epolitix.com
Published: Mon, 26 May 2003 01:00:00 UTC
Author: Craig
Hoy
Ancram warns on post-Mugabe
Zimbabwe
Michael Ancram has warned that Zimbabwe could be plunged
into a fresh crisis
once the death knell is sounded on Robert
Mugabe's
regime.
Amid growing signs that Mugabe's grip on power is
slipping, the shadow
foreign secretary said the alternative could be equally
bad for the people of
Zimbabwe.
Calling for a concerted effort to ensure elections in the
country are "free
and fair", Ancram warned that a culture of corruption and
suppression is now
endemic.
"My fear about Zimbabwe is that the end may be nigh for
Mugabe - for reasons
of nature as much as of politics - but that doesn't
mean he won't be
succeeded by someone as bad," he told
ePolitix.com.
"There are a number of lieutenants who are every bit as
bad as he is. Unless
there is a deliberate international attempt to ensure
that the elections that
follow the departure of Mugabe are properly
supervised and monitored you
could get another rigged election and another
Mugabe-style dictator coming
in."
The removal of Mugabe will not automatically secure
Zimbabwe a bright future,
the shadow foreign secretary
warned.
"He has created a corruption in that country where there
are a large number
of people who have a vested interest in keeping that
corruption going because
they are benefiting from it," said
Ancram.
"Whether or not Mugabe is coming towards the end you still
the need for an
international effort to ensure that there are free and fair
presidential
elections, properly monitored from the moment of voter
registration onwards
to ensure that the people of Zimbabwe will not re-elect
Mugabe or someone
like
Mugabe."
Challenging the prime minister to keep the diplomatic
thumb screws on, he
warned against moves towards low-key lobbying of
the
regime.
"The danger at the moment is that the world is turning
it's back on
Zimbabwe," Ancram told
ePolitix.com.
"We have had the story that Blair has been persuaded that
'quiet diplomacy'
is the way
forward.
"Quiet diplomacy basically allowed Mugabe to get to where
he is now, the
ethnic cleansing, the death by starvation, the rape camps,
the torture and
murder of opposition
members.
"We need to keep reminding the world that all of these
things are happening
in Zimbabwe."
The
Scotsman
Opposition claims top members of Mugabe's party want to
defect
JANE FIELDS IN HARARE
ZIMBABWE's opposition
leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has claimed senior ruling
party officials have
secretly asked to join his party, fuelling speculation
that President Robert
Mugabe's days in power are numbered.
"We will accept [the officials] but
they should not expect high posts and to
be treated with kid gloves when they
come to us," Mr Tsvangirai told
supporters of the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) at a rally this
weekend, according to a report in the Standard
newspaper.
Mr Tsvangirai has been addressing back-to-back rallies across
the country
over the past few weekends, ahead of street demonstrations
scheduled for
early June.
He has promised his supporters that 2003
will be "the year of freedom". Most
here are taking that to mean the end of
Mr Mugabe's 23-year stranglehold on
power, which has brought this once calm
and prosperous country to its knees.
"We will not call on [the US
president George] Bush to remove the despotic
dictator but we will do it
ourselves because it is our responsibility," Mr
Tsvangirai told thousands of
supporters at Saturday's rally in Chitungwiza,
an impoverished town just
outside Harare.
He did not name the ruling party officials who he said
had approached him
"in the Nicodemus hours of the night".
But the
claim adds to speculation that even those in power here privately
believe Mr
Mugabe's rule could soon be over.
Eyewitnesses at a rally yesterday in
Harare's Highfield suburb said Mr
Tsvangirai claimed some ruling party
officials had asked him: "What are you
going to do with us if you come into
power?"
In January this year, Mr Tsvangirai claimed he had been
approached by an
intermediary representing a top government official,
Emmerson Mnangagwa, and
the army chief Vitalis Zvinavashe over plans to form
a transitional
government and pension off Mr Mugabe.
That report was
fiercely quashed by the government. But there are signs that
the 79-year old
leader may be seriously considering stepping down.
On Thursday he hinted
that some ZANU-PF leaders were engaging "in
clandestine activities over the
issue" of who was to succeed him, the
government-run Herald said.
He
said the party leaders were "consulting traditional healers and
ancestral
spirits in search of charms".
As Zimbabwe edges closer to
meltdown, electricity and bank workers last week
joined teachers on
strike.
Parts of Harare, including the airport, were reported to be
crippled by
power cuts last week.
Employees of the Zimbabwe
Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) were ordered
to report for work yesterday
after the strike was declared illegal.
