The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
Zimbabwean police arrested about 300 people in central Harare
yesterday as
they gathered to protest against increasing
repression.
The activists from the National Constitutional Assembly
(NCA), an alliance
of civic groups seeking constitutional reform, had not
forewarned the police
about their protest as required under draconian
security laws.
Douglas Mwonzora, an NCA spokesman, said they had not told
the authorities
because they did not want to be dispersed before they could
begin the
protest, which has happened before.
But the strategy failed.
Mr Mwonzora said several NCA members were beaten as
police sealed off the
city centre.
Zimbabwe's security laws require protesters to seek police
permission before
staging peaceful demonstrations. But this is never
grantedand police take
advantage of any notice given to block venues before
demonstrators assemble.
The NCA activists tried to congregate in Africa
Unity Square in central
Harare - the equivalent of London's Trafalgar Square.
They had planned to
march to protest against what Mr Mwonzora described as
unmitigated
repression by the President, Robert Mugabe. But somehow the
police had been
informed and arrested demonstrators as soon as the first
batch had
assembled.
Those arrested included the NCA's chairman,
Lovemore Madhuku, who has become
Mr Mugabe's chief enemy in the civic society
sector. Before his arrest, Mr
Madhuku told The Independent that Zimbabweans
were now faced with a
difficult choice - either to die quietly of hunger in
their homes or to risk
dying in the streets to save Zimbabwe from Mr Mugabe's
tyranny.
In the absence of any help from the international community to
rein in Mr
Mugabe, Mr Madhuku said Zimbabweans had to confront the regime
head on.
The situation in Zimbabwe has worsened in the past week with the
National
Oil Company of Zimbabwe announcing that it no longer has any
fuel.
The fuel shortage has paralysed government departments, including
the
ambulance service, which can no longer attend accident scenes and to
very
sick patients.
Zimbabwean workers have been left with no
alternative but to walk up to 45
miles to and from work every
day.
Inflation has reached nearly 500 per cent and hunger is now
hitting
Zimbabwean urban families hard.
According to one newspaper
report at the weekend, 45 children have died of
malnutrition in the past few
weeks. Many others are dropping out of school
because of hunger and lack of
school fees.
Mr Mwonzora said the NCA would keep using public protests to
call for a new
constitution for Zimbabwe leading to free and fair elections
and a new
government for the country. Despite his policies bringing the
country to its
knees, Mr Mugabe, 79, is not giving up on power. He has blamed
Britain for
the crisis in his country.
Harare - A High Court judge on Wednesday annulled the election
victory of
President Robert Mugabe's former secret police boss in
parliamentary
elections in 2000.
Judge Paddington Garwe declared that
Shadreck Chipango, the former head of
the Central Intelligence Organisation,
"is not duly elected".
He said his reasons would be given in a full
written judgment to be released
later this week.
However, it does not
mean that the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change's candidate in the
constituency would automatically take his place.
The judge said that "no-one
else is entitled to be elected." Lawyers said it
meant that a by-election
would have to be held to fill the vacancy.
The MDC came close to
unseating Mugabe's government by winning 57 out of 120
elected parliamentary
seats, although Zanu-PF secured a comfortable margin
of seats through a legal
provision that allowed Mugabe to choose another 30
seats for the 150-seat
parliamentary chamber.
The MDC challenged 39 of the constituencies won by
Zanu-PF.
The party won eight of its petitions and another eight have been
dismissed.
The remainder are either still stuck in the judicial system or the
MDC
candidates have withdrawn their challenges.
However, lawyers said
the MDC's court victories, including Wednesday's, made
little real difference
to the balance of seats in parliament. None of the
eight Zanu-PF MPs who had
their seats annulled have had to leave parliament
because they had appealed
against the decision to the Supreme Court.
Despite electoral law that
demands that election challenges be heard "as a
matter of urgency," not one
of the appeals have been heard by the Supreme
Court since the first judgement
was given 31 months ago.
It took Judge Garwe two years to deliver his
ruling.
VOA
Exodus of Professionals Worsens Health Care in Zimbabwe
Tendai
Maphosa
Harare
21 Oct 2003, 17:09 UTC
The health delivery
system in Zimbabwe is declining as medical personnel
leave the country in
search of better working conditions and more money. The
exodus of nurses and
doctors and other professionals from Zimbabwe for
economic reasons is
accelerating, with most of those leaving going to
Britain, the country's
former colonial master.
An increasing number of Zimbabweans are desperate to
escape their country's
harsh economic conditions, and London is a favorite
destination.
A senior doctor who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity
said junior
nurses and doctors in the state medical system see no future in
Zimbabwe
because their salaries are so low. The doctor said that in Zimbabwe,
they
cannot afford a car or even think of getting married.
The doctor,
who works at one of the country's biggest hospitals, says
deliveries of
essential drugs and supplies are erratic. She told VOA, "We
end up doing
half, or none, of the operations we would do under
normal
circumstances."
In an effort to stem the exodus of medical
practitioners, the government
introduced a bonding system a few-years ago.
Under that arrangement, doctors
and nurses undertake to work for the
government for a certain period after
finishing their training.
But,
the doctor said, doctors and nurses simply buy themselves out of
the
contracts and leave anyway.
The Zimbabwe government has resorted
to luring retired nurses back into
service and recruiting doctors and other
health personnel from Cuba and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. But
these measures have fallen short of
addressing the situation.
