The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
SOKWANELE
Enough is Enough
Zimbabwe
We have a fundamental right to freedom of expression!
09 March 2004
Yesterday, true to form, Zimbabwean police arrested Jenni Williams, member of the executive of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), and two colleagues under Section 15 of the repressive Public Order and Security Act, which declares illegal the utterance of statements that could lead to public unrest.
WOZA women have been arrested several times in the past, at times in
a violent fashion, for attempting to demonstrate against violence. This group of women from civil society are
committed to ending violence and repression in Zimbabwe in a peaceful
manner. They are women who come from all
walks of life, the majority of them poverty stricken victims of Mugabe’s
despotic regime.
Despite the arrest of Williams and the imminent threat of
further arrests, around 80 women gathered at the St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral on
Monday morning (8th March) in honour of International Women’s
Day. Several riot vehicles circled the
church, and the police maintained a watchful vigil from a distance. The women sang hymns and prayed for peace in
a rather confused fashion without any leadership present. The WOZA executive knew if they showed up
they too would be incarcerated.
At the end of their mournful session, the women were at a
loss for direction, when finally one old “gogo” (granny) still in mourning over
the recent death of her husband, stood up and declared they had to do
something. They agreed they should carry
out the planned march, but to avoid police interference decided they would move
in small groups to a destination several blocks away.
Once in the center of town they raised their placards,
proclaiming “Stop violence
against women” and “Say
no to violence”.
The small demonstration ended without incident, perhaps because it was so
small and peaceful or perhaps because the police were being monitored for any
heavy handedness by the South African
media.
This event highlights the sad and sorry state of the nation. These women live in terror, constantly aware
of their vulnerability, consumed by the fear of the very authorities who are
meant to protect them. The very real
threat of violence through the presence of riot police is as frightening as
actual violence. State agents tasked with
enforcing the law have been reduced to state-sponsored thugs, who are obviously
willing if necessary to oppress their
mothers, sisters and daughters whose only desire is to nurture their
families.
Ends
Visit: www.sokwanele.com
By Stella Mapenzauswa
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe
says its row with Britain is poisoning links
with the West as officials step
up attacks on "lies" in the foreign media.
Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge
told diplomats that British opposition to
Zimbabwe's controversial seizure of
white-owned farms had driven a wedge in
relations that was exacerbated by
Western media reports on the country.
"The problem of Zimbabwe arose as a
bilateral issue between Zimbabwe and the
United Kingdom over land. That
continues to poison our relations with your
countries," Mudenge
said.
"Unless that is resolved...the poison will continue; to have the
lies being
made in (British newspaper) The Sun and the BBC influence your
own
countries."
President Robert Mugabe's government has seen
relations with Western
countries deteriorate in recent months amid opposition
accusations of a
political crackdown following his controversial 2002
re-election.
Opposition and Western observers said the election was
flawed, although
Mugabe said he won fairly.
Zimbabwe pulled out of the
Commonwealth last year after the group of mainly
former British colonies
renewed its suspension, and both the European Union
and the United States
recently renewed sanctions on Zimbabwe's ruling elite.
Britain,
Zimbabwe's colonial ruler until 1980, has been among the most
vociferous of
Mugabe's critics -- leading Zimbabwe officials to accuse
London of
deliberately promoting opposition to Mugabe's rule.
This week Zimbabwe
announced it had seized some 67 foreigners accused of
acting as foreign
mercenaries, and said one of the suspects used to be a
member of Britain's
elite Special Air Service (SAS) commando unit.
Mudenge echoed official
statements which have blamed the foreign -- and
particularly British -- media
for spreading unfounded reports about the
political situation in the
country.
"The public is told so many lies by the British media. I know we
have
differences with the UK but to go and lie as the BBC did is
unworthy,"
Mudenge said, referring to a recent BBC documentary which charged
that young
Zimbabweans were forced into camps and taught to beat and kill
opposition
activists.
Mudenge said Western travel and business
sanctions slapped on Mugabe and his
lieutenants were hitting ordinary
Zimbabweans already hurt by the country's
acute economic
crisis.
"These sanctions are meant to hurt and they are hurting the
people of
Zimbabwe," Mudenge said.
Mugabe, who turned 80 last month
and has been in power since independence in
1980, says sabotage by his
opponents, rather than his mismanagement, have
brought what was once one of
Africa's most promising economies to its knees.
SADC Plans to Create Common Market By 2012
Vanguard
(Lagos)
March 10, 2004
Posted to the web March 10, 2004
DAR ES
SALAAM
Southern African Development Community (SADC) member countries
intend to
create a common market in the region in 2012, a top SADC official
said
yesterday. "The plan is to have member states sign a free trade
agreement by
2008, customs union protocol in 2010 and a common market pact in
2012," SADC
Executive Secretary Prega Ramsamy said in a statement ahead of
SADC's
ministerial council meeting at Arusha in northern Tanzania on
Friday.
