Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Mugabe critics say new legislation is designed to silence
dissent.
By Joseph Gumbo in Harare (AR No. 71,
27-Jul-06)
President Robert Mugabe is consolidating his grip on Zimbabwe
through new
autocratic laws that analysts say are calculated to cripple
opposition to
the veteran leader's 26-year-rule and muzzle criticism over
the imploding
economy.
Mugabe's multi-pronged strategy to silence
dissent includes attempts to spy
on private email and telephone messages,
the jamming of private radio
stations broadcasting to Zimbabwe, and
restricting civic and opposition
groups by branding legitimate resistance to
Mugabe's rule "terrorism".
Alois Chaumba, the national director of the
Catholic Commission for Justice
and Peace, said three new bills expected to
be pushed through when
parliament resumes in August will effectively put the
country under
undeclared martial rule, as Mugabe seeks to curb growing
opposition to his
rule spawned by Zimbabwe's worsening economic
hardships.
"It would seem there is a state of siege from the way the
state apparatus is
being used to deny people their freedoms," said
Chaumba.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa has tabled the three laws -
the
Interception of Communications Bill, the Suppression of Foreign and
International Terrorism Bill and the Non Governmental Organisations Bill -
all of which which now await Mugabe's assent.
Brian Raftopoulos, a
senior lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe's
Institute of Development
Studies, said the legislative package is clearly
designed to consolidate
Mugabe's grip on power. "It is meant to create the
impression that the
government is watching its opponents and that it is
aware of every move they
make," he said. "This represents a movement towards
some kind of new
fascism."
The Interception of Communications Bill, published on June 9,
will give
Mugabe's government unfettered authority to monitor phones and
emails sent
from both land- and internet-based addresses. Mugabe claims the
bill is
meant to protect national security and fight crime. Under this
legislation,
the government will establish a communications monitoring
centre which will
"monitor and intercept certain communications in the
course of their
transmission through a telecommunication, postal or any
other related
service system".
Critics say the bill is part of a
renewed government crackdown, which also
includes tough policing and
political intimidation, designed to outlaw
criticism and entrench Mugabe's
rule in the face of the growing swell of
opposition to his draconian
policies.
"This is a well calculated move to crush any dissenting views,"
said
constitutional law expert Lovemore Madhuku, who chairs the National
Constitutional Assembly, a broad alliance of civic groups agitating for
constitutional reform. "It is a challenge to all the forces fighting for
democracy in Zimbabwe. This should not be seen in isolation. It is a
broad-based move to keep opponents in check. One can actually call it
intimidation, at best."
The Suppression of Foreign and International
Terrorism Bill, which has
already sailed past its first reading in
parliament, is another proposed law
in a cocktail of legal instruments that
analysts say would further curtail
most basic freedoms. The law will see
those convicted of working to
overthrow Mugabe jailed for life.
It
comes in the wake of the brief detention earlier this year of opposition
members and police officers, who later had charges against them of
stockpiling arms and plotting to assassinate President Mugabe dropped. THe
authorities had accused the men of working with a UK-based organisation
called the Zimbabwe Freedom Movement which was said to be plotting to end
Mugabe's 26-year rule.
The anti-terrorism bill is certain to sail
through parliament, where Mugabe's
Zanu-PF party enjoys a comfortable
majority.
In this year's alleged assassination plot on Mugabe, a Zimbabwe
court denied
bail to Peter Hitschmann, a former soldier for the country's
pre-independence white government, who will soon face trial. Some political
analysts saw the arrest as an attempt to put pressure on Mugabe's opponents.
The state says an array of weapons found in the eastern city of Mutare were
meant to be used to disrupt Mugabe's 82nd birthday celebrations held there
in February.
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in
1980, accuses the
opposition of working with western countries to try to
oust him from power
through "mercenary activities".
The draft
terrorism law defines mercenary activity as "an act aimed at
overthrowing a
government or undermining the constitutional order,
sovereignty or
territorial integrity of a state, or private military-related
assistance in
an armed conflict between two or more states or within a
state".
Analysts say the terrorism bill could be used by government
to jail critics,
including journalists working for foreign
media.
Mugabe has branded private radio stations broadcasting from
outside the
country "terrorist organisations". The government has been
jamming
broadcasts from Voice of America's Studio 7 radio station, almost
the sole
source of reasonably independent information for the rural
poor.
While the authorities have flatly denied jamming the broadcasts,
media
experts say the jamming signal is originating from Thornhill Air Force
Base,
near Gweru, using equipment provided by China. A statement issued by
the
Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe, MMPZ, said Studio 7 broadcasts
were
"suffocated by a steady droning sound similar to that used to jam SW
Radio
Africa and Radio Voice of the People frequencies last year". SW Radio
and
Voice of the People are two banned independent radio stations that try
to
beam broadcasts into Zimbabwe from outside the country.
Condemning
what he termed "totalitarian tyranny of thought", MMPZ executive
director
Andy Moyse said the latest jamming of Studio 7, combined with the
proposed
"snoopers' charter" allowing interference with private mail and
internet
communications, represented the "final steps in the total control
of all
information received by Zimbabweans".
With his new package of
legislation, Mugabe also intends to curtail
activities of civic society. The
bill on non-government organisations, NGOs,
seeks to repeal the Private
Voluntary Organisations Act and give the
government broad powers to close
down groups considered to be critical of
its policies by imposing
restrictive registration formalities. NGOs dealing
with human rights and
governance would be denied access to outside financial
assistance in a bid
to curtail their contacts with international
organisations. Organisations
found to be in breach of these regulations
would be subject to criminal
prosecution.
"The proposed NGO law will have the effect of criminalising
civil society
organisations, especially those working in the field of human
rights and
governance by making them liable to prosecution for legitimate
and peaceful
activities of promoting human rights in Zimbabwe," said the
Madhuku.
Madhuku added there was little to be be gained from challenging
the
constitutionality of these laws, given that government has already shown
it
will not obey court rulings that do not fit with its
programme.
Mugabe has also published the Judicial Service Bill, which is
aimed at
improving the working conditions of a new coterie of judges pliant
to the
presidential will.
Joseph Gumbo is the pseudonym of an IWPR
journalist in Zimbabwe.
Reuters
Thu Jul 27, 2006 4:13 PM GMT
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's Finance
Minister Herbert Murerwa revised his
forecasts for economic growth in 2006
lower in a policy review on Thursday,
and predicted that inflation would
average close to 1000 percent during the
year.
"The challenges we are
facing, though seemingly entrenched, are
surmountable," he told parliament
in a televised statement.
"The biggest challenge remains that of runaway
inflation, which is
constraining economic growth prospects and imposing
enormous social and
economic hardships on the population," Murerwa told
parliament.
