"We have started legal proceedings against these people and
some of them
have already started appearing in court, while the names of
senior
Government officials will be exposed by the end of the week,"
Nyikayaramba
told The Herald.
The ministers allegedly received
fertilisers and maize seed from the
government but diverted the inputs to a
thriving black market.
An earlier report on Sunday said the officials
allegedly abused their
offices by allocating themselves large quantities of
scarce fertiliser which
was later diverted to a thriving black
market.
Some of them had no farms, while others had very small plots of
land which
did not justify the large quantities of fertiliser they collected
from the
government's inputs holding centre in the capital Harare.
JN/nm/APA 2009-01-22
From The Herald, 22 January
By Sydney Kawadza
Government will, by the end of
this week, name, shame and prosecute Cabinet
ministers, Members of
Parliament, civil servants and other people accused of
abusing subsidised
inputs distributed to farmers under Operation
Maguta/Inala, the National
Resource Mobilisation and Utilisation Committee
has said. Year-after-year,
improper handling of inputs, alleged corruption
and diversion of inputs has
frustrated Government efforts to boost
agricultural productivity, giving
detractors of the land reform programme
ammunition to use reduced production
to attack the Government. Chairman of
the logistics sub-committee
Brigadier-General Douglas Nyikayaramba yesterday
said police had already
questioned several ministers and eight MPs, who will
be named as soon as
their warned and cautioned statements have been
recorded.
Some of
the State officials, including ministers, MPs, police and army
officers and
other civil servants implicated in the scam, have already been
summoned by
police and their warned and cautioned statements recorded.
Brig-Gen
Nyikayaramba yesterday identified some of the culprits, who also
include
members of the uniformed forces who were leading Operation Maguta
programmes
across the country. The list also includes farmers who benefited
from
Government programmes but sold the inputs to other farmers or shop
owners,
who subsequently sold the inputs on the illegal parallel market. "We
have
started legal proceedings against these people and some of them have
already
started appearing in court while the names of the senior Government
officials will be exposed by the end of the week. There are eight members of
the House of Assembly who have been summoned to the police and their names
would be made public as soon as police have finished working on their
dockets," he said.
Mashonaland East leads the number of cases
being dealt with by police with
six cases, Matabeleland North has four while
Masvingo and Mashonaland West
have three cases each. Two cases have been
handed over to the police in
Harare and Matabeleland South while Bulawayo
has one case. In some cases
recorded in Mashonaland East, a transport
operator, C. S. Mudhokwa-ni,
allegedly stole two tonnes of Compound D
fertilizer he had been contracted
to ferry. The fertilizer was recovered and
Mudhokwani is on trial at the
Marondera Magistrates' Court. Lance Corporal
Zunguza of the Zimba-bwe
National Army defrauded Maguta of eight tonnes of
Ammonium Nitrate, which
was stored at GMB Marondera. The fertilizer was
recovered while he was
convicted and fined $50 billion or 10 days in
prison.
An Agritex official, Spain Katema, who allegedly demanded
from farmers in
Mutoko payment of $10 million for the transportation of each
25kg bag of
seed in November last year, was also arrested and $520 million
recovered.
Mutoko police were still investigating the case. In another case,
18 GMB
Timber Mills workers allegedly connived with a security guard at the
company
and stole 94 bags of maize seed between October 13 and November 15
last
year. They was arrested and appeared at Marondera Magistrates' Court
where
they were remanded out of custody to January 29 this year. Police in
Macheke
are also investigating a case in which nine bags of maize seed were
stolen
at U9C Farm while investigations are also underway into the theft of
126
bags of fertilizer and 100 bags of maize seed from a railway wagon in
Marondera.
In Mashonaland West, a guard at GMB Lions Den, Clever
Taruona, allegedly
stole 15 bags of maize seed but the case was not pursued
because of lack of
evidence. A general hand at Chinhoyi University of
Technology, identified as
Muponda, allegedly stole 49 pivot sprinklers at
Hunyani Farm in Chinhoyi.
The case is still pending at Chinhoyi Rural Police
Station. On November 16,
four soldiers were arrested on allegations of
stealing 20 bags of maize seed
and seven bags of Compound D fertilizer from
Hunyani Farm. All the inputs
were recovered and Lance Corporal C. Gurira,
Private T. Shayawabaya, Private
B. Tshuma and Private A. Chidume were
arraigned before a magistrate in
Chinhoyi and remanded in custody pending
trial. In Masvingo, Boniface
Makura, Herbert Mise, Tamuka Matimba and Muphai
Muphai were arrested for
selling urea and ammonium nitrate fertilizers at a
shopping centre in the
province. The case is being heard at the Masvingo
Magistrates' Court.
Livison Kwangwari, a farmer in the province, was
allotted 160 bags of maize
seed under Operation Maguta but allegedly later
sold it to villagers in
Chehudo Ward 26. The matter is still pending at the
courts in Masvingo.
Police in the province are also investigating a case
where 40 litres of
Diamathoate, 120 litres of Dicamp, 125 litres of MCPA,
410 litres of
Paraquat, 48 litres of Triadiamenol and 50 bags of fertilizer
were stolen at
Mushandike. In Matabeleland North, Hlamulani Ndebele and
Sipho Mkwananzi
allegedly stole eight bags of maize seed, four litres of
Trialmenol and 40
litres of Altrazine at Arda Balu. Ndebele is on trial
while Mkwananzi is
still at large. In another case under investigation,
Mkwananzi allegedly
stole 18 bags of maize seed, two bags of millet seed,
five packets of pearl
millet seed, 5kg of roundnuts, a knapsack, 20 litres
of Diamethoate, 20
litres of Altrazine, five litres of Shavit, and three
litres of Thiokill at
Arda Balu, but the inputs were
recovered.
