Zimbabwe this Week.
On Sunday morning a sprightly 72 year old lady farmer in the Nyamdhlovu area of Matebeleland got up as she had for the past 50 years and after an early morning cup of tea, walked to the gates of the fence around the house to open them for the days business. It was a crisp morning – clear after three weeks of wet weather and her three dogs accompanied her. As she unlocked the gates, she was cut down by a hail of bullets from AK 47 rifles, 15 of which actually hit her. Then they turned their weapons on the dogs that had tried to defend their owner. The bullets were brand new – right out of a box.
Because it was Sunday, her son, David came out to the farm from Bulawayo to see his mother and to check that the farm was in good order. He arrived just after 9 am and found his mother dead with her dogs at the gate. Absolutely distraught, David armed himself and for the next five hours sat with his mother and would not allow anyone to approach. Eventually local farmers who had known David since he was a child on that farm, aided by a local priest, persuaded David to allow them to remove the body to the local Mortuary. Even after that David remained in the house and would not allow anyone near the property.
It was the second killing on this farm. The first had been when David’s brother, Martin, had been shot dead outside his home on the farm by a group of over 100 Zanu PF thugs, aided by both the Police and the Army. It’s the image of a grown man sitting in the sun next to his mothers body unable to accept what had happened and angry with everyone. Especially angry with those who had failed to do what they are paid to do – protect ordinary citizens going about their daily duties, that remains with me. It joins the story I heard the other day of a young farmer in the north who was abducted and held in a cave by Zanu thugs, beaten and threatened and who has not been able to speak since the ordeal.
This is the human face of the terror campaign being waged against the white farmers in Zimbabwe. It joins the images of thousands of poor farm workers who have been dispossessed and turned out of their homes on commercial farms, sitting in the rain with their children and meager goods. It joins the image of faithful farm dogs being beaten to death with sticks by thugs who were burning farm buildings and destroying a lifetime of work by the farmers involved. The images of frightened women and children behind flimsy fences while mobs taunt them and threaten their lives.
Do we have any idea of what went on in David’s head as he sat with his mother and mourned both her and his brother? Especially when you know that they had grown up on the farm and might well have known the killers. Especially when you knew what their family had done over the years to help the local community, the assistance to the victims of the liberation war and the people in nearby communal farming areas. The labor of love that had gone into the property – year by year plowing every cent they made back into the land they owned. The struggle to build a life and to pay for schooling and the occasional family holiday in a good farming year. The daily struggle with the elements – drought and flood, disease and despair during the 15 years of civil war when every move had to be planned like a military exercise. The awful funeral services as the community buried their best, killed in the "line of duty". And now this, a senseless, needless killing of an old defenseless woman outside the house that had been her home for a lifetime.
Eddie Cross
7th March 2001.
Please note that this note is personal and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Movement for Democratic Change.
From The Guardian (UK), 10 March
Priest curses Mugabe at farmer's funeral
Bulawayo - An emotional funeral gathering of farmers and opposition members heard a Presbyterian minister call down a curse on President Robert Mugabe's government yesterday in this town in southern Zimbabwe. The occasion was the service for Gloria Olds, the white farmer murdered earlier this week. She is the latest casualty of the movement to take over white farms, takeovers which the supreme court has ruled are illegal but the government encourages. Since that ruling the chief justice has been forced into early retirement, and yesterday it was announced that his successor was to be a Mugabe ally, Judge Godfrey Chidyausiku, 54, a former deputy minister.
Olds's elder son Martin was killed last year. At yesterday's service the Rev Paul Adrianatos said: "For those responsible for the murders of Gloria and Martin Olds, I pray that they be cursed. For officials and cabinet ministers who ignore and act against just laws, I pray for your curse. For the leaders of this country who are not honest, sincere and have compassion for the people, I pray that they be removed or cursed." Mr Adrianatos is to leave Zimbabwe this weekend, because officials have refused to renew his work permit. He criticised the inertia of the police after Olds's murder on Sunday. "They said they could not come because they had no transport. No police roadblocks were set up."
Olds stayed on the family farm after her son was murdered last April by members of the "war veterans" movement, which is leading the incursion on white farms. She shot in the legs while doing her early morning chores. According to forensic investigators, she tried to crawl to her truck. Two killers with AK-47 automatic rifles followed her, shot her three dogs, and then riddled her with bullets. Olds's son was killed when more than 70 members of the veterans group, which supports Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, surrounded the farmhouse and engaged in a five-hour gun battle. Martin Olds was known as a supporter of the opposition MDC.
