The Economist
Sep 10th 2007
From the Economist
Intelligence Unit ViewsWire
Zimbabwe's economy is likely to shrink by 12%
this year
Devaluing the Zimbabwe dollar isn't going to solve the
economic crisis: GDP
is likely to shrink 12% this year, the largest decline
since the onset of
the crisis in 1999.
Massive devaluation, higher
taxes and the admission that the country can
only afford 15% of government
spending belies the best efforts of Zimbabwe's
finance minister, Samuel
Mumbengegwi, to paint a picture of economic
recovery. Making sense of the
figures unveiled in Mr Mumbengegwi's
supplementary budget on September 6th
is an art form in itself: not only are
there serious discrepancies between
the new numbers and those published in
the annual budget in December 2006
but the minister said nothing about the
government's quasi-fiscal spending,
and made no attempt to explain how
interest charges of some Z$13.5trn
(US$450m) will be funded.
Mr Mumbengegwi's main measure was the
99%-plus devaluation of the Zimbabwe
dollar from Z$250:US$1 to
Z$30,000:US$1. Both the official rate of
Z$250:US$1 and the incentive
"drought stabilisation rate" for exporters that
was introduced in April have
been abolished. All taxes and customs duties
will now be levied at the new
rate, which will boost tax income that has
been hard hit by the price
controls imposed in June, as a result of which
profit tax and VAT revenues
have collapsed.
Needless to say the finance minister did not admit to
this. Instead he
repeated the party line that price controls had been
imposed because
businesses were deliberately fomenting inflation as part of
a political
agenda designed to force "regime change". Now--he says--price
controls have
"settled in" and there will be a return to "normalcy", which
in reality
means a system of centrally imposed price and wage controls
operated by a
government-appointed National Incomes and Pricing
Commission.
Such breezy optimism at a time when there are acute food
shortages across
the country illustrates the gap between government
statements and what is
actually happening in Zimbabwe. For example, just 48
hours before the
supplementary budget the industry minister, Obert Mpofu,
said that the
government's Prices Task Force (of which he is a key member)
was concerned
with the price not availability of commodities: in Mr Mpofu's
understanding
price and supply are unrelated. He had been asked about the
acute shortage
of wheat, caused by the government's failure to find the
foreign exchange
necessary to unlock 36,000 tonnes of wheat currently stuck
in the Mozambican
port of Beira.
There is nothing in the
supplementary budget that is going to solve that
problem. The Z$30,000:US$1
exchange rate is a mere 14% of the parallel
market rate of about
Z$220,000:US$1. One exporter comments: "Had he devalued
to Z$130,000:US$1,
not Z$30,000:US$1 then exports might respond, but this is
far too little,
far too late."
Given all the uncertainties surrounding the figures it is
difficult to take
the budget seriously. Revenue is now projected to be
almost ten times the
original budget forecast in December 2006. The GDP
forecast has also been
upped by a factor of ten while spending is up
seven-fold (and that without
taking interest charges into
account).
If the revenue and spending targets are met-and few analysts
believe that
they will-the budget deficit will be 33.5% of GDP, still way
above the
minister's target of 10%. The main reason for this is the omission
of
interest charges, which are left off the balance-sheet to make the
overall
figures look better.
Despite the obviously grim economic
scenario Mr Mumbengegwi did his best to
remain upbeat. Agriculture, he said,
would grow 7.3% this year despite
severe drought, while tourist arrivals
were up 34% in the first half of
2007. Private-sector economists disagree:
some believe that agriculture
could decline by as much as 25%, and they
expect GDP to fall 12%-the largest
such decline since the onset of the
crisis in 1999. It is not clear how long
politicians like Mr Mumbengegwi can
maintain the façade, but as shelves
empty, people emigrate or starve,
services deteriorate and
inflation-currently 7,630%-escalates further, the
reality will become ever
harder to conceal.
International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished:
September 10, 2007
HARARE, Zimbabwe: AIDS drugs - some of
them contaminated, diluted or faked -
are being sold at flea markets and
hairdressing salons in the face of
growing shortages in clinics linked to
Zimbabwe's economic crisis, the
health ministry said.
State media
quoted Minister of Health David Parirenyatwa on Monday appealing
to people
living with HIV/AIDS to buy their medicines from registered
pharmacies,
clinics and hospitals only.
