ZIMBABWE: Opposition Politicians Appeal To U.N., U.S.; Annan Issues Appeal
By
Angela Stephens, UN Wire
WASHINGTON -- Opposition politicians and
activists from Zimbabwe wrapped up
a weeklong trip to New York and Washington
yesterday after calling on the
United Nations to strengthen its hand in
humanitarian operations and on the
international community in general to
respond more forcefully to the
country's severe food crisis. In an appeal
issued yesterday on the southern
Africa food crisis, U.N. Secretary General
Kofi Annan said he was especially
concerned about Zimbabwe, where nearly 7
million people will soon need food
aid.
Zimbabwe Shadow Foreign
Minister Moses Mzila-Ndlovu and Shadow Justice
Minister David Coltart, both
members of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change, said they embarked
on this trip to draw attention to the
economic and humanitarian emergency
confronting Zimbabwe's 12.5 million
people, who face soaring food prices,
inflation projected by the
International Monetary Fund to reach 522 percent
next year and land reform
that has uprooted thousands of farm workers and
left many jobless.
The trip coincided with a particularly tense time for
the opposition in
Zimbabwe. Opposition party leader Morgan Tsvangirai,
Shadow Agriculture
Minister Renson Gasela and party Secretary General
Welshman Ncube were
scheduled Monday to go on trial for treason, accused of
plotting to
assassinate President Robert Mugabe. The charges were made in
February, two
weeks before Tsvangirai challenged Mugabe for the presidency,
which Mugabe
won in an election that was widely discredited by international
observers.
The judge of the treason trial granted postponement of the case
until
February at the request of defense counsel, which said the government
failed
to give the defense a copy of a tape on which Tsvangirai is alleged to
have
spoken of a plan to kill Mugabe. The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
has
said the tape appeared to be doctored and accused the
government-controlled
press of "one-sided, hysterical coverage" of the
issue.
Opposition leaders claim that these charges and others against
opposition
members, including an allegation that Coltart discharged a firearm
in
public, are bogus. Tsvangirai and the two others accused of treason are
not
allowed to travel due to the charges against them. Their passports
have
been confiscated.
Mzila-Ndlovu and Coltart met last Friday with
U.N. Undersecretary General
for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast. "Our
biggest concern is that the
food that is being brought into the country by
the World Food Program is
being hijacked by the ruling party to be funneled
toward its own
supporters," Mzila-Ndlovu told UN Wire. "We think that the
ruling party is
using the United Nations food to strengthen its stranglehold
on the
population."
Zimbabwe is one of six southern African nations
facing a major food crisis,
due in part to a regional drought but also,
according to the United Nations,
to bad government policies -- in Zimbabwe's
case, land reform. The
government for the past two years has implemented a
"fast-track" land reform
program intended to redistribute land from wealthy
white landowners to
landless blacks. Human Rights Watch said in a report on
the program in
March that the program "has led to serious human rights
violations" and that
its "implementation also raises serious doubts as to the
extent to which it
has benefited the landless poor."
Recipients of
land have included Mugabe's wife, Grace, who two months ago
reportedly
hand-picked a 2,500-acre lot called Iron Mask Estates. There
have been many
other reports of land going to Mugabe's relatives and
supporters. In August,
3,000 white farmers faced a government-imposed
deadline to vacate their
land. Some defied the order, but many gave up,
electing to go to neighboring
countries or even further abroad, and taking
their farming knowledge with
them. Many of the black workers they employed
were driven off the land they
worked.
The country's agricultural sector, as a result of these policies,
has
collapsed, Mzila-Ndlovu said. Much of the land in agriculturally
rich
Zimbabwe, which was once a food exporter, now lies fallow. The World
Food
Program earlier this year estimated that nearly half of
Zimbabwe's
population would need food aid through the 2003
harvest.
Last month, the World Food Program announced it was suspending
food aid in a
district of Zimbabwe's Matabeleland South province after
militiamen stole 3
metric tons of grain and used it to feed supporters of
Mugabe's party,
ZANU-PF. The WFP said the food was "distributed in an
unauthorized manner"
and that staff of a local partner nongovernmental
organization, the
Organization of Rural Associations for Progress, were
"intimidated."
Mzila-Mdlovu said the food was used directly to manipulate
voters in the
district during a by-election.
In his appeal yesterday,
Annan cited "continuing reports of politicization
in food distribution and
humanitarian assistance in general" and said he
"fully supports the
zero-tolerance policy on the politicization of food
distribution established
by the World Food Program." Annan appealed to the
government to "hold to its
commitment to ensure that political stakeholders
do not affect food aid
efforts within the country" and added that "the
international community must
be vigilant in ensuring that relief is made
quickly to the people in
Zimbabwe."
Zimbabwe's mission to the United Nations and the Zimbabwe
Embassy in
Washington, asked by UN Wire to comment, did not return telephone
calls
today.
On Tuesday, the opposition lawmakers met with Assistant
U.S. Secretary of
State for Africa Walter Kansteiner. The United States has
been highly
critical of Zimbabwe's policies. Washington has accused the
government of
withholding food from people who support the opposition, as
have the Danish
Doctors for Human Rights.
"As the largest contributor
of food aid to the WFP, the United States itself
is in a position to
influence the decision of the United Nations to have a
greater say in the
distribution of food," Mzila-Mdlovu said. "We think that
they should be able
to communicate with the U.N. ... to say, 'Can you
strengthen your hand in
Zimbabwe, so that we avert this impending
catastrophe?'"
"We are
looking at something in the region of 700,000 people who are going
to perish"
early next year, Mzila-Mdlovu said, before the next harvest. He
said there
should be international oversight to ensure that food aid is
reaching the
people it is intended for.
The Guardian
U.K. Foreign Secretary Angers Critics
Friday November
15, 2002 3:20 PM
LONDON (AP) - Foreign Secretary Jack Straw angered
political opponents by
laying some of the blame for current world crises -
including those in Iraq
and Zimbabwe - on the legacy of British
imperialism.
``A lot of the problems that we are having to deal with now
- I have to deal
with now - are a consequence of our colonial past,'' Straw
said in an
interview published in the New Statesman magazine
Friday.
Members of the main opposition Conservative Party accused Straw
of yielding
to ``old fashioned left-wing guilt'' and undermining British
foreign policy,
particularly in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe has
justified his
campaign against white farmers as a way of righting the wrongs
of
colonialism.
But Prime Minister Tony Blair's Downing Street office
said Straw's remarks
are ``a sensible statement of history.''
In the
interview, Straw questioned the idea of ``liberal imperialism,'' a
term used
by Blair's foreign policy adviser Robert Cooper to describe recent
military
interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone.
``I didn't agree with that
stuff. I'm not a liberal imperialist... . There's
a lot wrong with
imperialism,'' Straw said.
``India-Pakistan - we made some quite serious
mistakes,'' he said, referring
to British rule until 1947, when the two
countries were partitioned.
In Kashmir, which is claimed by both India
and Pakistan, he said, ``We were
complacent...the boundaries weren't
published until two days after
independence. Bad story for us. The
consequences are still there.''
In Afghanistan, he added, Britain
``played less than a glorious role over a
century and a half.''
And in
the Middle East, ``the odd lines for Iraq's borders were drawn by
Brits. The
Balfour declaration and the contradictory assurances which were
being given
to Palestinians in private at the same time as they were being
given to the
Israelis - again, an interesting history but not an
honorable
one.''
In Zimbabwe, Straw said, there was a need to
redistribute land after the
country gained independence in 1980.
Straw
said he had ``huge arguments'' with Robert Mugabe over the need for
democracy
and good governance.
``However, when any Zimbabwean, any African, says to
me land is a key issue.
. . the early colonizers were all about taking
land,'' he said.
Opposition Conservative Party foreign affairs spokesman
Michael Ancram said
Straw's remarks showed the government is ``frightened of
the shadow of our
colonial past and has not realized that the world has moved
on. We have to
treat problems as we find them, and not on the history of how
they arose.''
Ancram said Straw's comments on Zimbabwe ``gives
encouragement to Mugabe to
go on accusing the British government of
neocolonialism because he believes
it stops the government from taking action
that puts real pressure on him.
``What strikes me about this article is
it shows no overall vision of what
he is trying to achieve. It's old
fashioned left-wing guilt.''
The right-wing Daily Telegraph newspaper
said it ``cannot imagine Colin
Powell, the American Secretary of State,
indulging in such maundering
self-hatred, particularly as the United States,
backed by Britain, prepares
for a possible war on Iraq.
``It weakens
Britain's position internationally. It undermines soldiers who
may be about
to risk their lives for what they - at least - believe to be
right,'' the
paper said.
BBC
Friday, 15 November, 2002, 17:11 GMT
British Empire blamed for
modern conflicts
The UK Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has blamed
Britain's imperial past
for many of the modern political problems, including
the Arab-Israeli
conflict and the Kashmir dispute.
"A lot of the problems
we are having to deal with now - I have to deal with
now - are a consequence
of our colonial past," he said.
In an interview with a British magazine, the
New Statesman, Mr Straw spoke
of quite serious mistakes made, especially
during the last decades of the
empire.
He said the Balfour Declaration of
1917 - in which Britain pledged support
for a Jewish homeland in Palestine -
and the contradictory assurances given
to Palestinians, were not entirely
honourable.
"The Balfour declaration and the contradictory assurances which
were being
given to Palestinians in private at the same time as they were
being given
to the Israelis - again, an interesting history for us, but not
an
honourable one," he said.
Mr Straw acknowledged "some quite serious
mistakes" in India and Pakistan,
jewels of the British empire before their
1947 independence, as well as
Britain's "less than glorious role" in
Afghanistan.
