The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
MDC
MEDIA ADVISORY
·
MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai will launch the MDC’s
‘RESTART Programme’ at the Harare International Conference Centre on Thursday 29
January at 5.00pm.
·
RESTART
(Reconstruction, Stabilisation, Recovery and Transformation) is the MDC’s blueprint for equitable, inclusive and sustainable
economic development in
·
Tendai Biti (MDC Secretary for
Economic Affairs), Tapiwa Mashakada (MDC Shadow Finance
Minister) and Paul Themba Nyathi (MDC Secretary for
Information and Publicity) will all be available for interview
immediately after the launch.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For members of the press unable to
attend the launch, we have provided the contact numbers (see list below) of
those giving interviews, as well as the contact numbers of officials in the MDC
Information Department:
Tendai
Biti – 00263 11 602 401
Tapiwa
Mashakada – 00263 11 601
424
Paul
Themba Nyathi – 00263 91 291
727
MDC
Information Department
00263 91 248
570
00263 91 370
326
0027 727 310
554
END
Tsvangirai questioned about consultant
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai was grilled during
his trial on Monday on why his party
hired a Canadian political consultancy
to help promote its image when it had
already engaged a British firm to do
so. The state had queried why the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
engaged Dickens and Madison when BMSG of
Britain was already doing work for
it. Dickens and Madison of Canada is owned
by Ari Ben Menashe, the key state
witness in the case in which Tsvangirai is
charged with plotting to kill
President Robert Mugabe ahead of presidential
polls in March 2002, which the
opposition leader lost. Tsvangirai has denied
conspiring to assassinate
Mugabe, saying he believes the long-time leader has
to be involved in
efforts to end the southern African country's crises. If
convicted,
Tsvangirai (51) could face the death sentence. Tsvangirai insisted
in court
Monday that a $500 000 contract his party signed with Dickens and
Madison
was genuine, contrary to state evidence that it was meant to cover up
a plot
to kill Mugabe. "The contract was bona fide and genuine. We hired
Dickens
and Madison because we were convinced that, unlike BMSG, it had
intimate
knowledge of the Zimbabwean political scene and was widely known in
Canada
and the United States," he said.
The MDC said it had
enlisted the services of the Canadian firm to help
polish its image abroad
and raise funds for the election campaign in the
run-up to the 2002 election.
Asked during cross examination by state
prosecutor Bharat Patel why BMSG had
paid $50 000 to Dickens and Madison,
Tsvangirai said: "It's usual that big
companies can share work. I cannot
explain that". Zimbabwe plunged into its
worst political crisis since
independence from Britain in 1980 after the
presidential vote. The economy
is in a downward spiral, with inflation
hitting a record 620% in November,
amid rising levels of poverty and
unemployment approaching 80%. Talks
between the government and the MDC broke
down before they were able to gain
momentum in 2002 after Tsvangirai mounted
a court challenge against Mugabe's
election victory. The brokers of the
talks, presidents Thabo Mbeki of South
Africa and Olusegun Obasanjo of
Nigeria, last week hinted that formal talks
could be rescuscitated soon.
From ZWNEWS, 27 January
Still at large
In July last year, the
UN Peacekeeping mission in Kosovo announced that a
Zimbabwean police officer,
Henry Dowa, serving on secondment there, had been
withdrawn from public
duties. Allegations had been made that he had been
involved in torture
sessions in Harare. It is not certain precisely when
Dowa joined the UN
police force in Kosovo, but it appears to have been
around March 2003, as he
was still seen in Harare the month before. By May
2003 his presence in
Prizren, Kosovo was confirmed. By September, he had had
been returned to
Zimbabwe. The UN authorities in Kosovo, and the UN itself,
were reminded of
their responsibilities under international law by REDRESS,
an organisation
which seeks justice for the survivors of torture. In
particular, under the UN
Convention against Torture, it had a duty to
extradite and prosecute the
officer. The UN decided not to do so, citing a
lack of funds. By October, he
was back at work at Harare Central police
station: accused of preventing
lawyers from having access to their clients
in police custody, and ordering
savage beatings of detainees.
[I will obtain from ZWNEWS the REDRESS
report on how Henry Dowa escaped
justice....
it will be a Word doc
attachment. It should be available from this site tomorrow]
Comment from the Mail & Guardian (SA), 26 January
The renaissance of jungle stew
John Matshikiza
But to resume. Yes, Harare has
become a shadow of its former self. I don’t
know how important this is to our
leadership, who enjoyed some of its
splendours in exiled times gone by, and
now seem to find nothing wrong with
the desolation that it has become. But
this is an election year - just as it
is in the United States. Grand gestures
must be made. Flesh must not just be
pressed, but be seen to be pressed. A
hug and a grin for President Robert
Mugabe, doves of peace and battleships in
the chaos of Haiti, and a pat on
the back for President Joseph Kabila,
unelected leader of the vast, hungry,
debatable entity called the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Africa’s irregular
heartbeat, the eternal question mark
over the whole post-colonial agenda.