Saurstown police arrested Danisa Nkomo over the theft of
120kg of maize
seed, 30kg of cowpea seed and 2kg of jatropha seed from Arda
Balu and the
case is still under investigation while Nyamandlovu police were
investigating the theft of a portable battery charger from Arda Tendele in
Bulawayo. An army officer, Warrant Officer 1 I. Kadzima, is alleged to have
stolen 60 litres of diesel at Shashe Irrigation Scheme in Beitbridge. The
case will proceed by way of summons. Filabusi police are investigating the
theft of 35 500 empty bags belonging to Operation Maguta at Mthwakazi Hall
in Insiza. Over the years Government inputs meant for farmers have ended up
on the parallel market, undermining agricultural production at a time
Zimbabwe is battling to regain its former status as the breadbasket of
Southern Africa.
By Violet Gonda
22 January
2009
On Thursday, a Bulawayo magistrate set aside a ruling on a case
against the
leaders of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), who are facing two
'nuisance'
charges for organizing demonstrations.
Jennie Williams and
Magodonga Mahlangu were arrested in October 2008 and
June 2008 and were
charged under the Criminal Law Codification and Reform
Act and Miscellaneous
Offences Act respectively. Both draconian Acts deal
with issues relating to
'acting in a manner which is likely to lead to a
breach of the peace or to
create a nuisance, disturbing peace, security or
order of the
public'.
A statement by the pressure group said the defense team is
calling for the
dismissal of these charges on the basis of a Supreme Court
precedent set in
1994, that ruled that by their nature, demonstrations are
public and are
held in public places and therefore will cause some form of
public
disturbance. The ruling also decreed that as peaceful demonstrations
are
allowed under the constitution, those participating in
peaceful
demonstrations cannot be charged with disturbing the
peace.
WOZA has been at the forefront of peaceful protests against the
Mugabe
regime, calling for a better standard of living. The activists, in
some
cases with their babies, have been arrested and beaten many time over
the
years, just for exercising their constitutional right to
demonstrate.
Furthermore the recent October arrest of the duo, including
several WOZA
activists who were later released, was in violation of a power
sharing
agreement between ZANU PF and the two MDC formations.
The
group said Magistrate Msipa will decide next Tuesday whether to proceed
with
the trial under the current charges, or to dismiss them.
Meanwhile civil
leader Jestina Mukoko and scores of other civic and
political activists are
still incarcerated at Chikurubi Maximum Prison. They
face charges of plotting
to overthrow the Mugabe regime. The activists have
testified in court that
they were tortured into making recorded submissions
of the alleged terrorism
plot and completely deny all charges.
Lawyer Andrew Makoni said the
individuals are still waiting to be taken to a
private hospital, in spite of
court rulings ordering that they should be
given urgent medical attention.
Some of the detainees are expected to appear
in court again on Friday for
more remand hearings.
State security agents abducted the activists and
their whereabouts were not
known for several weeks. A number of those
abducted are still missing.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has demanded the
immediate release of the
activists as one of his conditions for entering a
unity government with
Robert Mugabe. The MDC says the continued unlawful
remand and detention of
these individuals is in breach of the rule of law and
the Global Political
Agreement, signed in September last
year.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
By Tichaona
Sibanda
22 January 2009
Plans are afoot by the regime to forcibly
remove 5000 villagers from the
Chiadzwa area in Manicaland province, to
facilitate unfettered access to the
diamond fields.
Newsreel learnt on
Thursday that a meeting between Governor Christopher
Mushowe and some chiefs
and headmen from the area is set to be held on
Saturday. Almost all those
invited, including the provincial administrator
and district administrator
for Marange, have close links to the Mugabe
regime.
Sure Mudiwa, the MDC
MP for Mutare West which incorporates the diamond
fields, said there has been
a deliberate plot by the regime to exclude some
people from the
meeting.
'I'm the MP for the area but I haven't been invited. There are
also two MDC
councillors from the Chiadzwa area and they've also been
excluded. We are
not saying people shouldn't be moved, but all we want is
transparency,'
Mudiwa said.
The legislator added; 'We know this is a
national natural resource that
currently benefits an elite few, but our worry
is where do they intend to
take the villagers. Is there any infrastructure,
are they any clinics, is
there water in the area?'
The precious stones
from the Chiadzwa fields now provide a large source of
revenue to Robert
Mugabe's regime, helping them keep their reign of terror
in place. Reserve
Bank Governor Gideon Gono estimated that the regime would
rake in US$200
million a month, if there was no interference from 'smugglers
and illegal
dealers.'
By closing off the area and removing every villager from the
surroundings,
the regime will have exclusive access to the diamonds, thereby
benefiting
only the ruling elite.
The mining venture has also been
linked to the forced labour of hundreds of
local inhabitants, and many
fatalities at the hands of the security forces.
The villagers have also been
caught in the middle of fighting for control of
the diamonds
fields.
The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights released a report late last
year
detailing the shooting to death of villages from helicopter gunships
and
torture, including rape and abduction, on a 'massive' scale.
Many who
fled the area at the time have been prevented from returning by
the
destruction of their homes, harvests and the looting of their cattle.
MP
Mudiwa said he's been told by locals of numerous terrible acts by
troops
deployed to 'protect' the area.
'Local people tell of those too
sick to work being beaten and tortured and
even murdered for resisting
orders. We must built confidence in the people
especially were natural
resources are concerned. Let's get a reputable
company to do the mining and
not soldiers because that is not their
profession. Soldiers are there to
protect us but in Chiadzwa they are doing
exactly the opposite,' Mudiwa
said.
With a ruling party focused on plunder and enriching itself, it is
unlikely
that a reputable company would ever be allowed access to this source
of
enormous wealth, under this current government.
SW Radio
Africa Zimbabwe news
http://news.yahoo.com
d
Thu Jan 22, 8:32 am
ET
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The international Red Cross restored
clean
water to the neighborhood where Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic began, an
agency
disaster management specialist said Thursday, but added such progress
was
threatened by lack of money.
