International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: October 13,
2007
LONDON: About 50 people, including a member of Britain's
Parliament, held a
protest on Saturday against Zimbabwe's President Robert
Mugabe and urged
other African countries to condemn him.
The
demonstrators outside Zimbabwe's embassy held banners reading "No Mugabe
No"
and chanted and sang songs as Dumi Tutani, a demonstration coordinator,
said: "We are trying to raise awareness of the problems back home. .... We
won't rest until there are no more human rights abuses and until there are
free and fair elections.
"There are people in Zimbabwe who don't have
access to water or electricity.
We have the highest child mortality rate in
the world. Something needs to be
done immediately," Tutani
said.
Legislator Kate Hoey, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group
on
Zimbabwe, received a petition from the protesters and promised to give it
to
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other European Union
governments.
It urges the British government and the EU to suspend
government-to-government aid to all 14 Southern African Development
Community countries and to give it directly to Zimbabweans until human
rights have improved in their country. The petition says those other
southern African countries must publicly speak out against the Zimbabwean
leader.
"We are here today because Mugabe has not yet gone away.
He has dissipated
his country. There is more deprivation than ever, and
there are people who
are literally starving," Hoey said. "We need to make
sure the South African
countries wake up and speak out and get rid of this
dictator. While he is
there, it is a blight on the whole of Africa."
In
2002, Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations on charges
of
human rights abuses, unfair land redistribution and election
fraud.
Currently, Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party are overseeing a
collapsing economy
in Zimbabwe, which has left basic goods scarce amid
soaring inflation, which
the International Monetary Fund warns may hit
100,000 percent by the end of
the year.
The Times
October 13, 2007
Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
The Anglican Church in
Zimbabwe will next week file a court application
seeking to seize control of
a diocese from its bishops in a dispute that is
central to a row over
homosexuality.
The Province of Central Africa wants to seize three
vehicles from the Right
Rev Nolbert Kunonga, Bishop of Harare, and bar him
from using any of its
properties, according to a report on the website
NewZimbabwe.com.
Bishop Kunonga is internationally discredited as a
supporter of Robert
Mugabe's regime, and in a remarkable snub of a diocesan
bishop for political
reasons, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan
Williams, has not invited
him to the 2008 Lambeth Conference.
Last
month Bishop Kunonga, who according to the Church Times has never had
to
answer accusations over evictions of villagers or of incitement to
murder,
declared that he was breaking up the Province of Central Africa and
withdrawing the Harare diocese because of the province's "liberal" approach
to homosexuality.
Most of the Province of Central Africa is
conservative on homosexuality,
which is illegal in Zimbabwe and other
African nations. Although another
diocese in the province, Lake Malawi, has
elected a liberal vicar from
London, the Rev Nick Henderson, as its bishop,
local difficulties have meant
that he has yet to take up the
appointment.
But Bishop Kunonga insists that the Province has failed
adequately to
censure bishops who are sympathetic to
homosexuality.
New Zimbabwe reports that the Anglican Church has engaged
the Harare law
firm Gill, Godlonton & Gerrans to pursue the cleric
before the "funds and
investments are spirited away". Documents seen by the
website's
correspondent show that the Anglican Church is seeking an order
barring
Bishop Kungonga from accessing the Church's bank accounts,
transacting with
the Church's investments and "from working and or doing
business from any of
the Church's immovable properties wherever
situate.
"Following Kungonga's withdrawal from the Church of the Province
of Central
Africa, he has no right to remain in possession of the Church's
assets
including the bank's funds, investments, movable and immovable
assets,"
lawyers said in papers to be filed at the High Court on
Monday.
"The Church entertains a well-founded fear that Kungonga will
fund his new
ministry with the Church's resources as he has access to the
Church's
investments and funds."
Bishop Kungonga used an interview
with Zimbabwe's state media last week to
defend his anti-homosexuality
stance. He said: "We are inspired and
motivated by our beliefs in the
Scriptures, our beliefs as Catholic
Christians and our beliefs as human
beings that homosexuality cannot be
accepted because it takes away our human
dignity and it is not accepted in
the Constitution of our country, and it is
inconceivable in our cultural
background.
"It's an abomination not
only from the Scripture point of view, but also
from the cultural, political
set-up in which we are operating."