The
president of the Zimbabwe Medical Association, Dr. Billy Rigava, blamed
the
healthcare crisis on the exodus of medical practitioners and a lack of
drugs
and medical supplies, which the country cannot buy because of its
shortage of
foreign currency.
Dr. Rigava told the South African Sunday Times that if
it were not for the
private hospitals, the country would be facing what he
described as a
catastrophe. The majority of Zimbabweans cannot afford private
medical care.
The AIDS pandemic has further strained the nation's limited
resources.
Zimbabwe has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world,
and
figures show that about 2,000 people die of AIDS-related illnesses
every
week.
In the early years of independence, President Robert
Mugabe was widely
praised for ensuring that primary health care was available
to all. Now,
after 23 years of his rule, it has joined the long list of
failing or failed
services in Zimbabwe.
Mr. Mugabe blames external
forces for the decay, including the former
colonial power, Britain, which he
accuses of stealing medical personnel from
Zimbabwe.
The Herald
Tekere accepted invitation to rejoin Zanu-PF:
Mutasa
Chief Reporter
Zanu-PF Manicaland provincial executive has
agreed to co-opt former Zimbabwe
Unity Movement leader Mr Edgar Tekere into
the ruling party’s provincial
leadership to enable him to attend the party’s
annual conference in Masvingo
in December.
Zanu-PF party’s secretary
for external affairs, Cde Didymus Mutasa, who is
also a Politburo member from
the province, confirmed that Mr Tekere had
accepted an invitation to rejoin
the party.
"We want him back and he has already accepted the invitation
to rejoin the
party. We have written to the party’s secretary for
administration, Cde
Emmerson Mnangagwa, who accepted the province’s request,"
said Cde Mutasa.
He said there was a likelihood of Mr Tekere bouncing
back into the
provincial party structures in time for the annual conference
in December.
Cde Mutasa said there were many people who were expelled
from the party or
abandoned it but later rejoined and were now holding
Cabinet positions.
"There is nothing peculiar about Tekere. We have
already started working
with him and he is quite a familiar figure at our
offices in Mutare," Cde
Mutasa said.
Contacted for comment, Mr Tekere
confirmed that he had been approached by
senior Zanu-PF officials in the
province and had no qualms with rejoining
Zanu-PF.
"Yes, all those
people you are mentioning have talked to me but at this
moment I can’t say
much because it’s still on an unofficial level," he said.
Mr Tekere was
expelled from Zanu-PF in 1989 for his public utterances which
were not in
line with the party’s policies.
Nicknamed Twoboy in 1947 by schoolmates
at St Faith’s Mission near Rusape
because of his rough tackling in a game of
football, Mr Tekere has always
been shrouded in controversy before and after
independence.
Soon after independence in 1980, he and seven bodyguards
appeared at the
High Court in a high profile trial facing charges of
murdering Mr Gerald
William Adams. Mr Adams was shot at a farm near
Harare.
Mr Tekere and his bodyguards were acquitted by the High
Court.
The maverick politician was one of the architects of the
liberation struggle
that brought independence in 1980.
Mr Tekere was
involved in the recruiting of Zanu cadres for the war until
April 1975 when
he crossed into Mozambique with President Mugabe.
He was a member of the
Zanu-PF delegation at the Lancaster House talks and
returned to Harare for
the general elections in 1980.
He was the first Minister of Man-power,
Planning and Development, a ministry
set up to accelerate training to ensure
that black Zimbabweans became
self-sufficient.
The Herald
Fuel shortages affect court proceedings
Court
Reporters
PROCEEDINGS at the Mbare, Chitungwiza and Harare magistrates’
courts were
yesterday disrupted after the Zimbabwe Prison Services failed to
bring
prisoners to court due to the shortage of fuel.
An official at
the Rotten Row courts said Harare Remand Prison and Chikurubi
Maximum
Security Prison vehicles had run out of fuel.
"This is the second day
now. There is no fuel. Prisoners have to be remanded
in absentia," the
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
The official said
the situation was now desperate as they had on several
occasions failed to
bring prisoners because sometimes they did not have
escorts.
The court
building, which is usually packed, was deserted, with only a few
people
milling around.
The two regional courts, which were sitting, had to
postpone some of the
cases that were supposed to be finalised while cases set
to commence
yesterday failed to kick off.
It was the same with the
provincial courts, which also deferred cases to
later dates.
Another
official said this would further increase the backlog of cases at
Rotten Row
courts, which are also facing a severe shortage of magistrates.
"There is
a severe shortage of magistrates and the failure by the ZPS to
bring
prisoners would worsen the backlog of cases," said the official.
At the
Chitungwiza Magistrates’ Court, business was also low, with a few
cases being
heard after the ZPS also failed to bring in prisoners.
On Monday, the ZPS
also failed to bring prisoners to the courts and trials
had to be
postponed.
A prisons official who spoke to The Herald on condition of
anonymity said
their vehicles were queuing for fuel at the Central Mechanical
Department.
The situation was also the same at Mbare courts with a few
prisoners
appearing.
A prisons officer said for the past two weeks,
the ZPS was not bringing
prisoners from both Chikurubi Maximum Security
Prison and Harare Remand
Prison.
