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  1. Zimbabwe Lawyers Group Calls for Mugabe to Resign
  2. MDC To Seek Debt Relief From Foreign Creditor
  3. Zimbabwean Ruling Party Unveils Election Manifesto
  4. Analysis-Zimbabwe Woes Mar S.Africa Investor Image
  5. Students To Protest Against Govt's 'Political Victimisation'
  6. Jobless See Chance To Get Even With ZANU PF
Zimbabwe Lawyers Group Calls for Mugabe to Resign
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Opposition to President Robert Mugabe's rule grew Thursday when Zimbabwe's biggest independent law association alleged he heads a dictatorship and said he should resign.
The challenge from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights group came three days after Zimbabwe's biggest opposition alliance, the National Constitutional Assembly, called on Mugabe to resign over the occupation of white-owned farmland by squatters led by ex-guerrillas.
Mugabe's popularity has slumped sharply as Zimbabwe is in its worst economic crisis since the country, formerly known as Rhodesia, gained independence from Britain in 1980.
The lawyers' group, in adding to the clamor for Mugabe to step down, complained that the government and police have refused to enforce a High Court judge's order for the thousands of armed squatters to abandon the 700 farms they began occupying last month.
"When the state refuses to abide by its own laws and refuses to obey its own courts, there is only one appropriate word: dictatorship," the lawyers' group said.
The lawyers described the government's failure to restore law and order in farming districts across the country as a political ploy that was destroying "the last vestiges of democracy in our country."
"The rule of law no longer subsists," said the lawyers' group, which called on Mugabe, Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri and Home Affairs Minister Dumiso Dabgengwa to resign immediately.
There was no immediate reaction from the government. Mugabe, Zimbabwe's only ruler since independence, has said he backs the occupations by landless blacks of land owned by the descendants of British settlers.
Judge Paddington Garwe on Friday gave police until Tuesday to evict the squatters. Police commanders across the country said they had not received formal orders to do so and by Thursday still had not taken action.
Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.
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MDC To Seek Debt Relief >From Foreign Creditors
Financial Gazette
March 23, 2000
By Staff Reporter

Harare - The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says it will ask foreign creditors to reschedule Zimbabwe's crushing foreign debt of more than Z$150 billion if elected to power in general elections due next month.
The moratorium would give Zimbabwe's troubled economy some breathing space and free vital resources going into debt servicing for development programmes. The MDC, which puts economic recovery top of its priorities' list, pledges to restore macroeconomic stability by reducing government borrowing on the domestic market, eliminating unbudgeted expenditure and reducing government ministries.
"The MDC will initiate negotiations to reschedule external debt, seek debt forgiveness and swap domestic debt for external debt. Swapping domestic for longer-term external debt will give the economy more breathing space and release resources tied into debt servicing for development," the MDC pledges in its programme for change released ahead of the elections.
"The MDC will address the macroeconomic instability caused by excessive government borrowing to finance recurrent spending, devaluation and unbudgeted expenditure," the party says in its manifesto. An MDC government will set up a land commission comprising all interest groups to spearhead the resolution of the perennial land problem. The commission will acquire between six and seven million hectares of land for resettlement through the acquisition of undertilised land, derelict and multiple-owned land already identified and designated for the purpose and all corruptly-gotten land.
Land ownership, Zimbabwe's oldest conflict, triggered the country's 1970s war of independence and now threatens the sickly economy as former war guerrillas seize productive white-owned farmland and disrupt farming, the mainstay of the economy. While political analysts accuse the ruling ZANU PF party of using the land problem to buy votes ahead of the April election, the analysts agree that the question must be resolved if Zimbabwe is to achieve lasting social, political and economic stability.
The MDC said not less than eight percent of the national budget would be committed to the setting up of a revolving fund to support land reform while a new land tax and donations from stakeholders and international donors would raise more resources.
"Land is a national people's asset and a productive asset," the MDC said.
The ZANU PF government, in power since independence in 1980, has been grappling with the contentious issue for the past 20 years. The government resettled more than 70 000 families on three million hectares, mostly during the first 10 years of independence before donors accused the government of mismanaging the reforms and halted financial support.
The government's land reform programme has faltered since then. More than five million hectares of land are required to resettle more than 100 000 landless families. Apart from the budget allocation granted to land reform, the MDC said it would plough more public resources into the country's crumbling health and education sectors.