Having Bishop Kunonga as a foe is a
gift for the pro-gay movement in the
African Church. His support for the
conservative evangelical wing is an
embarrassment from which leaders will be
anxious to distance themselves.
VOA
By Chris Gande
Washington
12 October
2007
The Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans
Association says it will
shortly launch a campaign to weed corrupt
politicians out of the country's
ruling ZANU-PF party, the organization's
chairman, Jabulani Sibanda, said
Friday.
Addressing some 5,000
veterans of the 1970s liberation war Thursday in
Bulawayo after a march in
support of President Robert Mugabe's 2008
re-election bid, Sibanda told
corrupt ZANU-PF officials, including cabinet
members, to heed his
warning.
Sibanda and other war veterans were Mr. Mugabe's shock troops
for the
takeovers of commercial farms starting in 2000 under the banner of
land
reform. Veterans recently mobilized to demonstrate in Zimbabwe's 10
provinces in support of Mr. Mugabe.
Mr. Mugabe has rewarded Sibanda's
loyalty, recently reinstating him in
ZANU-PF from which he was suspended by
the party's national chairman, John
Nkomo, who accused him of being
disrespectful to senior party officials.
Sources said the reinstatement did
not go down well with some ZANU-PF
leaders in Matabeleland who want Sibanda,
a popular figure within the
grassroots in Bulawayo, to be ejected from
ZANU-PF.
Sibanda explained his anti-corruption initiative and his support
for Mr.
Mugabe in an interview with reporter Chris Gande of VOA's Studio 7
for
Zimbabwe.
Zim Online
Saturday 13 October 2007
Own
Correspondent
HARARE - Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC)
party on Friday said one of its activists was battling for his
life at
Harare hospital after he was brutally assaulted by soldiers and
supporters
of the ruling ZANU PF party.
Nelson Chamisa, spokesman of
the main faction of the MDC led by Morgan
Tsvangirai said the activist,
Maxwell Mazambani, was last month abducted
together with another member of
the opposition party, Fibion Mafukidze who
has since died from his
injuries.
"Maxwell Mazambani, the MDC candidate for Ward Five in Gutu
North in last
year's council elections, is battling for his life at a Harare
private
hospital following brutal assaults by soldiers and ZANU PF
supporters on 25
September 2007," Chamisa said in a statement to the
Press.
He did not say whether the opposition party had reported the
abduction and
assault of its two activists, as well as the subsequent death
of Mafukidze
to the police.
Both ZANU PF spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira
and police spokesman Wayne
Bvudzijena were not immediately available for
comment on the matter.
Chamisa said the MDC was concerned at the
continuing violence against its
supporters at a time the party is engaged in
talks with ZANU PF that are
aimed at ensuring peaceful and democratic
elections next year.
South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki was last March
tasked by the Southern
African Development Community (SADC) to bring the two
political parties to
the negotiating table to cobble up a solution to
Zimbabwe's political and
economic crisis.
"The MDC is deeply
disturbed that while we are negotiating with the regime
in Pretoria, ZANU PF
agents and security forces continue to brutalise and
assault ordinary
Zimbabweans simply because they belong to the MDC," said
Chamisa.
He
added: "There cannot be a free and fair election when the ZANU PF regime
continues to undermine the SADC-brokered dialogue."
The MDC has
however in the past said it will not pull out of the dialogue
process
despite continuing violence against its activists. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Saturday 13 October 2007
Own
Correspondent
JOHANNESBURG - Impala Platinum (Implats) says it has
reached a tentative
agreement with Mozambique to import power from Cahora
Bassa to cushion its
Zimbabwean operations against rolling
blackouts.
The South African-based mining giant - majority shareholders
in Zimbabwe's
largest platinum producer Zimplats Holdings - said an
agreement had been
reached in principle with Mozambique to import power
directly from
Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB).
"Internal power
sources (are) projected to be inadequate for Zimplats'
expansion plans,"
Implats said in a presentation posted on its website.
The group, which
runs platinum mining operations at Selous, Ngezi and Mimosa
near Bulawayo,
also announced plans to build a 330-kilovolt sub-station near
Selous to
power its operations. Mimosa is jointly owned by Implats and
Aquarius.