Ramsamy said Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa will on Friday
officially
launch SADC's Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan
(RISDP), a
comprehensive programme on development and economic reform in the
area.
Mkapa is the chairman of the 14-member SADC, which also include
Angola,
Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi,
Mauritius,
Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia
and
Zimbabwe, but Seychelles has officially asked to pull out of the
grouping.
Ramsamy said the ministerial council would also approve SADC's
2004-2005
budget and draw the agenda for its extra-ordinary summit scheduled
for
Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, on May 14. South Africa
called
on African countries to boost trade with each other on Tuesday as a
way of
overcoming high import tariffs charged by major economies such as
Europe and
the United States. Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin,
speaking at
launch of Ugandan coffee brand in Cape Town, said high import
tariffs
charged by Europe and United States on Africa's agricultural products
were a
drag on development on the continent.
He said one of the best
ways to beat the problem was for countries to
increase trade with each other.
"At the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
meeting in Cancun last year, we were
pushing strongly to deal with tariff
escalation, which affects all
agricultural products," Erwin said.
"We have to open our economies to
each other, we only need to look at Europe
to see how they have
benefited.
The effort to reduce global trade barriers, launched in
November 2001 in the
Qatari capital Doha, ran aground last September with the
collapse of a WTO
ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico.
The meeting
ended in bitter acrimony between developed and developing
nations, with
Brazil and China leading the poorer nations in a push for a
fairer deal on
world trade, especially in the agricultural sector. Erwin
said African
countries needed to set out rules and regulations on customs
clearances and
visa requirements. "It has always been bizarre that we have a
sophisticated
set of regulations with Europe, but we have no single
recognising standard
with anyone in Africa," he said.
VOA
Zimbabwe's Small Farmers Expecting Record Harvests
Peta
Thornycroft
Harare
10 Mar 2004, 16:51 UTC
Zimbabwe's food
production and distribution system, in crisis for more than
two years, is set
to ease this harvest season following handouts of seed and
fertilizer. Small
farmers, who have been encouraged to grow cereal crops
other than corn, are
expected to have record harvests.
International donations, good rains, and
the skills and determination of
small-scale communal farmers have combined to
provide good news out of
Zimbabwe.
The U.S.-funded Famine Early
Warning System, or Fewsnet, said in its latest
report that small farmers have
grown more non-traditional cereals than in
previous years, and are going to
harvest good yields.
This, the group says, will ease Zimbabwe's food
crisis in some crops,
although the shortfall in corn, the preferred staple
food, will remain
unchanged. Fewsnet says the planting area for sorghum has
more than doubled
from last year, and is 70 percent up from the 1990s average
of 146,000
hectares. The planting of non-traditional millet is also
up.
A United Nations office in Zimbabwe said much of the seed and
fertilizer for
these crops was given to small farmers by various donors in
order to rebuild
food security and encourage production of crops that do
better in many drier
areas than corn. U.N. crop experts say recent rains have
improved the yield
prospects considerably.
The U.N. World Food Program
has fed up to 5.5 million Zimbabweans, or nearly
half the population, since
the crisis in agricultural production began four
years ago.
While
commercial agriculture shows little sign of improvement, tens of
thousands of
small farmers are going to have a much better season, and
donors say they
hope the need for emergency food assistance will be
dramatically reduced
during 2004.
Ambitious plans to roll out ARVs
JOHANNESBURG, 10 Mar 2004 (IRIN) - Zimbabwe
plans to roll out antiretroviral
(ARV) treatment this month at five pilot
centres across the country, and
expects to have 260,000 of an estimated
520,000 HIV-positive people on the
programme by the end of next
year.
Given the country's current health crisis the task appears
formidable, but
health officials are optimistic, despite overwhelming
obstacles,
particularly the acute shortage of foreign currency.
The
ministry of health said the government's rollout programme would benefit
from
the experience gained by local NGOs, faith-based organisations and
the
private sector, all of whom have already implemented drug
distribution,
albeit to a limited number of people. The World Health
Organisation (WHO) is
also providing technical support and has encouraged the
development of tools
for delivering the ARVs.
The authorities point to
existing laboratories at most hospitals, a strong
medicines regulatory
authority and the availability of cheaper generic drugs
as positive signs for
success ofthe programme.
The triple generic drug treatment is expected to
cost less than Zim $100,000
(US $25) per month thanks to partnerships with
local manufacturers, such as
Varichem.
"Our major problem is to make
sure that we have a reliable and adequate
supply of drugs," the coordinator
of AIDS and TB programmes in the ministry
of health and child welfare, Dr
Owen Mugurungu, told IRIN.
"Zim $2 billion [US $474,608] is coming from
the AIDS levy and Zim $10
billion [US $2.4 million] from the Ministry of
Finance, so we have Zim $12
billion [US $2.8 million] available to us," he
explained.
