From IRIN (UN), 18 June

UN Strengthens, Extends Monuc Mandate

The UN Security Council on Friday, 15 June, extended the mandate of the UN mission in the DRC (MONUC) until 15 June 2002, and strengthened its mandate to include a civilian police force component. The extension is, however, subject to a progress review every four months. The Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1355, in which it approved UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's proposals on a revised concept of operations, including the creation of a civilian police component and a new civilian/military planning section to coordinate disarmament, demobilisation, rehabilitation and reintegration (DDRR) operations.

The new concept of operations also included reinforcing MONUC's presence in the strategic northeastern town of Kisangani (Orientale Province), and allowing it to assist - when requested and on a voluntary basis - in the early disarmament and reintegration of armed groups. The resolution authorised the strengthening of the mission's capacity to support current and future deployment in the field, and requested Kofi Annan to send human rights personnel to areas where MONUC was deployed. The Council also called on Annan to ensure the deployment of a sufficient number of child-protection advisers to be able to provide a systematic analysis of the parties' adherence to their obligations to children under humanitarian and human rights law.

From The Daily News, 19 June

Mutasa pointed gun at MDC backers in Rusape, court told

Didymus Mutasa, the Zanu PF secretary for external affairs and MP for Makoni North, and an aide pointed guns at supporters of the MDC in Rusape on Sunday. Among them were witnesses in an ongoing election petition being heard in the High Court on the election result in Makoni East, the High Court heard yesterday. Pishai Muchauraya, a witness in the petition in which Nicholas Mudzengerere of the MDC has challenged Shadreck Chipanga's victory in Makoni East in last June's poll, told Justice Paddington Garwe that Mutasa was accompanied by an unidentified man who was also armed. Chipanga is the former director-general of the Central Intelligence Organisation.

"We were going to Haisoswi to hold our elections for the district when Mutasa and his colleague pointed their guns at us," Muchauraya said yesterday. Muchauraya, 36, is the MDC co-ordinator for Makoni East. He said he reported the matter to the police officer commanding Rusape district who advised the MDC supporters to cancel their meeting. "He said Mutasa was very close to President Mugabe and nothing could be done to him," Muchauraya told the court. "He said we were going to die for nothing and no one would be arrested." He said the policeman refused to take down any notes as he related the incident to him.

While Muchauraya and his colleagues were making the report, Mutasa and the unidentified man allegedly sat in their Jeep Cherokee 4x4 vehicle outside the police station. "When we left the police station, we parked our lorry at Balfour Hotel along the Harare-Mutare High Way," said Muchauraya. "Mutasa pointed his gun at us again. I then pleaded with him to shoot only me and not everybody else because they had done nothing wrong." Mutasa is said to have then driven away towards Mutare, the court heard. Muchauraya said his group then proceeded with their elections, but other people had fled following the gun incident. Mudzengerere wants Garwe to nullify Chipanga's victory because of massive intimidation and violence allegedly perpetrated against MDC supporters by Zanu PF followers. Mutasa is the former Zanu PF secretary for administration. He was replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa, the Speaker of Parliament, when Mugabe appointed his new politburo at the party's annual national congress last December. The hearing continues today.

From Associated Press, 19 June

Zimbabwe vows media flexibility

Harare - Zimbabwe's government promised it will be flexible in granting permission for foreign journalists to enter the country, saying it may ease a newly enforced rule requiring advance accreditation to let reporters cover breaking news. Last week, the government announced that foreign journalists would be required to apply for permission at least a month before an intended visit - a rule criticized by the United States as an effort to control information emerging from the troubled African nation.

On Tuesday, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said that the measure could be relaxed for breaking news stories or other "exceptional circumstances." "We have been flexible before and if the situation demands we will consider applications in a shorter period," Moyo said at a news conference. He said advance accreditation was an existing regulation that had not been enforced but was being reactivated after a review of procedures for foreign journalists uncovered abuses by the visitors. "Many people, some indeed reporters but others not reporters, would just arrive in the country and come to our office and expect accreditation," Moyo said. "We are doing what we think is needful after that review,'' he said.