The Herald
Fuel shortage persists
Herald Reporter
THE fuel
shortage gripping the country continues with most commuters in
Harare still
struggling to find transport to and from work.
The situation has been
compounded by rains that fell over most of the city
in the past two days
further worsening the plight of commuters.
Commuter omnibus operators
continued to take advantage of the desperate
commuters caught in the rains to
charge high fares.
Most commuters were being charged amounts of up to $1
000 irrespective of
the distances and because of the rains, had no choice but
to pay.
Warren Park residents who normally pay $500 for a trip into town
complained
that they were recently forced to pay $1 000.
The
Government last week announced new fares that range from $400 to $1
000
depending on distance.
Commuters from Machipisa, Mufakose,
Sunningdale, Cranborne, Hatfield, Glen
View and Glen Norah also complained
that they were being charged high fares.
In some extreme cases, commuters
from Mabvuku, Old Tafara and Chitungwiza
had to pay between $1 500 and $3
000.
This was despite a heavy police presence on most roads leading into
the
city.
Police spokesperson Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka said the
police would be
on full alert to apprehend overcharging commuter omnibus
operators.
He urged commuters to play their part by reporting any cases
of
overcharging.
Commuters, however, said they were not reporting the
cases because they were
desperate to get to work and back home in good
time.
"Our situation is bad. Transport in unavailable and when it is
available,
the money to pay for it is unavailable.
"Prices of basic
commodities are going up everyday and our plight continues
to worsen," said
Mrs Sylvia Mwendo of Kambuzuma.
Others appealed to the Government to
urgently address the plight of the
people saying they had suffered
enough.
"It cannot be a hassle to go to work and to go back
home.
"Our lives have become a constant source of suffering," said one
man.
By 7pm on Monday evening, commuters could be seen standing at
different bus
stops with the rains pounding them.
There were few
vehicles on the road as a result of the unavailability of
fuel at filling
stations designated to sell at the gazetted prices of $200
per litre for
diesel and 450 per litre for petrol.
The National Oil Company of Zimbabwe
has run dry paralysing the public
transport sector and almost all Government
and quasi Government department
operations.
The Herald
100 000t maize lying idle
By Lovemore Mataire
AN
estimated 100 000 tonnes of maize is lying idle in Mashonaland West
Province
owing to lack of transport to ferry it to the Grain Marketing
Board,
prompting the Zimbabwe Farmers Union to approach the army for trucks
to move
the grain.
ZFU vice president Mr Wilfanos Mashingaidze said not less than
100 000
tonnes of maize grain was at homes of communal farmers in the
province.
He said this was discovered during a ZFU tour of the province
to check on
farmers’ preparations for the coming season.
Each farmer
told ZFU officials of the amount of maize they were failing to
deliver to the
GMB because of lack of transport.
Mr Mashingaidze said farmers in
Mashonaland East and Mashonaland Central
were also failing to transport their
maize to the GMB, but the problem was
most prevalent in Mashonaland
West.
"Something must seriously be done to ensure that the maize is
delivered to
the GMB otherwise it will just rot.
"The maize is more
than enough to fill the nearest depot at Makwichi and can
go a long way in
averting hunger at a time when the Government is importing
grain at a very
expensive price," said Mr Mashingaidze.
He said his organisation had
already appealed to the Government through the
taskforce on Inputs
Procurement and Distribution for army trucks to ferry
the grain to the
market.
A GMB official yesterday said they were aware of the transport
problems that
were being faced by farmers in outlying areas of the
country.
The official said the GMB had so far collected more than 200 000
tonnes of
maize and was carrying out a mopping up exercise to collect the
remaining
grain.
"I think you will appreciate that just like any other
organisation in the
country we are also facing fuel problems. Trucks are
lined up ready to
collect the grain but we don’t have enough fuel," said the
official.
Mr Mashingaidze said farmers in Kapiri, Kadunga, Kazangare,
Deve, Karuru,
Chundu, Nyadza, Vhuti, Sengwe and Chidamoyo were the most
affected.
He said the failure to transport the grain to the market had
disillusioned
farmers most of whom were supplied with inputs by the
Government last
season.
"The farmers are not able to buy any inputs
for this season, which has
already started, because they have not received
any returns from last year’s
produce.
"There is no incentive for them
to prepare for this season when their grain
has not yet been collected," Mr
Mashinga-idze said.
He said the collection of the grain could save the
Government a lot of funds
as it had invested a lot in the farmers by giving
them inputs.
Most farmers, he said, had not built secure storage
facilities for huge
stocks as they expected to sell to the GMB.
He
said a manager at the GMB’s Makwichi depot had told them that the depot
was
incapacitated by lack of transport.
The GMB recently said maize
deliveries had improved after the announcement
by the Government of the new
producer prices of maize and wheat.
The response by farmers to the new
maize producer price was immediate.
However, the major problem faced by
farmers in delivering maize to the GMB
remained that of transport because of
the shortage of fuel.
The Government has increased the producer price of
maize from $130 000 a
tonne to $300 00 a tonne for the 2003/2004 marketing
season.
The producer price of wheat was also increased from $150 000 a
tonne to $400
000 a tonne.
Sunday Times (SA)
Zimbabwean farmers request military
aid
Wednesday October 22, 2003 18:55 - (SA)
HARARE -
Zimbabwe's farmers facing a crippling fuel shortage have appealed
to the
military to help transport to market more than 100,000 tonnes of
maize
harvested some six months ago, state media said today.