The five pilot sites for the programme have been chosen
because of their
location and existing infrastructure, and include the two
largest referral
hospitals in the country, Harare hospital in the capital,
and Mpilo hospital
in second city, Bulawayo.
"Between the two of them,
Harare and Mpilo will take about 1,000 patients
each and the other three
centres about 500 to 600 each. Of the 4,000
[initially] patients we aim to
treat, at least 800 are children," Muruguni
noted.
The pilot hospitals
all have Opportunistic Infections Clinics (OIs) and will
also be able to
carry out CD4 counts which measure the strength of the
body's immune system.
At present, CD4 testing facilities are only available
at the Harare and Mpilo
hospitals. Patients would qualify for treatment if
the results of the CD4
count was below 200.
The OI clinic at Harare Hospital currently has a
modest staff complement of
one medical officer and one physician, two nurse
counsellors and two trainee
nurses. It is housed in cramped quarters in the
outpatient building, but
plans are underway to move to bigger premises to
cater for the anticipated
increase in patient load.
"The clinic has
been running since October 2003 and we have been treating
people with drugs,
although not with the ARVs. We have people waiting
already, although they are
less than 100," the head of the clinic, Dr Paul
Chimedza, told
IRIN.
He added that the CD4 count would help to monitor the effectiveness
and
possible side-effects of the drugs.
There were also moves to
approach the Department of Social Welfare and the
UN's World Food Programme
to step up aid to food-insecure people identified
for treatment.
It is
likely that around 7.5 million of the country's estimated 11.65
million
population will require food aid through the next few months.
Zimbabwe:Reporters For Foreign Media Violate Currency Law
Copyright © 2004, Dow Jones Newswires
HARARE, Zimbabwe
(AP)--The government stepped up pressure Wednesday on
Zimbabwean journalists
working for foreign media, describing some as
mercenaries tempted by "dirty
American money" to undermine their country.
Information Minister
Jonathan Moyo claimed journalists reporting for
U.S., U.K. and South African
news organizations were violating the country's
currency exchange laws by
holding money earned locally in foreign accounts.
"As nobody is
above the law...appropriate legal action will be taken,"
Moyo said in a
statement repeated on hourly state radio news
bulletins
Wednesday.
Among the organizations cited by Moyo were
The Associated Press,
Reuters and Agence France-Presse news agencies; CNN,
the U.K. and South
African broadcasting corporations; and newspapers from
both countries.
Under a presidential decree issued last month,
suspects can be
detained for up to a month without bail for alleged economic
and political
offenses.
President Robert Mugabe has repeatedly
accused the U.S. and former
colonial ruler U.K. of plotting to overthrow his
regime.
Moyo claimed Walter Kansteiner, former U.S. assistant
secretary of
state for African affairs, had started using Western media
organizations in
its alleged campaign against the Zimbabwean government four
years ago.
"A number of journalists have found the promise of dirty
American
money too tempting and irresistible at the expense of their own
country," he
said.
"Mercenaries of any kind, whether carrying
the sword or the pen, must
and will be exposed, and they will suffer the full
consequences of the law."
The state-run Herald newspaper also
accused three Zimbabwean
journalists of helping produce a BBC documentary on
secret camps allegedly
set up by the government to train youths to kill, rape
and torture political
opponents.
The three journalists,
including a television cameraman working for
one of BBC's main competitors,
have denied any involvement in the
documentary.
The government
dismissed the BBC's allegations, saying youth centers
have trained some
20,000 volunteers in self-help, entrepreneurial and
technical skills, health
and "national orientation."
It said the training focused on what it
called mental decolonization
and instilled in youths a sense of belonging to
the country.
Mugabe's government has sought to crack down on
dissent since his
disputed re-election in 2002 amid reports of vote rigging
and intimidation.
Opposition leaders, trade unionists and
independent journalists have
been arrested, and the country's only
independent daily newspaper was shut
down last month under tough new media
laws. Mugabe has also been accused of
packing the courts with sympathetic
judges.
Four foreign journalists have been deported since 2001,
leaving only a
handful of Zimbabwe nationals working for foreign media. Few
foreign
reporters have been granted visas to work in Zimbabwe in the past
three
years.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 10,
2004 07:38 ET (12:38 GMT)
Mail and Guardian
Moyo threatens SA media with legal action
Harare
10 March 2004 14:46
Zimbabwe has threatened legal
action against foreign media organisations and
their local correspondents --
including Mail & Guardian -- saying some of
them are "mercenaries"
working to topple the regime of President Robert
Mugabe.
"Mercenaries
of any kind, whether carrying the sword or the pen, must and
will be exposed,
and they will suffer the full consequences of the law,"
Information Minister
Jonathan Moyo said in a statement released late on
Tuesday.
"Over the
last four years or so ... a number of [local] journalists have
found the
promise of dirty American money too tempting and irresistible, at
the expense
of their own country," it said.