What has it all come to? Why are we not
being told?
But to return to the striking, unforgettable images of
Harare. So many
things stand out. I am sitting with friends of old on the
veranda of their
picturesque house, my home-from-home, always the same,
always welcoming,
always perched just above the impending mudslide of the
beautiful,
treacherous savannah. Always there. "Where else would we be able
to have a
lifestyle like this?" they say to me, as we all stare out into the
beautiful
gloom and listen for the sounds of an incipient revolution that
will never
come out of the night. The subtext is that we are all strangers,
interlopers
here. What right do we have to be here? But, heck, here we are.
It is
daylight now. We jump into the car, making the unnatural assumption
that
there is still petrol in it. The Libyans have lost patience with
this
revolution that never comes, and have pulled out their oil pipelines
and
gone on to look for greener pastures in the north. (These used to be
very
green pastures, by the way. But I digress.) But amazingly,
surprisingly,
petrol there is, the gas tank is tanked up, and so we drive
into the
remnants of the town that we were not involved in building, but now
have
every intention of owning, possessing, inhabiting, using up in any way
that
we like and generally controlling at the behest of our fickle whims.
We
drive, in a word, into Harare.
It’s a funny feeling. Something
is wrong. There is hardly any traffic on the
roads. But then again, what
right do we have to expect traffic: cars, buses,
motorbikes, kwela-kwela
wagons loaded up with all the usual suspects and
trucks (apart from various
prangs that one sees, including a juggernaut that
had fallen over on its side
while trying to negotiate a perfectly simple,
right-handed corner and spilled
its load of precious bags of mealie meal on
to the unsuspecting sidewalk- and
nobody had tried to loot it for a whole
two days)? Why shouldn’t the African
bush be simply allowed to take over
again, without our ludicrous expectations
of righteousness, good governance,
automatic wealth and empowerment? What
right do we have to expect Harare to
look like it did in the good old
colonial days? Why, in fact, should the
grass still be green and the
jacaranda trees still have dizzy, foreign,
purple buds like they did before?
What business is it of ours?
And so we drive on into the deserted
town. We get stuck at a significant
crossroads where there is, for once, some
traffic blocking our progress as
we try to make a right turn towards the
central business district (which is
where they formerly did business). We get
stuck for an indefinite period of
time because the robots are not working.
Actually, I exaggerate. The robots
are not working because there are no
robots there at all. The tall, yellow
metal stalks that used to hold the
robots in place are bent at a peculiar
angle, and the red, amber and green
lenses that used to control the
intersection like cruel, silent policemen
have long since disappeared. There
is no longer any kind of long-distance
regulation from an unseen point in
the depleted city that tells drivers when
to go, when to stop, or when to
just get ready to do one of the
above.
No more robots. I swing my head towards my friend behind the
wheel with an
unasked question. "The discos," he says, without waiting for me
to
articulate my unspoken thought. "What discos?" I say. "Managers from
the
discotheques come out in the middle of the night and steal the lights in
the
robots so that they can have coloured lights in the discos." "Oh." And
there
you have it. The jungle has taken over, you see. What right, indeed, do
we
have to expect working traffic lights at critical traffic intersections
when
people want to go to discotheques at night? When there is no further
rule of
law, in the accepted, biblical, colonial sense, why should we still
expect
the former things to function as they functioned before? Who are we
to
question Uncle Bob’s infinite wisdom in allowing the whole thing to
simply
degenerate into its own chaos, chaos that makes more sense, in the
African
sense, than all this Europeanised nonsense that we don’t seem to be
able to
eject out of our heads? The idea that there are still discos in
Harare, and
that there are still people who are able to get to them, hardly
comes into
the equation. In the scheme of things, nothing is working, but
everything
still works. You have to try and see things from the other
guy’s
perspective. What looks like total collapse in Western eyes might be
an
extraordinary renaissance from the other point of view. Or at least I
hope
that is how our president is seeing it. Bite the bullet. Press the
flesh.
You just never know.
EU Observer
EU set to renew Zimbabwe sanctions
EUOBSERVER /
BRUSSELS - EU foreign ministers are poised to extend sanctions
against
Zimbabwe next month, the EUobserver has learned.
Foreign ministers, due
to meet in Brussels on 23 February will approve the
renewal of the targeted
sanctions on leaders of Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF
party, diplomats have
confirmed.
The measures, which were put in place in 2002, restrict the
travel of 72
government officials and people close to them, in retaliation
for human
rights abuses in the country.
