South Africa Faces Test as Zimbabwe Deteriorates By
LYDIA POLGREEN
OHANNESBURG, June 25 — Each day brings a fresh sign of
misery in Zimbabwe. Yet South Africa, Zimbabwe's prosperous and stable
neighbor to the south, has done little to defuse the situation despite having
the most to lose if Zimbabwe descends into chaos.
Last week President
Robert Mugabe's government decreed it a crime to carry large wads of cash — a
bid to control the hoarding of money in a country where the inflation rate
has reached 300 percent. This week the government outlawed carrying gasoline
in containers as the supply of fuel dwindles.
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Mr. Mugabe's violent program of land reform has taken a
toll on the country's ability to feed itself. This month the World Food
Program announced that 5.5 million people in Zimbabwe will need extra food in
order to avoid starvation. Opposition leaders who just last year ran for
office are now being jailed.
In an Op-Ed article published on Tuesday
in The New York Times condemning Mr. Mugabe's increasingly autocratic rule,
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell urged South Africa to take a more active
role in brokering a deal to end Mr. Mugabe's 23-year rule of Zimbabwe. But if
its recent actions toward Zimbabwe — or lack thereof — are any guide,
Pretoria is unlikely to intervene in any significant way in the looming
crisis.
South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, has staked his legacy on
bringing Africa fully into the global community, seeking to build prosperity
across the continent through free market democracy with a distinctly
African flavor. Yet he has done little to press Mr. Mugabe — one
Africa's longest-serving heads of state — to follow those policies. Since a
visit to Harare in May failed to produce a solution, Mr. Mbeki has been
largely silent, engaging in quiet and polite diplomacy, predicting a solution
to the crisis will somehow emerge within a year.
A complex array of
domestic and foreign concerns explain Mr. Mbeki's relucta nce to confront a
man much of the rest of the world condemns as a tyrant, political experts
here and in Zimbabwe said. Fundamentally, Mr. Mbeki seems unable to decide
just what South Africa's role in the region should be.
"Our policy makers
need to decide if our role is to be hegemonic in order to stabilize the
region, or if we want to be just one player," said Adam Habib, a professor of
politics at the University of Natal. "I think Mbeki swings from one pole to
the other, hence his unwillingness to confront Mugabe head on."
At
home, Mr. Mbeki faces his own land reform issues — much of the nation's best
land is still owned by a tiny, wealthy white minority, and Mr. Mbeki has
pledged to come up with a plan to distribute land more equitably. As
an ardent advocate of free markets, Mr. Mbeki would never condone Mr.
Mugabe's radical and violent land reform program, but he is under
considerable pressure from his own party, the African National Congress, to
take action. His refusal to bow to Western pressure and condemn Mr. Mugabe,
who many here still consider a hero, plays well with that crowd, Mr. Habib
said.
A spokesman for South Africa's Foreign Ministry said that Mr. Mbeki
is doing precisely what Mr. Powell asks: trying to help Zimbabwe find a
solution.
"The solution to the current challenge in Zimbabwe lies with
the people of Zimbabwe," said Ronnie Mamoepa, the spokesman. "There are
well-known, ongoing efforts by the regional leadership to assist the people
of Zimbabwe to begin to address the challenges that face them with a view to
national reconciliation."
Among Zimbabwe's governing party, reaction
to Mr. Powell's statements was swift and blunt.
"It is quite
inadvisable for Powell to tell us who will rule Zimbabwe," said George
Charamba, Mr. Mugabe's chief spokesman. "It is not his business."
He said
that Mr. Powell's comments "told all oppressed people of the
African continent that whatever their aspirations they will be criminalized
by the American administration."
This has been Mr. Mugabe's message
all along, and his ultimate weapon against Mr. Mbeki: anyone who questions
his legitimacy is an imperialist who would give Zimbabwe back to its colonial
masters. John Stremlau, a professor of international relations at University
of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said Mr. Mbeki, mindful of the power of
such claims, has quietly sought a solution to the crisis that would both
preserve Mr. Mugabe's dignity and legacy while effecting a change in
leadership.
"One thing Thabo Mbeki does not want to do is let this crisis
divide his own country," Mr. Stremlau said. "He has managed this crisis with
an eye to his own constituency. It is very easy to carp about it from
Washington, but it is very different when you are dealing with a powerful and
important neighbor."
Government sidesteps Powell's Mugabe challenge
June 26, 2003
By John Battersby
President Thabo Mbeki
and US President George Bush are expected to discuss the situation in
Zimbabwe when they meet in Pretoria on July 9, but the government dodged
responding to US Secretary of State Colin Powell's warning that it was time
for South Africa to play a "stronger and more sustained" role in resolving
the crisis.
Government officials said that, while the two leaders
were likely to discuss the Zimbabwean issue in the context of conflict
resolution on the continent, there was no need to respond to Powell's opinion
article published in the New York Times this week, which called for an end
to Mugabe's "violent misrule".