"These fake drugs increase chances of one
becoming resistant to treatment
and it becomes even more expensive for that
person to remain on treatment,"
he was quoted as saying by the official
Herald newspaper, which said that
the "prohibitive" cost of antiretroviral
drugs at private pharmacies had
fueled the illegal market.
State
radio said that the illegal medications were either adulterated with
other
substances or useless fakes.
About 50,000 HIV-infected patients are
receiving free medication from
government hospitals in a nation where an
estimated 3,000 people die a week
from AIDS-related conditions. The Herald
said 300,000 more are in urgent
need of treatment.
Since a government
edict in June to slash prices of all goods and services
by about half,
pharmacies say many medicines have been scarce. The price
cuts were ordered
in an effort to tame the world's highest official
inflation of 7,634
percent. Independent estimates put real inflation closer
to 25,000 percent
and the International Monetary Fund forecasts it reaching
100,000 percent by
the end of the year.
Local manufacturers of HIV/AIDS drugs have failed to
obtain enough imported
raw materials, which must be paid for in scarce hard
currency.
The local generic drug costs about 5 million Zimbabwe dollars
for a month's
supply, far out of the reach of most impoverished Zimbabweans.
A teacher in
a top government high school earns about 3 million Zimbabwe
dollars a month.
Where formal unemployment is 80 percent, an unskilled
general hand earns
half that amount.
At the dominant black market
exchange rate of 250,000-1, 5 million Zimbabwe
dollars worth of medication
is the equivalent of US$20 (?14.7) compared to
US$165 (?121) at the official
exchange rate of 30,000-1.
HIV/AIDS support groups say patients receiving
antiretroviral treatment live
in constant fear of not being able to find or
pay for their monthly
medication. Imported drugs cost up to double the local
makes.
Interruptions in treatment along with poor nutrition quickly
render
sufferers vulnerable to tuberculosis and other often fatal
infections,
according to support groups.
Most basic foods have
disappeared from the shelves since the government's
prices edit June 26. The
corn meal staple, meat, bread, milk, sugar, eggs
and even soap and tea fetch
ten times the government's fixed price if found
on the illegal black
market.
Bread shortages worsened Monday across the country after the two
main bakery
chains said they were down to their last emergency reserves of
flour.
One main Harare baking factory sent home hundreds of workers on
indefinite
leave on Friday.
The government has raised its price
freeze across the board upward by 20
percent, but businesses say they are
still being told to sell goods at below
production costs.
Reuters
Mon 10 Sep
2007, 15:15 GMT
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Zimbabwe was close to exhausting a
loan facility of 75
million rand from the South African Reserve Bank, South
Africa's finance
minister said on Monday.
Replying to a written
question in parliament, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel
said Zimbabwe, which
has the world's highest inflation rate at over 7,600
percent in July, had
used 73.2 million rand of its loan agreement by July 31
2007.
"This
facility expires on 31 December 2007 if not renegotiated. The facility
is
secured by a pledge of South African Land Bank bills to the value of 81.8
million rand," Manuel said in his written reply.
He said interest on
the loan is linked to the Reserve Bank's repo rate which
has been increased
by 300 basis points since June last year to 10 percent.
Manuel added that
the Zimbabwean government had reneged on payments to the
South African
government for the medical expenses of Zimbabwe military
veterans staying in
South Africa.
"Since 2000, the Zimbabwean government has not refunded
these payments as
specified in the agreement. As at 31 July 2007, the amount
overdue was 2.2
million rand," Manuel said.
Zimbabwe's economy is
under severe strain, with massive food, fuel and
foreign currency shortages
that critics blame on mismanagement by President
Robert Mugabe's
government.
SW Radio Africa
(London)
10 September 2007
Posted to the web 10 September
2007
Tichaona Sibanda
The chairperson of the Mutambara led
MDC, Jobert Mudzumwe, was on Monday
picked up by the police from his offices
in Masvingo and spent five hours at
the Law and Order section. He was
released without charge.
Mudzumwe told Newsreel he believes he was picked
up for organising a meeting
that was eventually held at a secret location in
the town. He said the
meeting had been sanctioned by the
police.
'I was picked up just after 8 in the morning by officers from
the Law and
Order section but I was never charged with any offence. I spent
five hours
being shifted from office to office but eventually I was allowed
to go
home,' Mudzumwe said.
