(Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP)
Just popping out to the shop: a Zimbabwean man carries cash for groceries in Harare
International Herald Tribune
The Associated
PressPublished: March 5, 2008
HARARE, Zimbabwe: The Zimbabwe
currency tumbled to a record low of 25
million for a single U.S. dollar
Wednesday, currency dealers said.
With Zimbabwe dollars mostly available
in bundles of 100,000 and 200,000
notes, one US$100 note bought nearly 20
kilograms (40 pounds) of local notes
at the new market rate
Wednesday.
Currency dealers said uncertainties ahead of elections
scheduled March 29
and the world's highest inflation of 100,500 percent led
holders of hard
currency to hang on to their money at the same time as the
state central
bank pumped more local cash into the market for election
costs.
The price of the U.S. currency was also pushed up by central bank
buying on
the unofficial market to pay for power, gasoline and vehicle
imports ahead
of the polling, said one black market dealer who could not be
identified out
of fear of reprisals.
In the economic meltdown, the
black market exchange rate for the U.S. dollar
broke the 1 million Zimbabwe
dollar mark for the first time in late October.
The value of the Zimbabwe
dollar weakened steadily against hard currencies
throughout last year but
its fall quickened dramatically in recent weeks,
the dealer said.
With
industry and production collapsing, Zimbabweans have become heavily
dependent on imports of the corn meal staple and basic goods. Until last
year, the former regional breadbasket was self sufficient in canned and
processed foods, household goods, soap, toothpaste, toiletries and other
items now imported from neighbors Malawi, South Africa and Zambia and from
as far afield as Egypt, Germany, Iran and Malaysia.
According to
latest official poverty line data, an average family of five
needs a monthly
income US$35 (€24) to survive while remaining living in
poverty.
But
most general hands and other lower paid workers earn less than the
equivalent of US$10 (€6.75) a month in an economy also suffering record
formal sector unemployment of 80 percent.
---------
(Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP)
Just popping out to the shop: a Zimbabwean man carries cash for groceries in Harare
nasdaq
MAHUSEKWA, Zimbabwe (AFP)--Zimbabwe's veteran
President Robert Mugabe
accused businesses Wednesday of hiking prices to
turn voters against him
ahead of presidential elections later this
month.
"They keep raising and raising prices, and we wonder whether they
want to
raise the prices until the prices reach heaven," Mugabe told
thousands of
villagers at a campaign rally in Mahusekwa, about 70 kilometers
south-east
of the capital Harare.
"Some are doing it for the
elections saying: 'Let's make life hard for the
people so that they cry and
blame it all on Mugabe's government.
"Getting 1,000% profit. That's not
profit. That's profiteering which is
condemned in the bible."
Mugabe
admitted Zimbabweans were facing numerous problems, like food
shortages,
saying his government had formed emergency committees to expedite
food
distribution.
Zimbabweans go to the polls on March 29 to elect a
president, legislators,
senators and local councilors.
Mugabe is
hoping to secure a sixth term of office as leader of the former
U.K. colony
he has ruled since independence in 1980.
The elections are to take place
against a backdrop of economic meltdown in
Zimbabwe, which has an official
inflation rate of more than 100,000% - the
highest in the world.
The
government has tried several measures to rein in runaway inflation,
including ordering business to halve prices after accusing them of colluding
with Mugabe's foes to trigger anti-government protests.
Zimbabwe's
last elections, won by Mugabe in 2002, were dismissed as rigged
by western
observers and the opposition.
Mugabe is being challenged for the
presidency by his former finance minister
Simba Makoni, since expelled from
the ruling Zimbabwe African National
Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), and
main opposition Movement for
Democratic Change leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
03-05-081253ET
IOL
March 05 2008 at 04:52PM
Harare - Former finance minister Simba
Makoni's decision to enter the
presidential race is a ploy by former
colonial power Britain to divide
Zimbabweans, a state-controlled newspaper
on Wednesday reported longtime
president Robert Mugabe as
saying.
Mugabe told ruling Zanu-PF supporters at a rally in
Chipinge, eastern
Manicaland province, that voters have to "bury British
regime-change
schemes," the Herald newspaper reported.
Mugabe,
84, has been intensely annoyed by Makoni's decision to
challenge him in the
March 29 polls. State media in Zimbabwe this week
accused British firm
Citigroup of backing Makoni's presidential bid, a claim
dismissed as
"absolute rubbish" by a company spokesperson.
Makoni maintains he is aiming for leadership change and not regime
change in
Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe government regularly accuses its
opponents -including
the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) whose leader Morgan
Tsvangirai is also standing in the polls - of
working in cahoots with
Britain to overthrow Mugabe.
At a rally in Bazely Bridge, also in
Manicaland, Mugabe said that "the
British had identified people within
Zanu-PF to work with in causing
divisions in the party because it realised
the ruling party was a united
revolutionary liberation movement that had to
be destroyed from within," the
Herald said.
Mugabe handed out
more than 200 computers to schools in Manicaland and
promised farm equipment
and food because "food shortages are looming," the
report said.
New Zimbabwe
By Torby Chimhashu
Last updated: 03/05/2008
09:27:49
PRESIDENTIAL candidate Simba Makoni has been rattled by a bomb scare
which
rocked a building where he was addressing his campaign team, renewing
earlier fears that the intelligence services have made him their number one
priority just a few weeks before Zimbabweans vote in crucial
polls.
The former Finance Minister who is challenging President Robert
Mugabe in
elections on March 29 was made to abort his meeting with his top
officials
on Monday when an alarm was triggered off at Old Mutual Centre in
the
morning.
Old Mutual Centre is owned by life assurance company,
Old Mutual Zimbabwe.
The building houses many tenants including the
Standard Chartered Bank among
other high profile entities.
People who
were queuing to pay for British and American visas were made to
scurry in
all directions when an alarm went off in the building, forcing the
housekeeper to call for immediate evacuation of all people occupying the
building at the time.
Among the people who were forced to go nine
floors below were Makoni and his
election team who were in the middle of a
"crucial" meeting, according to
one of his officials.
Retired Major
Kudzai Mbudzi, one of the co-ordinating members of Makoni's
election drive
told New Zimbabwe.com Tuesday that they were forced to abort
the meeting
"after a bomb scare".
Said Mbudzi: "In the history of the building, we
were told that it had never
happened that alarms -- both fire and explosives
-- could go off
simultaneously. We were forced to abandon our meeting as
everyone occupying
the building was evacuated.
"It is hard to ignore
what has happened to us in the past few weeks and we
have no doubts that
this is the work of our enemies."
Makoni believes the Central
Intelligence Organisation (CIO) is on a dirty
campaign against him to
frustrate his bid to upstage Mugabe on March 29.
Last week, Makoni's team
claimed that they were frustrated in their bid to
secure properties for
their election headquarters, and also refused
registration numbers for their
election vehicles.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has been fingered as a
willing partner in the
CIO project after sending "guards" to protect new
premises which
incidentally had been identified for occupation by
Makoni.
A defiant Mbudzi said: "We won't be cared or cowed into
submission by these
terror tactics. Our candidate realises the battle we
face to rescue
Zimbabwe. He is up for that battle."
Makoni has
courted the ire of Mugabe and his henchmen since he broke away
from Zanu PF
to declare he is vying for the top job on February 5.
Mugabe has come out
fighting, smearing the suave former executive secretary
of SADC as a
"political prostitute, witch, charlatan and British stooge".
Makoni has
pledged to revive the country's economy which is crumbling under
the burden
of the world's highest inflation at 100 000%.
Mugabe faces Makoni and
leader of a faction of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC),
Morgan Tsvangirai, in elections which are likely to
define the future of the
troubled southern African nation.
Zim Online
by Sebastian Nyamhangambiri Thursday 06 March
2008
MAHUSEKWA - President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday said
his government had
paid for more than 400 tonnes of maize from Zambia and
Malawi but blamed
Lusaka's "lack of urgency" for slowing down efforts to
fight off hunger.
Addressing a campaign rally of about 6 000 supporters
at Mahusekwa rural
business centre, about 90km south-east of Harare, Mugabe
said his government
would dispatch a team of officials to Zambia to assist
authorities there to
speed up delivery of maize.
"We are trying (to
provide food) but our maize is still across the Zambezi
(river between
Zambia and Zimbabwe)," Mugabe said.
"It seems they have no sense of
urgency. They are working as if everything
is normal. We have talked to the
Zambian government and they have agreed to
be assisted so we are sending our
team there. We have set up an emergency
team because of the high level of
hunger," he said.
