The Times
January 24, 2008
Jan Raath in Harare
Zimbabwean
police fired teargas yesterday and charged several hundred
demonstrators who
were demanding a democratic constitution, water,
electricity and the right
to draw money from banks without queueing.
The leader of the Opposition
was detained, ten demonstrators were treated in
hospital and dozens were
arrested, lawyers said.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC),
was released later to address supporters on a
vacant lot next to a stadium
on the outskirts of the Zimbabwean capital,
where the rally had been
scheduled to take place.
Mr Tsvangirai said
that the police clampdown proved that President Mugabe
was not serious about
his pledge to hold free elections in March and
announced that his party
would respond by stepping up protests. Mr Mugabe
had “failed the test for a
free and fair election”, Mr Tsvangirai said. “If
this is the regime's
reaction then elections are just a farce.”
The march and the planned
rally were the first test of Mr Mugabe's
credibility after he had agreed,
under mediation overseen by the Southern
African Development Community, the
14-nation regional bloc, to a wide series
of reforms of legislation used to
crush gatherings of his opponents.
It took nine months of spasmodic
negotiations, chaired by President Mbeki of
South Africa, between Mr
Mugabe's ruling Zanu(PF) party and the two MDC
factions to achieve an
agreement on limited reforms to what are some of the
most repressive laws in
Africa. A High Court ruling yesterday morning gave
the party permission to
proceed with the rally but not to march to the rally
site, Nelson Chamisa,
an MDC spokesman, said.
Mr Chamisa said that police seized Mr Tsvangirai
at about 4am from his home
in Harare and released him five hours later. He
described the arrest and the
ban on the march as a deliberate snub to South
African efforts to find a
solution to Zimbabwe's crisis.
“It's a
mockery of President Mbeki's efforts. It's a mockery of African
solutions to
African problems. It's a mockery to humankind,” he said.
VOA
By Peter Clottey
Washington, D.C.
24
January 2008
Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) says it will
today (Thursday) apply for another protest march
permit to press home its
displeasure with what it described as President
Robert Mugabe’s autocratic
rule. The party said the protest marches are also
aimed at demanding the
implementation of a new constitution, ahead of this
year’s general
elections. The MDC said the elections should be delayed
because Zimbabweans
are not yet ready for them. The protests come after the
Southern African
Development Community (SADC)-backed talks reached a
deadlock.
The talks between the government and the MDC are aimed at
resolving the
country’s economic and political crisis.
John Makumbe
is a political science professor at the University of Zimbabwe.
He tells
reporter Peter Clottey from the capital, Harare that he expects the
court to
grant the MDC the petition to protest.
“The latest development is that
the disruption by the police were really
minimal so that the rally was
actually held, and Tsavangirai (MDC Leader)
addressed thousands of people
who turned up. And he is going to apply for
another permit today so that he
can have another march most likely next week
and really create a situation
where the regime is forced to pay attention to
the hardships that the people
are experiencing,” Makumbe said.
He dismissed as laughable government’s
reason that it bans protest marches
because they often turn
violent.
“It’s ridiculous really because the people were marching
peacefully, and
there was no violence until the police were trying to stop
them from
marching. And they were telling them to walk only to the stadium
where the
court has said the MDC could hold political a rally. But the
people were
saying we are walking to the grounds, and the police were saying
you are
marching and it is really unlikely that there would be violence.
Violence
would always be provoked in most cases in Zimbabwe by the police
themselves,” he pointed out.
Makumbe said he believes the court
would grant the opposition the permit to
ago ahead with their planned
protest march.
“I think so yes, I think the experience of today is such
that people were
peaceful and they did what the court ordered them to do.
They walked to the
grounds and they held a rally, which was addressed by
Morgan Tsvangirai and
so the next application should really be granted by
the court. In any case,
the court should only intervene if there is a
dispute between the police and
organizers of the rally,” Makumbe
said.
He said countries in the sub-region are taking note of the
activities in
Zimbabwe.