'Odd' borders
Mr Straw blamed many territorial disputes on
the illogical borders created
by colonial powers.
He mentioned Iraq, the
region which was governed by Britain under the
mandate of the League of
Nations after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in
World War I.
"The odd
lines for Iraq's borders were drawn by Brits," he said.
And he said the
British Government had been complacent about Kashmir at the
time of Indian
independence, when it quickly became the most contentious
issue between India
and Pakistan.
'Sensible statement'
This is not the first time Mr Straw has
made controversial remarks about
British history.
In the past he has
blamed the English of oppressing the Scots, the Irish and
the
Welsh.
Members of the main opposition Conservative Party accused
Mr Straw of
undermining British foreign policy, particularly in Zimbabwe,
where
President Robert Mugabe has justified his campaign against white
farmers as
a way of righting the wrongs of colonialism.
But Downing Street
said Mr Straw's remarks were "a sensible statement
of
history".
Unusual
BBC's Diplomatic correspondent Barnaby Mason says
that Mr Straw's critical
remarks about British colonialism would be
unsurprising coming from
virtually anyone else.
Such views have been
commonplace across the world and among left-wingers in
Britain.
Our
correspondent said 30 years ago, Mr Straw used to be an outspoken left
winger
himself.
BBC
Friday, 15 November, 2002, 16:33 GMT
Africa Media
Watch
A number of South African papers were less than
impressed with the outcome of this week's talks in Pretoria between Foreign
Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and her Zimbabwean counterpart, Stan Mudenge.
Following the talks, the South African foreign minister urged the
international community to help Zimbabwe tackle its economic and political
crisis, saying: "Even if Zimbabwe made a mistake, the point is that we need to
move to the future".
The sad fact is that Mugabe is
going to get away with murder
Business Day
'Endorsing brutality'
For Johannesburg's Business Day the
sight of a "smiling" Mr Mudenge towering over his "delighted" South African host
proved too much.
"Here is the foreign minister of the most powerful
economy in Africa... fundamentally endorsing the brutality, corruption and sheer
avarice that has marked Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's efforts to cling to
power," it said.
According to the paper, Ms Dlamini-Zuma's "desire
to 'look forward' expressly ignores the ugliness of what has happened in
Zimbabwe".
"The sad fact is that with our help - dithering
solidarity at the start and panic at the end - Mugabe is going to get away with
murder," Business Day said.
Linked interests
Writing
in the same paper, commentator Samuels Norwood ironically observed how lucky Mr
Mugabe was in his neighbours.
Any chaos in Zimbabwe
is likely to affect South Africa
Star
"How very cute. Following the Zimbabwe-South Africa ministerial
meeting...[ruling] African National Congress (ANC) comrades have joined Mugabe
in demanding that Britain compensate Zimbabwe's dispossessed white farmers...
Mugabe can thank his lucky stars he has such good friends south of his border,"
he wrote.
An editorial in South Africa's Star took a somewhat
different line, hoping for what it called light at the end of the tunnel.
South African government officials "continue to hope against the
odds that somehow Mugabe and his ministers will finally realise that they are on
a path to self-destruction," the paper said.
"South Africa's
economic interests are directly and indirectly linked to developments in
Zimbabwe, and any chaos there is likely to affect South Africa."
"So when Harare says the farm seizures will no longer happen and calls on South
Africa to help distribute relief to drought-stricken communities, these words
are sweet music to Dlamini-Zuma's ears," the editorial said.
'Squandered' legacy
South Africans are understandably
exercised by Dlamini-Zuma's latest cosying up to her Zimbabwe counterpart
The Citizen
An article in
Johannesburg's The Citizen accused the government of "squandering this country's
most precious legacy: the international stature and moral authority bequeathed
by Nelson Mandela's too brief rule".
Besides objecting to the
stance on Zimbabwe, the writer took umbrage at South African Deputy Foreign
Minister Aziz Pahad's recent visit to Baghdad.
"Nkosazana's fawning
over Mugabe's henchmen is as nauseating as Aziz's infatuation with Saddam
Hussein."
"South Africans are understandably exercised by
Dlamini-Zuma's latest cosying up to her Zimbabwe counterpart Stan Mudenge. The
prospect of again bailing [Mugabe] out with fuel supplies is outrageous," the
article said.
Economic 'contagion'
In Zimbabwe
itself, pro-government The Herald saw the talks as consolidating relations
between the two countries and "thwarting moves by the West to put a wedge
between Harare and Pretoria".
Mr Mudenge's
visit caused controversy
But Harare's privately-owned
Daily News expressed anger at the South African stance.
"Dlamini-Zuma's appeal to the international community to come to the aid of
Zimbabwe may be brimming with sincerity, but it doesn't seem to take account of
how much resentment towards South Africa her government's futile quiet diplomacy
has built up among ordinary Zimbabweans," it said.
"By any
political calculations, if South Africa had blended its quiet diplomacy with a
tough reminder to Mugabe that he was ruining his country just to stay in power,
there could have been far less chaos than there is today. Moreover, many lives
would have been saved."
The chances that Mr Mugabe would now agree
"to mend his ways and correct his errors" depended on "how determined South
Africa and the other members of the Southern African Development Community are
to prevent the economic contagion of Mugabe's blunders from developing into a
terminal illness in the region".
BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham
in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television,
press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70
languages.
15 Nov 2002 16:04
Zimbabwe, Zambia food crisis seen dragging on
-WFP
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Manoah Esipisu
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Acute food
shortages are likely to
persist beyond next year for millions of people in
Zimbabwe and Zambia, the
World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday. Zambia,
Zimbabwe and Malawi are
at the centre of a hunger crisis threatening 14.4
million people in six
southern African countries. Mozambique, Lesotho and
Swaziland are also
facing severe food shortages.
The region is
suffering its worst drought in a decade, but analysts
and aid agencies also
point to man-made factors such as controversial land
reforms in
Zimbabwe.
In Zambia, a government ban on gene-altered maize, most
of donated by
the United States, has complicated efforts to feed about three
million
people in need.
"We are going to be here this time next
year," Richard Ragan, the WFP
representative in Zambia told reporters in
Johannesburg, predicting more
appeals for aid.
He said bad
weather and a shortage of seeds and fertilisers meant
Zambian farmers would
be unable to produce enough grains to meet their
domestic needs in
2003.
The WFP plans to move about 18,000 tonnes of food -- 7,500
tonnes of
it milled -- mainly to Zimbabwe and Malawi after Zambia refused to
have it
distributed to its people, Ragan said.
In Zimbabwe,
where nearly half of the country's 14 million people need
food aid, President
Robert Mugabe's government has been accused by
opposition and civic groups of
politicising food distribution.
On Thursday, U.N. Secretary General
Kofi Annan expressed "grave
concern about the humanitarian crisis" there and
urged the international
community to keep on providing
assistance.
Annan appealed to the Zimbabwean government to hold to
its commitment
to ensure that politics would not affect food aid efforts
within the
country.
Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party has denied
using food as a political
weapon and accused some aid agencies of sending
more food relief to
opposition strongholds.
The Daily News - Feature
The real story of Zimbabwe is a sorry
tale
11/15/02 9:41:36 AM (GMT +2)
By Archbishop
Pius Ncube
I COME to you today to appeal to you for prayers to ease
our most
serious situation in Zimbabwe and to appeal to you to lobby by all
means
possible for a peaceful solution to the Zimbabwean
crisis.
We face an absolutely desperate situation in
Zimbabwe and the
government is lying to the world about it. Our government
continues to
engage in lies, propaganda, the twisting of facts, half-truths,
downright
untruths and gross misinformation, because they are fascists.
My
understanding of Christ and of the Church makes me believe that Christ is
a
prophet, a priest and a shepherd.
King As a prophet, He is a
teacher to all nations and a carrier of God
's word. He stands against sin,
falsehood and injustice; and we are tasked
to do the same.
As a
priest, He is self-sacrificing and offering His life for others.
He is
prayerful, holy and God-centred. The Church is called to the same
posture. As
a shepherd, He defends the poor, the marginalised and the
minorities. Jesus
calls the Church to do the same, to uproot sin and
oppression. Reading Luke
4:17-19; Matthew 6:33; Luke 17:20-21. As Christians
and as the Church, we are
not called to go along with society. Rather, we
are called to preach the
values of the Kingdom of God, namely love,
holiness, humility, respect for
others, and their property, peace,
non-violence; to feel for others, to be
gentle, compassionate,
understanding; to be sincere, to be truthful, to be
human, to be integrated,
to be whole.
To put people first before
things, to be God-centred, to forgive, to
be self-controlled, to be
prayerful, to heal, to sacrifice ourselves for
others; not to take advantage
of others, to suffer for the truth; to judge
ourselves before we judge
others, to be joyful; to be the salt and the light
of the world; to respect
the poor, to be renewed with God's vision (to be
born from above John 3:5),
to be motivated by the Holy Spirit to be free and
to free others (John 8:36)
and to be full of hope.
The Political Situation Politically,
Zimbabwe gained independence 22
years ago, and for the first decade things
worked well, although between
1983 and 1987, Robert Mugabe, deliberately and
with malice aforethought,
killed up to 20 000 innocent civilians in revenge
for the fact that in wars
against the Shona in the 19th century, before the
arrival of the colonisers,
the Ndebele killed, looted and took wives from the
Shona, and in more recent
times, followed a different political path from him
and his party.
