ABC News
United States recalls peace corps workers from
Zimbabwe
The Associated Press
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) The
United States recalled Peace Corps workers from
Zimbabwe on Thursday after
the government refused to issue work permits for
its most recent
volunteers.
The Zimbabwean government's refusal to issue the permits follows
a series of
moves scaling back the presence of international workers in the
southern
African country.
Last week, Information Minister Jonathan
Moyo said foreign workers would no
longer be allowed to distribute food aid,
saying international organizations
should not "interfere in the political
affairs of our country."
The government also said recently that monitors
from abroad would not be
allowed to observe next year's scheduled
elections.
The 43 Peace Corps volunteers in Zimbabwe had been teaching
math and science
in poor urban neighborhoods and on AIDS prevention projects.
They are to
leave within a week, U.S. Embassy spokesman Bruce Wharton said in
Harare.
The decision was made after 13 recent arrivals were refused work
permits
with no explanation, Wharton said. There was no immediate comment
from the
government.
President Robert Mugabe has accused the United
States and Britain of
sponsoring opposition to his plans to redistribute
5,000 white-owned farms
to landless blacks without paying compensation to the
farmers.
Scores of farmers and opposition supporters have died since
political
violence erupted in rural areas last year over the issue of
land
redistribution.
CNN
U.N. eyes Zimbabwe land reforms
November 15, 2001 Posted: 12:33 PM
EST (1733 GMT)
ARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) -- A U.N. team arrived in
Zimbabwe on Thursday to
try to speed up an internationally agreed land reform
programme that has
largely stalled as a defiant President Robert Mugabe steps
up his seizure of
white-owned farms.
The team is in Harare to produce
an alternative to Mugabe's controversial
farm seizure programme, which has
led to farm invasions by militants, hurt
agricultural production and
contributed to food shortages.
Political analysts and diplomats, however,
doubt that Mugabe will accept any
United Nations proposals that are contrary
to his political aims.
Mugabe says he is seizing white-owned farms for
redistribution to landless
blacks, but critics accuse him of using the land
issue to win votes ahead of
presidential elections due by next
April.
Local farmers say Mugabe's government has failed to honour a pact
brokered
in Abuja, Nigeria, in September under which it pledged to implement
fair and
orderly land reform in exchange for funding by former colonial
power
Britain.
Last week, Mugabe stepped up his land seizure programme
by using his
presidential powers to amend the land law, enabling the state to
seize farms
despite owners' legal challenges.
Mugabe says some 4,500
white farmers occupy 70 percent of Zimbabwe's best
farmland. He wants to
seize at least 8.3 million hectares of the 12 million
in white
hands.
The U.N. team is due to meet Zimbabwe Foreign Minister Stan
Mudenge,
Agriculture Minister Joseph Made and other ministers later on
Thursday as
part of their three-week mission.
Victor Angelo, the
UNDP's resident representative in Harare, said the team
would review the
government's "fast-track" scheme to resettle blacks on
white-owned farms and
calculate the cost of a new land reform programme.
Commonwealth
ministers, on a visit to Zimbabwe last month, said Mugabe had
done little to
honour the Nigerian-brokered accord, though they felt the
process was still
on track.
"Mugabe has paid lip service to the Abuja agreement. (He) is
showing on the
ground by his actions that he is determined to continue with
his own
programme," said Brian Raftopoulos of Zimbabwe's Institute of
Development
Studies.
"The UNDP people might come with a very workable
plan that meets the need
for social justice, equitable land distribution,
poverty alleviation and
economic development, but Mugabe chose the programme
he has for election
purposes," Raftopoulos said.
"I don't see how that
can change before the elections," he added.
Mugabe faces an unprecedented
challenge to his 21-year-old rule from
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in
next year's poll. Tsvangirai heads
the Movement for Democratic Change, which
nearly beat Mugabe's ZANU-PF party
in parliamentary elections in June
2000.
Third Force Emerges At Doha Conference
Accra Mail (Accra)
November
15, 2001
Posted to the web November 14, 2001
G.B.
Osei-Antwi
A "Third Force Group" comprising some ministers from
developing and
least-developed countries has emerged at the World Trade
Organisation (WTO)
Doha Conference and are putting pressure for the inclusion
of a dramatic new
approach to trade.
The Ministers from Cuba,
Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras,
Kenya, Nicaragua, Nigeria,
Pakistan, Peru, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Uganda and
Zimbabwe are demanding a
pro-poor approach on agriculture, which is among
the most contentious issues
at the conference.
These issues have been brought together in the
proposal for a "Development
Box". They want measures to protect small-scale
farmers in developing
countries from floods of subsidised imports from the
European Union (EU) and
the US to be included in any new trade talks in the
Fourth Ministerial
Conference in Doha.
Mr Duncan Green, Trade Policy
Analyst of Cadfod, a British non-governmental
organisation (NGO), who had
worked along side developing countries
delegations told journalists on Sunday
that the rich countries currently
spent one billion dollars a day to
subsidise farmers, which in turn led to
cheap products being dumped on
developing countries, destroying the
livelihood of farmers.
He said
"the Development Box" was exciting and innovative because it was a
genuine
attempt to make trade laws work for the poor, adding that it
responded to
what was seen in some 80 countries where the devastation to
farmers was
caused by the dumping of cheap exports from the North. It also
stood in
contrast to the empty rhetoric coming from the EU.
This was a genuine
Third Force in the WTO, Mr Green said, pointing out that
Friends of
Development Box asked for the inclusion of the initiative in the
draft
ministerial report but were ignored.
"They have not given up and today
promised to redouble their efforts to win
recognition for the idea," he
said.
Mr Abdul Razak Dawood, Minister of Trade of Pakistan in an
interview said
"the impact of unfair agricultural trade has been devastating
for our small
farmers. We have formed the Friends of Development Box as a
Third Force in
agriculture negotiations and will fight for the Development
Box to be a core
component of agreement in agriculture, for we need
flexibility to take
measures to protect our rural poor".Mr Edward Rugumayo,
Minister of
Agriculture in Uganda, said the issue was the influx of food
imports - the
result of unfair practices in the developed countries, which
need a two
pronged approach, raising tariffs on food imports, while we
negotiate with
the developed countries for the phased removal of their
subsidies.
ZIMBABWE: AIDS groups accuse government of ''playing
politics''
JOHANNESBURG, 15 November (IRIN) - AIDS groups in Zimbabwe
this week condemned a "political" decision by the government to transfer control
over money from a national AIDS fund to ruling party-run district councils,
activists told IRIN.
The cabinet announced last week that the
disbursement of money from the AIDS Trust Fund to independent village AIDS
committees had been suspended because the groups could not be trusted to handle
the large sums involved, the 'Financial Gazette' reported on Thursday. The
ministers said funds would instead be channelled through government structures
and ZANU-PF controlled rural and ditrict councils.
Dr Frank Guni,
director of the Zimbabwe Network of People living with HIV/AIDS and a member of
the National AIDS Council (NAC) board, told IRIN that these local administrative
councils had a poor track record in handling money from the Fund. Guni said he
could not rule out political motives behind putting funds under their control,
in the light of presidential elections due early next year.
NAC convened
an urgent meeting with the cabinet's Social Services Committee on Wednesday, and
the cabinet's decision to suspend disbursement was subsequently withdrawn, Guni
said. But he added that the committee insisted that the money was state property
and they didn't want "state funds in the hands of people they cannot control".
"The Network of People living with HIV/AIDS has made it very clear that
we find this unacceptable. We have told the government that we can't wait for
their politics while people are dying on the ground," said Guni. In an attempt
to make the process more transparent, NAC suggested that the rural councils open
a separate bank account for AIDS funds. It also recommended that the minister of
local government be involved in the disbursement, to make government accountable
for the money.
Despite a lack of evidence proving the government's misuse
of the AIDS Fund, Guni cited the recent example of the minister of health's
disbursement of US $375,000 from the Fund without NAC approval.
NAC is a
special entity created by government and it is the only body charged with the
distribution of money from the AIDS Fund. "This was clearly a political move,
because the people thought the money was coming from the government, instead of
from the AIDS levy," said Guni
The AIDS Trust Fund was created last year
after the government imposed a three percent AIDS levy on personal and corporate
income. In March, the government dissolved the NAC, after deciding that the
agency "did not have the legal authority to manage the trust".
Some
accused the government of "playing politics," saying that the agency's board was
disbanded because the chair was a member of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC).
Fingaz
ZANU PF turns to AIDS levy to buy votes
11/15/01
9:17:45 PM (GMT +2)
FEARS have been expressed that the government plans
to tap into the
remainder of the $1.8 billion raised through the AIDS levy
this year to
boost President Robert Mugabe's re-election campaign next year
by using ZANU
PF district councils to selectively disburse the money to
entice votes.
The Cabinet last week said it was suspending the
disbursement of millions of
dollars to 80 district "AIDS action committees"
run by villagers because, it
said, the voluntary groups could not be trusted
to handle the huge sums
involved.
In a surprise announcement, the
Cabinet said it had cancelled all pending
disbursements to the committees and
would in future send the money through
government structures such as rural
and district councils, almost all under
the control of ZANU
PF.
Political analysts this week said the Cabinet's decision showed
that
Mugabe's cash-strapped administration was desperate for money for
his
re-election campaign estimated to cost more than $200 million and now
eyed
the National AIDS Trust Fund.
The fund had about $1.8 billion
before it disbursed $265 million last month
and is funded through income
taxes. It was introduced last year.
Eliphas Mukonoweshuro, a University
of Zimbabwe political science lecturer,
said it was clear that the money for
AIDS sufferers and their dependants
could be diverted to Mugabe's
presidential campaign.
"There are very genuine fears that political
considerations and affiliations
will now play a major role on who is going to
get the assistance from the
AIDS levy and who is not," Mukonoweshuro
said.
He said what was even more worrying was that the government wanted
to
entrust such huge sums of money to corrupt rural and district
councils,
which are notorious for not keeping proper books of
accounts.
"The accounts of most of these rural and district councils have
been in a
shambles for a long time and many of them have gone for years
without
producing properly audited books of accounts," he noted.
AIDS
activists and lobbyists also blasted the government's move, saying it
was
unconstitutional and suspicious.
"The truth of the matter is that the
infrastructure they want to use is ZANU
PF . . . they want this money to go
to rural councils which are really
political organs," said Norman Nyazema, a
leading researcher on HIV and AIDS
in Zimbabwe.
Nyazema urged
communities to resist the move by insisting that only AIDS
service
organisations registered by the Zimbabwe AIDS Network should
disburse the
money.
Dr Frank Guni, the director of the Zimbabwe Network of People
Living
Positively with HIV/AIDS (ZNNP+), said he could not rule out the
possibility
that the AIDS levy could be diverted into politics.
"The
onus is on us as people living with AIDS to see that the funds are
coming to
us. The potential for this money being used for political gain is
definitely
there," he said.
Guni said his organisation had lobbied for proper
structures to handle the
money from the levy after it realised that many of
the action committees
lacked members with adequate financial
skills.