Foreign affairs spokesman Ronnie
Mamoepa said South Africa had consistently maintained that only the
Zimbabwean people could find a solution to Zimbabwe's problems. He said South
Africa would continue to resist efforts to impose a solution on
Zimbabwe.
HARARE, Zimbabwe, June 25 — Almost half of all Zimbabweans will
need food aid at least until the next harvest in April, the U.N. food relief
agency said Wednesday. The crisis comes with Zimbabwe's once
impressive agricultural production deteriorating because of erratic rains and
the state's seizure of most white-owned commercial farms. Crop
assessments by the World Food Program and the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization indicated Zimbabwe will have to import more than half of its
staple food. U.N. officials said the dire forecasts raised concerns
about whether the country's crumbling economy could pay for vital imports
even if renewed international humanitarian aid shouldered much of the
burden. Zimbabwe will need to import an estimated 1.27 million tons
of cereals — corn, the staple, and wheat — to feed 5.5 million people, or
47 percent of the population. Zimbabwe is facing its worst economic
and political crisis since independence in 1980. Some humanitarian groups
already have accused the embattled government of President Robert Mugabe of
using food as a political weapon against its opponents. After the
farm seizures, many of the largest were given to ruling party elite and
favored supporters and are lying fallow. Others have been carved into
subsistence plots. Recent anti-government strikes called by the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change shut down much of the economy but
street protests demanding democratic reform were thwarted by a massive show
of force by police, troops and ruling party militia backed by armored cars,
water cannons and helicopters. WFP Country Director Kevin Farrell
said shortages of hard currency in Zimbabwe already have led to food, fuel
and transportation shortages, record inflation and unemployment, and a
burgeoning black market that has taken staple foods off the shelves of most
regular stores. ''The availability of foreign currency for the coming
season for the importation of food is going to be the big concern for the
year,'' said Farrell. International aid was likely to provide just
under half the imports, leaving it to the government to buy the rest at a
cost of at least $150 million, Farrell said. Mass famine was
avoided this year only by foreign humanitarian aid.
ALGIERS Algeria has
long served as a mediator on African issues, with successes that most
recently include the agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea. It is also a
prime mover within the New Partnership for Africa's Development, or NEPAD,
one of the more hopeful initiatives that has emerged from this troubled
continent. . The view from Algiers should therefore be important to those
who claim to have Africa's interests at heart. Unfortunately, none of the
Western powers with major stakes in Africa seem to be listening. . With
its painful colonial past, Algeria does not much like or trust the return of
the former colonial powers to Africa in military interventions, such as the
French-led operation to protect civilians in Bunia, in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. . Meanwhile, the United States, to which many
African governments look for leadership, has engaged with African security
problems only gingerly since the Somalia debacle in 1993. The much-hyped AIDS
initiative (still not fully funded by Congress) and the slightly increased
economic aid program (ditto) fail to dispel the impression that Washington
prefers to leave both leadership and risks in Africa to London and
Paris. . The small but well-equipped French-led "coalition of the willing"
in Bunia - where the UN's under-powered peacekeeping operation, MONUC, had
been overwhelmed by ethnic violence that broke out in the wake of
Uganda's military withdrawal from the area - has provoked much
self-congratulation among participating countries. But the lamentable fate of
Bunia raises two serious questions. . First, how is it that after years
of effort to end the civil war in the Congo, most of the parties to the war
have been engaged in continuous mischief while paying lip service to South
Africa's diplomatic efforts to end the killing? Ultimately, if the many
parties to this conflict remain more interested in plunder and personal
vendettas than in the plight of civilian populations, there will be little
the outside world can do to help. . The second key question is why the
countries of the industrialized world failed to participate meaningfully in
MONUC when it deployed in 1999. That France and others should fly to its
rescue only days before the Group of Eight summit meeting in Evian, France,
surprises few in Africa. Nobody here believes that a three-month deployment
(the coalition is scheduled to withdraw in early September) will do more than
induce the killers to wait out this faint-hearted Western effort before the
slaughter resumes. . Leading NEPAD countries such as South Africa,
Nigeria, Algeria and Senegal have been trying to promote more effective
African institutions and decisions, including on democracy and the rule of
law, amid evidence that the African Union, successor to the Organization of
African Unity, remains pitifully weak and prey to cynical accommodations
among its member states. . However, murderous conflicts continue to
afflict the continent. The embattled Liberian president and indicted war
criminal, Charles Taylor, serves to remind that West Africa, from the Ivory
Coast to Guinea-Bissau, is now a theater for continuous, interlocking
fighting. France's military intervention in the Ivory Coast has helped freeze
military skirmishing there, but has done little to resolve the tensions
stoked by irresponsible and self-interested Ivorian politicians. President
Robert Mugabe's fierce repression of Zimbabwe's opposition - unimpeded by
neighboring states - shames Africa as a whole. . NEPAD rests on an
exchange of increased Western assistance for improved governance in African
countries. Progress on the latter, while clear, is slow and uneven. But
Western countries, while announcing increased aid and providing the
occasional military Band-Aid, are holding up more significant engagement
until the Africans do more to help themselves. . African leaders,
particularly NEPAD's core proponents, need to intensify their efforts to
tackle African wars and challenges to democracy. Western capitals need to
move beyond mediagenic interventions and diplomatic gestures to support UN
and African conflict-resolution efforts. Their performance to date can only
inspire deep skepticism among Africans. . The writer, a former Canadian
ambassador to the United Nations, is president of the International Peace
Academy in New York.
