| The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
From The Times of India, 21 June
Fear grips Zimbabwe's superstitious ahead of eclipse
Harare - As thousands of tourists and scientists gather in southern Africa for Thursday's first solar eclipse of the millennium, traditional beliefs warn that eclipses come with wars, epidemics and famine. Both African traditional and ancient western religious beliefs say the celestial display could signal the start of problems in the region, as eclipses have been associated with the deaths of leaders, wars, drought, floods and disease. "Solar eclipse is not a blessing to us. It means there are going to be problems, that there will be bloodshed, there will be disease outbreaks," Peter Sibanda, spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association (ZINATHA), said. "In Africa, we believe that if god is angry with us, he demonstrates it through the sun or moon," Sibanda said. The eclipse, which is seen in African tradition as "the rotting of the sun," is meant to punish evil-doers, he added.
According to respected historian Aeneas Chigwedere, who is also Zimbabwe's deputy minister of education, sports and culture, celestial features played a significant role in the lives of pre-colonial tribes of southern Africa. Depending on whether they were based in the east or the west, the tribes identified themselves either with the sun or the moon, he said. Whenever a lunar or solar eclipse occurred, it signified "something negative," Chigwedere said. "The abnormality of the sun or moon, to them, pointed at an abnormality on earth," Chigwedere said, adding, it pointed at "disaster ... something negative or even human disaster or pestilence". "When something goes wrong with the sun ... it must point to something very serious, it points at abnormality and it must include bloodshed," he added. A lunar eclipse in February 1896 was followed a month later by the first Chimurenga war, marking the first uprising against British colonialism.
Thursday's long-anticipated eclipse, caused by the moon's passage between the sun and the earth, will sweep across parts of southern Africa from Angola to Madagascar before drowning in the Indian Ocean. The total eclipse will also be visible over the south Atlantic, while a partial eclipse will become visible in Brazil, spread over much of the rest of the Atlantic and cover much of central and northern Africa, as far as the central Saharan desert.
Sibanda said northeastern Zimbabwe, which is to experience a total eclipse on Thursday, is the most sacred region of the country, known traditionally as Dande. That region was hit by floods early this year, which Sibanda said were not coincidence but a prelude to the solar eclipse. "When it happens, it's a curse," he said, adding there should have been ancestral worshipping, thanksgiving and other rituals to counter the eclipse's adverse effects. If nothing is done to prevent the negative effects of the eclipse, serious violence could be experienced in the run-up to next year's presidential elections, he added.
An astrologist who asked not to be named concurred with Sibanda that the effects of an eclipse can be felt even before the event occurs. "Traditionally eclipses are to do with wars, deaths of leaders and civil wars," she said. Since the eclipse is associated with the death of leaders, the deaths in the past two months of two prominent government ministers and a lawmaker could have been the effect of the coming eclipse, she believes. The astrologist, however, could not forecast anything "nasty happening" to the Zimbabwean presidency. The leadership "could either turn aggressive or use the energy to turn things around," she said.
He said the foreign ministers of four African countries and three others including Britain would meet first in South Africa - he hoped next month.
 We see this as an opening of the door by President
Mugabe  |
|
Don McKinnon |
The mission was proposed by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo after Zimbabwe refused to have anything to do with a delegation which the Commonwealth proposed in March, which would also have looked at broader economic and political problems.
Start
Mr Mckinnon said he regretted that the Zimbabwean Government would not co-operate with that mission but welcomed the plan.
 Mugabe: Hoping for a 'fresh start' from
Britain |
Mr Mugabe said after talks with Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi, that he hoped the British Government, which has been critical of the land seizures, was prepared to make a "fresh start".
Mr Mugabe has sought to present his problems as a conflict with the old colonial power.
A British Foreign Office spokesman has also given the plan a cautious welcome.
LUSAKA, Zambia- Thousands of tourists, scientists and new age mystics
gathered in Zambia on Thursday to watch the first total solar eclipse of the new
millennium sweep across southern Africa.
Eclipse day was declared a national holiday. Hotels were fully booked in
Lusaka, the only capital within the eclipse band. Farmers in the eclipse path
rented out land for makeshift campsites.
"This is a big event for Zambia," said Agnes Seenka, head of the government's
eclipse committee.
The government expected more than 20,000 tourists - the most ever in Zambia -
and deployed 2,500 police to patrol the streets of Lusaka and other tourist
areas.
More than 4,000 people traveled from as far as Japan, Israel and Ecuador to
sway to trance music at a farm about 30 miles north of Lusaka during a 10-day
eclipse rave.