Farid Abdulkadir of the International
Federation of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies spoke by telephone
Thursday as he headed to Chitungwiza,
where the water system had been
restored with Red Cross help. Earlier
Thursday, he oversaw an emergency
system for a Harare prison, whose staff
and population of 10,000 was to be
supplied with water taken from a nearby
quarry and then
purified.
"Every day, we are seeing real progress," said Abdulkadir, who
is the
international Red Cross's national disaster management coordinator
for
southern Africa.
But Abdulkadir said lack of money was "slowing us
down."
In December, the international Red Cross appealed for about $9
million for
what it expected to be a seven-month fight against cholera in
Zimbabwe.
Thursday, Abdulkadir said donors had come up with only about 40
percent of
the budget, and that it was not clear cholera could be defeated in
the
originally allotted seven months.
"We are still having the cholera
cases increasing," Abdulkadir said, adding
the onset of the heaviest rains
was still ahead, and there had already been
flooding. That and the weakness
of the water and sanitation system made it
difficult to predict when the
crisis would be controlled.
Residents of Chitungwiza, a densely populated
Harare township, sued the
government in November, saying they had been
without running water for 13
months, causing the cholera outbreak. The
lawsuit filed with the High Court
described "large pools of raw sewage" in
the streets of Chitungwiza.
Zimbabwe's first cholera cases were reported
in Chitungwiza in August. As of
Wednesday, the U.N. said, 48,623 cholera
cases and 2,755 deaths had been
recorded across Zimbabwe.
http://www.nasdaq.com
HARARE,
Zimbabwe (AFP)--A Zimbabwe teachers union Thursday vowed to remain
on strike
until President Robert Mugabe's government starts paying them in
foreign
currency, and urged parents not pay their children's school fees.
The
start of the new school year has already been delayed by two weeks
because
last year's exams weren't graded, after teachers demanded payment in
foreign
currency to mark them.
Classes are now scheduled to open Tuesday, but
Takavafira Zhou, head of the
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, told
reporters that teachers
wouldn't show up until their demands were
met.
"Whatever day the minister announces that schools are opening,
our
industrial action continues unless we are paid $2,200 per month," Zhou
said.
"Parents are encouraged not to pay school fees. If you pay, pay
knowing that
we are not going to teach, so be warned," he
added.
Teachers went on strike for the greater part of 2008 demanding to
be paid
salaries in line with the ever rising inflation, last estimated at
231
million percent in July, but believed to be many multiples higher
now.
This month teachers were paid 26 trillion Zimbabwe dollars, today
worth
about $3 on the parallel market where most currency trading is
done.
Schools have proposed charging fees in foreign currency as the
Zimbabwe
dollar shrivels in value every day.
Zhou also expressed
concern on the shortage of proper sanitation at many
schools, with a cholera
epidemic wrecking havoc across the country, killing
more than 2,700 people
since August.
"Do we have adequate sanitary facilities at our schools?
Does government
have a response plan to deal with potential incidences of
cholera in
schools?" Zhou said.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-22-091104ET
HARARE, 22 January 2009 (IRIN) - After being
accepted by a South African university, Golden Gutu thought the hard part was
over, but the worst hurdles for Zimbabweans trying to further their studies were
just beginning.
Photo:
IRIN
Hike in
passport fees threatens livelihoods of cross border
traders
There was just the small matter of a passport, and then
he could pack his bags. When he had last checked with the Registrar General's
Office in the capital, Harare, which issues travel documents, an emergency
passport cost US$200, a sum he had painstakingly saved.
Last week, he
went to apply for a passport. "I was devastated when I was told that the
government was no longer accepting its own currency [the
Zimbabwean dollar], and that the cost of a passport for an adult had risen
to US$670, while a new passport for children was now costing US$420," he told
IRIN.
Adding to the costs is a US$20 supplementary charge for the
application form. "I did not have that kind of money on me, and my dreams have
been shattered as I have lost out on an opportunity to further my studies. There
must be thousands of people who are in a similar predicament," Gutu said.
Gutu was told that he could apply for an Emergency Travel Document
(ETD), at a cost of US$70, but a study visa in neighbouring South Africa would
require a valid passport.
Clever Bere, president of the Zimbabwe
National Students Union, an umbrella grouping for students pursuing higher
education, told IRIN that the price hikes would exclude scores of students from
further education, even though they had been accepted by universities.
"Most students come from very humble backgrounds and our parents are not
paid in foreign currency but in the local currency, which the government is
refusing to accept," he said.
The steep rise in passport fees has ended
the winding queues that were a permanent feature outside the registrar's office.
Prices to high for cross border traders
An
employee at the passports section in the registrar's office told IRIN: "Based on
my observations and interaction with the few people who are still coming for the
expensive passports, only the well-connected or the elite are the ones still
able to pay the exorbitant fees."
He declined to be identified, but
commented: "A few have revealed that friends and relatives working in the
diaspora have contributed funds for desperate relatives seeking passports."
Zimbabwe's political stalemate, an economy in freefall, widespread hunger - nearly half the population relies on
emergency food aid for survival - has seen more than three million people leave
the country in the past decade, in what has been termed "The Diaspora".
There was a palpable anger at the increase in fees at a bus terminus in
Harare, where cross-border traders - whose livelihoods depend on valid travel
documents - prepared to travel south to South Africa.
"What the government needs
to understand is that the move to increase passport fees will have the ripple
effect of further increasing food shortages in the country, because many of our
members will not be able to renew passports when they expire or are lost," Chipo
Sevenzo, a veteran cross-border trader, told IRIN.
What the government needs to
understand is that the move to increase passport fees will have the ripple
effect of further increasing food shortages in the country
"A majority of
households and supermarkets in the country are stocked with groceries and
commodities supplied by cross-border traders, who depend on passports to trade
and support their direct and extended families."
She said with
unemployment estimated at nearly 90 percent, the informal traders had cushioned
the effects of poverty and hunger in Zimbabwe.
