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• Mugabe will step down this year: report
• Hawala agents used diplomat as courier, get three years’ RI
• Witnesses in treason trial 'untruthful'
• Mbeki briefs Blair on need for action to uplift Africa
• China, Zimbabwe Sign Technological Cooperation Agreement
• South African church officials hope Bush's trip leads to action
• Mugabe rewarded
• Dualisation of Trunk Roads Applauded

South African President Thabo Mbeki has told US President George W Bush that
Robert Mugabe will step down as leader of Zimbabwe's ruling party by
December, Britain's Independent newspaper reported today.

Such a move would pave the way for Mugabe's exit as Zimbabwe's president and
new elections by June 2004, the daily said, without citing its sources.

It added that Mbeki's assurance to Bush that Mugabe will stand aside is
believed to be based on a personal promise extracted from the Zimbabwean
leader.

The Independent also said Bush had pledged a reconstruction package for
Zimbabwe worth up to $US10 billion ($A15.2 billion) over an unspecified
timeframe, if a new leader takes over.

The deal was discussed by the two leaders during a private meeting in
Pretoria last week, the paper said in a report by its Southern Africa
correspondent, Basildon Peta, who added that important differences remained.

Washington is anxious to make the money conditional on the emergence of a
new leader chosen by the Zimbabwe people in an election rather than an
anointed successor from the ranks of the ruling Zanu PF party.

Mbeki by contrast, is not a supporter of the main opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), and is open to a successor emerging from the ruling
party, the Independent said.

Bush has called for Mugabe to step down, but Mbeki has publicly declined to
toe the tough US line on Zimbabwe since a political and social maelstrom
enveloped Zimbabwe following a presidential election last year condemned by
the west as rigged.

AFP

Mugabe rewarded

    On the heels of President Bush's visit, African leaders rewarded
Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe with a senior position in the African Union over
the weekend - a move that tacitly condones his tyrannical actions and could
undermine foreign aid efforts in Africa.
    Once a popular leader, Mr. Mugabe is suspected of rigging Zimbabwe's
2002 elections, and he enforces a ruinous land-reform policy that has caused
agricultural production to come to a virtual halt. About half of Zimbabwe's
11 million people are now dependent on food aid, causing food shortages
throughout southern Africa. Government dissenters are regularly jailed and
tortured. Soaring inflation and epidemic joblessness have made the country
unlivable.
    Yet, African heads of state gathered last weekend in Maputo, Mozambique,
for the annual meeting of the African Union made Mr. Mugabe deputy chairman
of the organization, which was formed to promote good governance. The
leaders failed to put the glaring crisis in Zimbabwe on the agenda for
discussion. Also, only 14 out of the union's 52 members-state legislatures
had approved a Peace and Security Council, which would eventually establish
a standby military force to intervene in cases of genocide or crimes against
humanity. The support of 26 members was needed to establish the council.
    These developments spell bad news for Africans. As African leaders said
numerous times during Mr. Bush's recent trip, the future of Africa can only
be stewarded by Africans. There is little the United States and other
countries can do without strong African resolve to consistently uphold basic
democratic and humanitarian principles.
     Sadly, Mr. Bush was unable to convince African leaders of the
much-needed policy change during his tour. Mr. Bush has been eager to show
America's firm willingness to help Africa. He has doubled the amount of
foreign aid African countries can potentially have access to and called for
$15 billion to fight aids globally. America must continue its diplomatic
efforts to expose the wrongs in Zimbabwe and elsewhere.
     South Africa, because of its considerable clout in the region,
shoulders most of the blame for the apathy toward Zimbabwe, whose internal
crisis is causing regional problems. If the region's leader fails to act,
the Bush administration should adjust its own policy accordingly.

The Herald (Harare)

July 14, 2003
Posted to the web July 14, 2003

George Maponga
Harare

A BUS collides head-on with a haulage truck, killing 37 people and with
tears still cascading down the nation's cheeks, a minibus kills 11 people
along the Chivi-Gweru highway, hardly 24 hours later.

Hunger-stricken baboons brandishing black soot on their bodies wander around
the accident scene, scavenging for food from the rubble - a mixture of
charred pieces of human flesh and burnt-out maize grain.

Obviously ignorant of the tragedy that befell humanity when gallant
educationists from Masvingo Teachers' College perished, the baboons feed on
burnt out maize and edible remnants of the bus crash.

At the end of the day, the baboons leave behind their legacy of trademark
land excavations, waiting to pounce on yet another accident in the not so
distant future.

This is a common occurrence for troops of baboons and monkeys along the
highways, where arrays of accidents have claimed an average of two lives per
day in the past year.

Zimbabwe's narrow national highways have become death traps and the
Government's move to dualise them will certainly bolster safety and reduce
carnage.

On June 9 2002, Masvingo in particular and the nation at large, held their
breath for a moment as the news that 37 people had died in a road accident
along the Harare-Masvingo road, wafted across in a mixture of whispers and
loud cries.