"Concrete evidence in this regard has
been coming up in recent months and it
is mounting," the statement
said.
It added that "no media organisation, certainly not Zimpapers [a
state-owned
media group], will be forced to employ [United States President
George]
Bush's or [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair's media mercenaries
whose
mission is to destroy Zimbabwe from within. That will just not
happen."
Moyo also accused some journalists and their foreign employers
of "flagrant
violation of exchange control law and regulations", alleging
they are
keeping foreign currency outside the country for work done in
Zimbabwe.
"Some of the journalists involved are foreign correspondents
who regularly
report for news organisations such as CNN, the BBC, SABC, Daily
Telegraph,
The Times of London, Guardian, among many more, while others are
stringers
for or regular contributors to newspapers such as Sunday Times, the
Mail and
Guardian, The Star and the Business Day in South Africa. And yet
others work
for wire services such as Reuters, Agence France
[Presse].
"As nobody is above the law, and given the serious implications
of this
widespread and continuing illegal practice on the country's economy,
the
department [of information] has brought the matter to the attention of
the
relevant authorities and agencies ... for appropriate legal action will
be
taken," he said. -- Sapa-AFP
MOZAMBIQUE: Thousands stranded after river bursts its banks
JOHANNESBURG, 10
Mar 2004 (IRIN) - The authorities in Mozambique said on
Wednesday they were
prepared to assist thousands of families left stranded
by flood waters after
the Pungue river in the central province of Sofala
burst its banks last
week.
"Many of the families in the surrounding areas are dependent on the
river
for farming and, therefore, live in areas which are close to the river
- so
it is very serious when water levels rise to such a high degree. In
recent
years, when the river burst its banks fields were flooded and
houses
destroyed. But we have yet to make a proper assessment to judge the
damage,"
a spokesman for Mozambique's National Institute for Disaster
Management
(INGC), Rogerio Manguele, told IRIN.
Manguele dismissed
claims reported by local media that the delay by
provincial authorities in
responding to the situation had exacerbated the
plight of people in need of
assistance.
"Provincial authorities have sent out tow boats to rescue
those who are
stranded. It is false to say that provincial government had not
contributed
to the rescue mission," he said.
Meanwhile, the Mozambican
Red Cross (MRC) said one of the main concerns was
finding a suitable area for
relocating the flood victims.
MRC secretary-general Fernanda Teixeira
told IRIN: "There will of course be
the usual requirements, such as tents and
emergency food supplies, but
people would need an adequate place to live in
before they decide to return
to their homes."
There were also concerns
that the rising water could flood the main road
from the port of Beira to
landlocked Zimbabwe, forcing an interruption in
traffic.
"We are
monitoring the situation very carefully and the a Red Cross team has
also
been positioned in the area," Teixeira added.
[ENDS]
Zimbabwe Says Suspected Mercenaries May Get Death Penalty
Copyright © 2004, Dow Jones Newswires
HARARE, Zimbabwe
(AP)--The government warned Wednesday that 64
suspected mercenaries who were
aboard a jet seized at the country's main
airport could face the death
penalty.
"They are going to face the severest punishment on our
statutes
including capital punishment," Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge said
after a
routine briefing for diplomats in the capital, Harare.
He didn't specify what charges could be brought against the men or
when they
might appear in court.
It remained unclear where the men had been
going and what their
purpose had been.
The crew of the aging
Boeing 727-L100 impounded late Sunday at Harare
International Airport told
authorities the plane was carrying mining
personnel headed for the central
African nations of Congo and Burundi, state
television reported
Tuesday.
But Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi said the plane was
believed to
have been hired by South African mercenaries with the assistance
of British
special forces.
The small west African state of
Equatorial Guinea said Tuesday it had
arrested an advance group of 15 alleged
mercenaries believed to be plotting
a coup in the oil-rich
country.
The U.K.'s Foreign Office said Wednesday it was aware of
the
allegation that British SAS forces were involved with the plane.
British
officials in Harare attended Wednesday's briefing with Zimbabwe's
foreign
minister, a spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity. She had no
further
details.
South Africa's Foreign Ministry confirmed that
20 of its nationals
were among those arrested.
"The South
African government reiterates the view that should the
allegations that these
South Africans were implicated in mercenary
activities prove true, it would
amount to a breach of the Foreign Military
Assistance Act, which expressly
prohibits the involvement of South Africans
in such activities abroad without
due authorization," the ministry said in a
statement late
Tuesday.
Zimbabwean authorities have also indicated that there are
18
Namibians, 23 Angolans, two Congolese and one Zimbabwean carrying a
South
African passport among those arrested.
Angolan Foreign
Minister Joao Miranda said his government believed the
men once belonged to
the Buffalo Battalion, a disbanded South African army
unit composed of
foreign soldiers, many of them from Portuguese-speaking
countries. The unit
fought in Namibia and Angola in the 1970s and 1980s.