Nelson Chamisa, spokesman
for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party led by Morgan
Tsvangirai, told IRIN the price increases had put travel documents beyond the
reach of most Zimbabweans.
"Because of the government's failed policies,
the ordinary people are now being punished through a denial to access a basic
document like a passport. Innovative Zimbabweans who want to provide for their
families by buying food in other countries can no longer do so because they
cannot afford the high passport fees," he said.
"Only the elite, who are
responsible for the crises that we face, are the ones who will get the passports
and be able to import food, while ordinary citizens have been marginalised."
http://hararetribune.com/
Thursday, 22 January 2009
18:53 Nomsa Moyo
Ordinary Zimbabweans continue facing a bleak future
as council clinics have
started charging in foreign currency.
The
clinics, which are depleted by both staff and medication, are demanding
fees
in United States dollars.
Clinics are the first port of call for
patients before they can be attended
to at referral hospitals and the foreign
currency fees are a major blow to
many.
The fees have been
approved by the President Robert Mugabe's regime,
according to Health
Minister David Parirenyatwa. He defended the position
saying of late, many
patients were opting to pay in foreign currency.
Council
clinics in Harare, Bulawayo and other areas countrywide have set
the
consultation fee for adults at US$5 a visit and US$3 for
children.
Pregnant women are required to pay US$50 for an
antenatal care booking while
those seeking family planning methods pay an
average of US$2 for each
service.
Health experts say the
majority of Zimbabweans cannot afford to pay the
medical fees, leaving many
to die in homes.
In Harare, the city's director of health services
Prosper Chonzi said: "The
public is advised that the City of Harare has been
allowed to accept payment
of services rendered in foreign currency, thus
United States dollars and
rands, with effect from January
1.
"When you pay in foreign currency, please ensure that you
receive a receipt
with correct foreign currency amount you will have
rendered."
Government hospitals are also charging in foreign
currency although they
having nothing to offer. Patients are told to bring
linen and food to the
institutions.
At government
hospitals, patients are paying US$40 as consultation fee and
US$70 a night if
admitted at the hospital. A Caesarean operation requires a
flat fee of US$150
while scans cost an average of US$80.
http://www.africasia.com
ADDIS
ABABA, Jan 22 (AFP)
The African Union
(AU) has failed the people of Zimbabwe by turning a blind
eye towards human
rights abuses, a Zimbabwean rights group said Thursday.
Representatives
of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum met in Addis Ababa a week
before the start
of the AU's annual summit and urged the pan-African body to
take over
"failed" mediation efforts to solve Zimbabwe's political crisis.
"We are
not happy that the AU has not outrightly condemned the crimes
against
humanity that are happening in Zimbabwe," Gabriel Shumba, head of
the
Zimbabwe Exiles Forum, told AFP.
"It has generally failed the people of
Zimbabwe as an institution by not
being able to stop the human rights
violations going on in the country."
The rights forum also said in a
resolution that efforts to solve the crisis
in Zimbabwe should be placed
under the direct authority of the AU.
Humanitarian groups have sounded
alarm bells over the deteriorating
situation in Zimbabwe, where a large
proportion of the population is in need
of food aid and where a cholera
outbreak has claimed more than 2,700 lives.
Zimbabwe's economy has been
in freefall for years but a humanitarian crisis
has exploded since disputed
elections last March, when opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai defeated
President Robert Mugabe in a first round
presidential vote.
Political
violence blamed on Mugabe's ruling party then erupted, leading to
a stalemate
which mediation efforts by nieghbouring countries have failed
to
break.
In a report released Thursday, New York-based Human Rights
Watch said that
the African Union should suspend Zimbabwe from the 53-nation
group if
Mugabe's government failed to end the political violence and other
rights
abuses.
http://hararetribune.com
Thursday, 22 January 2009 17:33
Zimbabwe's
largest journalists union on Thursday joined the chorus for
payment of
salaries in foreign currency as a dollarisation wave sweeps
across the
crisis-hit country.
Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) president Matthew
Takaona said reporters
working for local media should be paid in foreign
currency starting this
month in line with this week's resolution by the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Union.
"All media organisations must
without fail pay in foreign currency beginning
from the time of the
resolution," Takaona said.
ZUJ is the largest representative body of
journalists in Zimbabwe, its
intentions come a day after the country's
largest newspaper group, the
state-run Zimbabwe Newspapers, announced that it
had been licenced to sell
its papers in United States dollars, British pounds
or South African rands.
The ZCTU, which is an umbrella body representing
more than 300,000 workers,
on Monday said most workers were failing to access
basic services because of
the dollarisation of the economy.
Most
traders and service providers have stopped accepting the Zimbabwe
dollar as a
means of payment, citing the country's runaway inflation last
estimated at
231 million percent in July 2008.
The central bank has since last
September licenced foreign currency shops in
a move meant to improve the
availability of products and cut the number of
Zimbabweans making monthly
trips to neighbouring South Africa, Botswana and
Mozambique for
groceries.
http://www.ipsnews.net
By Stanley
Kwenda
HARARE, Jan 22 (IPS) - Long lines of stalls, run by women, have
sprung up
next to many of Zimbabwe's highways, selling honey, milk,
mushrooms,
tomatoes, onions and chickens. As prices in towns skyrocket due
to
unprecedented inflation levels running in the millions, people leave
their
towns to purchase basic commodities.
This precarious way of
survival involves child labour and exposes the
traders to dangers ranging
from bad weather and disease to robbery and being
run over by
cars.
Children labour alongside the adults to eke out an existence. Small
children
as young as three years are involved in the selling of goods. This
is
justified by some as children being allowed to grow an enterprising
spirit
and to be able to work for themselves.
Usually the places of
trading have no shelter or sanitary facilities,
exposing people to the
ravages of weather and disease.
Roadside trade can be dangerous for other
reasons too. Several roadside
traders have been hit by cars as they try to
outrun each other to reach
would-be customers on either side of the road.
They are also at risk of
being robbed of their earnings by the same motorists
that they seek to
serve.