A strike last week by teachers
over pay, which left pupils in many
low-income suburbs without lessons to go
to, was also declared illegal. With
inflation now at 269 per cent, the
government is struggling to contain
popular discontent.
The Zimbabwe
dollar is said to be worth less than one cent of its value in
1990. The few
people who have money move around with briefcases and car
boots full of cash
in order to be able to pay for their purchases.
Employees of one of
Zimbabwe's biggest banks, Zimbank, have also gone on
strike.
Amid
calls for more demonstrations, city residents have begun panic-buying
what
few goods are available. Long queues formed outside banks in Harare
on
Saturday, while in shops people jostled to fill their
baskets.
Swindle As Way of Life
This Day
(Lagos)
OPINION
May 25, 2003
Posted to the web May 26,
2003
C. Don Adinuba
Lagos
Petrol has been selling in the East
for N85 per litre, instead of the
official price of N26. When a few days
after Easter I refused to pay the
illegal price the manager of a petrol
station, a suave fellow, justified his
price on the ground that every
Nigerian was lawless and fraudulent.
"Otherwise," he argued, "the president,
his party and the electoral
commission would not have declared outrageous
election results". A number of
commercial cyclists and bus drivers who had
all along been supporting me
suddenly changed position, wondering whether the
president or any governor
still had the moral authority to challenge even
criminals vandalizing
pipelines of petroleum products and public power
facilities like cables.
"Our rulers are financial and electoral marauders,"
they chorused. Nigerians
may never understand the profoundly dangerous
implications for every facet
of our national existence of the April 12 -19,
May 3 2003 general election.
Trust, convincingly established as the basis of
modern economic prosperity
and social development in every society, is now
completely eroded in
Nigeria.
Many citizens had thought that the
general election was going to offer them
an opportunity to change most state
governors, state and national
legislators and the president. If the sweeping
changes had occurred, the
ruling Peoples Democratic Party would have been the
greatest casualty. The
PDP - once described by its chairman Audu Ogbeh as "a
political rally"
because what holds members together is not a common
development vision or
ideology but the desperation for power- did what used
to obtain in Mobutu's
Zaire and Saddam's Iraq: brazen suppression of the
supreme will of the
people. For instance, in Odi, the town in Bayelsa State
where Obasanjo's
troops razed down every house and mowed down every living
thing, Obasanjo
scored over 80 per cent in the April 19 presidential
vote.
Perceptive analysts are not altogether stunned at the official
results of
the polls. There has been a massive deterioration of ethical
standards in
the Nigerian political space since 1999. For one, there have
been numerous
politically motivated murders, in addition to several communal
and religious
crises which left in their wake thousands of deaths. For
another, the
primaries which supposedly produced candidates for the 2003
general election
could not by any stretch of the imagination meet the
irreducible standards
of acceptable conduct. Yet for another, the three
conventions which the PDP
has held since Obasanjo's leadership were anything
but free and fair because
the Presidency had its own candidates. Now, if the
PDP would not hold free
and fair conventions because the presidency had
vested interests, could it
realistically be expected to conduct a general
election in which its members
were candidates, contesting against members of
rival parties?
The subversion of the people's will in the 2003 general
elections would not
have been so grand and brazen if we had not since 1999
been operating a
social order which consistently rewards perfidious acts in
the name of
playing politics. The choice of Iyiola Omisore, standing trial
for the
murder of Attorney General and Justice Minister Bola Ige, as the
PDP
senatorial candidate in Osun East made nonsense of public morality. And
the
declaration that Omisore won overwhelmingly in Ige's senatorial district
is
tantamount to debasement of reason. We can now understand why Ige's
wife
died of cardiac arrest recently and why there has been so much
abracatabra
in the murder trial.
Those asking that the nation brook
the perfidy of the recent election
"because it will not be repeated in 2007"
are in historical error. When a
number of great irregularities were observed
in 1999 by well-respected
people like former American President Jimmy Carter
and Elizabeth Blunt of
the BBC, a lot of Nigerians pleaded that we overlook
the grave errors for
sundry reasons. Little did Nigerians know that our
people's readiness to
condone social evil was to embolden the PDP government
to engage in an
electoral manipulation unknown in Nigerian history. If this
fraud should
stand, then the PDP may not bother at all to conduct the 2007
polls; it will
just declare the results.
Nigerians will, as usual, be
advised to accept the situation as an act of
God and "in the interest of our
country's peace, unity, stability and our
nascent democracy". Citizens
demanding justice and electoral integrity will
be denounced as "unpatriotic
and anti-democratic forces working with foreign
and imperial elements to
destabilize our great and beloved country. The
imperial forces must know that
Nigeria has come of age and that we have been
an independent and sovereign
nation since 1960".