Yesterday's service was attended by 250 members of the white farming community, including Olds's younger son David and his family, also farmers, and black and white supporters of the MDC. Opposition figures said the government was intensifying its repression in the surrounding Matabeleland, an area of MDC strength. David Coltart, the MDC MP for Bulawayo North, who has received death threats, emerged from hiding to be at the funeral, entering the church by a back door. "There is no doubt the killing was carried out by government supporters," he said. "The ammunition which killed Gloria Olds can be traced back to the government, according to experts who investigated the site. By murdering Gloria Olds in such a brutal way, the government is trying to intimidate the farming community and to get them to give up."
He accused the local governor, Obert Mpofu, of making statements inciting violence against white farmers. He also accused two Mugabe allies, Border Gezi, the minister for youth and employment creation, and the war veterans' leader, Chenjerai Hunzvi, of encouraging more political violence when they visited Matabeleland two weeks ago. An MDC official, Eddie Cross, said: "The central intelligence organisation has gone house to house in Victoria Falls and other centres, beating people suspected of supporting the MDC. Farmers have seen increased aggression and death threats." He had "no doubt" that Olds was executed by the CIO or the army.
From The Financial Times (UK), 10 March
Mugabe ally appointed as new chief justice
Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president, on Thursday appointed a ruling party ally as acting chief justice, after forcing the country's top judge to take a long leave of absence followed by early retirement. Judge Godfrey Chidyausiku, 54, former head of the High Court, would act as head of the judiciary until Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay retires on July 1. Mr Gubbay agreed to retire early after government threats and intimidation for ruling against ministers over their controversial land reform programme. The government accused him of bias in favour of the country's tiny white minority.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said the government wanted the courts to reflect the racial balance of Zimbabwe, a nation where less than 1% of the population is white. "This is a black country," he said. Mr Gubbay is one of six whites among the nation's 30 judges. Two other judges are of Asian descent, and most of the country's hundreds of magistrates are black. Mr Chidyausiku will preside over four more senior Supreme Court judges the government has accused of bias against it.
From a reader, 9 March
The renegade rector
Harare - Zimbabwe’s Anglican church is deeply divided following the appointment of a controversial new Bishop of Harare and a battle by a lone white priest to have his confirmation nullified. The Rev Canon Tim Neill objected to the nomination of the Rev Norbert Kunonga to the post, claiming the procedure had contravened church laws and been tainted by racism. Neill said that the clergyman who nominated Kunonga should have been disqualified because he circulated a letter accusing Neill of racism at the December assembly convened to select the new bishop.
However, a 12-member court of confirmation – two bishops and 10 clergymen – unanimously confirmed the election on Thursday (March 9), brushing aside objections that Neill had been slandered. "This threatens to brand me as a racist and obviously ends my career in the Anglican church in Africa,’’ Neill declared in an interview. ``This monster of white-bashing, libel and immoral conduct has thrown the church into crisis."
An unidentified priest at the Anglican Cathedral was quoted in the Zimbabwe press on Friday yesterday as calling for reconciliation within the church and an end to the matter. However, reconciling Christian principles with the reality of Zimbabwe today has turned Zimbabwe-born Tim Neill, 47, into something of a renegade rector. His has denounced President Robert Mugabe’s government as "evil, corrupt and morally bankrupt", earning himself some dangerous enemies. He has received death threats and visits from shadowy figures from the Central Intelligence Organisation. "I did not feel that after years of denouncing a corrupt government I could condone similar corruption within the church," Neill said of his battle to get Kunonga’s appointment nullified. "The election of Norbert Kunonga … included outright slander, deception and lobbying.’’
Kunongo, widely regarded as a ZANU-PF supporter, was initially elected last December. Neill, supported by the mainly black congregation in his parish of St. Luke’s Church in Harare’s Greendale suburb, appealed against the appointment then, and battled on to defeat. Does it all come down to race? "That’s what they’re trying to label it," he said. "But this undoubtedly has the odour of the Zanu PF party. President Robert Mugabe wants control over every facet of this country whether it’s the judiciary, the church or the media. People who stand up to him, whether they be black or white, are people to be removed."