Zimbabwe's harsh repression of strikes and
street protests shows the desperation of the regime of longtime President
Robert Mugabe, but South Africa and other African powers must do more to help
drive him from power, a leading opposition figure said. "South Africa
could be doing much more to help our cause," said Moses Mzila Ndlovu, the
chief foreign policy spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
which has organized massive public protests against Mr. Mugabe's increasingly
authoritarian rule. "If South Africa feels a close identification with
the current government, it should be the first to answer for the regime's
misdeeds," Mr. Ndlovu said in an interview during a visit to Washington this
week. With Zimbabwe's economy in tatters and political repression on the
rise, the MDC organized nationwide strikes and protests earlier this
month, calling them off only after Mr. Mugabe sent army units into the
streets of the capital, Harare, Bulawayo and other major cities. MDC
party leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who narrowly lost to Mr. Mugabe last year in
a widely disputed presidential vote, has been charged with treason by the
government and many other MDC figures, including Mr. Ndlovu, have been
harassed, jailed and beaten. The United States and the European Union
have stepped up their criticisms of the Mugabe government since the 2002
elections, condemning repressive new curbs on the press and civil liberties
and a land-redistribution program that has driven some of the country's
most efficient white farmers off their land and sent food production
plummeting. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in a New York Times
opinion piece Tuesday, said Mr. Mugabe's "time has come and gone" and urged
the country's neighbors to play a more active role in pressing the president
to leave. "If leaders on the continent do not do more to convince
President Mugabe to respect the rule of law and enter into a dialogue with
the political opposition, he and his cronies will drag Zimbabwe down until
there is nothing left to ruin," Mr. Powell warned. Mr. Ndlovu said the
MDC has been disappointed by South Africa's low-key approach to the crisis
next door. He said many African countries are reluctant to interfere in
Zimbabwe's domestic crisis and worry about the precedent of ousting a figure
like Mr. Mugabe, who has ruled his country since its independence from
Britain in 1980. Like Zimbabwe, South Africa and many African states are
governed largely by a single party closely associated with the nationalist
struggle for independence. "Real political change in Zimbabwe could
have profound effects across Africa," Mr. Ndlovu said. South Africa's
ruling African National Congress, which has had testy relations with
Zimbabwe's opposition, has pursued quiet diplomacy in the crisis on its
doorstep, rejecting U.S. and EU efforts to isolate Mr. Mugabe and his top
aides internationally. "We are not there to throw people over the
precipice," South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Diaminini Zuma told
reporters earlier this year. The MDC has been criticized for provoking
the street demonstrations of recent weeks, which failed to shake Mr. Mugabe's
control. But Mr. Ndlovu said the decision to call off the work stoppages
and protests was merely a "tactical withdrawal." That the government
had to call out the army to prevent bigger protests "just shows the level of
desperation on Mugabe's part," he said. "He's used the maximum force he has
against us. His intimidation tactics are exhausted. If we go back into the
streets, what more can he do to us?" The MDC official said the political
crisis is growing more acute, as the president's ruling ZANU-PF party debates
how to break the political impasse and retain power as the international
pressure on Mr. Mugabe grows. "Because of his age, because of his crimes,
Mugabe has got to go," Mr. Ndlovu insisted. "But when he goes, we do not know
what will happen with ZANU-PF. It is in our interest to work out a transition
with ZANU-PF, but we can't hold their party together for them." Mr.
Mugabe, he said, "is buying time to try to solve an
insoluble problem."
Mugabe leans heavily on rural strongholds to hang on to
power June 26, 2003
By Cris Chinaka
Shurugwi,
Zimbabwe: President Robert Mugabe usually appears stiff and combative in
public, his ramrod posture ever more pronounced in the face of a deepening
political and economic crisis.
But the 79-year-old leader relaxed a
little at a rally of his ruling Zanu-PF party this month - cracking jokes,
and diving into a crowd of cheering supporters for handshakes.
The bunting, political posters and party songs all carried one message:
Mugabe is counting on his rural power base to head off a rising opposition
challenge from the urban areas.