The MDC, which in February campaigned against a government-sponsored draft constitution, said it would embark on a transparent and all-inclusive constitution making process. Other key pledges made by the MDC, launched last year by Zimbabwe's labour leaders, include promises to curb sweeping presidential powers enjoyed by incumbent Robert Mugabe.
The MDC says it will also set up an anti-corruption unit to deal with widespread corruption, especially in the public service.
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Copyright (c) 2000 Financial Gazette.
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Zimbabwean Ruling Party Unveils Election Manifesto
HARARE (March 23) XINHUA - The ruling Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front (Zanu-pf) released its election manifesto here on Thursday, vowing to stimulate economic growth if it wins the next parliamentary elections in April this year.
"We have managed as a country over the last two decades to implement revolutionary change of national politics. Now we must use the lessons of that experience to implement revolutionary change of our national economy to empower our own people once and for all," the party said in the manifesto.
According to the manifesto, the party will lower and control the interest rates, control the price of basic commodities, resolve gender concerns and accelerate infrastructural development.
Land would be given to priority groups including communal peasants, war veterans and collaborators, former political prisoners and detainees, young agricultural graduates and other professionals and indigenous business people who demonstrate the capacity for agriculture, the document said.
In the manifesto, Zanu-pf vowed to boost the industrial base and support the development of small and medium-scale enterprises, especially in rural areas.
The party would promote the establishment of more export processing zones and industrial parks and provide tax incentives to the indigenous business community so they could establish industries in smaller towns and growth points, it said.
It said that the party would, after the elections, do away with the Lancaster House Constitution and replace it with a home-grown constitution, taking into account relevant views made by people during the Constitutional Commission's outreach program.
The party would also foster moral values, renew national confidence, maintain peace and stability, give the workers their due representation and empower indigenous people, the manifesto said.
Copyright XINHUA NEWS AGENCY


Analysis-Zimbabwe Woes Mar S.Africa Investor Image
JOHANNESBURG, March 23 (Reuters) - Turmoil in Zimbabwe is dampening the appeal which South Africa holds for investors, despite the attractive fundamentals which set its economy apart from the rest of the region, analysts said on Thursday.
Instability across the entire continent is also fanning contagion concerns which are unjustified given South Africa's accelerating growth, well-developed capital markets and credible economic policies, they said.
"People seem to assume that Africa is a vast homogenous region in which instability in one zone pre-supposes disasters everywhere," London-based Investec analyst John Clemmow said.
"But Africa is the second-biggest continent, with a wide range of divergence in economic and political systems -- South Africa suffers almost uniquely from the sins of the continent."
The recent woes of Zimbabwe, South Africa's main trading partner, are seen as the key concern, although jitters prompted by floods in neighbouring Mozambique and unrest in far-away Nigeria were also cited as negatives.
A long-awaited upgrade to investment status by U.S. ratings agency Standard & Poor's last month has failed to stop South Africa's currency, the rand, from losing more than seven percent of its value since mid-January.
Despite being selected as the top performing emerging market for 2000 by several investment houses, the country's bourse has slid by nearly seven percent since the start of the year, while its bond market has defied expectations of a rally.
There are also few signs that foreign direct investment, which amounted to $1.3 billion in 1999 or a paltry 0.6 percent of the total flow to emerging countries, will pick up.
PERCEPTION RATHER THAN FACT DETERS INVESTORS
Analysts say the main problem seems to be one of perception, rather than fact.
"The focus is still on investment flows and sentiment rather than strong fundamentals," said Mike Moran, emerging markets economist at Standard Chartered in London.
"There's nothing that investors like more than stability, and...the events we've seen in Africa this year have not consolidated that view," he added.
Zimbabwe is embroiled in a prolonged dispute over its white-owned farms, with embattled President Robert Mugabe seen stoking tension over the emotive issue to try and woo voters in parliamentary elections due later this year.
The government said on Wednesday it would challenge a High Court ruling that black squatters must leave hundreds of white farms they have occupied over the past month.
International donors have also withdrawn their support over the costly deployment of a third of Mugabe's army in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, while a four-month-old fuel shortage has compounded a currency crisis dating back several years.
South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel highlighted the contagion issue in a speech to journalists on Wednesday, saying that the sooner stability was restored to Zimbabwe, the better for South Africa in particular and the region in general.