Angolan
officials were cooperating with Harare, Miranda said on
state
radio.
Along with the plane, Zimbabwe authorities seized
what they called
"military materials" -including satellite telephones,
radios, backpacks,
hiking boots, bolt cutters and an inflatable raft. There
were no reports of
weapons on plane.
The plane and its
passengers -described by state television as mostly
white -were initially
taken to a nearby military airfield.
The suspects were later moved
to the Chikurubi maximum security prison
near Harare, according to a civil
aviation official, who spoke on condition
of anonymity.
He said
the plane had landed in Harare to load additional fuel, for
which the crew
paid about $30,000 in cash.
Airport authorities became suspicious
when the plane's interior lights
were extinguished after the pilot declare
there were only three crew and
four cargo loaders aboard, state television
reported.
The plane's registration number, N4610, is assigned to
Dodson Aviation
Inc. of Ottawa, Kansas, in the U.S. However, the company said
it had sold
the aircraft about a week ago.
Investigators in
Harare said Dodson Aviation originally purchased the
plane from the U.S. Air
Force.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 10, 2004 11:48
ET (16:48 GMT)
IOL
Alleged mercenaries may have been SADF
men
March 10 2004 at 03:51PM
Pretoria -
The men arrested aboard a captured plane in Zimbabwe are
all former South
African Defence Force (SADF) soldiers from Unit 32, based
in Namibia, a South
African diplomatic source said on Wednesday.
The source told Sapa
that the plane had indeed been transporting
mercenaries to Equatorial Guinea,
and it stopped over in Zimbabwe to pick up
weapons from a military
depot.
Beeld alleges that the weapons were manufactured by Zimbabwe
Defence
Industries (ZDI), which it alleges was paid $180 000 (about
R1,2-million)
for the weapons.
"So I suppose you could say there
were no weapons on the plane before
it got to Zimbabwe," the source
said.
'We don't like the idea that South Africa has become a
cesspool'
Sixty-four men, including 20 South Africans, 18 Namibians,
23
Angolans, two DRC citizens and a Zimbabwean travelling on a South
African
passport have been arrested and are in prison in
Zimbabwe.
The Boeing 727-100 was detained by Harare on Sunday after
airport
authorities became suspicious of the pilot's reported claim that the
plane
was only carrying three crew and four cargo handlers.
South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosozana Dlamini-Zuma said on
her
arrival back from India that her department was in no rush to assist
the
South Africans in Zimbabwe, or another group which is under house arrest
in
Equatorial Guinea.
"They are not exactly innocent travellers
finding themselves in a
difficult situation," she said.
However
foreign affairs officials would find out what extradition
treaties, if any,
were in place.
She said the department was still trying to
establish what was going
on but that "indeed there was a link between the
plane and Equatorial
Guinea".
She confirmed there were at least
seven South Africans who had been
arrested in Equatorial Guinea and that one
had "spilled the beans".
"I know one man has addressed the
diplomatic corps and explained what
funny things they were doing up there,"
she said.
Dlamini-Zuma said government was concerned that South
Africans were
involved in mercenary activities.
"We don't like
the idea that South Africa has become a cesspool of
mercenaries," she
said.
Equatorial Guinea's Information Minister Agustin Nse Nfumu
said on
Tuesday his government had detained 15 suspected mercenaries, and
declared
they were an "advance party" for the group of 64 on board the
impounded
aircraft.
He said the leader of the group, a white
South African called "Mick",
had confessed to a plot to kill the
president.
But Charles Burrow, a senior executive at Logo logistics
- the plane's
owner - maintains its all a "dreadful
misunderstanding".