There was then an economic boom and unemployment was
down to about 15
percent; Mugabe was Prime Minister, he attended Parliament
and was
sympathetic to the poor. The government spent a great deal of money
to
develop the people. Unhappily, everything changed politically three
years
ago. In 1999, Mugabe wanted to impose a new constitution on the
country. To
this end, he appointed the whole of Parliament and about 400
others to
discover what the people would want in a new
constitution.
The people responded well: they wanted a maximum of
two terms for the
President; they wanted to limit the presidential powers and
they wanted a
Senate, or Upper House. When the draft constitution was drawn
up by the
Mugabe supporters, these demands were ignored and the new proposals
gave
even greater powers to the President. A referendum was held in February
2000
and the proposals were rejected. This was the first time the electorate
had
voted against Mugabe and his party. In the referendum it was clear that
the
white voters also rejected the new proposals. The result enraged Mugabe
and
almost immediately the violence began.
Some nine months
earlier, a new political party had been formed, the
Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC), and Mugabe saw in the referendum
results an alliance between
the whites and the MDC. He also foresaw that he
was in danger of losing power
to this new party in the election which was
due in 2000. He reacted wildly to
the defeat, called together his central
committee and the politburo and plans
were made for the invasion of
commercial farms by the so-called war veterans,
of whom perhaps only
one-third were genuine veterans of the liberation war,
as some were too
young even to have been alive during that war.
To briefly explain the land situation in Zimbabwe, I must say that the
white
commercial farmers had owned much of the productive land in the
country and
by 2000 there were approximately 4 500 white farmers on that
land. Land
reform was clearly needed, but government efforts to redistribute
land failed
in the early 80s and the land question was put onto the
government
backburner. The government now brought it back into focus as it
was the only
card it had left to play.
The first invasions took over about 1 500
farms, reducing production
there to almost nothing. As time has passed all,
except about 600 farms,
have been occupied. The Constitution was amended by
Presidential decree and
various laws changed to allow this all to happen, but
the invasions were to
serve as the jumping-off point for grave violence to be
perpetrated in the
rural areas by these war veterans and other party members
in the run-up to
the parliamentary election in 2000 and the presidential
election in 2002.
Before the parliamentary election 60 people were
murdered, some in the
most gruesome fashion, many people were abducted and
tortured, some simply
disappeared. At the election Zanu PF gained 62 seats,
the MDC 57 and another
party one. The election was declared not free and fair
by the independent
monitors for a variety of reasons and the MDC brought
court challenges in 37
constituencies, to no avail. In any case Mugabe has
the gift of 30 seats in
Parliament, being 10 traditional chiefs, 8 provincial
governors and 12
non-constituency MPs, all of whom are Mugabe
supporters.
This result gave Zanu PF a majority in Parliament, but
not the
two-thirds required to change the Constitution. So, whenever a
by-election
is called after the death of an MP, the polls are rigged to
ensure a Mugabe
victory. Mugabe is using the food crisis in Zimbabwe to force
people to vote
for his party, indeed every means to ensure victory is used,
from bussing
people in from other constituencies to using seriously bad
arithmetic in the
counting of votes. Before the presidential elections, the
Gallop poll
indicated that the incumbent would gain no more than 45 percent
of the vote
and that the opposition candidate would receive 55
percent.
In the event those figures were reversed.
The Daily News
Minister widens tax threshold
11/15/02 9:23:17 AM (GMT +2)
By Chris Mhike Business
Reporter
THE income tax threshold for individuals, will be
increased in the
2003 fiscal year, from the current $90 000 to $180 000,
widening the
population of non-taxed Zimbabweans, said Herbert Murerwa, the
Minister of
Finance and Economic Development.
This means that
Zimbabweans earning less than $180 000 a year would,
with effect from 1
January next year, be exempt from income tax.
Taxpayers would
continue to be taxed at rates between 30 percent and
45 percent of total
income, excluding the aids levy.
Tax bands would be widened to end
at $1,5 million, above which
individual incomes would attract a tax of 45
percent.
Tax-free pension contributions would be increased from $45
000 to $90
000.
Presenting the $770,2 billion 2003 national
Budget before Parliament
yesterday, Murerwa said the tax bracket adjustments
reflected government's
plan to increase disposable incomes.
Murerwa said: "The consequences of this measure is that a significant
number
of taxpayers will be released from the tax net, and disposable
incomes will
be enhanced."
Employees were also set to benefit from the upward
revision of limits
for exemptions on bonuses. The non-taxable portion of
bonus rose from $10
000 to $20 000. Murerwa said as a result the fiscus would
lose $3,55 billion
in uncollected taxes.
Tax credits extended to
the elderly, the blind and disabled taxpayers
have also been adjusted
upwards.
The tax credits for the elderly stand at $12 000, with the
blind and
disabled at $7 500. With effect from 1 January next year, credits
for all
three special taxpayer categories would enjoy a tax credit for any
amounts
up to $20 000.
The lower threshold for the non-taxable
portion of pension
commutation, that is packages paid upon retirement, has
been raised.
Currently pegged at $60 000, or one third of the
amount due, whichever
is greater, the limit has been increased to $250 000 or
a third of the
amount due, whichever is greater.
Taxpayers
facing retrenchment also stand to benefit from the 2003 tax
limits
adjustments.
The tax-free severance package for the Zimbabwean
retrenchee rises
from $150 000 or one third of $750 000 to $300 000 or one
third of one third
of $1,5 million, whichever is greater, with effect from 1
January next year.
Despite exempting a greater range of people from
the tax net,
Zimbabweans remain among the highest taxed people in the
world.
Murerwa's only hint for the slashing of taxation levels
related to the
Aids levy, that was imposed two years ago.
Murerwa said the HIV/Aids levy, currently at 3 percent of taxable
income,
would only be lifted at the end of next year, when preparations for
an Aids
endowment fund would be complete.
Corporate bodies, as taxable
entities, would however immediately
benefit from the latest budget as
corporate tax has been reduced from 35
percent to 30 percent, from 1 January
2003.
The Daily News
Government swallows pride, embraces
Nepad
11/15/02 9:33:34 AM (GMT +2)
By Colleen
Gwari Business Reporter
THE government yesterday made an abrupt
U-turn on the New Partnership
for Africa's Development (Nepad), which it had
previously condemned as
neo-colonial.
Presenting the 2003 Budget
estimates, the Minister of Finance and
Economic Development, Herbert Murerwa,
said Nepad was a home-grown African
initiative designed to foster development
on the continent.
He said Zimbabwe needed to play an active role in
the Nepad processes,
or risk being left out by the international community.
In the past the
government has scoffed at Nepad because of its reliance of
Western economic
aid.
Murerwa said it was imperative that the
country remained part of the
process. Spearheaded by President Thabo Mbeki of
South Africa, Nigerian
President Olusegun Obasanjo, Senegalese President
Abdoulaye Wade and
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Algeria, Nepad seeks to
increase aid to
Africa from the West in return for good governance, respect
for human rights
and the rule of law.
Incensed by and
uncomfortable with the good governance and rule of law
clauses, the Zanu PF
government attacked Nepad as a foreign concept devised
to further destabilise
Africa.
The dissenting voices, led by Jonathan Moyo, the Minister
of State for
Information and Publicity, said Nepad's conditionalities
threatened the
independence and sovereignty of the continent.
Yesterday, Murerwa said: "It is, therefore, critical that Zimbabwe
remains
part of this process. This is necessary if we are to reverse the
declining
foreign investment flows, achieve sustainable economic growth
and
development."
His remarks come against a backdrop of a
severe economic decline,
including the collapse of the health delivery system
and the transport
industry, among other the key sectors of the
economy.
The manufacturing sector was one of the hardest hit with
most
companies down-sizing operations, while others have closed shop
and
relocated to neighbouring countries.
Murerwa bemoaned the
lack of foreign currency inflows and Zimbabwe's
isolation by the
international community. He said the country could not
afford to continue
defaulting on its foreign debt commitments, as it risked
being kicked out of
the global flow of capital. That, he said, would have
disastrous consequences
on the economy and the country as a whole.
Zimbabwe was frozen out
by the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
among other leading financial
institutions, for defaulting on its debt. The
country has an accumulative
total of US$1,3 billion external debt, about
Z$71,5 billion at the official
exchange rate, but about $1,9 trillion on the
parallel market.
Economic analysts were quick to point out that Murerwa's stance was
nothing
short of an admission by President Mugabe's government that the
country would
not live in isolation.
Most analysts said Murerwa's remarks
signalled a change of course. One
analyst, who declined to be named, said:
"An acknowledgement by Murerwa on
the need for the country to work together
with the international community
shows that the government is bowing to
international pressure to restore
normalcy."
Didier Ferrand, the
French Ambassador to Zimbabwe, speaking at the
rebranding ceremony of Hotel
Mercure Rainbow in Victoria Falls, said there
was no way out for the country
except the restoration of relations with the
international and donor
community, especially the IMF and the World Bank.
The Daily News - Leader Page
Food crisis could extend beyond
March
11/15/02 10:53:30 AM (GMT +2)
ZIMBABWE'S
food crisis could extend beyond March next year. Weather
experts have already
warned of an El Nino effect this year, meaning there
are prospects of either
a drought or floods. If there is a drought, the
likelihood is that the rains
are likely to disappear at the end of January -
two months before most of the
crops mature. On the other hand, if there are
floods the crops will be
devastated.
The end result in both scenarios is that the
current food crisis will
extend for another 12 months and the problems most
people are facing now
will look like a picnic. This year, while most areas
were affected by the
food shortages, there were pockets where it was possible
for villagers to
harvest something. Evidence of this is shown by the bags
dotted on the
carriers of most long-distance buses from the rural areas,
driving into the
major urban centres. However, next year could present a
different picture. A
drive into the rural areas shows little activity from
the government's brave
new farmers, while in the communal areas the
indications are that people are
just starting to plant.
