Reuters
By Stella Mapenzauswa
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's main
labor federation, a key ally of the
divided opposition movement, decided on
Saturday to lead a national strike
for higher wages as the economy teetered
on the brink of collapse.
The meeting coincided with a Harare by-election
expected to test the level
of popular discontent with the ruling party
ZANU-PF, accused by critics of
driving the country deep into crisis with an
annual inflation rate now
topping 1,000 percent.
"We are now going to
be more militant than ever before because ... no matter
how hard we try to
cooperate with the government, without the necessary push
from the streets
we may not get what we want," Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions (ZCTU)
Secretary-General Wellington Chibebe said.
"The first general council
meeting which we will call any time after June 16
will decide on the
timetable, possibly end of June, July, August
thereabouts," he told Reuters
on the sidelines of a ZCTU conference ending
later in the
day.
Zimbabwean security forces have intensified a crackdown on President
Robert
Mugabe's critics, fearing protests threatened by the opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) which has close links with the labor
movement.
Last week the police barred street marches planned to mark last
year's
official destruction of urban slums, fearing the anniversary could
provide
another flashpoint for violence.
But in Zimbabwe's second
city of Bulayawo, church leaders said about 500
people marched peacefully on
Saturday after winning a court ruling
permitting the march.
"The
church is the last vestige of democracy of Zimbabwe and the police were
pushing us out, so this ruling is very important," Zimbabwe Christian
Alliance coordinator Useni Sibanda said by telephone. "People can see that
you can take the police to court."
POLITICIANS ARRESTED
Voting
was quiet in the by-election in Harare's Budiriro district, which is
being
closely watched amid signs of increasing stress in Zimbabwe's fragile
political landscape.
On Friday police arrested several senior
politicians from one MDC faction,
including its candidate for the Budiriro
seat, accusing them of campaigning
without official permission.
They
were later released but are expected in court on Monday on charges of
violating security laws.
Budiriro was represented by an MDC
legislator who died in office this year.
The party has since split into two
factions, both of which are fielding
candidates in the election, dividing
the MDC vote.
ZANU-PF has vowed to capture the seat to show its political
strength,
despite mounting economic problems including rampant inflation,
sky-high
unemployment and frequent shortages of food, fuel and other key
commodities.
Election results are expected in the next few days but will
do little to
alter the balance of power in parliament, where ZANU-PF holds a
two-thirds
majority.
Mugabe, 82, blames Zimbabwe's economic problems
on sabotage by domestic and
Western opponents critical of his program to
seize white-owned farms to give
to landless blacks.
Rights groups say
public anger over the economic crisis was the chief reason
for the recent
clampdown on protests by a government they say is alarmed at
MDC threats to
launch a wave of "peaceful democratic resistance" to Mugabe's
rule.
Mugabe, who says the MDC are puppets of Zimbabwe's former
colonial master
Britain, has responded to the opposition's threats by
warning that any
attempt to unseat him would be "dicing with
death".
On Saturday the lobby group National Constitutional Assembly said
it was
seeking a court order for the release of 103 activists arrested on
Thursday
during another march in Harare.
IOL
May 20 2006
at 12:37PM
Harare - Voting kicked off Saturday in a Harare
by-election in what
will be a key test of the strength of the opposition
following a damaging
split in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party
last year, reports
said.
"Polling stations opened promptly at
7am (05h00 GMT) and by then
queues had already formed at Budiriro 4 Shopping
Centre where (ruling
Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front)
Zanu-PF candidate
Jeremiah Bvirindi cast his vote," state radio
said.
"A sizeable number of people were observed waiting to
exercise their
democratic right," it added.
Budiriro, a
low-income constituency to the south of Harare, is
traditionally a hotbed of
support for the opposition. The parliamentary seat
fell vacant following the
death of the MDC incumbent Gilbert Shoko.
But it's not
clear whether the opposition will manage to retain the
seat because any MDC
vote will be split. Two opposing factions of the party
are both fielding a
candidate. On Friday, police in Budiriro detained for
eight hours Arthur
Mutambara, the leader of one of the MDC factions along
with Gabriel Chaibva,
the candidate for the Mutambara-led MDC faction, and
49 supporters as they
tried to campaign in the constituency. They were
released late on
Friday.
According to Saturday's Herald newspaper, police say they
arrested the
51 for "holding an illegal procession in vehicles" in Budiriro
ahead of the
by-election.
Chaibva is to appear in court soon
facing charges under Zimbabwe's
notorious Public Order and Security Act
(POSA), said the newspaper.
"Mutambara and the 49 opposition
supporters would be indicted under
the Miscellaneous Offences Act for
conduct likely to cause a breach of the
peace," the report
said.
Seven people who were driving trucks carrying the supporters
will be
charged under the Road Traffic Act, it said.
Chaibva
says he and his supporters had applied for permission to hold
the roadshow
in Budiriro on Thursday, but were forced to postpone it until
Friday because
President Robert Mugabe was holding a rally there.
Police
spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena said that "in a volatile
political
environment, road shows were likely to cause disturbances and for
that
reason, they were deemed illegal." - Sapa-dpa
IOL
May 20 2006
at 12:28PM
Harare - Hundreds of people were gathering Saturday in
Zimbabwe's
second city of Bulawayo under the watchful eye of police for a
march to mark
the first anniversary of an urban clean-up campaign that left
hundreds of
thousands of people homeless, one of the organisers
said.
In a telephone interview, Baptist minister Ray Motsi of the
Zimbabwe
Christian Alliance (ZCA) said the march, which had initially been
banned by
police, was given a last-minute go-ahead by the High Court late on
Friday.