"We have faith in you," he told
about 20 000 supporters, made up largely of poor peasant farmers in Shurugwi,
350km south of Harare.
In the last month Mugabe has returned
repeatedly to his rural strongholds to display his muscle as the opposition
piles pressure in urban areas with strikes and street protests to drive him
from power.
It is not an unexpected political strategy for a
politician who cut his teeth as a guerrilla leader.
"Zanu-PF
planted its roots in the rural areas during the liberation struggle and it
has maintained very strong ties with the rural people ever since," said
political analyst Heneri Dzinotyiwei, a professor at the University of
Harare.
"These are difficult times for Zanu-PF which is naturally
going back to fight from its strong bases," he said of rural Zimbabwe, where
at least 60% of the population live.
The Shurugwi rally provided
a glimpse of how Mugabe intends to play the game. The gathering included
hundreds of members of the youth brigades, generally called "Green Bombers"
and seen by Mugabe's critics as his party's eyes, ears - and fists - in the
countryside.
Accused of repression by his political opponents,
Mugabe was careful to urge his young supporters to end violence in their
campaign for Zanu-PF, saying the ruling party was the custodian of the law
and its activists had to be disciplined.
But there was no doubt
here about how the party is organised - with a mixture of military and
civilian structures deeply rooted in Zimbabwe's 1970s independence
war. For many party loyalists, the rally was a call to arms. Mugabe
urged resourcefulness in tackling Zimbabwe's mounting problems, including
food and fuel shortages, runaway inflation and one of the highest rates of
HIV/Aids in the world.
He also took a sharp swipe at Morgan
Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
who stands accused on two counts of treason, for allegedly seeking to
assassinate Mugabe and organising his party's predominantly urban supporters
in protests and strikes against the government.
"Tsvangirai is
trying to live his wild dream of marching to State House at the urging of his
British sponsors. That will not be allowed," Mugabe said.
Mugabe
blames his country's political and economic problems on sabotage by Western
and domestic opponents opposed to his controversial seizures of white-owned
farms for redistribution to blacks.
While participants in the rally
sang cheerfully along in the Shona language to such Zanu-PF anthems as Mugabe
is the Man and We are Ready to Die for Zimbabwe, outside the rural parade
grounds the atmosphere was a little less upbeat.
Villagers said
privately that life had become harder in the past year as the foreign
currency shortages afflicting the country had left medicine cupboards bare in
rural clinics, among other scarcities.
Along the road to Shurugwi,
through Zimbabwe's gold- and chrome-mining belt, villagers battling with a
crisis that has seen inflation soar to 300% - one of the highest in the world
- are resorting to gold panning and selling the results through both legal
and illegal routes.
Traditional chiefs told Mugabe that they were
still assessing the district's farming output this year, but were sure that
some families would need food aid.
Nearly half of Zimbabwe's
population has been surviving on donated food over the past year after a
collapse in the farming sector blamed on drought and the seizures of
commercial farms by the government.
But there was little overt
criticism. "We know things could be better but we also know that they are
going to get better if we work harder and remain united," said a 55-year-old
villager, repeating almost verbatim the official government line on
Zimbabwe's problems and prospects.
"I don't belong to the MDC and
so I don't believe that Mugabe and Zanu-PF are the causes of our problems,"
he said before walking away.
The MDC - which has challenged
Mugabe's re-election in 2002 polls that were criticised as rigged by several
Western governments - learned the hard way what happens to those who do blame
the veteran leader for the country's woes.
The party's attempt
to organise a "final push" of street protests against Mugabe ended with
hundreds of arrests as Zanu-PF bussed in thousands of youth brigades and its
rural supporters into towns to help the army and police to snuff out
anti-government marches.
Mugabe ended the rally with promises that
he has made at half a dozen other gatherings across the country in the past
month - vowing to boost social welfare and address local woes.
Then he boarded a helicopter and headed back to town, leaving the rural
people to ponder their increasingly desperate lives.
THE
ruling ZANU PF party yesterday said it had no objections to a government of
national unity with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as
the United States of America (USA) this week mounted fresh pressure on the
government to negotiate with the MDC a solution to Zimbabwe’ s
crisis.
In an apparent climb-down, ZANU PF spokesman Nathan
Shamuyarira told The Daily News that his party was ready for a government of
national unity with the MDC.
Shamuyarira said: “We have had such
governments in the 1970s and in 1987 with ZAPU. It is a tradition that we
have always had and we are ready for that (with the MDC).”
But
Shamuyarira, who also sits in the ruling party’s powerful Politburo,
vehemently rejected demands by Washington for a transitional government that
would be tasked to prepare for free and fair elections before American aid
could be given to Harare.
He said: “We have never been opposed to a
government of national unity. We have also never objected to American
investment. They have invested money in the past and they have supported the
government in the past. But such support should not be
conditional.”