One of only five full-time white Anglican clergy among 89 black members, Neill is by far the most outspoken churchman, black or white, in the country. He has been labeled a "pulpit politician" by critics and this year was fired as Vicar-General. ``I think the church’s silence in the face of the gross collapse of law and order is a disgrace," he said in an interview. "It hasn’t been a total silence, but the response has been so weak, an attitude of ‘don’t rock the boat’.
Neill, raised in white-ruled Rhodesia, did a degree in agriculture, and then 18 months compulsory national service in the Rhodesian army. A history of rheumatic fever kept him from the frontline. It was his experiences as an agricultural development officer in rural Rhodesia that led him to question the propaganda of Prime Minister Ian Smith’s government and gave him a new perspective on the guerrilla war to end white-minority rule. He recalls, for example, inspecting erosion on a prosperous white-owned farm with his black assistant Albert Dhlamini. "We rested on an anthill, Albert surveyed the land around us and casually remarked, ‘You know, this used to be my father’s farm.’’ The farm had been designated for white ownership in 1954.
Neill quit agriculture to study theology at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford, and returned home with his Jersey-born wife, Carol, in 1981 – a year after independence under Mugabe’s government. "I wanted very much to come back to help build the new Zimbabwe,’’ said Neill. ``I’d undergone at least a 180-degree turn in my thinking .’’ Disillusion set in early when Mugabe’s government instigated a violent repression in Matabeleland. But what about past wrongs by whites? What about Albert Dhlamini who lost his heritage 45 years ago at the stroke of a Rhodesian pen? "I do believe that the land crisis is about offering land back, making reparation,’’ said Neill. But he says Mugabe’s method is ``villainous because it is correcting past injustice with more injustice." With Kunonga’s consecration, Neill says he will probably have to leave the church, but will remain in Zimbabwe ``fighting for something better.’’
From The Economist (UK), 10 March 2001
Mugabe's courtesy visit to Europe
Brussels - Zimbabwe's despotic president, Robert Mugabe, paid a lightning visit to Paris and Brussels this week. His busy schedule included meetings with Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian Prime Minister, Poul Nielson, the European Union's commissioner for development aid, and Jacques Chirac, the French President. In between times in Brussels, his bodyguards punched a militant British protester.
Mr Mugabe's visit was hailed as a propaganda coup back home. His meeting with Mr Chirac, he said, was excellent. But it may all ultimately backfire. Some members of the European Parliament were so disquieted by his reception that they are promoting a motion calling for the EU to cut off development aid to Zimbabwe.
According to Geoffrey Van Orden, a British Conservative who is sponsoring the motion, the EU is giving Zimbabwe development aid worth about 129m euros (US$120m) - a considerable sum for near-bankrupt Zimbabwe. Mr Van Orden and his colleagues in the European People's Party, a centre-right grouping, are confident that Parliament will support their motion on March 15th. Although it will not have any binding force, it will certainly make life harder for those Europeans who want to pursue a strategy of "constructive engagement" with Zimbabwe.
The European leaders who met Mr Mugabe have offered a variety of reasons for doing so. The French mutter platitudes about the importance of dialogue. The Belgians see Mr Mugabe as crucial to finding a solution to the civil war in the Congo, a former colonial territory of theirs. But the relaxed attitude to high-level meetings with Zimbabwe presents a contrast to the EU's earlier campaign - promoted by Belgium and France - to cut off bilateral meetings with Austria, because of the presence of the far right Freedom Party on its government.
The European Commission, for its part, talks of the need for "confidence building". After lunching with Mr Mugabe in Brussels on March 5th, Mr Nielson went to talk to European parliamentarians about the EU's aid to Zimbabwe. They found him evasive. He spoke of a "choice between transparency and professional diplomacy", and made it clear that the EU intended to choose the latter. Even Britain, which has been particularly critical of Zimbabwe, has no plans to cut off its £12m (US$18m) a year of aid, arguing that such an action would hurt the poor above all.
Michael Gahler, a German Euro-MP who used to be a diplomat, argues that Zimbabwe is one country where a tougher policy might have a dramatic effect. "Constructive engagement" might be the only option with a large well-established despotism, which gives little sign of instability. But the Mugabe government is vulnerable.