Zimbabwe Farmers
Union (ZFU) vice president Wilfanos Mashingaidze said the
grain was
discovered in several rural villages, some 200 kilometres
northeast of
Harare.
He warned that the maize would rot unless it was collected
immediately.
The appeal came amid UN humanitarian reports of a worsening
food crisis in
the southern African country where stocks have been exhausted
in most
districts.
An estimated 5.5 million Zimbabweans will require
emergency food aid by
early next year, out of a population of 11
million.
Maize is a controlled crop and can only be moved by or with
special
permission of the country's state-owned Grain Marketing Board
(GMB).
An official of the GMB was quoted by the state-run Herald paper as
admitting
that the organisation's operations had been hard hit by the
critical fuel
shortage affecting most sectors of Zimbabwe's
economy.
Zimbabwe has experienced shortages of petroleum-based fuel since
1999 when
the country started running short of foreign exchange to import
fuel.
Countries such as Libya that had come to Zimbabwe's rescue under
special
barter trade agreements turned off the fuel supply taps after Harare
failed
to honour its side of the deal.
The fuel shortage has in recent
weeks grounded thousands of public commuter
buses, stranding hundreds of
thousands of workers.
Last week the country's railways suspended commuter
train services for a
few days due to lack of diesel.
The World Food
Programme (WFP) early this month said it had received only a
quarter of the
funds it is seeking to feed millions of starving people in
southern Africa,
most of them in Zimbabwe.
AFP
JAG OPEN LETTER FORUM
Email: justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet:
www.justiceforagriculture.com
Please
send any material for publication in the Open Letter Forum to
justice@telco.co.zw with "For Open Letter
Forum" in the subject
line.
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Letter
1: The Real Enemy
For many the real enemy in Zimbabwe is Zanu PF; for
others it is the
Mbeki/Mugabe alliance; for others it is the wishy washiness
of the donor
community; for others it may be the MDC or the British
imperialists. It
may surprise some if I say that none of these are the real
enemy. The real
enemy is corruption.
Transparency International
ranked Zimbabwe 43rd of 133 countries in 1998.
By 2000 it had moved down to
45th. Then in 2002 is plummeted to 71. The
latest report sees Zimbabwe
fallen to 106.
There are a number of factors involved with corruption. I
believe they are
just symptoms of the sickness - but as symptoms they are
there to see and
are measurable to one degree or another (so long as there
are honest people
out there measuring them). Some of the main symptoms of
corruption within
a country are:
· Lack of involvement with civic
society or a political opposition.
· Restrictions of a free independent
media.
· The selective access to information controlled by "the State".
·
The lack of judicial independence.
· The partisan approach of police and
other armed forces.
· The passing of unconstitutional laws.
· The partisan
control of teachers and the youth and children.
· The "nationalisation" or
undue interference by the State with private
enterprise.
Nobody can
agree that these symptoms of corruption are not prevalent in
Zimbabwe today.
They lead to a climate of paranoid fear and of political
patronage. Much of
the debate recently on the Open Letters Forum has
centred around which
farmers are "dealing". This form of corruption
involves signing away bits of
land to appease the oppressor; paying off
officials in the same cause;
enforced assistance to the new "owners" with
ploughing, etc; bringing in Zanu
PF heavyweights into their businesses for
the sake of self preservation;
paying off "protection rackets" within the
party, etc. We all know that it's
being done and we've seen the fat cats
get fatter on it. In some communities
it's even talked about openly as the
norm now.
Corruption and
patronage have got a stranglehold grip and slowly,
systematically the
lifeblood of the nation is being cut off.
But these too are just symptoms
of corruption.
Corruption itself is something deeper; something far more
personal.
Corruption is an individual choice.
Every society, race,
group or individual has the propensity to become
corrupt. As the propensity
and opportunities increase so the trust
decreases, and so systems have to be
put in place to reduce it. An
anti-corruption system though is only as good
as the people who are running
it and the temptation or fear levels put their
way.
When all is said and done the real enemy is the corruption within
each one
of us. A corrupt man, group or party will only get away with as
much as he
or they are allowed to get away with by those around. The less
integrity
there is in those around, the more corruption forces its way into
the
hearts of the individuals in the society we exist in. Once a critical
mass
of corrupt hearts have been established the road to deteriorating
living
conditions, civil strife, genocide and civil war is often a quick
one.
Zimbabwe is surely moving fast towards the establishment of a
critical mass
of corrupt hearts. People who can't say "NO". Men with
integrity, when
the pressure comes, are becoming harder to find. They would
rather bow;
appease; stand idly by for the sake of self-preservation and
dishonest
gain. Once the shoot of corruption is established it tends to grow
very
quickly. The brakes are off. The train smash is coming.
In
Genesis 6 verse 11 it says "Now the Earth was corrupt in God's sight and
was
full of violence. God saw how corrupt the Earth had become for all
the
people on Earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, "I am
going
to put an end to all people for the Earth is filled with violence
because
of them". The first murder, that of Abel by his brother Cain,
had
escalated amongst the world's people into something endemic.
The
history of the world continues to repeat itself. As corruption grows
the
people either destroy themselves or get destroyed. People become
corrupt,
often for the sake of self-preservation, and end up
self-destructing. That's
the sad irony of where we are in Zimbabwe today.