Mugabe - who urged the villagers not to vote for former
finance minister
Simba Makoni because he was a "man of no principles" - said
the government
paid for 150 000 tonnes of maize from Zambia, 300 000 tonnes
from Malawi and
a "few thousand" tonnes from South Africa.
Zimbabwe,
also in the grip of its worst ever economic crisis, has battled
severe food
shortages for the past eight years after Mugabe's controversial
land reforms
displaced established white commercial farmers and replaced
them with either
incompetent or inadequately funded black peasant farmers.
A joint crop
assessment report by the agriculture ministry and the Food and
Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) released this week says Zimbabwe could face
another grain
shortfall this year because if a shortage of seed and
fertilizers that
affected the cropping season.
International relief agencies say up to
four million Zimbabweans or a
quarter of the country's 12 million people
require food aid between now and
the next harvest in about a month's
time.
Mugabe said his government sympathised with the people's worsening
plight
telling the rural voters who have been loyal to his party not to be
swayed
by Makoni, who rebelled to challenge the veteran leader in the March
29
presidential poll.
"If you vote for him (Makoni) you are lost,
this is the truth. You do not
have to join a man of no principles," said
Mugabe, who mocked his challenger
as a dreamer who thinks he could just wake
up as the new president of the
country.
Mugabe, who could clock more
than three decades in office if he is
re-elected for another five-year term,
denied responsibility for Zimbabwe's
economic crisis and instead blamed a
profiteering business community of
unjustifiably hiking prices to worsen the
misery of consumers.
Zimbabwe is in the grip of an acute economic
recession critics blame on
mismanagement by Mugabe and seen in the world's
highest inflation rate of
more than 100 000 percent, 80 percent unemployment
and shortages of food,
fuel and foreign currency.
However, analysts
say an unfair playing field guarantees Mugabe victory at
the polls. The
84-year old Mugabe has promised a landslide victory against
Makoni and main
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Nqobizitha Khumalo Thursday 06 March
2008
BULAWAYO - Zimbabwe's opposition on Wednesday
said ruling ZANU PF
activists were terrorising its supporters in two rural
districts in the
south of the country where it said scores of supporters had
fled their homes
fearing for their lives.
The faction of the
main opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) party led by Arthur
Mutambara said ZANU PF militants were especially
targeting MDC supporters in
Bubi and Umguza districts who signed nomination
papers for electoral
candidates for the opposition party.
The opposition party's deputy
spokesman Abednico Bhebhe said the party
had reported the harassment to the
police and to the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (ZEC).
"Our
party supporters who signed the (nomination) forms are now living
in fear
while some have fled their homes as a result of the threats. We have
lodged
a report with ZEC and the police in the province," Bhebhe told
ZimOnline.
ZEC deputy elections director Utoile Silaigwana said
the matter was
yet to be brought to his attention but added it may still be
under
investigation by the commission's provincial office.
"If
the issue was reported with our office in Matabeleland North then
it could
still be under investigation but the nature of the case
automatically makes
it a police case," he said.
Police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka was
not immediately available for
comment on the matter.
Zimbabweans go to the polls on 29 March to elect a new president,
parliamentarians and local government representatives.
Politically motivated violence and human rights abuses have
accompanied
Zimbabwe's elections since the 1999 emergence of the MDC as the
first potent
threat to President Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF's stranglehold on
power.
Hordes of veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s liberation war
have led a
violent campaign against the MDC, sealing off rural areas that
have
traditionally backed the ruling ZANU PF party.
Analysts
say an unfair playing field coupled with political violence
and intimidation
of opponents guarantees Mugabe's government victory in the
upcoming polls
despite clear evidence it has failed to break a vicious
inflation cycle that
has left consumers impoverished and the economy in deep
crisis. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Simplicious Chirinda Thursday 06 March
2008
HARARE - A group of 70 Zimbabwe white farmers say they
will later this month
file a joint application at the Southern African
Development Community
(SADC) Tribunal challenging the seizure of their farms
by the government.
John Worswick, the president of the Justice for
Agriculture (JAG) pressure
group, said yesterday that they will before the
end of the month file a
joint challenge against President Robert Mugabe's
controversial land
reforms.
"At least 70 farmers have so far agreed
to file the joint application and we
are looking at having as many farmers
as we can before submitting the
application at the Tribunal.
"We are
looking at filing the case before the end of March," said Worswick.
The
Windhoek-based Tribunal last December ruled that Harare should stop
evicting
a Zimbabwean white farmer, William Michael Campbell, from his farm
in
Chegutu pending final determination of the legality of the land
reforms.
Worswick said he expected more farmers to sign up for the 'group
act'
following last week's withdrawal of charges against a group of farmers
in
Chegutu who were being accused of resisting eviction from their
properties.
Chegutu magistrate, Tinashe Ndokera, dropped charges against
13 white
farmers who had been hauled to court for failing to comply with a
government
directive to vacate their properties by 30 September
2007.
"Buoyed by this outcome, we expect more farmers to sign up as a way
forward," said Worswick.
The Tribunal last month said it had set 26
March as the date on which it
would hear Campbell's challenge against the
legality of Harare's land
reforms.
Campbell first appealed against
seizure of his property to Zimbabwe's
Supreme Court last March but took his
case to the Tribunal after what his
lawyers said was "unreasonable delay" by
the country's highest court in
dealing with the matter.
Campbell
wants the SADC court to find Harare in breach of its obligations as
a member
of the regional bloc after it signed into law Constitution of
Zimbabwe
Amendment No.17 two years ago.
The amendment allows the government to
seize white farmland -- without
compensation - for redistribution to
landless blacks and bars courts from
hearing appeals from dispossessed white
farmers.
The white farmer has also asked the Tribunal to declare
Zimbabwe's land
reforms racist and illegal under the SADC Treaty adding that
Article 6 of
the Treaty bars member states from discriminating against any
person on the
grounds of gender, religion, race, ethnic origin and
culture.
A ruling declaring land reform illegal would have far reaching
consequences
for Mugabe's government, opening the floodgates to hundreds of
claims of
damages by dispossessed white farmers. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Patricia Mpofu Thursday 06 March
2008
HARARE - Zimbabwe war veterans' leader Jabulani Sibanda
said the former
fighters would today discuss strategy to galvanise support
for President
Robert Mugabe after spending yesterday deliberating on
logistics such as
provision of fuel and vehicles for the campaign
programme.
"We want to ensure that our president and the ruling ZANU PF
party win
peacefully and comfortably," Sibanda told ZimOnline after a
meeting of the
ex-combatants that lasted several hours at the ruling party
headquarters in
Harare.
Sibanda disclosed that the former fighters of
Zimbabwe's 1970's war of
independence had received vehicles from ZANU PF to
use during the campaign
but did not say how many vehicles they
got.
The veterans are hardliner supporters of Mugabe who have waged
violence and
terror against the opposition at every election to ensure
victory for the
Zimbabwean leader and his ruling ZANU PF party.
The
veterans, who last year led marches across the country in support of
Mugabe,
insist that he is the only one fit to rule Zimbabwe despite a
worsening
economic crisis and food shortages blamed on his policies.
Nevertheless,
insiders say the veterans, whose support is crucial for
Mugabe, are no
longer united behind the 84-year old President, citing former
liberation war
top commander Dumiso Dabengwa and retired army major Kudzai
Mbudzi's
defection to back Makoni as a sign of widening divisions among
ex-combatants.
Mugabe faces probably his toughest political test in
the March 29
presidential poll that is combined with parliamentary and
council elections
and in which he squares up against his respected former
finance minister
Simba Makoni and popular main opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
However, political analysts say that an unfair electoral
field and a
political climate of fear could just be enough to guarantee
Mugabe
victory. - ZimOnline
africasia.com
MAHUSEKWA, Zimbabwe, March 5 (AFP)
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe on
Wednesday urged striking teachers in
public schools to return to work
promising to address their demand for
better salaries.
"Teachers, we
understand your concerns and we are addressing them," Mugabe,
84, said at a
campaign rally in Mahusekwa, about 70 kilometres (45 miles)
southeast of the
capital Harare, ahead of general elections on March 29.
"But we are
against this idea of you going on strike. Children must attend
school
without disruption. We cannot guess what is bothering you, but you
can make
your recommendations to us.
"Yours is the noblest profession. There is no
engineer, doctor or nurse who
just became what they are without passing
through the hands of a teacher.
You boycott your work like ordinary factory
workers."
Teachers in Zimbabwe's state-run schools launched a strike on
Friday to
press for better salaries saying recent increases were overtaken
by
inflation.