From The Daily News, 9 March
Zvobgo blasts Zanu PF
Masvingo South MP Eddison Zvobgo yesterday accused Zanu PF of trying to introduce unconstitutional and irrational laws governing public broadcasting in Zimbabwe. Zvobgo, who was heckled by Patrick Chinamasa, the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, while debating the regulations in Parliament yesterday, said it was illegal for the government to decree that political parties could not own broadcasting stations. This would limit freedom of expression.
Presenting the parliamentary legal committee's report on broadcasting regulations announced last year, he said some of the regulations were not consistent with the protection to the right to freedom of expression as provided in Section 20 (1) of the Constitution. The government regulations were promulgated under the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) (Broadcasting) Regulations of 2000, in a move spearheaded by the Minister of Information and Publicity, Jonathan Moyo, to clamp down on Capital Radio. Zvobgo, who chaired the three-member committee, singled out eight sections of the regulations which he said were not in line with the Constitution, much to the chagrin of Chinamasa who repeatedly interjected and said: "These are matters of policy. You're going off your mandate."
Initially Zvobgo, a veteran politician and constitutional lawyer, ignored Chinamasa's protests. But he later hit back, telling Chinamasa off. He said Chinamasa would have his own time to debate the regulations and should stop his interjections. Zvobgo said the committee was not a court of law, but simply a committee established by the Constitution to look into regulations or Bills and then render an opinion as to whether they infringed on the Bill of Rights or the Constitution. Said Zvobgo: "Insofar as the regulations require the possession of a licence issued by government before one can broadcast, they are clearly a limitation or derogation of freedom of expression.
"To place the need for the authority's consent before one can do what is an integral part of freedom of expression is undoubtedly a hindrance or a limitation to that freedom." Citing the Capital Radio saga in which the Supreme Court struck down the ZBC monopoly, he said: "If it is unconstitutional to limit one, it is also unconstitutional to limit two. There is no technical justification, in the sense of frequency shortage, to warrant this limitation of freedom of speech." He said while the number of national broadcasters has to be limited, it was unconstitutional to limit it to one private broadcaster. "In the view of the committee, it is very difficult to understand we have termed it irrational that it cannot be said to be reasonably justifiable in a democratic society."
The regulations require that cable and satellite broadcasters be licensed. To this, Zvobgo said: "They are unconstitutional as being undue and unjustified and, indeed, unjustifiable limitation on freedom of expression." On the clause regulating the content of programmes, Zvobgo said: "Whatever national interest the framers of the regulations had in mind, that national interest is not catered for in the Constitution. An abridgement of a guaranteed right should not be arbitrary." He said the regulation requiring 75 percent local content was unreasonable as there was no need at all to make all stations sound or look alike. As for the government giving itself the right to broadcast on every station at its request, he said the government has no greater right to be heard than anybody else in a democratic society.
From The Natal Mercury (SA), 9 March
SADC meets in Windhoek to select new head
The heads of state of the 14 member nations of SADC will hold an extraordinary one-day summit on Friday in the Namibian capital Windhoek to try to select the new executive head of the body and to streamline its functioning. President Mbeki and some of the other leaders arrived in Windhoek on Thursday night.
Mbeki's office scotched rumours that he would meet Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in Windhoek to discuss his concerns about the breakdown of the rule of law in Zimbabwe. Spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said that Mbeki had explained in an interview published on Thursday that he intended to follow a two-stage approach to Zimbabwe. First, ministers from both governments would meet to plan the economic rescue of the country. After that he and Mugabe would meet to discuss political questions. Khumalo said the planned meetings would take place later and Mbeki and Mugabe would not discuss Zimbabwe's problems in Windhoek. Mbeki insisted in the interview that he had on several occasions cautioned Mugabe to handle land reform to the benefit of all Zimbabweans.
One of the main issues at the summit will be to decide who should control SADC's organ for politics, defence and security, which is supposed to manage regional security policy. The organ has fallen under Mugabe since it was launched in 1996 and Zimbabwe and some other states had wanted it to remain outside control of the SADC itself. But South Africa insisted in 1997 that it should fall under overall SADC control. SADC's council of ministers has basically endorsed South Africa's proposal and this decision has to be ratified by the leaders.