However the extension of
sanctions last year was complicated by a French
request that the Zimbabwean
ruler, Robert Mugabe be allowed to visit Paris
for a Franco-African
summit.
For almost a month Paris refused to renew the sanctions, calling
for Mr
Mugabe to be granted a waiver.
The waiver was eventually
granted, but only after causing a significant
diplomatic disagreement between
France and the UK.
"We don't expect any of the hassle that we had last
time around", one
Commission official said.
Confirming that Paris will
back the extension of sanctions this time round,
a spokesman for the French
foreign ministry told this news site, "We are in
favour of the [Irish]
presidency's proposal".
The measures are expected to be extended for a
period of one year.
Expand and extend?
However no agreement has yet
been reached on widening the scope of
sanctions.
"That is something
that is being discussed in Paris and with partners", the
French spokesman
said.
However one British official said that "certain people are working
on
whether the list is still up to date", adding also that "the focus of
them
is being discussed".
The deputy leader of the Zimbabwean
opposition Gibson Sibanda, on a visit to
Brussels today (27 January), backed
calls for the sanctions to be expanded.
"The sanctions should be expanded
to cover these people who are economic
pillars of the regime", said Mr
Sibanda adding, "the international community
needs to put more pressure on
[Mr] Mugabe to come to the negotiating table".
Mr Sibanda however said
that the sanctions should not be imposed without
being accompanied by a "a
promise to lift them at a particular stage of
negotiations".
However
the Zimbabwean Ambassador to Brussels, Gift Punungwe, rejected the
sanctions
saying they placed "a stranglehold" on the country's economy, also
accusing
outsiders of meddling in internal affairs.
"Outside is where the agenda
of the country is being determined", he said.
IOL
Mugabe: I was in SA for a wedding
January 27 2004 at 02:45PM
By Reuters
Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on
Tuesday he visited
South Africa at the weekend for a family function and not
to get medical
treatment as reported by media there.
The
Zimbabwean government has denied reports by South African
newspapers quoting
unnamed sources saying the veteran leader, who turns 80
next month, had been
to South Africa for medical treatment.
In remarks broadcast on
Zimbabwean state television on Tuesday, a
jovial Mugabe said he had gone to
participate in a traditional marriage
ceremony for his nephew, whose family
settled in South Africa decades ago.
"I am very strong, very fit
and I thank God. I have my own doctors
here in Zimbabwe that I move with, but
South Africa, I have never been there
for treatment," he said.
Some newspapers had also speculated his visit could be linked to
statements
by the leaders of South Africa and Nigeria last week that he had
agreed to
begin formal talks with the opposition to help resolve the
political and
economic crises afflicting Zimbabwe.
Mugabe's Zanu-PF walked out of
talks with the main opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) in 2002
after it went to court to challenge
Mugabe's re-election in a poll several
international observers said was
rigged.
Mugabe insists he won
the election fairly.
Rumours swirled last October too that Mugabe
had been secretly flown
to South Africa for medical treatment, but officials
denied the reports and
the Zimbabwean leader appeared on state television
soon afterwards looking
well.
Sunday Times (SA)
Zimbabwe judge 'fast-tracks' Daily News
bid
Tuesday January 27, 2004 14:48 - (SA)
Zimbabwe's chief
justice, Godfrey Chidyausiku, has "fast-tracked" an
application by the
state's media watchdog for the independent Daily News to
be shut down until
the courts hear a comprehensive appeal over the legality
of official press
controls, lawyers said.
Gugulethu Moyo, legal adviser to Associated
Newspapers of Zimbabwe which
owns the Daily News, said Chidyausiku, widely
seen as a government
supporter, had decided to hear an "urgent application"
from the
government-appointed Media and Information Commission in his
chambers.
The commission is asking Chidyausiku to bar the Daily News from
publishing
until the court hears the commission's appeal against a high court
ruling in
October that dissolved the commission on the grounds that it was
"biased"
and "improperly constituted."
The high court ruling was a
successful appeal against the commission's
banning in September of the Daily
News, the country's only critical daily
voice and the largest circulation
daily newspaper.
The high court ordered that the commission be
reconstituted and then issue
the Daily News with a licence
to
publish.
However, the government filed an appeal against the court
orders and went on
to ignore three more court rulings to lift the ban on the
newspaper, sending
heavily armed police to occupy the newspaper's offices and
its printing
presses.
Only on Wednesday last week did police comply
with a third court ruling that
directly ordered them and the media commission
not to interfere with the
newspaper.
The commission immediately filed
its latest application with the supreme
court, while the information
department in President Robert Mugabe's office
filed another with the high
court here.