The government has waged a campaign to discredit the independent media in Zimbabwe and local reporters have been assaulted by ruling party militants. In February, the government deported two foreign reporters it accused of unspecified illegal activities. On June 13, the government announced journalists would have to apply at least one month before travelling to Zimbabwe. The U.S. State Department described entry rules as "particularly troubling" in light of the impending start of a presidential campaign. In recent months, foreign journalists arriving in Zimbabwe have been given accreditation cards valid for five days. Earlier, foreign reporters usually received up to a month. On Thursday, the state-run Herald newspaper quoted Moyo as accusing opposition groups of working with "foreign intelligence operatives, sections of the local and international media and non-governmental organizations" to fuel violence. Zimbabwe is suffering its deepest economic crisis since independence in 1980, worsened by political violence that marred parliamentary elections last year and has continued ahead of next year's vote.

From Business Report (SA), 20 June

Devaluation the only way to keep hundreds of businessmen from ruin

Harare - David Takawira, a tinsmith who plies his trade on the streets of the capital, and Patrick Ashton, a tobacco farmer with 800ha in land, can agree on one thing: Zimbabwe must devalue its currency. Like hundreds of businessmen, they face ruin as an overvalued Zimbabwean dollar creates a shortage of essential imports such as oil and drugs, forcing them to buy dollars on the black market. The unofficial exchange rate is as high as 155 to the dollar, compared with an official rate of 55, and it's rising every week.

"Even tin is hard to buy," says Takawira. "Soon we will be using street signs to make our products, though even those have mostly been stolen. If devaluation doesn't come soon, we will all be out of business, big and small together." "Even if they went to 75 Zimbabwe dollars to the US dollar," says Ashton, "we'd be able to stay in business. We'd still lose money, but we wouldn't be crippled." President Robert Mugabe is reluctant to devalue the currency because it would push up food prices, boosting support for the opposition MDC ahead of April's election. Yet failure to devalue could force tobacco farmers and other export industries out of business, making the shortage still worse.

The foreign currency shortage already forces drivers to queue for hours every time they need petrol, while hospitals are unable to buy syringes and essential drugs as doctors battle one of the world's worst Aids epidemics. About 400 companies have closed and 100 000 jobs have been lost over the past year as the seizure of mainly white-owned commercial farms by armed squatters devastated an already staggering economy, according to the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries. "The position can't improve," says Lindile Ndlovu, the managing director of Intermarket Holdings, a finance house. "It can only worsen until the government implements policies to curtail the decline, and foreign currency is a primary issue."

Finance minister Simba Makoni said this month the government was considering a devaluation as part of an effort to boost exports and revive the flagging economy. "We need to do things that enable businesses that export to produce more and to sell more," he said. "The exchange rate is one factor." It is the most important factor for the tobacco industry, the country's largest earner of US dollars, bringing in about $400 million a year. Tobacco growers have to buy dollars on the black market to buy fertiliser, seed and other supplies, while selling their crop at the official exchange rate. Mugabe is caught in a trap. Difficult economic decisions, such as devaluing the currency, could fuel popular support for the MDC's leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, analysts say. But holding back until the elections may doom Zimbabwe's economy. "The government hasn't opened its eyes to the fact that they can't solve the economic problems unless they address the political ones," says Ndlovu. "As far as I'm concerned, they're just trying to prove who's in charge."

From The Daily News, 19 June

Zanu PF supporters assault MDC MP inside police station

Willias Madzimure, the MDC Member of Parliament for Kambuzuma, says he was assaulted by three Zanu PF supporters in the presence of the police in the charge office at Warren Park police post on Sunday. Madzimure alleges he was attacked by George Mubvanyika, and two of his colleagues identified only as Sitiya and Mudiwa, all of them known to him as Zanu PF supporters resident in his constituency. "Sitiya caught me unawares with a punch on the right eye, leaving me dazed," said the MP. "He followed up the attack with a flurry of blows. They kept shouting that they would kill me." Police officers in the charge office had to push the MP behind a counter in the room to protect him from further assault.