Many continue to defend
their positions in the system of corruption and
patronage as they dig their
pits deeper.
Zimbabwe needs something far more that anti-corruption
commissions; truth
and justice commissions; MDC governments and the like.
Zimbabwe needs
honest men, and right now they're a scarce commodity. Only
God can bring a
man back from the brink; but before that a choice has to be
made - the
choice to repent of the past. That choice is not just for some -
the very
bad ones - it's for every single one of us however self-righteous we
might
feel.
Ben
Freeth
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Letter
2:
The following is an example of why we are still in Zimbabwe - because
we
have an awesome future generation!!
On Friday night our son Bruce,
and two of his friends were involved in a
road accident. The driver and
passenger fortunately had seat belts on and
only the driver sustained
lacerations on his right arm. The passenger was
not injured, and in spite of
the shock kept cool and calm. Bruce was
sleeping in the back and was thrown
out. Judging by the state of his back,
leg and elbows he gave the tarmac a
run for its money. The back of his
head required suturing and it appears
that he was unconscious for a short
time after "landing". We thank God for
their lives. We also thank God for
the amazing response from their mates.
Within a few minutes about 30 kids
were on the scene, not going hysterical,
but quietly getting on with the
job at hand.
One of the boys (from St.
Johns School) had done a MARS course and had his
medical kit with him. He
immobilised Bruce's head and neck in case of
spinal injury, then attended to
the other injuries and called for a MARS
Ambulance. They then followed the
Ambulance to the Avenues Clinic to
support their injured mates until family
arrived.
Out of every negative comes a great positive!! I believe that
we have in
Zimbabwe, the best youth in the world - they are well-mannered,
hard
working, empathetic, kind, considerate and very sensible. What more
could
we want in our future generation?
I hope that this letter will
encourage more youth at schools to take the
MARS Basic course and in so doing
be able to do what the St. Johns young
man did for our son.
Kerry
Kay.
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Letter
3:
Dear all,
I am back again and I wish to start by saying that if
I have offended
anyone with my literary ramblings then I unreservedly
apologize. My
intention all along has been to spark debate amongst the
farmers, we all
want to see them recover from their ordeals, lick their
wounds,
re-establish their rights and become better and stronger in the
future,
whether or not they wish to stay in Zimbabwe.
An integral part
of any democracy is that people who hold divergent views
are encouraged to
express those views and debate them. In a few of the
replies, it appears that
some people wish that I would not express my views
on the grounds that I
might offend a portion of the community. In
particular I would like to take
Michael Chingoka to task on some of the
points he makes in his reply. 1. He
states that some of the opposing views
expressed are "Fighting amongst the
White Zimbabweans", I contend that this
is not fighting but normal expression
of different opinions that should be
expressed on a daily basis in any
functioning democracy.
2. Michael infers that the MDC is a "white" party,
it is not, it is only
the black people of Zimbabwe that have the ability to
effect change of
government in this country, The whites are politically
irrelevant BUT! Many
of us are very vocal in condemning Mugabe and his
abuses.
3. He also says that we should not be aggressive towards Mugabe.
Since when
has standing up for your rights become aggression? Why should you
be
conciliatory towards the person who has stolen something from you. (In
this
case ZANU-PF and Mugabe). What is Michael's suggestion? Do we just
roll
over and let the thugs do what they want? I say that the owner of
any
property, land or otherwise has every right to that property and he has
the
right to redress in the courts if someone takes that property away
from
him. Standing up for one's legal rights can hardly be construed as
either
being aggressive or confrontational.
4. If Black Zimbabweans
feel that the Land was stolen from them, the
international courts are there
for them to reclaim that land from the
people who stole that land from them
originally. Why do they not try to
claim recompense from the British
Government by virtue of the fact that the
British South Africa Company who
were acting under a mandate granted by
Queen Victoria in 1890 dispossessed
them of the land.
What is certain is that ZANU-PF with their band of
connected Public
Servants, Warlords and Soldiers cannot by force just help
themselves to
private property as they are currently doing. The Western
Democracies will
not recognize a government brought to power through flawed
elections or
government sponsored murder and barbarity: and nor should they.
What
sanctions have been put on Zimbabwe anyway?
1. The international
banks will not lend money to Mugabe because he and his
mates just steal
it.
2. The democracies of the world do not want Mugabe, his cronies and
their
dependents coming to their countries spending the money that they
have
stolen.
Are these really tough on the people of Zimbabwe? Do
they have any effect
on the ordinary citizens of Zimbabwe at
all?
Deliberate suppression of the aspirations of the majority should
never be
tolerated, they were not tolerated when perpetrated by Ian Smith so
why
should the democratic countries of the West tolerate Mugabe doing the
same?
Mugabe has destroyed in 23 years what it took 90 years to build all
in the
name of liberation.
He has gifted his people with worse
grinding poverty than was imaginable in
Smith's years.
I challenge
Michael Chingoka to point out any part of Zimbabwe society that
is better off
now than it was in 1980. Any of the following? Health,
Education, Employment,
Roads, Tourism, Environment, Agriculture.
Finally Democracy?
Do
you think that the murder of Talent Mabika and the scores of MDC
activists
who have been murdered is democracy at work?
