PO Box BE 638, Belvedere, Harare

UPNS spokespersons at Press Conference Tuesday 3 October 2000 are :

David CHIMHINI - Co-ordinator

Wilfred MHANDA - Representative of Zimbabwe Liberators Platform

Lydia ZIGOMO-NYATSANZA - Director of Women’s Lawyers Association

PRAYERS

Rev Canon Tim NEILL - Vicar General of the Anglican Diocese of Harare

Archbishop Pius NCUBE - Archbishop of Bulawayo – was praying for us but

unable to be present and sent his apologies

The group has many thousands of supporters some of whom do not wish to be identified for fear of retribution by the regime.

The past week has been characterised by the evolving crisis on the farms and the continued degradation in state controlled institutions. A bright note was the start up on Friday night of two new FM radio stations – Capitol Radio, whom we know and who were the people who got the break through in the courts and another outfit calling itself "100FM" which has also been broadcasting. The origins of this latter station are not known but it could well be the ZBC itself, as it was known that Capitol wanted to use that frequency. The first broadcast by Capitol only ran for three hours but was heard clearly all over Harare. They start broadcasting in earnest this coming week. What a difference it will make to have freedom on the airways.

The farm violence was heightened by two incidents – one in the Chivu area where a group of 14 farmers and their staff were beaten and threatened with automatic weapons by a group of thugs led by a CIO officer. The other was an incident in Karoi where Marshal Roper was planting tobacco on his property early one morning when he was attacked by local Zanu PF thugs and seriously injured with a panga. He is OK but will need plastic surgery and will be back on the farm this week. The community finished the planting of the tobacco in question.

Both incidents have confirmed the complicity of the authorities in these incidents, have resulted in a backlash in terms of public opinion and encouraged further resistance to the illegal farm invasions by farmers and their workers. Since the latter out number the thugs by 100 to 1, this is a serious problem for those responsible for managing the whole exercise. The use of automatic weapons by people who have no authority to be in possession of such weapons is a serious violation of our laws and they can only have come from government ordinance stores. This makes a complete mockery of the claim that the MDC is preparing for "armed conflict" when they found a child’s pellet gun in the home of one of our security staff.

We have been talking to farmers all over the country in recent weeks – I must have spoken to over 2000 by now and my colleagues about the same number. Invariably the meetings have been crowded and the farmers have brought their wives, managers and assistants. The groups are usually very subdued when we start the meetings with prayer and then get into the program of the MDC on land and the farm invasions. As a community these brave people are completely shell shocked, uncertain about their future and feeling very alone and vulnerable.

We give them the background to the MDC and what we stand for; we assure them that we are here to stay and that they are not alone in this struggle. We point out to them that what has happened in this country since the referendum is a deliberate, planned and state managed campaign to hold onto power. It has nothing to do with land and does not have the support of the ordinary people of Zimbabwe and especially the rural peasant farming communities. We tell them that the end of Mugabe’s hold on power is in sight and that they must fight back with the only two weapons they have; their legal status as citizens and as land owners who have paid for their farms with their own money, and their loyal farm workers who have more to lose than they do. At long last they are fighting back and the legal exercise that they are embarking on has already yielded dividends. The farm workers are also fighting back and are expelling the thugs from the farms they are trying to occupy.

The response to these meetings has been most gratifying, we have had farmers in tears as they heard of our support, and invariably the mood has lightened by the end of the meetings and some hope injected into the communities they represent. We wish we could do more but these isolated communities and families on remote farms are on their own and must work to achieve their own security. All that we can do is to continue to work to remove the source of all this pain, which is one Robert Gabriel Mugabe esq.

An extraordinary development which took place this past week was the suicide by a veteran nationalist Michael Mawema following disclosure that he had been fronting for a Zanu PF scam. This involving two Ministers and a Vice President and involved the sale farms acquired by the farm invasions to party hacks. These guys paid Z$7 million and were not given receipts – they are now demanding performance and Michael felt responsible and was unable to face the shame. That is more than you can say for the others who have no shame at all.

As far as State controlled institutions are concerned the situation is universally chaotic and worse. This week we had the GMB – it was revealed that on top of the corruption charges against the Minister, Permanent Secretary and the General Manager, all of whom are suspended from their posts and facing court hearings, the Board is Z$7 billion in debt. It has not been able to buy this year’s crop of maize and as a result we have no stocks in our silos and farmers are struggling to find the funds to plant a new crop or even to live on. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of this basic staple lie in poor storage on farms and in villages and the losses will be huge.

Then the Railways reported that their traffic volumes were down by 50 per cent and they were forced to put their entire system onto a three-day week to save money. They still operate without a General Manager after the previous CEO was asked to go and given a massive golden handshake to co-operate. Once he was out of the way the powers that be began to asset strip the railways system and to do deals with shady organisations that would do the Mafia proud. As if that is not enough, the Post and Telecommunications Corporation is broke and struggling to pay its workers while the government goes ahead with corrupt deals with international companies that will ensure cash flows to them for many years to come.

Then there is the Cold Storage Commission which was once the largest meat company in Africa with a proud record of public service, now operating without an effective Board and under a political appointee as executive chairman. They cannot pay their debts (Z$2,7 billion) and now they have over Z$100 million worth of meat returned by the EU for poor packaging. This was a "political act" the CSC said. Asset stripping is also taking place at the CSC after they disposed of the then GM in the same way as the Railways. The huge steel plant in the midlands is unable to pay wages and has halted production for want of working capital.

We have the one state organisation that has been working quite well – the Electricity Supply Commission. Frustrated two years ago in their intent to sell off the Hwange Power Station (worth about US$1 billion) to Malaysia in a crooked deal that was prevented by the intervention of the World Bank. The government has not been able to persuade the current CEO to vacate his seat like the Railways and the CSC have done. So they appoint as Executive Chairman, a crony of the President (also a brother in law) to the Board and he immediately tries to remove the CEO – the latter went to the courts who upheld his appointment and position. His courage and determination has our utmost admiration and he deserves our total support as a nation.

The Government did the same thing to the Civil Aviation Authority – fired the then CEO and appointed a Board full of cronies who would do their masters will. The dismissed CEO took this to the Courts who this past week ruled that not only was his dismissal illegal but the new Board was not competent to run civil aviation in this country. Not very encouraging for those of us who must fly the airlines in the region on a regular basis. What would we do without a strong independent system of courts and lawyers and a decent legal system! Incidentally one of the projects overseen by this Board of incompetents is the new airport in Harare which was built by a company owned by – President Mugabe’s nephew. The contract was written in Euro’s, designed by a company in the Mediterranean which had never built an airport in its life and is the most expensive airport building per passenger handled in the world. It is also too small to accommodate even current low levels of traffic and to round it all off is finished with no imported equipment and cannot be used until foreign exchange to buy the required equipment is secured.

Finally they decided a few weeks ago that the Ministry of Information (propaganda) was too important to be allowed to operate independent of the President so they moved the new Minster into the Presidents office. This left 250 civil servants in the Ministry wondering what they were supposed to do. They were told this week that the Ministry would be closed down and their services no longer required. What a reward after 20 years of faithful service selling the Zanu PF line to the nation and any one else who would listen. So much for loyalty.

Eddie Cross

1^st October 2000