He said the Cabinet's decision to freeze the disbursement
was
unconstitutional because it infringed the National AIDS Council
Act.
"The Cabinet has no legal authority to freeze this money. All they
can do is
to propose to NAC and the NAC board has a minimum of 30 days to
give its
views to President Mugabe, who can then make a decision," said Guni,
who
also sits on the NAC board.
Evaristo Marowa, the director of NAC,
said the need to involve rural,
district and urban councils in the
disbursement of proceeds from the AIDS
levy was to utilise existing
structures with "tested" mechanisms and
resources.
He said the
district Aids action committees were still expected to present
their plan of
action that would be approved by NAC while the disbursement of
the funds
would be done jointly with the councils. - Staff Reporter
I am sure most of you are aware that Simon Spooner has been arrested and
is
in custody despite having his constitutional right to legal advise
being
refused. This is an appeal to all Zimbabweans, that if you have had
any
contact with Simon between 1 November and 12 November in any way
i.e.
social, business, vocal etc, PLEASE PROVIDE THIS CRITICAL DETAIL AND
FORWARD
IT TO mdpa@chematek.co.zw
We want to prove that there is absolutely no way
Simon was or could have been
involved in this crime.
Simon has been accused of involvement in the
murder of two ZANU PF
officials. We all know that this is a total
fabrication and we need to
prove to the courts that Simon was not involved.
THE NATION DOES KNOW WHO
THE PERPETRATORS ARE!!!!!
Please no matter
how trivial your information may be, forward it to the
above email
address.
WE WANT TO PROVE IF NECESSARY THAT SIMON WAS NOT INVOLVED. THE
TRUE
CULPRITS MUST BE BROUGHT TO BOOK.
FROM SIMON'S TEAM
Nudging
Mugabe
HAS the time come for the international community to slap "smart"
sanctions
on Zimbabwe?
The issue has been a subject of much public
discussion since Monday, when
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC),
raised it at an SA Institute of International
Affairs conference.
Reeling from Mugabe's growing harassment of the
opposition ahead of next
year's crucial presidential elections, Tsvangirai
called on SA to consider
targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe's political
leadership including travel
bans and the freezing of assets belonging to
senior government and ruling
Zanu (PF) officials.
Many people will
agree with Tsvangirai that the time has indeed come for the
hand-wringing
international community to help stop Zimbabwe from imploding.
The difficult
part, though, is how this can be done without worsening
the
crisis.
The option of imposing comprehensive sanctions against
Harare has already
been rejected by both the MDC and the Southern African
Development
Community. They argue this would hit ordinary Zimbabweans the
hardest. There
is also no unanimous endorsement in the region of the
desirability and
effectiveness of smart sanctions. And it is easy to
understand why.
While targeted sanctions, would make it clear to Mugabe
that the region and
the wider international community is sick of him, they
would not stop him.
They may also close existing channels of communication
with Harare and work
to the disadvantage of the opposition and democracy in
the country.
The fact is that Mugabe and his government have become
increasingly reckless
and do not care much about international opinion,
particularly western
opinion. Anyway, there is no guaranteeing that African
leaders are ready to
take these kinds of measures against
Harare.
There is one opportunity available to the SADC and the west to
nudge Harare
towards upholding the rule of law in the country and holding
relatively free
and fair presidential elections next year, and that is the
critical shortage
of food in the country a tool that Mugabe has used in the
past to garner
votes. Without adequate food supplies, Mugabe's hold on the
rural
constituency, which has relied on the state in drought and other
difficult
times, becomes shaky.
Outsiders might consider using
offering food aid, but only on the condition
that this is not used for
vote-catching and that nongovernmental
organisations and African governments
will help distribute it; that Mugabe
upholds the rule of law in the country,
and that, crucially, he invites
observers to witness the presidential
elections which must be held by the
end of March 2002.
SA, as the
country with the most to lose from an imploding Zimbabwe, should
ensure that
the opposition has as fair a chance as Zanu (PF) in the
elections.
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 15 2001
Leading article
Meanwhile, far
away
Robert Mugabe must not be left to pervert justice
unhindered
Robert Mugabe has added insult to injury with his latest move
in a
controversial campaign to kick the remaining 4,500 white farmers working
in
his country off their land. Through a presidential decree, he
amended
Zimbabwe’s Land Act to let the Government ignore protest from the
courts
while it seizes commercial farmland and redistributes it to landless
blacks.
About 1,000 farmers, whose land is earmarked for redistribution, are
now
under orders to stop using the land at once and quit their homes in
three
months. After more than a year of violent land grabs by hoodlums known
as
“war veterans”, the demoralised farmers are in no mood to resist; many
have
begun dismantling equipment and preparing to retreat.
The President’s
justification is that white farmers who have been told to
quit their farms --
on the ground that their ancestors stole it more than a
century ago, at the
start of colonial rule, from the black population -- had
until last weekend
been frustrating his plans by appealing against eviction
orders in court.
These legal challenges to his wishes, Mr Mugabe says,
amounted to “abuse” of
Zimbabwe’s judicial system.
Yet Mr Mugabe’s own action is the most
flagrant abuse imaginable of legal,
governmental and moral norms. When power
was first transferred to Zimbabwe’s
black majority at independence,
international negotiators agreed that
property rights were to be sacrosanct
and there would be no forcible
eviction of whites from their homes. That
principle has been gradually
whittled away in the two decades of Mr Mugabe’s
rule, as the President has
encouraged or allowed ever more dubious and
forceful transfers of ownership,
culminating in the war veterans’
seizures.
He has had more than 20 years to forget this commitment; but
there is no
excuse for Mr Mugabe not to remember the compromise deal on land
reform that
the Zimbabwean Government agreed to honour just two months ago.
Brokered in
Nigeria last September, it committed Harare to implement a fair
and orderly
land reform in exchange for funding from Britain, Zimbabwe’s
colonial power
until the end of the 1970s. Unscrupulously, the Zimbabwean
leader has taken
advantage of the international shock caused by the September
11 attack on
America, which has deflected attention from his misdeeds, and
used his
chance to ignore his obligations.
Mr Mugabe’s goal in this
apparently suicidal campaign, which is inflicting
severe damage on the
economy, is the simple, selfish one of preserving his
own power. He needs
peasant support in next year’s presidential election if
he is to beat a
serious challenge from the middle-class, urban Movement for
Democratic Change
(MDC) and its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. Aggressive
populism in land reform
is just one weapon in his arsenal. Independent
analysts charting the
worsening rifts in Zimbabwean society believe the
President may also stoop to
outright cheating. Distracted though foreign
governments may be by dramatic
events in other parts of the world, they must
make time now to condemn the
abuses of power in Zimbabwe that a leader who
shames the designation of
democrat is perpetrating.
Altering Act Not Constitutional'
Business Day
(Johannesburg)
November 15, 2001
Posted to the web November 15,
2001
Dumisani Muleya
ZIMBABWEAN legal experts have dismissed
as unconstitutional the arbitrary
amendment of the Land Acquisition Act by
President Robert Mugabe, giving his
government the right to acquire farms
without following due legal process.
Prominent lawyers said statutory
instrument 338 of 2001, gazetted last
Friday through the Presidential Powers
(Temporary Measures) Act to allow
government to allocate land without giving
the owners the right to contest
the seizures, violated fundamental rights in
the constitution.
The Bar Association of Zimbabwe's chairman, advocate
Adrian de Bourbon, said
the measure, enacted in terms of Mugabe's
discretionary powers, was
unlawful.
"I believe it is subject to
challenge because it certainly amounts to a
breach of section 16 and section
18 of the constitution," De Bourbon said.
"It can also be challenged as
an abuse of the presidential powers."
Sections 16 and 18 of the
constitution deal, respectively, with the rights
to property and equal access
to the law.
The controversial revision empowers government to start
resettlement
immediately after issuing an acquisition order.
It allows
government the right to ownership of the land, surveying,
demarcation and
allocation immediately after serving notice to the farmers.
A fine of
Z20000 or a jail term of two years or both can be imposed on those
found
guilty of interfering with land seizures. Once an acquisition order
has been
served on the farm owner, he will get a three-month notice to
vacate without
contest, or face eviction.
The amendment was backdated to May 23 last
year. Zimbabwe's government has
been making backdated laws to cover illegal
aspects of its land reform
programme.
Stop Mugabe Using Grain for Gain
Business Day
(Johannesburg)
OPINION
November 15, 2001
Posted to the web November
15, 2001
Norman Reynolds
Spectre of famine can be averted, but
Zanu (PF) must accept conditional food
aid
SIX months ago I wrote in
these columns that, "Mugabe may well use food in
state hands to wreak
additional havoc on society by distribution through the
party, the so-called
war veterans and the nefarious secret service. He
undoubtedly will use that
power over life and death to elicit party support
and commitments to vote for
him.
"The logic states that he need only control enough food to feed 51%
of the
population. The rest would have no party-determined right to eat and
no
means to buy it. The scope for famine is enormous."
For six months
the international and the regional community has sought to
bring Mugabe back
from despotic rule but to no effect.
Since May he has nationalised the
grain trade and this week he banned all
other parties, notably
nongovernmental organisations and churches, from
distributing food. Food is
now state property.
Mugabe and his corrupt cronies now control all
resources land, farms,
businesses, prices, and food in a veritable
declaration of war against the
people of Zimbabwe.
In May, the World
Food Programme announced that more than 800000 tons of
cereals and other
foods were needed, about 200000 tons to be delivered by
October for use from
November. Today, as agriculture collapses, the total
needed is now more than
1-million tons.
More serious, there is slightly more than a month's
supply in state
granaries and as yet no import programme in place. Absolute
shortages are
breaking out with growing frequency as the remaining stock can
no longer be
spread equitably.
Between 500000 and 1-million
Zimbabweans go hungry every day. It takes many
weeks to deliver food to a
land-locked country. There are few weeks left.
Yet nothing was done to secure
stocks for Zimbabwe that could be delivered
quickly when Mugabe finally chose
to ask.
Nor has there been any attempt to build up emergency regional
stocks with
international imports.
Instead, we have witnessed
delegations going to pay court to a despot, to
hear his promises and then to
suffer his regular deceits and to hear of
further onslaughts against the
people and economy.
With Mugabe dead in any democratic water, this past
week has seen a litany
of measures to secure yet again, as President Thabo
Mbeki said of the June
national elections in Zimbabwe, "a stolen
election".
This all-enveloping regional crisis should be treated as an
opportunity to
forge new ways of dealing with despots and to reform donor
methods so
assistance can enhance economic and democratic rights.
For
some time now Zimbabwe's government has demanded party cards before
supplying
food. The logic is most of the opposition, the majority of
citizens, will die
or walk out to refugee status and the party faithful will
be left behind to
vote.
To their everlasting glory, Zimbabweans are not rushing to grab
land. They
are not breaking ranks. It is the party's cronies, generals,
policemen and
soldiers and the motley private army of "war veterans" that are
being
"settled" in order to break up the voting block of farm
labour.
Land comes last of seven issues ranked by citizens: inflation,
jobs, law and
order, health and AIDS, schooling, urban settlement, rural
land. Now land is
number eight as food tops a longer list. Never has land
received more than
10% support in the past 18 months of public opinion
surveys.