"We're allowed to go ahead. We're not able to use the route
we
initially agreed," said Motsi. "We're quite excited about it," he
added.
Motsi estimated that around 500 people had
gathered for the march,
which will be shorter than initially anticipated.
More would have come, he
said, had police not first banned the march,
calling it a security risk.
There was a heavy police presence, he
said.
The ZCA, which groups church leaders from 29 Christian
denominations,
has also arranged prayer meetings in towns and cities across
Zimbabwe for
the victims of last year's controversial Operation Restore
Order.
The UN says around 700 000 people lost their homes and jobs
in the
operation. Churches have played a large part in providing food and
shelter
for the displaced.
Motsi said marchers were carrying
placards and banners "with verses of
scripture on them about justice and
peace." People affected by Operation
Restore Order are among the marchers,
he said.
"We have them with us in the group and they'll definitely
be giving
testimonies," he said.
President Robert Mugabe's
government is wary of any sort of protests
at the moment, partly because the
main opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) has threatened a season
of mass protest. - Sapa-dpa
BBC
Tension is
reported to be high in Zimbabwe after police banned rallies
to mark the
first anniversary of the controversial urban renewal campaign.
Some 500
people gathered in the city of Bulawayo amid reports that a
march was given
a last-minute go-ahead.
In Harare, all public rallies remain banned
as the capital is holding
a key parliamentary by-election.
The
government's campaign, during which slums were cleared, left
hundreds of
thousands of people homeless.
The crowds gathered in Bulawayo were
to attend a march and prayers,
Ray Motsi of the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance
(ZCA) told South Africa's
Independent Online.
Mr Motsi said the
rally in Zimbabwe's second largest city - initially
banned by police - was
allowed by the country's high court on Friday.
He said the march
would be shorter than its organisers initially
planned, adding that there
was a heavy police presence in the city.
The ZCA is planning to
hold prayer meetings for the victims of the
urban renewal campaign across
the country.
Under tough security laws, the police must give
permission for all
demonstrations, and protests by groups not allied to the
governing Zanu-PF
party are rarely authorised.
On Thursday,
police arrested about 100 people marking the anniversary
of last year's slum
clearance programme, in which the UN says some 700,000
people lost either
their homes or their jobs.
Tererai
Karimakwenda
20 May 2006
There were many activities on
Saturday in commemoration of the
disastrous Operation Murambatsvina. But in
Bulawayo, officials from the
Christian Alliance and church groups were
jubilant after a high court judge
ruled that they had a legal right to
organize a march. Their procession in
remembrance of the internally
displaced had been banned by the police who
claimed they did not have enough
manpower to control thousands of people.
The decision came late on Friday
and the procession got underway Saturday
morning as planned. This was the
first time a judge had ruled against the
wishes of the police in a case
involving freedom of assembly.
Useni Sibanda, a coordinator with the
Christian Alliance and Bulawayo
churches told us about 500 people turned up
at St Patrick's church in
Makokoba and marched for more than 40 minutes into
town. Despite the heavy
presence of uniformed police and intelligence agents
in plain clothes they
sang and danced through Bulawayo streets. The only
condition stipulated by
the courts was that the procession route be altered
slightly for security
reasons.
Sibanda said this court decision
was important because all other space
has been closed by thegovernment. He
believes it is the nature of the church's
work that allows it to be last
pillar of defence. Sibanda said the Public
Order and Security Act does not
require the church to seek permission from
the police. He said they are only
required to notify the police for security
reasons if crowds are to gather.
The police have never respected this
exemption, and they have blocked
several similar processions in the past.
Sibanda said the court made it
clear that the church is independent and
should be allowed to discharge its
duties without interference.
There were several prayer meetings
scheduled for Saturday evening
around the country. A combined
Harare/Chitungwiza prayer meeting sponsored
by the Zimbabwe National Pastors
Conference and The Christian Alliance was
due to take place at the
Evangelical church in St Marys.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe
news
Violet
Gonda
19 May 2006
Opposition leader Arthur Mutambara and at least 50
party members were
arrested in Budiriro on Friday morning for taking part in
an illegal
election campaign. The Mutambara led entourage which included
senior party
officials MP Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, Morgan Changamire
and MP Edwin
Mushoriwa had been on a road-show to campaign for their
candidate Gabriel
Chaibva, for the Budiriro by-election when they were
stopped and arrested.
Speaking on the cellphone whilst in detention at Glen
View police station
Misihairabwi-Mushonga who is the MP for Glen Norah said,
"We had been given
a verbal communication that we were allowed to do a road
show but we were
then intercepted by the police along the road, taken to the
police station
and we are now being charged under the Public Order and
Security Act
(POSA)."
She accused the police of having sinister motives
and trying to destabilise
their campaign on the eve of the elections. An
irate candidate Gabriel
Chaibva, who also spoke whilst in police cells, said
all his election agents
had also been arrested.
This is the first time
that Arthur Mutambara has been arrested since he
became leader of this MDC
faction in February. When asked how he was taking
this,
Misihairabwi-Mushonga said, " Well you know he has always been a
person who
has known arrests ever since he started student activism. So, in
fact, I
think it's a good thing. He needs to be re-introduced to the cells
and see
just how bad they have become from the time that he was arrested."
But
despite the arrests, the members could be heard singing and chanting
slogans
in the cells as we were recording the interviews and at times openly
denouncing ZANU PF singing songs like - "Zanu yavora baba" (ZANU is
rotten).