''We are aware of these dangers but there is
nothing we can do. It's like a
casino: we live each day as it comes,''
roadside trader Mai Chingwe told IPS
with a resigned tone.
Another
trader, who refused to be named, told IPS that she has managed to
turn her
life around by trading on the roadside.
''I look after my four children
and the three that were left by my sister
who died five years ago. By selling
things along this road I have managed to
send them to school and buy a few
goats. All I am asking for is support with
agricultural inputs and fertiliser
from the government and the creation of
proper places where we can operate
from,'' she told IPS.
Many of the women used to travel hundreds of
kilometres on an almost daily
basis, perched on top of heavily loaded trucks
to sell their goods at the
main market in the capital of
Harare.
''These days business is better because motorists always pass
through this
place to pick up things because they have become expensive in
town. If I am
to take these tomatoes to town, the price will be high because
I have to pay
for transport in United States dollars,'' explained Alice
Borerwa, a
roadside trader selling vegetables along the Harare-Mutare
highway.
But where do these women get land to do market gardening in a
country where
it is such a contentious commodity and land ownership is based
on state
authorisation?
''We formed a cooperative in 2005 and
approached our member of parliament
whom we asked to secure some land for us.
We were given water-clogged land
which we are now using with the help of
well-wishers to do market
gardening,''
Borerwa, who is a mother of three,
told IPS.
I asked her to describe a typical day for her and the 15 other
members of
their Kubatana Cooperative.
''We wake up around four in the
morning and harvest the ripe tomatoes,
onions, carrots and other vegetables
before watering the produce. We do this
in shifts, so it's either you are at
the garden or selling along the
highway.
''Fortunately these days
there is no need for watering the produce because
of the rains. Usually we
are next to the road at five am until 10 pm,'' said
Borerwa.
Most
motorists now opt to drive to out of town to buy vegetables as the
prices in
the cities are out of reach for many urban dwellers. The prices of
the
produce range from 10 dollars for a 10 kg bag of tomatoes or onions to
20
dollars for five kg of mushrooms. But IPS learnt that these prices are
very
much negotiable, depending on availability.
Prices are also affected by
stiff competition: at one roadside trading area
there can be more than 50
women selling the same commodities.
In the cities and towns high prices
are pegged uniformly. ''I manage to sell
by giving extras to those who buy
more. If somebody buys things for more
than 20 dollars, I will include a
bunch of vegetables worth two dollars for
free,'' said Chingwe.
In
some instances trade is conducted by means of barter as traders
exchange
commodities for household goods such as washing soap, cooking oil or
even
clothes.
''We always try and measure what's best for our
families. If someone brings
school shoes or clothes that my child can wear to
school, I am more than
willing to exchange these for commodities. After all,
the money doesn't buy
much when you go to the shops,'' explained
Chingwe.
The women have used the incomes from the roadside trade to keep
their
children in school and to look after them at a time when the country is
on a
rough political and economic path.
Millions of people have lost
their jobs over the past decade in the troubled
southern African country as a
result of business closures in the
manufacturing, service, farming and mining
sectors. This has also had a
devastating effect on downstream
industries.
According to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU),
which is the
country's main labour body, thousands of Zimbabweans are now
roaming the
streets after losing their jobs. It puts the unemployment rate at
90
percent.
The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) in its 2008
Manufacturing
Report stated that companies still operating are doing so at
less than 20
percent capacity. It said in the same report that the bulk of
the workforce
now work in the informal sector, which includes roadside
trade.
The Zimbabwean government has established the small and medium
enterprises
development ministry but it is yet to make its mark.
But
not everybody is buying at the roadside stalls. At some of the
roadside
markets, such as Macheke along the Harare-Mutare highway, Ngundu
along the
Harare-Beitbridge road and Mutoko in the north-east of Harare,
trucks can
still be seen carrying produce to major commodity markets in
Harare and
Bulawayo. (END/2009)
http://hararetribune.com
Thursday, 22 January
2009 17:09
The ZINASU Secretary General, comrade Lovemore Chinoputsa who was
suspended
at the University of Zimbabwe in June 2007 is finally going back to
college.
The suspension of comrade Chinoputsa was lifted on the 20th of
January 2009
after a record breaking 10 times postponement of the
hearing.
The suspension came after massive protests by students over the
closure of
Halls of Residence which resulted in the eviction of close to 5000
students
who were left homeless. A combination of factors including poor
quality food
served in the dining halls, poor sanitation conditions which
ranged from
malfunctioning toilets, blocked sewages sparked the
protests.
The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights through Messrs Wintertons
legal
practitioner, Joshua Shekede represented Chinoputsa. Professor L.M
Nyagura,
Vice Chancellor representing the University of Zimbabwe signed the
letter.
"...I advise that the University of Zimbabwe Student Disciplinary
Committee
which sat on Thursday, 18 December 2008 has now concluded
its
investigations. The committee could not proceed with investigations....
the
Vice Chancellor has lifted Lovemore Chinoputsa's suspension from
the
University of Zimbabwe with immediate effect...", said a letter signed by
Mr
Sergeant Chevo the University's Registrar.
The University of
Zimbabwe has suspended and expelled over 200 students in
post colonial
Zimbabwe. Most of these students have been suspended using
repressive
University laws enacted in 1990.
The University of Zimbabwe Act gives
Nyagura powers to "..suspend or expel
any student for a period he deems
necessary..". ZINASU is in the process of
challenging the constitutionality
of the U.Z Act.
http://www.newswatch.in
Date: January 22, 2009 Author: Newswatch Desk
Zimbabwe's
Retrenchment Board has ruled against the state-owned Zimbabwe
Broadcasting
Holdings' (ZBH) bid to retrench six of its journalists who were
suspended in
June 2008 on allegations of "acting in a manner inconsistent
with the
fulfillment of the implied conditions" of their contracts, the
Media
Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has reported.