Zimplats is currently being supplied power from a Zimbabwe
Electricity
Authority (ZESA) sub-station in Norton.
Zimbabwean
companies have been subjected to rolling blackouts blamed on an
eight-year
economic crisis that has seen ZESA failing to keep pace with
demand for
electricity.
Large electricity consumers such as mining companies have in
recent years
been forced to pay for their power needs in foreign currency in
a move meant
to assist power utility raise hard cash for
imports.
Zimbabwe imports more than 40 percent of her power from
neighbouring
countries.
Implats also announced it had assisted ZESA
with the purchase of two
transformers for the Norton
sub-station.
Besides the constant power cuts, Zimbabwe's mining sector
has to come to
grips with a proposed law that would see foreign players in
the industry
ceding 51 percent of their shareholding to indigenous blacks. -
ZimOnline
The Local, Sweden
Published: 13th October 2007 11:55 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/8777/
Pressure
is growing on Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt to boycott a
meeting
between European and African leaders if Zimbabwean President Robert
Mugabe
attends.
Birgitta Ohlsson, foreign affairs spokeswoman for the Liberal
Party, one of
Sweden's four governing parties, has said Reinfeldt should
follow the lead
of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has already said
he will not
attend.
Writing in Saturday's Dagens Nyheter,
Ohlsson said that to attend would be a
"moral faux-pas".
"Gordon
Brown has already set the agenda. I think definitely that the
Swedish prime
minister should follow his line," she told The Local.
Ohlsson emphasised
Zimbabwe's desperate situation:
"I've seen the cruelty against the
opposition; I've seen the poverty -
around 30 percent of Zimbabwe's
population has left the country. 25 percent
have HIV," she said.
The
Swedish government has yet to make a formal decision on boycotting the
summit, although the Liberals' strong opposition will weigh into the
decision. Neither Reinfeldt nor Foreign Minister Carl Bildt have said
whether Sweden will attend, although Bildt has said Mugabe is "quite simply
not welcome," to the summit.
Ohlsson, who visited Zimbabwe last month
and who has close contact with the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), said Sweden has "a great
reputation in Zimbabwe." The country's
democracy movement will "be very
disappointed with us" if Reinfeldt turns up
at the EU-Africa summit in
Portugal in December, she said.
Portugal,
which hosts the EU presidency, and European Commission President
Jose Manuel
Barroso have responded with dismay to Brown's decision not to
attend.
"That would not be fair, nor right, and that would not serve
European
interests if, because of a political regime or a specific dictator,
we could
not have a meeting at this level with Africa as a whole," Barroso
told
Portuguese media this week.
But Ohlsson says that the decision
to lift the EU's travel ban on Mugabe so
he could attend the summit was
"hypocritical".
Ohlsson contrasted the treatment of Mugabe with the EU's
attitude to Burma's
attendance at the 2004 Europe-Asia summit. On EU
insistence a compromise was
eventually reached in which Burma only sent a
low-level delegation.
"Why can't we have the same attitude to Zimbabwe,"
Ohlsson asked.
African Union leaders have so far refused to force
Zimbabwe to send a
low-level delegation, insisting that Mugabe has the right
to attend.
China is one factor complicating the EU's attitude to the
summit. With the
Chinese an increasingly important player in the
mineral-rich continent, many
EU officials think the summit is necessary to
bolster European trade
relations with Africa.
Ohlsson said the China
issue did complicate matters:
"It is a problem - they are very active on
the continent with investment and
aid programmes."
"But at least we
have the principle of democracy, which the Chinese don't.
If we don't stick
to our principles, how can we encourage the [Zimbabwean]
opposition to stick
to theirs."
James Savage (james.savage@thelocal.se/08 656
6518)
VOA
By Ndimyake Mwakalyelye
Washington
12 October 2007
The international debate over whether
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
should invited to a European-African
summit in December in Lisbon has
reopened a fault line between the two
continents - which has spread within
Europe as well.
Summit
host Portugal said it would not discriminate against any country,
leading
many to believe that it will issue invitations in such a way as to
include
Mr. Mugabe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel took the same position
in a
recent visit to South Africa.
But British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has
declared that no top British
official will attend if Mr. Mugabe is present.
African leaders, offended,
have taken much the same stance they took 2003,
when the same issue scuttled
a planned EU-AU summit.