Shamuyarira’s softer line yesterday was in sharp
contrast to ZANU PF and President Robert Mugabe’s official position that they
would never form a government of national unity with the MDC which they label
a puppet of Britain and the West.
Writing in the New York Times
newspaper this week, USA Secretary of State Colin Powell said Mugabe and his
government must negotiate with the MDC a transitional government that would
then prepare for free and democratic elections.
Powell, who was
writing ahead of talks next month between South Africa ’s President Thabo
Mbeki and USA President George W Bush in which Zimbabwe is expected to be
topical, said American aid could be given to Harare once the transition
process was in motion.
Bush is expected to urge Mbeki, the region’s
power broker, to press Mugabe to negotiate with the MDC a solution to
Zimbabwe’s crisis.
Shamuyarira said Zimbabwe’s two main political
parties, who broke dialogue last year, had not discussed the possibility of a
transitional government in Zimbabwe.
He said: “I can say that so
far there has been no such discussions with the MDC for such an arrangement
(to set up a transitional government). Now why don’t you go and ask the MDC
whether they are interested in genuine national governments? You should also
get their view on that one.”
MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube
said a transitional government could only be possible after exhaustive and
unconditional dialogue between the two parties.
Ncube said: “But
we also need unconditional dialogue to chart the way forward and return to
legitimacy. That is what we have always been saying in the MDC. There should
be dialogue so that we can find a way to restore legitimacy and this could be
through a transitional government or any other mechanism.”
Dialogue between the two parties collapsed last year after ZANU PF pulled out
of the talks to protest the decision by the MDC to challenge at the High
Court Mugabe’s re-election.
State silence on food aid quantities cripples
plans
6/26/2003 9:50:12 AM (GMT +2)
Staff
Reporter
THE government has written to international donor groups
requesting for food relief but has not spelt out how much aid it actually
required, a situation food relief organisations yesterday told The Daily News
was hampering efforts to mobilise food aid for the country.
The
government had, for example, written in May to the World Food Programme (WFP)
asking the world food agency to continue supplying food to starving
Zimbabweans but it did not say how many tonnes the WFP had to provide and
feed how many people and over what period of time.
WFP spokesman in
Harare Louis Clemens said: “There has been a request for continued food
assistance,” he said. “But that request is not specific. It does not specify
as yet how much is needed.
“It has to be understood that the
harvest figures are still being finalised. Once those figures are finalised,
we presume the government will let us know how they propose to fill the gap
and how much food they will be requesting.”
The WFP has in the
last year helped mobilise from the international community more than 300 000
tonnes of maize and other key cereals to feed about eight million
Zimbabweans, or about half the country’s population, who faced starvation
after poor rains and disruptive government farm reforms combined to cut down
food production by about 60 percent.
Social Welfare Minister July
Moyo, under whose portfolio food relief falls, yesterday said he was not
aware that the government had written requesting the WFP to continue food
relief operations in the country.
Moyo said: “I am not aware of
that request. My ministry does not mobilise resources for external assistance
but the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development does the
mobilisation.”
Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa could however not
be reached for comment on the matter yesterday.
But senior
officials with international food aid organisations in Harare said the
government’s silence on the quantities of food it needed had crippled
planning for relief operations in the country.
“The government has
to share its harvest figures so that the international community can react in
time,” said a diplomat with one foreign non-governmental food aid
group.
Only the quick intervention by the WFP, the Food and
Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and other international food aid agencies
saved Zimbabwe from famine because the government had delayed in appealing
for food.
Out of the three countries in southern Africa worst hit
by food shortages last year, Zimbabwe is the only one needing further food
support while Zambia and Malawi – formerly dependent on Zimbabwe for food aid
– have recorded surplus harvests.
A FAO report on Zimbabwe
released this month said the economic crisis gripping the country had further
worsened food security in the southern African nation.
The
organisation, which compiled the report together with the WFP, says about 221
000 tonnes of maize were needed to feed 5 422 634 Zimbabweans between January
this year and March next year.
Meanwhile reports carried by the
Zambian Press say about 38 white farmers who fled violent land reforms in
Zimbabwe had secured lease agreements to settle in southern
Zambia.
According to the reports, the farmers had secured 10-year
leases to grow maize and tobacco in Zimbabwe’s northern neighbour
Ben-Menashe’s tape inaudible, valueless – state
transcriber
6/26/2003 9:50:52 AM (GMT +2)
Court
Reporter
A GOVERNMENT transcriber told the High Court yesterday
that video and audio tape recordings produced as evidence by the state in the
treason trial of three opposition leaders was inaudible and valueless and
that he had transcribed it only because the police had insisted he did
so.
Recording supervisor at the Harare magistrates court
Constantine Musango said he told the police who had asked him to produce
transcripts of the tapes that huge parts of the tapes were not audible and
that the audio tape was “valueless”.