Monica Gavela, Patrice
Makova, Garikai Chaunza, Bright Paradza, Robert
Tapfumaneyi and Sibonginkosi
Mlilo were suspended following allegations that
the state broadcaster had
failed to adequately campaign for President Robert
Mugabe in the run-up to
the March 29, 2008 elections.
The board ruled that ZBH failed to follow
proper retrenchment procedures and
should have met with the Works Council
before coming up with the decision to
retrench them. ZBH was then advised to
start the process afresh if they
still wished to retrench the
journalists.
Their suspensions came barely a month after the dismissal of
the then-chief
executive officer Henry Muradzikwa on May 14 for refusing
ministerial orders
to deny the opposition Movement of Democratic Change (MDC)
favourable
coverage in the run-up to the elections. MISA-Zimbabwe's
investigations
indicated that the journalists were being victimised for not
showing enough
enthusiasm in supporting the government of President Robert
Mugabe. ZBH is
run under directives of the Ministry of Information and
Publicity.
http://www.rsf.org
22. 01 -
Reporters Without
Borders deplores the fact that a song by well-known
Zimbabwean singer Tongai
Moyo has been censored by Zimbabwe's sole national
radio and TV broadcaster,
the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.
A ZBC official said the
order came from the highest level of the government.
Entitled "Kukanda
Nehuvhika," the song refers to the troubled power-sharing
accord signed on 15
September between President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF and
opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change.
The ZBC previously
censored 30 songs by exiled musician Thomas Mapfumo, who
risks a five-year
prison sentence if he returns to Zimbabwe. Another
musician, Leonard Zhakata,
was censored in 2006 for being critical of
Mugabe.
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk
22 January 2009
By Hannah
Hudson
Guardian Films last night won the award for best news programme at
the 2009
Broadcast Awards.
Zimbabwe: The Stolen Ballots was an
undercover video investigation into
vote-rigging by Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF
party during last year's election.
It showed a Mugabe supporter getting
prison officers to fill in their postal
ballots in his presence.
The
film was shot in the central jail in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare
by
prison officer Shepherd Yuda before - who then smuggled the footage out
of
the country.
The winning submission was originally posted on the
Guardian website in July
last year. It was also broadcast on BBC2's
Newsnight.
Guardian Films editorial director Maggie O'Kane said: "This
film wouldn't
have been possible if it wasn't for one man's absolute
determination to
expose Mugabe's vote-rigging.
"The person who did
that, Shepherd Yuda, was prepared to take great personal
risks to do it and
we are very honoured at the Guardian to have been able to
work with such a
brave man."
The award for best documentary was won by Channel 4's My
Street. The
programme, produced by TV indie Wellpark Productions, looked at
the lives
and stories of the people living in the same street as director Sue
Bourne.
Best documentary series went to The Genius of Charles Darwin. The
IWC Media
three-part series featured Richard Dawkins and was also broadcast
on Channel
4.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Thursday, 22
January 2009
Founder member Patson Muzuwa is bringing Umbane
Dance Troupe to the
Vigil this Saturday. They used to perform in Zimbabwe and
have performed in
the UK.
Some are regular attenders at the
Vigil. We will have a taste of Zulu
dances in traditional attire. The group
is comprised of enthusiastic young
men and women. They are Sandile Mpande,
who is the leader, Muzomkhulu
Ndlovu, Chris Moyo, Innocent Hlongwane,
Jeremiah Mtotela, Nickson Nkomo,
Dennes Sibanda, Loveness Malandu and Esther
Magenga.
Vigil co-ordinators
The Vigil, outside the
Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes
place every Saturday from 14.00
to 18.00 to protest against gross violations
of human rights by the current
regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started
in October 2002 will continue
until internationally-monitored, free and fair
elections are held in
Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk
http://www.iol.co.za
January 22 2009 at
02:47PM
Cape Town - Diplomatic isolation and stepped-up sanctions
are the key
to stopping Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's tyranny,
Democratic
Alliance foreign affairs spokesperson Tony Leon said on
Thursday.
Briefing the media at Parliament on DA foreign policy,
Leon was
critical of the both the South African government and the Southern
African
Development Community's efforts to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis,
labelling
the latter organisation a "toothless bulldog".
He told
journalists that Zimbabwe needed to hold properly convened,
internationally
certified national elections.
"You cannot use flawed electoral
outcomes as the basis for a
post-settlement government of national
unity.
"It actually suggests that somehow democracy is not fit for
Africa...
That you can't actually have a democratic
election.
"Because if you have an undemocratic
outcome, with these post-conflict
arrangements such as Kenya and Zimbabwe,
you legitimise a stolen or a very
flawed electoral process."
Leon's remarks come as South Africa prepares to host another emergency
SADC
summit on Zimbabwe.
The summit follows the failure on Monday of
talks involving Mugabe and
his rival Morgan Tsvangirai over how to share
control of powerful ministries
under a unity government in
Zimbabwe.
"People across the world shake their heads at [South
Africa's]
continued temporising with Robert Mugabe's tyranny. I would take a
much more
hard-line approach," Leon said.
Under the protocols of
SADC, Zimbabwe should forfeit its membership of
the body.
"I
think [too] that Zimbabwe should be suspended from the African
Union, and I
think that the normal protocols of diplomatic recognition
should be
withdrawn."
Efforts by the South African government and the SADC
over the past
eight years to solve the Zimbabwe crisis had come to naught.
The situation
had, in fact, deteriorated massively.
"You've got
to take a harder stance... You've got to use coercive
diplomacy," Leon
said.
Responding to a question on whether South Africa should
consider
intervening militarily in Zimbabwe, he said "all options should be
on the
table".
However, he doubted whether South Africa had the
military capacity.
"With only 3 000 combat-ready troops at any
given moment, stretched
across the sub-continent [on peacekeeping missions],
I think your question
is entirely theoretical and hypothetical, because I
don't think we could
engage in Zimbabwe militarily.