Zimbabwe's economy has been crippled by an eight year
recession which has
pushed inflation to a world record near 1,200 percent
and seen unemployment
soar to more than 70 percent.
Murerwa said the
economy would probably grow by 0.3-0.6 percent during 2006,
down from a
previous estimate of 1-2 percent. It shrunk by 2.7 percent in
2005.
By Violet Gonda
27 July
2006
More doom and gloom for Zimbabweans as money transfer agencies
announced the Zimbabwe dollar reached the 7digit mark, on the parallel
market. Several companies involved in exchanging money confirmed that the
Zimbabwean dollar hit the ZW$1 000 000 mark to the pound sterling, Thursday,
putting a huge burden on Zimbabweans both at home and in the
Diaspora.
Reactingto the news Tendai Mudzingwa, one of many
Zimbabweans based in
London said; " I found the whole thing really
frightening. I have been
getting text messages from currency dealers for the
past 5 days and the
numbers increased over the last days. I just knew it was
a matter of time
before it reached the million dollar mark."
She added, "For me it really is frightening. It scares me to think how
my
family and friends are going to be living in Zimbabwe and how I will
afford
to be able to keep sending them money."
In a week the dollar went
from ZW$900 000 to a million against the
pound.
The Zimbabwean
dollar hitting the landmark million dollar rate comes
at a critical time
when many are anxiously waiting to hear what Gideon Gono,
the Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor is going to say in his Monetary
Review
Policy.
Economists say the effects of this are more price increases
and a rise
in inflation. John Robertson said; "This is very scary because it
shows that
the price of every imported product is going to be rising
steeply."
The economist noted that there has not been much of a
change in the
steady progression of these figures saying: "We saw it going
to more than
ZW$500 000 to the US$. So it's now getting about ZW$550 000 to
US$1 and that's
what makes it equal to more than ZW$1m to a
pound."
There is a thriving black market industry in the country
and most
companies including those registered with the RBZ are reportedly
trading on
the parallel market.
Robertson said the official
exchange rate which still stands at ZW$100
000 to the US$ - a fifth of the
market value, needs to be reviewed. "Until
it's corrected many people who
export products would rather sell their
export proceeds on the parallel
exchange market instead of on the official
exchange market where the
government can get their hands on it." Analysts
say because of the economic
crisis, manufacturers have no choice as they
risk going bankrupt if they
trade on the official market.
According to Robertson, to get it
right proper policies will have to
be implemented. The economist said the
scarcity of foreign currency is a
result of the loss of principal export
industries; the attack on property
rights has also resulted in the loss of
investments. Zimbabwe has had so
many failures in meeting repayment terms in
the past which has resulted in
the loss of credit rating. All these combined
have contributed to a serious
shortage of forex which in turn causes price
increases
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa unveiled a
ZW$327,2
trillion supplementary budget on Thursday. It is almost three times
more
than last year's budget of ZW$129 trillion. Murerwa presented the
supplementary budget before parliament on Thursday.He also raised the zero
tax threshold from $7 million to $20 million, while reducing tax to 35% for
people earning above $54 million.
Independent Tsholotsho MP
Professor Jonathan Moyo told the website
Newzimbabwe.com the supplementary
budget was "scandalous" and "proof that
the government has totally lost
control".
Moyo said: "This cannot be a supplementary budget. How
does a $327
trillion budget supplement a $129 trillion budget? This is the
clearest
evidence that the country's economy is in complete meltdown and
free fall.
An eight year recession has crippled the country's
economy pushing
inflation to a world record high of nearly 1
200%.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
Financial Times
By
Michael Bleby in Johannesburg
Published: July 27 2006 17:54 | Last
updated: July 27 2006 17:54
Zimbabwe's worsening economy is making it
harder to service foreign debt
obligations, the country's finance ministry
said on Thursday.
The country's total external debt stood at $3.968bn at
June 30, including
arrears debt equal to $2.122bn, the document
said.
ADVERTISEMENT
"While Zimbabwe remains committed to
honouring its external obligations, the
difficulties of the current
situation arising under the sanctions
environment which followed the land
reform programme limit the ability to
timely meet our external obligations,"
the government said in a policy
review document released in parliament on
Thursday.
The size of the external debt makes it less likely Zimbabwe
will be able to
meet its obligations to the International Monetary Fund when
the country
undergoes its next assessment in September.
Zimbabwe has
been in arrears to the fund since 2001 and in March it still
owed $119m,
even after paying a further $9m it owned in February. Failure to
pay off the
remaining debt could put Zimbabwe at risk of being kicked out of
the
fund.
The country is wracked by one of the highest inflation rates in the
world, a
result of a plunging currency and a government that prints money to
pay debt
and salaries. In June the yearly pace of inflation stood at 1185
per cent.
Soaring prices and an inability to buy much-needed foreign imports
have
contributed to the average life expectancy in the country of 12m people
dropping to 39 years.
The government is likely to devalue the
currency next week by cutting three
zeros off the face value of the Zimbabwe
dollar. One US dollar currently
buys 101195 Zimbabwe dollars at the official
exchange rate and close to
300,000 Zimbabwe dollars on the black
market.
Speaking in parliament on Thursday finance minister Herbert
Murerwa said the
country would spend an additional 327.2 thousand billion
Zimbabwe dollars
(US$3.2bn) paying the wages of restless civil servants.
This comes on top of
an initial budget announced in December of 128 thousand
billion Zimbabwe
dollars.
Mr Murerwa also revised down his forecasts
for growth this year. The economy
that used to be one of Africa's strongest
would grow between 0.3 and 0.6 per
cent in 2006, down from his previous
estimate of 1 to 2 per cent.
"The biggest challenge remains that of
runaway inflation, which is
constraining economic growth prospects and
imposing enormous social and
economic hardships on the population," Mr
Murerwa told parliament.
In April, the IMF predicted that the Zimbabwean
economy will contract 4.7
per cent this year after contracting 6.5 per cent
last year.
Thursday's report predicted that the country's balance of
payments would
also remain under "severe pressure" with foreign exchange
remaining in short
supply. Zimbabwe's current account deficit for this year
was projected to be
US$434m, while net capital inflows totalling US$271.6m
were envisaged.
Saturday 16th
September 2006, 2.00-5.30pm (doors open 1.30pm)
Brunei Gallery,
School of Oriental & African Studies
(SOAS), Thornhaugh Street, Russell
Square, London WC1H
0XG (nearest tube Russell Square)
MEET - DISCUSS-
EXCHANGE INFORMATION
Speakers: Dr Stephen Munjanja, (Harare
Hospital),
Tabitha Khumalo, (Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions)
Raymond
Majongwe (Progressive Teachers Union of
Zimbabwe) and Rev Nicholas Mkaronda,
(Crisis Coalition
of Zimbabwe), Forward Maisokwadzo (Ass. Of
Zimbabwean
Journalists UK) Shane Lunga (Zimbabwe Futures).