Zambian
President Levy Mwanawasa, chairman of the Southern African
Development
Community, said Mr. Brown's participation in the summit was also
important.
For perspective, VOA spoke with two analysts about
the Mugabe contretemps:
political analyst Glenn Mpani in Cape Town, South
Africa, and international
relations expert Innocent Sithole, who is based in
Leeds, England.
Sithole told reporter Ndimyake Mwakalyelye of VOA's
Studio 7 for Zimbabwe
that moves by Britain and others to isolate Zimbabwe
have made the gathering
more about Mr. Mugabe and Zimbabwe than larger
issues of development and
cooperation.
www.cathybuckle.com
Saturday
13th October 2007
Dear Family and Friends,
I don't know what the
colour of sadness is, but this October 2007 I think it
must be purple. The
streets in our suburbs, towns and cities are lined with
Jacaranda trees and
they are in full blossom, carpeting the roadsides with
soft purple flowers.
The Bougainvilleas are covered in flowers too - mauve,
lilac and bright
purple. It's hard to believe that with such tropical
brilliance all around
us this hot October, there is such sadness too. For
three months or more
everyone's been talking about the fact that there's no
food in the shops
because the government ordered prices to be cut to below
production costs.
Most of us have been so busy trying to find enough food to
survive and
support our families that we haven't really been looking at how
other
businesses are coping with absurdly low controlled prices. Well, to
put it
simply, they're not.
I took a walk around my home town this week and was
shocked at what I found.
Two big clothes department stores have closed down
in the last month. These
weren't little family shops but big outlets
stocking clothes, shoes and
accessories for men, women and children. Their
huge glass display windows
stretching for more than half a block along the
pavement are completely
empty. Peering in, you can see nothing except vast
expanses of grey concrete
floor. Carpets have been removed, naked wires hang
from ceilings, light
fittings have gone, clothes racks are cleared, shelving
has been taken off
the walls and the employees are all gone. Where are they
now, I wondered and
how are they surviving. A great sadness welled up inside
me; home is dying a
slow and tortuous death.
I wandered into a
bookshop which is all but empty and into two clothes shops
which have almost
nothing left to sell. All tell the same story: they cannot
sell goods for
less than they have paid for them. Shop owners look gaunt,
exhausted and
desperate, they say they cannot sleep at night and that their
stomachs are
in tight knots: they are watching their work and investments of
a life time
just ebb away. I went into another shop which has been in the
town since the
1960's. Their doors are still open but its as good as
pointless. Three
smartly dressed salesmen wearing name tags stood against
the wall talking to
each other. There are perhaps fifty items left to sell
in this branch of a
shop which has outlets all over the country. The teller
sat counting wads of
dirty almost useless money - bank notes which have
expiry dates on them and
which we've been warned may be changed at any time
in the next few days or
weeks. I asked the teller if the shop was closing
down. 'No,' he replied,
'if we do then they (the government) will just take
us over.' I asked him
how they could stay open and he just shook his head
sadly. 'We are broken,'
he said; 'we are just waiting for whenever the last
day comes.' I didn't
know what to say but then the man looked around to see
if anyone was
listening before he said : 'It's political you know.'
That little phrase
slammed me back in time instantly to the day when the war
veterans were
shouting at me through the farm gate. Threatening to shoot me,
armed with a
pistol, one had bragged that he could "drop me at ten, twenty,
even forty
meters." This is my farm he had screamed at me, my house, my
fields, my
cattle and then later, when the Police finally came, they said
they could do
nothing because :"it was political."
I stared at the teller with his
empty shop and filthy money and his eyes
were filled with despair. 'Where
will I go,' he said; 'what will I do?' I
had no answers and could just say:
I am so sorry, so very sorry. As I left
and the trees dripped their purple
flowers at my feet the tears were in my
eyes. We are a nation traumatized,
regardless of our age or sex, the colour
of our skin or our profession and
yes, it is all political.
Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy.
VOA
By Patience Rusere
Washington
12 October
2007
Reflecting widespread distress among businesses in
Zimbabwe, the Edgars
retail chain said Friday that it has closed 19 of 55
stores countrywide,
will shut another five of its clothing outlets soon, and
plans to shutter 14
of its Express stores.