The summit should also ratify a plan approved by the ministers to streamline SADC's unwieldy bureaucracy, now spread over 12 states. And it will deliberate on who should be the body's next executive secretary. The position is being hotly contested and for the first time a woman - Albina Africano Assis, Angola's minister in the presidency and former oil and trade minister - is running. Mauritian Prega Ramsamy, who has been acting executive secretary since Kaire Mbuende resigned last year, has also put his name forward, as have candidates from Lesotho, Swaziland and Tanzania.
From The Star (SA), 9 March
Nun questioned in Kabila assassination probe
Rome - A nun has been detained for questioning by authorities in the DRC in connection with the assassination of former president Laurent Kabila, Roman Catholic news agency Fides reported on Friday. Sister Antoinette Fari, a Congolese nun of the Ursuline order, was interrogated by military judges as part of the investigation into Kabila's death, according to the Lubumbashi Federation for Human Rights. She faces charges of treason, a crime punishable by death, Fides reported.
Kabila, who overthrew former Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997 and renamed the country the DRC, was shot and killed in January at his hilltop palace near Kinshasa. A bodyguard, said to have been the assassin, was killed immediately afterwards. Kabila's son Joseph, 29, has since been named president. Sister Fari was previously arrested and imprisoned in December 1999, accused of serving as a go-between for political prisoners jailed during Kabila's rule. She was released after intervention by the Archbishop of Kinshasha and local human rights groups.
BBC: Friday, 9 March, 2001, 18:00 GMT
Her son, Martin, was shot dead on his farm less than a year ago, and opposition leaders believe both killings were politically motivated.
She was the eighth member of Zimbabwe's
white farming community to be killed since ruling party militants and veterans
of the country's independence war began occupying white-owned farms last year
with the backing of President Robert Mugabe and his government.
In all more than 30 opposition supporters and officials have been killed.
Farmers' leaders say they are afraid a
new campaign of political violence may be starting against white land owners.
Mrs Olds' friends and neighbours, many of them white farmers, packed the
small Presbyterian church in Bulawayo, shocked by the brutality of her murder.
'Strong-willed'
Mrs Olds died in a hail of bullets as men with automatic weapons opened fire
as she came to her gate. She attempted to crawl to safety but the gunmen forced
the gate and fired more shots at her where she lay.
She had refused to give the farm up even after the murder of her son, Martin.
But his widow, Kathy Olds, did and now lives in Britain.
The minister, Paul Andrianatos, described her as a strong-willed, no-fuss,
independent person. "When men need semiautomatic weapons to murder a 72-year-old woman, they are
not men, they are scum, they are cowards," he said.
Mr Andrianatos also officiated at Martin Olds' funeral, where he described Mr
Mugabe as a criminal and a murderer.
The minister has now had his work permit cancelled and is due to leave
Zimbabwe on Sunday.
A week ago, Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay succumbed to months of government pressure and intimidation by agreeing to go on immediate leave before taking early retirement in late June.
The new head of the Supreme Court is Godfrey Chidyausiku, a former deputy minister and attorney general, whose appointment has now been approved by the judiciary services commission.Mr Gubbay had angered President Mugabe by ruling against ministers several times over the government's controversial land reform programme - in which land is being redistributed without compensation.
Observers say Mr Mugabe has been determined to have a more compliant Supreme Court - especially ahead of presidential elections due by next year.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa says the new appointment is aimed "at reflecting the true nature of Zimbabwe".
Deal
Zimbabwe struck a deal with Mr Gubbay after he resisted pressure to be dismissed from his post.
It agreed to let Judge Anthony Gubbay remain as chief justice until the end of June, but in return he undertook to take immediate pre-retirement leave and not object to his replacement by an acting chief justice.In a statement, the government also promised that no steps would be taken to unlawfully remove any other judge.
Mr Gubbay had challenged the government's use of special decrees to by-pass the constitution on several issues.
The government accused the judge, who is white, of bias in favour of Zimbabwe's white minority.
Just before the deal was announced Justice Gubbay was visited in his chambers by a self-styled veteran and warned to step down or face the consequences.
South Africa's top judges have expressed deep concern at what they called disrespect for the rule of law in Zimbabwe.
BBC: Friday, 9 March, 2001, 18:00 GMT
Her son, Martin, was shot dead on his farm less than a year ago, and opposition leaders believe both killings were politically motivated.