Mugabe has educated most of
his people up to Form 2 level, but then expects
them to pick up a badza and
toil in the fields. As I have said before,
these poor people have been
desperately trying to educate their children so
that they can get off the
land. Now they cannot even afford to feed or
educate themselves. In the
Kadoma, Shamva, Shurugwe and many other areas,
highly skilled electricians,
welders and farmers are forced to spend months
on end digging gold reefs with
their bare hands just to earn enough to put
sadza on the table for their
families. Even then they are forced to pay a
50% tithe to self proclaimed,
politically connected petty warlords who
control the Gold trade and have
become unimaginably wealthy. This has
nothing to do with White Zimbabweans,
it is slavery being perpetrated by
the very people who claim to be the
Liberators of the Black Zimbabweans.
The fiasco last weekend in Kadoma of
the ruling party trying to select a
candidate to contest the Kadoma Central
by-election was obscenity at its
worst. Bands of drugged or drunk youths
driving around screaming and
shouting and spraying the walls with the name of
a candidate who has paid
them to do it. The choice ZANU-PF gave to the people
of Kadoma was between
2 people.
· An illiterate thug who calls himself
"Chou en Lai" who controls all the
aforementioned gold trading in Kadoma and
who has stolen at least 2 farms.
· An equally brutal thug who owns
grinding mills and a bakery and was one
of the favored few (until it ran
out!) allowed to purchase GMB maize at
$540 per 50kg bag and sell it to the
povo at $22,500 for a 50kg bag of
meal. Who incidentally also owns 2
farms.
These 2 fine pillars of democracy were the best that ZANU-PF could
come up
with to present to the people of Kadoma to represent them in
parliament.
What Africa needs to learn (and especially ZANU-PF) is that
the West does
not need Africa. In fact they do not give a toss about what
happens here.
In many cases they wish that Africa could disappear
altogether.
One of Michael's points really rankles, He says that I am the
one holding
out the begging bowl?? Get real! The starvation that stalks this
country is
a wholly African problem. The White farmers are not the ones
holding out
the begging bowl, hundreds of them have created new lives in
other
countries and are quite comfortable.
Why should the rich western
countries bail out corrupt, brutal regimes?
Mugabe pours insults on Britain,
the USA and anyone who criticizes ZANU-PF
and then he is the one who holds
out the begging bowl because his people
are starving. There are certain
agreements that were signed not so long ago
called the "Harare Declaration"
and the "Abuja Agreement". Mugabe tore up
those bits of paper before the ink
was dry and never had any intention of
sticking to them.
How will
history look at Mugabe and his cronies?
When they are finally toppled and
their power broken, the truth will come
out.
When these excesses are
finally documented, I guarantee that they will be
viewed as one of the most
brutal regimes on the African continent. Mugabe
and his henchmen will have to
find a very quiet place to hide. They will be
looked upon with the same
disgust that Amin, Mobutu and Bokassa are.
Half of the problem in
Zimbabwe is that individuals who wish to express
their views are brutally
oppressed. Another thing is that people like
Michael Chingoka have a massive
chip on their shoulder which manifests
itself whenever Race, Colonialism, or
Liberation are mentioned. Until that
chip is removed and we are able to
debate contentious issues as adults
without resorting to personal insults we
will not move forward as a nation.
Unless the Zimbabwean people lose that
"Ndipo" attitude and take their
destiny away from their oppressors they are
doomed to poverty. The West is
comfortable to have the poor Africans begging
at their doorstep for food as
it gives them leverage to tell them what to do.
They are now unable to tell
the likes of Taiwan, China or India how to run
their countries because they
have become so economically strong that they are
not dependent on the west
in any way.
I guess that I have got carried
away, and lost the plot. The whole point is
that debate is good for the soul
and that no matter what names anyone calls
me I will express my
views!
John
Kinnaird.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All
letters published on the open Letter Forum are the views and opinions
of the
submitters, and do not represent the official viewpoint of Justice
for
Agriculture.
JUSTICE FOR AGRICULTURE COMPENSATION COMMUNIQUE - October 22, 2003
Email:
justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet:
www.justiceforagriculture.com
COMPENSATION??
A
few months ago a farmer responded to the Governments call in the Herald
for
compensation. He was offered Z$29 million over 7 years for his
farm
improvements. 25% paid when handing over the title deeds, 25% in two
years
time, and the remaining 50% five years later !!
Building costs
at the moment are in the region of Z$1million/square meter
so the amount
offered may just cover their double garage ! A sink mix tap
that was
Z$4700,00 two years ago, now sells at Z$220,000 !!
What would the last
remaining 50% be worth in seven years time and what
would it buy !?
From Business Day (SA), 22 October
MDC pins its hopes on court challenge of poll
Case could form part of deal with Zanu PF
International Affairs Editor
Eighteen months after the
main opposition party in Zimbabwe, the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC),
initially sought to have the March 2002
presidential election declared
invalid, the country's high court is due to
hear the case early next month.
It is likely to be a long, drawn-out case
that could become part of a deal
between the MDC and the ruling Zanu PF
party, if one is ultimately reached.
But the current strained political
climate gives little indication that such
a deal is imminent. Last weekend
security guards at the MDC headquarters in
Harare were shot and the MDC says
its members continue to face prosecution
and intimidation. MDC spokesman
Paul Themba-Nyathi said yesterday that the
party would consider withdrawing
the case if it were to reach an agreement
with the ruling party that could
ensure free and fair presidential elections.