For enquiries
and advance registration (free) please
email zimforum2006@yahoo.co.uk or
telephone 0208 348
8463
more details at www.britain-zimbabwe.org.uk
Zim Online
Fri 28 July 2006
HARARE - Zimbabwe Finance Minister
Herbert Murerwa on Thursday asked
Parliament to approve a Z$327.2 trillion
supplementary budget more than
twice the amount of money the government had
initially said it would spend
in 2006.
Murerwa had at the end
of last year set the budget for 2006 at $123.9
trillion.
In the
most vivid illustration of the Harare administration's appetite
to spend
more in the face of runaway inflation - the world's highest at
1184.6
percent - Murerwa told parliamentarians that the initial amount
budgeted for
the year was finished.
The government would ground to a halt if
Parliament did not approve
additional expenditure, he said in an hour-long
speech greeted with derision
from opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) party legislators.
"Resources initially
allocated are no longer sufficient to enable the
government machinery to
function up to the end of the year, making it
necessary that I revisit the
2006 budget estimates," said Murerwa, as MDC
parliamentarians called on him
to resign because he had no idea how to fix
Zimbabwe's six-year economic
crisis.
Murerwa appeared to put blame for the government's growing
need for
cash on his boss, President Robert Mugabe, saying the supplementary
budget
was also necessary to raise resources for several additional
government
ministries set up by Mugabe well after the 2006 budget had been
finalised.
The Finance Minister said the additional money he was
seeking
Parliament to approve would be used to finance operational budgets
of line
ministries, capital projects and some projects under the National
Economic
Development Priority Programme (NEDPP) which the government says
will turn
around the economy.
Economic experts say the NEDPP -
one of no less than four economic
blue-prints the government has announced
since 1999 but with little benefit
to the economy - will certainly flop
unless President Robert Mugabe's
government learns to live within its
means.
The government would also have to address its appalling
human rights
record, restore the rule of law and uphold democracy in order
to be
reintegrated into the international community whose help is vital to
any
programme to resuscitate Zimbabwe's comatose economy, economic experts
say.
Murerwa frankly admitted that government-backed farm seizures
were
frightening commercial banks from funding the agriculture sector, which
until the government began its land grab exercise in 2000 was the backbone
of an economy that was among the most vibrant in Africa.
"Farm
disruptions have also continued to undermine the confidence of
banks to
finance bankable farming operations. Banks require guarantees that
when they
finance crops, farmers will be able to harvest, and therefore
repay their
loan obligations," said Murerwa.
He said the government would "now
take a firm stand against any new
unwarranted disruptions on farming
operations". But similar promises in the
past by both Murerwa and Mugabe to
act to end farm seizures have come to
naught as top officials of the
government itself and of the ruling ZANU PF
party continue plundering former
white farms.
The Finance Minister attempted to lessen the burden
for ordinary
Zimbabweans by widening the tax-free threshold to $20 million
from $7
million per month beginning the first of September. He also adjusted
tax
bands to end at $54 million per month, above which income will be taxed
at
35 percent.
Murerwa said the new measures will release about
$35 trillion to
taxpayers, thereby enhancing purchasing power.
Zimbabwe is battling an immense economic crisis that is characterised
by
hyperinflation and shortages of fuel, electricity, essential medicines,
hard
cash and just about every basic survival commodity.
The MDC and
major Western governments blame the crisis on repression
and mismanagement
by Mugabe, who has ruled the country since independence
from Britain 26
years ago.
The 82-year old President denies ruining Zimbabwe and
says his country's
problems are because of economic sabotage by Western
countries out to fix
his government for seizing white land for
redistribution to landless
blacks. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Fri 28
July 2006
HARARE - The main political opposition, business
community and
economists dismissed Finance Minister Hebert Murerwa's
Thursday fiscal
review statement saying it did not proffer viable solutions
to the country's
six-year old economic crisis and was silent on critical
issues lying at the
root of the crisis.
"The presentation was
too narrow and did not touch on critical issues
such as the mending of
international relations which are paramount to the
improvement of balance of
payments position," said Harare-based economic
analyst James Jowa, echoing
the views of many analysts and commentators
interviewed by
ZimOnline.
Murerwa presented his mid-term fiscal review statement
to Parliament
as well as a supplementary budget that at Z$327 trillion was
more than
double the $123.9 trillion the Finance Minister had last year said
the
government t would need for the year.
In his fiscal
statement, Murerwa predicted the mainstay agricultural
sector would grow by
23 percent mainly as a result of a 62 percent expansion
in cotton
production, which he said would reach 320 000 tonnes this year up
from 198
000 tonnes last year.
Murerwa maintained government predictions -
which are contested by
almost every independent expert - that Zimbabwe would
this year harvest 1.7
million tonnes of the national staple food, maize, up
from 750 000 tonnes
reaped last year.
The Finance Minister also
predicted increases in out of key crops such
as wheat, soya bean and
sorghum. But he admitted the key manufacturing
sector remained depressed
because of foreign currency shortages, energy
outages and a declining
domestic demand position.
The mining sector was projected to fall
by 10.8 percent while tobacco
production fell sharply from 74 million kg
produced last year to about 50
million kg this year, according to Murerwa.
He also said Zimbabwe's balance
of payments position remained under "severe
pressure" with a deficit of
about US$ 434 million.
The Zimbabwe
National Chamber of Commerce lamented the fact that
Murerwa had not
announced any plans to revive the collapsing energy sector,
saying power
cuts were crippling industry.
"The minister did not say anything on
the resuscitation of thermal
stations and increase in generation capacity
and this is a disappointment
for industry given the power problems we face.
We are also worried about
government's failure to live within its means,"
said an official of the
business organisation.
The spokesman of
the main faction of the splintered opposition
Movement for Democratic Change
party Nelson Chamisa dismissed Murerwa's
predictions of economic growth
which he said were impossible until Mugabe's
government addressed a host of
political problems responsible for the
country's economic
collapse.
Chamisa said by asking Parliament to approve a
supplementary budget
more than twice the original 2006 budget, Murerwa was
signalling that the
government had given up tackling inflation.
He said: "The surprising thing is that the supplementary budget is
almost
three times the size of the annual budget. The annual budget was only
$123.9
trillion while the supplementary budget is $327 trillion, this is
absurd.