“The SADC is watching everything that is
happening in Zimbabwe today. The
news bulleting from other SADC countries
are full of stories of this
afternoon in Harare, and yes the SADC would be
forced to pay attention to
these peaceful marches to the desires of
Zimbabweans, to the demand of the
opposition political parties, to the
demands of the citizens of Zimbabwe for
the resolution of the crisis in
Zimbabwe. Yes, SADC is going to pay
attention, “ he noted.
commondreams.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 23, 2008
1:37
PM
CONTACT: Amnesty International
Suzanne Trimel,
212-633-4150
NEW YORK - January 23 - With the arrest of a top
opposition figure and
police assaults on supporters in advance of
anti-government protests,
Amnesty International urged Zimbabwean authorities
today to exercise
restraint to avoid further bloodshed.
One
eyewitness told Amnesty International that police assaulted Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) supporters, who were on their way to the
demonstration, and bundled them into a police van. Morgan Tsvangirai, a
leader of one of the MDC factions, was arrested at about 4 a.m. today at his
home by officers from the notorious Law and Order section of the Zimbabwe
Republic Police. Tsvangirai, who was severely beaten by police last March,
was detained for about four hours and then released without charge. Two
other MDC officials were also arrested and released.
Simeon Mawanza,
Amnesty International's researcher on Zimbabwe, who recently
returned from
the country, said: "The fact that there have already been
assaults and three
arrests – including of a leader of the planned
protests -- is a worrying
sign."
"We are deeply concerned about the continued harassment and
intimidation of
MDC leaders by the Zimbabwean government," said Mawanza.
"The government
must allow any peaceful protests to go ahead, and ensure the
safety of all
peaceful demonstrators and all people taken into police
custody."
Lynn Fredriksson, advocacy director for Africa for Amnesty
International
USA, said police have severely limited political protests and
activities by
the MDC, human rights defenders and perceived opponents of
President
Mugabe's government while allowing ZANU-PF party members to
assemble and
engage in political activities without
restrictions.
"The police are acting in a partisan manner that directly
violates
international standards," she said. "The government of Zimbabwe
must be made
aware that the international community is watching closely its
response to
anti-government protests this week."
Police announced on
Monday that the planned demonstration had been banned,
despite the fact that
they approved it two weeks ago.
The MDC appealed the ban and the
Magistrates Court ruled that while MDC
supporters cannot march through
Harare, they can hold a rally in Glamis
Arena, just outside the
city.
The last time Tsvangirai and about 50 other MDC and civil society
leaders
were arrested (in March 2007), they were severely beaten and some
were
tortured.
"Police repeatedly arrest and beat human rights
defenders and MDC activists
engaging in peaceful protest," said Mawanza.
"Detainees are then often
ill-treated and denied access to lawyers, food and
medicine. This behavior
must stop."
Daily Mail, UK
Last updated at 20:18pm on 23rd January 2008
A black bishop
and former prime minister has taken over a farm in Zimbabwe,
forcing out its
white Christian owners.
Abel Muzorewa, who was leader in 1979, moved
his own staff on to Cavalla
Farm near the city of Mutare, making 75 workers
redundant.
The owner, Lodewyk van Rensburg, 55, had farmed the
land since buying it in
1989.
Six years ago he voluntarily gave
up 700 hectares of the 1,200-hectare site.
But four months ago
82-year-old Bishop Muzorewa - who was leader for a few
months before losing
an election to Robert Mugabe in 1980 - arrived with an
official letter to
take over.
Mr van Rensburg, a devout Christian who has two
children, said: "Ultimately
the Lord will judge what has
happened.
"But it does make a mockery of his position as a man of the
cloth."
Bishop Muzorewa said: "I just wanted to have land which was
taken from my
forefathers without any recompense. It's a correction of
injustice."
Mr van Rensburg and his wife Esther will go to court next
month to try to
evict the bishop.
Zim Online
by Simplicious Chirinda Thursday 24 January
2008
HARARE – The Zimbabwe government on Wednesday said it
would seize a farm
whose white owner last year successfully applied to a
regional tribunal for
an interim order blocking confiscation of the
property.
Land Reform Minister Dydimus Mutasa said the farm would be
handed over to a
black owner as part of state land reforms and following a
Tuesday ruling by
Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court dismissing an application by the
white farmer
challenging the seizure of his property.