Unless
they are using short-season varieties, the crops will wilt
before they
mature, when the rains disappear. The sum total of the
agricultural
activities in the countryside is that there will be no
significant crop
production, while on the other hand the country's ability
to generate foreign
currency with which it could buy grain on the open world
market will be
seriously affected by the government's compulsory acquisition
of farms under
its land reform programme. In the end it will be up to the
international
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to come to the rescue.
But the
government has clamped down on NGOs and the chances are that very
few of them
will be able to continue to operate in an environment where the
government
will only tolerate NGOs prepared to let it distribute food
exclusively to its
supporters.
The government's understanding of co-operating NGOs is
confined to
those willing to condone its practice of denying food to anyone
except those
able to produce Zanu PF party membership cards. The crisis is
quite serious
and the prospects of starvation will be more real than they
have ever been
during the recent past. The situation has been aggravated by a
number of
factors. One is the unpreparedness of the newly resettled farmers
to rise to
the occasion. Evidence of this reluctance is contained in the
warnings to
those allocated farms that unless they take up occupation within
a certain
time frame, they run the risk of losing the farms.
It
was almost embarrassing for the government to have to do that,
because all
along its argument was that there was pressure for land and that
farms were
being invaded by impatient landless peasants. If they were hungry
landless
peasants, they would not need government threats to be on the farms
they were
given. The second factor is to do with inadequate resources. The
District
Development Fund (DDF) is supposed to provide draught power to the
new
farmers, but it is common cause that they are hopelessly ill-equipped
to
undertake the task. Again evidence of this is seen in the
villagers
struggling to plough the farms they have been allocated, using
livestock for
draught power. But there was also the issue of the ability of
the new
farmers to pay $4 000 for every hectare ploughed for them by the DDF.
Many
could not raise that money.
The third factor has been that
of input distribution. The wrangle
between the government and producers over
seed prices delayed delivery of
seed to the centres around the country for
the new farmers to access the
inputs. That delay has affected plantings and
the hectarages planted.
Reports of some wheat crop still unharvested this
time of the year will
worsen the shortages. And if there is a drought, then
the much celebrated
winter maize cropping cannot be undertaken. Zimbabwe's
land reform is
driving it into a second year of serious food shortages that
could trigger
migration into neighbouring countries.
The Daily News - The Mole
Interviewing himself not below Moyo's
dignity
11/15/02 9:36:42 AM (GMT +2)
Have you
noticed that whenever the government or - even more often -
the minister
himself does something remarkably foolish or issues some
embarrassingly
stupid statement which provokes public anger or derision,
Information
Minister Jonathan Moyo does not do the normal thing, which is to
either keep
quiet or issue a terse and succinct statement reaffirming the
status
quo.
Instead, he invariably takes each and every single one of
such
situations as an opportunity to avail himself for an interview with
the
State-controlled Press during which it becomes "quite clear", to use one
of
his many tired cliches, that he is for ever salivating for as many
chances
as possible to exercise his gutter vocabulary to hurl abuse at people
he
knows cannot hit back because they cannot avail themselves of
similar
facilities to return the "compliments".
And almost
always those so-called interviews are purportedly conducted
by the same
person - the now thoroughly discredited Sunday Mail political
editor,
Munyaradzi Huni. The use of the expressions
"so-called" and
"purportedly" are deliberate.
Quite frankly, The Mole seriously
doubts that those "interviews" are
any more genuine than the myriad of
outlandish statements attributed to
faceless and nameless "analysts"
and "African diplomats" issued in
support of the government's equally bizarre
actions and routinely published
in newspapers belonging to the Zimpapers
group.
And so, just as suspicions are high that those statements
attributed
to some nameless "analysts" and "African diplomats" are, in fact,
authored
at Munhumutapa Building, so too does The Mole think those
"interviews" are,
in fact, authored by Moyo himself with the use of Huni as
the interviewer
being no more than a convenient way of making his often
incoherent ramblings
look like genuine interviews.
Just look at
their lengths and how, in response to a very short and
sometimes vague
"question", he goes on and on and on, usually flying off at
a tangent,
attacking and insulting innocent people and organisations
perceived not
particularly enthusiastic about the idea of supporting the
government's
insanity which is deteriorating at an alarming pace.
In his
"interview with Munyaradzi Huni" in the wake of the
controversial closure of
Joy TV, for example, Moyo "was asked": "There are
rumours that the government
wants to give Joy TV's licence to New Ziana, is
that true?"
This
was a straightforward question which needed to be replied calmly
with a
simple "yes" or "no". But the master of invective saw it as an
opportunity to
fulminate in typically indecorous fashion: "Look, those are
foolish rumours
from foolish people whose ignorance and malice knows no
bounds."
It is, however, Moyo's most recent "interview" in The Sunday Mail of
10
November which has prompted this piece. The so-called interview would
have
been hilarious for its sheer childishness were it not so uncouth in
the
manner Moyo relentlessly and unfairly assails both the person and
character
of National Constitutional Assembly chairman, Dr Lovemore
Madhuku.
The "interview" was ostensibly sought to enable Moyo to
explain the
government's ban on British Prime Minister Tony Blair and all
senior
officials in his government from setting foot on Zimbabwean soil
which, as
far as The Mole is concerned, would have been a pointless exercise
had it
not touched on the one relevant aspect of the ban: the inclusion in
that ban
of specified indigenous black Africans working on SW Radio Africa
and VOP in
Britain and the Netherlands.
The truth hurts and
makes those who are normally strangers to it very
nervous and jittery when it
confronts them. Which is what happened to Moyo
when it was put to him that
Madhuku says the ban from their country of
birth - a most stupid move to
take, I must say - was both illegal and
unconstitutional, which, of course is
true. Motormouth nearly tore himself
up with rage. He went for poor Madhuku's
jugular, teeth, nails and all.
It could be argued, perhaps with
some justification as some might say,
that it was fair comment on Moyo's part
to mention that Madhuku was once
convicted for dishonesty involving money
because he is a public figure.
But to mention that fact no less
than 13 times is to go a bit
overboard. In any case, what has that got to do
with the issue at hand? How
did Moyo, by harping upon that irrelevant fact,
much like the acid-tongued
township woman bent on humiliating another, hope
to destroy the plain truth
that the government's childish, vengeful act of
banning people from their
country was illegal and
unconstitutional?
In any case, someone ought to tell the good
Professor that Madhuku
paid dearly for his obvious indiscretion by going to
jail. Therefore, Moyo
can only make reference to the case if some time in the
future Madhuku is
convicted of another crime again.
But then
again, someone must remind Moyo that, in spite of his own
numerous
indiscretions and misdemeanours, unlike His Caustic Highness, the
Professor,
the rest of Zimbabweans are too decent to ever refer to his
alleged financial
escapades at the Ford Foundation as well as at Wits
University which would
make Madhuku's crime petty by comparison.
One other thing: will
someone please warn the professor to stop trying
to dignify his outrageous
personal views by pretending to be speaking on
behalf of all of us through
the reckless use of the phrase "most
Zimbabweans" when it is clear he is
only speaking for himself - and,
perhaps, his master? In any case, just like
Patrick Chinamasa, he has no
right to speak on behalf of Zimbabweans, even
only a few hundred of us,
because he is not an elected MP.
The Daily News
52 arrested in blitz to stop illegal sale of basic
goods
11/15/02 10:00:47 AM (GMT +2)
From Our
Correspondent in Masvingo
ABOUT 52 people, including 18 who run
butcheries, were arrested in
Masvingo on Wednesday, in a blitz in which
police impounded seven tonnes of
maize grain and maize-meal to stamp out the
sale of basic commodities in the
open.
The arrests have prompted
the police to investigate the Masvingo Grain
Marketing Board (GMB) depot to
establish the sale of maize to unlicensed
dealers.
Learn Ncube,
the provincial police spokesman, confirmed the arrests,
saying scores of
people selling basic commodities in the open risked being
arrested in the
crackdown.
Ncube confirmed the police were investigating the
Masvingo GMB depot
amid reports that workers there were involved in the maize
and maize-meal
scandal.
Ncube said: "Those found in possession
of maize-meal will be charged
with contravening the Shop Licences Act while
those found in possession of
large quantities of maize grain will be charged
with selling the controlled
commodity at exorbitant prices."
During the exercise, the police impounded 135 10kg bags of maize-meal,
100
50kg bags of maize grain, 53 20kg bags maize-meal, three 50kg bags and
220
bags 20kg of maize-meal.
Ncube said the 18 butcher operators were
arrested for selling meat at
inflated prices.
He said some of
the impounded maize is suspected to have been bought
from the
GMB.
The police were anxious to establish how the consignments
ended up in
the hands of the illegal dealers.
"We want to find
out how the maize is being taken out of the GMB
depot," he said. "We have
discovered that people have masqueraded as heads
of hospitals and other
institutions to get the maize-meal and we suspect
that workers at the depot
might be involved in the scam."
Dear Family and Friends,
It's so hard to tell people what life in Zimbabwe
is like now but this week I'd like to try and describe a typical day of mine. I
often sit on the step outside my front door at 4.45am having a cup of tea and
watching dawn break. I've always been an early morning person but these days I
get up early out of necessity and not choice because it's the early bird that
finds food, fuel and everything else in Zimbabwe now. It is so beautiful to sit
out early in the morning and watch the things that are the very essence of life
here. Weaver birds with their magnificent breeding colours flit around the lawn
picking up all the Christmas beetles that have hit the lights overnight. Lilac
breasted rollers squabble on the telephone lines and every now and again a
hammerkop comes down and nods and bobs his head as he patrols the garden for
insects. Over the wall I wave to my neighbour who is already hard at it. He is
in his suit, jacket hanging on a thorn bush, tie flipped over his shoulder,
sleeves rolled up and a hoe in his hand. He is weeding between the lines of
maize and beans that he's planted on the side of the road in front of my house.