The government, which gave teachers a pay rise in
January, has ignored fresh
salary demands.
Zimbabwe's economy has
been on a downturn over the past eight years with
inflation now officially
at more than 100,000 percent.
At least 80 percent of the population is
living below the poverty threshold,
often skipping meals and doing without
such commodities as milk and butter
in order to stretch their income.
IOL
March 05 2008 at 11:49AM
By Basildon Peta
A German
company has been accused of propping up President Robert
Mugabe's extensive
patronage network by helping his government in printing
the trillions of
Zimbabwean dollars needed to pay soldiers and buy votes
before crunch
general elections in March.
With official inflation having
spiralled to more than 100 000 percent
and the highest denominated
Z$10-million (about R 2 663,90 ) note now worth
only R5, the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe had long run out of the printing
capacity to match the demand for
bank notes.
The London Sunday Times said it had obtained
documentary proof which
showed that heavily guarded plane loads of banknote
sheets were being flown
into Harare almost every day to keep up with the
demand for cash.
The documents showed that
a Munich-based company, Giesecke & Devrient
(G&D), was receiving
more than $500 000 a week for delivering the sheets to
Harare at the
astonishing rate of Z$170-trillion a time.
The newspaper said
G&D delivered 432 000 sheets of banknotes every
week to Fidelity
printers in Harare, where they are stamped with the
Z$10-million
denomination. Each sheet contains 40 notes and the current
production is
entirely in Z$10-million notes.
Last week Mugabe awarded huge pay
rises to soldiers and selected civil
servants in an apparent bid to buy
their loyalty before the presidential and
parliamentary elections next
month. Other civil servants, like teachers who
belong to the pro-government
Zimbabwe Teachers Union (Zimta), were also
awarded hefty raises in
unbudgeted increases.
Soldiers were awarded increases of between
Z$1,2-billion for privates
and Z$3-billion for officers, while teachers
received Z$500m on average.
Teachers belonging to the Zimbabwe Progressive
Teachers' Union (ZPTU), which
criticises Mugabe, were excluded.
In Zimbabwe, it is common cause that Mugabe has been printing money to
keep
his government going. But it has not been known how the RBZ has been
able to
keep pace with the ever-increasing demand for money, which had by
far
outstripped its capacity to print notes.
A senior RBZ official,
whom the IFS asked to comment on the Sunday
Times story, said; "We have
certainly been getting outside help with
printing money but I cannot say
from whom."
G&D's involvement with the Zimbabwe government is
likely to embarrass
the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, which has
been very vocal
against Mugabe's human rights abuses.
Merkel
took the lead in launching a broadside against Mugabe at the
EU-Africa
summit in Lisbon in December 2007.
IOL
Hans
Pienaar
March 05 2008 at 11:56AM
South Africa should
threaten to switch off Zimbabwe's electricity if
President Robert Mugabe's
government continues to intimidate the electorate
or contrives to sabotage
presidential challenger Simba Makoni's campaign, a
British professor
says.
Professor Gwyn Prins of the London School of Economics was
one of the
speakers at an Africa Dialogue meeting on the Kenyan crisis at
the
University of Pretoria.
The ongoing series is run by the
Centre for International Political
Studies.
The doors of
history were creaking on their hinges, Prins said of the
"compound tragedy"
that hit Africa when ethnic conflict broke out in Kenya
after the December
27 elections.
Along with the continent's
failure to save the people of Darfur, and
the poison spread by the failure
to deal with Mugabe, Kenya's collapse put
South Africa on the
spot.
It was now the remaining military pivot on a continent with
the worst
peacebuilding capabalities.
Its external security has
been destroyed, which will compel it to play
a much more proactive role to
protect itself against forces meaning to do it
harm.
"If you
want peace, you have to prepare for war," Prins said on
Tuesday
night.
This would have to replace the dictum from the times of the
Mandela
presidency, "if you want peace, prepare for peace".
This meant that South Africa would have to change its military
strategic
policies, to enable it to develop expeditionary capabilities
allowing it to
act on its own to stop conflicts destabilising the region.
However,
the South African army was "in a sad state" and this would
not easily
happen.
Prins was particularly scathing about the SADC's "puzzling
failure" to
rein in Mugabe.
Prins said South Africa at the very
least should proclaim that its
infamous "quiet diplomacy" was a
failure.
Zimbabwe in effect did not have a president, as he did not
govern the
country.
"Mugabe is an outlaw awaiting trial
alongside Charles Taylor in The
Hague," he said.
"I hope Mugabe
will answer for his crimes before he dies," he said.
He warned that
endemic conflict south of the Sahara was now
threatening South
Africa.
Zimbabwe could act as a toxin that would further poison the
country,
or it could become a vaccine, warning South Africa's leaders off
from
following the same path.
There were five million Zimbabwe
refugees in the country playing a
destabilising role, Prins
said.
This article was originally published on page 11 of Cape
Argus on
March 05, 2008
VOA
By Blessing Zulu
Washington
04 March
2008
The branch of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for
Democratic Change headed by
presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai says
police and state security
agents have escalated violence and intimidation
against their candidates and
supporters in the approach to national
elections set for the end of this
month.
The Tsvangirai formation on
Tuesday appealed to Zimbabwe's high court for
relief and filed a complaint
with the Zimbabwe Election Commission's
multi-party liaison committee
alleging official harassment of its candidates
and supporters.
In a
related development Tuesday, a magistrate in Chitungwiza, near Harare,
refused to grant bail to the Tsvangirai MDC grouping's candidate for Saint
Mary's, Marvellous Khumalo. He was arrested last week for alleged political
violence while campaigning door to door and is to appear in court March 18,
11 days before the elections.
The Tsvangirai opposition formation
said it has been receiving reports from
all of the country's 10 provinces of
mounting violence, intimidation and
arrests.
Tsvangirai formation
spokesman Nelson Chamisa told reporter Blessing Zulu of
VOA's Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe that the party believes that the continued
detention of Khumalo is
intended to sabotage the candidate's political
campaign.
VOA
By Blessing Zulu
Washington
04 March
2008
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, seeking re-election
and continued
control of parliament for his increasingly troubled ZANU-PF
party in
national elections March 29, launched into a round of rallies in
eastern
Manicaland Province on Tuesday.
Mr. Mugabe presided over"star
rallies" in the towns of Chipinge and Marange
in which he assembled
supporters from the province to introduce ruling party
candidates from
across Manicaland, a ZANU-PF stronghold on the border with
Mozambique.
Challenger Simba Makoni, meanwhile, was on a
meet-the-people tour in Kadoma
in Midlands Province, while opposition
candidate Morgan Tsvangirai was
taking a day off from campaigning, sources
in his Movement for Democratic
Change formation said.
As Mr. Mugabe
went on the road, tensions in his ruling party were
escalating.
ZANU-PF insiders said hardliners Didymus Mutasa, minister
of state security,
and Elliot Manyika, the party's political commissar, were
pressing Mr.
Mugabe to expel top officials including retired general Vitalis
Zvinavashe,
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, party stalwart Dzikamai
Mavhaire and
Matebeleland North Governor Angeline Masuku for allegedly
lining up in
secret behind Makoni.
Makoni's campaign Web site says
Zvinavashe and Mavhaire have endorsed him,
while avowed Makoni backer Dumiso
Dabengwa says Masuku and Chinamasa were
among ZANU-PF rebels who met in
South Africa late last year to plot the
political downfall of President
Mugabe with an electoral challenge by
Makoni.
Masuku has admitted
being in South Africa, but said she went there with
Dabengwa on business and
did not meet Makoni at that time. Mavhaire refused
to comment to VOA. and
Zvinavashe and Chinama's phones went unanswered.
Local media say Makoni
is working with retired army general Solomon Mujuru,
spouse of Vice
President Joyce Mujuru, but he has refused to comment on his
loyalties.
Vice President Mujuru was quoted this week in the
state-controlled Herald
newspaper endorsing Mr. Mugabe's re-election, though
for quite some time
signals emanating from the government suggested she and
Mr. Mugabe were at
daggers drawn.
Political analyst Rejoice Ngwenya
told reporter Blessing Zulu of VOA's
Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that Mr. Mugabe's
grip on power looks increasingly
shaky.
Reuters
Wed 5 Mar
2008, 20:11 GMT
By MacDonald Dzirutwe
MAHUSEKWA, Zimbabwe, March 5
(Reuters) - Zimbabwe is seeking to rush in
maize imports from southern
African states, President Robert Mugabe told an
election rally on Wednesday,
saying the country faced an emergency.