Meanwhile, thousands of Nigerian traditional rulers,
academics, journalists,
contractors, clerics and others desperate for
contracts, appointments and
raw cash will be paying solidarity visits to
seats of power across the land,
describing the rulers as "God sent and
divinely ordained". Publicly-owned
media will be falling over themselves to
overpublicise each visit. We will
all be treading a familiar path. When
Ibrahim Babangida nullified the June
12 1993 presidential vote we saw all
this inelegant drama, with the Ooni of
Ife, for example, saying during prime
news on the network service of the
Nigerian Television Authority that "IBB is
talking sense". When Sani Abacha
executed Ken Saro-Wiwa, which aroused an
immense international furore, the
National Forum of Traditional Rulers and
Leaders of Thought led by Jeremiah
Useni emerged overnight, assuming even
diplomatic duties. Didn't all kinds
of Nigerians hold rallies to "persu ade"
Abacha to formally accept his
adoption by all his five "leprous" parties as
their presidential candidate?
Aren't the same characters involved in the
ongoing Obasanjo re-election
drama?
Just as Abacha had Imams and
pentecostal pastors praying at the Eagle Square
in Abuja for his
transmutation, Obasanjo has prayer warriors like Sunday
Mbang, head of the
Methodist Church, who describes the 2003 election as "the
freest and fairest
in Nigerian history" and exuberantly calls for the arrest
of the presidential
candidate of the opposition All Nigerian Peoples Party,
Muhammadu Buhari, for
contemplating mass action in protest against the
polls. Yet, the church in
the Philippines, Haiti, Poland and elsewhere has
used mass action to fight
injustice and enthrone a more humane social order.
"Some people worship me
with their lips, but their heart is far from me",
laments the Bible in Mark
chapter 7 verse 6. What would Ricardo Antonich,
the Jesuit theologian and
author of Christians In The Face of Injustice,
think of Mbang?
What is
the mindset of an archbishop who advertises himself as a democrat
but calls
for the arrest of a presidential candidate for merely exercising
his
democratic right of rejecting an election result and warning of mass
action,
a weapon heroically employed by pro-democracy campaigners to fight
Abacha?
"There cannot be democracy without democrats", declares Francis
Fukuyama in
his fascinating book, The End of History and The Last Man. Where
are the June
12 campaigners who enthusiastically argue that the action did
not spring out
of any parochial considerations but rather grew out of a deep
sense of
justice? Has justice been done since the May 12 2003 election?
Justice must
have accents in Nigeria.
Our politicians seem determined to make Nigeria
go the way of the Democratic
Republic of Congo, the second most naturally
endowed country in Africa after
South Africa, but is today in ruins on
account of the avarice and
irresponsibility of its political class. The
penchant for the subversion of
the people's will has resulted in the mess
known today as Liberia, Zimbabwe
and Cote d' Ivoire, ironically once among
the most stable and prosperous
countries on the continent. Since the PDP does
not possess the capacity to
inspire, sustain and deepen the Nigerian people's
confidence up to 2007, a
National Conference of stakeholders in the Nigerian
project is the only way
out of the present morass. It is a
desideratum.
Adinuba is head of the Nigerian Office of Discovery Public
Affairs
Consulting
Daily
News
Food insecurity worsens in
southern Zimbabwe
5/26/03 7:06:12
AM (GMT +2)
Staff
Reporter
FOOD insecurity has worsened in
the southern parts of Zimbabwe because
of poor harvests, according to the
latest report from the United
States-based Famine Early Warning Systems
Network (FEWSNET).
In its report,
FEWSNET said food security had improved in Zimbabwe's
northern and central
districts, where some households had managed to harvest
some crops this
year.
However, food insecurity had
worsened in Matabeleland and the extreme
northern Zambezi Valley districts,
where most households did not harvest
any
crops.
The FEWSNET report said:
"The relief that farming households in the
central and northern main cereal
growing districts are getting from the
2002/2003 cropping season's harvest is
not being shared by households in the
southern and extreme northern Zambezi
valley districts of the country, where
there is hardly any
harvest.
"The rural areas are solely
dependent on food assistance for
survival," the United States agency
said.
It said the impact on rural
households of inadequate harvests in the
southern parts of Zimbabwe had been
compounded by the death of up to 10
percent of the area's cattle herd, the
main source of food and draught power
in most of
Matabeleland.
Cattle herds in Matabeleland
have been hit hard by the drought that is
also partly blamed for Zimbabwe's
food insecurity, which has left close to
eight million people in need of
emergency humanitarian assistance.