The opposition members were released late Friday afternoon after
spending 8
hours in prison. Speaking after the release, Information Officer
for the
Mutambara faction Maxwell Zimuto believes they were released because
the
police had no real case against them and also that the group made a lot
of
noise in detention. He said they were all put in one cell and added, "We
were told to shut up but we didn't shut up because most of our youths were
actually singing and this incensed the police." According to Zimuto when the
singing "ZANU yavora baba" - became louder and louder, the police tried to
order them to pay fines so that they could be freed. But he said the
opposition members refused saying they had done nothing wrong. Zimuto said
they were all told to report back on Monday.
Voters go for polls on
Saturday for the Budiriro by-election. Both the
factions of the MDC are
fielding candidates. Gabriel Chaibva (Mutambara
MDC), Emmanuel Chisvuvure
(Tsvangirai MDC) and James Bvirindi (Mugabe Zanu
PF).
SW Radio
Africa Zimbabwe news
By Tichaona
Sibanda
19 May 2006
With a day to go before the Budiriro by-election,
the Registrar-General
Tobaiwa Mudede is yet again at the centre of an
election controversy
following accusations of stuffing the voters' roll with
names of Zanu (PF)
activists.
This forced the Tsvangirai-led MDC to
issue a statement this week condemning
Zanu PF for once again 'walking its
usual path of electoral theft and
chicanery in a desperate attempt to steal
the people's victory in the MDC
stronghold of Budiriro.'
Our
correspondent Simon Muchemwa told us an MDC technical team dealing with
the
voters roll uncovered serious preliminary irregularities ahead of the
by-election scheduled for Saturday. He said the voters roll, only made
available last week Thursday, raises eyebrows in that thousands of people
were registered in the constituency even after Operation Murambatsvina,
which displaced a lot of people in Budiriro.
Muchemwa explained that
in the A-L category of the voters roll, 3 000 names
have been removed and
cannot be accounted for. Suspiciously, over 3 000 new
voters have suddenly
transferred to Budiriro. For example, one group of
recent arrivals in
Budiriro include Cleopas Chinogureyi, Joyce Chinogureyi,
Onias Chinogureyi,
Steven Chinogureyi and Tsitsi Chinogureyi whose address
is given as 1933,
117 Close, Budiriro One. Surprisingly, all these people
are of the same
age.
Another family - the Jinga family - comprising nine people, has
settled at
various addresses in Budiriro. This group represents a new
category of
people with the same surname who have suddenly settled at
different
addresses in Budiriro.
Jessie Majome, deputy secretary for
Legal Affairs said it cannot be a mere
coincidence that such people decided
to move to Budiriro at once and decided
to register their names. Ironically,
she added, all the new voters
coincidentally reside at addresses of known
Zanu PF activists.
'As MDC, we reiterate our position that this is one of
the reasons why
elections are not the only way of bringing change and
democracy to Zimbabwe.
We note that the regime has a half-hearted commitment
to the SADC
declaration governing the conduct of elections considering the
unequal
access to the public media. Zanu PF politicians involved in
vote-buying
activities in Budiriro are being given more coverage compared to
the scant,
negative coverage given to the MDC,' Majome
said.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
Dear Family and Friends,
Shortly after Christmas a woman gave me a little
parcel she had brought
from a friend in Australia. In the parcel was a hand
knitted jersey and
matching wooly hat. There was nothing at all fancy about
the garments,
they were just simple and practical and had been made with love
and care
by someone who wanted to help a child in Zimbabwe. Made using
little
scraps of left over wool, the jersey and hat were bright and colourful
and
consisted of a series of yellow, blue, green and brown stripes.
The
message which came to me with the parcel was that I should please find
and
then give the jersey and hat to a child in need. That wasn't hard at
all
and I didn't have to look far. In mid January I gave the jersey and hat
to
a three year old boy. His mother, unemployed and living in basic and
very
primitive conditions, was thrilled - these would be perfect for her
son
this winter, she told me as she clapped in gratitude with cupped
hands.
This week, just four months later, the woman buried her three year
old son
on a cold and windy morning. The events of the past fortnight have
been
utterly desperate, any mother's worst nightmare. Stomach cramps,
vomiting
and then difficulty in breathing and at last the child was admitted
to
hospital. Being admitted to hospital was a marathon which required
a
rubber stamp in an exercise book and eight hundred thousand dollars
before
anyone would even look at her son. This is a very far cry (more like
a
desperate scream) from our government's promise of Free Health For All
by
the year 2000. Four days later wearing the bright striped jersey
which
came from a stranger in Australia, the little boy passed away in
hospital.
For his mother the nightmare was just beginning. The hospital would
not
release her son's body until four million dollars was paid. The
cheapest
coffin was three million dollars, a grave site in a local cemetery
was
seven million dollars. Now, overcome with grief, swamped with debt
and
engulfed in the despair of it all, the little boy's Mum is struggling
to
find the will to go on.
The statistics say that we have the lowest
life expectancy in the world:
34 years for women and 37 years for men - and
how do you measure what life
expectancy is for our children? With our
monstrous inflation children are
dying here. Day after day children are not
getting enough to eat and what
little food they have is mostly just maize
meal porridge. Mothers cannot
afford the simplest foods to make their
children strong - they cannot
afford milk, eggs, meat or even peanut
butter.
People are dying here in Zimbabwe but it seems none of our
leaders are
able to see or deal with the real priorities anymore. This week
the
government is talking about building new complexes at borders
and
airports. As I write both factions of the divided MDC, who both
still
insist on calling themselves the MDC, and who both announced they
would
not take part in elections, are taking part in by-elections in Harare.