Burrow insists the alleged mercenaries were
security guards en route
to various mining operations in the Democratic
Republic of Congo and the
alleged weapons were bits of mining equipment. -
Sapa
misna.org
"MERCENARIES": MALABO, DECLARATION BY COMMANDER OF
OPERATION TO
OVERTHROW OBIANG
Politics/Economy,
Standard
The 15 mercenaries arrested in Malabo, capital of
Equatorial Guinea,
at the weekend - the 'advance party' of a group also
including the 65
presumed "mercenaries" found on board the Boeing 727 cargo
plane seized in
the Zimbabwean capital on Sunday, according to the Guinean
government -
aimed to kidnap the Guinean President, Theodore Obiang Nguema,
take him to
Spain and force him into exile before replacing him with the
opposition
leader Severo Moto Nsa, himself in exile in Spain, Nick Dutoit
told Guinean
television today. Dutoit is the man believed by the Malabo
authorities to
have been in charge of the mercenary operation intended to
overthrow Obiang,
who has led the country since 1968. Dutoit, white with
European features,
spoke in English, and he was sitting at a table to which
all the accredited
ambassadors in Equatorial Guinea were invited. A few hours
earlier the
official radio in the tiny former Spanish colony - currently the
third
producer of crude oil in Sub-Saharan Africa - described Dutoit as
"a
48-year-old South African arms and diamonds trafficker" who has been
in
Malabo since July 2003. According to the radio, the mercenaries in
Guinea
were already in the possession of arms and were awaiting the arrival
of the
remaining material that they needed. "The first objective was the
presidency
of the republic, followed by a few military barracks, then the
murder of a
few selected members of the government would have signalled the
end of the
mission," said the national broadcaster of Malabo, specifying that
Dutoit
had admitted recruiting around 60 mercenaries in the Democratic
Republic of
Congo. Yesterday, the Guinean government implicated Severo Moto,
leader of
the main opposition group 'Partido del Progresso', in the affair,
which is
getting more complicated by the hour. Malabo has asked Madrid to
extradite
Moto, who continues to deny any involvement in the affair, instead
claiming
that the presumed coup was staged on purpose to prevent his return
to the
country (scheduled for the coming weeks) in view of the
impending
presidential elections. Speaking on the radio yesterday, President
Obiang
alleged that the "mercenaries" were financed by "enemy powers,
multinational
corporations and countries that do not like
Guinea".[LC]
Pretoria confirms link between plane and coup
plot
JOHANNESBURG, 10 Mar 2004 (IRIN) - South African Foreign Affairs
Minister
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma confirmed on Wednesday that the plane held
by
Zimbabwean authorities and an alleged coup plot in Equatorial Guinea
were
linked.
"Indeed there was a link between the plane and Equatorial
Guinea,"
Dlamini-Zuma was quoted as saying by the South African news agency
(SAPA).
Zimbabwean authorities on Sunday detained a Boeing 727 carrying
20 South
Africans, 18 Namibians, 23 Angolans, two Democratic Republic of
Congo
citizens and one Zimbabwean with a South African passport, Zimbabwean
police
spokesman, Wayne Bvudzijena, told IRIN on Wednesday.
Meanwhile,
Equatorial Guinea announced on Tuesday that it had arrested 15
alleged
mercenaries, including several South Africans, who, it claimed, were
an
advance party for the 64 men being held in Zimbabwe.
Dlamini-Zuma
confirmed on Wednesday that at least seven South Africans had
been arrested
in Equatorial Guinea, and one had "spilt the beans".
"I know one man has
addressed the diplomatic corps and explained what funny
things they were
doing up there," she said. News agencies on Tuesday quoted
Equatorial
Guinea's Minister of Information, Agustin Nse Nfumu, as saying
that the
leader of the group, a South African called "Mick", had allegedly
confessed
to a plot to kill President Obiang Mbasogo.
The South African Department
of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday that any
South African found to be
involved in mercenary activities was in "serious
breach" of the Foreign
Military Assistance Act, which prohibits the
involvement of South Africans in
military activities outside the country
without due authorisation of the
National Conventional Arms Control
Committee.
At least two of the
alleged foreign merecenaries held by Zimbabwean
authorities have been linked
to the security firm Executive Outcomes (EO),
which folded in
1999.
Bvudzijena said the plane was met at the airport by Simon Mann, one
of the
founders of EO, and two other men who had entered the country on 5
March
this year.
"Another known mercenary, Simon Witherspoon, who is
also a former member of
Executive Outcomes, is among those arrested and is
acting as a spokesperson
for the group," he added.
Zimbabwean Foreign
Minister Stan Mudenge told a news briefing in the
capital, Harare, on
Wednesday that the alleged mercenaries could face the
death
penalty.
EO shot to fame during the 1990s when it assisted the Angolan
government in
fighting the rebel movement UNITA, and helped the Sierra Leone
authorities
deal with the Revolutionary United Front. The firm included
former personnel
of the notorious 32 Buffalo Battalion of the South African
special forces
and Civil Cooperation Bureau, which was responsible for the
death of several
anti-apartheid activists.
EO closed shop when South
Africa's Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance
Act came into effect in
1999.
The Zimbabwean authorities said the impounded plane, allegedly a
former
United States Airforce aircraft, had been sold to an American
concern,
Dodson Aviation, which had leased it out to Logo Logistics
Limited.
Zimbabwe state television broadcast footage of what it called
"military
material" aboard the plane, including camouflage uniforms, sleeping
bags,
compasses and wire cutters - but no guns.
In a statement sent to
SAPA, Logo Logistics said that "contrary to some
reports they (the people on
board the aeroplane) are contracted to provide a
range of services to mining
clients, including logistics, support services,
asset and human security, and
communications".