Inflation is now governing this country." - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Fri 28
July 2006
BULAWAYO - Zimbabwe's second largest city of Bulawayo
will next month
host a conference of donors and representatives of foreign
governments to
raise money to finance water provision as the government
continues dithering
on long-term solutions to the city's unending water
problems.
The city fathers hope the August 26 conference would be
able to raise
through direct donations and pledges Z$6 trillion and US$3.4
million
required for various projects to improve water supply to the city of
1.5
million people that is nestled at the heart of the drought-prone
Matabeleland region.
City spokesman Phathisa Nyathi told
ZimOnline: "We have devised
various projects to augment water supplies to
Bulawayo . but the projects
have to be funded and that is the reason we have
called a donors conference
so as to source the cash to finance the
projects."
Bulawayo, a heartland of opposition support, has over
the years faced
acute water shortages and in the last few months some
suburbs had to go for
weeks on end without water because the city council
was unable to supply the
precious liquid.
The government has
promised, especially at every election time, to
build a huge pipeline
drawing water from the mighty Zambezi river up north
on the border with
Zambia down to Bulawayo several hundreds of kilometres
away.
But the pipeline project that would also require substantial help from
international donors has remained an election propaganda topic with little
achieved on the ground.
Nyathi said: "The Matabeleland/Zambezi
water project has been talked
about for too long. It is not our project it
is in the hands of other
people, it is a government project and we have no
control over that project
and the realisation that we cannot rely on that
government project has
pushed us to act."
Bulawayo sources
water from five dams near the city with a total
capacity of 173 million
cubic metres. The dams at the moment hold 112
million cubic metres, a
quantity authorities say means the city shall
experience more water
shortages before the next rain season starts in about
four
months.
The city council wants to use funds raised from donors to
among other
things sink boreholes across the city, build water booster
stations and to
rehabilitate the Nyamandlovu aquifer that also supplies
water to the city. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Fri 28 July 2006
BULAWAYO - Commuters in Zimbabwe's
second biggest city of Bulawayo
will from next Monday have to dig deeper
into their pockets after public
transport operators hiked fares by more than
50 percent as the country's
economic crisis worsens.
The
Bulawayo United Public Transporters' Association said on Thursday
it will
hike fares from the current Z$100 000 to $150 000 for a single trip
from the
surrounding suburbs into the city centre.
A spokesman for the
association, Strike Ndlovu, attributed the latest
increase to the recent
hike in the price of fuel which is in critical short
supply in the
country.
"Everything is going up and that includes vehicle spare
parts, which
we import using foreign currency obtained on the black
market.
"Fuel has gone up as well and as a business entity, we have
to raise
the fares in order to remain viable in this harsh economic
climate," said
Ndlovu.
Police spokesman for Bulawayo, Inspector
Shepherd Sibanda, condemned
the plans to hike fares saying the move was
illegal as it had not been
approved by the government.
"That is
strictly illegal and as the police we cannot lie and allow
people to be
duped. We are going to enact roadblocks on major roads and
arrest those that
we find charging the exorbitant fares," he said.
The latest fare
increase will certainly worsen conditions for the
majority of Zimbabweans
reeling under a severe six-year old economic crisis
most critics blame on
mismanagement by President Robert Mugabe's
government. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Fri 28 July
2006
JOHANNESBURG - The British government says it will probe a
corrupt
Zimbabwean man who works in the immigration department following
reports
that he had admitted helping hundreds of asylum seekers to remain in
Britain
in return for cash.
"We take theses allegations very
seriously and will investigate
immediately," said Lin Homer, the director
general of the Immigration and
Nationality Directorate (IND) that deals with
immigration matters.
The Sun tabloid said Joseph Dzumbira, a
Zimbabwean who works for the
IND, had told its undercover reporter that he
charged up to 2 000 pounds to
help foreigners get false asylum
papers.
Dzumbira also told the reporter that he could help asylum
seekers
pretend they were from Zimbabwe and avoid being deported from the
United
Kingdom. The UK has temporarily banned deportations of Zimbabweans
because
of security concerns back home.
There are hundreds of
thousands of Zimbabweans who are living in
Britain after fleeing political
persecution and economic collapse at home. -
ZimOnline
Mail and Guardian
Michael Hartnack | Harare, Zimbabwe
27
July 2006 06:29
Zimbabwe Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa
announced new measures
on Thursday to raise state revenues in the face of
rampant inflation,
including extra levies on fuel and the construction of
toll gates on all
major highways.
Faced with the world's
highest inflation rate of 1 185%,
President Robert Mugabe's government is
confronting demands for
Z$327-trillion ($3,2-billion) in extra expenditure,
Murerwa told Parliament.
"This is unsustainable for the
government and therefore there is
a need to rationalise," he
said.
Taxes on gasoline and diesel will increase and eight
new toll
gates will be added, he said.
However, Murerwa
offered relief to taxpayers, raising the income
threshold to pay a minimum
15% from Z$7-million ($69) a month to
Z$20-million ($198) a month. The top
rate of 35% will now be paid on incomes
of more than Z$54-million ($534) a
month.
Independent economist John Robertson said this still
makes
Zimbabweans among the highest-taxed people in the world. "Only a
domestic
servant would be earning less than Z$20-million," he
said.
Murerwa said he hopes his tax-relief measures will put
Z$35-trillion ($346-million) back in the pockets of Zimbabwe's 12-million
people, "thereby enhancing their purchasing power".
He
made no mention of a possible devaluation of Zimbabwe's
currency -- worth $2
when Mugabe came to power at independence in 1980 but
now trading at an
official rate of Z$101 000 to the United States dollar and
more than Z$250
000 on the black market.
Robertson said he expects Reserve
Bank Governor Gideon Gono to
address the issue in a policy statement on
Monday.
Murerwa said Z$28,6-trillion ($283-million) will be
allocated to
what the government terms "quick-win solutions" for Zimbabwe's
economic
woes, identified under a newly launched National Economic
Development
Priority Programme. Targeted sectors include agriculture,
mining,
manufacturing and tourism.
"There is nothing
really surprising except his belief that these
various methods of overcoming
the problem are going to work," said
Robertson. "The Z$28-trillion doesn't
seem to be a quick win but a quick
lose -- it costs a fortune before we
start."
Robertson and other government critics trace
Zimbabwe's crisis
to chronic overspending during the 1990s and a breakdown
in property rights,
culminating in the seizure of more than 5 000
white-owned commercial farms
for redistribution to black
Zimbabweans.
Evictions of the last remaining white farmers
continue despite
official reports that much of the seized farmland that was
once among the
most productive has been vandalised and left derelict. --
Sapa-AP
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Political violence at home has given the Zimbabwean refugees a
serious image
problem in their new homeland.