“I indicated to the police
that it was going to be very difficult to produce a transcript,” Musango said
in response to a question by defence lawyers on the accuracy of the
transcript he made from the video-tape.
The video-tape was recorded
during a meeting in Montreal, Canada, at which opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party leader Morgan Tsvangirai allegedly requested
Canadian-based consultant Ari Ben-Menashe’s Dickens and Madson company to
help assasinate President Robert Mugabe ahead of last year’s presidential
election.
Tsvangirai and his co-accused, MDC secretary-general
Welshman Ncube and legislator Renson Gasela, deny plotting to murder
Mugabe.
Musango yesterday told the court: “I had difficulty hearing
what was being said because of the noise which was coming from the tape. I
could have been mistaken on the speakers. It was not clear who was saying
what because of the accents.”
The state’s star witness in the
trial Ben-Menashe himself had problems making out what was being discussed in
some parts of the video-tape which forms the basis of the state’s
case.
Musango said he pointed out to the police the difficulties he
had trying to transcribe the audio-tape but the police “insisted that I
should transcribe what I could hear”.
The court transcriber said
he was given an ordinary video-casette to transcribe contrary to claims by
Ben-Menashe that he had supplied a special mini-cassette for the
transcribers.
Musango said he had informed officials at the
Attorney-General (AG)’s office to explain the difficulties he was having in
transcribing the tape.
He said: “I just wanted to explain to them
(officials at the AG’s office) that the tapes were not good enough and wanted
to play them in their presence.”
A director of a Harare
electronic equipment hiring company, Tineyi Nyawasha, also told the court
that some parts of the audio tape were inaudible.
The state-run
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation television and broadcasting manager Edward
Chinhoyi, summoned to testify in court, said there was no evidence on the
tape to show that it had been tampered with.
The ZBC official
demonstrated various editing techniques and said there was nothing that any
of the techniques had been used in the video-tape produced by
Ben-Menashe.
Defence lawyers objected when the state wanted to
screen part of a documentary produced by a Harare video production company to
demonstrate an editing technique.
Advocate Chris Andersen said
the documentary, titled Inside the Plot to Kill Mugabe in bold red print,
would be prejudicial to the on-going case.
Joseph Musakwa, the
director of public prosecution, said the screening was meant “to demonstrate
how editing was done”.
The trial continues today with Chinhoyi
testifying.
the video-tape which forms the basis of the state’s
case.
Musango said he pointed out to the police the difficulties he
had trying to transcribe the audio-tape but the police “insisted that I
should transcribe what I could hear”.
The court transcriber said
he was given an ordinary video-casette to transcribe contrary to claims by
Ben-Menashe that he had supplied a special mini-cassette for the
transcribers.
Musango said he had informed officials at the
Attorney-General (AG)’s office to explain the difficulties he was having in
transcribing the tape.
He said: “I just wanted to explain to them
(officials at the AG’s office) that the tapes were not good enough and wanted
to play them in their presence.”
A director of a Harare
electronic equipment hiring company, Tineyi Nyawasha, also told the court
that some parts of the audio tape were inaudible.
The state-run
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation television and broadcasting manager Edward
Chinhoyi, summoned to testify in court, said there was no evidence on the
tape to show that it had been tampered with.
The ZBC official
demonstrated various editing techniques and said there was nothing that any
of the techniques had been used in the video-tape produced by
Ben-Menashe.
Defence lawyers objected when the state wanted to
screen part of a documentary produced by a Harare video production company to
demonstrate an editing technique.
Advocate Chris Andersen said
the documentary, titled Inside the Plot to Kill Mugabe in bold red print,
would be prejudicial to the on-going case.
Joseph Musakwa, the
director of public prosecution, said the screening was meant “to demonstrate
how editing was done”.
The trial continues today with Chinhoyi
testifying.
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe and
his ruling ZANU PF party have in the last few years spurned countless
opportunities to pull this once prosperous country out of economic and
political crisis.
The Abuja agreement early last year could have
provided a platform to turn around Zimbabwe’s fortunes if only Mugabe had
lived up to his word by restoring the rule of law, upholding democracy and
implementing just and transparent land reforms, in return for vital financial
and material support from Britain and other donor countries.
Likewise, African-initiated dialogue between ZANU PF and the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party could have in the end proved the
panacea to Zimbabwe’s political impasse, had Mugabe and his party not
torpedoed the exercise by pulling out of the talks because the MDC had dared
challenge Mugabe’s re-election in court.
But Zimbabweans, for far
too long the silent victims of the government ’s ill-thought-out policies,
must not allow Mugabe and ZANU PF to sacrifice on the alter of ego the latest
opportunity offered by America to pull Zimbabwe out of crisis.
United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, writing in the New York Times
newspaper this week, vouched generous economic aid for Zimbabwe if ZANU PF
and the MDC seriously engaged in dialogue that would lead to peaceful,
transparent and democratic elections to choose a new government.