Concerns over widespread food
shortages deepened after a government report
on Tuesday showed Zimbabwe
would fail to meet its targeted harvest this
year, further highlighting the
plight of an economy gripped by
hyper-inflation.
"Maize is there (in
Zambia) ... but we are having problems moving it,"
Mugabe told about 8,000
party supporters during a campaign rally in
Mahusekwa, a rural settlement 70
km (43 miles) south of the capital Harare.
"We sought permission from the
Zambian government to send our people to load
the maize into trucks because
we have already paid for it," said Mugabe.
"We have 150,000 tonnes in
Zambia and more than 300,000 tonnes in Malawi and
a few thousands from South
Africa. We have an emergency because we have
areas that face
shortages."
Mugabe also promised to tackle escalating prices of basic
goods, review the
salaries of teachers who frequently strike over low pay,
and give more
equipment to farmers resettled under a controversial land
reform programme.
Economists say the government's seizure of white-owned
farms to resettle
landless blacks has deepened the economic
crisis.
The March 29 election presents Mugabe with one of the biggest
challenges to
his rule since taking office in 1980.
Former Finance
Minister Simba Makoni was expelled from the ruling ZANU-PF
last month after
deciding to run against Mugabe as an independent. He has
been backed by
senior party politburo member Dumiso Dabengwa, a major blow
to
Mugabe.
The defections may have bruised Mugabe, a former liberation hero
Western
foes accuse of human rights abuses and ruining the country's
economy,
allegations he denies.
But the wily 84-year-old leader could
still capitalise on the opposition's
failure to unite, analysts
say.
Makoni has suggested he has the backing of many senior ZANU-PF
officials but
there is no sign of this. Most party officials have lined up
to publicly
back Mugabe.
"You do not just fall from nowhere and
declare yourself a presidential
candidate. That is what Makoni did. The
power of leadership comes from the
people," Mugabe told his
rally.
His other main challenger is long-time rival Morgan Tsvangirai,
leader of
the biggest faction of the divided main opposition Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC).
All three election candidates have promised
to tackle the economic crisis
but they have produced few concrete proposals
to ease hardships worsening by
the day.
While the campaign hots up,
ordinary Zimbweans are more concerned with
chronic food and fuel shortages
and the world's highest inflation rate of
over 100,000 percent. (For full
Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say
on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/)
(Editing
by Michael Georgy and Jon Boyle)
SW
Radio Africa (London)
5 March 2008
Posted to the web 5 March
2008
Tererai Karimakwenda
Marvelous Kumalo, the Tsvangirai MDC
candidate for St Marys, plus 9 other
MDC members are still in police custody
after they were denied bail by a
Harare magistrate on Tuesday.
The
group was arrested on Friday in Chitungwiza after an incident at the
home of
the ZANU-PF Acting Mayor of Chitungwiza Darlington Nota. There are
two
conflicting versions of what transpired at the time. What is known for
sure
is that Kumalo and 9 others are in police custody and one MDC member is
fighting for his life with serious cuts to the skull.
Police
allege that Kumalo and the others were in possession of illegal
weapons when
they walked around the St Marys' area. It is also alleged that
they threw
stones at the home of the acting Mayor. What is puzzling is that
no-one was
injured and no property was damaged.
Kumalo's lawyer, Alex Muchadehama,
said the MDC members deny all the
charges. They claim it the security guards
at Nota's home fired 6 to 10
shots in the air when they saw the MDC people
passing by. Muchadehama said
there was an altercation and one of the guards
hit an MDC member on the head
with an axe. The victim is at the Avenues
Clinic with serious head injuries.
At that point Kumalo and his supporters
retreated, but Nota had called the
police, who arrested them. None of the
staff at Nota's home were arrested.
Muchadehama said the MDC members
appeared in court on Tuesday and were
denied bail by a magistrate who said
that they might cause more violence if
allowed to go free. The lawyer
immediately filed an appeal in the High
Court. He complained that his
clients are in police custody yet there is no
evidence of any stone throwing
such as injured victims, broken windows or
damaged property.
On
Tuesday MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa reported that police continue to
arrest their candidates and supporters while they are campaigning peacefully
around the country. He said the ruling party wants to curtail their campaign
activities through intimidation.
VOA
By Studio 7 STaff & Correspondents
Washington
and Bulawayo
04 March 2008
Election observers from the
Southern African Development Community are
scheduled to arrive in Harare on
Sunday, a senior SADC official said on
Tuesday.
A pre-election
assessment team has been in Harare working with the
government and the
Zimbabwe Electoral commission for two weeks, SADC and
other sources
said.
Tanki Mothae, director of SADC's organ on politics, defense and
security,
said the regional group's observer mission will arrive in Harare
on Sunday.
Mothae, who will lead a separate delegation from the
organization's
secretariat, said SADC expects to field over 100 observers
from various
member states. Mothae holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in
the Lesotho
Defense Forces.
Critics including civil society
organizations have complained that SADC
should already have deployed
observers to assess pre-election conditions,
including the registration of
voters and public inspection of voter rolls,
as well as the general
environment.
Mothae told reporter Carole Gombakomba of VOA's Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe that
SADC is clearly operating within its guidelines which say that
an election
observer mission should be in place in a country at least two
weeks before
election day.
Commenting on the deployment, Crisis in
Zimbabwe Coalition National
Coordinator Xholani Zitha told Ntungamili Nkomo
that the SADC pre-election
assessment team should meet with all stakeholders
so as to prepare a
comprehensive report.
Elsewhere, the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission has declined to say how soon
after the election the
results will announced, generating further skepticism
as to whether it can
properly run a demanding set of elections March 29.
Presidential, house,
senate and local council elections will be held the
same day with separate
ballots.
A commission official who declined to be named said ZEC will not
commit
itself to a date. News website ZimOnline quoted the Zimbabwe Election
Support Network as saying results could take up to week to come out as ZEC
is not ready logistically.
But National Constitutional Assembly
Chairman Lovemore Madhuku told reporter
Patience Rusere that results are
likely to be announced within two days
because Zimbabwe has ample capacity
to process all of the ballots quickly.
Meanwhile, some voters in
Tsholotsho, Matabeleland North, say they don't
know who to vote for on March
29, blaming insufficient campaigning by
candidates as well as the opposition
split and Simba Makoni's late entry
into the presidential
race.
Correspondent Netsai Mlilo reported from Tsholotsho.
Business Report
March 5,
2008
By Godfrey Marawanyika
Harare - Reviving Zimbabwe's moribund
economy would require
inflation-battered citizens to swallow the bitter pill
of reduced state
spending and higher interest rates to attract foreign cash,
some analysts
say.
They believe that the ousting of President Robert
Mugabe is essential to
pave the way for reforms to put the country back on
track, and that drastic
steps are required to instil investor
confidence.
"They would have to completely reverse the policies of the
current
government, drastically cut expenditure and push up interest rates,"
said
Anthony Hawkins, an economics professor at the University of
Zimbabwe.
"It's impossible to see a solution without . foreign assistance
so whoever
wins will have to go on their knees to ask for
aid."
Mugabe will seek a sixth term in office in polls this month at a
time when
the official inflation rate exceeds a mind-boggling 100 000
percent.
Unemployment stands at 80 percent, basic foodstuffs are scarce
and general
infrastructure is crumbling. Life expectancy has plummeted to 37
years for
men and 34 for women.
Mugabe is often blamed for his land
reform policies - handing over
white-owned farms to landless blacks, all but
killing commercial agriculture
and scaring off foreign
investors.
Mugabe goes up against his former finance minister, Simba
Makoni, and Morgan
Tsvangirai, the head of the main opposition Movement for
Democratic Change
(MDC).
Analysts said any government elected on
March 29 would have its work cut
out.
"There is need for an immediate
post-election programme that will have to
remove price controls [and]
subsidies, and interest rates have to be moved
upwards," said Harare-based
economist Witness Chinyama. "There is also need
to come up with policies
that will attract foreign direct investment."
Makoni has declined to
elaborate on his economic vision, while the MDC said
it planned to reduce
money supply, liberalise foreign exchange markets and
restore relations with
former trading partners.
It would provide loans to help failed firms
recover, halve the number of
cabinet ministers to save money, and woo back
expatriate professionals.
"The MDC recognises that any stabilisation and
recovery programme will
inevitably involve both sacrifice and hardships,"
said party spokesperson
Nelson Chamisa.
"It [the MDC] will not only
inherit a collapsed economy, but also a civil
service that is highly
politicised and decimated by the loss of skills."