There are already a lot of people on the road but they're not going to work,
they're going to find food and are all heading for a house a block away with a
big kitchen and an enterprising owner. It is known as a "tuck shop" and you can
get more of life's basics here than you can in the big supermarkets in Marondera
town. Every morning people rush to stand in line outside the back door of the
tuck shop. The line starts at 5am, the owner gives everyone a small piece of
cardboard with a number on it indicating the order in which they will be served.
100 or more people wait until 5.30am when the door opens and each person may buy
one loaf of bread. By 6am there's nothing left.
I thank God for that loaf of bread because it means
my 10 year old son will have a sandwich in his school lunchbox. It also means
that I won't have to jostle amongst the 47 trucks and 500 people waiting at the
one and only bakery still operating in Marondera. Taking Richie to school has
become a bit of a nightmare. It's only a 2 kilometre journey but the dirt road
hasn't been graded for many months and the pot holes and ruts are so bad that
30km/h is about top speed on the good bits. Once a week I go straight from
school into Marondera town to find two things - food or petrol. I haven't done
very well on the food side this week because there's almost nothing to buy that
I can afford anymore. There have been no basics at all (there is no petrol or
diesel so very few delivery trucks have come our way) and everything else has
rocketed in price. A simple packet of biscuits which was one hundred dollars
last week is now just over two hundred dollars. A pack of chewing gum that was
52 dollars last week is 224 today. I confine my purchases to things for Richies
lunch box and a newspaper (which was 60 dollars on Monday and 100 dollars by
Wednesday). A young boy called Marvellous guards my car while I'm in the
supermarket and I give him ten dollars when I come out, not because the car
needs guarding but because he's hungry. I hear a rumour that there might be
petrol coming in to one of the 4 filling stations in town and go straight there.
By the time I arrive the queue is already so long that I can't see the beginning
so I get into the line and wait with everyone else. It took 2 hours and 22
minutes for me to get to the front of the queue, hot, pretty fed up and with a
stinking headache. In those 2 and a half hours I saw the real face of life in a
small country town in Zimbabwe today.
In every direction you look there are people
waiting for something whether it's a lift in a minibus or a vendor selling
vegetables. Crowds of men stand around bottle stores drinking beer from brown
plastic bottles known as scuds. A woman with a small enamel bowl comes to my car
window and tries to persuade me to buy a small plastic tube filled with frozen
drink. These frozen coloured drinks used to be called cent-a cools because they
cost one cent, now we just call them freezits. The woman wants $50 each for them
and doesn't try and persuade me when I say no because there are plenty of other
customers in the petrol queue behind me.
Two young men in green uniforms with shining red
police boots and carrying black rubber truncheons strutted up the road. Everyone
looked away, these are the notorious graduates from the Border Gezi training
camps and we call them "green bombers" because they wreak havoc in every
direction. The two went up to a man with a pile of wilting cabbages, picked one
up, poked it, laughed scornfully and threw it down. The cabbage rolled heavily
onto the road and no-one moved or said anything until the green bombers had
walked on.
A man wearing blue overalls and a black leather hat
caught my attention. He was sitting on a tyre on the roadside and decanting
brandy into a half empty coke bottle. His wife, her face wreathed in new scars,
stood beside him with one bag of fertilizer and two large bags of belongings. A
minibus with the name "Commander" was waved down by the woman and brandy man sat
drinking while his woman negotiated a price. Asked where he wanted to go to,
brandy man said "to the farms" and he carried on drinking while his woman broke
her back carrying first the 2 bags and then the 50kg sack of fertilizer to the
vehicle. Brandy man is one of Zimbabwe's new farmers and it is in him that we
have to put our hope and trust. It's hard to explain why one of Zimbabwe's new
farmers is sitting on the roadside getting drunk at 11 in the morning during the
busiest time of our growing season. It's just as hard to explain why President
Mugabe and his cabinet just gave themselves their second pay rise of the year
and backdated it to July while we get up before dawn to queue for a loaf of
bread and 6 million Zimbabweans are starving.
There is no sign of the threatened US "intrusive
intervention" into Zimbabwe yet but perhaps the shooting at a road block in
Mutare last week of an American citizen will spur them into action. My sincerest
condolences to Howard and the family of Richard Gilman who I had been
corresponding with for some time and who has done so very much to help children
and others in need in Mutare. Richard's loving, compassion and good deeds will
not go un-remembered, not by me nor the 840 children he had raised money to feed
at a remote school in Mutare. I continue to wear my yellow ribbon of silent
protest, today it is for Richard Gilman. Until next week, with love, cathy. http://africantears.netfirms.com
Copyright cathy buckle Saturday 16th November 2002.
How Zimbabwe Lost the Peace in the DRC
Zimbabwe Independent
(Harare)
November 15, 2002
Posted to the web November 15,
2002
Chido Makunike
The last of Zimbabwe's soldiers involved
in the war in the DRC have either
come home, or are about to. For the most
part, their return has been as
unceremonious as their initial involvement in
that country.
Despite the Zimbabwean government's claim that they nobly
accomplished their
stated goals of preserving the DRC's sovereignty and
territorial integrity
against various invaders, the lowkey return of the
troops is the Mugabe
government's tacit acceptance of the deep domestic
unpopularity of the
military adventure.
President Mugabe failed to win
any significant number of Zimbabweans to the
argument that our military
involvement was a noble, principled
pan-Africanist effort.
He is not
the first African leader to seek glory from foreign military and
diplomatic
grandiosity at the expense of domestic economic wellbeing.
Somewhere
along the way, in response to the lukewarm reception to
Mugabe's
pan-Africanistic blandishments, it was argued that Zimbabwe's
military
involvement in the DRC was also good for business.
After all,
it was said, the DRC was a huge untapped market for all kinds of
goods, a
country rich in diamond wealth, and one that would be favourably
disposed to
a Zimbabwe that we were told would be regarded by the Congolese
as their
saviour against marauding Ugandans and Rwandese, and of course
the
traditional Western imperialists, who unlike us, only involved themselves
in
that vast, rich, dysfunctional country for selfish gain.
Let us
evaluate Mugabe's DRC military adventure on his own terms, and try to
see if
it has been a success or failure.
There is a semblance of peace in the
DRC, with Zimbabwean and other foreign
troops about to be replaced by UN
troops. Given the more or less permanent
state of martial law or civil war
that the DRC has been in for several
decades now, that must be rated as at
least a hopeful sign of bringing order
to that country.
Yet the peace
that reigns is tenuous at best, and Joseph Kabila's government
cannot be said
to wield central authority over all or even most of that
country. Zimbabwean
troops appear to have indeed been a stabilising, if
partisan force, and their
withdrawal is being manifested by increasing
instability that could yet see
that country slide back to square one.
While Uganda and Rwanda make as
big a show of withdrawing their troops as
Zimbabwe does, they are much better
poised to retain a presence there than
we are. Both countries have a lot of
common social and cultural ground with
the DRC that allows them to blend in
far better and easier than Zimbabweans
do.
They know their way around
the DRC far better than we do, and so it will
take a long time to verify to
what extent they have really "withdrawn".
Compared to the various other
foreigners involved in the DRC, Mugabe really
does seem to have been
initially driven by ideological, pan-Africanist
principle, although good
old-fashioned greed and military machismo may have
taken over at the end.
This ideological romanticism has worked against
Zimbabwe's interests because
the many opponents arrayed against it were
motivated by the more powerful
reason of pure self-interest; economic,
strategic or territorial.
It
was much easier for nearby Uganda or Rwanda to put forward
plausible
arguments for involvement than distant Zimbabwe. Even if we were to
agree
with the rightness of Mugabe's stated cause for unilaterally committing
our
troops in the DRC, they were stacked against too many equally or
more
powerful forces to make any long-term difference.
As Zimbabwe
withdraws, many of the foreign forces that have helped to keep
the hapless
DRC in misery for decades are recouping, entrenching their
interests in
cleverer, less obvious ways.
The Americans, French and Belgians have been
quite shameless over the
decades in throwing away all the democratic and
other ideals they are so
fond of touting to the rest of the world in the rush
to plunder the DRC's
mineral wealth. Armed with technological know-how and
capital the DRC badly
needs, and that a country like Zimbabwe cannot provide,
they are rushing in
to take advantage of whatever temporary order Zimbabwe
has helped to bring
about at great cost to itself. In the best of
circumstances, Zimbabwe's
businesspeople could only have been expected to
invest in a small way in the
DRC, but even that was made impossible by
Mugabe's domestic policies that
have brought industry to its
knees.
Zimbabwe is not only being out-manoeuvred by these countries, as
well as
out-competed by an economically stronger and diplomatically craftier
South
Africa, the Congolese themselves do not show any of the long-term
loyalty
and gratitude to Mugabe that might have been expected. There has been
a
marked cooling of relations between Zimbabwe and the DRC since Joseph
Kabila
inherited power from his assassinated father Laurent, Mugabe's buddy,
and
the ordinary Congolese do not show much sign of strong fealty to
Zimbabwe
for "saving" them from foreign invaders.