It took the commission's application four working days to be
granted a
hearing, Moyo said. "How many other matters have still not been
heard by the
supreme court, some of them that have been waiting for over two
years?"
asked Moyo.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change and
civil rights organisations
accuse the supreme court, dominated by pro-Mugabe
judges, of dragging its
feet in cases that could go against the
government.
Chidyausiku's court has been sitting on appeals against MDC
victories in
parliamentary elections in 2000. It has also failed to hear
critical
constitutional cases, including appeals against the "Access to
Information
and Protection of Privacy Act," the state's new press-gag laws,
since
shortly after they were passed in early
2002.
"Here you have
a situation where closing a newspaper is a matter of such
importance that the
government can rush to the supreme court and get a
hearing as a matter of
urgency," Moyo said.
"I have never seen any case fast-tracked in the
courts so quickly. It is
incredible."
The government's application to
the high court was due to be heard on
Wednesday or Thursday, said
Moyo.
"There is no need for the chief justice to hear this case in his
court now.
The supreme court is obliged to hear appeals or constitutional
cases. This
is neither. The supreme court should chuck it out if they want to
do
justice."
The Daily News has been a major thorn in Mugabe's side
since it began
publishing in March 1999, and won over a million readers with
its outspoken
criticism of the regime.
The newspaper has been bombed
twice, and had dozens of its staff, including
editors, journalists and even
vendors, arrested, tortured and harassed.
The newspaper reported that
charges of attempted murder had been dropped
against the state-controlled
television service's chief corespondent, Reuben
Barwe, nicknamed "Zimbabwe's
Lord Haw-Haw" after the infamous Nazi
broadcaster during World War
II.
Barwe was charged for opening fire on a member of Mugabe's war
veteran
militia who attacked Barwe when the broadcaster tried to take over a
former
white-owned farm occupied by a group of veterans.
The war
veteran had decided he no longer wanted to press the case against
Barwe, the
Daily News reported.
Sapa
News24
Zim's Daily News gets reprieve
27/01/2004 20:25 -
(SA)
Harare - The Daily News, Zimbabwe's lone independent daily
newspaper, on
Tuesday won a stay of execution in its battle to continue
publishing.
The country's most senior judge postponed a bid by state
lawyers to have the
newspaper closed until the Supreme Court had decided on
an array of law
suits involving the paper.
Chief justice Godfrey
Chidyausiku told lawyers from the state and Associated
Newspapers of Zimbabwe
(ANZ), which owns the newspaper: "It's so untidy to
deal with these matters
piecemeal".
He ordered the lawyers to consult each other to consolidate a
confusing
range of cases.
The judge also ordered that they seek a
court date for Tuesday next week
when the Supreme Court is due to hear ANZ's
constitutional challenge to
press gag laws passed in March 2002. These had
been used to arrests scores
of journalists and to ban the Daily News in
September last year.
Earlier, in the court, government and ANZ lawyers
had argued over three
court orders, granted since September, that revoked the
banning order by the
state-appointed media commission and the series of
appeals filed against the
orders by the government.
All the orders
were ignored by authorities who kept heavily armed police in
illegal
occupation of the newspaper's offices and printing rooms, until
Wednesday
last week when a fourth court order was finally obeyed.
The first court
order came a month after the banning when a judge ruled that
the media
commission, which can stop journalists and newspapers from
operating by
refusing to issue them with press licences, was "biased" when
it banned the
gutsy tabloid. The order also said the commission had been
"improperly
constituted".
Chidyausiku told State advocate Johannes Tomana his
argument was an attempt
by the media commission to have the newspaper closed
"through the back
door".
The Daily News has been a major thorn in
President Robert Mugabe's side
since it began publishing in March 1999,
winning a million readers with its
outspoken criticism of Mugabe's government
and exposure of the state's
violent repression of opponents.
The
newspaper had been bombed twice and had dozens of its staff -
editors,
journalists and even vendors - arrested, tortured and harassed.
CNN
Tsvangirai denies plotting assassination
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Posted: 2:00 PM EST (1900 GMT)
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai told a court
hearing Tuesday that a Canada-based
political consultant had tried to
convince him of the need to assassinate
Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, but
denied he had in any way agreed to such
a plot.
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, is
charged with
plotting to assassinate Mugabe in a case that carries the death
penalty if
he is convicted.
The charges hinge on a grainy and barely
audible 4 1/2-hour video, secretly
recorded in 2001 at consultant Ari Ben
Menashe's Montreal offices, in which
Tsvangirai is accused of calling for
Mugabe's "elimination."
Under cross examination in his long running
trial, Tsvangirai said Ben
Menashe spoke of the elimination of Mugabe by
"sinister" means that could
cause the leader harm.