I
wonder if any of our leaders, from any party, care about a little
three
year old boy who died this week. A little boy wearing a bright
striped
jersey made with love by a woman who cares in Australia. Until next
week,
with love, cathy.Copyright cathy buckle 20 May 2006.
http://africantears.netfirms.com
Mail and Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
20 May 2006
09:59
Police in Zimbabwe have arrested two South African
immigration
officials and their Zimbabwean counterpart as they tried to
smuggle
cigarettes and ivory across the border into South Africa, a
newspaper
reported on Saturday.
The three were arrested
on Thursday evening on the Zimbabwean
side of Beitbridge border post by
detectives following a tip-off, the
state-controlled Herald
said.
"I can confirm that we have arrested two South African
immigration officers and one Zimbabwean man for conniving to smuggle
cigarettes and ivory ornaments," police spokesperson Andrew Phiri was quoted
as saying.
He said 412 cartons of cigarettes and five
bags with more than
100 pieces of ivory ornaments concealed under blankets
were discovered. "The
ornaments included raw ivory, bangles, watches,
necklaces and various ivory
carvings," the Herald said.
The paper said the trio were using a vehicle from South Africa's
Home
Affairs department that had been used to transport illegal Zimbabwean
immigrants back to Zimbabwe. The truck had dropped off a load of illegal
immigrants, but made a detour to a house in Beitbridge town to collect the
ivory trinkets and cigarettes, the paper said.
As
Zimbabwe's economy deteriorates, South Africa with its strong
currency
provides a lucrative market for smuggled goods, especially
cigarettes that
are sometimes stashed inside empty fuel tankers. - Sapa-DPA
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Within
Harare Central's morale-sapping walls, there seems to be more dying
than
healing.
By Saul Dambaza in Harare (AR No. 63,
19-May-06)
Zimbabwe's deteriorating main public hospital, Harare Central,
is inspiring
less and less confidence among the country's sick, lame and
needy.
Its shabby exterior is pockmarked with broken windows and leaking
pipes. The
wards themselves are little better, epitomising the decline of
this country's
once proud health system, which until a decade ago was the
best in Africa
south of the Sahara.
Outside visiting hours, the
relatives of patients wander the grounds. Many
spend all day at the
hospital, waiting from one visiting time to the next,
simply because they
cannot afford, in the fastest declining economy on
earth, the bus fare to
make more than one journey.
Susan Rugare is typical of those whiling away
time before she can again
visit her sick daughter, Maria. A round-trip bus
ride from her home in the
Harare township of Mufakose is more than she can
afford, so each day she
walks the eleven mile return journey to be with
Maria.
Her daughter has meningitis and can no longer look after herself.
"Every day
I have to prepare food from home and come and feed my daughter. I
also have
to bath her, since she can longer do that on her own," said
Rugare.
Her daughter also cannot afford the 2.5 million Zimbabwe dollars
(thirteen
pounds sterling, at the official exchange rate) worth of drugs
prescribed by
the doctors. Zimbabwe is into its sixth successive year of
economic decline,
which has whittled away the ability of households to make
ends meet. The
country faces critical shortages of foreign exchange.
Inflation has reached
1043 per cent, by far the highest in the world, with
Iraq in second place at
only 40 per cent.
Even if Rugare could afford
the drugs her daughter needs, there is no
guarantee they would be available
in the poorly-stocked hospital pharmacy
because the country has barely any
foreign exchange reserves.
The dire state of the country's pharmacies
inspired Marko Phiri, a columnist
in the independent weekly Standard
newspaper, to comment, "Zimbabwe appears
over the past decade or so to have
decided to stick to the African way where
hospitals are known not to have a
single pill in the dispensary, where
hospitals have become places one goes
to die, not to look for life. Welcome
to Zimbabwe's hospital
Hell."
Harare Central is where the city's poor, who cannot afford private
health
insurance, are forced to come. Within its morale-sapping walls, there
does
indeed seem to be more dying than healing. Patients undergoing surgery
have
died under anaesthetic during the capital city's frequent power cuts
because
the hospital has not been allocated scarce foreign exchange to
import an
emergency generator.
The high death rate is linked in part
to AIDS. Recent estimates indicate
that around 34 per cent of Zimbabwe's 15
to 40 years age group is
HIV-positive, and that more than 3,300 people die
every week of AIDS-related
infections. Deepening poverty and hunger have
accelerated the process.
According to the United Nations Children's Fund
UNICEF, 550 children under
the age of fourteen die of AIDS-related illnesses
each week while another
565 become infected with the HIV virus.
"Most
of our beds are occupied by people suffering from AIDS," said a senior
matron who asked not to be named. "In the children's wards there are
children who are suffering from kwashiorkor."
Kwashiorkor is a
malnutrition disease, resulting mainly from lack of
protein. It occurs in
areas of famine, limited food supply and low levels of
education. Its most
obvious features in children are large, protuberant
bellies and thinning
hair. Unless properly treated, shock and coma set in
leading to
death.
The matron said most of the children with kwashiorkor are from
Mbare and
Epworth, two of the poorest suburbs of Harare, which a year ago
were targets
of President Robert Mugabe's Operation Murambatsvina (Operation
Drive Out
the Filth), in which the homes of hundreds of thousands of poor
Zimbabweans
across the country were razed to the ground.
Combined
with rampant HIV/AIDS, Zimbabwe's collapsing health system mirrors
a falling
life expectancy that has become the shortest in the world. The
World Health
Organisation reported in April that the average Zimbabwean
woman can now
expect to die at 34 years of age, compared with 60 at
independence, while
most men will not live beyond 37 years.