"I'm not
sure what the result would be if we did, because the Zimbabwe
defence force
is not engaged across the African sub-continent as we are, and
quite arguably
has more combat-ready troops than we do.
"I think you've got to be
careful about committing yourself when your
commitments are already
over-stretched. But clearly, all forms of pressure
need to be used against
Robert Mugabe."
Questioned about the possible use of sanctions, he
suggested these
should be implemented, and then stepped up if
necessary.
"I think there should be a reconsideration of sanctions,
at the very
least applying sanctions that target the leadership and the
individuals in
the leadership cadre in Zimbabwe... And then I think you
should start going
down the list. But you've got to start that
process."
Leon said government policy towards Zimbabwe over the
past eight years
involved "vague rhetoric" that was not backed up by
action.
"We're now living with the consequences, with cholera
outbreaks in
South Africa - a direct export from Zimbabwe - and our entire
international
reputation tarnished very severely by the pro-Mugabe stance we
continue to
take," he said. - Sapa
From The Star (SA), 22 January
Fiona Forde
In a moment of total and utter economic
distress, Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank
Governor Gideon Gono has recommended that
the rand be informally adopted
alongside the Zimbabwean dollar as inflation
reaches an all-time high and
the local currency an all-time low. Gono's
recommendation is one of a litany
of remedies he outlined in the form of a
105-page recovery plan for the
failed state, a document he claims he has not
authored but which experts say
could only be the work of "the world's worst
central banker", as one wit put
it, complete with the shallow depth of
analysis that has become Gono's
hallmark. It's not uncommon for developing or
transitional economies to
formally or informally adopt a second currency. It
happened during the years
of the Great Depression in the US when the scarcity
of the greenback led to
the emergence of barter organisations, local groups
of needy folk who issued
their own "private money", or bartering
certificates, as a second currency.
It was a system replicated many years
later in Argentina when locals tried
to stave off the crippling recession of
2002, the same year the US dollar
was also adopted as legal tender alongside
the peso in an all-out bid to cap
inflation. Ecuador had adopted the dollar
two years earlier, El Salvador in
2001. In fact, there are few markets in
Latin America that are not
quasi-dollarised today.
In the former
Soviet bloc, Ukraine and Kazakhstan allowed the US dollar to
circulate
illegally alongside their failing currencies in the 1990s, much
like Zimbabwe
has been doing in recent years when both the rand and the
dollar could be
easily had for a quick nod in the right direction. Today
they are the
preferred currencies over the valueless Zim dollar. And it's a
far cry from
the time of independence in 1980 when there was near parity
between it and
the greenback, a time when Z$1 was worth US$1,50. Today the
exchange rate
between them is near unfathomable, with Z$100-trillion
equivalent to US$30,
or about R300. The collapse of the currency comes with
hyperinflation, now
the second highest in world history according to
November figures, although
Harare-based economist John Robertson suggests it
has already broken all
records. He calculates that it is in the sextillions,
a rate that forces
prices to double in a matter of hours and the cash in
one's hand to devalue
before the opportunity to spend it presents itself.
"Against this
backdrop, it is imperative that the economy informally adopts
the rand
alongside the Zim dollar," the report reads. "The economic
relationship
between Zimbabwe and South Africa makes the rand the naturally
obvious
currency of choice to anchor the Zimbabwean dollar." Although the
offices of
SA Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni and Finance Minister Trevor
Manuel say
they have not been approached by their Harare counterparts to
grant
permission to extend the rand northwards, neither man would say what
they
might do if such a request is put to them in the future. But whether or
not
this is the work of Gono, and "the thinking of the inner circle" as
Movement
for Democratic Change secretary-general Tendai Biti puts it, it
does make
valid the question about the effect such a move would have on the
rand, a
currency that devalued by 29% against the US dollar last year and
got off to
a poor start this year amid global economic turmoil. "The
Zimbabwean economy
has already been 'randified'," Robertson points out. "The
only difference is
that they are now coming down from illegal to legal
circulation." So, the
implications for South Africa will be negligible. It
is a view that's echoed
by Steve Hanke, an applied economist with the Johns
Hopkins University in
Baltimore and author of Zimbabwe: From Hyperinflation
to Growth, who adds
that "if viewed in a narrow profit-and-loss point of
view, it is extremely
profitable for South Africa", through seigniorage, the
revenue a central bank
earns from issuing a currency whose face value
exceeds the cost of printing
or minting each unit of it. It is something
that has worked very well for
Washington, with 65% of all US dollars now
circulating beyond their own
borders without it dragging down in value.
Victor Munyama, an
economist with Standard Bank, also believes an informally
randified
Zimbabwean economy could only be beneficial for South Africa, but
for
different reasons. He feels that it would facilitate trade between the
two
countries, echoing the view of the report that "South Africa is
Zimbabwe's
largest trading partner". However, that presupposes a world in
which Zimbabwe
returns to its healthy manufacturing levels of the 1990s.
This would require
a workable political settlement, in the absence of which
Zimbabweans will
continue to turn to South Africa for basic goods, of which
some have already
been in short supply for the past few years. The shift in
South Africa's
social classes in recent times, when more and more people
increased their
spending power, led to such a demand on basic goods and food
items that
things such as breakfast cereals, washing powders, pastas and
biscuits became
critically scarce in 2006 and 2007, with the hangover
lasting through to
2008. It was also during 2007 that the country imported
less food and
agricultural products than it exported, a year when more and
more Zimbabweans
turned to our border towns to get by when their own
supermarkets ran dry. And
if more rands are now set to continue chasing
somewhat scare goods, it could
have an adverse effect on our own inflation
rates, of which food items are
typically a big driver.
So it will ultimately put pressure on South
Africa to adjust its
manufacturing levels accordingly. Beyond that, the only
real adverse effects
for this country would come with the formal adoption of
the rand in
Zimbabwe, which Gono says will never happen in his lifetime. "The
Zimbabwean
dollar will not be overtaken by any other currency, formally or
otherwise,
now or at any point in the future," he told The Star just a few
days ago.