"I was really
upset. The meeting was getting so tense. Mr. Ben Menashe was
pushing this
agenda. It was my feeling that there was a sinister meaning,"
Tsvangirai told
Judge Paddington Garwe.
The early part of the meeting on December 4 in
2001 focused on Mugabe's
exclusion from presidential elections in 2002
through a retirement deal or
his possible defeat at the polls, Tsvangirai
said.
Ben Menashe had promised to lobby for international support for a
new
government.
Tsvangirai said Ben Menashe then changed track,
calling for the physical
removal of Mugabe, and demanded his
response.
Cross examined by state attorney Bharat Patel, Tsvangirai said
it was clear
Ben Menashe was proposing the violent removal of
Mugabe.
Patel asked: "The sinister removal of President Mugabe was on the
table. Did
you think about it?"
"Yes," replied Tsvangirai.
But
he said he did not think Mugabe's murder was an option to remove him
from
office. "I discussed the principle of Mugabe going, not the
method,"
Tsvangirai said.
Tsvangirai was charged two weeks before he
ran against Mugabe in 2002
presidential elections. Mugabe narrowly won
re-election in the vote, which
independent observers said was swayed by
intimidation and vote rigging.
Defense attorneys argue Tsvangirai, who is
free on bail, was entrapped by
Ben Menashe who already was working as a
consultant for the Zimbabwe
government when the secret video was
recorded.
Ben Menashe, who claims to be a former Israeli intelligence
agent, was
acquitted by a U.S. federal jury in 1990 of illegally arranging a
$36
million deal to sell U.S.-made military cargo planes to Iran in exchange
for
the release of four American hostages.
Israel denies he did
intelligence work for the country but says he served
briefly as a junior
clerk in its civil service.
Ben Menashe visited Zimbabwe last week to
offer to sell the government oil
from Azerbaijan, government officials
confirmed. Zimbabwe is suffering acute
gasoline shortages.
Low-Income Earners to Get Free Stands
The Herald
(Harare)
January 27, 2004
Posted to the web January 27,
2004
Harare
LOW-INCOME earners will soon get free land for
residential stands, while a
Housing and Infrastructure Bank will be
established to support the
production of building materials.
The new
move is part of a Government programme to acquire land, plan and
allocate it
to homeseekers based on socio-economic groupings.
The Minister of Local
Government, Public Works and National Housing Cde
Ignatius Chombo said a
circular stipulating the maximum residential stand
sizes would soon be issued
to all stakeholders.
Under the new rules, no residential stands allocated
by governmental
agencies would exceed 2 000 square metres.
Cde Chombo
said middle-income homeseekers would be offered a 60 percent
discount for the
land on open market values.
He said this last week at Rukanda
Resettlement Scheme near Mutoko Growth
Point after inspecting a low cost
rammed-earth and micro-concrete roof-tiled
house.
"In this connection,
the minimum stand sizes for housing development will
range for low, medium
and high-income households from 65, 300 and 800 square
metres respectively,"
he said.
High-income groups would be charged market values for the
residential
stands.
The gazetted minimum wage is around $47 000 a
month with many Zimbabwean
workers classified as being in the low and
medium-income groups.
The Government widened the tax income bands and
increased the income tax
threshold from $180 000 a year to $2,4 million a
year in this year's
national budget.
The high-income group is composed
of top company executives who are
reportedly earning around $30 million a
month.
Cde Chombo said the Housing and Infrastructure Bank would
support
beneficiaries of the housing delivery programme.
"Apart from
extending infrastructure and housing development to local
authorities, land
and housing developers and individual beneficiaries of the
housing delivery
programme, the bank will also support entities involved in
the production of
appropriate building materials," he said.
Building Material Production
Units, Cde Chombo said, were being established
in all districts to produce
building materials.
He commended the Scientific and Industrial Research
and Development Centre
(SIRDC) for coming up with cheaper ways of building
houses.
The two bed-roomed rammed earth and micro-concrete roof-tiled
house was
built at a cost of nearly $18 million, almost half the price of
building a
similar house using conventional materials.
Cde Chombo said
another circular would be issued specifying additional
materials and building
technologies to be used in the construction of
houses.
The materials
would include rammed-earth technology, micro-concrete roof
tiles,
standardised farm bricks and timber framed housing.
"Our standard
bearers, including our planners and designers of the building
environment,
local authorities and insurance companies have remained
prisoners of
classical designs and building technology, which are invariably
steeped in
our history of colonialism," said Cde Chombo.
"Government is directing
all local authorities to take heed of the new
planning and building standards
regime I have pronounced and adopt a
facilitative approach to plan management
if we are to achieve the objectives
of our National Housing Development
Programme."
The Government recently launched the National Housing
Development Programme
to acquire at least 310 406 hectares of peri-urban land
for housing.