By Benedict Unendoro in
Harare (AR No. 71, 27-Jul-06)
In my language, Shona, there is a saying
that neighbours run from a poor man
as if he is a sorcerer. An experience I
had in Johannesburg the other day
seemed to prove this to be true.
I
arrived at Johannesburg International Airport on a chilly morning prepared
for the winter cold with a woollen jersey and a leather jacket. But I was
not ready for what was to come.
My hosts, as usual, had arranged for
a taxi shuttle company to pick me up
from the bustling airport. The driver
should have waiting with a placard
with my name on it.
But there was
no one waiting for me. The same thing had happened on my
previous visit a
month earlier. I visit South Africa on business from
Zimbabwe nearly every
month.
For half an hour, I must have looked like a cow lost from the
herd. I moved
around the arrivals hall reading and re-reading the signs held
by other
drivers while fending off other taxi drivers offering their
services at
exorbitant prices for the drive through Johannesburg's
crime-ridden suburbs,
where people live behind high walls and electric
fences.
Then the man came. I recognised him from a distance as he has
picked me up
from the airport on several occasions.
He is a
streetwise, middle-aged man whose convoluted name I have never been
able to
pronounce, let alone attempt to spell. He was cool, and neither
apologised
for being late nor offered to carry my bag. Instead he told me he
had left
his car about 200 metres away and we had to walk to it.
I am no athlete
these days, and I was breathless and struggling by the time
we reached the
car. He ordered me to throw my bag on the back seat and to
take the front
passenger seat. Normally drivers open doors for their
passengers: that is a
standard courtesy in the taxi shuttle business, as
also
is a seat in the
back. Meekly, as a simple Zimbabwean in the big city, I
made no protest,
tossed my bag in the back and settled down in the front
seat.
We
drove quietly for some time. I noticed he had not locked the doors -
regular
procedure in Johannesburg against smash-and-grab merchants. I feared
for my
bag each time we stopped at a "robot" - the word Johannesburgers use
for
traffic lights which as often as not do not work.
I was quietly thinking
about how best I could extract an explanation about
his lateness and
unprofessional behaviour when he looked at me out of the
corner of his eye,
smiled cynically, and abruptly said, "Zimbabweans are now
killing our police
here."
"So I have read," I replied, as I suddenly understood the reason
for his
cold behaviour.
"They [Zimbabweans] are everywhere now, on
street corners, in alleys,
literally everywhere. Crime has escalated," he
said.
"So can you please lock the doors so these Zimbabwean criminals do
not steal
my bag at the next robot?" I asked. He complied.
We drove
on in more silence, but I wanted to ease the chill between us.
South
Africans are beside themselves with pride and bragging about their
country's
hosting of the next football World Cup. So I tentatively asked:
"Are you
guys ready for the 2010 World Cup?"
He shot back, "Is it true that when
these guys are deported back to
Zimbabwe, Mugabe throws them into camps
where they get military training?"
Okay, now I'd got the message loud and
clear. My fellow Zimbabweans living
in South Africa as refugees - some two
to three million, according to media
reports - are accused of being menaces
who are responsible for most of the
violent crime that plagues Johannesburg,
and whom international soccer fans
had better watch out for in four years'
time.
The top criminals are highly trained former soldiers in Mugabe's
army who
have quit because they are so poorly paid, my driver informed
me.
I replied that only a dozen years earlier, before apartheid finally
collapsed, I was teaching South African refugees at a college in Harare. One
thing they always said about Zimbabwe's capital was how peaceful the city
was and how one could walk from one end to the other in the middle of the
night without being mugged. One of my refugee students loved to talk about
how Harareans cringed in horror when one day, in the middle of the street,
he took out a flick-knife to slice sugar cane.
So I told my driver I
could not understand how my own people, who recoiled
at the mere sight of a
knife, could all of a sudden turn into such hard-core
criminals. After all,
South Africa itself had been regarded as one of the
world's most violent
countries for decades before it became a democracy with
Nelson Mandela as
president in 1994. How could it possibly be that in just
in just 12 years,
South Africa had become a nation of saints, while
Zimbabweans fleeing their
troubled country were now responsible for all the
crime and violence here?
That puzzled me.
I don't think South Africans really are more xenophobic
than citizens of
other countries, but I have realised that Zimbabweans have
created
misconceptions about themselves in the past six years or so since
our
country began its precipitous and disastrous decline.
The
majestic Victoria Falls used to be the image that defined my country to
the
outside world. That is no longer the case. The picture that now
characterises Zimbabwe is that of President Mugabe holding out his clenched
fist.
Since the day he told the world he wanted to see the "white man
tremble" and
unleashed thugs onto commercial farms to drive out white
farmers, Zimbabwe
has been perceived and defined internationally as a
violent nation. It has
been a fair definition ever since the day an agent of
Mugabe's Central
Intelligence Organisation petrol bombed two members of the
opposition at a
rural centre and got away with it.
We have become a
nation that bombs newspaper offices and printing presses.
My country is now
one in which armed soldiers invade nightclubs and beat up
patrons, a country
where police officers look the other way when ruling
party thugs beat up
members of the opposition, a country in which the ruling
party has a private
army that goes around terrorising people who choose to
hold different
political views.
When the world sees all these ugly images on television
and reads about them
in newspapers and books, they inevitably conclude that
Zimbabwe is a violent
nation. And when a few Zimbabweans join criminal
syndicates in foreign
lands, and are caught at it, naturally there is some
outcry.
According to my driver, there is another angle to "this
Zimbabwean thing".
"There is a misconception that Zimbabweans here work
harder than South
Africans," he said. "But they are willing to take any job
that comes along,
and when they are ill-treated they don't complain because
they have nowhere
to go. South Africans would complain and take their cases
to the labour
courts. When our people lose their jobs to the
'makwerekwere'
[Zimbabweans], they complain. Complaining is not
laziness."
When Zimbabwe was still ticking over nicely and we were the
second largest
economy in southern Africa, I remember how we treated our
poorer Mozambican
and Malawian neighbours. We referred to the Mozambicans as
"Moscans" and
blamed them for all the crimes taking place in Zimbabwe. The
Malawians, for
whom we also had several bad names, were seen as taking our
jobs because
they never complained. Now we are getting a taste of our own
medicine.
But all was not doom and gloom on my latest venture to
Johannesburg. In the
hotel bar, there were several people who spoke highly
of Zimbabwean
professionals teaching at South African universities and of
the doctors who
have helped prop up South Africa's healthcare system, which
is faltering
thanks to the country's eccentric health minister, Manto
Tshabalala-Msimang
whom South Africans ridicule as "Doctor No."