Tsvangirai has said $10
billion (R80 billion) would be needed to revive the
economy.
Launching Zanu-PF's election manifesto on Friday, Mugabe
pledged to revive
agricultural output by providing equipment to
beneficiaries of his land
reform programme.
He also undertook to plug
leakages of precious minerals.
"The mining sector has remained . closed
to us," he said. "Unless we are
there as owners or shareholders, we will
continue to be cheated."
Last month central bank governor Gideon Gono
said he was drafting a new
economic blueprint for "price stability,
inflation control and investment
promotion".
Episcopal Life
By Peter Kenny, March 05, 2008
[Ecumenical News International,
Geneva] The general secretary of the World
Council of Churches, the Rev.
Samuel Kobia, has told his U.N. counterpart,
Ban Ki-moon, that the
ecumenical body and its member churches in Africa are
planning for the
monitoring of elections scheduled in Zimbabwe on March 29.
In a statement
released after Ban met Kobia on March 3 at the invitation of
the WCC leader,
the world church body said that in private talks, the U.N.
general secretary
had said the WCC had played an important role in the
democratization of his
home country, Korea.
The WCC also said it had reached an agreement with
Ban for the United
Nations and the WCC to work more closely on several
global issues,
particularly climate change.
"We would like to
maintain a close partnership with the WCC," Ban was quoted
as saying in the
WCC statement. "You have high moral power and what you are
doing is based on
your Christian beliefs."
Their discussions touched on democratic
electoral processes with references
by Kobia to Kenya and to the upheaval in
Armenia after recent disrupted
elections. "I want to thank you for helping
in Kenya as you did," said
Kobia, who is also a pastor of the Methodist
Church in Kenya.
Ban spoke of plans to place a focus on issues of
intolerance which have led
to some of the struggles and violence surrounding
electoral processes. "This
is another area where the WCC can make a
contribution," said the U.N.
secretary general. "The world has suffered for
too long with intolerances."
Kobia said WCC work on inter-religious
dialogue and cooperation helps
understanding and tolerance between people of
different faiths. He also
announced that the WCC and its member churches in
Africa were "planning for
monitoring" of the Zimbabwe
elections.
Separately, the acting Anglican bishop of Harare, Sebastian
Bakare, had told
church, civic and opposition leaders who gathered in Harare
on February 25
to pray for peaceful elections that lawlessness and violence
perpetrated by
those entrusted with ensuring law and order were destroying
Zimbabwe.
Zimbabweans will on March 29 choose a president, parliament and
local
councils. The Zimonline non-governmental news agency reported,
however, that
observers say a repressive environment in which intimidation
and organized
violence against perceived government opponents leaves little
likelihood for
the polls to be free and fair.
Bakare was quoted as
saying that chaos in the run-up to the polls was
promoting anarchy. "The
environment of lawlessness is destroying us," the
bishop
stated.
Bakare was part of a three-member committee of senior bishops
that met
President Robert Mugabe and main opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai in 2007
in a failed attempt to broker dialogue between the
political rivals.
From The Star (SA), 5 March
Analysts believe he can beat a divided opposition despite
economic chaos
Cris Chinaka
Only if other high-profile
members of Zimbabwe's ruling party desert
President Robert Mugabe might the
scales tip against the veteran leader at
this month's election. The
defection of politburo member Dumiso Dabengwa at
the weekend to join the
presidential campaign of ex-finance minister Simba
Makoni has certainly
rocked Zanu PF. But political analysts believe Mugabe
(84) can still beat a
divided opposition despite economic turmoil that has
left Zimbabweans
struggling with shortages of food, fuel, water and power,
as well as the
world's highest inflation. "The fight is still going on, it's
getting
exciting but I think it would be foolish and very premature for
anyone to
write off Mugabe yet," said John Makumbe, a political commentator
and fierce
Mugabe critic. Mugabe, who has ruled since independence from
Britain in
1980, faces his biggest challenge to power from Makoni, now
expelled from
Zanu PF and longtime opponent Morgan Tsvangirai.
Dabengwa called
Makoni's bid for the March 29 election a rescue operation
for the country,
where many blame government policies for the economic
disaster. Political
analysts said that although Dabengwa could mobilise some
support for Makoni
in the restless Matabeleland province, the former
guerrilla commander's
political clout was already in question there after
losing parliamentary
elections twice in the past eight years. Matabeleland
has long been a
stronghold of the opposition, mainly over simmering anger
stemming from a
government crackdown against an insurgency in the 1980s,
which human rights
groups say killed thousands of people. Dabengwa, a former
intelligence chief
in Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army
(Zipra) during the
1970s independence struggle, has also been involved in a
turf war with
veterans backing Mugabe's bid for re-election. Affectionately
known by his
guerrilla name "Black Russian" under his comrades, Dabengwa on
Saturday
lined up with a number of former senior Zipra fighters to publicly
back
Makoni.
"There is no doubt this is a big blow against Mugabe, but on
its own, and
measured against the hesitancy we are seeing in other officials
in Zanu PF,
and measured against other senior officials coming out in
support of Mugabe,
it's not a knockout blow," said Eldred Masunungure, a
political science
professor at the University of Zimbabwe. "I think a really
devastating blow
would be the defection of several top officials, including
those generals
the (local) media have linked to Makoni," he said. Makoni has
long said his
campaign had the support of several senior Zanu PF officials,
but they have
not come out openly. In fact, many top officials have been at
pains to make
public their support for Mugabe. Mugabe, who has branded
Makoni a political
prostitute, has not yet publicly commented on Dabengwa's
defection, but his
spokesperson, George Charamba, dismissed it as
insignificant. "What is
Dabengwa worth by way of supporters? He brought none
to Zanu PF and he takes
none to the independent (Makoni)."
Comment from The Cape Argus (SA), 5 March
Moeletsi Mbeki
Once
seen as a progressive and dynamic movement that was going to deliver
Africa
from bondage to modernity and prosperity, African nationalism has
turned out
to be a huge disappointment. Half a century after its liberation
from
colonialism, Africa has dropped so far down the development scales that
experts refer to Africans as mankind's Bottom Billion that can only come out
of the black hole they have dug themselves into through interventions by the
rest of the world. There is no better illustration of the failure of African
nationalism than Zimbabwe under the leadership of liberators Zanu PF and its
leader, Robert Mugabe. In the past decade Zimbabwe shows how an African
country travels from relative prosperity to a basket case. At independence
Zimbabwe was one of the most diversified economies in Africa, today it is
breaking every negative growth indicator one can think of. Life expectancy
at birth has fallen below 40 years; a quarter of the population has fled;
inflation has reached numbers that boggle the mind; and agricultural and
manufacturing output is a fraction of what they were only eight years ago.
Zimbabwe's commercial beef herd fell from 1.68 million in 1999 to only 0.53
million in 2002. Incomes per head in Zimbabwe have fallen to where they were
before World War 2. Zimbabweans are not the only people who are suffering
from Zanu PF's follies. South Africans are also taking a beating and so are
several other countries in the region.
South Africa's exports to
Zimbabwe reached their peak around 1997-98 when
Zimbabwe's per capita
incomes also peaked. After a few years of a steep
decline South Africa's
exports have stagnated throughout the present decade
at about R7 billion a
year. Before we can answer what must be done to find a
solution to
Zimbabwe's crisis and by whom, we need first to understand who
is affected
and how they are affected by the failures of the Mugabe regime.
The people
of Zimbabwe have clearly been the primary victims of Mugabe's
repressive
misrule and economic mismanagement. Thousands have been killed
and many
brutalised by Mugabe's security machine. Over a million people have
been
uprooted from their homes in the regime's Operation Clean up Rubbish
and in
the confiscation of commercial farms.
The second group of casualties
has been South African workers, especially
the poor and the unemployed. The
meltdown of the Zimbabwe economy has led to
declining exports from South
Africa to that country. In practice this meant
loss of jobs by South African
workers whose companies were exporting to
Zimbabwe. Secondly, due to
repression and the meltdown, millions of poor
Zimbabweans have fled to South
Africa and have been compelled to live in
South Africa's slums, thus putting
further pressure on the limited resources
South Africa's slum dwellers have
access to. The third casualties were South
African companies that, besides
losing export markets, have lost their
investment which became devalued in
the meltdown. Many of the South African
companies invested in Zimbabwe are
listed at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange
and several of their shareholders
are ordinary South African workers whose
pension savings are invested in
these listed companies. South Africa's
workers have thus taken a triple blow
from Mugabe's attempt to impose his
dictatorship. They have lost jobs; they
have had to share meagre resources
with fleeing Zimbabweans and they have
had their pensions undermined.