Kabila Jnr now
embarrassingly keeps Mugabe at arms length, making it quite
clear that now
that he feels more safe and secure in his position as a
result of Mugabe
having been his and his father's bodyguard, he can do
without him very
nicely, thank you very much. A Mugabe who still lives in
the era of
liberation-era sentimentality is left with nothing to show for
his costly DRC
adventure as Kabila and the Congolese choose practicality
over sentimentality
in hitching their wagons to the South Africans,
Americans and others they
perceive to be able to do more for them from now
on than Mugabe and Zimbabwe
can.
Except for a few of Mugabe's henchmen who have amassed diamonds, and
the
medals on the chests of a few soldiers, Zimbabwe has gained
absolutely
nothing from its military involvement in the DRC. This has exposed
yet again
how Mugabe may be a fierce, effective warrior, but one who has no
clue how
to exploit the ensuing peace for the benefit of his
country.
Chido Makunike is a Harare-based freelance writer.
The Daily News
Government has no intention of repealing
POSA: Chinamasa
11/15/02 10:56:41 AM (GMT +2)
Political Editor
PATRICK Chinamasa, the Minister of Justice, Legal
and Parliamentary
Affairs, on Wednesday said the government had no intention
of repealing the
notorious Public Order and Security Act (POSA).
Chinamasa said POSA would not be repealed because it ensured the
opposition
MDC remained under control.
"The government has never had any
intention of repealing POSA because
the MDC would have made the country
ungovernable," he said, without
elaborating. "There is no quest to repeal the
Act because POSA is the answer
to the MDC."
Chinamasa was
responding to a question by Tsholotsho MP, Mtoliki
Sibanda, who wanted to
know whether the government would repeal the Act to
allow for free and fair
elections to take place in the country.
Sibanda, an MDC member,
said the recent local government elections
were held under forbidding
conditions, similar to a state of
emergency.Chinamasa said it was not the
government's fault that the MDC had
failed to field candidates in some
areas.
Earlier, in response to a separate question, Chinamasa said
the public
did not necessarily need to seek permission from the police to
hold a
meeting, but that the police reserved the right to provide guidance on
how
such a meeting should proceed.
Several civic and political
leaders have been arrested under the POSA,
which is deemed more repressive
than its preceding legislation, the Law and
Order Maintenance Act,which was
crafted by the colonial regime.
The Daily News
Barwe faces eviction by war veterans
11/15/02 9:54:47 AM (GMT +2)
Staff Reporter
SO-CALLED war veterans are reportedly trying to evict the
Zimbabwe
Broadcasting Corporation's chief correspondent, Reuben Barwe, from
land he
was allocated at Sunnyside Farm, about 46km on the Harare-Bulawayo
road.
If carried out, Barwe's eviction would be ironic as he is a
staunch
supporter of the government's chaotic and often violent land
reform
programme.
Barwe and other journalists in the
State-controlled media were
allocated land under the A2 commercial farming
scheme in a move largely seen
as a reward for their loyalty to Zanu
PF.
But Barwe on Wednesday denied there were any moves to evict
him.
He said he still retained the 240 hectares allocated to him
and had
already tilled about 50 hectares and planted maize and soya
beans.
He said: "Whoever said that is lying. I don't know anything
about it.
People are working in the fields right now. I was there this
morning. No, it
's not true. They are lying."
But one of his
workers, who asked not to be named, yesterday said a
group of war veterans,
usually numbering up to six, had regularly visited
the farm in recent weeks
claiming they had been allocated the fields Barwe
had ploughed.
The worker, who was herding about 10 cattle near Barwe's workers'
huts, said:
"The war veterans say they were given all the fields on the farm
and Barwe
should leave. They say he should go and clear the bush farther
away from here
and do his farming there."
She said the war veterans, believed to
be from Norton, about 5km away,
had threatened to burn down the workers' six
huts if Barwe failed to comply.
The Daily News
Budget likely to exacerbate economic problems -
analysts
11/15/02 10:51:48 AM (GMT +2)
By Chris
Mhike and Columbus Mavhunga
THE 2003 National Budget is a historic
disappointment likely to
achieve the exact opposite of what it seeks to
achieve, economists said
yesterday.
Professor Tony Hawkins, the
director of the University of Zimbabwe
graduate school of management,
described the Budget, presented yesterday by
Herbert Murerwa, the Minister of
Finance and Economic Development, as a
"non-event".
"The
minister has left too much hanging in the balance so that there
is nothing
substantial upon which people can hope for an improvement to the
current
situation.
"There are too many inconsistencies in that budget so
that the figures
therein do not make any sense at all."
Murerwa's presentation yesterday was punctuated
with
"modalities-to-be-announced-later" as he pronounced monetary policy,
leaving
out fiscal policy .
For instance, in making projections
on inflation in the 2003 financial
year, the Finance Minister said: "This
budget targets for the reduction of
double-digit inflation, of 90 percent by
the end of next year, and
single-digit inflation thereafter."
He
did not, however, specify how that uphill feat would be achieved
under
Zimbabwe's turbulent macro-economic conditions, and under his
vague
budget.
"The Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe will
soon provide the
requisite monetary policy measures for 2003," said
Murerwa.
Hawkins said the International Monetary Fund projection of
500 percent
inflation by the end of next year, was closer to the truth than
Murerwa's
unsubstantiated figures.
Anthony Mandiwanza, the
president of the Confederation of Zimbabwe
Industries, also cast doubt at
Murerwa's projections on inflation and other
macro-economic
fundamentals.
Mandiwanza is also the chief executive officer of
Dairibord Zimbabwe
Limited, one of the few companies singled out by Murerwa
as a successful
example of privatisation. However, the government seems to
have slowed down
its privatisation programme as indicated in Murerwa's
speech.
Mandiwanza said inflation had been fuelled in this
financial year by
high government expenditure and reduced export activity.
While the minister
declared that export output would be enhanced,
accompanying policy to
support the declaration was lacking, said
Mandiwanza.
He said: "The minister cast his projections for
inflation at a
two-digit figure, but does government have sufficient capacity
and the
requisite discipline to ensure that its expenditure is
reduced?"
Incidentally, the overall Budget deficit expected to be
recorded by
the end of this year is 14,1 percent of gross domestic product.
Total
domestic borrowing requirements for the 2002 Budget rose in the course
of
this year from $87,4 billion to $136,3 billion.
Murerwa said
the economy would next year suffer another Budget
deficit.
Mandiwanza said the deficit figures reflected negatively on the
practicality
of Murerwa's projections. "How is the minister going to finance
the deficit?
I suspect he will do so through inflationary means. "That would
only
accelerate inflation," said Mandiwanza.He echoed Hawkins' sentiments,
that
there was nothing in the Budget to enhance the increase in productivity
of
the Zimbabwean economy, and the restoration of the nation's
tattered
economy.
Other commentators described Budget as the
final nail in the country's
economic coffin as Murerwa had failed to read the
real economic situation.
The Daily News
Defence gets second largest vote
11/15/02 9:40:11 AM (GMT +2)
By Luke Tamborinyoka Political
Editor
DESPITE the announced withdrawal of Zimbabwe from the
Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Defence ministry received the
second
largest vote in the budget announced yesterday.
The
ministry, which has dominated expenditure in the government
departments, was
yesterday allocated a whopping $76,4 billion by the
Minister of Finance and
Economic Development, Dr Herbert Murerwa.
The highest vote went to
the Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture,
which received $109,2 billion.
Even the Ministry of Health and Child
Welfare, which is facing a critical
shortage of staff and essential drugs
was yesterday allocated $73,4 billion
against $90 billion that it had
demanded.
In his budget speech,
however, Murerwa said there was need to
recapitalise the army: "With peace in
the DRC and the withdrawal of our
troops from that country, I would like to
take this opportunity to
congratulate our gallant fighters for a job well
done. However, there is now
a need to recapitalise both the army and the
airforce, in order to enhance
their capacity to defend our
sovereignty."
Murerwa did not elaborate on what threats the country
was facing now
that the blazing guns were silent in the DRC, to which where
the army was
dispatched in 1998 to help the DRC regime of the late Laurent
Kabila ward
off rebels sponsored by Rwanda and Uganda.
The MDC
shadow minister for Defence, Giles Mutsekwa, last night said
the colossal
allocation was probably meant to fund the government's
youth
brigade.
"I do not think that this vote is solely going to
benefit the
Zimbabwean army. This government has been sponsoring its youth
brigade, who
have been moving around in army and police uniforms and beating
up people.
The government had to find money, somehow," Mutsekwa
said.
He said it could be a lie that the government had totally
withdrawn
from the DRC.
"Once an army withdraws from such an
assignment, there should be a
grand parade, where the financial and human
cost of the adventure would be
explained to the nation. We have not had such
a grand parade," he said.
The Daily News
Murerwa pleads with God
11/15/02
8:25:10 AM (GMT +2)
By Luke Tamborinyoka Political
Editor
THE Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Herbert
Murerwa,
yesterday appealed to God to save Zimbabwe from further economic
decline.
Tabling the 2003 National Budget in Parliament, with an
estimated
deficit of over $200 billion, Murerwa painted a gloomy picture of
the
country's economic performance and projected an even bleaker picture
for
next year.
In his concluding remarks after explaining the
arduous task ahead for
the government, a downcast Murerwa put his faith in
the Holy Book."Mr
Speaker, Sir, allow me to conclude with a message from the
prophet Jeremiah.
In Chapter 29, verse 11, he says: 'For I know the plans I
have for you,
declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.
Plans to give
you hope and a future.' I believe, Mr Speaker, God has a
similar plan for
Zimbabwe as well."
In his response, the MDC
shadow minister for finance, Tapiwa
Mashakada, said: "The magnitude of the
economic problems has prompted the
government to seek divine
intervention."