Zanu PF broke off talks with
the opposition party when the original petition
to have the election
declared invalid was brought. Themba-Nyathi said that
while there were
contacts with Zanu PF, brokered by church groups and the
South African high
commission, there were no formal talks. He said the
contacts were aimed at
narrowing the topics to be discussed should formal
talks begin.
While the party's shadow minister for legal and
constitutional affairs,
David Coltart, had concerns about the independence of
the judiciary, he said
it was still important that the party place before the
public what he
described as overwhelming evidence of a rigged election. The
party said it
had hundreds of witnesses who could give evidence of election
abuses,
including voters being turned away from the polls and the stuffing
of
ballots. Coltart said nearly 30 of the party's election agents
were
abducted. All of them were in constituencies where the MDC was expected
to
win a majority of the vote. Mugabe won 1,6-million votes and the
MDC
candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, gained 1,2-million votes. A decision by
the
court to declare the elections invalid would embarrass observer
missions
including those from SA and what was then the Organisation for
African
Unity, now the African Union, that declared the poll substantially
free and
fair. Election observer missions from the Commonwealth, the Southern
African
Development Community parliamentary forum and the Norwegian
observer
mission, said it was neither free nor fair. The European Union's
observer
mission was not allowed into the country as Zanu PF banned its
British,
German, Dutch and Swedish members.
At the five-day
hearing starting on November 3 the court will hear the legal
arguments from
MDC lawyers, led by South African advocate Jeremy Gauntlett,
as to why the
election was invalid. Should the court make a finding in
favour of the MDC, a
fresh election will have to be held within three months
of the ruling. In the
second part of the case the MDC intends to present
evidence of the violence
around the polls and the stuffing of ballots.
Although Mugabe has tightened
his control of the judiciary over the past 18
months, the MDC is convinced
any judge who decides against it will have to
give a ruling that will not
stand up to scrutiny. Since the election the
party has been struggling to
obtain copies of the voters roll and ballot
papers that were used in the
election. Despite a series of judgments in its
favour the MDC has been unable
to obtain these. Coltart said the records
would bolster the MDC's case, but
even without them there was sufficient
evidence that Zanu PF committed
substantial fraud in the election.
Comment from ZWNEWS, 22 October
Bringing down the hammer
By Michael Hartnack
Zimbabwe's annual tobacco
auctions used to have a holiday atmosphere -
boisterous families, the nasal
droning of the auctioneers, international
buyers fingering the contents of
the bales. At the end of this selling
season a gloomy mood hung over the
cavernous auction floors. Just two small,
solemn groups of white farmers
breakfasted at the cafe overlooking the
lines. Out among the bales a shabbily
dressed black peasant farmer and his
wife argued with an official. Peasant
farmers twice brought auctions to a
halt during the past season in mass
protests against the Z$800 - US$1
exchange rate that the government imposed
on the proceeds of sales, which
averaged US2.26c/kg. This did not even match
the official Z$824 - US$1
exchange rate, and was vastly below the Z$7 000 -
US$1 "parallel" or black
market rate at which farmers have to buy imported
inputs such as tractor
spares. State radio, obsessed with racial paranoia,
accused the peasant
farmers of being a front for disgruntled whites.
Traditionally, Virginia
flue-cured tobacco was the country's largest single
export, with gold
trailing second. The biggest recorded crop, in 2000, was
237 million kg and
fetched US$600 million. Earnings from tobacco exports paid
for imports of
petrol, diesel, paraffin and aviation fuel. Even in the
searing drought year
of 1981, some 1 500 large-scale commercial growers
managed to produce 87
million kg which fetched US$141 million. This year, a
crop of a mere 78,5m
kg was sold for US $191 million, although weather was
favourable and
production had been opened up to thousands of peasant farmers.
Peasants grew
12 million kg and may double this in the next two years, but
they say they
need an exchange rate of Z$7 500 - US $1 exchange rate to break
even.
As the auctions drew to an end, details leaked of a
confidential audit on
the so-called "fast track land reform" performed by
Charles Utete, recently
Secretary to the Cabinet, a fanatical Mugabe
loyalist, and himself the
recipient of one of the farms seized from 5 000
farmers over the past three
turbulent years. Utete’s objectivity is thus
questionable. Sources say that
in the report presented to Mugabe last month,
Utete blamed the failure of
the programme on the economic crisis in Zimbabwe,
rather than acknowledging
the economic crisis is a result of the land
seizures. He said the seizures
were necessary because "white farmers
routinely resorted to legal action to
protect their ownership rights". He
ignored the fact that Mugabe abandoned
the peaceful, internationally-funded
reform plan agreed with the U.N.
Development Programme at a conference in
Harare in 1998. And Utete blamed
European Union and US "sanctions" for drying
up of investment and export
revenues. That’s the favourite Mugabe
explanation. However, he did admit
that Mugabe's oft-repeated claim that 300
000 black families have been
successfully resettled is untrue. No more than
134 000 have received
identifiable plots or farms, and 40 percent of these
have failed to take
them up.