What must be done? Mugabe's attempt
over the past eight years to impose a
dictatorship has led to major losses
for South African businesses and
especially for South Africa's black
workers. The slow death of Zimbabwe can
be reversed, but it cannot be
reversed as long as Zanu PF and Mugabe retain
power and carry on along their
destructive path. South Africa's government
elite is not motivated to take
practical action to change the situation in
Zimbabwe because it does not
feel that its interests are affected by the
crisis in that country. It is,
therefore, up to South African business and
South African workers to assist
the people of Zimbabwe to bring about regime
change in Harare. South
Africans must be educated by business and labour
that the poor Zimbabweans
that have fled to South Africa are not their enemy
and that attacking them,
as is becoming increasingly frequent, will not
solve the damage to South
Africa caused by the Mugabe regime.
Moeletsi Mbeki is deputy chairman
of the South African Institute of
International Affairs, an independent
think-tank based at the University of
the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg
The Herald (Harare) Published by
the government of Zimbabwe
5 March 2008
Posted to the web 5 March
2008
Harare
The Zimbabwe School Examinations Council "O" Level
results, which were
expected at the end of last month, will be released next
week, Zimsec
information and public relations manager Mr Ezekiel Pasipamire
said
yesterday.
In an interview, Mr Pasipamire said the results were
delayed due to a number
of problems, including power cuts, disruption of
water supplies, low turnout
of examiners and lack of staff motivation,
because of the level of
allowances. "Zimsec would like to acknowledge delays
in the release of the
November 2007 Ordinary Level results, but we would
like to assure the nation
that the results would be distributed to the
various centres by the end of
next week," he said.
He said Zimsec
was also affected by constant power cuts from December 11
last year until
January 9 this year. "During that period, processing of
results could only
be undertaken using a generator which is only accessible
to one wing of the
complex. After this long period, the period after that
was characterised by
weekly power disruptions and efforts by Zimsec to be
spared from
load-shedding were not heeded by Zesa," Mr Pasipamire said.
Zimsec also
cited water cuts as another cause of the delay. "When there is
little or no
water, Zimsec is forced to either remain with skeleton staff
that can be
accommodated in the complex or has to completely shut down the
place," he
said. Mr Pasipamire said the "O" Level examinations where also
affected by
low examiner turnout which in some cases was as low as 50
percent of the
expected number of markers. "Reasons advanced for the low
turnout were
largely to do with low remuneration and high transport costs,
which saw
marking being extended to the second week of January this year.
The
processing of marks also started late," he said.
Zimsec staff were not
happy with the salary increases because they were
convinced they had been
short-changed by as much as 200 percent, Mr
Pasipamire
said.
"Representation has been made and continues through the parent
ministry for
Treasury to address the anomaly and although staff has
threatened to go on
an industrial action if the issue of adjustments is not
addressed they have
continued to report for duty."
BULAWAYO, 5 March 2008 (IRIN) - Savvy text
messaging and cheeky ring tones
are the new face of cost-effective political
campaigning in Zimbabwe in the
run up to the 29 March election, despite the
creakiness of country's cell
phone networks.
"Call it an SMS [short
message service] craze if you like ... It's a simple,
inexpensive and
effortless way of campaigning for candidates of one's
choice," Aleck Ndlovu,
a political activist, told IRIN.
"We need change in our country and what
we are doing is to encourage each
other [via text messages] to use our right
to vote to achieve that change,"
said Nobuhle Dube, a resident of Bulawayo,
Zimbabwe's second largest city.
Simba Makoni, an independent candidate
who broke ranks with the ruling
ZANU-PF party in February by declaring his
presidential bid, and Morgan
Tsvangirai, leader of the main group of the
splintered Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), are President Robert
Mugabe's chief opponents. The
fourth presidential hopeful is another
independent, Langton Towungana.
"Vote for Simba", Makoni's supporters
SMS, while Tsvangirai's faithful ask,
"Have you not suffered enough? Morgan
is the solution."
Picture messages with Mugabe cartoons are a huge draw,
but the most
captivating novelty is an anti-Mugabe ringtone based on a local
song, which
asks in Shona: "How long will you vote for ZANU-PF?". The
ringtone has
become a hit, according to Alfred Sibanda, who runs a small
electronic
services café in Bulawayo.
"Alongside my main business, I
burn music ... [write music to CDs] and we
get at least 15 people per day
who want the ringtone uploaded to their
phones," he said.
However,
this may not always be wise. "Some people have returned to us,
requesting
that we remove it after clashing with government sympathisers,"
Sibanda
commented.
In ZANU-PF circles, messages extolling the party and Mugabe
are doing the
rounds. "Land to the people. Vote for president Mugabe", says
one. "Down
with the opposition", suggests another.
Political blogs
are another popular campaign communications mode. "My blog's
feedback
section is always brimming with responses from those sympathetic to
Mugabe,
Tsvangirai or Makoni, and some have sent me links to their blogs ...
The
network cuts across the political divide," said Busani Moyo, another
Bulawayo resident.
The polls are crucial to Zimbabweans, as the
almost dysfunctional economy
has left them with an inflation rate of around
100,000 percent and
widespread food shortages.
The recent endorsement
of Makoni by ZANU-PF heavyweight Dumiso Dabengwa and
two other former
cabinet ministers has given the elections an interesting
turn. John Makumbe,
an anti-ZANU-PF political scientist at the University of
Zimbabwe, said it
had improved Makoni's chances, and "was a major blow for
Mugabe".
[ENDS]
[This report does not necessarily
reflect the views of the United Nations]
HARARE, 5 March 2008 (PlusNews) - Njabulo
Sibanda, 15, who lives in
Highfield, a low-income suburb in southwestern
Harare, capital of Zimbabwe,
is one of the more than one million children in
the country orphaned by the
AIDS epidemic.
After his parents died of
AIDS-related illnesses over a year ago, he had to
drop out of school to care
for his two brothers, the youngest of whom is
only eight. Sibanda does odd
jobs, trying to scrape together enough money
for school fees, food and the
rent for their backyard shack, but it's a
mammoth task.
The three
children were mostly living off handouts from sympathetic
neighbours, or
sometimes going without food, until the headmaster at
Sibanda's brother's
school told them about the Child Protection Society
(CPS), a Harare-based
non-governmental organisation (NGO) that runs an urban
food
programme.
The programme was started by Action Aid International (AAI) in
2004, with
funding from the UK's Department for International Development
(DFID), and
is implemented by CPS and other NGOs. The Sibanda children now
receive
rations of maizemeal, cooking oil, beans, porridge and
soap.
"The rations are modest but our lives have become a lot better,"
Sibanda
told IRIN/PlusNews. "There is a bit of decency in the way we survive
now, as
we no longer have to beg for food from neighbours and strangers like
we used
to do. I can manage to put aside for other needs part of the money I
earn by
cleaning other people's cars and selling cigarettes.
The
urban food programme operates in Harare and Chitungwiza, a dormitory
suburb
south of the capital; in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city;
and
Gweru, capital of Midlands Province. It targets home-based care clients
who
are chronically ill, families caring for large numbers of orphans and
vulnerable children, single-parent households and families without
able-bodied adults.
Norah Hunda of CPS said her organisation was
reaching 300 households, mostly
those with orphans, or those in which the
head of the family had little or
no source of income.
"The programme
is doing a lot to reduce urban food vulnerability, but it
should be
understood that it is merely supplementary," Hunda told
IRIN/PlusNews. "The
handouts do not vary with the size of the family or
dependants, and where
the household is too big this becomes a challenge to
those meant to benefit,
as they have to find other means of augmenting their
rations."
If
families have a garden or space to make one, they are taught low-input
gardening and provided with seeds and gardening tools; when they do not have
land of their own, the city council provides them with some or they are
given mobile bags in which to grow vegetables.
Grace Kachitu, 75, of
Harare, who lives on her own, has been able to grow
tomatoes and beans with
the help of the programme. "Due to my advanced age,
I have ailments that
need good food. I don't have a source of income and
with this garden I can
adequately feed myself. I even sell some of my
produce to buy other
things."
A 2007 assessment of the urban food programme found that it
benefited 3,145
people in its first two years, but the squeeze on resources
resulting from
Zimbabwe's economic crisis restricted the number to 2,000 in
2007.