The move was expected to help clear the housing backlog of
around one
million within the next five years.
The Minister of State
for Science and Technology Dr Olivia Muchena urged
local authorities to be
proactive to benefit from low cost housing
technologies.
"My
department is establishing an award for the adoption, use
and
commercialisation of the rammed earth and micro-concrete roof
technologies
specifically target at local authorities," she said.
The
rammed earth house was built for teachers at a proposed site for a
new
secondary school at Rukanda Resettlement Scheme.
There were plans
for all structures at the new school to be built using
rammed earth and
micro-concrete roof tiles.
The school would be built by selected youths
from all provinces as part of a
training of trainers programmes to spread the
technology.
President Invited to Summit
The Herald (Harare)
January
27, 2004
Posted to the web January 27, 2004
Harare
PRESIDENT
Mugabe was yesterday invited by his Libyan counterpart to attend
an
extra-ordinary African Union summit in that country next month.
Libyan
African Union Affairs Minister Mr Mokhtar Gannas who delivered the
special
message at Zimbabwe House said it was from his counterpart Colonel
Muammar
Gaddafi.
"I have delivered a special message from President Gaddafi
inviting
President Mugabe to attend the extra-ordinary summit that is
scheduled to
take place on February 27 and 28," he said.
Mr Gannas
said the summit was expected to deliberate on a number of issues
which
included agriculture, water, defence and security. From Zimbabwe, he
will
travel to Mozambique, which is the current chair of the AU.
Zimbabwe last
week became the latest AU member to ratify the protocol
establishing Peace
and Security Council to end conflicts that ravage the
continent.
At
least 17 countries have so far ratified the protocol out of a required
simple
majority of 27.
In addition to the AU Peace and Security Council, there
would also be a Pan
African Parliament, a Common Court of Justice and
eventually a common
currency.
Zimbabwe has already seconded five MPs
to the Pan African Parliament.
The Peace and Security Council and the Pan
African Parliament were expected
to give the union more political clout, more
unity and a forum to solve
regional problems such as conflicts.
The
53-member AU last year succeeded the Organisation of African Unity which
was
criticised during its 39 years of existence for being powerless in
resolving
Africa's several conflicts.
Government Descends On Defiant Schools
The Herald
(Harare)
January 27, 2004
Posted to the web January 27,
2004
Harare
GOVERNMENT yesterday descended on schools that have
illegally increased
their fees and levies and four schools were visited as
the crackdown
started.
Although the Secretary for Education, Sport and
Culture, Dr Thompson Tsodzo,
would not disclose the names of the schools, it
is understood that Prince
Edward Boys High School is one of them.
Dr
Tsodzo only said a team tasked by the ministry had identified
several
schools, both primary and secondary, flouting its directive not to
increase
fees and levies without its approval.
"As a result we are
beginning to act. We are taking this very seriously as
shall be seen by the
way we deal with those caught on the wrong side of the
fence," he
said.
"We can even close a school down if it continues flouting our
directives."
While acknowledging that there were private schools in the
country, Dr
Tsodzo said they were also subject to the Education
Act.
"Both Government and non-government schools are our responsibility
at the
end of the day and as such, no one is above the law," he
said.
Private schools lead the pack when it comes to charging exorbitant
fees and
levies with some demanding as much as $7 million per term.
Dr
Tsodzo also lashed out at parents saying they were "selling out" by
paying
whatever was demanded by these schools.
"They continue to pay these fees
yet on the other hand they will be
complaining that we issue empty threats
without doing anything.
"We should work together if we want to win this
battle," he said.
Dr Tsodzo said parents should only pay increased fees
and levies after
having sight of written approval from the ministry failure
of which they
should revert to last term's fees.
"If their children
face any problems as a result they should report to us
and we will take
appropriate measures."
School Development Associations and Parents,
Teachers Associations,
responsible for new fees structures in most schools
also came under fire for
imposing fees.
Reuters
27 Jan 2004
Aid agencies fear Zimbabwe food crisis
worsening
By Tom
Thabani
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
HARARE
(AlertNet) – International aid agencies fear Zimbabwe’s food crisis,
already
afflicting half the population, could be worsening due to economic
collapse
and are urging the government to release food stocks to ease the
severe
shortages.
The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) and other relief agencies
say they have
indications that more Zimbabweans now need food aid than the
5.5 million
people -- 50 percent of the population – initially forecast by a
U.N. study
in mid-2003.
“This figure may have increased if one
considers the food price shocks that
we have experienced since last year’s
harvest,” said Makena Walker, a senior
WFP official in Harare, referring to
Zimbabwe’s galloping inflation, now
estimated at 600 percent.