“We are going
to occupy the farm after the judgment," Mutasa told ZimOnline.
“The (new
black) owner of the land will soon move onto his land with the
help of the
police.”
The white farmer, William Michael Campbell, was not immediately
available
for comment on the matter.
Campbell first appealed against
seizure of his property at Supreme Court
last March but took his case to the
Southern African Development Community
(SADC) Tribunal after what his
lawyers said was “unreasonable delay” by
Zimbabwe’s highest court in dealing
with the matter.
The Namibia-based Tribunal last December barred
President Robert Mugabe’s
government from evicting Campbell from his Mount
Carmel farm in Chegutu
pending final ruling on the farmer’s main application
challenging the
legality of the Harare administration’s controversial
programme to seize
white land for redistribution to landless
blacks.
Campbell wants the SADC court - which sits later this month to
finalise the
farmer’s case - to find Harare in breach of its obligations as
a member of
the regional bloc after it signed into law Constitution of
Zimbabwe
Amendment No.17 two years ago.
The amendment allows Mugabe’s
government to seize farmland without
compensation and bars courts from
hearing appeals from dispossessed white
farmers.
The white farmer has
also asked the Tribunal to declare Zimbabwe’s land
reforms racist and
illegal under the SADC Treaty adding that Article 6 of
the Treaty bars
member states from discriminating against any person on the
grounds of
gender, religion, race, ethnic origin and culture.
Asked what would
happen in the event the Tribunal upholds Campbell’s
application, Mutasa was
non-committal. “The government of Zimbabwe will have
to wait and see what
happens at the Tribunal but for now we go by the laws
of Zimbabwe,” was all
Mutasa would say.
Government farm seizures have resulted in the majority
of the about 4 000
white farmers being forcibly ejected from their
properties without being
paid compensation for the land, which Harare has
refused to pay for saying
it was stolen from blacks in the first
place.
The government has compensated some farmers for developments on
the land
such as dams and farm buildings and says it is committed to
compensating all
farmers for such improvements.
Land redistribution,
that Mugabe says was necessary to correct a colonial
land ownership system
that reserved the best land for whites and banished
blacks to poor soils, is
blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into food shortages
after Harare failed to
support black villagers resettled on former white
farms with inputs to
maintain production.
Poor performance in the mainstay agricultural sector
has also had far
reaching consequences as hundreds of thousands have lost
jobs while the
manufacturing sector, starved of inputs from the sector, is
operating below
30 percent of capacity. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Nqobizitha Khumalo Thursday 24 January
2008
BULAWAYO – Heavy rains that have been pounding most
parts of Zimbabwe since
late last year have washed away crops raising fears
that the crisis-hit
country could again face severe food shortages this
year.
Agricultural experts who spoke to ZimOnline yesterday said most of
the
early-planted crops were now a total write-off due to water
logging.
Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union (ZFU) President, Silas Hungwe, said the
heavy rains
will impact negatively on the country’s harvest.
“The
rains have had a negative impact on the country, plants are now water
logged
and in some areas, crops have been washed away . . . We fear that we
will
not realise much this year,” Hungwe said.
Zimbabwe, together with
southern Africa neighbours Mozambique and Zambia,
have since last year
battled floods after above normal rainfall since
December.
The floods
have left at least 21 people dead in Zimbabwe while villagers in
Muzarabani
district in the low-lying Zambezi Valley and the southern
province of
Masvingo have lost their property and livestock.
The Zimbabwean
government has already declared the floods a national
disaster.
Former Grain Marketing Board (GMB) chief executive, Renson
Gasela, who is
also a senior member of Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement
for Democratic
Change (MDC), party said the country would be lucky to
harvest 600 000
metric tonnes of maize this year because of the
floods.
“The figures are worrying, just last week the projection was that
the
country was to get 800 000 metric tonnes but the figures have since been
revised downwards because there is no fertiliser to save the crop while the
rains are not stopping at all,” said Gasela.
Zimbabwe, which has
battled severe food shortages over the past eight years,
requires at least
1.4 million tonnes of maize every year. A chaotic land
reform programme
initiated eight years ago has left Zimbabwe unable to feed
itself.