Mudzumwe said they held a workshop on
Saturday, which they also used to
co-opt some members into the provincial
leadership. He explained that when
they got to the original venue for their
meeting at New Gate Lodge,
management there told them they were no longer
able to host them, for
unexplained reasons. The group quickly found an
alternative venue and went
ahead with their workshop in the belief that they
had been granted a
go-ahead by the authorities.
'I strongly believe
the police intimidated management at New Gate Lodge to a
point where they
felt unsafe to host us. So we got ourselves a venue which
the police did not
know about and I could see they were seething with rage
about it,' he
said.
Mudzumwe was surprised to learn from the police that the change of
venue was
actually a criminal act under POSA, adding that the police
officers ended up
demanding minutes from the meeting.
'I told them it
was unacceptable and that it was not their business to
meddle in our party
affairs. I asked them if it was the same with Zanu-PF to
get minutes after
every meeting,' Mudzumwe said.
Asked if he was beaten or interrogated
during the five hour ordeal, Mudzumwe
said; 'They know I hit back. I've been
beaten senseless by the police, I
have lost teeth through beatings and I
have had bones broken but I have
since made it a point to hit back, I'm no
longer afraid.'
A statement released by the party condemned Mudzumwe's
detention, describing
it as indicative of the continued assault on people's
liberties, freedoms
and rights by state agents on the instigation of the
Zanu-PF regime.
'We are aware that as the nation moves towards the 2008
elections, the
regime will resort to brazen acts of force and brutality to
muzzle any
dissenting voices. We wish to remind the regime that the citizens
of
Zimbabwe have a right to assemble, including the right to engage in
political gatherings,' the statement said.
The statement added that
it was disturbing to note that the police were
being used to hound people
out of their homes and offices and that such
actions have no place in a
democratic society and should be condemned.
Business Day
10 September 2007
Dumisani
Muleya
Harare
Correspondent
ZIMBABWE's ruling Zanu (PF) and the opposition Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC) have agreed on several aspects of the contentious
electoral
process ahead of next year's critical elections.
The
parties have made significant progress in talks facilitated by President
Thabo Mbeki, although there is still a long way to go before a final
agreement, which could usher in a new constitutional dispensation and secure
a political sea change.
Zanu (PF) negotiators Patrick Chinamasa and
Nicholas Goche and the MDC team
of Welshman Ncube and Tendai Biti agreed on
key aspects of the electoral
process in meetings held on September 1 and 2
in Pretoria.
South African Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi
chaired the talks
assisted by Director- General in the Presidency Reverend
Frank Chikane and
Mbeki's legal adviser Mojanku Gumbi. Ncube was assisted by
Priscilla
Misihairabwi, while Biti works with Lovemore Moyo.
The
two parties agreed President Robert Mugabe would no longer appoint 10
MPs in
Zimbabwe's lower house, which will be expanded to 210 from 150
members. All
MPs in the lower house would now be elected. This would level
the playing
field because Mugabe's party used to have a head start due to
the appointed
legislators.
It was also agreed that the senate would be increased
from 66 to 93 members.
The initial proposal was to expand it to 84
members.
However, Mugabe would still appoint 10 provincial governors,
10 chiefs and
five representatives in the senate, one for Harare, one for
Bulawayo and
three others for special interest groups.
This
effectively maintains Zanu (PF)'s advantage in the senate because all
appointees normally vote with the ruling party.
Zanu (PF) and the
MDC also agreed that the three forthcoming elections -
presidential,
parliamentary and municipal - would be run concurrently.
Initially, Zanu
(PF) wanted to hold municipal elections in January next year
but the MDC did
not want this as it argued it would be used to perfect
gerrymandering and
electoral rigging.
The key issues were tabled before the
decision-making Zanu (PF) politburo
meeting on Wednesday last week. They
were debated and adopted at the
meeting.
These aspects of the
electoral process would be incorporated in the 18th
Constitutional Amendment
Bill, designed to ensure Mugabe's re-election and
to manage his volatile
succession battle, which would be introduced to
parliament for debate during
the course of this week. It is expected that
the Bill will reach the final
committee stage ready for passing into law by
November 18. Mugabe is racing
against time to ensure his plan succeeds well
before the elections. The plan
has the effect of undermining the talks if
the Bill is passed before the
negotiations are concluded, possibly by
mid-October.