Murerwa announced a $770,2 billion budget, against
projected revenue
of $540 billion, giving a deficit of $230,2 billion. He
projected a negative
growth rate of minus 7,2 percent, with projected
year-end inflation of 96,1
percent for 2003, down from an all-time high of
144,2 percent this year.
Murerwa said the country was facing severe
socio-economic problems and
that all sectors of the economy were shrinking in
their performance and that
the country had become a high-risk investment
destination.
He said low foreign exchange availability had left
most companies
operating below capacity while others had closed down, leading
to job losses
and increased poverty.
A highlight of the Budget
was the announcement that bureaux de change,
accused by the government of
fuelling the black market in foreign currency,
will be banned from operating
at the end of this month. Murerwa conceded
that international isolation had
had a corrosive effect on the economy.
"The country's external
position further deteriorated in 2002,
reflecting the combined effects of
sanctions and declining exports," he
said. Murerwa said agricultural
production had fallen from -12,0 percent in
2001 to -20,8 percent in 2002. He
said high inflation had affected the
unemployed, the pensioners and even the
middle-income earners.
He said food imports were necessary and were
expected to cost US$359,3
million (Z$19,76 billion at the official rate).
Murerwa said manufacturing
was operating at 60 percent below capacity as many
companies had closed
down. He said there was poor performance in mining and
tourism generally.
He said with the land redistribution programme,
the projected growth
of agriculture was expected to improve overall economic
growth.
"Productivity in agriculture will also improve income levels
and
generate increased aggregate demand," he said.
Murerwa drew
jeers from opposition MPs when he said Zimbabwe had
guaranteed private
property rights.
"Government recognises that Zimbabwe is an
integral part of the global
economy and has always respected internationally
recognised rules, which
govern property rights."
He said with
the hardships facing the nation, the government would
have to readjust its
spending patterns.
Murerwa said among the challenges for 2003 were
food security,
agrarian finance, restoration of confidence, high inflation,
exporter
viability, external payment arrears, pricing policy, public
enterprise
reform, public transport and cross-border investment, among
others.
Zim Independent - Muckraker
Not-so-pretty 'Polley' and the
jailbird
Under the heading "Rumours of government intending to acquire all
mining
rights dispelled", the Business Herald recently quoted Minister of
Mines
Edward Chindori-Chininga as saying: "I wish to assure all mining
rights
owners that their property rights acquired under the Mines and
Minerals Act
are secure and protected by the laws of Zimbabwe."
He
referred to people "unconcerned with mining peddling falsehoods"
regarding
the government's intention to expropriate mining claims and
operations. What
he didn't say was who had been peddling these "falsehoods".
While the
business community will be pleased to have his assurance, they are
entitled
to expect a more forthright attribution of responsibility from the
minister.
Exactly who has been spreading alarm and despondency in the
mining
sector?
The Herald managed to round up a couple of tame
"analysts" to comment on its
silly "US plans to invade Zimbabwe" story last
week. They should have known
better. Chris Mutsvangwa for instance cannot
seriously believe the Americans
are about to launch an invasion. Dropping
food by parachute is about as
"intrusive" as they are likely to get.
Mutsvangwa is a diplomat, not an
analyst, and it's about time he started
behaving like one.
Rino Zhuwarara is a media trainer. Why we need the
benefit of his hidebound
Mahosian views on American foreign policy is not
clear. The Americans might
drop bombs along with food parcels, he fatuously
suggested. The Americans
were not the only source of charity, he lamely
added.
So who are the others? Certainly not the Libyans or any other
so-called
allies of the regime. The biggest donors are Britain and the EU who
also
channel aid through the World Food Programme.
Zhuwarara should
concentrate on training better journalists. The next time
the Herald calls he
should tell them the truth. He is not really an analyst.
Just another
academic parrot.
On the subject of which we were delighted to see Olley
Maruma back in the
editorial pages of the Herald. We quite thought he had
dropped of his perch.
Last week he castigated Lovemore Madhuku as an
"ex-criminal" sowing "mayhem"
in Zimbabwe by demanding a new constitution.
Madhuku was once jailed for
stealing money from his clients when he was a
practising lawyer, Maruma
reminded us.
Just six days later in the
Sunday Mail Jonathan Moyo was describing Madhuku
as a "jailbird" who "stole
money from his clients".
So it is clear where Polley has been taught to
sing even if he isn't
particularly pretty!
Moyo, by the way,
dismissively asked his Sunday Mail interviewer how a new
constitution could
possibly stop the shortages of goods, create jobs, combat
disease or end
poverty.
"Which fool does not know that these things are a matter of
policy and not
the constitution," he confidently asserted.
Who is
fooling who here? Constitutional reform is about political
accountability.
That means a situation in which public resources are
accounted for and not
misallocated or stolen. If we had an accountable
government we would not have
food shortages or extreme poverty because money
would not have been diverted
to the Congo or Zanu PF militias.
Moyo knows that. Why else did he
champion constitutional reform two years
ago if not to create a better
society? Surely he is not admitting to wasting
all that money convincing us
to vote for constitutional reform when he didn'
t really believe in it? He
surely cannot be counting himself among the
"idiots, crooks and outright
criminals" who "either peddle such rubbish or
believe it"?
But at
least we now have his admission that shortages, unemployment, poverty
and
disease are a matter of policy. We suspected as much!
We would like to
assure writers at the Mirror that not all historical
references appearing in
the Zimbabwe Independent are inspired by the editor.
The Mirror's
"Behind-the-Words" columnist saw the heavy hand of our editor
behind
references to a covert state-driven press campaign and post-Soviet
media
oligarchs in a recent article by Dumisani Muleya. In fact, the details
about
South Africa's "Infogate" scandal in the 1970s and more recent events
in the
former Soviet Union are all in the public domain and available to
any
resourceful journalist. But the Mirror's sensitivity about references
to
oligarchs and apparatchiks is entirely understandable.
We were also
taken to task over the same article by the chairman of the
Media Africa Group
which publishes the Tribune. He appears unaware that
speculation regarding
ownership of newspapers is an entirely legitimate
pursuit. The public have a
right to know who is behind pro-government
publications popping up here and
there.
Charging that we have an "infantile understanding of the political
economy
of Zimbabwe" does nothing to clarify the Tribune's position except to
betray
an all-too-familiar talent for abuse in certain circles. And
threatening to
"advise the Media Ethics Commission (sic)" of our "political
theatrics" is
hardly likely to convince readers that the Media Africa Group
is independent
of those interests the Media and Information Commission
represents!
Muckraker was intrigued by the bitter denunciation that
greeted articles
appearing in the Financial Gazette last month. Information
minister Jonathan
Moyo told the Herald that an article claiming President
Thabo Mbeki was to
launch an initiative aimed at breaking the political
impasse in Zimbabwe was
"criminal".
In a wholly disproportionate
response, Moyo said the story "claiming that
South African President Thabo
Mbeki is plotting an unconstitutional exit of
President Mugabe is a sickening
example of the kind of diplomatic rubbish
that can only emanate from
incompetent and very desperate British
intelligence operatives run by the
likes of Brian Donnelly."
Moyo threatened that "legal questions must
necessarily be raised" as to
whether the journalists involved had "any
factual or lawful reasons to
believe the manifestly British-sponsored
propaganda."
What on earth is he talking about? At no stage was it
suggested that Mbeki
was "plotting an unconstitutional exit" for Mugabe.
Since when anyway has
Zanu PF given a damn about the constitution which it
has amended 16 times?
And Mbeki's initiative to resume talks between Zanu PF
and the MDC is public
knowledge. That is what Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was
doing here last month,
according to official statements in
Pretoria.
Newspapers have every right to speculate about the
conditionalities of those
talks. The reciprocal dropping of charges against
MDC leaders and court
cases against the government would be a logical
development if the talks
were to succeed. That South African diplomacy was
linked to statements made
in the House of Lords (not the Commons as Moyo
stated) by Baroness Amos is
also less than surprising. There is considerable
international cooperation
to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis.
Moyo is
abusing his authority by threatening legal action against newspapers
which
have broken no law, including his own defective legislation. And by
making
defamatory remarks about the journalists who wrote the story and
linking them
to non-existent British intelligence operatives, Moyo is simply
discrediting
his case before it has even been tested in the courts.
But his outburst
does reveal one thing: Zanu PF's sensitivity about being
forced into bed with
the "treacherous" MDC by its supposed friends in the
ANC!
Meanwhile,
the Financial Gazette has also been castigated for comparing the
Mugabe
regime to al-Qaeda. Permanent Secretary in the Department of
Information
George Charamba said comparing a constitutionally-elected
government to a
terrorist organisation was not only breaching the law but
criminalising the
country's democracy.
"It amounts to criminalising our whole democratic
process and collectively
indicting and branding as terrorists the vast
majority of Zimbabweans whose
democratic participation in the country's
election process yielded the
present government," he observed.
He said
while the government recognised and respected both criticism and
opposition
as lawful exercises of rights in "our hard-won democracy", such
expressions
of dissent "should operate within the confines of reasonableness
as defined
by law, fairness and commonsense".
So is it unlawful to describe a regime
that uses terror as an electoral
strategy as "terrorist"? Is it unreasonable
to compare a party whose armed
supporters drink the blood of their slain
victims with other armed and
dangerous organisations?
It's not only
the independent media that has described as criminal the
methods of violence,
coercion and political fundamentalism that Zanu PF used
to "win" the
presidential poll. Observers who reported on the election
referred to
kidnapping, torture, and other forms of intimidation. These
human rights
abuses and the killing of over 100 people have been documented
by a number of
reputable human rights monitors.