Last week, Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Technical and Extension
Services (AREX)
said the rains were adversely affecting farming operations
with most crops
now showing signs of nitrogen deficiency due to water
logging.
Agricultural experts say this year’s farming, dubbed “the mother
of all
agricultural seasons,” had virtually gone to waste because of
incessant
rains and failure by the Harare authorities ensure adequate
supplies of seed
and fertiliser. - ZimOnline
VOA
By Patience Rusere
Washington
23
January 2008
Electric power was restored Wednesday in
most parts of the Zimbabwean
capital of Harare but sources reported
continued outages across much of the
country.
Beitbridge on the
border with South Africa had power for just two hours, and
Victoria Falls on
the country's northern border with Zambia was entirely
without power, while
in eastern Mutare power was on downtown but several
districts were without
electricity.
Power supplies to Chinhoyi, northwest of Harare, was
reported to be erratic.
In Harare, many employers sent workers home
because no work could be done.
Some banks were unable to carry out
electronic transfers.
The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority did not
explain the continuing
power cuts. An official from the utility interviewed
on state television
said local power outages were unrelated to a problem
with the regional grid
in Kariba, on the northern border.
But news
reports quoted Zambian officials as saying the country would no
longer
export electric power to Zimbabwe due to tight local supplies. Zambia
has
also been experiencing blackouts amidst power shortages across Southern
Africa.
Spokesman Mfundo Mlilo of the Combined Harare Residents
Association told
reporter Patience Rusere of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe
that his
organization is concerned power cuts are worsening, causing much
inconvenience and sometimes suffering.
Reuters
Wed Jan 23, 2008 11:52pm EST
Stella Mapenzauswa has been
working for Reuters as a reporter for 13 years.
She moved to Johannesburg to
report on South Africa's economy in October
2006 after writing about her
native Zimbabwe since 1995. She made her first
trip home last month, for
Christmas. In the following story, she describes
how living conditions have
deteriorated during her absence.
By Stella Mapenzauswa
BULAWAYO,
Zimbabwe (Reuters) - As I drove from the border with South Africa
to my home
town I recalled the refrain Zimbabweans use when pondering the
economic
meltdown in their country: "surely things cannot get any worse than
they
are".
That mantra has helped them soldier on during the last eight years
as they
grappled with an ever-growing list of shortages, which now include
water and
electricity.
But on my journey home to Bulawayo, which
should have taken three hours but
lasted double that as I dodged gaping
potholes in the pitchblack night, I
realized things had gotten
worse.
After 14 months living in Johannesburg, with its tarred highways
and
bustling, well-stocked shopping malls, getting reacquainted with the
hardships back home took the joy out of reuniting with family and friends
for Christmas.
When I went to the bathroom in my parents' house, my
mother handed me a
bucket of rain water to flush the toilet and wash my
hands, because there
was nothing in the cistern or the tap.
Although
drought-prone Bulawayo was enjoying its wettest summer in recent
history,
running water from the city council had been erratic for months;
there was
no money to import treatment chemicals.
I got used to seeing women and
children balancing containers on their heads
along dusty township roads,
begging water from residents lucky enough to
have some.
Bulawayo long
enjoyed a reputation as Zimbabwe's cleanest city, with
charming,
colonial-style buildings, but the walls were now peeling and gone
too were
the street cleaners who used to keep the central business district
pristine.
Stinking litter lay rotting in makeshift dumps close to
houses. The garbage
disposal company stopped its weekly collections three
months ago because of
a fuel shortage.
"We try and burn some of the
trash, and dig the rest into the ground," my
mother said, pointing at mounds
of soil in what used to be her tiny but lush
vegetable
garden.
DESPAIR PREVAILS
A sense of despair hung over the city,
with none of the spontaneous parties,
complete with loud music, that had
heralded Christmas Day on my previous
visits home.
This is partly
because electricity is now a rare commodity. The pile of
firewood in my
parents' backyard and the candles in every room said it all.
The power
disruptions, already in evidence before I left the country, had
worsened as
state utility ZESA struggled to import energy in the face of a
foreign
currency crunch.