The morgue at Harare Central
receives the daily toll of the dead. It is
overflowing with hundreds of
bodies and the stench is inescapable. The
hospital refuses to release the
dead until relatives pay hospital fees they
can no longer afford. Treatment
was once free, but as the country's economy
went into steep decline the
government introduced charges. In May 2006 the
government announced a
300,000 per cent increase in state hospital charges
in an effort to shore up
crumbling services, with the cost of medicines
doubling or tripling every
few months .
"The morgue refrigerators sometimes do not work and they
also have no
capacity to keep the bodies well," one attendant, leaning on a
wall outside
the morgue as he ate his lunch, told IWPR. "We no longer go
inside there. If
you bring your relative you have to find somewhere to put
them yourself, or
we will charge you if you want us to do that."
The
morgue is also a place of business for undertakers who hang around
waiting
for clients. When relatives come to claim the bodies of their loved
ones,
they are immediately propositioned with offers of cheap coffins, body
dressings and transport.
Commenting on the increased hospital
charges, Harare physician Dr Elopy
Sibanda said many of his poor patients
had stopped coming for appointments
because they can no longer afford the
government-dictated fees. The result,
he said, is a two-tier medical system
similar to that which prevailed in the
days of white minority rule before
independence in 1980. "They're creating a
health care apartheid," Sibanda
told a visiting foreign correspondent.
"We're no longer looking at the
colour of the people. We're looking at the
fatness of their
wallets."
Harare Central, like all government health institutions in the
country, is
in dire need of medicines and basic equipment. In addition,
there is a
serious shortage of professional staff, from nurses and doctors
to
pharmacists, who are emigrating in droves.
Zimbabwe's consultant
physicians have published a new and damning report on
Harare Central's
conditions. For more than three years, the hospital has run
without an
intensive care unit because of collapsing infrastructure and lack
of
necessary staff. The blood bank often has no blood "and several people
have
died as a result", the report says.
X-ray equipment has either broken
down irretrievably or is obsolete.
Antiquated lifts constantly break down
because of lack of spares and the one
in the maternity ward has not worked
for years.
Elsewhere in the hospital "there is often no soap or any other
antiseptic
liquid to clean hands in wards. There is usually nothing to dry
hands with",
say the physicians.
Nurses at the hospital complain that
their working conditions are
deteriorating relentlessly. Apart from disputes
about poor wages, which
cause walk-outs, the nurses say they are fed up with
seeing their patients
die as a result of shortages of every
kind.
"Almost on a daily basis we lose at least three babies in our
ward," said
Nurse Maude Chitambo. "Sometimes we work without protective
gloves.
Sometimes there are no drugs for patients and food is rationed. When
we see
patients dying, this affects us badly as well.
"Most of the
time there is only one qualified nurse for each ward and the
rest will be
students. When we face emergencies, students sometimes have to
take over
duties normally done by qualified staff."
Almost half the nurses trained
in Zimbabwe are lost annually to better
paying jobs in South Africa,
Britain, Australia and the United States.
Harare Central and Parirenyatwa,
also in Harare, the country's two biggest
hospitals, share a single
neurologist.
Despite low salaries, thousands of secondary school
graduates apply to
become nurses, mainly because nurses always find
employment - an important
factor, given Zimbabwe's unemployment rate of at
least 80 per cent. And many
view training as a nurse as a sure way of
getting a visa to other countries
and an escape from their country's
increasingly dire economic and social
conditions.
The problems at
Harare Central affect all departments. In the laundry room,
the steam
cleaners are not working because of a lack of technicians and
imported
spares. "The laundry is just piling and now relatives have been
asked to
bring clothes from home," said a matron.
Heaps of rubbish are mounting
around the hospital, resulting in an upsurge
in outbreaks of dysentery and
food poisoning. To cut costs, the hospital
retrenched cleaning staff and
hired a private company, but the company's
workers are often on strike in
protest about low wages and poor employment
conditions.
Junior
doctors frequently stage work stoppages to demand that their
conditions be
improved.
Zimbabwe's parliament has acknowledged the impact of staff
shortages on all
the country's health centres. Minister of Health Dr David
Parirenyatwa could
only say the government was looking into the situation at
Harare Central, "A
team has since been sent to come up with a report on who
best we can turn
around the hospital."
Saul Dambaza is the pseudonym
of an IWPR contributor in Zimbabwe.
The Herald (Harare)
May 19, 2006
Posted
to the web May 19, 2006
Harare
GOVERNMENT has ordered public
health institutions to stop detaining patients
over unpaid hospital bills
with immediate effect.
While the move brought some relief to many
patients who were struggling to
cope with escalating health care costs, it
would be difficult for hospitals
to recover what they were owed. The
Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr
David Parirenyatwa, said public
hospitals that detained patients over unpaid
hospital bills would be doing
so in defiance of the law. Instead, they
should employ other means of
recovering the money. "Once a patient is due
for discharge, they should be
discharged and this goes even for those who
would not have paid. "The
hospitals must come up with other means by which
they can get their money
from the patient," the minister said. The order
comes at a time when several
people were failing to raise the amounts that
were being charged by public
hospitals. It also comes at a time when some
public hospitals had stopped
treating patients until after they had made
full payments.