The statement was not sourced to an individual, and a
telephone contact
number in the United Kingdom was answered by an electronic
message, the news
agency reported.
misna.org
"MERCENARIES": HARARE ACCUSES SPANISH, US AND BRITISH
INTELLIGENCE
Politics/Economy, Brief
The government of
Zimbabwe has accused the secret services of the
United States, Great Britain
and Spain of assisting the presumed mercenaries
detained in Harare in
organising a plot aimed at overthrowing the President
of Equatorial Guinea,
Theodor Obiang Nguema. During a press conference, the
Zimbabwean interior
minister Kembo Mohadi read out a prepared statement
claiming that the
presumed "mercenaries" were "aided by the British secret
service, that is
MI6, .... American Central Intelligence Agency and the
Spanish secret
service". According to Mohadi, the western secret services
persuaded
"Equatorial Guinea's service chiefs not to put up any resistance,
but to
cooperate with the coup plotters", promising them government posts in
the
post-coup administration. The reconstruction provided by the minister
is
based on information obtained from Simon Mann, who was arrested in
Harare
last Sunday while waiting for the Boeing 727, which was blocked
and
impounded in the international airport in the Zimbabwean capital
together
with its cargo of "military material" and 65 presumed mercenaries
of
different nationalities. Mann, a former member of the British Special
Air
Service (SAS), is thought to be one of the managers of Executive
Outcomes
(EO), the most important mercenary company in the world, although it
has
been inactive for some time, and one of the founders of
Sandline
International, the Private Military Company that grew out of the
ashes of
EO.[LC]
IOL
Alleged mercenary leader unveils coup plot
March 10 2004
at 06:24PM
Malabo - The leader of a group of suspected
mercenaries arrested in
Equatorial Guinea said on national television on
Wednesday that their
mission was to abduct President Teodoro Obiang Nguema
and force him into
exile.
"It wasn't a question of taking the life of
the head of state, but of
spiriting him away, taking him to Spain and forcing
him into exile and then
installing the government in exile of Severo Moto
Nsa," said the man,
presented under the name of Nick du Toit.
Obiang,
who came to power in the small, oil-rich West African nation in a
1979 coup,
on Tuesday announced the arrest of a group of 15 mercenaries he
said wanted
to overthrow his regime.
"A group of mercenaries entered the country and
was studying plans to carry
out a coup d'etat in Equatorial Guinea," he said,
quoted by national radio.
The 15 were found to be in possession of maps
of the capital, Malabo, and
satellite telephones, Obiang said, adding they
were linked to the planeload
of suspected mercenaries who have been detained
since the weekend in
Zimbabwe.
Obiang pointed the finger at Moto, the
leader of the country's government in
exile, who is based in former colonial
power Spain. But Moto on Wednesday
denied any involvement in the alleged
plot.
The man, who appeared on national television looked European and
was talking
in English with his words dubbed into Spanish. He faced the
camera and did
not appear to be frightened or tired.
Earlier national
radio had identified the leader of the mercenaries as a
48-year-old South
African, Nick du Toit. - Sapa-AFP
News24
SA pilot on 'mercenary' plane
10/03/2004 11:44 -
(SA)
Erika Gibson
Pretoria - Niel Steyl, the pilot of the
Boeing 727-100 that was impounded in
Zimbabwe, used to be a commercial pilot
in Bethlehem, Free State.
Another pilot on board was Hendrik Hamman, a
farmer from Namibia.
Both apparently flew similar Boeings for the
now-defunct Executive Outcomes
company that provided military assistance in
Angola and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo during the civil wars in
those countries.
Steyl apparently hit the headlines two years ago when he
was one of the two
captains of a Boeing 727 that took the enigmatic and
controversial King Leka
I, self-proclaimed ruler of Albania, back to his
homeland after years in
exile in South Africa.
The crew and the 64
others on board the controversial flight were arrested
in Harare on Sunday
evening.
Sources indicate that they could be held under Zimbabwe' Public
Order and
Security Act for at least seven days while the Zimbabwean
authorities
question them under orders from the South African
government.
They might then be extradited to South Africa.
Six
people - J L Padilla, W L Stanton, M O Bainton, K D Savage, M P Sistok
and a
McQuade apparently flew the plane from Sao Tome to Lanseria Airport at
the
weekend.
A Mr Pienaar paid for fuel by credit card before the plane left
for
Wonderboom Airport from where it travelled to Harare via
Polokwane.
It is unclear where the crew who were arrested in Harare took
over the
plane.
The 64 others on the plane had stayed in a prominent
hotel in Pretoria for
the past week or so. They apparently underwent
marksmanship training near
Johannesburg during this time.
Eighty
percent of them are apparently from former specialist forces and some
are of
Angolan descent.
Severo Moto, ousted opposition leader of Equatorial
Guinea, has tried to
overthrow the government there twice before. Both coups
failed.
President Thabo Mbeki recently visited Equatorial Guinea to renew
diplomatic
ties between the two countries.
Equatorial Guinea also
recently opened an embassy in South Africa.
Business Day
All a dreadful misunderstanding:
Logo
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
The
detention of a plane, and its crew and passengers, in Harare, was all
part of
a "dreadful misunderstanding," the plane's owner, Logo
Logistics,
said.