Zimbabwe has been in the throes of an economic meltdown for the
past eight
years, with hyperinflation of 100,000 percent and still rising,
unemployment
at an estimated 80 percent, around 80 percent of the population
living on
less than US$1 dollar per day, and consumers surviving without
basic
commodities such as water and fuel.
Harare's city council last
year said more than a third of the capital's
population, officially
estimated at around 1.3 million, were living on one
meal a day and cases of
malnutrition were on the rise. Consecutive years of
drought and chronic
shortages of agricultural inputs have left millions of
people needing food
aid.
In an attempt to cushion its beneficiaries from inflation, the urban
food
programme arranged a food voucher system with a number of supermarket
chains
to provide households with monthly food packs worth US$18.
The
system was disrupted in June 2007 by an acute shortage of basic
commodities
after the government forced businesses to reduce their prices,
which led to
manufacturers stopping production because they found the price
controls
unsustainable.
"Because of the shortages in shops, we are now resorting
to placing money
into the accounts of beneficiaries, who are being urged to
speedily withdraw
it and buy their items wherever they can find them, even
if it means going
to the informal market, where they tend to be more readily
available albeit
more expensive," said George Jijita, a programme assistant
at Padare, a
local NGO implementing the urban food programme in Harare and
Chitungwiza.
Giving beneficiaries money has its own set of problems,
because by the time
the payments reflect in the recipients' bank accounts
and they are able to
withdraw them, the prices of commodities have usually
risen even more.
[ENDS]
[This report does not necessarily
reflect the views of the United Nations]
From The Guardian (UK), 5 March
An audit being conducted by KPMG could prove one way out of
the impasse
between the UK government and world cricket over the Zimbabwe
issue. Last
July the International Cricket Council engaged the accountancy
firm to
review the financial affairs of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union amid
allegations
of embezzlement at the ZCU. One ICC paper said that elements of
the Zimbabwe
accounts had been "deliberately falsified" and if the
allegations are proved
the government hopes sanctions might be imposed by
the ICC. The firm's
investigations will lead to renewed acquaintances with
an old KPMG employee.
Afaras Gwaradzimba is the chief executive partner of
AMG Global (Zimbabwe),
whose website states he is a member of the ZCU's
finance and audit
committee. He spent 15 years at KPMG's Zimbabwe branch,
becoming its first
black partner in October 1995, having been the firm's
senior audit manager.
Gwaradzimba also acted as KPMG Zimbabwe's liaison
partner for other African
states. Since setting up AMG Global he has
received several government
contracts from the regime of Robert Mugabe, who
is also president of the
ZCU. There is no suggestion of Gwaradzimba having
been involved in any
wrongdoing at ZCU. An ICC insider said yesterday that
its board was sure to
have been aware of Gwaradzimba's KPMG link before
appointing the firm as
ZCU's independent auditor and discounted it as a
potential conflict of
interest. A spokesman for KPMG (South Africa) did not
return calls last
night.
The Telegraph
By Simon
Briggs
Last Updated: 3:03am GMT 05/03/2008
The Prime
Minister's spokesman yesterday denied reports that Gordon Brown is
considering a blanket ban on all Zimbabwean sportsmen who wish to enter the
country.
Instead, The Daily Telegraph understands that the Government
will use
passport legislation to block Peter Chingoka, chairman of Zimbabwe
Cricket,
from attending the International Cricket Council's annual
conference at
Lord's in June.
Visas could also be refused to
Zimbabwe's players if Chingoka himself
insists on pressing ahead with their
scheduled tour of England in 2009.
In public, the Government is sticking
to its standard position, which is to
pass the buck on to the England and
Wales Cricket Board. But at a meeting
with the ICC last week, it was made
clear that there is no appetite for
Zimbabwe's tour.
In contrast to
the Government's non-committal response, both the
Conservative Party and the
Liberal Democrats yesterday supported the idea of
political intervention.
Conservative leader David Cameron said: "I think the
Prime Minister is right
to try to ensure that the cricket tour doesn't go
ahead."
Don Foster,
shadow secretary for culture, media and sport for the Liberal
Democrats,
agreed that Chingoka should be denied entry to the country, but
he
criticised the idea that individual Zimbabwean sportsmen, such as the
Manchester City striker Benjani Mwaruwari, should suffer because of Robert
Mugabe's dictatorship.
Mugabe's information minister, Sikhanyiso
Ndlovu, yesterday suggested that
any ban would be racist. "I don't think the
British Government will sink so
low as to implement that," he said, "and if
they do, well, we are appealing
to the world community to express their
concern and urge the British to stop
that madness."
Meanwhile, the
accountancy firm KPMG have been investigating claims that
Zimbabwe Cricket's
lavish funding from the ICC has been misappropriated.
Their findings are due
to be discussed at the ICC board meeting in Dubai on
March 17-18, and if any
of these allegations can be substantiated, the whole
affair will take a new
twist.
Please send any material for publication in the Open Letter Forum to
jag@mango.zw with "For Open Letter Forum" in the
subject
line.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear
JAG - Ben Freeth, Chegutu
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.
It is clear
that while there is a place for lobbying, advocacy and agreements
between
ourselves and the powers that be, such agreements neither have
the binding
nature and the teeth to meaningfully impact on our lives,
nor the durability
over time, that a clear cut binding legal judgment has.
There is nothing to
hold the powers that be to agreements and so agreements
may be broken with no
consequence. Where a legal judgment is not upheld
there are legal
consequences to that non adherence.
There are various milestones on the
legal road that we are now drawing
close too. It is important, for various
reasons, that now that this road
is finally being recognised, we do not lose
momentum in our forward march
along it.
Where to after
Windhoek?
Our main objectives must be that:
1. Property rights be
respected and that in so doing compensation and
restitution become a reality.
Without property rights we do not have a
chance of putting an engine back
into the vehicle that is called Zimbabwe.
On the wider front and in the
future we need to work towards getting
a political will to ensure title be
given to people in the traditional
communal areas as well. In so doing the
collateral value of land and
its improvement may be used for development
purposes there. We are well
aware of the huge advantages that result from
security of tenure and the
disastrous consequences of not having it.
2.
Discriminatory practices, more specifically in this instance, anti
"white"
discriminatory practices, policies and laws, must be stopped from
building
momentum through the African continent, especially in South Africa
where we
will increasingly depend for business, health facilities etc.
If we as white
people do nothing to address these discriminatory practices,
policies and
laws, they will continue to destroy us and those that depend
on us. We will
ignore this critical area of injustice to the peril of
many more than
ourselves. What the black American Civil Rights movement
achieved must be
emulated by white Africans too. As white Africans this is
perhaps the most
significant legal area that we need to focus our attention.
Up until now we
have never dared touch it. The white population has been
depleted to less
than ten percent of what it was. The ninety percent have
left because they
could not see a future for themselves here. More will
leave unless we make an
e!
ffort to the reverse the trend. We can not have property rights
respected
for black farmers and trampled upon for white ones.
3.
Accountability must be brought about for the perpetrators of the events
over
the last 8 years that has led to so much poverty, hunger death
and
destruction. Crimes against international law are committed by men
not
by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit
such
crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced. As
Jackson
said in Nuremburg "The idea that a State, any more than a
corporation
commits crimes is a fiction. Crimes always are committed only by
persons."
4. Our ultimate objective must be to do everything we possibly can
to
ensure that what has happened over the last 8 years in Zimbabwe must
not
happen again.
The current Mount Carmel Campbell case addresses
some of these areas.
Either this is won; or SADC fudge it. If we win we will
be well on the
road to meeting many of the above objectives. If SADC fudge
it, we will
have a problem.
Alexander Hamilton, the legal architect to
the masterly American constitution
wrote in 1787 that "The sacred rights of
mankind are not to be rummaged
for amongst old parchments or musty records.
They are written as with a
sunbeam on the whole volume of human nature by the
hand of divinity itself,
and can never be erased or obscured." The effect of
the upholding of those
rights and values is plain for all to see in terms of
the development of
the USA. What Hamilton didn't say was how easily such
rights can be erased
and obscured in our own troubled continent of Africa.
Where they have
been eroded disaster has struck. We need to look at ways of
minimising
the way that such rights continue to be erased or
obscured.
In the text book entitled Judicial Organisation in the USSR
Vyshinsky writes
"The laws of the Soviet power are a political directive and
the work of
the judge amounts not just to the application of the law in
conformity
with bourgeois judicial logic, but to the application of the law
as a
political expression of the party and the government ….the judge
must
be a political worker, rapidly and precisely applying the directives
of
the party and the government".