Edgars cited government
price controls as the main reason for the major
scaleback.
In a
statement accompanying results for the quarter ended June 30, Edgars
states
that if the chain can reach an agreement with Harare for a viable
pricing
model the closed shops will be restocked and reopened in April next
year.
Edgars Chief Executive Officer Raymond Mlotshwa was not
immediately
available for comment - his staff said he was in a
meeting.
Director Dennis Nikisi of the University of Zimbabwe's Graduate
School of
Management told reporter Patience Rusere of VOA's Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe that
the downsizing by Edgars, which used to manufacture most of
the goods it
sold, reflects a de-industrialization that will leave Zimbabwe
dependent on
imported goods.
VOA
By Jonga Kandemiiri
Washington
12 October
2007
The Zimbabwean government late this week raised its
caps on prices for most
basic commodities and agricultural inputs at the
wholesale and retail level
in a move that was welcomed by the Zimbabwe
National Chamber of Commerce.
The National Incomes and Pricing Commission
set new retail prices for white
sugar, fresh milk, maize meal, cement,
fertilizer, maize seed, coal and
stockfeeds. Prices for opaque beer (as
opposed to lager), soft drinks and
vehicle tires also went up.
The
government said last month that it was working with producers and
consumers
to ensure prices would be viable for all involved in the supply
chain..
Shop shelves were emptied in July and August following
government-imposed
price cuts, but retailers are now reporting somewhat
improved supplies of
goods.
However, consumers said the new
government-set prices are far under the
parallel market prices they must pay
to secure staple foods and other goods,
adding that they don't expect to see
such commodities plentifully available
on store shelves
soon.
National Chamber of Commerce President Marah Hativagone told
reporter Jonga
Kandemiiri of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that the
government's move is in
line with proposals that private-sector
representatives have submitted on
price controls.
Zim Online
Saturday 13 October 2007
By Lizwe Sebatha
BULAWAYO -
Churches across Zimbabwe today hold prayer meetings seeking
divine
intervention in a country battling an unprecedented economic crisis,
food
shortages and record-breaking inflation.
The Ecumenical Peace Initiative
Zimbabwe (EPIZ) - an umbrella assembly
bringing together the Zimbabwe
Council of Churches, Evangelical Fellowship
of Zimbabwe (EFZ) and the
Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference (ZCBC) -
organised prayers for the
nation.
Last year, the EPIZ presented a document to President Robert
Mugabe titled
"The Zimbabwe We Want: Towards a National Vision for Zimbabwe"
that called
for dialogue between Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF party and the main
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change party.
EPIZ communications
officer Gladmore Dzunga on Friday told ZimOnline that
the police had cleared
the prayer meetings that take place between 1pm and
5pm.
Under tough
government security laws, Zimbabweans must first seek police
approval to
gather in groups of more than three to discuss politics.
The church is
exempt from this requirement. However, the police have broken
up prayer
rallies before which they claim are political gatherings.
For example,
last March heavily armed police officers beat up opposition
leaders, church
and civic society activists who were attending a prayer
rally in Harare's
Highfield suburb. The police said the prayer meeting was
illegal because the
organisers had not sought permission from the law
enforcement
agency.
Dzunga said: "The National Day of Prayer is for every Zimbabwean
from all
walks of life, politicians, students, church and non-church members
to pray
for the nation and an end to the suffering of the people of the
country."
Zimbabwe has since 1999 been grappling with an agonising
economic meltdown,
critics blame on repression and mismanagement by Mugabe,
a charge the
veteran leader denies.
Mugabe, who has held power for
more than 27-years and plans to stand for
another five-year presidential
term in 2008, blames the deepening crisis on
what he calls sabotage by
Western powers who are angry over his seizure of
white farmland to give to
landless blacks. - ZimOnline
Comment from The Weekender (SA), 13 October
Angus Begg
Spending a couple of
days in Harare recently I felt much like I imagine I
did when first reading
Puff the Magic Dragon as a child. From the atmosphere
at Harare
International Airport, with its handful of bored drivers holding
up
name-boards for expectant visitors, to the overflowing plates in my hotel
restaurant, it was quite a surreal picture. It all started at the airport.