Walker
said the price of a 50 kg (110 lb) bag of staple maize sold by
the
government-run Grain Marketing Board (GMB), which has a monopoly on
maize
and wheat trade, had risen to more than Z$8,500 ($11) from Z$580 (62
cents)
a year ago.
“Since GMB supplies are inadequate, many people
have to source their maize
from the parallel market, where prices are double
those of the GMB,” she
told AlertNet.
“It is therefore fair to assume
that a large number of people who could feed
themselves from GMB supplies
last year can no longer afford to do so. The
effects of inflation have been
devastating to low and even middle-income
earners in the past
year.”
Walker added that WFP food aid was only targeted at the most
vulnerable
households, including families without income, people suffering
from
terminal diseases such as HIV/AIDS or the elderly and
disabled.
“When one takes into effect the number of people rendered
unemployed in the
current economy, those who fall under the WFP category (of
being helped)
naturally increase,” she said.
Independent estimates put
unemployment in the formal sector at more than 70
percent.
PEOPLE MORE
VULNERABLE
Walker’s comments were echoed by NGOs, which are forecast to
have
distributed about 346,000 tonnes of international food aid to
Zimbabweans,
mostly in rural areas, between mid-2003 and Zimbabwe’s next
harvest in
April/May.
The international food aid cost $197 million,
and WFP officials say they
have received between 80 and 85 percent of
pledges.
“The economic decline that Zimbabwe is experiencing has
increased the
vulnerability of the population,” said Jean-Claude Mukadi,
relief director
of World Vision International. “The number of people in need
of assistance
is increasing, particularly in urban areas.”
World
Vision statistics project an increase in the number of people needing
food
aid in areas where it is distributing maize in the coming months before
the
harvest.
In January, the agency fed a total of 824,000 people in
Zimbabwe’s five
provinces, but the figure is seen creeping up to more than
one million in
February.
WFP statistics also see a sustained monthly
increase in food aid
beneficiaries as Zimbabwe enters what one official
described as “the next
critical three-month phase” when most locally grown
food is expected to have
dried up.
“I would say that the work of
humanitarian organizations has averted a human
catastrophe in Zimbabwe and we
are still not yet out of the danger,” Mukadi
said.
Aid agencies
declined to give their own estimates of how many Zimbabweans
could now be
threatened by starvation ahead of a report by the Zimbabwe
Vulnerability
Assessment Committee, comprised of government and agency
food
experts.
The report is due in coming weeks, while a new U.N.
survey on Zimbabwe’s
food aid is expected in the spring.
'RELEASE
GRAIN STOCKS'
Zimbabwe, once a food exporter to its poorer neighbours,
has been plunged
into economic crisis by the controversial policies of
President Robert
Mugabe, not least his decision in 2000 to seize productive
commercial
farmland from minority whites.
Commercial agriculture,
Zimbabwe’s lifeblood, has ground to a halt as a
result of Mugabe’s land
reforms, which the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) and human
rights groups say are aimed at buying
political support in the face of
popular opposition.
Although no accurate official figures exist on the
death toll from the food
crisis that started more than two years ago on the
back of a severe drought,
churches in Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo and
the city council there
have said that more than 100 people have
died.
In the face of concerns that hunger might be spreading, the WFP and
NGOs are
urging the government to urgently release an estimated 240,000
tonnes of
maize stocks that government media say is being held by the GMB
from last
season’s harvest.
“We have made a request to the government
to release the food into the
market,” Kevin Farrell, WFP’s country director
for Zimbabwe, told a news
briefing in Johannesburg last week.
A WFP
official in Harare said it was the responsibility of the Zimbabwe
government
to feed its own people, “and so we expect the government to
release this
maize onto the market”.
The government, which faces a general election
next year, has not yet
responded. But official sources say it intends to
release the maize as soon
as possible.
“We have no intention of
holding onto these stocks when people need food,”
one source told AlertNet,
rejecting charges by critics that Mugabe plans to
use the food as a weapon
during the 2005 parliamentary elections.
Opposition and human rights
groups have in the past accused the government
of giving or selling maize
only to its supporters, charges the government
has refuted.
RATIONS TO
BE RESTORED
Zimbabwe’s Daily News, the country’s only privately owned
daily, has also
weighed into the food crisis saga. The paper had been banned
in September
2003 for operating without a licensing, but resurfaced in
late-January
pending a court decision on its future.
“Whatever the
reason for the government delaying to release the maize, it is
simply
indefensible that innocent children, widows and HIV/AIDS patients
continue to
go hungry while government fat cats sit on such maize,” the
paper said in an
editorial.
But it is not all bad news for Zimbabwe’s starving.
The
WFP’s Walker said her agency, which last December halved maize rations
to the
hungry to 5 kg (11 lb) of maize per person a month because of
concerns the
food aid would run out before the next harvest, planned to
restore the
rations next month.