If we do not continue to hound the
international courts, a dictatorial and
destructive system such as this will
continue to be rapidly implemented.
We need to think creatively and broadly
at ways of stopping unjust laws
in their tracks.
There are a number
of areas that I believe we need to work on: I list some
thoughts and ideas
below:
a. On the discriminatory issue we need to look at the "UN
Convention on
all forms of Racial Discrimination" which was signed in 1969 in
response
to the discrimination taking place in South Africa at that time. It
has
a committee, currently twiddling its thumbs, which, with the consent of
a
State, individuals can apply to. I have already approached one State
on
this and will pursue it further.
b. The African Commission of Human
Rights [1981] recently set up the African
Human Rights Court. It established
international law against racism and
an application into this arena needs to
be progressed.
c. The International Criminal Court in The Hague was
established on 1
July 2002. Unfortunately the Prosecutor can only act if
referred by
the UN Security Council or by nationals of a State that has
ratified its
convention. Zimbabwe has not fully ratified the convention. We
need to
look at creative ways of trying to use this court through the
intervention
of the Security Council. More research needs to be done on
this.
d. In Belgium there is a court that has Universal Jurisdiction. A
ruling
in this court would be useful. This needs to be further
explored.
e. Article 7 of the Rome Statute [ICC] was used in reference to
the Kosovo
situation where there was "forced displacement of the person
concerned by
expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which he was
lawfully
present." Prosecution can be on a single act [so long as it is
known that
there were multiple atrocities]. The crime of "persecution" is
defined as
the "intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights
contrary to
international law committed against an identifiable group by
reason of its
politics race or culture." The land reform programme has
caused forced
displacement of well over a million people and persecution is
demonstrable.
f. The third purpose of the UN charter is "promoting and
encouraging respect
for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without
discrimination as
to race, sex, language or religion." The land reform
programme is clearly
discriminatory in its effect and goes against the UN
charter as a result.
g. In article 20 of the civil covenant "any advocacy
of national racial or
religious hatred that constitutes incitement to
discrimination hostility or
violence shall be prohibited by law." Amendment
number 17 to the Zimbabwe
Constitution has in effect legalised the
discriminatory process of the
land reform programme.
h. In Article 10
of the Universal declaration it says that "everybody is
entitled to full
equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and
impartial
tribunal in the determination of his rights and obligations and
of any
criminal charge against him". Our courts are no longer impartial.
The bench
is stacked with beneficiaries of the land programme.
i. In 1986 the
General Assembly said that the right to development is an
"inalienable
right." The "economic argument" is well documented in Zimbabwe.
The
destruction of property rights have led to the reverse of development.
We
need to bring this out into the open wherever we can.
j. The Convention
against Torture [1984] establishes a committee against
torture with
complaints able to come from individuals. It has Universal
Jurisdiction and
so has a wider scope to be used than crimes against
humanity.
k. I
believe that we need to honestly look at the possibility of getting
the
cumulative crimes of the last years 8 years branded as "a crime
against
humanity". In so doing the objectives outlined above have a very
significant
chance of being realised. Chapter 7 of the UN Charter gives the
power to
create a criminal court to punish crimes against humanity. Article
6[2]
relates to "persecution on political, racial or religious grounds".
A
crime against humanity is "part of a widespread or systematic attack
directed
against a civilian population pursuant to or in furtherance of
State or
organisations policy to commit such an attack". The land reform
programme in
its violent implementation and its disastrous effect has
resulted in massive
displacement, hunger, destruction, economic chaos
etc.
Conclusion:
What is clear is that there are a number of legal
initiatives that we need
to be investigating and planning for but are not.
Our main objective in the
short term must be to collect data, statistics,
transcripts of interviews
with displaced farmers and farm workers, film
footage, affidavits, survey
information, newspaper reports, sitrep reports,
research work and the like
that is able to be presented in court. and into
the International arena
in the future. This will take organisation, time and
finance.
However unpalatable to some, farmers and farmer groups, there
must be an
understanding, recognition and facilitation of what I understand
Jag is now
doing in this regard. I would suggest that Jag is asked to
explain what they
are doing and how they are doing it so that the other
organisations can work
together for a common purpose that relate to the 4
objectives listed above.
Ben Freeth, Chegutu.
JAG'S
COMMENT:
JAG has a holistic step by step comprehensive documentation
process
designed under international law governing expropriation of
property
and the damages that arise out of what has happened to the vast
majority
of farmers and farm workers over the past eight years. JAG also has
a
comprehensive legal strategy into the international arena (having
exhausted
all legal avenues here) by way of constructing an International
case which
encompasses all the numerous property rights and human rights
issues.
For obvious reasons, much of the detailed information pertaining to
the
above cannot be disseminated via this means. JAG welcomes
consultation
and participation of all farmers irrespective of membership
affiliation
and farming organisations in this essential iniative. Simply
call in at
the JAG Office for a chat (17 Phillips Avenue, Belgravia).
SW
Radio Africa (London)
5 March 2008
Posted to the web 5 March
2008
Tichaona Sibanda
The Congress of South African Trade
Unions, and other civil society
organisations, will march to the Zimbabwe
embassy in Pretoria on Friday as
part of a protest campaign to press for
free and fair elections on the 29th
March.
COSATU spokesman Patrick
Craven told us Wednesday that no one can claim not
to know by now, that SADC
is facing a serious problem, arising from the
political and socio-economic
crisis facing Zimbabwe.
'The world has at best lamented and at worst
collaborated with the aggressor
regime of Mugabe. This is why the new
initiative, called the South African
International Solidarity Front
currently convened by COSATU, has taken the
bold initiative to confront
Zimbabwe and demand justice for the sister
people of this country,' Craven
said.
He added; 'With the Zimbabwe elections to be held on 29th March,
what stands
out clear is that the conditions for elections militate against
free and
fair elections.We shall therefore be holding a march to the High
Commission
of Zimbabwe on Friday, 7 March 2008 in Tshwane (Pretoria),
starting at 11am.
This march will bring together all activists and
organisations working for
democracy and social justice,' Craven
added.
Craven also called on all progressive people of the world to do
something
now to end the looming disaster and stop the suffering of the
people in
Zimbabwe.
COSATU also noted that in recent weeks the crisis
in the country has scaled
new heights. It said in the statement it has now
become the norm for police
to raid the offices of the ZCTU and of other
political activists,
particularly the MDC - harassing, threatening and
beating staff, searching
offices and seizing fliers, files and
videotapes.
'They have arrested union activists campaigning in support of
democracy and
social justice in the country. The (Mugabe) government is
stopping at
nothing to crush the resistance of opposition parties, civil
society
organisations and the trade unions and ruthlessly trample on human
rights,'
the statement added.
SW Radio Africa
(London)
5 March 2008
Posted to the web 5 March 2008
Tererai
Karimakwenda
This Saturday is International Women's Day and Action
for Southern Africa
(ACTSA) in London have chosen the occasion to hold a
rally, calling for the
right to dignity and freedom from violence for
Zimbabwean women.
ACTSA campaigns officer, Simon Chase, said they are
using the opportunity to
also call for free and fair elections. The rally
will be in Trafalgar Square
and three speakers from civil society in
Zimbabwe have been invited to
address the crowd.
Lucia Matibenga,
Vice-President of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions,
Takavafira Zhou,
President of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe
(PTUZ) and Maureen
Kademaunga, the Gender and Human Rights Officer for the
Zimbabwe National
Students' Union (Zinasu) will each share their experiences
and describe the
atmosphere on the ground ahead of the elections on March
29th.
Each
one of them has experienced state-sponsored violence and harassment.
They
have also been arrested and assaulted by police while carrying out
their
official duties. Just a few weeks ago Zhou was assaulted in Harare
while
distributing fliers with other PTUZ officials. Kademaunga was arrested
last
month while meeting with other students in Bulawayo. Matibenga and her
colleagues at the ZCTU have a long history of being arrested and assaulted
by the police, yet they continue to fight for the rights of workers in
Zimbabwe.
There will also be speakers from the powerful Trade Union
Congress, a
federation of trade unions in the United Kingdom that has
sixty-five
affiliated unions with a total of about seven million members.
The TUC has
been supportive of labour groups in Zimbabwe.
Chase
explained that ACTSA has a history of fighting against such
oppression. He
said the group developed out of the anti-apartheid movement
that fought
against oppression in South Africa until 1994. With the name
change they
broadened their campaigns to include issues such as HIV and Aids
and are
assisting in countries like Angola and Swaziland.
The rally starts in
Trafalgar Square at noon on Saturday.