Now, at last, Mugabe has formally asked for help to import food.
This can be
the entry point for donors to bolster citizens' economic rights
and open up
their democratic space before the elections.
The Southern
African Development Community and international community have
stepped up
their criticism of Mugabe. It is now action on behalf of the
people of
Zimbabwe, and not dialogue with a democratically dead and probably
dying
despot, that has to be seen to be taking place.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader
of the main opposition, the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), has offered
to talk to Zimbabwe's government about
"creating conditions for a code of
conduct for free and fair elections, but
not about powersharing
arrangements". The MDC needs an election, free and
fair, that it can win. It
does not have to try to share power.
No lawful election looks possible at
present. Another stolen election would
not gain international recognition.
Further isolation and suffering, and
economic and civil chaos, spilling over
into the region, would follow. The
"African Renaissance" would be
dead.
Food aid must pour in. But it must be tied to a single programme
that
requires that all support leads to the direct provision of
citizens'
economic rights.
The method is to provide exchangeable "work
rights" to all adults. These can
be formed into "community budgets" at local
level and invested in community
public works. It is the only means to create
food equity, economic activity
and open democratic space.
Mugabe will
cry that this is meddling in Zimbabwe's internal affairs. Since
he cannot be
trusted, he must not be given a choice. Economic rights,
economic security
and local democratic practice are the three prerequisites
to ensure there
will be no famine and a fair presidential election next
year. That could be
the platform for wider advances throughout Africa.
A Night With the Neighbours
Mail & Guardian
(Johannesburg)
November 16, 2001
Posted to the web November 15,
2001
Meshak Mabogoani
It is sheer coincidence that Zimbabweans
Oliver Mtukudzi and Louis Mhlanga,
and Mozambique-born Gito Baloi are
appearing together at the Civic Theatre
Complex in Braamfontein to launch
their most recent works.
It is not an act to show that across the
borders, in other South African
Development Community (SADC) countries, there
is musical gold that those
living in the golden city could also dig
up.
The three guitarists, who have vastly different stage personas and
musical
styles, have found a following in South Africa. And it is the first
time
that they share a stage. Sure they have crossed paths - Baloi
reminds
Mtukudzi of a meeting in Australia, where both had gone to do shows
at
different venues.
Mtukudzi, the oldest of the three, is the
high-energy performer. He has been
known to do a four-hour extravaganza,
carrying the audience along to his
emotional highs. But it is not all
ecstasy. The substance is sobering.
"Every song has its story," he says. "In
my culture a song won't be a song
without a message. There is a song for
every special occasion."
And he is a messenger. "I remind people of the
things they seem to forget. I
tell them that there is no culture that is
either superior or inferior; each
is different and unique." Mtukudzi's songs
tell of the social and cultural
hassles and hopes of his native country and
political activists have turned
some into battle songs.
He regards the
telling of such missives in song as his lifetime achievement
and singing as a
great adrenaline rush. "Being on stage is most fun, the
real thing. Every
show is unique and a good show involves the participation
of all." Once the
rapport has been struck Mtukudzi gives all and can go on
and on, enraptured,
dancing, singing and doing his thing.
Bass guitarist Baloi is more
relaxed. He regards his music as having no
deeper social meaning. "It talks
for itself," he says. Yet it is not
flippantly escapist. It enables one to be
detached from the heavy and
troubled concerns of this world and to be
immersed in the pleasurable flow
of life. His music has the joy and beauty
that relaxes and releases.
"We must be as happy as possible. There is so
much pain in the world, it is
about time to have fun and enjoy the good
things of life."
A long-term South African resident, Baloi still keeps in
touch with his
native country - he returned from Mozambique only two weeks
ago. He feels
that though his roots are in Africa musically, he has become a
citizen of
the world. "I have absorbed a lot of other cultural expressions
and
incorporate much of the various streams into my work. Of course, I've got
to
give it structure and that is where my creativity and individuality
come
in."
He strives to go beyond the bounds of cultural and political
expressions and
seeks to be universal. "We must strive for one world culture;
that way the
we will be alright. We must live with one another without
reference to our
own cultures and skin colour," says Baloi.
Louis
Mhlanga sounds like a self-conscious voice of Southern Africa, a sort
of
musical SADC. The melange of phrases that cascade into each other
represent
the range of traditions found in Botswana, South Africa and
Zimbabwe. But he
has avoided the pitfall of his sound being a mere pastiche.
It has an
underlying Zimbabwean flavour. But it is not the masculine,
thunderous and
heavily vibrating sound of his compatriot Mtukudzi. Mhlanga's
is more subtle,
elastic and easy - perhaps to allow for neighbourly
co-existence with other
sounds from the region.
"I could not think of doing anything in life
[other] than music."
Mtukudzi and Baloi could say likewise. And how
Southern Africa has gained
through their choices.
Daily News
Terror in Bulawayo
11/15/01 10:39:09 PM (GMT
+2)
From Mduduzi Mathuthu in Bulawayo
Suspected Zanu PF
supporters and war veterans unleashed terror in Bulawayo's
high-density
suburbs in the early hours of yesterday, setting three houses
on fire,
including one owned by an MDC councillor.
The attacks were apparently in
retaliation to the gruesome murder of
Bulawayo War Veterans' Association
chairman, Cain Nkala, whose decomposing
body was discovered on Tuesday near
Solusi University, 40km south-west of
Bulawayo - a week after he was abducted
from his home.
Vice-President Joseph Msika reacted to Nkala's abduction
by warning of a
bloodbath at the weekend, in a statement many said was meant
to incite
government loyalists to commit political violence with
impunity.
Andrew Ndlovu, the war veterans' secretary for projects,
declared the
Presidential election due by the end of March next year would
not be held.
Ndlovu said his association would ask President Mugabe to
declare a state of
emergency and rule by decree.
Earlier, Ndlovu's
association had asked Zanu PF's highest decision-making
body, the politburo,
through their patron, Dr Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, to declare
Nkala a national
hero.
The Minister of Information and Publicity, Jonathan Moyo, told the
ZBC last
night that the politburo was yet to make a decision on Nkala's hero
status.
The statement followed a six-hour meeting of the politburo in
Harare
yesterday.
At least 16 MDC members and security men have been
arrested on allegations
of abducting and killing Nkala.
They have been
denied access to their lawyers during the police
investigations. The State
media has reported that some of them have admitted
to the act.
High
Court judge, Justice George Chiweshe, yesterday granted the MDC an
order for
the release of four of its members, some of whom have been in
police custody
for more than seven days. According to the law, a suspect
should be brought
to court within 48 hours of his arrest.
The police swiftly reacted by
bringing three of the four suspects – Sonny
Masera Moyo, the MDC deputy
security chief, Army Zulu and Simon Spooner – to
court where they were denied
bail.
Their lawyer, Nicholas Mathonsi, had argued in papers filed at the
High
Court that their continued detention was unlawful.
An
eight-roomed house in Magwegwe West suburb in Nkala's neighbourhood
was
reduced to a shell after being petrol-bombed. The occupants ran for
dear
life.
The war veterans moved to other houses, where they smashed
doors and
windows.
They threatened to return and intensify the raids
on MDC supporters' homes,
eyewitnesses said.
As terror swept through
Magwegwe West, another mob marched to the house of
the MDC councillor for
Ward 27, Peter Mangena, in Pumula North where they
smashed a door and
windows.
Mangena, who was alone at the time, took refuge in the
ceiling.
Boulders and logs which the mob used during the attack were
strewn in and
outside the house when a Daily News crew arrived there
yesterday.
Terrified neighbours refused to talk, fearing for their
lives.
Mangena, from his hide-out, said: "I heard one of them say they
wanted to
kill me. I have since moved from my house because this is the
second time
that I have been attacked and I am afraid my luck will run out
soon."
Ndlovu, the Harare-based war veterans' association secretary for
projects,
denied suggestions that the war veterans were behind the attacks,
but warned
that they would retaliate against individuals and institutions
found to have
murdered Nkala.
"Those spontaneous attacks are a
reaction by angry members of the public. We
are yet to act," said Ndlovu soon
after a meeting with the Governor for
Matabeleland North, Obert Mpofu, and Dr
Ndlovu, who joined mourners gathered
at Nkala's house.
He accused the
MDC of committing acts of terrorism and said war veterans had
banned MDC MPs
from attending Parliament.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC's president, and
the party's secretary-general,
Professor Welshman Ncube, yesterday deplored
Nkala's murder and called on
the police to expeditiously bring all those
responsible for the act before
the courts.
"We put it on record that
the state of lawlessness prevailing in the country
at the moment and the
death of Nkala is a direct result of failure of the
State, under the
direction of Zanu PF, to apply the laws of Zimbabwe fairly
and equally to all
citizens," said Tsvangirai.
The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA)
yesterday condemned the murder of
Nkala.
In a statement, the NCA said
although many theories about the murder and the
motive have been advanced, it
is important to note that life was
unnecessarily lost.
Calling for an
end to the terror in Matabeleland, in particular, and the
country in general,
the NCA said: "We believe that Zimbabweans have the
right to carry on their
legitimate political activities without hindrance.
"We hope that the
murder will not be used as an excuse to unleash terror in
Matabeleland as
this would further perpetuate the objectives of the
real
murderers."
The NCA said it believes that the people of Zimbabwe
deserve peace,
tranquillity and a return to normalcy for them to elect a
leadership of
their choice.
"We call upon all parties and persons
interested in the Presidential
election next year to carry out their
campaigns peacefully," the statement
said.
The Times of India
Zimbabwe Oppn fears reprisals for death of
leader
ARARE: Supporters of Zimbabwe's main opposition were
Wednesday fearing
reprisals after a war veteran leader was found murdered in
the west of the
country, with the government accusing its opponents of the
crime.
The body of Cain Nkala, a war veteran leader in the country's
second city of
Bulawayo, was found in a shallow grave Tuesday by police, one
week after he
was snatched from his home by armed assailants.
He had
been strangled with his own shoe laces.
Police have arrested six suspects
in Bulawayo and have claimed, along with
state television, that they are all
members of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC).
Morgan
Tsvangirai, the leader of the party which has a massive following in
Bulawayo
and throughout western Zimbabwe, said the MDC can't be
held
responsible.
"To try to link the party to the acts of individuals
... is not going to
hold water," he told a news conference at his home in the
capital.
Speculation that the MDC was involved in Nkala's abduction
culminated in the
storming of the party headquarters in Harare on Saturday by
over 100 war
veterans, who claimed to be looking for Cain Nkala.
Top
officials within Zimbabwe's ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National
Union
- Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), which is historically linked to the
veterans of
the 1970s liberation war against white minority rule, have
stoked the
tensions.
At the weekend, following the war veterans' siege of the MDC
headquarters,
Vice-President Joseph Msika, quoted by the state media, warned:
"If they
(the MDC) want a bloodbath they will certainly get it."
Home
affairs minister John Nkomo, interviewed by state television late
Tuesday
accused senior MDC officials of sponsoring Nkala's murder and
described the
crime as an act of "terrorism".