Powell promised that aid would even start flowing to Zimbabwe even before
fresh elections were held, as long as the transition to democracy
was irreversibly set in motion.
He said: “There is a way out of
the crisis. ZANU PF and the opposition party can together legislate
constitutional changes to allow for a transition . . . if this happened, the
US would be quick to pledge assistance to the restoration of Zimbabwe’s
political and economic institutions even before the election.”
We will be the first to argue for Zimbabwean solutions to
Zimbabwean problems.
But we are equally cognisant that it
requires more than just sovereignty or a proud sense of nationalism to pull
this country out of the political and economic quagmire into which it has
been driven by the ruinous policies of Mugabe and his
administration.
The failure of much-lauded home-grown initiatives
to end the fast deteriorating crisis must surely be ample evidence to all
that Zimbabwe cannot, in this global village, go it alone.
The
government’s chaotic land reform – or so-called Third Chimurenga – has
dismally failed to end hunger and this year Zimbabwe must go cap-in-hand to
Zambia and Malawi, of all places, to beg for food or millions of people will
starve to death in this country.
The home-grown National Economic
Recovery Programme is not working because neither the government nor local
private business has the kind of money required to fund any meaningful
recovery programme for the economy.
Meanwhile, hundreds of
companies continue folding because of the harsh operating environment, in the
process throwing more workers onto the streets.
The countless
sessions of negotiations between the government and its friends in Libya and
other places have still not yielded enough oil for Zimbabwe and the vital
commodity remains in critical short supply.
In short, the
government’s ideas have not worked.
And the time has now come for
Zimbabweans to rise and demand that Mugabe and ZANU PF stop experimenting
with theirs and their children’s future.
It would be a terrible
betrayal to posterity if Zimbabweans allowed a government, whose time has –
as Powell correctly puts it – come and long gone, to once more sabotage the
future of this country by letting the offer of help being extended by the US
with the backing of the rest of the international community, slip
away.
I have really been wondering
about our docility. At first I thought things were not yet that bad but as
events unfolded in our beloved country, I realised that we cannot afford the
“quiet diplomacy” advocated by President Thabo Mbeki of neighbouring South
Africa.
Zimbabwe is engulfed in flames and when it has been burnt
beyond recognition, I think that is when we will rise from our deep slumber,
only to find nothing left!
We are so well-educated that we
regard toyi-toying, protest marches and even stone-throwing as being for the
illiterate, not for we white-collar folk.
We can’t see ourselves
marching to State House; we are not fit for such a barbaric act of
hooliganism.
So, who do we want to be our sacrificial lamb? Who
will liberate us from President Mugabe’s tyranny?
Maybe we are
all devoted Christians, who speak no politics, preach no evil, hear no evil
and see no evil. The word “politics” doesn’t exist in Christian vocabulary,
does it?
Humbwende chaihwo, varume. (It’s really cowardice,
people.) Mugabe will rule until madhongi amera nyanga! (the cows come
home!)
We betrayed our legitimate president, Morgan Tsvangirai,
because of our cowardice.
Change demands action. Tsvangirai
acted heroically, but we betrayed him. He was detained and later
released.
My fellow Zimbabweans, we are not as smart as we may
think. We will be cursed by generations to come for having let Mugabe plunge
this country, once the jewel of Africa, into a pariah state while we stood
by.
In the 1970s, Mugabe played a revolutionary role when he led
the liberation struggle. Now it’s our turn to act bravely.
We
must arise and claim our God-given dignity. Power is not relinquished easily.
For one to assume the highest office in the land, one has to toil and
sweat.
David had to fight it out with Saul, even though he was
anointed by God.
To Tsvangirai I say: it’s a matter of time
before you occupy your rightful place at Munhumutapa Building. Rambai
makashinga! (Be resolute!)
To Baba vaChatunga (Chatunga’s father):
you played your part in the 70s through to the 90s, but you have failed to
adapt to the challenges of the new millennium. You are now just a
liability to the nation.
You are expendable, as is everyone else;
office-bearers should be changed regularly.
Vanhu havanzwarwo.
Vakomana muchamhanya! (You can’t treat people like you’re doing. You
and your cronies will one day face our wrath!)
I am
writing this letter in response to an article which appeared in The Herald of
24 June outlawing the carrying of fuel in containers.
I actually
resent paying more than five times the pump price for diesel but since both
of my vehicles run on it and all the available diesel goes to
commuter omnibuses – who then sell the scarce commodity to the public at
inflated prices – I have no alternative.
I use the limited
amounts of diesel that I can get to ferry my children to school and to
conduct my daily business.
If it were not for resourceful
“entrepreneurs”, my vehicles would have been grounded months
ago.
Perhaps Energy Minister Amos Midzi could advise us of the
alternative plan he has put in place for the national fleet to obtain
sufficient fuel, without resorting to the containers he has
outlawed.