"But in an informal sense, it makes little difference, to South
Africa or to
Zimbabwe, what you substitute the Zim dollar with right now,"
says Russell
Loubser, CEO of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. "The problem is
not
monetary, it's political, caused by a regime that has steadily closed
down
the country's production lines, forcing them to print money as a
substitute,
which has put inflation where it is today. And now that people no
longer
want to use the Zim dollar because it devalues by the hour, they are
turning
to hard currencies. So (President Robert) Mugabe is choosing the easy
way
out, but it's not the right way out." Hence the flight of fancy, spelt
out
in the report.
Robertson - born and bred in Zimbabwe and one
of the country's most
outspoken yet respected economists - is also in receipt
of the so-called
recovery recommendations and although he can't authenticate
the document, he
believes it fits with the thinking of the governor whose
work he has
monitored over the years. "They are basically struggling with the
fact that
they can't pay the public sector the currency that they need," he
says. So
the document is not so much a recovery plan to restore Zimbabwe to
all its
former glory - "the jewel of Africa" as former Tanzanian president
Julius
Nyerere once put it - but a last-ditch attempt to uphold the regime
by
keeping the civil servants onside with a steady flow of hard
currency.
According to the document, the Zimbabwean government requires
about
R3,5-billion a month to pay public salaries, honour the imported fuel
bill,
keep the health system in working order and buy the required fertiliser
and
seed to pump into the critical agriculture sector, with one third of
the
overall expenditure allocated for "Other Government Requirements" - code
for
either a slush fund or the defence bill, of which there is no other
mention
in the report.
The author of the report goes on to
identify export duties and the country's
rich resources of diamonds, gold,
platinum, iron ore and chrome as key
sources of revenue that would meet
monthly expenditure, and more. Based on
alleged exports "of US$1,7-billion or
R17-billion" over the past five years,
the government could raise
"US$510-million per annum or R5,1-billion at a
tax rate of 30%" in export
taxes, reads the report. In addition to that,
nearly 3-billion tons of
platinum are lying in the Great Dyke, while "gross
revenues from the diamond
mining can exceed US$1,2-billion per month", it
continues. However, as
economist and political commentator Moeletsi Mbeki
points out, these stones
are not as precious today as they might have been
yesterday with the world in
such a downward economic decline. And even if
they were, why didn't the
regime tap into them before now?
It is this aspect of the report that
worries Biti most - the convoluted
thinking to maintain the current status
quo and steer clear of the hitherto
agreed coalition government with the MDC.
"The message is a very simple one.
We don't have to worry about Morgan
Tsvangirai. We don't have to worry about
the West. We will get our money from
the diamonds and the commodities and
forget about the rest of them. This is
Gono at his best. He is the mother
and father of this disastrous kind of
engineering," Biti argues. It is a
sobering thought to think that if both the
MDC and Zanu PF had had the
maturity in September to implement the
power-sharing agreement, for all its
faults and failings, the world's
superpowers and main international donors
would have part-funded a new
Zimbabwe through the transition period. The
amounts that were on standby then
make Gono's diamond royalty figures pale
in comparison. The sad fact is that
there are few, if any, donors that would
fund Zimbabwe today, not just
because they have lost trust in the
shenanigans of the political players, but
because today they are bailing out
their own economies to stave off
recession. They are the kind of tales that
have become typical of Zimbabwe:
the lost opportunities. One can't help but
wonder how different southern
Africa might have looked today with a country
as resource-rich as Zimbabwe
feeding rather than bleeding the region's
growth.
http://content-www.cricinfo.com/
Cricinfo staff
January 22,
2009
Next week's ICC executive meeting, scheduled for Perth, could
face
cancellation after the Australian government warned that Peter Chingoka,
the
Zimbabwe Cricket chairman, would require "very particular grounds" to
be
granted a visa to enter the country.
"Australia's sanctions are an
important mechanism for applying pressure on
the Mugabe regime," a Department
of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman told
AAP. "They send a clear signal
that the government holds the Mugabe regime
and its closest supporters
accountable for the tragedy occurring in
Zimbabwe."
Less than a month
ago Chingoka was named by the Australian government on a
list of 254 people
banned from entering the country because of his links
with the Mugabe regime.
However, last summer, in the light of Chingoka being
made unwelcome by the UK
authorities, the ICC executive took a decision that
all members should be
permitted to attend meetings.
To that end, David Morgan, the ICC
president, has been in regular contact
with the Australian foreign office to
try to persuade them to allow Chingoka
into the country, just to attend the
get-together. Sharad Pawar, who as well
as being the ICC's vice-president is
also India's agriculture minister, is
also believed to have been leaning on
the authorities.
Chingoka, who is the longest-standing member of the
executive by more than a
decade, could offer to stay at home, freeing the way
for the meeting to go
ahead without him, but it is reported he is reluctant
to do this. He already
agreed not to attend next summer's annual meeting at
Lord's to allow that to
go ahead, but is said to be insistent that the issue
of where he can and
cannot go be resolved.
If attempts to allow
Chingoka into Australia fail then it will mean that the
ICC executive cannot
meet in Australia or England while he remains
Zimbabwe's representative. The
same applies to the ICC chief executives'
committee while Ozias Bvute, ZC's
managing director, is in office. Sources
in Australia, however, maintain that
the Australian government would be left
acutely embarrassed were they to back
down so soon after declaring Chingoka,
as well Bvute, persona non
grata.
The ICC on Thursday could not confirm whether Chingoka had applied
for a
visa to visit Australia, and attempts by the domestic news
agency,
Australian Associated Press (AAP), to contact ZC's headquarters
were
unsuccessful. An ICC spokesman did, however, tell AFP that the meeting
would
go ahead regardless of his absence.
Among other agenda items,
the meeting is due to hear the results of the
fact-finding trip to Zimbabwe
headed by West Indies board chairman Julian
Hunte in November.
©
Cricinfo