"There must be someone else involved," he
said. "I want to say we're not
going to stop at anything" to bring the
organisers to justice, he added.
The murdered Nkala was a suspect in a
widely publicised case in which an MDC
official, Patrick Nabanyama was
abducted ahead of last year's June
legislative elections.
He has never
been found and is feared dead, one of more than 30 people,
mainly opposition
supporters, killed ahead of last year's
violence-marred
poll.
Tsvangirai Wednesday denounced Nkala's murder
and called for the culprits to
be brought to justice, but dismissed
government's accusations against his
party.
"Our consciences are very
clear," he said.
He said Nkomo's accusation against the MDC was "uncalled
for, unwarranted
and must be condemned".
Tsvangirai said the law was
being applied selectively against his
supporters.
"State agents in
Bulawayo have been going house to house ... destroying
property, hunting down
MDC supporters," he claimed.
"There are people who have committed acts of
murder during the parliamentary
elections, but we have never seen this shrill
cry that is now being
expressed and whipped by ZANU-PF politicians," he
added.
( AFP )
Daily News
Foreign currency situation remains critical, says
bank
11/15/01 9:35:12 PM (GMT +2)
Business
Editor
Zimbabwe’s foreign exchange situation continues to remain critical
and has
averaged only US$70 million (Z$3,85 billion) over the July-September
2001
period.
The normal requirements in Zimbabwe are US$230 to US$250
million a month. In
its latest Quarterly Review for the third quarter,
Stanbic Bank Zimbabwe
Limited (Stanbic) said the situation was expected to
deteriorate further
when the tobacco season ended. The season ended on 26
October amid much
anxiety within the farming community.
Stanbic said:
“The foreign exchange situation remained critical during the
third quarter.
Monthly foreign currency inflows averaged only US$70 million
over the
July-September 2001 period. The situation is expected to
deteriorate further
when the tobacco season ends.” The bank said operations
of most high import
sectors, particularly those in the retail business, had,
thus, been heavily
constrained. Stanbic said with the sharp rise in local
production costs, most
exporters also found it increasingly difficult to
keep their operations
running, as the official exchange rate remained pegged
at $55 to the United
States dollar.
“The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the
Matabeleland region further
compounded the situation as lucrative beef
exports, mainly to Europe, had to
be suspended,” Stanbic said. “On average,
beef exports earn the country
US$40 million annually. The situation is
expected to tighten further as the
tobacco season comes to an end.”
The
bank said the gold producing sector had, however, continued to benefit
from
the floor price arrangements.
In August, this year, the facility was
reviewed from a guaranteed floor
price of US$343 per ounce to US$430 per
ounce at the official exchange rate
of $55 per US dollar.
Gold production
during the nine months to September 2001 amounted to an
estimated 14,1
tonnes, compared to 16,9 tonnes realised over the same period
in
2000.
“Continued support to the sector is, thus, critical if increased
production
is to be resuscitated,” Stanbic said.
The bank said what was
worrying was the “continued laxity of the authorities
at taking resolute
steps to contain the inflation scourge”
Fingaz
Inflation hits 100%
Staff Reporter
11/15/01 9:29:48 PM
(GMT +2)
ZIMBABWE'S annual inflation surged to a record-busting 97.9
percent in
October, 2.1 percentage points shy of the year-end forecast of 100
percent.
Figures released by the Central Statistical Office (CSO)
yesterday showed
that the all-item consumer price index rose by 11.6
percentage points from
the September figure of 86.3 percent.
The CSO
figures showed that the massive jump in the October inflation rate
was
largely driven by phenomenal growth in underlying inflation, which rose
by
106.8 percent during the 12 months to October 2001.
Food inflation, which
has traditionally been responsible for the growth in
inflation, marginally
rose by 3.8 percentage points to 84.8 percent last
month despite the
imposition of controls on prices of basic foodstuff.
"The increase in
year-on-year inflation was largely accounted for by
increases in the price of
beverages, bread and cereals, household
operations, rent and rates and
vehicle running costs," the CSO said.
Furniture and household goods had
the largest annual increase of 194.2
percent, followed by recreation and
entertainment which rose 154.5 percent
during the past year.
Analysts,
who have forecast that inflation could hit 100 percent by the end
of the
year, yesterday attributed the rise in the October inflation to the
rising
cost of non-food items.
Daily News
MDC Bindura chairman arrested
11/15/01 11:00:56 PM (GMT
+2)
Staff Reporter
Tapera Macheka, the MDC provincial chairman
for Mashonaland Central, was
arrested by police in Bindura last Friday on
allegations of inciting
violence.
The police alleged that Macheka was
inciting party youths to beat up Zanu PF
supporters. He was released on
Monday.
Efforts to contact him by telephone failed as he was at work at
the Bindura
University, where he lectures.
Biggie Chigonero, the
provincial vice chairman, said Macheka's cellphone was
confiscated by the
police.
He said: "Macheka's arrest is nothing but harassment. He is not
involved in
any incitement of the youths to beat up people. In fact, it is
the Zanu PF
supporters who are always attacking our youths."
Police in
Bindura have reportedly been cracking down on MDC youths who fled
from
attacks by Zanu PF supporters and war veterans from various parts of
the
province over the past few months.
About 30 of the youths are sleeping in
the bush to avoid night raids by the
police on two MDC "safe houses" in
Chiwaridzo high-density suburb.
Fingaz
US to reject flawed Zimbabwe election
By Sydney Masamvu
Political Editor
11/15/01 6:41:01 PM (GMT +2)
US government officials
this week warned that Washington will not recognise
the outcome of Zimbabwe's
presidential election due next year if the Harare
government does not allow
international observers to monitor the ballot.
In sentiments widely
believed to be shared by the 15-nation European Union
(EU), the officials
said the results of the election would be unacceptable
because the
circumstances prevailing prior to the poll were not conducive
for a free and
fair ballot.
"Given the prevailing situation and the conditions being
laid out by the
government regarding the issue of observers and monitors, the
feeling within
the administration is that it could be difficult for the
people of Zimbabwe
and the international community to view the elections as
legitimate," an
official in the US administration told the Financial
Gazette.
The official, like several others interviewed this week,
preferred not to be
named.
The United States is however still to
communicate this position to the
Zimbabwean government.
The
circumstances that are making a free and fair election impossible in
Zimbabwe
include the continued intimidation of opposition party members,
whose homes
and offices have been ransacked in the past few days by ruling
ZANU PF mobs,
and the detention and harassment of opposition officials by
state security
agents.
The government, fearful that President Robert Mugabe may lose the
projected
ballot to the opposition, has stepped up attacks and propaganda
against
opposition party members and other perceived "enemies of the state"
in the
run-up to the election.
There are also concerted attempts to
curb Press freedom.
The government is also amending the Electoral Act in
an attempt to
disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters who live outside
Zimbabwe who
might back Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement
for
Democratic Change (MDC), who will stand against Mugabe in the
poll.
Diplomatic sources this week said Mugabe's refusal to allow
independent
international and Zimbabwean election observers and monitors to
check the
validity of the ballot could lead to the conclusion that the
current
conditions in Zimbabwe do not allow for a free and fair election as
outlined
in the norms and standards for elections in the Southern Africa
Develop-ment
Community, which Zimbabwe adopted in March.
The
government has turned down observers from the EU and the United States
and is
also expected to fast-track through Parliament legislation barring
the
international community and Zimbabwean civic groups from participating
in
election monitoring.
Washington wants election observers to be deployed
immediately to witness
the election campaign, but the government is playing
for time so it can
invite observers nearer to the poll when, political
analysts say, the
intimidation of voters by ZANU PF gangs would have been
completed.
Washington's ambassador to Zimbabwe Joseph Sullivan recently
suggested that
the issue of observers could be resolved by the government if
it immediately
extended invitations to them.
"We would hope that
invitations for election observers can be forthcoming in
order to have the
observation that gives everybody confidence," Sullivan
said.
The
presidential election is the most hotly contested since
Zimbabwe's
independence from Britain in 1980.
An authoritative opinion
poll conducted in September by Target Research, an
independent research
organisation, and published last week shows Mugabe
trailing Tsvangirai by at
least six percentage points and that economic
issues could determine the
ballot's outcome.
Washington's warning to deny recognition of a
government coming from what
most Zimbabweans and analysts now see as a
mockery of democratic polls comes
as pressure mounts on Mugabe from both
inside and outside the country.
Civic groups plan to stage mass protests
next week against the government's
electoral amendments, which entrench
Mugabe's control of elections, while
the EU and the US are threatening to
impose sanctions against him for
refusing to end violence by ZANU PF
supporters, among several outstanding
governance issues.
Daily News
Stamps not returning to work soon
11/15/01 11:11:08 PM
(GMT +2)
Staff Reporter
DR TIMOTHY Stamps, the Minister of
Health and Child Welfare, who suffered
brain damage last month might not
return to work this year. Cindy Stamps,
the minister’s wife, yesterday said
her husband was “responding very well to
the treatment at home, but will
certainly not return to work soon”.
She, however, refused to say
what Timothy is really suffering from. Mrs
Stamps said: “All I can say is
that he is at home under the care of
specialists. But he is certainly not
going back to work this month and may
be this year.
“I would not know when
he will actually resume work because I am not a
specialist.”
Fingaz
'Baboons on the run' as panic grips ZANU PF
SYDNEY
MASAMVU
11/15/01 5:29:44 PM (GMT +2)
MASVINGO'S political strongman
Eddison Zvobgo, speaking after the ruling
ZANU PF party's trouncing by the
opposition in mayoral elections in Masvingo
earlier this year, remarked that
"baboons are on the run".
And so they were last week when stunned
ZANU PF leaders read the red lights
after the publication in this newspaper
of an opinion poll on next year's
presidential poll.
Events of the
past week have shown that such is the panic within the ZANU PF
establishment
as Zimbabwe heads for the crucial ballot that the ruling party
has decided
that the only way to steal it is to amend the Electoral Act.
Justice
Minister Patrick Chinamasa set the ball rolling by giving notice
that he will
introduce in Parliament amendments to the Electoral Act which
will ban
international and Zimbabwean monitors from observing next year's
presidential
election.
The government has also banned Zimbabwean non-governmental
organisations
from carrying out voter education campaigns.
If ZANU PF
is confident about winning the poll, as it claims through its
discredited
state media, and that the ballot's conduct will be above board,
what has it
got to hide?
That the government will allow only its civil servants to
monitor the poll
shows how terrified it is about the prospect of President
Robert Mugabe
being thrown out by a popular landslide.
But surely why
should Zimbabweans allow this illegality to stand?
We know that we are
led by a power-hungry lot - this is no longer an issue
at least among normal
Zimbabweans - but in all fairness, the nonsense which
we as citizens are
allowing to pass unchecked has reached intolerable
levels.
The
government now says for the first time that it will recruit election
monitors
and voter educators ONLY from the civil service, which only means
that it
will stuff the whole exercise with spies from the Central
Intelligence
Organisation.