It was a Sunday and, barring the fact that the airport was almost deserted
(those present were seated at the bar), it all seemed oddly normal. The
usual, anticipated ordeal at the immigration counter turned out to be a
swift cruise; it was actually one of the most pleasant passport breezes in
Africa in years. Sceptics will say this is merely because no one is
travelling to Zimbabwe. They are wrong. Airlines flying to the country will
confirm that the demand for seats in and out of Harare is
high.
On the bus taking us from the terminal building to the
aircraft, I got
chatting to a teenage schoolboy from Michaelhouse private
school in the
KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. He makes the trip home to Harare quite
often and
said he can't think of anything he "does without". Granted, he
doesn't do
the shopping, but it appears his lawyer-father and
accountant-mother ensure
they don't run out of peanut butter. Shopping is
the one, obvious, reason
for the full flights between Joburg and Harare, as
evidenced by the
character emerging from customs with a trolley full of
cheap cutlery and
plastic toys. Hanging about with a few others at the
entrance to the
terminal building - my lift hadn't materialised - I gained
an inkling into
other possible reasons for this unexpected, high volume of
traffic; and it
certainly isn't the Zimbabwean side of Victoria
Falls.
The two young French women from an NGO were collecting a
colleague. The
young Australian next to me with a cellphone to his ear, was
a temporary
resident of Zimbabwe and was also with an NGO. On a six-month
contract, he
said he was tired of the power cuts and couldn't wait to get
out. An
Afrikaans-speaking couple offered me a lift to my hotel in their
4x4, my
cabin bags winning out over the young Aussie's trolley-load of
luggage. As
The Village People (might have) said when advising young men to
go west in
late 1970s America, it is also best to travel light. He said he
was an
engineer from Pretoria, currently spending most of his time in Harare
running the southern African office for a Swedish engineering firm. His wife
visits regularly.
While I scanned both sides of the road for
obvious signs of Zimbabwean
meltdown (as one searches for impala in the
Kruger Park), she mentioned
there was no bread in the country. He said he
could see his company "pulling
out of Zimbabwe soon". Entering the city,
everything looked normal - for a
Sunday anyway. The near-naked character
sitting on the pavement was
distinguished more by his short dreadlocks than
his tattered shorts; the
suggestion was that he once would've hummed a Bob
Marley number and, just
possibly, in keeping with Marley's feelings about
emancipation, had known
better times. According to a report in The Herald
earlier this month,
"President Mugabe . is still primarily concerned with
the economic
emancipation of Zimbabwe and Africa at large". Phew. Thank
goodness for
newspapers. For a moment I thought he'd lost
it.
That night in my four-star hotel, room service said they had no
filter
coffee. I asked what they did have. "Ricoffy, sir." "You haven't seen
any
Nescafé skipping around the kitchen?" (When standards drop, everything
is
relative.) "No sir." The absence of bread in the country, apparently due
to
a shortage of flour, didn't affect me one bit. Firstly because I'm trying
to
eat less bread, and secondly, the scones on the buffet, when toasted,
made
for a great substitute. After confirmation from my mother that scones
are,
indeed, made with flour, thoughts of a revolting Paris in 1789 flooded
my
mind. In this image was a Zimbabwean leader in a powdered wig announcing
from a specially-erected balcony at the top of Harare's high-rise Zanu PF
building (which apparently doubles as a bakery), crying: "Let my comrades
eat scones!" The fact that the scone is a British colonial staple did little
to spoil my vision
Please send any material for publication in the Open Letter Forum to
jag@mango.zw with “For Open Letter Forum” in the
subject line.
Ben Freeth – Chegutu 11/10/07
Dear JAG,
The
judgement regarding the referral from the Chegutu Magistrates court to
the
Supreme Court took place this morning [11/10/07]. There was huge
pressure
with the court room filled to capacity with local strong men. It
did not go
well. The Magistrate began by stating the charge under section 3
[3] of the
gazetted land [consequential provisions] act which makes it a
criminal
offence to still be on land taken by the State without authority.
The
magistrate went on in an attempt to sum up in a couple of minutes what
was
argued by Mr. Drury over more than a 2 hour period in the hearing. His
judgement referred to only one of the eight constitutional points that had
been raised. It related to amendment no. 17 to the constitution. This
amendment, it was argued, extinguishes the rule of law by destroying the
separation of powers and peoples rights and expectations to protection of
the law.