The goodwill that had kept Zimbabwe lit despite mounting
debts to her
neighbors was drying up.
Watching the billowing smoke in
our neighborhood as people cooked evening
meals, I mused that I could be in
a rural village, and not the
second-largest city in what used to be one of
Africa's most thriving
economies.
A trip to the supermarket a few
days later left me gaping at empty freezers
and shelves which only a year
ago were stuffed with meat, milk, bread,
cooking oil, maize meal and
toiletries.
Retailers had stopped stocking basic goods to protest
government price
controls imposed to stem inflation, the highest in the
world at over 8,000
percent.
Although a few commodities were finding
their way back to the shelves, after
the government backtracked on the
controls, shoppers were not exactly
snapping them up.
They were busy
waiting in long queues at commercial banks, trying to
withdraw money -- now
also in short supply.
"It's exhausting just getting from one day to the
next," a childhood friend
still living in Bulawayo told me. "If it's not
water cuts, then it's the
electricity, or banknote shortages, or the empty
shelves."
The only money in abundance were 1,000 Zimbabwe dollar notes
which had long
lost their value and littered street corners.
"You
offer one of those to a 3-year-old and they will laugh in your face,"
my
brother said. He was right. A piece of candy, the cheapest item in
stores,
cost 100,000 Zimbabwe dollars.
I tried to squelch the familiar sense of
guilt at having "bailed out" like
thousands of other Zimbabweans who have
left the country as the economy sunk
deeper into a meltdown critics blame on
government mismanagement.
Of some 13 million Zimbabweans, around 3.5
million are estimated to have
fled the country's political and economic
crisis. Some 2.5 million are in
neighboring South Africa.
Critics say
veteran President Robert Mugabe, in power since the end of white
rule in
1980, has pursued skewed policies, including the seizure of
white-owned
commercial farms for blacks ill-prepared to fully utilize the
land.
Mugabe points a finger at Western economic sanctions he says
were imposed in
retaliation for land reforms meant to correct colonial
ownership imbalances.
Watching the despair etched on many faces, I saw
that the optimism for which
my compatriots have long prided themselves has
started to wane, in the face
of the likelihood things will probably get much
worse before getting better.
International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: January 23,
2008
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas: Easing governmental restrictions
on journalists
before planned March elections in Zimbabwe will not be enough
to allow
opposition leaders to wrest power away from President Robert
Mugabe, a
former independent newspaper editor said
Wednesday.
Geoffrey Nyarota, who faced repeated arrests as editor of The
Daily News,
said the African nation's constitution already enshrined freedom
for the
press and opposition parties. However, Nyarota said Mugabe simply
ignores
those rights and derides anyone opposing his rule as being a
mouthpiece of
the West.
"Everybody should have free access to the
media. It is not enough for him to
say: 'I now allow you access to the
media,'" Nyarota said. "It is
meaningless."
The now-shuttered Daily
News served as the nation's sole independent daily
newspaper, as the state
controlled the other newspapers, radio stations and
television channels. In
January 2001, its presses were destroyed by a bomb
hours after a government
official described the paper as "a threat to
national security which had to
be silenced." It later ceased publishing.
Mugabe, 83, has ruled Zimbabwe
since it gained independence from Britain in
1980. He pushed for the often
violent seizures by blacks of white-owned
commercial farms that began in
2000. Those seizures disrupted agriculture in
a country once considered
southern Africa's bread basket, sparking official
inflation of 8,000 percent
and prompting citizens to flee.
Nyarota, in Little Rock to speak to
the Arkansas Committee on Foreign
Relations, said the West largely gave
Mugabe a pass when he first came to
power. However, the leader always had
"dictatorial tendencies" other nations
only realized when he began the land
seizures.
Changes to Zimbabwe's media, security and electoral laws —
negotiated in
talks between the ruling party and opposition aimed at ending
the nation's
political and economic crisis — were rushed through parliament
at the end of
2007. They became law Jan. 11.
Along with easing rules
on protests, the revised laws relax rules for
journalists to obtain
licenses, and set up a new licensing authority.