Destocking by cattle producers has also contributed to the decline in
the
cattle herd.
Many large-scale cattle
producers have been forced to cut their herds
because of the uncertainty
caused by the government's controversial land
reform
programme.
Under the programme, which is
also estimated to have cut food
production by more than 50 percent in the
past two years, the government has
taken over most white-owned land to
resettle black peasants and aspiring
commercial
farmers.
Cattle deaths in the Matabeleland
region have also been blamed on
tick-borne diseases, against which farmers
are unable to protect their
livestock because of shortages of dipping
chemicals.
Most agricultural chemicals
used in Zimbabwe are imported and supplies
have been hit by the country's
severe foreign currency shortages.
Meanwhile, FEWSNET said food insecurity had also worsened in urban
areas,
with many households unable to buy maize, bread, cooking oil and
other basic
commodities.
"Urban populations remain by
and large without any large-scale food
assistance programmes, yet these
households are becoming more food insecure
as the national economic situation
depreciates further," the FEWSNET
report
said.
The Grain Marketing Board
(GMB), the sole trader in maize and wheat in
Zimbabwe, is reported to have
received insignificant maize deliveries
because most farmers are holding on
to their harvests for
household
consumption.
This has
worsened the plight of urban consumers, who rely primarily on
the GMB for
food supplies.
Zimbabwe is expected to
produce between 800 000 and 900 000 tonnes of
maize this year, less than half
the national annual requirement of two
million
tonnes.
Food experts have urged the GMB,
reeling under a $50 billion debt
accrued from rolling over grain bills since
1998, to import more maize this
year to avoid a food
crisis.
The company is however hampered by
its precarious financial position
and the hard cash shortages affecting the
country.
Most food aid programmes put in
place to feed millions of Zimbabweans
threatened with starvation because of
drought and the land reform programme
are expected to end next
month.
However, experts say Zimbabwe will
need to import food for the next
two to three years because of the severe
damage done to its agricultural
sector by the government's resettlement
programme.
Daily
News
State to ask UN agency to
extend food assistance
5/26/03
7:06:39 AM (GMT +2)
The Zimbabwean
government is to make a formal request to the United
Nations World Food
Programme (WFP) to extend emergency assistance to
millions of its citizens
facing starvation.
WFP deputy
executive director Sheila Sisulu said the results of a crop
assessment, to be
released next week by the UN's Food and Agriculture
Organisation and the WFP,
will reveal the extent of the food crisis in
the
region.
The WFP is running its
biggest relief project in Southern Africa, with
assistance being rendered to
Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique
and
Zimbabwe.
Sisulu met with Zimbabwe's
Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, July
Moyo, and officials from the
departments of Agriculture and Foreign Affairs
in Zimbabwe this
week.
"All of them were very clear that
they were going to make a request
for assistance to the WFP," Sisulu
said.
"The extent of the request will be
indicated to us in the coming week.
"We
will all be watching those figures to determine the extent of food
assistance
that is going to be required all round, specifically
in
Zimbabwe."
She said the WFP
had been preparing to move out of Zimbabwe as its
emergency intervention
period ended in June.
Zimbabwe has the
largest number of people requiring assistance, with
an estimated 7,2 million
people facing hunger due to drought and
crop
shortages.
The high prevalence of
HIV/Aids is exacerbating the problem.
Sisulu said the WFP gave assistance to the most vulnerable people. In
March,
during the height of the relief programme, the organisation provided
food aid
to five million Zimbabweans.
"We averted a
crisis in the region. If the international community had
not come to the
rescue at the time that it did, we could have had a serious
crisis," she
said, adding that although there had been rain in some areas in
dire need, it
had not broken the drought.
The WFP is
also providing relief in Ethiopia, which is facing a severe
drought, and in
Eritrea and other areas in the Horn of
Africa.
It is also planning to increase
its activities in the Democratic
Republic of Congo and the Ivory Coast, where
civil conflict has sparked a
humanitarian
crisis.
Politics had a negative impact on
people's safety and security, Sisulu
said. "If asked whether this is the case
more so in Africa, I would have to
say
yes."
Since the end of the war in Iraq the
WFP has resumed operations in
that country, using the former government's
distribution infrastructure to
provide food
aid.
"The former government of Iraq had a
very good distribution system as
a large percentage of the population was
dependent on food supplies. The war
has destabilised this but we are now
restoring the network," Sisulu said.
She
returns to the WFP's headquarters in Rome this week after spending
time with
her family in South Africa following the death of her
father-in-law, Walter
Sisulu.