Mbeki is
under pressure to deliver on the talks this time around after
failing
several times to do so since he began his diplomacy on Zimbabwe in
2000.
The agenda for the talks includes the constitution,
electoral laws, security
legislation, communication laws and the political
climate.
SW Radio Africa
(London)
10 September 2007
Posted to the web 10 September
2007
Tichaona Sibanda
Not many Zimbabweans are convinced that
the mediation talks being led by
South African President Thabo Mbeki will
yield any positive results, despite
reports of progress reported in the
media.
While both Zanu-PF and the MDC have not uttered a word to the
media about
the talks, there is speculation that the two sides have agreed
on several
aspects of the contentious electoral process, ahead of next
year's critical
elections.
It has been reported that significant
progress has been made in talks held
on September 1st and 2nd in Pretoria.
The two parties agreed that Robert
Mugabe would no longer appoint 10 MPs in
the country's lower house, which
will be expanded to 210 from 150
members.
All 210 MPs in the lower house would now be elected. This,
according to
analysts, would level the playing field because Zanu-PF used to
have a head
start due to the appointed legislators
Last week's
meetings in Pretoria were attended by Zanu-PF negotiators
Patrick Chinamasa
and Nicholas Goche and the MDC was represented by Welshman
Ncube and Tendai
Biti. Mbeki was represented by local government Minister
Sydney Mufamadi,
who was assisted by Director- General in the Presidency
Reverend Frank
Chikane and Mbeki's legal adviser Mojanku Gumbi.
Despite the reported
agreements many still believe Mbeki is not comfortable
seeing the opposition
take over from Zanu-PF. Commentators have also been
wary of Mbeki
facilitating the talks because of his perceived closeness to
Mugabe.
Luke Zunga, an economist based in Johannesburg, said he is
not confident the
talks will bring out anything positive for Zimbabweans. He
said they have
briefed the South African mediation team that not much will
happen in
Zimbabwe without the will to reform by Mugabe.
MDC activist
Solomon Chikohwero maintained that Mbeki's position has always
been
compromised; 'Never fool yourself to believe that Mbeki will reign in
Mugabe
or force him to reform. I take the whole process as play acting.'
SW Radio Africa (London)
10
September 2007
Posted to the web 10 September 2007
Lance
Guma
Teachers under the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ)
went on
strike Monday, pressing government for a 500 percent salary hike. A
heated
meeting last Thursday at the unions Harare office resulted in the
decision
to down tools. On Monday teachers in Harare reported for duty at
their
respective schools, but soon after clocking in refused to
teach.
PTUZ Harare Provincial Chairperson Jacob Rukweza said this will be
the
strategy for the time being until the strike builds momentum. Since last
week Tuesday to Friday the teachers have been on a go-slow to press for
their demands and the union has upgraded the action to a sit
in.
Teachers want salaries currently pegged at Z$2,9 million to be
increased to
Z$15 million a month. Although they received a salary hike the
last time
they went on strike in February, the increments have since been
eroded by
inflation leaving them worse off than before. The larger Zimbabwe
Teachers
Association (ZIMTA) has not given its official position on strike
action but
Rukweza says the last they heard ZIMTA was still locked in
negotiations with
government. He wondered how those negotiations could yield
anything given
that Mugabe recently ordered a freeze on wages, using his
presidential
powers.
In July teachers submitted their demands to the
Public Service Commission
(APEX Council), which represents all civil
servants but received no firm
commitments. The union argues government has
gone back on a promise to
review salaries each quarter of the year. Rukweza
said the situation in the
country is so bad they have reports that half the
teachers are yet to turn
up for the new term, because of transport and
living expenses. Many others
have simply left the country. Highlighting just
how poorly paid teachers
are, a monthly salary of Z$2,9 million can only buy
10 litres of petrol.
SW Radio Africa (London)
10
September 2007
Posted to the web 10 September 2007
Henry
Makiwa
Zimbabwe's main labour union, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions (ZCTU)
said on Monday that Robert Mugabe has pushed them into staging
a two-day
strike next week, following his Presidential decree barring wage
increases.
Mugabe banned all pay rises late last month and handed himself
extra powers
in a new bid to curb the world's highest inflation rate. The
move was
received with resistance by the ZCTU, which has pencilled in a
countrywide
two-day job boycott for September 19th and 20th.