We
dare not make fun of our own ridicule ministers in Zimbabwe: you get
arrested and thrown in clink for doing so, under one of the many draconian
laws the Mugabe government has pushed through parliament.
Some of my
fellow drinkers at the Johannesburg hotel bar were generous
enough to
express caution about newspaper reports on Zimbabweans'
involvement in
crime, saying South Africa has plenty of highly trained
disgruntled soldiers
and former African National Congress guerrilla fighters
of its own who are
more than capable of serious acts of violence.
Nevertheless, the messages
are clear. For all sorts of reasons, we deserve
the hostile press we get.
Until we stop all the political violence, the
world will not see us for the
decent people most of us are. Only then will
our national image be once
again defined by the beauty of the Victoria Falls
rather than the ugliness
of an 82-year-old ruling oligarch.
Benedict Unendoro is the pseudonym of
an IWPR contributor in Zimbabwe.
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
The president accuses ZANU-PF leaders of corruption, but critics
say he
himself is responsible.
By Kudzai Mabhiza in Harare (AR No.
71, 27-Jul-06)
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has unexpectedly read the
riot act to top
ZANU-PF officials, some of whom hope to succeed him,
lambasting them as
corrupt and unfit to fill his shoes.
"People want
to acquire wealth through self-aggrandisement," Mugabe told a
recent meeting
of his party's central committee. "These cases are increasing
in number.
What has become of us? You are not being fair. Some of you are
being crooks
even in leadership positions."
He expressed concern that the calibre of
the people vying for the party's
and the country's top posts is so low that
they will tear the country apart
in the process and plunder its wealth with
utter disregard for its people's
needs.
Critics, however, described
Mugabe's tirade as hypocritical, saying it is
the president himself, through
his policy of political patronage and
rewarding the elite with gifts of
farms taken from white owners, who has
stoked the corruption that pervades
the party and government.
"Hopefully the president has come to realise
that he is the one to blame for
failing to stamp out endemic corruption in
the corridors of power," said one
local analyst who did not want to be
named. "It is Mugabe's duty to ensure
that whoever takes over from him will
not loot state coffers with impunity,
but will try to salvage the country
from the mess he created."
As early as 1988, the and then ZANU-PF
secretary-general, firebrand
nationalist Edgar Tekere warned Mugabe that
corruption in high places was
gnawing away at Zimbabwe's economic fabric.
The president ignored the
warning and fired Tekere the following year from
both party and government,
saying he had failed to substantiate allegations
of massive corruption by
top ministers.
But many people said at the
time that Mugabe was protecting cronies whom he
used in his tribal
power-balancing act between the main ethnic factions of
the wider Shona
nation.
Faced with the prospect of leaving power by the end of this
decade,
82-year-old Mugabe now seems to have begun worrying that there is no
one
among his chosen elite who has clean hands.
His tough speech
seemed to be directed at specific senior ZANU-PF officials
vying for the top
posts, who he thinks lack sufficient integrity to run the
country should he
die while in power. But so deeply is graft embedded in the
system that
critics say it will be impossible to find a "clean" person
anywhere in the
ZANU-PF hierarchy.
Government corruption became obvious 18 years ago,
when investigative
reporters uncovered the so-called "Willowgate" scandal,
in which several
ministers were proved to have acquired Mazda cars at
knockdown prices from
the Willowvale assembly plant in Harare and then
resold them for handsome
profits.
In the Nineties and into the new
century, corruption at top level came to
dwarf Willowgate. As farms were
confiscated from white owners, ministers
acquired multiple landholdings.
There has been widespread abuse of a VIP
housing scheme, with relatives and
friends of ministers and top military
officers and civil servants issued
with luxury homes at low prices.
Top ZANU-PF politicians and their
relatives have been accused of plundering
the 40 million dollar War Victims
Compensation Fund, meant to provide
disability payments to former guerrilla
fighters in Zimbabwe's liberation
war of the Seventies. "New farmers"
allocated scarce fuel at heavily
subsidies prices have been reselling it on
the black market with huge profit
margins. Elsewhere, there has been mass
looting of minerals and commercial
farm equipment.
But it seems
unlikely that any senior people will ever face justice while
Mugabe remains
in power.
The solution so far seems to have been to make a scapegoat of
the new deputy
information minister, Bright Matonga, who was arrested in
late July on
charges of soliciting 85,000 US dollars in bribes from
companies tendering
to supply buses to the state-owned Zimbabwe United
Passenger Company.
Matonga was the firm's chief executive before joining the
government.
Commenting on Mugabe's surprise anti-corruption speech, in
which he also
ordered ministers to be faithful to their wives, the
independent weekly
Financial Gazette said in an editorial, "Most cynical
Zimbabweans retorted
'too little, too late', because corruption has been
left for too long to
permeate every facet of public life. The stony-faced
silence that greeted
the head of state's podium-thumping indignation was a
dead giveaway. Even
his [Mugabe's] most sycophantic and vociferous
supporters knew it was
pointless to threaten to close the stable door long
after the horse has
bolted."
Kudzai Mabhiza is the pseudonym of an
IWPR contributor in Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwean
WASHINGTON - The Coalition of Black Trade
Unionists (CBTU) has launched a
major campaign to clip Mugabe of his
"liberator" image in the African
American community by exposing the thuggish
actions of his regime against
the Zimbabwean people.
CBTU President
William Lucy has announced that CBTU would aggressively reach
out to African
American media, labour websites/blogs and other progressive
media this
summer to get Americans "tuned into the Zimbabwe crisis." Lucy
also said
CBTU would join other organizations in demonstrations at the
Zimbabwe
Embassy and other locations.
Lucy, who is also international
secretary-treasurer of the 1.4
million-member American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees,
said: "CBTU will not be a silent witness to
this tragedy unfolding on
distant soil liberated by heroic freedom fighters.
Zimbabwe's people, who
are suffering crushing poverty, homelessness, hunger
and rampant violations
of human and trade union rights, need to know that
their cries for help echo
in our hearts, no less than those of our sisters
and brothers in South
Africa who prevailed over the racist apartheid
regime."
Mugabe's descent from icon to despot is wrenching for many black
Americans.
In the 1960s, a lot of black activists here gave money and
claimed
solidarity with Zimbabwe's liberation fighters. Josh Williams,
president of
the Washington, D.C. central labour council, recently returned
from a visit
to Zimbabwe with a verdict on Mugabe's leadership.
"He
[Mugabe] has lost touch with the people," Williams said. Williams, who
represented the AFL-CIO at the 25th anniversary convention of the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions in May, said "Workers find it hard to accept that
many of them are being beaten, arrested and harassed by the same people that
they marched with 25 years ago for liberation."