In some
instances, even those groups that were exempted from paying at
public hea
lth institutions like children under the age of five and those
above 65 were
being ordered to pay or else they would not be treated. Dr
Parirenyatwa said
children under five and those above 65 would be treated
for free unless they
were on medical aid. "These groups can only pay if they
are on medical aid
otherwise we have always said they are treated for free,"
Dr Parirenyatwa
said. In the past it was only private hospitals that had
become notorious
for detaining patients for non-payment of fees as well as
demanding cash
before treatment could be administered. However, patients
were detained by
hospitals in a bid to remain viable and cut on losses that
resulted from
people who took advantage of the system which said one could
not be turned
away without treatment by a public health centre. While they
had started
demanding proof of residence and identification particulars in a
bid to make
people become more accountable, losses were still being made.
Fees at
public hospitals we re increased to between $800 000 and $1 million
last
month as part of efforts to improve the quality of service in public
hospitals. Admission fees in the Intensive Care Unit were now pegged at $8,5
million a day while maternity fees started from $1,3 million and in theatre
people were expected to pay $105 000 per minute. District and mission
hospitals now charged $400 000. Public hospitals have since confirmed
receiving the order from the ministry. Some officials, however, said the new
move would be exploited and the hospitals would end up losing billions of
dollars in unpaid bills at a time when they were struggling to remain
afloat. The Government said public health institutions should this year find
ways of generating income like other business entities.
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Hundreds of thousands who lost their homes in the operation are still
waiting for government to fulfil rehousing pledge.
By Dzikamai
Chidyausiku in Harare (AR No. 63, 19-May-06)
Mavis Mavhunga, a
40-year-old widow with three children, has been living in
a battered shack
since her three-roomed house was destroyed last year in
President Robert
Mugabe's Operation Murambatsvina (Operation Drive Out the
Filth).
Murambatsvina, conducted by soldiers, police and militias
with bulldozers,
sledgehammers and ignited petrol, and accompanied by
extreme violence, was
presented by Mugabe's ZANU PF government as a renewal
scheme to "clean up"
urban areas. But virtually nothing has been done to
provide accommodation
for the estimated 700,000 to a million people who
watched their homes being
destroyed when Murambatsvina was launched a year
ago on May 18.
Most who lost their homes were opposition supporters.
Critics believe
Murambatsvina had little to do with regeneration, but was a
giant despotic
social engineering project designed to force potentially
troublesome urban
communities back into the countryside, where Mugabe's
party controls nearly
all the levers of power, and to deter a popular
uprising against the
government.
The mass destruction of homes
impelled United Nations Secretary-General Kofi
Annan to send a special envoy
to Zimbabwe. The envoy,
Anna Tibaijuka, a senior Tanzanian UN official,
lambasted the mass
demolitions as inhuman, adding that they had created a
humanitarian crisis
in breach of national and international human rights
laws. She said Mugabe
had shown "indifference to human suffering" while her
boss, Annan, described
the situation as "profoundly distressing". In all,
said Tibaijuka, some 2.4
million of the country's 12 million people were
directly or indirectly
affected by Murambatsvina.
Hardly anything has
improved since the Murambatsvina storm, and now the
short but sharply cold
Zimbabwe winter looms.
"The [summer] rainy season is almost over and we
have been waiting in vain
for the promised houses," said Mavhunga in her
flimsy cardboard and plastic
shack at Whitecliff, a working class suburb
about 11 miles west of the
capital, Harare, which was one of the areas
hardest hit in Operation
Murambatsvina. Countless thousands of other
families like the Mavhungas are
also waiting for President Mugabe to fulfil
his promise of a million new
houses.
There are no toilets or
clean-piped water near Mavhunga's home. Wells that
she and others tried to
dig have collapsed.
Her two children, Tendai and Michael, have dropped
out of school and she is
uncertain when they will return. "I can't afford to
feed them properly, so
what sense does it make sending them to school?" she
said to IWPR while
gesticulating with her calloused hands.
Mavhunga
built her shack on the patch of land where the state's bulldozers
razed her
house. Debris from the operation lies in a heap and she has used
some of the
bricks to construct a makeshift kitchen.
The pain and misery caused by
Murambatsvina is still evident
in her words as she tells how she watched
helplessly as her house was
toppled and how she feels totally betrayed by
the ruling politicians. "I
will never forget that day. The police came in
the morning, told us to throw
out our things and destroyed my house with
their bulldozers," she said as
she pointed to where her home once
stood.
Her vegetable vending stall in town, her family's livelihood since
the late
1990s, was also destroyed in Murambatsvina along with the open air
stalls of
thousands of other shoe repairers, watch menders, carpenters,
tailors,
seamstresses and other small-scale informal
traders.
Mugabe's demolition squads even made people destroy their own
homes. Remia
Sangano recalled how police ordered her grandson to demolish
their
three-bedroom brick home at Porta Farm, 20 miles west of Harare, in a
general assault on that community which cost four lives. Sangano, who lives
under plastic with four grandchildren, and whose parents died from AIDS,
said she looked on in horror as the police supervised her grandson as he
knocked down the modest family house brick-by-brick with a pick
axe.
Wrecking squads first marked houses chosen for destruction with
special
paint marks. Then, after destroying dwellings that made hundreds of
thousands of people homeless, the government announced Operation Garikai
(Operation Live Well), a home-building programme that has turned out to be
an unaffordable political gimmick. Only a handful of so-called Garikai
houses, some 7000, have been built, and those few have been allocated
overwhelmingly to people with links to the corridors of power and to the
ruling party, such as minister's personal friends and relatives, soldiers,
policemen, councillors and government civil servants.
"Even the few
houses that the government has constructed are all going into
the hands of
the kith and kin of those who are in the top echelons of
power," said Itali
Zimunya of Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, which brings
together human rights
groups, churches, labour movements and student
organisations.