Given so many examples of how the present regime is
determined to steal the
ballot and cow the electorate in the process, the
international community
and all men and women of goodwill should forthwith
stand up and demand that
Mugabe meets minimum conditions of at least a free
and fair poll and not
stage an open fraud.
The situation from now
demands all Zimbabweans to take a pause and ask: are
we going into an
election or a shambles?
Personally I think if we leave the process to
unfold the way it is,
including the proposed amendments to the Electoral Act,
without putting an
end to this trend by whatever legal means, we are going
for a
state-sponsored fraud and not a presidential election. The choice
and
decision is ours.
Under the proposed amendments, millions of
Zimbabweans living abroad not by
choice but because of Mugabe's mismanagement
of the economy will not be
allowed to vote unless they have been resident in
Zimbabwe for a full year
before the poll.
Postal votes will only be
accepted from staff at diplomatic missions and
from soldiers posted abroad,
especially those in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo.
What it
means is that being an economic refugee in Britain and South Africa
is
punishable by being disallowed to have a say in determining the
political
future of your own country.
Does one need to be in Zimbabwe
for a full year, let alone a day, to
appreciate the level of poverty Mugabe
and his cronies have reduced once
proud and hardworking Zimbabweans
to?
Is it that we have had ZANU PF in power for too long that they now
take us
for granted to an extent that they firmly believe we have become
irrelevant?
The government should have been busy putting in place
enabling legislation
and logistics to ensure that every Zimbabwean is able to
participate in the
electoral process, and not harnessing its energies towards
disenfranchising
voters.
Such is the level of panic that Information
Minister Jonathan Moyo has even
said international donors and
non-governmental organisations who want to
help ferry food aid to millions of
Zimbabweans facing starvation will not be
allowed to operate because they
will be campaigning for the opposition MDC.
In other words, the
government is saying that people should rather die of
hunger than receive
food through any channel other than the state. It is
only the state which
brings mealie-meal onto the table and no one else.
Food handouts from any
other source are cursed because that source is
ostensibly de-campaigning
Mugabe.
Surely the government might believe that Zimbabweans are docile,
stupid or
both, but the nonsense it subjects us to on daily basis has to come
to an
end.
An authentic, authoritative and revealing opinion poll
commissioned by this
newspaper and published last week which showed likely
voting trends in next
year's presidential election received only scorn as
expected from ZANU PF
and many other hangers-on whose business is to sing for
their supper.
All of a sudden political dinosaurs like Nathan Shamuyarira
and Didymus
Mutasa, who for the greater part of the year have been consigned
to the
Siberia of politics, sprang into action to attack the opinion poll as
the
work of enemies sponsored by Western countries.
Even when the
writing is on the wall for all to see, Mugabe's sycophants
will never give up
or see the reality staring them.
Shamuyarira, Mutasa, Moyo and Chinamasa
may yell as much as they like and
try to cut corners to cling to power by
default, but they must realise that
the die is now cast.
Fingaz
Mugabe tunes law to rig election
By Abel Mutsakani
Assistant News Editor
11/15/01 9:29:00 PM (GMT +2)
PRESIDENT Robert
Mugabe is fine-tuning legislation to disenfranchise
possibly millions of
potential opposition supporters while also blocking
international scrutiny of
next year's presidential election but analysts say
Mugabe, a cunning
political fox, could just have pushed his luck too far
this time.
By
disenfranching Zimbabweans forced to seek refuge abroad by the
country's
economic woes while subjecting those inside the country to violence
and
intimidation, Mugabe is dangerously tampering with the emotions of a
nation
already on a knife-edge, the analysts warned this week.
They
said Mugabe's latest political gamble with Zimbabweans, seething with
anger
caused by grinding economic hardships they blame on his failed
policies,
could trigger unprecedented civil strife which could end his rule
of two
decades.
"This will lead to civil strife," University of Zimbabwe (UZ)
political
scientist Masipula Sithole said.
"The government cannot
disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of genuine
Zimbabwean voters and stage a
bogus election and expect it to hold. This is
just too fine a recipe for
disaster," said Sithole, who also heads the Mass
Public Opinion Institute, a
Harare-based political think-tank.
Another political scientist at the UZ,
Elphas Mukonoweshuro, said the
proposed new laws were part of an elaborate
plan by Mugabe, 77, and his
ruling ZANU PF party to openly rig the election
before even a single ballot
is cast.
"The government is actively
putting in place what they know are irreversible
measures towards a
particular election result, and that in fact is called
election rigging," he
said.
Leaving nothing to chance ahead of next year's tricky presidential
ballot
which he could easily lose to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai,
Mugabe
will use ZANU PF's slender majority in Parliament to bulldoze
through
legislation barring foreign and independent electoral observers
from
observing the presidential ballot.
Only government workers
operating under the Mugabe-appointed Electoral
Supervisory Commission (ESC)
will be allowed to monitor the poll.
But perhaps more disturbing for many
Zimbabweans is the fact that the new
rules will also bar Zimbabweans living
in other countries from returning
home to vote.
Possibly millions of
Zimbabweans live and work in other countries,
especially in Britain, South
Africa and Botswana.
Many fled the economic hardships in Zimbabwe or
politically inspired
violence and most of them are believed to be more
sympathetic to Tsvangirai
and his Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC).
Under the proposed amendments to the Electoral Act, expected to be
tabled in
Parliament on November 20, the "exiles" will be required to produce
their
passports, rate and rent bills to prove that they have lived in their
home
constituencies for 12 consecutive months before the election.
This
requirement automatically disenfranchises nearly all Zimbabweans living
and
working outside the country.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo has
already threatened that the
government will soon be coming up with a new Act
to prevent human rights and
other civic bodies from carrying out voter
education, thus again leaving
this task solely to the ESC.
Tarcey
Zimbiti, the director of the Catholic Commission for Justice and
Peace, said
of the proposed new electoral laws and regulations:
"The new laws will
prevent many people suspected of supporting the
opposition from voting on one
hand while on the other they will effectively
prevent those permitted to vote
from receiving adequate information and
knowledge about their right to vote
for whomever they wish."
Mukonoweshuro said Mugabe and ZANU PF, apart
from using violence to cow
Zimbabweans, were banking on manipulating the
electoral process to secure
another six-year term for Mugabe, Zimbabwe's sole
ruler since independence
21 years ago.
Besides the plans to bar large
numbers of potential MDC supporters from
voting, Registrar-General Tobaiwa
Mudede, who is also appointed by Mugabe,
has embarked on a questionable voter
registration exercise that is
deliberately focusing on rural areas and
marginalising urban areas and other
MDC strongholds.
"Clearly the
objective is to create a mass of ZANU PF support on the voters'
roll,"
Mukonoweshuro said.
War veterans and other ZANU PF supporters have
meanwhile stepped up violence
on the opposition, illegally raiding last
Saturday the Harare offices of the
burgeoning opposition party that has
proved the deadliest challenge yet to
the ruling party.
In the past
few weeks, several opposition supporters have been assaulted and
forced to
flee their homes by ZANU PF gangs.
At least 31 people, most of them
opposition supporters, died during the
run-up to last year's parliamentary
election.
Mukonoweshuro said by assigning civil servants the duty to
monitor the
ballot under the proposed new laws, the government "simply wants
people it
can easily pressurise to perform whatever it wants them to,
including
actions that amount to subverting the will of the
electorate".
But more worrying for pro-democracy campaigners in Zimbabwe,
the ESC itself
as presently constituted is, according to its former chairman
Peter Hatendi,
a retired Anglican bishop, neither independent nor
impartial.
The ESC lacks financial resources of its own to properly carry
out the
various tasks assigned to it under the proposed new laws, Hatendi
noted.
"It is not independent at all - in fact, the ESC cannot be
independent,"
said Hatendi, who in 1999 resigned from the group citing
Mugabe's refusal to
heed his pleas for the setting up of an independent
electoral commission to
conduct polls in the country.
Hatendi said:
"In theory it is supposed to be independent. But it has no
resources of its
own and worse still it falls under the Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary
Affairs minister. The reality on the ground is that the ESC is
just like any
other government department dependent on and under the
government's
control."
Mugabe and his government have already rebuffed attempts by
European Union
governments, the United States and the Commonwealth to send
election
observers well ahead of the ballot, which must be held by the end of
March.
Mukonoweshuro warned: "But any government coming out of such a
blatantly
rigged election process will not be recognised by Zimbabweans, let
alone by
the civilised world, and one wonders how long such a government
could last."
Fingaz
Mugabe breaches Abuja accord
By Abel Mutsakani Assistant
News Editor
11/15/01 6:44:18 PM (GMT +2)
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe,
facing his biggest electoral challenge ever, has
virtually thrown out of the
window a Nigerian-brokered accord committing him
to fair and transparent land
reforms in return for international funding of
the
reforms.
Instead in an amendment by presidential decree, which was
published last
Friday, Mugabe decreed he is immediately seizing thousands of
white-owned
farms targeted for redistribution to landless blacks despite
legal
challenges from the owners.
In a move analysts said firmly
committed the government to self-destruction,
besides embarrassing southern
African leaders backing the Abuja pact, Mugabe
ordered white farmers on
state-listed farms to immediately stop working
their fields, giving them
three months to abandon their homes.
His programme would go ahead whether
or not the farmers already had crops on
the fields or pending court appeals
against the seizures.
The move by Mugabe, timed to coincide with an
international mission which is
visiting Zimbabwe this week to check on how
donors can bankroll legal land
reforms, was meant to show that Mugabe will
not let anything block his quest
to retain power, said South African
Institute of Security Studies analyst
Richard Cornwall.
"The simple
message is that there are not many things that Mugabe fears in
the world,
meaning that Mugabe will do as he pleases, including
re-interpreting the
Abuja agreement to suit himself, never mind what the
international community
thinks," Cornwall told the Financial Gazette by
telephone from his Pretoria
offices.
It was a stance Mugabe had evidently taken as he battles his
worst economic
crisis and just when he is also confronted by the deadliest
threat to his
rule ¾ the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
leader Morgan
Tsvangirai, Cornwall said.
Most political analysts say
the young and charismatic Tsvangirai could
easily make short work of Mugabe
if a presidential ballot due by March next
year is free and
fair.
Tsvangirai's MDC last year braved unprecedented political violence
by
Mugabe's ZANU PF party in tough parliamentary elections in which at least
31
people, most of them MDC followers, died to narrowly lose by four
seats.
Under the Abuja accord signed in Nigeria's capital in September,
Mugabe
undertook to stop seizing land from white farmers and to evict
his
supporters from occupied farms in exchange for funds from
Britain,
Zimbabwe's former colonial master, to implement fair, legal and
rational
land reforms.
The government was also supposed to embrace
democracy and human rights by
moving against political violence and
intimidation of opponents by its
supporters.
But ZANU PF militants
have actually stepped up violence since the Abuja
accord while the Commercial
Farmers' Union (CFU) grouping mostly white
farmers says last Friday's
presidential decree is just the last nail in the
coffin of an agreement
Harare had done practically nothing to uphold.
"Violence, intimidation
and work stoppages have been continuing on farms but
the presidential decree
certainly flies in the face of the Abuja agreement,"
CFU head Colin Cloete
said this week, adding that the government had
probably decided to go it
alone.