Daily
News
ILO to discuss worsening
human rights in Zimbabwe
5/26/03
7:07:07 AM (GMT +2)
Staff
Reporter
THE International Labour
Organisation (ILO) will discuss the worsening
human rights situation in
Zimbabwe at its annual conference in Geneva next
month, Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions secretary-general Wellington
Chibhebhe told The Daily News
yesterday.
Chibhebhe said
Zimbabwe, which last year was heavily criticised by the
international union
movement over human rights abuses, was again on the
agenda of the ILO's 2 to
19 June meeting.
Chibhebhe said: "Zimbabwe
is certainly on the agenda because the
situation has deteriorated. There will
be a follow-up on the questions
raised and the resolutions passed last year
by the Committee on Standards.
"Certain
issues were raised, including the adherence to Convention 87,
which deals
with the freedom of association, and Convention 97, which deals
with the
right to organise."
Zimbabwe's human and
labour rights situation has deteriorated in the
last three years as President
Robert Mugabe battles to keep swelling public
discontent over his rule under
check.
Several trade union leaders have
been arrested in the past 12 months
for organising strikes by workers to
press for better living conditions.
Under the government's draconian Public
Order and Security Act (POSA),
Zimbabweans must first seek approval from the
police before they can hold a
public meeting or
protest.
The police have frequently used
POSA to break up meetings of the ZCTU
even though under the law the union can
organise meetings of its officials
or members without having authorisation by
the police.
Nine ZCTU officials were
arrested last year while attending a labour
symposium organised by the
umbrella union body. The labour officials were
charged with plotting to
overthrow the government but were released after 48
hours in custody because
the Attorney-General refused to prosecute because
of lack of
evidence.
International labour leaders
have also not been spared harsh treatment
by the government with some of them
refused entry into the country. Last
Friday Commonwealth Trade Union Council
director Annie Watson was saved from
deportation at the last minute after the
ZCTU pointed out to the government
the potential political damage of such a
move.
In the farming sector, once the
biggest employer in the country, an
estimated 300 000 workers have lost their
jobs after the government seized
farms from white farmers who employed
them.
The workers have been left out of
the government's land reforms under
which it is ostensibly redistributing the
farms to landless black peasants.
Chibhebhe said the government was also supposed to have sent a copy of
its
new Labour Relations Amendment Bill to the ILO before passing it into
law but
he said it was not clear whether that had been done. The new Labour
Relations
Amendment Act limits workers' right to industrial
action.
Meanwhile, the ruling ZANU PF
party-linked Zimbabwe Federation of
Trade Unions (ZFTU) says it will also
attend the ILO annual conference.
The
ZFTU, which is led by ZANU PF official and war veteran Joseph
Chinotimba, is
viewed by many as a government creation intended to weaken
the
ZCTU.
Daily
News
MDC has prepared groundwork
for mass demos
5/26/03 7:07:49 AM
(GMT +2)
By Margaret Chinowaita Staff
Reporter
MOVEMENT for Democratic Change
(MDC) officials yesterday told The
Daily News that the party had already
finished the groundwork for the mass
demonstrations planned for next
month.
They said the week of prayer
called by party leader Morgan Tsvangirai
yesterday was a last-minute move to
psychologically prepare Zimbabweans for
the unprecedented march against
Mugabe. "The mass action is scheduled to
start around 2 June unless there are
major changes to the plan," one MDC
official
said.
Tsvangirai urged his supporters to
pray for the next four days in
preparation for final confrontation with
President Robert Mugabe.
The main
opposition leader, who has been touring the country readying
his supporters
for what he terms the "final push" against Mugabe, told about
15 000 MDC
supporters at Zimbabwe Grounds in Harare's Highfield high-density
suburb to
hold prayers every lunch hour from tomorrow up to
Friday.
He said the dates for the mass
demonstrations, to force Mugabe out of
, would be announced at the end of the
prayer week. The anti-Mugabe
demonstrations would simultaneously take place
in every town and city, he
said.
Tsvangirai said: "This week will be a week of prayer in preparation
for the
demonstration. You will be preparing for a democracy march which
will take
place in every town.
"We will inform you
how the demonstration will be held through the
local party
structures."
Analysts have warned that any
opposition march on State House is
likely to meet with stiff resistance from
Zimbabwe's army which is loyal to
the ageing
leader.
Veterans of the liberation war
that was led by Mugabe have vowed to
use military force to crush any attempts
by MDC supporters to march on
State
House.
Tsvangirai yesterday
called on his followers to be courageous.
He said: "There is no room for cowards where we are going, each and
every one
of us should participate in this final push. This time it is a
test on you.