Hardly 24 hours later, another tragedy struck Masvingo province again, when
a Gweru-bound commuter omnibus veered off the road and plunged into a stream
after hitting a dead donkey killing 11 people on board.

It is a shocking statistic that 48 lives had been lost within 24 hours - an
average of two lives per hour.

Six months down the line, a Tenda bus rammed into the side of a haulage
truck as it tried to overtake, killing seven people instantly, along the
Masvingo-Mashava road. Masvingo again.

Tragedy after tragedy then continued to haunt the province eclipsing
accidents in other parts of the country where several other lives were lost.

The Government is, therefore, right when it chooses to start by dualising
the Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge highway.

At a memorial service held at Masvingo Teachers' College last year,
President Mugabe promised that the roads would be dualised to avert further
accidents.

Hardly six months later, the Government has owned up and is doing exactly
what the head of state prescribed.

The shocking mishaps of the Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge highway has even
pushed traditional chiefs to craft the idea of cleansing some common
accident spots in the province giving a traditional dimension to efforts to
contain the mishaps.

To the traditionalists, the fact that our roads had been claiming an average
of two lives a day required contingency measures to uproot the evil
machinations that had made the country suffer untold abominations.

The recent announcement by the Government that it had begun the dualisation
of the Masvingo-Harare road come as a timeous relief to grief stricken
Masvingo residents who had all but lost confidence in their roads.

In a project that is expected to gobble up about $1 400 billion, the
Government hopes to dualise all the country's major roads among them the
Harare-Masvingo, Harare-Gweru, Harare-Mutare, Harare-Nyamapanda,
Harare-Bindura, Harare-Chirundu and Harare-Airport roads.

Among these roads, the Masvingo-Harare road was the busiest as it is the
umbilical chord to the country's largest trading partner - South Africa.

The Masvingo-Harare highway is a hive of activity 24 hours a day as haulage
trucks on their way to and from the border town of Beitbridge shuttle
between the two countries to keep the country's trade machine oiled.

"We applaud the move by the Government as it will go a long way in reducing
and avoiding accidents most of which had been caused by the narrowness of
the roads.

"The Government must expedite the construction of the dual carriageway as
the volume of traffic moving along the country's highways especially the
Masvingo-Harare road, because a lot of traffic passes through," said Mr
Pirai Mazungunye from Nyikavanhu.

Conventional buses and small cars compete for space with the mammoth haulage
trucks on the two-way highway some of whose sections had been deformed by
heavy rains induced by cyclone Eline in 2000.

The secretary for Transport and Communications, Retired Colonel Christian
Katsande, said before the end of this month, Government would start the
construction of the three-lane carriageway as part of the dualisation of the
Harare-Masvingo road.

"This will allow better mobility of passengers and goods and will also
reduce congestion and accidents," said Retired Colonel Katsande.

The leader of Masvingo chiefs in parliament, chief Fortune Charumbira,
hailed the move by the Government saying it was long overdue as chiefs were
coming under increasing pressure from their people over incessant carnage on
the roads.

"The move by the Government comes at the right time.

"The dualisation of the roads was long overdue and it's a welcome
development as accidents attract special attention among our people," said
chief Charumbira, who is also the deputy Minister of Local Government,
Public Works and National Housing.

Chief Charumbira, however, added that it was of important for the road
surveyors to approach local communities when pegging for construction of the
roads for them to be advised on sacred places.

He said accidents caused by natural causes may be eliminated by dualisation
of the roads but unnatural causes may remain to haunt people.

Masvingo provincial administrator Mr Alphonse Chikumira said the
construction of the dual carriageways could not have come at a better time,
especially the Masvingo-Harare highway.

"The move to construct a dual carriageway along the Masvingo-Harare highway
is most welcome as it will undoubtedly reduce the situation of head-on
collision, mostly involving haulage trucks.

"The Masvingo-Harare highway is arguably the busiest road in the country as
it caters for fleets going to many countries in the Sadc region from South
Africa, and widening it would bring economic benefits," said Mr Chikumira.

He added that the Masvingo provincial development committee and Masvingo
provincial assembly of chiefs had been at the forefront to urge the
Government to act on the increasing deaths on the roads.

The dualisation of the country's major roads, especially the Masvingo-Harare
road, would inevitably reinvigorate the country's trade impetus, which
revolves around our South African neighbour.

Such a project, if completed, would also enable the country to become a
major transit point of the Central African hinterland that is increasingly
turning to South Africa after the end of apartheid in 1994.

"In principle, the Government would like to dualise all trunk roads, that
is, those roads that link our centres of major economic activity and also
link the country to its neighbours," added Retired Colonel Katsande.

The benefits to the ailing economy of a country like Zimbabwe would be
enormous and immeasurable as the landlocked country is likely to generate
revenue from duty fees bringing in the much needed forex in the country.