Cornwall said in addition to attempting to unilaterally re-draw
Abuja,
Mugabe and his government had also rebuffed European Union (EU) and
American
attempts to send election observers ahead of the tricky presidential
ballot
next year, even as Brussels and Washington are threatening
punitive
sanctions over the issue.
Mugabe and his government have told
the international community to wait for
invitations if they want to observe
the presidential ballot.
Harare has also told international donors to
halt emergency plans to
distribute food to thousands of Zimbabweans facing
starvation, accusing the
aid agencies of trying to campaign for the MDC,
charges denied by the
agencies.
The government says it alone must give
out food relief, seen by analysts as
a desperate attempt by a deeply
unpopular Mugabe to try to win votes.
An authoritative survey published
by this newspaper last week said Mugabe is
trailing Tsvangirai by at least
six percentage points in the popularity
stakes.
"Mugabe knows the
international community will grumble at his actions like
the presidential
decree on land but he also knows there is not much really
the world is about
to do against him immediately," Cornwall noted.
But Mugabe's strategy is
one that will almost certainly lead to
self-destruction, the South African
analyst said.
He said food shortages were going to lead to massive shifts
of whole
populations in the country as people flee hunger, creating mammoth
refugee
problems for the region, especially for South
Africa.
University of Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies associate
professor
Brian Raftopoulos said it was not just bravado alone which was
driving
Mugabe's actions.
"It is a well calculated plan to fully
exploit all the grey areas in the
Abuja agreement as well as whatever
half-openings that might arise on the
international scene, all of course as
part of a plot to win the election,"
he said.
For example, Mugabe is
required by Abuja to implement land reforms according
to Zimbabwe's laws but
in the meantime he is changing the law, as he is
doing through the
presidential decree, because Abuja does not stop him from
doing
so.
Raftopoulos said Mugabe was bent on taking advantage of London's
obvious
desire to see Abuja bearing fruit and therefore he could afford to
carry on
tinkering with the agreement without immediate and harsh action by
Britain.
Washington, which is processing legislation to impose sanctions
on Mugabe
and his officials, is too busy leading the war against terrorism to
really
put Mugabe and his government on top of its agenda, Raftopoulos
noted.
And the Southern Africa Development Community governments,
fearing
repercussions on their economies triggered by a total collapse of
Zimbabwe,
are naturally opposed to sanctions against the regional block's
second
largest economy.
"He knows that despite the official censure in
public, there is always some
openings he can exploit," Raftopoulos
said.
But like Cornwall, Raftopoulos said Mugabe's "dare-devil" strategy
to retain
power at any cost would be self-defeating.
"For example, all
this is inflicting untold damage on the economy. By the
time Mugabe may have
safely retained power, the economic crisis may have
deteriorated to an extent
that it alone could cause his downfall,"
Raftopoulos noted.
Fingaz
The truth will triumph
11/15/01 5:43:50 PM (GMT
+2)
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe, sensing political power finally slipping
from him,
last week dramatically raised the tempo of what will clearly be a
rough,
bitter and violent fight before he leaves the presidency which he
thinks is
his for life.
In emergency legislation bearing his
stamp, he barred possibly millions of
Zimbabweans forced out of the country
by his economic misrule of two decades
from voting in the landmark
presidential ballot due early next year.
Not only did he in one stroke
deprive these Zimbabweans of their fundamental
right to choose how they want
to be governed, but he signalled he will brook
no obstacle in his bid to
retain power in what is emerging to be a sham
poll.
In a two-pronged
assault on political rivals, Mugabe then virtually scrapped
the entrenched
rights of farmers whose land is being seized by his
government to challenge
his actions in court.
This means that the government will seize farms
willy-nilly to try to
appease an embittered population ahead of the ballot,
which Mugabe knows
full well he stands to lose hands-down if it is free and
fair.
Mugabe's emergency legislation on the seizure of farms, taken
ostensibly
because farmers are refusing to cooperate with the government on
its illegal
land reforms, just killed off the work of a United Nations team
of farm
experts who are in Zimbabwe to try to help the government with
its
self-created land crisis.
The two steps, taken together with other
legislation barring all independent
monitors but the government's spies from
checking the validity of the poll,
expose the upcoming ballot to be a
gigantic fraud which no one should ever
recognise.
If Mugabe has
succeeded in reducing Zimbabweans to being morons who merely
watch him as he
systematically subverts the rule of law, the international
community cannot
and must not allow this charade to stand.
A government resulting from
such a fraudulent election is a fraud and must
be condemned and treated as
such by all. Let all Zimbabweans and the world
make this point very, very
clear to Mugabe and his diminishing supporters.
In fact, under these
conditions there is no point at all for Mugabe to even
go ahead to stage such
a shameful stunt disguised as an election. He might
as well formally declare
martial law and rule by decree, which he has always
wanted to
do.
These last-gasp changes to the electoral law and the laws governing
property
rights in Zimbabwe - notwithstanding the Abuja pact which seeks
transparent
and legal land reforms - starkly bring out the frenetic panic
that has
gripped Mugabe and his followers as they face their moment of
truth.
Far from showing him to be in control, the stampede illustrates
how he has
lost it and is prepared to resort to any means, however illegal,
to cling to
power.
We urge the President to immediately re-think his
ruinous steps, otherwise
he should blame no one when the world descends upon
him with an iron fist,
as it will.
No amount of political power -
indeed no earthly treasure - could be worth
this much that a man could be so
determined to commit political suicide in
the enlightened digital
age.
Mugabe has tried his luck several times before and somehow
succeeded, but
this is where his gamble with Zimbabweans and the
international community
must stop.
Let him gracefully accept the
people's true verdict because only through
this, the painful truth, can he
become free - and so would Zimbabweans.
No amount of tinkering with the
constitution or intimidating the nation
through the use of violent mobs
causing mayhem throughout the country will
do the trick. The hour for radical
political change has come and Zimbabweans
are ready for it.
An
authoritative opinion poll commissioned by this newspaper and published
last
week clearly shows that the writing is on the wall for Mugabe, but he
and his
followers are predictably refusing to accept the inevitable.
But give up
they must because, at the end of the day and for all the vitriol
poured on
the survey by stunned ZANU PF officials and their praise-singers,
the game is
certainly up and anyone but a fool can see this.
Fingaz
Armed youths force teachers to form ZANU PF branches
From
Basildon Peta Special Projects Editor
11/15/01 9:27:27 PM (GMT
+2)
KADOMA - Teachers and headmasters near Sanyati have been forced to
form ZANU
PF branches and cells at their schools by gun-toting youths who
have
unleashed a reign of terror in the area as political violence
intensifies in
rural areas ahead of next year's presidential
election.
The youths, led by a notorious gang leader known as Toki
Marufu, brutally
assaulted five teachers at Nyamatani Primary School about
two weeks ago
after the teachers failed to produce ZANU PF cards as demanded.
The
assaulted teachers included a pregnant woman who witnesses this week
said
nearly miscarried.
Afterwards, the youths demanded that all
teachers constitute themselves into
ZANU PF cells at their respective schools
and become active in the ruling
party's so-called mobilisation of
voters.
The youths have ordered all the teachers in the area to buy ZANU PF
cards
and convene regular meetings at which the teachers sloganeer and
sing
revolutionary songs.
"There is total lawlessness here. We have
now been forced to become ZANU PF
politicians despite the fact that on
enrolling into the teaching profession
we are told never to engage in
politics," a school teacher told the
Financial Gazette this week.
He
spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
"We have no option
but to comply because the youths are armed and violent.
We have had to buy
the ZANU PF cards and to form the structures as demanded.
We have failed to
get protection from anyone, not even the police or
education officials
here."
Marufu is said to have led the gang that ambushed Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC) president Morgan Tsvangirai near Patchway Mine on his
way to
meet his party's officials in Sanyati a few weeks ago. Tsvangirai's
car was
extensively damaged in what he said was an assassination
attempt.
When Marufu and a gang of 50 youths stormed Nyamatani school, 45
kms west of
Kadoma and near Sanyati two weeks ago, they rounded up all
teachers present
and force- marched them to a nearby shopping
centre.
Witnesses said the five teachers who failed to produce ruling
party cards
were made to sleep on the floor in a bottle store owned by a
ruling party
functionary and were brutally assaulted.
The teachers have
now fled the school. The two among the five had to be
hospitalised to receive
treatment for their injuries.
Some teachers at nearby schools such as
Boterekwa, Muzvezve and Shingirirai
are now living with relatives in nearby
villages. Others said they even
slept in forests to escape night visits by
the youths, most of whom would be
drunk.
"Our lives are in danger and
it seems that no one cares. We are supposed to
be apolitical as civil
servants but now we are being forced into becoming
fulltime politicians,"
another teacher said, also preferring not to be
named.
Efforts to get
comment from Simon Chionyere, the member-in-charge of Sanyati
Police Station,
were fruitless as he was said to be away from the station.
Other officers
present said they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Peter Vambe,
the education officer responsible for Sanyati, also refused to
comment,
referring all questions to his boss, a certain Gundu, who was said
to be out
of office until next week.
The teachers said they had been told by police
officials that there was
nothing they could do about the violence in the area
because it is
politically motivated. Marufu is said to have boasted on
several occasions
that his mission to weed all MDC supporters out of the area
had been
sanctioned by top politicians and nothing could ever happen to
him.
"We literally have to worship this guy (Marufu) for our safety. We
are
humiliated in front of school children and most of us have since stopped
any
serious teaching," said another teacher.
The violence and
intimidation at other schools near Gokwe was even much
worse, the teachers
said, noting that ZANU PF supporters had allegedly
established torture camps
there.
Chomuwuyu, Zumba, Gumunyu, Nyamasanga, Mashame, Makwiyo, Mashuma,
Deketeke
and Nembudziya schools and others around Gokwe were said to have
been
deserted by teachers fleeing the ZANU PF-inspired violence.
"The
biggest problem is that teachers are seen as obstacles to ZANU PF's
strategy
of eliminating any opposition support in the rural areas," a
Sanyati teacher
said.
"That's why we are targeted. There is no longer any learning
whatsoever
around this area and in Gokwe."
In a related development,
commercial farmers in Mwenezi say rowdy war
veterans and ruling party
supporters have ploughed grazing land on several
farms in the area which have
not been targeted for resettlement.
The farmers who made distress calls
to the Financial Gazette said the
veterans there had this week intensified
illegal farm invasions and
occupations, destroying pastures and harassing
farmers.
"The situation here is equivalent to what we have read happened
in Nazi
concentration camps," said a farmer who had his ranch looted at the
weekend.
He said a serious livestock disease outbreak was imminent in the
area
because cattle had been moved without permits from surrounding
communal
areas into commercial farms.
The farmers said some people who
had been allocated land elsewhere in
Mwenezi were pegging plots on other
farms which had not been designated for
resettlement.
"We have a
situation whereby some influential (government) individuals now
own plots on
four or five different farms. This is pure greed," another
farmer
said.