The
hundreds of thousands made homeless by Murambatsvina remain
homeless.
"They promised us houses but now they are sharing them amongst
themselves,"
said Sipiwe Mhere whose Whitecliff house was also destroyed
last June. She
now shelters in a shack made of plastic sheeting with her
three year-old son
and husband. Her husband's bicycle-wheeled pushcart, with
which he
transported produce to earn a meagre living for his family, was
recently
confiscated by police as an "unlicensed vehicle".
In
Epworth, another of Harare's poor suburbs, people have chosen to defy
Murambatsvina and Mugabe by constructing temporary homes on the rubble of
their smashed houses. Others have sought refugee among rock formations
outside Harare, away from the eyes of police and other officials. "We have
left our fates to God," said one resident of the caves. "Otherwise, I don't
know what will become of my family and my life in the next few
months."
While the physical impact of the operation remains clear, in the
shape of
piles of rubble that were once houses, the traumatic consequences
are
immediately less obvious. Doctors, however, say the victims could take
years
to recover from the distress of having seen their life work and
savings
destroyed in just minutes by the sledgehammers, bulldozers and
petrol
flames.
A recently published report compiled by an
international aid agency and two
civil society groups said hundreds of
thousands of Zimbabweans remain
traumatised by Murambatsvina and subsequent
events. Most need skilled
counselling, said the report, titled "An In-Depth
Study on the Impact of
Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order in
Zimbabwe".
Compiled by ActionAid International in collaboration with the
Combined
Harare Residents' Association, CHRA, and Zimbabwe Peace Project,
ZPP, it
compared the psychological effects of the assault to those in
countries in
civil wars and low intensity conflict. "The actions [by the
authorities in
Murambatsvina] resembled a war situation," said the
report.
It said the operation had interfered with the livelihoods of some
seventy
per cent of those whose homes were destroyed, while some 20,000
former small
informal traders alleged that they had been arrested during the
exercise.
One in four of those detained said they had been assaulted in
police
custody.
More than one in five children had dropped out of
school following
Murambatsvina. Families had disintegrated and lost their
livelihoods.
The report, which the government has dismissed as
propaganda, said
Murambatsvina had a serious impact on those living with HIV
and AIDS in a
country with one of the highest HIV/AIDS incidences in the
world. It said
the majority of sufferers in the areas targeted by the
operation were
removed from their medication and care, with "severe"
consequences for their
longevity and the spread of the virus.
The
57-page report, based on interviews with more than 23,000 people made
homeless, valued the total loss of property and earning at about 35 million
pounds sterling. Other experts believe the financial consequences are much
higher.
The international aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres
said that, with
winter setting in, communicable diseases, especially
tuberculosis and
cholera, are wreaking havoc among the homeless who have
little or no access
to clean water and toilets.
The Mugabe government
has refused to set up a commission of
inquiry into Murambatsvina, as
recommended in the report to Kofi Annan by
his special envoy. Anna Tibaijuka
also proposed the establishment of a
commission to prosecute those
responsible for the operation, which was
labelled "Zimbabwe's Tsunami" to
convey its speed and ferocity.
Dzikamai Chidyausiku is the pseudonym of
an IWPR contributor in Zimbabwe.
May 20, 2006
By ANDnetwork .com
PRESIDENT Mugabe has voiced concern over the
recent steep increases in
fees, saying schools should take into account that
some parents were poor
and will struggle to pay.
Speaking at a
Kutama Old Boys' Association (KOBA) fundraising lunch
in Harare yesterday,
Cde Mugabe said he had since tasked the Minister of
Education, Sport and
Culture, Cde Aeneas Chigwedere, to look into the
matter. Describing Kutama
as a model school, the President said despite its
reputation of excellence
in academic and extra-curricula activities, the
school charged affordable
fees. He said he recently paid about $25 million
for his son Tinotenda, who
is a boarder at the school, compared to the $112
million needed for his
younger son Chatunga, who is a Grade Four day scholar
at Hartmann House in
Harare. "We can pay yes, but when we think of the
ordinary person, how many
parents can afford to pay?" he said. The Education
Amendment Act, which
provides for the charging of fees and levies in line
with the Consumer Price
Index as published by the Central Statistical
Office, is now in place to
curb unjustifiably high fees. Under the Act,
every school should apply to
the Secretary of Education for approval before
raising fees or levies. Cde
Mugabe said the quality of education at Kutama
remained high as the school
employs a rigorous study and tuition programme.
The school continued to
inculcate values and virtues of honesty, courage,
industry, perseverance,
initiative, creativity and patriotism. "More
pointedly, Kutama College has
produced students who have pursued successful
professional careers in
medicine, law, engineering, teaching, nursing,
journalism, architecture,
accounting, banking, finance, economics, geology,
computers,
entrepreneurship and last, but not least, politics," the
President said. He
urged upcoming businesspeople to shun the get-rich-quick
syndrome and work
for their wealth. Cde Mugabe said some brilliant young
Zimbabweans were
ruining their careers and reputations because they wanted
to get rich
through corrupt activities and stealing depositors' money in the
case of
bankers. "If you lack good character and honesty, all that education
will
not count. People will despise you." Cde Mugabe urged young people to
emulate indigenous businessmen such as Cdes Ben Mucheche, Mike Chidziva and
Machipisa, whom he said earned their wealth through hard work. The three
were among the guests at the lunch. President Mugabe also urged former
students of some of Zimbabwe's outstanding schools to assist the
institutions refurbish and expand their facilities. He said schools such as
Waddilove, St Augustine's (Penhalonga), Hartzell, Dadaya, Tegwani, Nyadire
and Empandeni produced students who were now leaders in various sectors of
the economy and these should come together to help their former schools,
some of which were now dilapidated. The lunch was part of fundraising
activities for a target of $100 billion for the construction a two-storey
hostel to accommodate 300 boys. The expansion is expected to enable the
school - which also has pupils from South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and
Malawi - to increase its enrolment.