“We will be restoring the rations because we have
just received a pledge of
30,000 tonnes of corn from the U.S. government and
because of another food
pledge of Z$25 million ($31,000) made by the European
Union,” she said.
“One could say that, once the pledged amounts of food
arrive in the country
next month, we should have adequate reserves to take
us, at least, up to
April/May. There is no doubt we need more food.”
Museveni Now Tells Off Donors
The Monitor
(Kampala)
January 27, 2004
Posted to the web January 27,
2004
Badru D. Mulumba & Emmanuel Mugarura
Kololo
President
Museveni was in a combative mood yesterday as he celebrated 18
years in
power.
Speaking during the national celebrations at Kololo Airstrip, Mr
Museveni
asked donors to keep off the internal affairs of the
country.
"These fellows dispense and disperse opinion about everybody and
everything
in Africa," he said.
"If foreign dominance and dependence
could develop a country, then black
Africa would be one of the most developed
continents on earth," Museveni
said.
Several donor countries have
publicly encouraged Museveni to leave office at
the end of his term in
2006.
In a recent television interview, the US government's acting
Assistant
Secretary of State for African Affairs, Mr Charles Snyder, said
his
government was talking to Museveni to persuade him to
leave.
Museveni is constitutionally ineligible for another term in office
and has
not publicly said he will seek one.
However, a Cabinet
proposal to lift the two five-year term constitutional
limit would allow him
to stand again - and Museveni said yesterday that he
would not listen to
donor advice on electoral matters in Uganda.
He said the National
Resistance Movement revolution brought about the
concept of "one person, one
vote at a particular time. We know how to solve
our issues."
The
President also said he is not happy with the public criticism or advice
from
the donors.
"If there is an exchange of views, it should be done
discreetly without any
show of arrogance," he said, drawing applause from the
VIP tent in which sat
senior government officials as well as the vice
president of Kenya, Mr Moody
Awori, and that of North Korea, Mr Hyong
Sob.
"We don't want that touristic expertise," he said. "Someone comes
here and
after two days he calls himself an expert on Ugandan affairs. We
shall not
accept it."
No 3rd term crisis
Despite public concern
about his reluctance to state whether he will step
down at the end of the
current term, the President said there is no
political crisis in the
country.
He said the 1995 Constitution says that any matter of national
interest
shall be resolved by the people.
"The people of Uganda should
therefore [shun] those alarmists," he said.
Having discounted the advice
of donors, Museveni said Uganda's problems
would be solved by home-grown
solutions.
He cited fighting Idi Amin and HIV/Aids, as well as the
economic recovery as
examples of locally driven success stories.
"Some
people immediately started working with Idi Amin. Nobody asked us to
fight
him but we went ahead against their will. Eventually we got rid of Idi
Amin;
where would we be if we had followed their advice?" he asked.
The
President also defended Uganda's military engagement in the DR Congo and
said
it had saved the region from chaos.
"But the way we are maligned, 'that
Uganda is in Congo because of
diamonds'some of these foreigners don't realise
that black people have a
conscience, a vision, ideas; why?
"They
think: why is Uganda in the Congo? They are there to steal.
"How can you
have a partnership with such arrogant and self egocentrism?"
He advised
donor countries to open up their markets to African products and
stop
"sermonising".
Fighting corruption
Museveni also rejected donor
advice on fighting corruption.
"I am given sermons on how to fight
corruption," he said yesterday, "but I
know how to fight
corruption."
He defended the practice of shooting poachers in the game
parks and robbers
elsewhere on the spot.
"I don't hear these experts
on corruption and community talking about that.
I don't hear them," he
said.
The President said "small paymasters" are behind the corruption in
the army
and ruled out granting an amnesty to rebel leader Joseph Kony at the
end of
the current offer.
"I don't want to hear of calls for a
ceasefire until the bandits are located
in one area," Museveni
said.
Defending Mugabe
Museveni also used his speech to defend
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe -
and attack some donor countries for
their double standards over the weapons
of mass destruction.
"Why
don't all countries stop these weapons?" he posed, in reference to the
WMDs,
and "not to say, 'you, don't have them; I would have them'."
Speaking of
his Zimbabwean counterpart, Museveni said: "I disagreed with
Mugabe on Congo.
His army was fighting on the other side, ours on another.
And sometimes Mr
Mugabe made unfair accusations. He was calling us names."
However,
Museveni defended Mugabe against allegations of electoral
malpractice and
said regional countries should be left to address the
matter.
"The
problem is that Mugabe didn't lose as some people would have wanted him
to
lose," Museveni said.
"If you don't lose as somebody wants you to lose,
that is an offence."