The magistrate then summed up the State argument which said that
the
application for referral to the Supreme Court had been opposed because
it
was considered simply a delaying tactic. The application for referral
had
come after the accused were on the wrong side of the law. The accused
had
ignored the notice to vacate their properties and had not applied to
challenge it before the notice expired.
The Magistrate went on to give
his judgement. He simply said that the law,
through amendment number 17 to
the constitution, expressly forbade any
person with a right or an interest
in land from approaching any court.
Regarding referring the matter to the
Supreme Court he went on to define
what frivolous and vexatious meant. He
cited the Martin case which defined
it as meaning: "lack of seriousness";
"devoid of merit"; "not raised in good
faith" etc. He said that the
constitution is the paramount law and can not
be challenged. He said that
there was no precedent to challenge the
Zimbabwe constitution and the same
was the case in South Africa. The
current application for referral was
therefore in his view "frivolous and
vexatious" despite the fact that other
magistrates had referred the exact
same issue in other courts. The
magistrate did not even mention the fact
that the matter had been challenged
in the Supreme Court in the Campbell
case 6 and a half months ago and that
the supreme court was obliged to make
a judgement on the matter but was
still deliberating. He simply said that
the farmers had ignored their
notices to vacate and any subsequent
application for referral to the Supreme
Court was merely a delaying tactic.
The magistrate dismissed the application
for referral.
Mr. Drury for record purposes expressed disgruntlement and said
that the
Supreme Court would be approached anyway. He pointed out that
there had
been 7 other constitutional points that the Magistrate had not
referred to.
He said that the Shaw case had argued that legislation had to
be "reasonable
and necessary" which this clearly wasn't. He also pointed
out the fact that
Zimbabwe had signed the SADC treaty which brought with it
legal obligations.
He reiterated that the Supreme Court already had the Mike
Campbell case.
The Magistrate said that a written judgement would be
available on Monday.
Dates were then set for individual
hearings:
Eastwood: 31/10/07.
Campbell: 8/11/07.
Etheredge: 15/11/07.
[Nicholson to also appear to set trial date]
Nicolle: 22/11/07.
Beattie:
29/11/07.
Rogers: 6/12/07.
Visagie: 13/12/07.
Buitendag:
20/12/07.
Seaman and Pasque: 21/12/07.
Conclusion: The one mitigating
factor was the fact that none of the accused
has been remanded in custody.
Of critical importance also is the very
significant international interest
in the outcome of what is taking place in
Chegutu Magistrates court. It has
been said that publicity is the very soul
of justice. The press coverage is
critical if we are to see justice unfold.
The darkness hates the light
because the light exposes it. For too long
people have been succumbing to
the darkness by not allowing the light to
shine on the injustices being
perpetrated. This mindset has to dramatically
change. We have nothing to
hide and everything to lose if we do not expose
the darkness for what it
is.
The Campbell SADC case went in to Windhoek last Friday. The more
injustices
perpetrated within Zimbabwe before the hearing of this in
Windhoek, the
stronger the case becomes. This case goes to the core of the
injustices to
do with the land programme in Zimbabwe: the fact that
amendment number 17
goes against all laws within SADC let alone the rest of
the world; the fact
that an acquisition without compensation is not a valid
acquisition; and the
fact that the whole land program has a racial bias
i.e. the sole criteria
for acquisition is based on the colour of the owners
skin. Other
fundamental points are also raised. The papers supporting the
case run to
over a thousand pages. The outcome of this Magistrates court
hearing will
obviously strengthen the SADC case. If the SADC case succeeds
all current
attempts to criminalise those still on the land will fail. If
the CFU
continue to refuse to protect members through applications to higher
courts
we may need to look at other individual farmers coming on. The issue
of
locus standi in SADC will not be such an issue in SADC so other farmer
groupings may wish to come on board too.
In the meantime Mr. Drury will
be working on an application to the Supreme
Court for the Chegutu farmers.
The modalities of this are yet to be worked
out.
Ben Freeth
http://news.goldseek.com
Friday, 12 October 2007
Extract...
The crisis of
2001-2002 reduced Argentines' wealth by nearly
two-thirds....................................