There is no liberation that is brought about by the leaders, it
is brought
about by you the people."
Tsvangirai told
his supporters to be peaceful during the planned mass
demonstrations, which
he said would not be called off until Mugabe
resigned.
Daily
News
Leader Page
A
refreshing signal
5/26/03 7:15:35
AM (GMT +2)
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's
invitation to members of his ruling ZANU PF
to openly discuss his successor
as leader of the party is a refreshing
signal that the President might be
ready to pass on the baton to someone
younger and with fresh ideas for
resolving Zimbabwe's worsening economic,
political and social
crises.
Broaching a subject that
has in the past been taboo within ZANU PF and
the government, Mugabe last
week told supporters at Mt Darwin in Mashonaland
Central province: "The issue
of my successor must be debated openly,
although I would urge you not to
allow it to create divisions within
the
party."
Mugabe repeated the call
for open debate on his successor at another
ZANU PF rally held near Marondera
city two days later.
No doubt most
Zimbabweans, and that includes hundreds of thousands of
supporters of ZANU
PF, agree with Mugabe that after 23 years at the helm, it
is time he took a
rest from active politics.
Not least
because the nation has realised that he might no longer have
the ideas needed
to marshal the country and even his own ZANU PF
party
forward.
It is important that now
that he has indicated his readiness for the
succession issue to be discussed
freely that Mugabe go a step further and
muster the courage to tell the
nation when exactly he intends to step
down.
Before he actually steps down,
however, he must set aside his burning
antipathy towards Zimbabwe's main
opposition party, the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), and finally sit
down at a negotiating table with
MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
It is crucial for the
resolution of the Zimbabwe crisis that Mugabe
and Tsvangirai put their heads
together to plot a way out of the country's
political impasse. This is
necessary if the government is serious about
stopping the country's economic
meltdown.
Even Mugabe must realise that no
matter how able his successor, he or
she will not be able to put Zimbabwe's
economy back on the path to recovery
if there is no political settlement
between the government and the main
opposition
party.
Before he goes, the President
should also address the concerns of the
international community, to encourage
the release of aid and balance of
payments support withheld in protest
against his government's policies.
As he
prepares for his departure, Mugabe could now move to stamp out
lawlessness,
political violence and human rights abuses, to name only a few
of the
international community's concerns.
Mugabe
should do all the above even if only because he does not want
to leave as his
legacy a crumbling economy and hopelessly divided
nation.
Those wishing to take over from
Mugabe in ZANU PF and in the
government should, as their leader is urging
them, come out openly to
declare their intentions in the best interests of
the nation.
Zimbabweans should be able to
judge for themselves the calibre of
potential future
leaders.
Clandestine and divisive
machinations aimed at placing one ahead of
the others in the race for the top
job are destructive, not only to ZANU PF,
but the country as a
whole.
ZANU PF may lose power one day but
the party must remain a strong and
organised political
organisation.
It would be a debilitating
setback for the bigger struggle for
democracy in Zimbabwe if the ruling party
was to be sacrificed and destroyed
because of unbridled ambition by a few
individuals within the party.
ZANU PF's
own performance as an unrivalled political power for 19
years, until the
formation of the MDC in 1999, should be a salutary lesson
to all Zimbabweans
that never again must they allow one man or group, no
matter how well
intentioned, to dominate their lives without
challenge.
Daily
News
Leader Page
Party
politics, not skin colour, to blame for
crisis
5/26/03 7:17:25 AM (GMT
+2)
By Cathy
Buckle
Many years ago there used to be a
small establishment in Marondera
called The Three Monkeys
Inn.
This pub has long since gone,
but the image it brought to mind of the
famous three wise monkeys is never
more apt than today. Picture three
monkeys sitting side by side. The first
has its hands over its mouth, this
primate speaks no
evil.
The second has its hands over its
ears and is the monkey that hears
no
evil.
The third covers its eyes with
its fingers and this monkey sees
no
evil.
I am sure we could all find
human forms to fill the places of the
three monkeys who see, speak and hear
no evil.
Perhaps one should be Nigerian
Foreign Minister Sule Lamido after his
recent unbelievable pronouncements in
London at the closing of the
Commonwealth ministers' meeting which again
maintained Zimbabwe's suspension
from the
Commonwealth.
Lamido said: "I find people
are so patronising about their concern for
the welfare of the people in
Zimbabwe. It should be seen from the
perspective of the African
people."
Whilst he does not mention the
colour of the African people's skin, we
assume that Lamido means that the
issues in Zimbabwe should be seen from the
perspective of black people in our
country.