ZCTU
President Lovemore Matombo said the labour union would from now on
mount
more drastic protests, as Mugabe's decree smacks of "authoritarianism
at its
worst."
He said: "Never in history have we had a leader instituting
presidential
powers to freeze workers' wages. Even the worst of dictators
only use
decrees where there are national security threats, not labour
issues. We
believe Mugabe is using this decree so that he and his Zanu PF
cronies, who
own many companies they have been taking over in the past seven
years of
chaos, can further maximise their profits from paying their workers
slave
wages. The sad thing is that the labour laws have been severely
flouted as
workers are robbed of their independence to negotiate justified
salary
arrangements. What the president has done is direct interference and
unconstitutional."
Matombo added that the supplementary budget
presented by the finance
minister on Thursday also falls short of workers
"expectations of a tax free
threshold that is linked to the poverty datum
line."
He said: "The average worker earns Z$2 million and yet the poverty
datum
line is pegged at Z$8,2 million, hence the president's action
demonstrates
that he is either not in touch with reality or is downright
unsympathetic to
the suffering people of this country. September 19 and 20
is a warm up. If
government does not heed our calls there will be more
drastic measures, such
as protests and demonstrations which the ZCTU is
known for."
Zimbabwe's economy has steadily declined over the past seven
years,
characterised by inflation running well past the 7,500 percent mark
and high
unemployment, with at least 80 percent of the population living
below the
poverty threshold.
The Zimbabwean
BY
TREVOR GRUNDY
'Mugabe has taken back the land . he has avenged
colonization'
'We are not going to be involved in any regime change in
Zimbabwe - Mbeki'
LONDON
A prediction that African leaders will do nothing
to dislodge Robert Mugabe
from power has been made by Mike Auret, Director
of the Catholic Commission
for Justice and Peace (CCJP) at the start of the
Fifth Brigade's campaign
against so-called "dissidents" in January
1983.
"The Africans are not going to intervene," he said at the re-launch of
the
CCJP/ Legal Resources Foundation report on the massacres in Matabeleland
and
the Midlands which cost at least 20,000 lives between 1980
and1988.
"The African Union and the SADC are not going to do anything
because, in
point of fact, Mugabe has taken the land from the colonizers and
in the eyes
of African history he will be a hero. What is happening now is a
blink in
history. It's a very sad and slow blink for the people who are
suffering
it - but Mugabe has taken back the land . he has avenged
colonization and
that's why President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa is walking
backwards
quickly."
At the same time Mike Auret - one of the most
outspoken human rights
activists when Ian Smith ran Rhodesia in the
1960s/1970s - said that he was
outraged that Mugabe and a team of foreign
policy advisers had been invited
to attend an EU/Africa summit meeting in
Lisbon in December.
"There should be a howl of rage if they are invited.
Europe should be
outraged," he declared with passion at Chatham House in
London, home of the
Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA).
He
apologized to a large audience made up of diplomats, journalists,
students
and human rights activists for not being "more hopeful."
His belief that
Mbeki is "walking backwards " on the Zimbabwean issue was
expressed the day
before the South African leader told MPs in Cape Town -
"We are not going to
be involved in any regime change in Zimbabwe. We are
not going to do it. We
think it is fundamentally wrong."
Mbeki also said it was wrong to use
sanctions to pressure Mugabe and he
dismissed comparisons between the
situation in Zimbabwe and apartheid -era
South Africa.
In her
introduction to the new edition of the original report, Elinor Sisulu
(daughter-in-law of Walter Sisulu) said the silence that greeted massacres
carried out by Mugabe's Fifth Brigade was in "stark contrast to the 1960
Sharpeville Massacre, news of which reverberated around the
world."
Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo added in his foreword - "Over
20,000
people were killed by Five Brigade. The motive for these killings was
to
crush the people of Matabeleland so that they would conform to the Zanu
(PF)
government and give up their tribal identity and their attachment to
ZAPU."
Chaired by the RIIA's head of African Programme, Alex Vines, a panel
of
experts from Zimbabwe included Mike Auret, Noel Kututwa, Chair Zimbabwe
Human Rights NGO Forum, Eileen Sawyer, former Director Legal Resources
Foundation (LRF) and Nokuthula Moyo, current Chair LRF.