"The economic collapse of one of our largest trading partners in the region and the second-largest economy after South Africa in the region cannot be in our interests," he said.
"It's difficult, given the proximity of an election, but we must try now to help Zimbabwe restore good management and good government."
FEARS THAT SOUTH AFRICA WILL FOLLOW ZIMBABWE
Part of the problem is that Zimbabwe -- called Rhodesia before the white-run government surrendered power to the black majority 20 years ago --is seen as close to South Africa, both politically and economically.
Some investors fear that, in 10 years time, South Africa could be as turbulent and as cash-strapped as its neighbour. Most analysts think this is ludicrous.
"The progress of the disintegration of Zimbabwe since independence is seen by some as providing a forerunner of what will happen to South Africa -- I dispute that completely," Clemmow said.
Analysts say a more legitimate concern is the fear of the South African government, voiced by Manuel on Wednesday, that any worsening of Zimbabwe's problems could trigger a huge influence of economic refugees into its more stable neighbour.
"I'm hoping the election will happen soon and I hope the government in place will take some unpopular decisons and get the show back on the road," Manuel said.
((Johannesburg newsroom, +27-11-775-3131 fax: +27-11-775-3132, e-mail: newsroom+reuters.co.za)) Copyright 1999 Reuters.
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Students To Protest Against Govt's 'Political Victimisation'
Financial Gazette
March 23, 2000
By Staff Reporter
Harare - The Zimbabwe National Students' Union (ZINASU) said yesterday it was mobilising members to launch protests from next week against alleged victimisation of students by the government because of their political affiliation.
Hopewell Gumbo, national president of ZINASU, the umbrella union for Zimbabwean students, said a meeting held by the movement at Hillside Teachers' College in Bulawayo last week had overwhelmingly approved a resolution backing the protests.
ZINASU's decision comes in the wake of the government's decision to ban college meetings and introduce a series of levies aimed at privatising some of the facilities offered by the colleges. Gumbo said the students believed that the measures were meant to punish some members for their declared support for the labour-backed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The party enjoys a large following among students at colleges, where it has established branches.
Gumbo said: "Recently a number of levies were introduced by the government which cost students much more than what the students actually get in their payouts. The students have already started to suffer before the privatisation programme has begun."
He said efforts by the students' movement to have the payouts reviewed this year had been rejected by the government, and instead some additional levies had been introduced. Gumbo said the government had gone further to ban students from holding meetings at their colleges while in some institutions students were no longer allowed to stay in the institutions because these were now considered MDC bases.
He cited the example of the Harare Polytechic College, where several students' residential flats were kept locked while students were forced to find their own accommodation. He said several meetings had been held with Michael Mambo, Higher Education and Technology permanent secretary, but the government had remained adamant. Mambo was not available for comment yesterday. Officials said he was away until next week.
"As ZINASU, we feel the environment being created by the government in these colleges is not at all conducive to learning. Whether or not these students belong to any political party, they should not be denied the right to education," he said.
Meanwhile at the Harare Polytechnic, the protest had already erupted yesterday morning and the college was expected to close any time. Riot police were this week closely monitoring students at Belvedere Teachers' College in Harare and in Masvingo Teachers' College where the mood among students was reported to be tense ahead of the protests.
ZINASU has a membership of more than 50 000 students in about 40 of the country's institutions of high learning.
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Copyright (c) 2000 Financial Gazette.
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Jobless See Chance To Get Even With ZANU PF
Financial Gazette
March 23, 2000
Harare - This week the Financial Gazette kicks off its wide-ranging coverage of Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections this year, focusing on real issues at stake, what the leading contenders are offering as solutions to the country's problems and a blow-by-blow account of major political rallies that they stage.
We start off with Chief Reporter ABEL MUTSAKANI'S examination of one of the major crises afflicting Zimbabwe: joblessness.
The grave-faced young man quietly folded his impressive 'A' level education certificate and meekly slid it into his dilapidated khaki envelope.
"It was obviously a good result. This certificate has been able to get me onto the shortlists of several employers for the past five years," the young man, Joseph Hana, said. "But it has never been able to get me the actual job."
Anger and dejection rang in his voice. To visit the government-run employment exchange in downtown Harare is to come face to face with Zimbabwe's angry jobless youths. Thousands of talented young men and women, their dreams wrecked by years of unemployment and most of them often on the brink of despair, throng the exchange.