Independent media groups
say the real test will be if foreign journalists
receive visas and
accreditation to visit Zimbabwe for the elections. In the
recent past,
foreign journalists have routinely been denied visas and
accreditation.
Nyarota, who now lives in Boston, hopes to be able to
return to Zimbabwe one
day. However, he said freedom will continue to be
curtailed in Zimbabwe
until Mugabe leaves office or dies.
"You hear
people now say, 'We're putting our lives in the hand of God,'" he
said. "I
think that is wrong to expect democracy to come through divine
intervention."
The Telegraph
By David
Bond
Last Updated: 1:31am GMT 24/01/2008
The pressure is
growing on the Government to make a firm decision on whether
Zimbabwe's
cricketers will be granted entry to Britain for their tour of
England in the
summer of 2009.
Although the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, has made
the Government's
opposition to the series clear, the England and Wales
Cricket Board are
still being urged by ministers to seek a financial peace
deal with Zimbabwe
which would avert another diplomatic
crisis.
Zimbabwe are due to come to England next year to play two Test
matches and
three one-day internationals. Four years after the humiliating
farce of
England's one-day tour to Zimbabwe, both the ECB and the Government
are
determined to avoid another public relations victory for dictator Robert
Mugabe.
High-level talks between ministers and the ECB have been
under way for weeks
in the hope of finding an early solution.
The
fallout from another mishandling of the situation could be extremely
costly
for English cricket. The ECB not only face a possible £225,000 fine
from the
International Cricket Council for failing to meet their obligations
to the
Future Tours Programme, but they could be temporarily suspended from
the
international arena. With Australia due to tour England to defend the
Ashes
in the second half of the 2009 season, that is a risk the ECB cannot
afford
to take.
On top of that, the Zimbabwe Cricket Union are threatening to
demand that
England is stripped of its right to host the Twenty20 World Cup,
also in
2009. The financial implications of bungling the decision are
vast.
The ICC will be powerless to punish English cricket, however, if
Gordon
Brown's Government steps in and orders the tour to be called off.
Officials
are already looking at whether they can refuse entry visas for
Zimbabwe's
players. The approach is similar to the one used last year by the
Australian
Prime Minister at the time, John Howard, who prevented the
country's tour of
Zimbabwe by refusing to grant visas to Ricky Ponting's
side.
So far the British Government are stopping short of taking that
drastic
step. They are also waiting to see whether Mugabe's Zanu PF party is
toppled
in the March elections. Even if he is returned to power by a nation
facing
economic meltdown, there are hopes he could be replaced by a
challenger from
within his own party.
Ministers are worried that if
they act too soon they could spark a
retaliatory boycott of the London 2012
Olympics by Zimbabwe and its African
allies, especially South Africa. But
one senior African Olympic official
told Inside Sport that an Olympic
boycott had not even been discussed.
The Government is basing its stance
on the confusing principle that while it
is fine for Zimbabwe to send
athletes to Britain for the Olympics because it
is an international sports
event organised by the International Olympic
Committee, bilateral cricket
tours between England and Zimbabwe are
unacceptable.
To be fair to
the Government, they would not be able to stop Zimbabwean
athletes and
officials travelling here in 2012 even if they wanted to,
because they have
signed host city agreements with the IOC which guarantee
entry for anyone
accredited by the Olympic body.
Ministers would like the ECB to reach a
financial settlement with the ZCU to
stop the tour. But it is understood
that the ECB are unwilling to offer any
money to the ZCU. They deny reports
that they offered the ZCU £200,000 to
stay at home at a meeting in
Johannesburg before Christmas.
The ECB, in turn, would like the
Government to make a decision before March,
which would give them more than
enough time to arrange alternative
opponents. Bangladesh are the favourites
to be asked to step in.
Yesterday the ECB chairman, Giles Clarke, said he
was confident the
Government would not let them down.
"My impression
is that the Government will not leave this to the cricket
authorities and
that they will not issue visas to Zimbabwe when they come
here," Clarke
said.
However, the shadow sports and Olympics spokesman Hugh Robertson
said
ministers must make a clear decision now. "The Government has got to
stop
talking the talk and take some action," he said.