The farmers complained that they were being harassed despite the
fact their
land is in natural region five, which is arid and is unsuitable
for
agriculture.
Fingaz
Govt suspends human rights education from schools
Staff
Reporter
11/15/01 9:24:24 PM (GMT +2)
THE government has suspended the
implementation of a human rights and
democracy pilot education programme in
all schools in a move seen as another
attempt to withhold civic education
from the public in the run-up to next
year's crucial presidential
election.
According to circular number nine of 2001, dated September 17
2001 and
signed by Education, Sport and Culture Secretary Washington Mbizo,
the
programme has been withdrawn until "further notice from the Ministry
of
Education, Sport and Culture".
The circular was copied to all the
ministry's regional directors,
under-secretaries, education officers and
heads of secondary schools
selected to participate in the
programme.
"All addressees are hereby advised that the education for
human rights and
democracy pilot project has been suspended with immediate
effect until
further notice," part of the circular
says.
"Supplementary materials which are already in the schools should
therefore
be shelved," it adds.
The human rights programme, funded by
British and Dutch non-governmental
organisations, was supposed to run as an
experiment in schools from the
three Mashonaland provinces of East, West and
Central before being endorsed
for all secondary schools in
Zimbabwe.
Although Mbizo had not responded to written questions on this
issue from the
Financial Gazette up to the time of going to print, education
officials said
there was nothing sinister behind the suspension of the
programme.
Said one official: "There is nothing wrong or suspicious with
suspending a
pilot programme which is not in the national curriculum but was
on an
experimental basis, and this could mean that the pilot programme was
not
feasible to be carried over to the schools and taught to our
children."
Clemence Moyo, acting national chairman of the country's
leading human
rights watchdog ZimRights, however said the suspension would
impact
negatively on Zimbabwe's already tarnished human rights record in the
world.
"ZimRights has long been lobbying for the teaching of human rights
in
schools and it seems that the government does not need enlightened
citizens
in this country.
"All this means that we are becoming more
and more undemocratic as a nation
and this worsens our human rights record,
which I can say is very bad at the
moment."
The Guardian
Wave of arrests follows killing of Mugabe
activist
Opposition says murder is pretext for clampdown
Andrew
Meldrum in Harare
Thursday November 15, 2001
The Guardian
The
discovery of the body of a prominent supporter of President Robert
Mugabe in
the opposition stronghold Bulawayo has resulted in a wave of
arrests and
violence against the Movement for Democratic Change.
Vice-President Joseph
Msika warned the perpetrators that they would get "a
taste of their own
medicine".
The body of Cain Nkala, chairman of the Bulawayo War Veterans'
Association,
was discovered in a shallow grave on Tuesday. He had been taken
from his
home on November 5 by five men armed with AK-47 rifles.
The
government has been quick to blame the MDC for his murder.
"The kidnap
was political and senior persons of the MDC in Bulawayo will be
arrested," an
assistant police commissioner, Wayne Bvudzijena, said.
Mr Msika was more
threatening. "If they are looking for a bloodbath, they
will get it," he
said.
Thirteen MDC members have been arrested in Bulawayo since
Nkala's
disappearance, and many of them have been illegally held for a week
without
appearing in court or being charged. They have not been allowed to
speak to
their lawyers.
State television showed two young MDC
supporters on Tuesday night confession
to murdering Nkala. The state-owned
newspaper the Herald said yesterday that
two opposition MPs would soon be
arrested for the murder.
Last night rampaging supporters of Mr Mugabe's
party burned MDC members'
houses in Bulawayo.
The MDC secretary
general, Welshman Ncube, said the two party members shown
on television had
been tortured into making false confessions.
Its president, Morgan
Tsvangirai, said: "It's utter rubbish to charge that
our party was involved
in that murder. Our conscience is clear.
"We know why the government is
doing this. They want to beat the people into
submission before the
presidential election, and they want to use this as an
excuse."
The
opposition has carefully avoided encouraging violence, and statistics
from
human rights monitors show that Mr Mugabe's party, Zanu-PF, is
responsible
for more than 90% of the political violence.
There were reports from
Bulawayo that Nkala was killed by government
supporters. He was said to have
been unhappy at being named by the police
for the abduction and murder of an
MDC official, Patrick Nabanyama, in June
last year.
Nkala intended to
reveal who had murdered Nabanyama, and was killed by
government agents to
silence him, the reports said.
Zanu-PF activists in Bulawayo and Harare
have beaten up opposition
supporters, saying the MDC was involved in
murdering Nkala.
Last weekend several hundred besieged the MDC's offices
in Harare city
centre, assaulting members and destroying property. The police
took no
action.
Early yesterday two MDC officials were abducted from
their homes in Harare
by six armed men, the party said.
"We are very
worried," a member in Bulawayo said. "The murder of Nkala is
being used as an
excuse to unleash a campaign of arrests and intimidation
against
us.
"Many people have gone into hiding. It is frightening."
The Telegraph
Mugabe 'may use killing to hit rivals'
By Peta
Thornycroft in Harare
(Filed: 15/11/2001)
THE leader of Zimbabwe's
opposition Movement for Democratic Change said
yesterday he feared that
President Mugabe's regime would use the murder of a
ruling party militant as
an excuse to act against it.
Authorities found the body of Cain Nkala
earlier this week in a shallow
grave near the city of Bulawayo, where he was
abducted last week.
John Nkomo, home affairs minister, said two men who
led police to Mr Nkala's
grave had confessed to being supporters of the MDC.
Nine members of the MDC
had been arrested and more were likely to be held, he
added.
He accused "enemies of the government" of sponsoring terrorism to
stop land
redistribution. Police said the pair, shown confessing on state
television,
carried forged passports and more than £60,000 in South African
rands.
The Herald newspaper, a government mouthpiece, yesterday compared
the MDC
with the Nazis. "The Movement for Democratic Change has taken over
the
mantle of violence that Hitler unleashed on his people, bludgeoning
them
into submission," it said.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, is
challenging Mr Mugabe in presidential
elections early next year. He said the
government would use the killing for
its own advantage.
"Nkala's
murder is a smokescreen so that the government can unleash its
terror against
people in Matabeleland and then spread violence all over the
country," he
said. "Once that is complete, they will hold elections. They
want a
predetermined outcome."
Mr Tsvangirai said his party had nothing to do
with Mr Nkala's death. "We
are shocked at this suggestion because we are not
involved in any crime and
would not condone any crime," he said. "Our
conscience is clear."
Daily News
Police deny Nkala murder suspects access to
lawyers
11/15/01 11:09:54 PM (GMT +2)
By Lloyd
Mudiwa
THE MDC says police are denying two MDC members, who are accused
of
murdering Cain Nkala, a war veteran leader, access to their lawyer
and
suspects that they might have been tortured into admitting the
crime.
The MDC said yesterday that the State media continued to
associate Khetani
Sibanda and Sazini Mpofu with the murder of Nkala, the
chairman of the
Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association
Bulawayo province.
Professor Welshman Ncube, the MDC’s secretary-general,
said in a statement
that the police denied them access despite repeated
appeals by their lawyer
Joseph James.
“This raises suspicions that the
young men were tortured into admitting
something they did not do,” he
said.
“We believe the real perpetrators of this crime must be brought to
justice
whichever party they belong to, but this action by the police
confirms our
fears that the investigations of this crime will not be fair.”
Ncube said
his party believed the police knew Nkala’s killers and were
seeking to
protect them by shifting the blame onto the MDC. “If our members
are guilty
they should let the law take its course,” he said.
Sources
within the war veterans’ association in Bulawayo have said the
abduction and
killing of Nkala were inside jobs.
Resentment had apparently grown among
Nkala and others charged with last
year’s abduction of Patrick Nabanyama, an
MDC election agent, because they
were not pardoned in terms of a Presidential
amnesty announced last year for
perpetrators of political crimes.
The
amnesty did not cover kidnapping and murder. There was also resentment
that
members of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), to whom Nkala
and
others claimed they had delivered Nabanyama after his abduction, were
not
charged. Ncube said seven other MDC members arrested on Wednesday last
week
who should have appeared in court 48 hours later according to
Zimbabwean law,
had also been denied access to their lawyer Nicholas
Mathonsi. He did not say
why they were arrested. They are Sonny Masera Moyo,
Ferdinand Dropper, Ronny
Zulu, Sithabiso Mangala, Army Zulu, Alexander
Khanye and Simon
Spooner.
Although MDC lawyers filed an urgent application in the High
Court yesterday
for an order compelling the police to allow the suspects
access to their
lawyers, the police ignored the directive in open contempt of
the court,
Ncube said.
He said: “When the messenger of the court served
the police the notice, they
read it and immediately took it to the CIO’s
offices at Chester House. “The
CIO read the notice and threw it at the
messenger declaring they have
nothing to do with court orders. By late
yesterday the police had not
complied with the court order.
“They were
completely contemptuous of the court process.”
Ncube said the police were
partial and being manipulated by Zanu PF for
political gain. He also
condemned increasing harassment, intimidation and
arrests of the entire MDC
leadership in Bulawayo, saying most had gone into
hiding. Those who attacked
MDC members and their properties have been left
free to commit further crimes
against the MDC, Ncube said.
Student sustains head injury as riot police
gas varsity campus Staff
Reporter
SCORES of University of Zimbabwe (UZ)
students fought running battles with
the riot police and university security
yesterday as they demonstrated
against UZ authorities over delays in their
payouts which they were promised
last week.
UZ council chairman,
Gideon Gono, last week made an undertaking to give the
students an advance of
$3 000 which was supposed to have been disbursed by
yesterday. But up until
midday, none of the students had received the
payout.
Tonderai Sithole,
one of the students, sustained a deep cut on the head
after the police broke
into his room and attacked him. “I was beaten with a
baton stick and a
sjambok more than 10 times on the head and all over my
body, but I was not
told why they were doing that to me,” said Sithole.
The students also
demanded information on the whereabouts of Phillip
Pasirayi, the Students’
Representative Council secretary for information and
publicity, who was
allegedly abducted by plainclothes policemen and security
personnel on Monday
night.
However, lawyer Jacob Mafume of Kantor and Immerman confirmed
yesterday that
Pasirayi was located late on Tuesday at Avondale Police
Station.
Fingaz
CIO drafted into poll
Staff Reporter
11/15/01 6:47:29 PM
(GMT +2)
THE government, in a move aimed at influencing the conduct of
next year's
presidential election, will draw election monitors and those
involved in the
voter education campaign from government ministries,
including a bulk of
officers from the dreaded spy Central Intelligence
Organisation (CIO), it
was established this week.
Official sources
said a majority of officers who will conduct the poll will
be drawn from the
ministries of youth development and employment creation,
home affairs,
foreign affairs, education and from state security.
A vetting exercise
for these staff will be conducted under the supervision
of the Electoral
Supervisory Commission in the next two weeks to select
thousands of civil
servants who will be trained before being deployed
countrywide, they
said.
The government has introduced legislation banning independent
international
and Zimbabwean poll observers from monitoring the presidential
ballot. It
has also barred local non-governmental agencies from carrying out
voter
education campaigns.