During a moving
recall of the joy and patriotism Zimbabwe's independence
invoked among
millions of people in April 1980, Mike Auret said the first
years of freedom
had been marked by "good, imaginative policies."
But he regretted
underestimating Mugabe's determination to bring about a one
party
state.
"I made a very grave error of judgment about Mugabe. I didn't take in
- we
didn't internalize, as it were - the fact that he was a committed
Marxist
and the fact that his belief was there was a need for one party and
one
party only. He had invited that other party (ZAPU) to join him and they
had
refused. There was only one way to get rid of the opposition party and
that's what he did with the Fifth Brigade."
He said that when he first
heard about the massacres he could hardly believe
what he was hearing from
the lips of Bishop Karlen and the Bulawayo director
of the CCJP, Joel
Silonda.
After representations to the Zimbabwean government, first by NGOs
and then
by Catholic bishops, the then Prime Minister Mugabe reluctantly
agreed to
investigate what he called "over enthusiasm "by the Fifth
Brigade.
Two reports into the Fifth Brigade atrocities have never seen the
light of
day. The Dumbutshena Commission was instituted to investigate the
"disturbances" following clashes between the former liberation armies of
ZIPRA and ZANLA in Entumbane in the early 1980s.
The Chihambakwe
Committee was set up to investigate "alleged atrocities" of
civilians in
Matabeleland and the Midlands. The Zimbabwean government tossed
both reports
into the dustbin and slammed the lid down hard.
Nokuthulu Moyo said Mugabe
had tried to pass off the tragedy of Gukuruhundi
as a moment of madness.
"It was not a moment of madness for the people of
Matabeleland and the
Midlands," she said. "Thousands of people were killed
and the least you
would expect is a proper acknowledgment to be made."
Added Eileen Sawyer:
"Those events in Matabeleland have caused a festering
sore - and it's not
going to go away until such time as they are properly
addressed." -
Gukuruhundi in Zimbabwe - A report on the disturbances in
Matabeleland and
The Midlands 1980 -1988. Introduction by Elinor Sisulu,
Foreword by
Archbishop Pius Ncube is published in the UK by Hurst Publishers
Ltd, 41
Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3PL at £10. 00, 440 pages
Mens News Daily
We are now
into our third month of the "neutron bomb" campaign or the Pol
Pot strategy
as I call it. Manufacturing activity is still very low,
supermarket and
other retails store shelves are empty and the campaign to
intimidate and
enforce this exercise continues.
I saw an interesting sidelight to this
operation yesterday. Quite close to
my home is a small milling company that
gets maize from the GMB. The owner
is a well-known Zanu PF activist. She has
been supplying the nearby suburbs
with maize meal but has now quietly
stopped selling maize meal to the urban
area. Instead her entire output is
going to the local Chief who is putting
on a mark up and selling the maize
to his people.
This is interesting because it shows how thorough these
guys are when it
comes to working through their strategy for the next
election. First of all
you have a politically controlled allocation system
for maize - it is only
going to well known Zanu PF supporters. Secondly,
those recipients are being
instructed as to whom they in turn can sell to -
in this case a local Chief
(buying his loyalty and commitment) and thence to
his people - making sure
that the link to Zanu PF is known and the threat of
the withdrawal of supply
constant.
At the same as these political
goals are being achieved, they are
intensifying the shortage of maize meal
in the City - reinforcing their
efforts to drive people out of the urban
areas into the rural areas, or
better still, into the South African slums.
There they will not be able to
vote if present restrictions on the Diaspora
vote are retained. The big
commercial mills are unable to buy maize from the
GMB and the miller up the
road is being allowed to do what the main milling
companies are denied the
right to do - sell maize meal at a profit, making
sure she knows which side
her bread is buttered.
So how do we fight
back against these strategies having rejected any form of
physical violence
as a means of resistance or change? There are a number of
things we can
do:
The first is do not quit! We have stayed the course so far, like a
marathon,
starting out is easy, the middle painful, the last section just
putting one
foot in front of the other and mechanically slogging it out
until the finish
line. Zanu PF wants us to quit, pack our bags and go. They
do not care about
the consequences or the economic implications - just the
political ones and
their whole strategy is geared to making you quit the
race and leave the
field. Someone said to me the other day "quitters cannot
win!"