Mugabe's hand of
repression greeted Williams when he arrived at the airport
in Harare. "There
were about 20 other labour organizations that sent
representatives to the
ZCTU convention," Williams said. "But when we arrived
at Zimbabwe's airport,
11 delegates were denied admission and sent back home
by the government,
apparently because they had been critical of past actions
taken by
Mugabe."
Barely two months ago, police officers raided the headquarters of
the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. They ransacked the accounts
department
under the pretense of searching for documents relating to foreign
currency
transactions and fraud allegations. Union officials believe this
attack was
designed to remove the current union leadership ahead of the
annual meeting
last month of the International Labor Organization, which has
repeatedly
cited the Mugabe regime for violating ILO conventions on freedom
of
association.
The government's campaign to destabilize ZCTU also
includes mass arrests,
death threats, and bogus investigations; the threat
of imprisonment of
leaders; the use of provocateurs to disrupt ZCTU
meetings; and the creation
of splinter unions to undermine and weaken ZCTU.
Government thugs have even
assaulted leaders of ZCTU's Women's Advisory
Council, injuring one woman so
badly that she had to be taken to a clinic
for x-rays.
He told the 1,500 delegates, "It is one thing to be independent.
It is
another to be free. We are still fighting for our freedom in
Zimbabwe." The
audience responded with a chorus of "Amen's'" when Chibebe
added,
"Oppression is oppression, whether by a white person or a black
person."
Lucy, who sits on the powerful AFL-CIO Executive Council, said
CBTU's
Zimbabwe resolution and its invitation to Chibebe to speak to
thousands of
black workers from every sector of organized labour in the U.S.
"upped the
ante on Zimbabwe." He added, "It's time we - in the labor
movement and in
the African American community - said 'Enough is enough:
Hands off the
workers movement in Zimbabwe!' Bring back peace and democracy
in Zimbabwe."-
Dwight Kirk, based in Washington DC, writes on employment and
union issues.
The Zimbabwean
By a
Correspondent
HARARE - Torture cases rose sharply in May to 84, and there
were some 232
recorded incidents of unlawful arrest and detention, the
Zimbabwe Human
Rights NGO Forum said in its monthly report on political
violence.
The report, with its catalogue of arrests and beatings by police,
abductions
and general brutality routinely inflicted by state agents, made
the
expressions of outrage in the state-run media at the beating up of
opposition member of Parliament Trudy Stevenson sound particularly contrived
and synthetic.
The attack on Stevenson and four other officials of the
pro-Senate faction
of the MDC provided a feast for the state-run media,
which denounced it as
savage, brutal and barbaric and, before any court
hearing, repeatedly said
it was the work of members of the Morgan
Tsvangarai-led MDC. The
Tsvangarai-led MDC has claimed the perpetrators
belonged to the ruling Zanu
(PF) party.
"They (the state media) would not
reconcile their accusations of the MDC as
a violent party with results of a
study by the Zimbabwe Torture Victims
Project attributing 99 percent of
Zimbabwe's political violence to the
ruling party and state security
agents," noted the Media Monitoring Project
Zimbabwe (MMPZ).
The Torture
Victims Project findings supported an earlier report - based on
actual
incidents brought to court - by the Human Rights Forum. A detailed
analysis
of the court cases overwhelmingly attributed political violence to
law
enforcement agencies and ruling party activists, with the MDC
responsible
for but a fraction of the violence cases recorded.
Among those arrested and
reportedly tortured in May, the Human Rights Forum
said, were dozens of
students from Bindura State University after class
boycotts and the torching
of a computer lab.
Some incidents reported by the Forum stand out for the
sadism and the total
indifference of the police to who witnesses their
assaults.
For example, 23 National Constitutional Association (NCA)
demonstrators
demanding a new constitution were hauled off in police trucks
from the
intersection of Second Street and Nelson Mandela Avenue on May 11.
At Harare
Central Police Station they were allegedly beaten up by police at
the
parking bay. Once inside, apart from more assaults, "sewage water with
dead
rats was reportedly poured into the cells," said the Forum. They were
released the next day after paying admission of guilt fines under draconian
laws preventing free speech and association.
"The Human Rights Forum
notes with great concern that violence and torture
continue to be used in
Zimbabwe by state agents as a way of quelling
dissent, as well as extracting
information from the public, be it for
political or criminal purposes," said
the report.
Then there were the soccer fans singing political songs in a bus
on their
way home after a match who were taken to Mungate police station
after a
herdsman on the bus reported them. Eleven ran away and the remaining
eight
were assaulted with electric cords, sjamboks and booted
feet.
Academic John Makumbe was seized from his office at the University of
Zimbabwe by suspected CIO agents on May 17. A day later it was again the
turn of NCA demonstrators. After being reportedly assaulted by riot police
at Africa Unity Square, 32 of them were detained at Harare Central Police
Station for four days in overcrowded cells which had human waste on the
floors. The detainees included women with babies.
The Forum, a coalition
of 16 groups, traditionally chooses its words
carefully. It said: "The
ongoing harassment and arrest of innocent citizens
who are exercising their
civil liberties is of continuing concern . and
needs to be addressed by the
State and its agents as a matter of urgency."
The Zimbabwean
HARARE-
Confusion and resentment continue to plague the Charlottes Brooke
housing
development scheme outside Harare, and Homelink has announced that
it is no
longer financing homes in the scheme.
Disgruntled customers say they have
just received email notification from
the developers that they would not get
any refunds should they decide to
pull out of the scheme.
"This is
contrary to promises made during a promotional visit to the UK last
year. We
were never told that if we withdrew from the scheme we would have
to sell
the stands, which we paid for in Pounds, in Zimbabwe dollars. Then
we still
have to pay the outstanding balance in pounds and incur whatever
costs. We
believe this is a deliberate omission to trap people," said an
irate
customer.
In response to questions from The Zimbabwean this week, Homelink
Chief
Executive John Heath, said speculation and rumours had surrounded the
development for some time, but most were incorrect.
"Homelink has
financed a total of 13 customers within this scheme, of whom
only six have
made partial payment to Homelink. Our prime focus at this
stage is to
retrieve funds belonging to our clients from the developers.
Charlottes
Brooke is not a Homelink project and we discontinued financing
homes in the
development late last year," said Heath.
Charlottes Brooke is owned by the
Msipa brothers, Charles and Masimba,
through their companies Angwa
Associates and Patriot Properties
respectively. Masimba Msipa told The
Zimbabwean that confusion had arisen
because the two companies had conceived
and pioneered the Homelink Housing
Development Programme (HHDS) in
conjunction with Homelink (Pvt) Ltd, a
company wholly owned by the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe.