The sources said this week there is a
deliberate effort by the ruling ZANU
PF party to ensure that only its
supporters in the civil service are
selected to undertake voter education and
conduct balloting.
"We will draw a number officials from various
ministries to observe the
election and conduct voter education and obviously
the security aspect has
also to be addressed in an exercise of this
magnitude," a top government
official told the Financial Gazette.
The
official, speaking on condition of not being named, did not elaborate on
the
role of the CIO, accused by Zimbabweans of adopting iron-fisted
tactics
against government opponents.
The sources however said
officers from the Ministry of Youth Development and
Employment Creation, most
of them war veterans, will be responsible for
voter education while teachers
from selected areas will only be used as
polling officers.
ZANU PF
accuses teachers of being sympathetic to the opposition Movement
for
Democratic Change (MDC), whose leader Morgan Tsvangirai faces
president
Robert Mugabe in the presidential poll which must be held by the
end of
March.
In the past two months, scores of teachers in rural
areas have fled their
schools after being attacked by ZANU PF mobs who say
they are backing the
opposition.
The sources said the Youth Ministry
is already in the process of
implementing a nationwide training service
programme which, among other
issues, involves teaching recruits about the
history of the 1970s
independence war.
Daily News
Liberators Platform calls for peaceful presidential
election
11/15/01 11:07:34 PM (GMT +2)
From Our Correspondent
in Masvingo
The Zimbabwe Liberators Platform (ZLP), a splinter group from
the Zimbabwe
Liberation War Veterans' Association says there is need for a
peaceful
campaign during the run-up to the presidential
election.
After a six-hour meeting held behind closed doors in Masvingo
over the
weekend, the organisation said genuine war veterans should not
engage in
violence but, instead, should provide a conducive atmosphere for a
free and
fair poll.
A spokesman for the organisation, who refused to
be named for fear of
victimisation, said war veterans who engaged in violent
activities during
the run-up to last year's parliamentary election were doing
so in their
individual capacities and not with the mandate of all former
freedom
fighters.
The spokesperson: "We fought for this country to
promote democracy.
"If you beat people up and harass them just because they
differ with you
politically, is that democracy?".
"We would like to
see a peaceful campaign period and all political parties
should be allowed to
campaign peacefully without fear or favour. The
organisation comprising
genuine war veterans is advocating peace ad
development".
The
organisation also said it will not be part and parcel of the
government's
controversial land redistribution programme describing it as a
"child's
play".
While acknowledging that there is need for a land reform exercise
toaddress
the serious land imbalances in the country, the organisation said
the
government has failed to distribute land fairly.
"We will never be
part and parcel of this child's play. There is no need for
one to invade a
farm to address the land problem. We all know that the land
issue has to be
solved but we cannot be accomplices to this game of
lawlessness", said the
spokesperson.
The director of the organisation, Dzinashe Machingura, told
journalists
after the meeting that similar meetings would be held throughout
the country
to discuss internal issues of the organisation.
"We are
holding meetings to discuss our internal issues and so far things
are moving
on well", Machingura said.
Fingaz
Govt woos army with land
By Basildon Peta Special Projects
Editor
11/15/01 6:46:24 PM (GMT +2)
THE Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA)
has offered farms and plots of land to all
serving soldiers under the
government's Model A2 resettlement programme in
exchange for their support
and loyalty to President Robert Mugabe ahead of
next year's presidential
election, it was established this week.
Investigations by the
Financial Gazette reveal that the army has, in fact,
established an internal
task force headed by Brigadier Daniel Nyikaramba to
handle applications by
all soldiers interested in taking up the land offers.
All applications
for land holdings by ZNA members are being submitted to the
army's
administration branch headed by Nyikaramba and are treated separately
from
applications by ordinary Zimbabweans who submitted these to the offices
of
provincial governors.
Army officers interviewed this week said a budget
was being drawn up to help
resettle soldiers on their new land and to aid
them to buy the necessary
inputs to start farming.
Although it was
practically impossible to allocate big pieces of land to
each and every
soldier serving in the army, the officers said Nyikaramba's
brief was to
determine those soldiers who wanted to take up the land offer
and then see
how best they could be accommodated.
"We are not anticipating that
everyone will take up the land offer in the
army, although the offer is open
to all. We will however strive to
accommodate everyone who will come
forward," one officer said.
"In the very unlikely event that all our 40
000 members subscribe to the
offer, it means that Joseph Made (the
agriculture minister) might have to
subdivide the farms into even smaller
portions until everyone in the army is
accommodated," the officer
said.
While soldiers will be allocated mainly plots on subdivided farms,
a few
members of the top ranks who did not own any land have been offered
bigger
farms, the officials said.
The ZANU PF plan to further buy the
loyalty of soldiers with land holdings
comes a few months after the ZNA made
a decision to give the first
preference of jobs in the army to children of
soldiers and independence war
veterans.
It also comes in the wake of
allegations that soldiers will be given special
bonuses this year ahead of
other civil servants.
"We have been told that we (the soldiers) are the
people who fought for the
land and we should get the first preference for
plots and farms ahead of
everyone else. The army will also help to resettle
us and I must say most of
our members are extremely happy about this move and
have submitted their
applications," another officer said, also speaking on
condition of not being
named.
After being processed by ZNA's
administration, the soldiers' applications
for land will then be sent to the
respective provinces for the actual land
allocation.
Army spokesman
Lieutenant Colonel Mbonisi Gatsheni denied that the land
allocation process
was being rigged in favour of soldiers for political
expediency, saying the
army was merely helping interested soldiers get their
applications to the
relevant authorities.
"Although I don't have much information about what
you are asking, all I
know is that members of the army are also entitled to
land like any other
Zimbabweans and a final decision on their applications
would be taken by the
district administrators in the provinces," Gatsheni
said.
"All we are doing is to act as a post office to help army officers
stationed
in our barracks get their applications to various provinces, the
final
decision will be with the district administrators."
But top
sources say the ZNA has been unrelenting in efforts to ensure the
loyalty of
soldiers ahead of the election. They say the latest incentives
for soldiers
are aimed at not only ensuring their loyalty but also appeasing
the juniors
and middle ranks frustrated by the war in the Democratic
Republic of the
Congo.
In May it was revealed that army commander Constantine Chiwenga
had been
touring army barracks urging soldiers to rally behind Mugabe and
help in
efforts to thwart a possible poll victory by opposition leader
Morgan
Tsvangirai.
At the meetings, dubbed ZNA rallies, Chiwengwa is
said to have told soldiers
that no self-respecting soldier should ever think
of saluting Tsvangirai,
who the army commander described as a "deserter" from
the 1970s independence
war.
Times of India
Zimbabwe police arrest 150 striking farm
workers
ARARE: Police arrested around 150 striking workers on
a plantation in
eastern Zimbabwe, the estate manager told AFP Wednesday, amid
reports of
continuing farm violence.
Nick Fawcett, the managing
director of Eastern Highlands Plantations Limited
in the Honde Valley, some
200 kilometres east of Harare, said a guest house
on the estate was burnt
down Monday by the striking workers, while two other
houses were looted and
two cars burnt out.
A large area of coffee and a eucalyptus plantation
were also set alight, he
added.
He said the workers engaged in "a very
violent demonstration" in an attempt
to disrupt disciplinary action
management were considering taking against
organisers of an illegal strike on
the plantation in October.
The country's farming areas have been gripped
by lawlessness since February
last year, when government supporters began
invading white-owned farms and
calling for their redistribution among
landless blacks.
The latest report from the Commercial Farmers Union
(CFU), which represents
the country's white farmers, said that acts of
violence continue to be
committed against its members and their
workers.
Meanwhile, the state-owned Herald newspaper reported that a
black settler on
a farm in cental Zimbabwe was shot dead Sunday by the
owner's crop guard.
The shooting, on Fair Range Estate, Masvingo
province, followed an
altercation between the guard and new settlers who had
been allocated plots
on the farm by the government, the paper
said.
The CFU's report records three violent incidents in three farming
districts
in Mashonaland Central province, in northern Zimbabwe.
It
said a farmer and his foreman were attacked and beaten on Bourtenvale
farm in
Bindura, central Zimbabwe, while two farm workers were severely
beaten on a
farm in Horseshoe, also in central Zimbabwe.
A third farmer on Visa Farm,
in Mvurwi, was beaten over the head then
barricaded inside his home with
members of his family, the report said.
( AFP )
From ZWNEWS, 15
November
Finance Minister acknowledges
disaster: and pretends it isn't happening
To many analysts, the annual budget presented this month by
Zimbabwe Finance Minister Simba Makoni was notable for more than doubling
expenditure while national production and state revenues plummet. It was a
supreme example of political schizophrenia. "I wouldn't want to be drawn into
arguing why we are where we are - the bottom line is we are where we are,''
Makoni told Parliament, studiously avoiding mention of the government-sponsored
invasions of white-owned farms that have cut by one-third agricultural
production, Zimbabwe's costly military adventure in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, and the failed exchange rate and other policies. Makoni, widely
regarded as one of the more enlightened members of President Robert Mugabe's
Cabinet, publicly acknowledged economic disaster, with 75 percent of the
population now living in what he termed ``abject poverty,'' skilled labour
fleeing the country, and desperate shortages of food and foreign exchange. And
then in the second half of his speech Makoni went on to pretend this wasn't so.
He cheerily reported a budget deficit for the current financial year of 12
percent instead of the 15 percent feared.
But this figure was only attainable by defaulting on US $682
arrears in international debt and forcing down internal interest rates to a
fraction of the rate of inflation. Thus the local money market, particularly
pension funds, subsidises state financial indiscipline. At this rate, many
pensioners face being left destitute, their savings rendered worthless.
Inflation, currently more than 86 percent, will stabilise at 83 percent in the
coming year, Makoni predicted. In addition, his figures are predicated on
Zimbabwe receiving billions in funding from donors who have already said they
have no intention of giving anything until lawlessness ends and order is
restored. In an attempt to woo votes ahead of next year's presidential poll when
77-year-old Mugabe plans to seek a further six-year term, Makoni announced Z$2bn
in handouts to approved black businessmen to revive foundering companies, and
similar largesse for invaders on 4 600 white-owned farms facing seizure.
When the ``Blue Book," the government's annual estimates of
departmental expenditure which should have been published at the same time as
the Nov. 1 budget, eventually appeared nearly a week later, the news was even
worse. Despite the supposed ceasefire in the Congo war, there was a vast
increase in the defence vote, to Z$34,4bn (from Z$13,2bn). It includes Z$449m
for "war veterans' administration" -the militia of the ruling Zanu PF party who
call themselves ex-guerrillas, but are mostly unemployed youths. Last weekend,
they invaded the opposition MDC party offices in central Harare and attacked
passing motorists while police looked on. A chilling leap in expenditure was in
the vote for "special services" under the budget item for Office of President
and Cabinet. This funds the feared Central Intelligence Organisation and is not
subject to any kind of audit. In Parliament, members are ruled out of order if
they even draw attention to it. The latest estimates put it just short of Z$bn -
up 142 percent - way beyond even Zimbabwe's rate of inflation.