Inspector Nyatsambo, the officer-in-charge, said details of the incident were available from the Harare province police spokesperson, an Inspector Chiuru. Efforts to contact Chiuru for comment failed yesterday. Madzimure said he received death threats before a group of about 200 war veterans and Zanu PF supporters last month attacked his home on two occasions within 24 hours, reducing it to a shell. They destroyed all windows and ransacked and looted household goods worth thousands of dollars. Godknows Musukutwa, 25, a security guard at the house, sustained serious head injuries during the attack.

The police arrested two suspects, but an angry Madzimure dismissed the claims that they were investigating the matter, saying he was surprised that the police had refused to arrest suspects whose names were supplied. He claimed that the Zanu PF supporters on Saturday sent one of his workers, Alec Bhebhe, with a message to him that they would kill him. On Sunday the four police officers present released the three Zanu PF supporters without charging them, claimed Madzimure. He said the police, however, took a report from him with reference number 3566/2001.

Sitiya, a former police officer, is suspected to be the leader of a group of war veterans and Zanu PF supporters who took over a piece of land between Kambuzuma and Mufakose belonging to the Harare City Council, while Mubvanyika is said to have defected from the MDC. Madzimure said he went to the police station following clashes between Zanu PF and MDC youths which began when ruling party supporters, armed with catapults and other weapons, tried to force an MDC youth to remove a party T-shirt he was wearing. He said when he walked into the charge office, he saw Mudiwa and a police officer whose name he does not know assaulting a hand-cuffed Simon Mafunga, an MDC youth arrested during the incident. Mubvanyika was making a report against some MDC supporters he claimed assaulted him. That was when Sitiya allegedly attacked him, urged on by his colleagues. Police constables Sithole, Zulu, Tagara and a fourth unidentified officer were said to be present when the MP was assaulted.

From The Star (SA), 19 June

'85% of DRC diamonds smuggled out in 2000'

Kinshasa - Nearly 85 percent of the dollar value of the DRC’s diamond production last year was smuggled out of the country, according to confidential figures from the official Belgian Diamond Office leaked to the press. Confirming this weekend that the figures published in a local newspaper were accurate, Vice-Minister Mbaka Kawabaya said the government planned to introduce a diamond certification system to combat fraud, and had signed a contract in April with the Haut Conseil du Diamant in Antwerp to secure technology. The ministry is also looking at the possibility of buying detection devices from De Beers, although the cost of these could be prohibitive. De Beers is understood to have plans to reopen its Kinshasa office soon.

Diamond smuggling has been endemic in the Congo but it worsened after an exclusive contract with a De Beers subsidiary to export a proportion of the output was terminated by late president Laurent Kabila. Out of a total US$1,02 billion worth of diamonds exported from the DRC in 2000, Diamond Office figures show that US$854 million worth was smuggled out. This was probably more than the government budget, although this is uncertain, as the government has not published budget statements in the past three years. The Diamond Office has identified some staging posts through which Congo's smuggled diamonds are exported, notably Brazzaville and Dubai. No precise figures are given for the value of production flown from Kisangani (held by rebels) via Kigali or Kampala, but Diamond Office sources believe that much of it was flown directly to Belgium from towns under government control.

Mbaka said the export monopoly granted to Israeli company International Diamond Industries in August last year had caused an upsurge in fraud as sellers refused to sell at IDI's price, but he pointed out that from January to August of 2000, before IDI's monopoly, the dollar value of officially exported diamonds was only about 20 percent of smuggled exports. "The fraud has always existed," he said, "both in the form of under-valuation and actual smuggling." He denied claims that members of the government had been involved in the fraud. "The Mobutu regime had a mafia. They had 30 years to build it up, and they had a well-oiled network, but the current government has only been in power three years. (For them) to have an organisation to steal on Mobutu's scale - it's not possible," he added.