It’s all well and good to ban something, but to do so in
this instance is creating a situation where most of the cars in this country
will have to be taken off the road.
Perhaps one solution to the
problem would be to stop giving preference to commuter
omnibuses.
The black market would then dry up
overnight.
In the meantime, I will regrettably have to continue
shelling out large amounts of money since my car is a necessity rather than a
luxury.
I believe there may be an ulterior motive and that is
simply to confiscate fuel, which would then be used to keep the government
fleet running.
The longer the crisis continues, the more
the damage
6/26/2003 9:36:34 AM (GMT +2)
When
President Robert Mugabe was at a Nyamandlovu farm about a fortnight ago, he
asked some of that area’s traditional leaders what they thought the
government should do about or to a Bulawayo businessman, Manilal Naran, who
had allegedly been involved in black market foreign
currency activities.
Mugabe was reported by a Bulawayo
government-controlled daily newspaper as saying that Naran easily paid fines
imposed by the law courts because they were meagre.
Should we
deport him? He was reported to have asked.
I was honestly surprised
by that story because the black market foreign currency activities in
Bulawayo have been going on for several years; in fact I should say for many
years in spite of sporadic police raids.
The city’s sector where
those involved in the activity is jokingly referred to as the IMF (after
International Monetary Fund) and is publicly known to the vast majority of
Bulawayo residents.
Whatever the fine is for dealing illicitly in
foreign currency, the dealers are still there and can be seen by anyone with
the faintest sight.
When they are arrested, they are fined as
little as $5 000. That is what the law of the land stipulates.
These days $5 000 is peanuts because of the roaring inflation presently
hovering at 300 percent.
It was a matter of much curiosity to me
that the High Court judge who heard Morgan Tsvangirai’s bail application a
week ago, charged a hefty $10 million plus $100 million surety, quoting the
soaring inflation to justify those hefty amounts.
It would be
advisable for the country’s Members of Parliament to amend some of the
country’s laws to meet the current socio-economic situation.
As for
the law dealing with foreign exchange, the lawmakers should be guided by the
principle expounded and propagated by that great British scholar, Jeremy
Bentham, that a good law is that which promotes and protects the interests of
most of the people most of the time.
Can we truly say that the
Zimbabwean law on foreign currency procurement, disposal and usage is based
on that undoubtedly democratic Benthamic theory?
On Mugabe’s
observations on Naran, it was surprising that having been informed about the
man’s alleged infringement of foreign currency regulations, a resource on
which the national economy stands or falls, he found it prudent to pass the
remarks he was reported to have made.
The matter deserved a much
more serious reception by the head of the state of Zimbabwe than those
frivolous remarks which, if anything, could have led to the concealment of
material evidence by the suspect if the police tried to investigate the
matter.
In any case the foreign currency goings-on in Bulawayo are
so much a part of the city’s business life that they have become
normal.
That is the problem with crime if it is not nipped in the
bud: it becomes normal as is the case with murder and rape in South
Africa.
In Chicago during the days of gangsterism, when the feared
Al Capone ruled the under-world and businesses paid his gang protection fees,
crime was regarded as normal.
In Zimbabwe today, it is normal to
see vehicles queuing for fuel, and people jostling for bread or sugar or
cooking oil or maize or paraffin or whatever may be in short supply at that
particular time.
The situation has been left to drift along for so
long that it has become normal.
It has also become normal to see
women on the pavements of some Bulawayo streets and to hear them ask:
“Usiphatheleni?” (What have you brought us?)
The Zimbabwe
Republic Police is without much doubt more interested in implementing the
Public Order and Security Act than in apprehending black market operatives or
in diligently following up cases of theft from households.
The
country has reached a situation where some people no longer bother to report
crime, particularly thefts, to the police. Why?
Because it is
virtually normal for the police not to act timeously on such reports. That
abnormal behaviour is fast becoming normal practice in Zimbabwe
today.
It is also normal Zimbabwean practice for political leaders
to threaten voters with all sorts of punishment, revenge and retribution
if they do not vote for those leaders’ parties!
It may sound
absurd, but it is actually true that some people, especially in the rural
areas, are effectively influenced by such threats and regard it as normal to
vote for those undemocratic political ragamuffins.
Did Mugabe
find it normal to ask traditional leaders and some well-meaning struggling
indigenous business persons what the government should do with
Naran?
One would have thought that the appropriate people to be
consulted about such a serious allegation should have been the police. Why
was the foreign currency black market still thriving in
Bulawayo?
That should have been Mugabe’s question directed at the
most senior police officers in the city.
At the rate crime and
corruption are spreading throughout Zimbabwe’s urban communities, we should
expect a Zimbabwean type of Mafia gang to emerge and take control of the
foreign currency and fuel market sooner than later.