One pilot chartered a jet to fly people from South Africa to the Lusaka
airport for an eclipse barbecue. As insurance against bad weather, he filed a
contingency flight plan to take his guests above the clouds for the eclipse.
However, the sky Thursday was blue and cloudless.
Zambians have been bombarded for months with front-page newspaper editorials,
television commercials and special eclipse radio programs warning not to look
directly at the sun without protective eyeglasses before it is fully eclipsed.
On Thursday, this devoutly Christian country was given a different warning.
The state-owned Times of Zambia newspaper cautioned that a few tourists were
deadly "enchanters" and "demon worshippers" who prayed to the sun and were
"ready to sacrifice humans."
The eclipse first hits land in Angola, then travels across Zambia, Zimbabwe
and Mozambique before heading out to the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar,
getting shorter along the way.
In Zimbabwe, tribal healers warned the eclipse was a sign the ancestors were
unhappy with a nation that had abandoned the traditional African values of peace
and harmony. As retribution, they would bring further conflict to a country
already suffering from political and economic turmoil and the crushing scourge
of AIDS.
In Zambia, members of the Ngoni tribe planned to recreate their 1835 crossing
of the Zambezi River during their flight from the warriors of the Zulu king
Shaka. The original crossing coincided with a total eclipse.
Mozambique has urged reporters, including community radio stations, to
explain the science behind the eclipse to its impoverished people so it "should
not cause fear or panic. Because it is a natural and predictable phenomenon,
unlikely to cause any material or personal damage."
In Angola, police seized 5,000 pairs of phony protective glasses being sold
by street kids after tests showed they would not protect people's eyes from
being damaged during the partial phases of the eclipse as claimed.
Though the eclipse will be longest in Angola, many tourists shied away from a
country still fighting a 25-year-old civil war and opted to come to Zambia
instead.
In a country where nearly three-quarters of the people were living in
poverty, many cannot afford to buy protective glasses or attend the mass
barbecues being held in Lusaka.
"We have poor people. Our economy is bad. This is a third-world country,"
said Wedson Simfukwe, 30, who is studying to be a mechanic. Yet the eclipse
itself is free entertainment, and many Zambians were relieved to have the
diversion.
"It is something remarkable and strange," said Winston Mwete, 25, a marketing
consultant for a company that sells building materials.
The last total eclipse was in Europe in August 1999. The next one will also
hit southern Africa in December 2002, but that will be during the rainy season,
when there is a greater chance of cloudy skies.
Chris Holmes, a 20-year-old astrophysics major at Williams College in
Massachusetts, is here as part of a Williams team using more than 15 cameras
attached to telescopes to take more than 1,000 photos of the eclipse, which will
last more than three minutes in Lusaka.
"Who would turn down a chance to see an eclipse in somewhere as interesting
as Zambia," said Chris Holmes. "For most people it's a once in a lifetime or
less opportunity." Thousands Gather for Solar Eclipse
Kenya's President Moi and his visiting Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe said in Nairobi that Britain was to blame for the chaos over resettlement now facing Zimbabwe.
The two accused the former colonial power of failing to honour its obligations on the resettlement of the landless.
They said this was the fundamental cause of the current misunderstanding between Britain and Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe and Britain have been at loggerheads since last year when hoards of landless people, claiming to be war veterans, started invading farms owned by white farmers, most British and driving them away. Several farmers lost their lives in the violence.
But in a joint communiqué read by Kenya's foreign minister Chris Obure at the end of Mugabe's two-day visit to Kenya, Zimbabwe said there was no more illegal occupation of land.
It said the recently enacted rural lands occupiers act has been put into effect to protect the white farmers.
The statement said the two leaders reviewed the land question in Zimbabwe and in particular the background to the current problem.
They welcomed an initiative by Nigerian leader Olesgun Obasanjo proposed at the G-15 Summit in Indonesia last May to set up a ministerial committee to look into ways of easing relations between Zimbabwe and its former colonizer regarding the land issue.
The committee comprises of foreign ministers from Kenya Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Jamaica, Britain and Australia.
Zimbabwe found itself at the centre of international condemnation following the forced seizure of white-owned farms, apparently with tacit support from authorities by the so-called war veterans.
A number of western countries have since cut off their aid to the southern Africa countries, heightening an economic crunch that has set inflation spiraling and prices of essential commodities such as petrol shooting up.
Later President Mugabe left the country at the end of his official visit. He was seen off at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport by President Moi and other high ranking government officials.