-Herald-
Vancouver Sun
SAFETY I
Risks can be more than personal. Mongolia has suddenly demanded
huge
resource taxes. Others threaten nationalization
Fiona Anderson, Vancouver
Sun
Published: Saturday, May 20, 2006
Ed Leonard knows first-hand the
risks of working for a mining company in a
foreign country. In 1998, the
Creston drilling foreman went to Colombia for
a job and ended up a hostage
-- for 105 days.
Leonard, who is now retired, says he knew that the
possibility of being held
for ransom by guerrillas was one of the risks of
the business.
"Everybody knew, and I knew, it was not the best place in
the world to be
working, and that you could get kidnapped there," Leonard
said in an
interview on Friday.
But the money was good, and there
wasn't much work in Canada back then, he
explained.
Safety is one
issue British Columbian companies have to consider when they
venture outside
North America. But it's not just personal safety that is at
risk. With
countries in South America increasing state control of oil
resources, and
other countries imposing unexpected taxes, companies have to
think long and
hard before they decide to spend shareholders' money in a
country that may
put people and profits in peril.
"Every country is different of course,"
Michael McPhie, president and CEO of
the Mining Association of British
Columbia, said in an interview. "But we
are seeing a number of challenges,
particularly in places like Latin and
South America, where safety has become
a major, major issue."
In South America, there have been significant
threats to the safety of
Canadian workers at mines where armed escorts were
needed to get employees
to the site, McPhie said.
Political stability
is also critical.
"If you are making a major capital commitment in excess
of $100 million . .
. you need to recognize that the world is a changing
place, and anybody that
is investing outside Canada needs to be very careful
and make sure their
investments are protected and their shareholders are
protected."
B.C. mining companies raised about $3.8 billion in financings
last year and
most of that was spent outside the province, McPhie said. In
fact, Canada is
the largest investor overseas in mining and minerals, with
investments that
stretch to "all reaches of the major metal regions of the
world," he said.
Not all countries were created equal when it comes to
investment and
personal safety. Zimbabwe is the worst place for mining
companies, according
to the Fraser Institute's annual survey on the topic.
Other trouble spots
include Papua New Guinea, DRC Congo, Venezuela, Zambia
and Bolivia,
according to the survey that looked at factors such as
government policies,
environmental regulations, political stability and
security.
Chile was the top-ranked country for mining companies outside
North America.
Before companies sink money into projects overseas they
should assess the
"above-ground risk," said Alex Turkeltaub, managing
director of
Massachusetts-based Frontier Strategy Group, which helps
companies do
exactly that.
"Any company making an investment conducts
extensive scenario planning into
where the prices of the commodities can go
just to see if the project is
economical," Turkeltaub said in an interview.
"They clearly need to do the
same thing with where the governments of host
countries can go, because it
has just as much of an impact on economic
returns from a project."
The wave of resource nationalism that started
with Venezuela taking over two
oil fields from European companies, and
spread to Bolivia and Ecuador -- who
have also taken steps to nationalize
their oil resources -- is a symptom of
what may be coming, Turkeltaub
said.
And last week, in Mongolia -- where Vancouver-based Ivanhoe Mines
Ltd. has
$370 million US invested in a copper and gold deposit -- the
parliament
introduced a new windfall profits tax that is reported to be as
high as 68
per cent.
With soaring commodity prices, governments are
eyeing a larger piece of the
pie, Turkeltaub said.
That's especially
true in the resource sector "because people feel oil and
metals are a
national patrimony," he said.
Turkeltaub expects the same nationalist
sentiment to hit Africa in the next
year or two.
"I think most mining
industry executives believe that Africa is a safe place
to be, and I think
that most of them are wrong," he said.
Vancouver-based mining giant Teck
Cominco Ltd. is currently exploring mining
possibilities in about 15
countries, and has a stake in an operating mine in
Peru. Before it takes any
steps in a foreign country, it does an
above-ground assessment, the
company's senior vice-president of environment
and corporate affairs, Doug
Horswill, said.
The extent of that assessment depends on what the company
plans to do in the
country, Horswill said.
"If it's a very
preliminary overview exploration with a short visit, or
maybe it's
reconnoitering, then we would focus on safety of personnel, and
we would
focus . . . on transparency and corruption. And if we had concerns
on either
of those fronts we probably wouldn't venture to that particular
part of the
world at all."
If Teck was looking at investments or acquisitions, then
the company would
also do a much more in-depth analysis of political trends,
Horswill said.
"Is [the country] democratizing? Is the rule of law
becoming prevalent, or
is it prevalent? Do the court systems work?" Horswill
asked.
Vancouver-based Fronteer Development Group Inc. currently has
projects in
the exploration stage in both Turkey and Mexico. Those two
countries are
fairly stable places to invest, the company's president and
CEO Mark O'Dea
said. If they weren't, Fronteer would have seriously
considered not
proceeding.
"First and foremost . . . we are led by
our geological nose," O'Dea said.
"If the project merits further
investigation, then we'll evaluate it in the
context of its geopolitical
stability. If we think the project is great but
the risk is too high from a
political risk perspective, we'll give it a
miss."
fionaanderson@png.canwest.com