Argentina? Look at
Zimbabwe, says old friend Marc Faber. The story is the
same, but it is more
entertaining. And it is still in the hyper-farce stage.
Inflation is
officially running at about 7,000% per year. But unofficial
estimates say
the rate for this year will turn out to be more like 100,000%.
Marc visited
Zimbabwe recently. He says he went out to buy a bottle of
orange squash on
Monday; it was 120,000 Zim dollars. On Tuesday, the price
had gone up to
180,000. And by Friday, it was at 600,000.
This would seem all very
funny, but currencies mean something to ordinary
people. At the margin, they
can make the difference between life and death.
Thanks to Robert Mugabe's
financial management, the average man in Zimbabwe
can expect to drop dead at
the age of 37. As recently as 1990, he could have
looked forward to 60.
While life expectancy plummeted, so did job
expectancy. The average guy has
only a 50/50 chance of finding work.
But here's the kind of detail that
gives us hope for the future. We may not
survive it, but at least it will be
amusing. It's apparently the Africans'
turn to head the UN Commission on
Sustainable Development. Naturally, they
turn to a country that has found a
way to sustain un-development - Zimbabwe.
The country has been going
downhill ever since they kicked Ian Smith out of
office in 1979.
(Ian
Smith is still alive, we believe. He is living in Cape Town, South
Africa.
Perhaps he should be called back to service.like Churchill in
WWII.or
Petain.)
The man given the post of heading up the commission on
sustainable
development is named Francis Nhema, a crony of Robert Mugabe.
His personal
contribution to sustainable development is that when he was
given one of the
farms stolen from white farmers, he let it go to rack and
ruin.
Enjoy your weekend,
Bill Bonner
The Daily Reckoning
Vancouver Sun
Alma Lee, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, October 13,
2007
Book Review
UNFEELING
BY IAN HOLDING
This is a
story we know. It is a story that has been covered in newspapers
and in
films. So why is it being told again? You need to read this book to
find the
answer.
The story takes place in an unnamed African country. The fact
that the
author is from Zimbabwe is irrelevant to the content of this book
and is
only significant inasmuch as we presume Ian Holding has firsthand
knowledge
of his narrative.
What is relevant is the way the story is
told.
A 16-year old white boy, Davey Baker, witnesses his parents being
brutally
murdered by the blacks who have taken over the country. The
neighbours, Mike
and Marsha de Wet, are his parents' closest friends who
have no children and
are his surrogate aunt and uncle.
It's Mike who
finds the bodies and the boy. He and Marsha take Davey in and
try their best
to care for him. This turns out to be easier said than done.
The
devastating incident doesn't only have a horrific effect on the boy but
it
affects the entire community of farmers in the area. Davey's pain,
confusion
and, ultimately, his burning anger, confront them all with the
deep fear
they experience after the murders. "Relief turns to anguish,"
Holding
writes, "then to anger and finally a stifled, numb sense of bitter
shock."
The societal circumstance that is happening to the community
is that they
feel alone because, under a dictatorship, people stop trusting
one another.
In this circumstance, then, they are actually relieved when
Davey has to go
back to boarding school. His absence allows them to feel
slightly safer,
since they aren't being confronted on a daily basis with the
reality of what
has happened.
You're probably thinking this sounds
like a very dark and heavy read and, as
far as the story goes, in many ways
it is. However, it's the construction of
the novel that kept me turning the
pages. The characters are so real, and
it's easy to relate to Davey, in
particular. He suffers from the trauma, but
deep within him there's a slow
burn that propels him into behaviour that is
alien, even to
himself.
The writing is close to brilliant, in my view. There is a
dreamlike quality
to the text, as though much of the story is happening in
slow motion, even
though the content is shocking and sometimes
gruesome.
Again, you are probably wondering why you should pick up this
book, but I
can assure you that this writer is able and sure of himself.
This is a
chilling and suspenseful story with a surprise twist. You will be
kept
engaged, especially in the shifting time spaces that Ian Holding writes
so
brilliantly.
The style is what gives the book its gripping
quality. Read it and make your
own judgment.
Alma Lee founded the
Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival.
Ian Holding's
festival events are scheduled for Friday, Oct. 19 and
Saturday, Oct. 20.