In addition, 50 000 families were
supposed to receive larger A2 commercial
holdings. But, Utete reported, only
7 260 did. These, say Mugabe's critics,
included recipients of the prime
estates seized by members of the elite and
their relatives. Some of them
seized farms with the aid of violent thugs and
made a quick profit by
marketing the evicted owners’ crops, including
tobacco, as their own. Many
hold top state jobs, including military and
police chiefs, or own businesses
linked to Mugabe’s Zanu PF party. Utete
said farms were seized to alleviate
poverty - as opposed to the view of
critics that land reform was a cover for
violent intimidation by a corrupt
and incompetent regime. There is less
disagreement about the result. The
Financial Gazette, now run by a consortium
of pro-Mugabe businessmen,
reported: "swathes of productive land were left
lying idle...this not only
compromised the country's food security situation
but also had a negative
effect on the feeble economy." Oliver Gawe, spokesman
for the Zimbabwe
Tobacco Association, which says it is non-political, said
the new growers
wanted security. "They ask to be left alone when they plant a
crop (a
hectare costs up to Z$30 million to bring to reaping stage) yet they
are
under a lot of political pressure still." Economics consultant
John
Robertson put it less coyly: farmers, including the few hundred
surviving
white tobacco growers who have committed themselves to a further
season, are
still being summarily thrown off. Robertson says only 30 million
kg may be
produced in the coming season. Gawe hopes for 60 million kg and
says
Zimbabwe must restore a crop of at least 80 million kg by 2004-5 to
maintain
international buyers' interest. "If we don't, that could spell doom
for the
industry," Gawe concedes.
So why has production fallen
calamitously under the fast track land reform
which Mugabe and Utete claim
has been a resounding success? "It was a
chapter of unfulfilled promises,"
says Jerry Davidson, chief executive of
the Commercial Farmers Union. Apart
from broken pledges that white farmers
would each be left with at least one
farm, incoming black recipients did not
get free ploughing, soil preparation,
seed and fertiliser. "There was bad
planning and bad implementation," adds
Davidson. "People were just dumped in
the bush where there is no water and no
housing. They have no means of
accessing the development capital to open up
the land and get it working for
them." Even the wealthy recipients of A2
model farms all assumed they were
going to take over a fully running farm, he
added. And even Davidson Mugabe,
president of the Indigenous Commercial
Farmers' Union, and a fan of farm
seizures, is complaining. He says his 2 000
members - established farmers -
were unable to get diesel and seed, adding,
"This has left most of them
stranded." Mugabe propagates the fallacy that a
farm or a plot of land
represents a cash cow for the recipient. However, the
134 000 who were
allocated holdings were not given freehold title. Any
suggestion of
political disloyalty, and party bosses will have their leases
cancelled,
regardless of whether they have incurred a Z$30 million overdraft
to grow a
hectare of crops. It is, therefore, not just whites who are too
insecure to
produce. It is the same for all - and so the nation goes hungry
and lacks
fuel.
Maternal Mortality Stubbornly High
UN Integrated Regional
Information Networks
October 22, 2003
Posted to the web October 22,
2003
Johannesburg
Women in sub-Saharan Africa face the highest
maternal mortality rates in the
world, with up to one in 16 women running the
risk of dying in pregnancy or
childbirth, a new study has found.
The
study, conducted by the World Health Organisation, the UN Children's
Fund
(UNICEF) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), found that in Angola and
Malawi
one in seven women faced the risk of dying due to pregnancy or
childbirth,
compared with one in 2,800 for a woman from a developed region.
In
Zimbabwe, where researchers estimated that one in 16 women were at risk,
the
introduction in 1995 of user fees at clinics is thought to have been
partly
responsible for the high risks associated with childbirth.
"At the same
time, the health authorities stopped training traditional birth
attendants
(TBAs), to encourage women to attend the clinics for their
ante-natal health
care," UNICEF information officer Chantha Bloemen told
IRIN on
Wednesday.
Although this policy has been reversed - medical care is free
for pregnant
women and children under five, and TBA training has been revived
- health
services had deteriorated due to inadequate funding and training,
Bloemen
said.
"Women would go the clinic and receive poor services,
and so decided to just
do things the way their mothers did - with TBAs." In
addition, Bloemen
noted, the per capita allocation for the health sector had
dropped from US
$26 in 1991 to $14 in 2001.
"On top of that, there's a
brain drain of health workers moving across the
border, so the services that
are available are not so good.
Zimbabwe's food crisis earlier this year,
which left half the country's
population dependent on food aid, also left
many women anaemic and not
strong enough for childbirth. Other causes of
maternal mortality included
women bleeding to death during childbirth,
infections not healing and
inadequately trained medical staff, especially in
rural health centres, that
were unable to cope with
complications.
HIV/AIDS had also left many women too weak to fight
infections, or anaemic,
Bloemen said. An estimated 33.7 percent of Zimbabwean
adults are
HIV-positive.
In Angola, now emerging from three decades of
civil war, researchers found
that women delayed seeking treatment at the
country's clinics, which were
short of drugs and trained staff.
"There
are 3.3 million displaced people returning home and, although they
have got
incredible spirit, they are going to areas that don't have
services - some
are just ghost towns," said James Elder, UNICEF spokesman
in
Angola.
"These new estimates indicate an unacceptably high number
of women dying in
childbirth, and an urgent need for increased access to
emergency obstetric
care, especially in sub-Saharan Africa," UNICEF Executive
Director Carol
Bellamy said in a statement. "The widespread provision of
emergency
obstetric care is essential if we want to reduce maternal
deaths."