"It is all a dreadful misunderstanding. These things
happen very often for
reasons that seem very plausible to the authorities at
the time," Charles
Burrow, a senior executive at Logo told Sapa.
He was
speaking by phone from London.
The Boeing 727-100 was detained by Harare
on Sunday after airport
authorities became suspicious of the pilot's reported
claim that the plane
was only carrying three crew and four cargo
handlers.
Sixty-four men, including 20 South Africans, 18 Namibians, 23
Angolans, two
DRC citizens and a Zimbabwean travelling on a South African
passport were
later escorted off the plane.
Burrow insists they are
security guards en route to various mining
operations in the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC).
The Zimbabwean government and media reports
citing intelligence sources have
said they were mercenaries on their way to
assist another group in
overthrowing the government of Equatorial Guinea, a
small, oil-rich country
along central Africa's west coast.
Burrows
said that what some have described as military items aboard is
mining
equipment.
Burrow said the aircraft had been scheduled to fly the men to
the DRC with
stops at Polokwane, Harare and Bujumbura, in Burundi.
"At
the time it had seemed a good idea and cheaper to put guys (and cargo)
for
three or four projects on same plane."
Asked what the company was doing
to secure the release of the men, he said
they were working closely with the
South African Department of Foreign
Affairs and had provided them a list of
passengers and crew on Monday.
"We are very much in touch with the South
African government, he said. "I
can't praise them too highly. They are
dealing with the matter with energy
and despatch. I'm very hopeful the matter
will be dealt with very rapidly
and have every confidence we'll have the guys
back at their homes soon."
However, earlier on Wednesday the department
said its officials were still
awaiting details on the identity of the South
Africans.
Spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said once their names were known,
consular services
would be offered and their families informed. The names
would only then be
made available to the media.
Speaking to the media
after arriving home from India, Foreign Affairs
Minister Nkosazana
Dlamini-Zuma said she was in contact with the Zimbabwean
and Equatorial
Guinea governments regarding the South Africans held in
both
countries.
Equatorial Guinea's Information Minister Agustin Nse
Nfumu said on Tuesday
his government had detained 15 suspected mercenaries,
and declared they were
an "advance party" for the group of 64 on board the
impounded aircraft.
He said the leader of the group, a white South
African called "Mick", had
confessed to a plot to kill the
president.
In Harare, Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge said the
men could face
the death penalty.
"They are going to face the severest
punishment available in our statutes,
including capital punishment," he
said.
Civil Aviation Authority officials were also waiting for details
from the SA
Revenue Service and Zimbabwe's aviation authority for their
own
investigation before making any further comment.
Sapa
News24
'SA president tipped us off'
10/03/2004 14:09 - (SA)
Malabo - Equatorial Guinea's
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has
thanked South Africa and Angola for being
"friendly" countries and tipping
him off to the impending arrival of a flight
carrying susepcted mercenaries.
"We spoke with the South
African president who warned us that a
group of mercenaries was heading
towards Equatorial Guinea... Angola also
sent messages to tell us to be
vigilant. That's what I expect of friendly
countries," said Obiang, calling
on former colonial power Spain to behave
likewise.
Meanwhile, the planeload of alleged soldiers of fortune detained
in Zimbabwe
has been linked to a group of 15 suspected mercenaries arrested
in Equatorial
Guinea as they allegedly hatched a coup plot last weekend,
national radio
quoted Obiang saying.
"A group of mercenaries entered the
country and was studying
plans to carry out a coup d'état in Equatorial
Guinea," said Obiang late on
Tuesday, announcing the 15 coup plotters had
been arrested.
They were found to be in possession of maps of
the capital
Malabo, and satellite telephones, Obiang said, adding they were
linked to
the planeload of suspected mercenaries who have been detained since
the
weekend in Zimbabwe.
The authorities in Harare at the
weekend impounded a
US-registered Boeing 727-100 with 64 passengers and three
crew on board.
Although Harare claims those on board the
impounded plane are
mercenaries, and is holding them in prison, a British
company that said it
was operating the flight maintained that those on board
were on their way to
work in the mines in the Democratic Republic of
Congo.
Obiang said the suspected putschists "were funded by
enemy
powers, by multi-national companies and also by countries that do not
like
us," but did not name names.
He pointed the finger at
opposition activist Severo Moto, who is
in exile in Spain, and who tried to
mount a coup against Obiang in 1997 from
Angola.
Moto, who
recently set up a government in exile for the tiny,
oil-rich Gulf of Guinea
country, was sentenced in absentia by a court in
Malabo to 100 years in jail
for his role in the 1997 coup bid, and his Party
for Progress in Equatorial
Guinea was banned.
The long-time president of Equatorial
Guinea himself came to
power in a coup in 1979, in which he ousted his uncle,
whom he later had
executed.