She was the eighth member of Zimbabwe's
white farming community to be killed since ruling party militants and veterans
of the country's independence war began occupying white-owned farms last year
with the backing of President Robert Mugabe and his government.
In all more than 30 opposition supporters and officials have been killed.
Farmers' leaders say they are afraid a
new campaign of political violence may be starting against white land owners.
Mrs Olds' friends and neighbours, many of them white farmers, packed the
small Presbyterian church in Bulawayo, shocked by the brutality of her murder.
'Strong-willed'
Mrs Olds died in a hail of bullets as men with automatic weapons opened fire
as she came to her gate. She attempted to crawl to safety but the gunmen forced
the gate and fired more shots at her where she lay.
She had refused to give the farm up even after the murder of her son, Martin.
But his widow, Kathy Olds, did and now lives in Britain.
The minister, Paul Andrianatos, described her as a strong-willed, no-fuss,
independent person. "When men need semiautomatic weapons to murder a 72-year-old woman, they are
not men, they are scum, they are cowards," he said.
Mr Andrianatos also officiated at Martin Olds' funeral, where he described Mr
Mugabe as a criminal and a murderer.
The minister has now had his work permit cancelled and is due to leave
Zimbabwe on Sunday.
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African Tears - Cathy Buckle |
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African Tears is the story of a white farmer in Zimbabwe living side-by-side with war veterans for seven months, under constant scrutiny and intimidation. Make-shift homes were erected on the grazing fields and their stock dams and timber plantations were ‘liberated’. Weekly war councils were held on their farm. The family was left emotionally broken, psychologically crippled and driven to the brink of bankcruptcy. They and their farm labourers were harrassed and tortured, their livestock killed, their fields roamed by packs of hunting dogs, and the farm eventually burned to the ground. It remains undesignated, unlisted, and not required by the government for compulsory acquisition. It chronicles the hardships felt by many Zimbabwean farmers, their families, and employees, and tells of the destruction of the country’s economy, collapse of tourism and ruination of agriculture. A portion of the profits from the sale of this book will be donated to the Patrick Nabanyama Trust. |
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Publication information: Title : African Tears, Author : Cathy Buckle, ISBN 1-919-87427-5, to be published at the end of March 2001 - get your orders in now from the distributors below, or your local bookstore. |
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Covos Day Books - www.mazoe.com Johannesburg - P. O. Box 6996, Weltevredenpark, 1715, South Africa, tel +2711-475 0922, fax +2711-475 8974, email : covos@global.co.za Cape Town - 42 6th Avenue, Rondebosch East, 7780, South Africa, tel +2721-697-5269, fax +2721-697-2373, email : drhobbs@netactive.co.za London - Priory House, 25 John’s Lane, London, EC1M4LB, UK, tel +4420-7650-1234, fax +4420-7490-5623, email : mday@leighday.co.uk Verulam Publishing - 152a Park Street Lane, Park Street, St Albans, Herts, AL2 2AU, UK, tel +44-1727-872 770, fax +44-1727-873 866, email : verulampub@compuserve.com BHB International, Inc. - 108 East North 1st Street, Suite G, Seneca, SC 29678, USA, tel +1-864-885 9444, fax +1-864-885 1090, email : BHBBooks@aol.com Vanwell Publishing Limited - P.O. Box 2131, 1 Northrup Crescent, St. Catherines, Ont L2R 7S2, Canada, tel +1-905-937 310, fax +1-905-937 1760, email : simon.kooter@vanwell.com Gary Allen (Pty) Ltd - PO Box 6640, Wetherill Park B.C, New South Wales, 2164, Australia, tel +61-2-9333-0179, fax + 61-2-9333-0047, email : zambezi@echidna.id.au Zambezi Books - 14 Aristide Avenue, Kallaroo, Perth, 6025, Western Australia, Australia tel +61-8-9307 1182, fax + 61-8-9402 4537, email : zambezi@echidna.id.au Geoff Higgs - 2 Wylie Street, Toowoomba, 4350, Queensland, Australia, tel +61-07-4632-1974, fax + 61-07-4632-7975, email : ghiggs@telstra.easymail.co.au Albert Arnold - 3 Glover Crescent, Blenheim, New Zealand, tel +03-579-3343, email : janlyn.albert@xtra.co.nz | |||||