A young man pushed through the crowd that had quickly formed around our news team and came up to where we were. "This!" he hissed and angrily ploughed his finger through the huge hole on his torn shirt.
Wasted future "We do not have jobs because someone messed the economy. Our future has been wasted right before our eyes," he said this week. No one, not even the ruling ZANU PF nationalists who usually dismiss criticism by the country's youths as mere ungratefulness, could have failed to notice the anger in the young man's voice or the resolve deeply etched on his face as he uttered:
"The elections must bring change or there will be another revolution in this country."
Zimbabwe heads for watershed parliamentary elections next month when the governing ZANU PF party, in power since independence in 1980, squares up against the labour-supported Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Most analysts see the MDC feeding on the grinding economic crisis gripping the nation in elections that could end ZANU PF's iron-fisted rule of 20 years.
But other analysts, noting the formidable machinery and resources still at ZANU PF's disposal, say the election contest between the two could be too close to call. But for the jobless youths we met at the exchange and millions more roaming the streets of Zimbabwe's cities and towns, with their education certificates going soft in their pockets, the coming election appears to offer only one opportunity.
It is a chance to get even with ZANU PF which they hold squarely responsible for squandering their future and turning most of them into beggars and criminals.
University At the employment exchange agency - the youths there jokingly call it "the university" because they say you can find people there qualified in as many disciplines as you would at any campus - Hana fired questions at the Financial Gazette crew.
"My brother, why really waste time trying to find out the feelings of the unemployed? What is it that is not known about our views and expectations about the coming elections?" he asked.
The now sizeable gathering around us urged him on. "We wor-ked hard to get the education that we have, but this government let us down," Hana said. "Come April, we will cast our vote against unemployment, corruption, war- mongering and inefficient governance." Hard and trying Like most of his fellow job- seekers now urging him on, the 27-year-old Hana was born and bred in the overcrowded high-density suburbs of Harare. But Hana's early life, as he later recounted to our news team, was particularly hard and trying.
When his father, an informal vegetable seller, was knocked dead by a hit- and-run motorist 12 years ago, his mother Jennifer had to take up the little- paying vegetable vending business to get Hana through school.
But five years after leaving college, coming out with flying distinctions in his final exams, Hana still has to depend on the paltry income from his mother's vending business. Such are the frustrations of many of the more than 300 000 young men and women being churned out of Zimbabwe's schools each year to chase a meagre 15 000 to 25 000 jobs created by the formal sector annually.
Tough world Zimbabwe, with a population of almost 12 million, has an unemployment rate of more than 50 percent, with only two million people employed by the formal sector. More than two million others are trying to survive through small self-help pro-jects in the tough world of the informal sector, now Zimbabwe's biggest employer.
A grinding economic crisis that has gripped Zimbabwe for years and has seen several companies operating below capacity threatens even existing jobs.
For Hana and other jobless people, the economic crisis virtually cancels any prospects for any new jobs being created any time soon. With the crippling fuel and foreign currency shortages threatening to shut many companies altogether, the nation's crisis is set to worsen. President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF, who blame the economic crisis on global markets and sabotage by the international community, promise to undertake job-creating programmes if re- elected in the April polls.
Government has lied But Hana and his colleagues were clearly not impressed by the government's promises because, as Hana put it, "the government has lied to us many times before".
According to Hana, who studied accounts and economics at 'A' level, the government is lying by saying that the economic collapse has been caused by the fall of international market prices for the country's key exports.
"Who cannot see that spending US$3 million a month in the Congo has swallowed up a huge chunk of the government's already diminished resources?" he asked.
Hana was referring to Mugabe's much-criticised decision to send almost a third of Zimbabwe's army to fight in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in support of President Laurent Kabila against rebels seeking to topple him. Economists say the huge cost of the Congo war campaign, which international aid agencies say is 10 times more than the US$3 million a month the government has acknowledged, has exacerbated Zimbabwe's already dire straits.
But for Hana and other jobless across Zimbabwe, they no longer want to know the causes of the crisis which they say are too clear for all. All they want are jobs that they say are as important as any other human rights and basic freedoms which they have been denied for too long.
"If you keep someone in any job for too long, they become inefficient and corrupt," Hana said.
"We now want a government that will come in with new and workable ideas to revive the economy and create wealth and jobs in our country. Anything else, we simply don't want to know."
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Copyright (c) 2000 Financial Gazette.
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