And who is "criminalising the country's
democracy" if not those who are
abusing its laws and violating the liberties
of its citizens? The real
criminals are those recently exposed in a UN
report. Those who have used the
levers of power to grow rich while the
country becomes poorer. Those who
employ violence and intimidation to
maintain themselves in power.
The "vast majority" which Charamba refers
to amounts to 400 000 people, all
living in Zanu PF's rural fiefdom, many of
whom were registered after the
voters registration exercise closed, and who
in any case had no choice as to
who to vote for. The tens of thousands turned
away from polling stations in
cities or who were arbitrarily and illegally
denied the right to vote would
find Charamba's remarks about "democratic
participation" downright
insulting.
Let's have no more protests about
calling this regime what it is.
"Zimbabwe has become a looter's paradise,
guaranteeing survival only for
Mugabe's bootlickers and sycophants," the
offending Fingaz article said. Isn
't that what everybody
thinks?
Charamba thinks it is an offence for a newspaper to "provoke and
demonise"
the government. But if the government is provoked by the truth,
that is its
problem, not ours.
And the South African High Commissioner
was ill-advised in responding to the
story as if it was indeed a
plot.
On a slightly less serious note, the Herald reported at the same
time a
story about MWeb's classified ads section on its website carrying
an
advertisement which described President Mugabe's hobbies as "seeing
people
dying of hunger and grabbing other people's land".
"Many
people" had called the Herald, we were told, to protest.
"They should be
made to retract unreservedly the harm that has been done to
the person of the
president," one caller was reported to have said.
Can we have his name
and number? We think we know where he was calling from.
But MWeb gets no
marks at all for its grovelling apology which appeared a
few days later in
the Herald's Letters column. Either it supports freedom of
expression or
subscribers will move elsewhere.
On the subject of freedom of expression,
South African newspapers reacted in
unison to news agency reports that
Zimbabwean police had arrested a man for
carrying a placard saying: "God
shall confront Mugabe over evils done to
people, then would police and
Central Intelligence officials arrest God on
that day?"
The Sowetan
headed their report: "He must be crazy not to like Mugabe."
Indeed, all
dictatorships regard anybody questioning the dogmas of their
leaders as
deranged. When somebody carrying a knife in the mid-1970s was
caught trying
to get into Ian Smith's office he was immediately sent for
tests on his
sanity. How times (don't) change!
Finally, it seems President Mugabe was
misquoted last year when he said:
"Nobody could run the economy better than
me."
What he actually said was: "Nobody can ruin the economy better than
me."
Zim Independent - Eric Bloch Column
Blatant stupidity drives land
policy
BY now, hardly a week passes by without government enunciating yet
another
hare-brained policy, the only material effect of which would be to
hammer an
already severely battered economy, or embarking upon yet another
foolhardy,
ill-considered action which can only result in intensification of
the
economic hardships which have beset almost all Zimbabweans.
The
decline of the economy is attributable to numerous, very different
causes,
but the overwhelming majority of those causes are a direct
consequence of
government's unwillingness to heed any advice given it,
irrespective of how
well-intentioned and soundly based that advice may be,
and its obdurate
determination to adhere to its policies and to persist in
implementing them
without regard to their proven inefficacy and abysmal
impact upon a people
suffering greatly.
Last week was a case in point. Suddenly, government
announced modification
to its land policies, stating that all land acquired
by the state under the
inhuman and unjust, economically calamitous agrarian
reform programme will
for all time be owned by the state. The lands seized
from rightful owners
could no longer be possessed by individuals, companies
or any other
entities. The lands are to be the absolute property of the
state, available
to those of the populace as the state determines on a basis
of tenancy only.
The impression gained by the latest authoritarian decree of
the allegedly
democratic, but actually dictatorial rulers of Zimbabwe is that
they have
recognised that although they have reduced the economy to dire
straits, and
most of the population to abject poverty, nevertheless the
economy is not
yet completely destroyed, and has yet to be beaten to death,
and that they
have recognised that no matter how greatly most have been
impoverished,
their suffering can still be intensified.
The result of
the proclamation that all the acquired lands must vest in the
state is that
very few, if any, of the "new" farmers will be able to access
funding
required to finance essential inputs and agricultural operating
costs, let
alone to fund subsistence of the farmers and their families
whilst awaiting
the harvesting of crops. Notwithstanding that most banks,
financial
institutions, and civically-conscious organisations have pledged
to provide
funding in excess of $25 billion, they must be accorded
reasonable security,
but without land tenure, virtually all are lacking of
acceptable collateral.
Moreover, the absence of ownership of land must
inevitably diminish the
motivation and drive of most of the newly-settled
farmers.
The blatant
stupidity and consequences of government's land policies was
concisely and
most effectively addressed recently by one of Zimbabwe's most
renowned,
patriotic and concerned economists, John Robertson, who said:
"When this
country was colonised just over 100 years ago, the indigenous
population was
estimated at about 500 000 people. Archaeological records
suggest it was
seldom higher than that in the past 1000 years. And in the
Great Zimbabwe
phase some 500 years ago, an ecological disaster appears to
have overtaken
the more than usually concentrated gatherings of people.
"I believe that
today's resettlement farmers are on a very rapid learning
curve. On it they
will learn, not how to make a success of small- scale
farming, but how it is
that small-scale farming was never able to sustain a
population bigger than
in today's Chitungwiza.
"When the colonisers came to this country, they
brought with them many ideas
that were eagerly adopted by the indigenous
population. Today there is no
question of discarding telephones,
road-building techniques, anti-malaria
drugs or distilleries. And nobody
wants to turn back to having no schools or
hospitals, no newspapers or postal
services, no motor cars and no insurance
salesmen. Today's politicians might
claim to resent colonialism, but they
have no intention of giving up the
innovations that came with it.
"Except for one. Very curiously, the one
colonial import they are rejecting
is the one that has had a more profound
effect on the wealth-generating
abilities of colonised countries than any
other. I'm not talking about the
steam engine or dynamite or penicillin, and
I am not talking about power
stations or railway systems. I am talking about
individual title to land.
"The piece of paper that ties a certain
individual to a certain piece of
land is the bridge between the land and the
banking system. It is also the
bridge between the present and the future, and
it is the bridge between the
farmer and the best farming ideas the world's
research scientists can
generate. That piece of paper turned the piece of
land it represented into a
capital asset that could become a device for
capital accumulation. And it
turned good farmers into successful business
leaders and massive
contributors to society.
"The shallowness of
official thinking on farm land today is shown by the
fact that, instead of
trying to understand this vitally important concept
and ensuring that it is
copied by everyone else, they have chosen instead to
destroy it. You could
fill libraries with the accounts of land reforms that
took away individual
ownership and ended in failure.
"From collective farming in the USSR and
China to Ujamaa in Tanzania and to
Pol Pot's Cambodia, we can trace the great
pedigree of this thinking. But it
dates back further than that, in fact back
to feudalism under the likes of
Richard III and Peter the Great. "Without any
doubt, the programme will
fail. But among the many tragedies that the whole
process has caused has
been the destruction of systems and relationships
between members of the
commercial farming fraternity.
"Without doubt,
we will have to rebuild these systems and without doubt we
will enjoy more
success if we focus our attentions today on the real
problems."
At
almost the same time as the Minister of Agriculture, Joseph Made made
known
the catastrophically apocalyptic policy on land ownership, the
Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Stan Madenge was participating at an European
Union/Sadc
meeting in Mozambique. Instead of using the opportunity to mend
bridges and
repair fences with the international community, and thereby
working towards
reinstatement of international support for the recovery of
Zimbabwe's
economy, he once again abused Britain.
In doing so, he spuriously alleged
that all Zimbabwe "wants is justice for
its white farmers". Were this so,
Zimbabwe would not repeatedly claim that
every white farmer is entitled to
one farm, whilst in practice it deprives
virtually every white farmer of all
land that he possessed, or leaves each
farmer a non-economically viable tract
of land of inadequate size. If
Zimbabwe genuinely espoused justice for white
farmers, it would ensure that
law and order prevails in all rural areas, that
white farmers' property and
persons would be protected, and that full and
just compensation would be
paid for lands and other assets acquired or
destroyed and vandalised by the
unruly tools of government domination. Were
it really Zimbabwe's wish for
justice for white farmers, it would have
implemented its agrarian reform in
the manner agreed at the 1998 Donor
Conference, and as again agreed at
Abuja.
But no, Zimbabwe once again
demands that Britain pay all compensation for
seized lands, and that Britain
comply with the Abuja agreement. It is fact
that Britain has not met its
obligations under that agreement, but it takes
two to tango, and Zimbabwe has
not only not implemented the agreement, but
it has cavalierly pursued land
policies diametrically opposed to those
agreed at Abuja. Britain, and other
concerned nations, have oft-repeated
their willingness to support Zimbabwean
land reform, financially and
otherwise, provided that the land reform was
pursued on the basis previously
agreed. (And Britain has previously
demonstrated the credibility of its
declared willingness to meet agreed
obligations. Based upon the
pre-Independence Lancaster House Agreement,
Britain paid more than £44
million for land acquisition in the 1980s, over
and above much other aid).
Zimbabwe has only to demonstrate unequivocal
implementation of the Abuja
Agreement, applied justly and with recompense to
the victims of the
non-Abuja based land acquisition programme, and
international support will
again be forthcoming. Thereupon, major strides
would be taken towards
economic recovery for all Zimbabwe, for agriculture is
the foundation upon
which the Zimbabwean economy has been, and should be,
based.