"Patriot Properties is an HHDS agent, and is partnered
internationally by
Angwa Associates. In their respective capacities as agent
and international
partner, Patriot Properties and Angwa Associates originate
and manage
Homelink funded foreign currency denominated mortgage facilitates
for
non-resident Zimbabweans.
However, Angwa Associates also happen to be
the principal sales and
collection agent for the Charlottes Brooke Property
Development in both the
UK and USA. The Charlottes Brooke development is
privately owned and is not
directly funded by Homelink as in the case of
HHDS programmes," he
confirmed.
Msipa insisted that all clients involved
in the 2005 shell house
construction packages would be refunded by the end
of 2006.
However, he said his company had received numerous requests for
refunds
involving its land only packages, which were not funded by Homelink,
when
the purchasers ran into financial problems.
"We have always tried to
match those people wishing to withdraw with those
on the waiting list to
ensure that distressed clients are not further
prejudiced. However this is
not always possible. It is important for all
parties to keep in mind that
this is a service we offer gratis rather than a
contractual obligation on
our part," he said. -Staff reporter
The Zimbabwean
JOHANNESBURG -Five MDC activists, who were acquitted of murder
charges by a
high court here last week are now living in fear following some
death
threats from their arch-rival faction.
The five MDC activists, who
belong to the Morgan Tsvangirai-led faction
include Philemon Moyo, Philemon
Ncube,Thembelani Ndebele, Danisele Ngwenya
and Memory, and have since
reported the matter to the Hillbrow police
station.
The five were
acquitted of murdering Lungile Moyo during the run-up to 2005
parliamentary
election.
In an interview with CAJ News on Friday last week, Moyo said he and
the
others received anonymous phone calls threatening them with death. He
claimed that the anonymous caller phoned them one by one insisting that
justice from a"live bullet" would be meted soon.
"The courts have found
us not guilty on murder charges but these other
fellow MDC activists, who
made us arrested are now threatening to kill us.
We have since appealed for
police protection at Hillbrow, but we don't know
as to whether they would
manage to always have their eyes on us," said Moyo.
Zimbabwe Action Support
Group (ZASG) Chairman, Remember Moyo, condemned the
death threats and called
for unity of purpose between the two warring MDC
factions in South Africa.
Moyo called for the law to take its course on
whoever commits crimes. - CAJ
News
The Zimbabwean
BY GIFT
PHIRI
INSIZA - It's the end of another long and hungry Friday. Insiza
villager
Lydia Sibanda was woken by a piercing siren just before dawn and
force-marched by a team of soldiers to plough a winter maize field under
sub-zero temperatures in an official programme termed Operation
Maguta.
She has no idea what price she will be paid for her efforts and the
compulsory acquisition of the crop when it is ready for harvesting.
In
the late afternoon shade, conversations among the farm workers are
punctuated by bitter complaints about the state-sanctioned slavery on
Silalatshani Irrigation Scheme, a farm expropriated from a white farmer and
now under the administration of the Zimbabwe National Army. Anger simmers
but is kept in check by fear of roving soldiers supervising the impoverished
farm workers.
A talkative bone-thin mother of three in a threadbare green
dress refuses to
give her name saying she is afraid of the soldiers. In an
adjacent hut her
three-year-old daughter is crying. She has malaria, but she
says she cannot
get the time to send her to the hospital because she has to
work the whole
day in the fields.
"We are tired of being treated like
slaves; we are tired of being forced to
work on an empty stomach. They
caused the food shortage and now they are
making us work like slaves," said
maMkiza, a famished mother of four. She
rails against the government's
excuses.
"You cannot blame the drought and sanctions. It is because the
government
chased away the white commercial farmers and gave away the land
to people
ill-equipped to farm."
Some of her neighbours, wary of beatings
and harassment by soldiers for such
blunt talk, send disapproving glances,
but she continues boldly:"It's not a
secret that the soldiers here are
abusing us. Everyone is talking about it."
Having thrown white farmers off
their land, the military has taken over the
running of many of the farms in
a desperate effort to boost production and
avert massive food shortages.
Military men have set up camps on the land
where black farmers were
resettled across Matabeleland and are ordering them
to grow mainly maize,
the country's staple food. Teams of soldiers are
forcing other farmers to
plough up other crops such as onions, tomatoes and
potatoes in other
areas.
I saw villagers at Silalatshani Irrigation Scheme in Insiza being
coerced by
soldiers to weed a winter maize crop using very short hoes.
Gun-toting
soldiers would literally herd the farm workers, clad in tattered
garb, with
some of the armed forces poking fun at their subjects.
The
famished villagers, who were forced to start tilling the land at 6am,
were
denied water, and only got a break at 12pm for "lunch," which
constituted a
plate of boiled vegetables and stale sadza. Reports that the
soldiers were
flogging "defiant and lazy" farm workers using sjamboks could
not be
independently verified. But the forced labour gave a graphic
illustration of
the true horror of the army-led Operation Maguta, which is
deliberately
fostering a situation where notions of human decency are
debased, and where
this debasement is celebrated.
"They even took away our entertainment. We
can't even gather for a party
anymore," said the frail-looking Lydia,
speaking in a hushed tone. "It is
not because of the economic hardships. but
the soldiers stationed here do
not want any noise."
Villagers recalled
how military lorries arrived in the area early this year,
off-loaded farming
implements which included disc harrows and planters at
the Irrigation
Scheme.
Some of the equipment was taken to nearby farms where the Chinese
have been
clearing vast stretches of virgin land.
The operation,
conceived and spearheaded by the Joint Operations Command
(JOC) comprising
the army, police, prisons and the intelligence service,
started in November
last year with the seizure of equipment from individual
farms across the
country.
Agriculture minister Joseph Made, widely blamed for misleading the
country
on food stocks in the past, heads the initiative while Defence
minister
Sydney Sekeramayi is his deputy.
Made refused comment on the
matter. But in tacit admission of failure of his
chaotic agrarian reform
programme, President Robert Mugabe told Parliament
recently that the
military initiative was an attempt to meet the nation's
food
requirements.
"To enhance agricultural production and meet national
requirements of 1,8
million tonnes of cereals, targeted production has been
introduced through
Operation Security/Maguta/Inala by government," Mugabe
said. "The major
objectives of the programme are to boost the country's food
security and
consolidate national strategic reserves."
Mugabe says
government's target was to ensure food security and surplus for
export by
putting at least 300 000 hectares of maize under irrigation. He
has
confessed that his government's seizure of white-owned farms has
benefited
fewer than 10% of landless blacks as the programme was hijacked by
ruling
party officials and their relatives. Fields now lie fallow and
support only
subsistence crops.