What an insult and a tragedy that
after 39 months of mayhem in
Zimbabwe someone as supposedly well informed and
important as the Nigerian
Foreign Minister cannot see just exactly who is
suffering now in Zimbabwe.
There are
eleven and a half million people in Zimbabwe and a generous
estimate as to
how many white-skinned people still live here is perhaps 30
000 or 40
000.
White people make up less than one
half of 1 percent of our population
and yet Lamido has the gall to say that
the problems should be seen from the
perspective of African people. We do see
the problems from that perspective,
Sir, the problem is that you don't, or
won't.
When the ZANU PF government seized
95 percent of the country's farms
they made 4 000 white farmers homeless and
jobless. This is a minute drop in
a huge ocean when compared to the 300 000
black farm workers who were made
homeless, jobless and destitute by the land
grab.
In a recent government-initiated
audit of who is now running Zimbabwe'
s farms, the names were a who's who in
Zimbabwe and included everyone from
ministers to army and police chiefs and
senior ZANU PF officials. So which
perspective do you see this from, Lamido,
a black one or a ZANU PF one?
Well over
200 people have died violent deaths in the past three years
and their
murderers still walk free to this day. Of those 200 people, less
than 15 had
white skins and less than another 15 belonged to the ruling ZANU
PF party. So
which perspective do you see from these statistics, Lamido,
black or
white?
Over three million people have fled
Zimbabwe in the last 39 months and
are now economic or political refugees
living in other countries.
Ninety-five
percent of the people who have left home are black
Africans who were unable
to survive here and unwilling to live in a country
where there is no freedom
of speech, movement or association.
In
2002 the World Food Programme fed eight million starving
Zimbabweans and this
year, if and when our government gets round to
admitting that we haven't got
anything to eat again, the world will feed 7,6
million black
Zimbabweans.
This isn't about black and
white, Lamido, it never has been - it's
about the survival of a political
party and you, along with other African
leaders, are doing a great disservice
to the people of Zimbabwe and your
black brothers and
sisters.
As long as you continue to see
the crisis in Zimbabwe, which is
destabilising the entire sub-continent, as a
matter of skin colour, the more
people will suffer and
die.
Any fool can use skin colour as a
scapegoat to explain away the issues
in Zimbabwe, but it takes men of vision,
of courage and who have a genuine
compassion for humanity, to open their eyes
and see for themselves who the
real losers are
here.
There is only one perspective to see
the death of Zimbabwe from, and
that is party politics and not skin colour.
There are none so blind as those
who will not
see.
Cathy Buckle is a housewife based in
Marondera
Daily
News
Harare needs extra $60bn due
to rising costs
5/26/03 7:07:02
AM (GMT +2)
By Chris Goko Business
Reporter
THE Harare City Council urgently
requires about $60 billion to meet
cash shortfalls caused by escalating
prices of commodities and materials
required by the municipality and the high
cost of foreign currency required
to pay foreign suppliers of water
reticulation chemicals.
Town House
spokesman Cuthbert Rwazemba said the council had set aside
$33 billion for
expenditure this year but escalating costs had left the city
needing an extra
$59,5 billion which residents must
provide.
Rwazemba said for instance, the
cost of water treatment chemicals had
increased about 15 times since the
beginning of the year.
He said: "Water
treatment chemicals are largely imported and as such
this has the effect of
increasing the cost purification of water by 15 times
from the budgeted $2,5
billion to $27,5 billion."
Inflation which
surged to a record high of 269,2 percent last month
had eaten into council
coffers while the Zimbabwe dollar's fall by 1 398
percent against major
currencies such as the United States of America dollar
had not helped matters
for the council treasury.
Rwazemba said
the council had not yet made a final decision on how to
raise the additional
money because it was still to consult residents and
other
stakeholders.
He said Town House had for
the time being resolved to implement a
number of cost-cutting measures
including tightening allocations of fuel to
council staff, recycling of paper
and forging of partnerships as well as
out-sourcing non-core business and
activities.
The council will also step up
efforts to collect all outstanding
rates, rent and other charges from
residents with plans to enforce payment
through
litigation.
Herald
Zim, 150 others ban
tobacco advertisements
From Bulawayo Bureau
Zimbabwe, along
with more than 150 other countries in the world has banned
tobacco
advertising in an effort to discourage smoking, the Minister of
Health and
Child Welfare Dr David Parirenyatwa has said.
Dr Parirenyatwa told our
Bulawayo Bureau from Geneva, Switzerland, where he
is attending the World
Health Assembly, that the countries have signed a
convention banning tobacco
advertisements in a bid to discourage smoking,
particularly among the
youths.
Although tobacco industry officials were not available for
comment yesterday
analysts said the move would adversely affect the
industry.
Dr Parirenyatwa said the convention was binding and all
signatory countries
were expected to honour it.
He said it had been
discovered that the adverts encourage smoking, which has
resulted in millions
of deaths in the world.
"We (The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare)
are going to hold a meeting
next week with various stakeholders in the
tobacco industry (in Zimbabwe) to
chart the way forward following the ban of
the adverts since tobacco is the
largest foreign currency earner in the
country,'' he said.
According to the World Health Organisation, 3,5
million people die annually
worldwide from tobacco-related diseases and this
figure is expected to
increase to 10 million by 2020.
About 70 percent
of the deaths are expected to be in developing countries.
WHO has blamed
the rise in tobacco-related deaths on weak action by
governments,
international trade and cheap tobacco prices.
Statistics compiled by the
United Nations Children's Fund showed that the
number of children who smoke
is now greater than before.
A survey conducted by the organisation showed
that out of 1 358 secondary
school pupils who participated in the survey, 23
percent had smoked while
36,6 percent of those who had never smoked were
likely to start smoking the
following year.
According to WHO, research
has shown that pregnant women who smoke risk
giving birth to mentally
retarded children or small babies.
Children who are exposed to tobacco
smoke usually suffer from respiratory
diseases such as asthma attacks and
sudden infant death syndrome.
Smoking also causes diseases of the heart
and circulation, diseases of lungs
and the stomach in particular ulcers and
cancers of the mouth and bladder,
eye irritation, sore throat, cough and
headache.
Organisations such as the Rehabilitation and Prevention of
Tuberculosis and
WHO have always been advocating a smoking ban in public
places.
In Zimbabwe, the Government banned smoking in public transport
vehicles,
trains, planes and eating places in October last year.
Dr
Parirenyatwa said the summit also encouraged health ministers to
discourage
smoking among the youths and pregnant women.
Business
Report
Zimbabweans stock up ahead of likely stayaway
May 26, 2003
By Sapa-AFP
Harare - Banks in central
Harare were faced with long queues on Saturday amid fears that more general
strikes might soon be called and reports that banks were limiting cash
withdrawals.
Journalists reported at the weekend that many people were
waiting outside cash machines in Harare's main First Street and surrounding
areas.
A three-day work stoppage last month left banks and customers
struggling for cash and the situation appeared to have worsened since, with
official media reporting that the central bank no longer had the necessary
foreign currency to buy the materials needed to print new notes.
The
state-owned Herald newspaper on Saturday reported that cash shortages had
resurfaced at "most banks in Harare".
"Now we can't even get our money
when we need it," the paper quoted one would-be customer as saying
.
The newspaper said customers were only being allowed to withdraw a
maximum of up to Z$20 000.
Zimbabweans are struggling under shortages of
many basic goods, including foodstuff and fuel, while year-on-year inflation
last month topped 269 percent.
Today is a public holiday in Zimbabwe and
there have been reports that there could be more protests soon, although the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change has set no definite date.
The
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions last week advised people to stock up on
provisions and to keep money aside for a possible indefinite job stayaway.
Military veterans are reportedly mobilising to crush any
strike.
Daily News
Letters
Accurate reporting yes, but
don’t intimidate the suffering people
5/26/03 7:09:52 AM (GMT
+2)
YOUR front-page headline on 23 May War vets vow to crush
mass action is intended to intimidate the populace and it seems that The Daily
News, with its various editorial changes made recently, is tending to lean
towards the government line.
This is a very clever move by our very
confidential Security Ministry, headed by Nicholas Goche.
There has even
been a big “act” by Jonathan Moyo about penalising the journalists who were
registered with a different newspaper and have now changed stables. This is to
make it seem that he is angry but underneath, he is rubbing his hands with glee.
A previous announcement in The Daily News gave the first hint some
months ago when there was a headline to the effect that Morgan Tsvangirai had
been grilled at a meeting held in the northern suburbs by his supporters.
There was never a public apology made for it, but there was an admission
that there was an error made and that there was to be an investigation into the
matter.
People appreciate accurate reporting, but do we need to
intimidate the people who are suffering so much these days at the hands of a
ruthless government?
Maybe the Americans and British should make a
counter threat.
What will Thabo Mbeki do about it if he has anarchy on
his doorstep? Nothing I guess . . . maybe he will reiterate his favourite
saying: “The people of Zimbabwe must sort out their own problems.”
Support the Suffering Harare