The second is network! We cannot buy food and other essentials in
the
stores - so make a plan to get together, go buy in Botswana or South
Africa,
or even Zambia and Mozambique. Ask others who cannot do so what they
would
like you to get for them. Develop contacts for the essentials and then
help
distribute the proceeds. Your retailer cannot buy and sell maize meal,
so
you do it - at a parallel market rate. Do the distribution from home or
the
Church. It is amazing what you can achieve if you work together in small
groups and across society.
The third is getting ready for the
elections that are coming. We are going
to be able to vote next year,
conditions will not be perfect or even fair,
but if we all vote and we vote
for change, supporting only those who offer
the chance of victory against
Zanu PF and a real hope for a change of
direction, we can win this time
round.
We need to speak to everyone we come across - are you registered
to vote?
Are you ready to vote? Have you made sure you will be here to vote?
No
pressure on who to vote for - just make sure everyone gets to the polling
booth and once there and able to vote in secret, make their vote count. Lets
make democracy work for us this time!
Help make the election free and
fair. Find out where your polling station is
going to be and volunteer to be
a polling agent or monitor. Adopt the
polling station as your own - make
sure it is well sign posted and your
community knows where to vote. Do some
lobbying in your community on the
issue saying this is our chance to change
the direction in which this
country is going, maybe our last chance. Fight
back!
Find out who your candidates are going to be and arrange a house
meeting to
meet them and introduce them to your community. Listen to what
they have to
say and then decide how to use your ballot. Do not leave it to
the media -
or to gossip, meet the people yourself and decide. That is what
real
democracy is all about.
On the day, make sure that all who want
to vote are able to get to the
polling station and cast their vote. This
time we need an overwhelming
turnout and vote - it is the only thing that
will change Zimbabwe and
prevent the rogue elements in this present regime
and in the armed forces
from making mischief.
But do not throw up
your hands and say what is the use, they stole the
election in 2000, 2002
and 2005, what guarantee have we that they will not
do it again? None! But
if we do not vote, then we predetermine the outcome -
in their favor. Fight
back.
Never underestimate the power of one. We may be insignificant, we
may have
little power and authority or resources to draw on, but we can act
independently and swim against the tide. Watch fish in a fast flowing river.
The dead ones float downstream, the live ones nose upstream and swim -
making huge efforts to overcome rapids and falls. That us - if we all decide
to resist what this rogue regime is trying to do we can make a difference. I
saw a woman the other day take an elderly persons shopping and charge it to
her own credit card. Cost a few bucks - so what, never got her name in the
paper, never saw that pensioner again, so what, it was an act that will
never be forgotten. It made a difference she was fighting
back.
Business leaders of every kind, it is time to stand with your
workers and
evolve a strategy to win this game. All we have to do is stay
and survive to
defeat a tyrannical regime and to ensure we can set this
great little
country back on its feet.
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo 10th
September 2007
Mail and Guardian
Percy Zvumoya |
Johannesburg, South Africa
10 September 2007
06:00
A British diplomatic source in Harare has described
reports that
China is scaling down its presence in Zimbabwe as a "gross
exaggeration".
He was responding to reports carried in the
Daily Telegraph in
which the British Foreign Office minister Malloch Brown
-- on a visit to
China -- is as quoted saying that China, Zimbabwe's chief
ally on the United
Nations Security Council, is cutting down its aid,
limiting it only to
humanitarian needs.
"I was told
Chinese assistance to Zimbabwe was now limited to
humanitarian assistance,
which is enormously important," Brown said. "That
puts it in the same
position as Britain, which is the second-biggest
provider of humanitarian
assistance to Zimbabwe."
However, the Chinese embassy in
Harare was quick to dismiss the
statement as unfounded. "The embassy of
China in Zimbabwe wishes to clarify
that this is simply not the fact. China
and Zimbabwe enjoy a long history of
friendship," an embassy spokesperson
said.
The official said that during last April's visit to
Zimbabwe by
Jia Qinglin, a Chinese official, China promised to build two
primary
schools, a hospital and an agriculture training centre and to
provide funds
to renovate the National Sports Stadium, Zimbabwe's biggest
stadium -- a
facility the Chinese built in the 1980s.
He
said China was actually delivering on those promises. China
also committed
to providing 40-million tonnes of soya beans to Zimbabwe.
However, Garth le Pere, executive director at the Institute for
Global
Dialogue, said China has been scaling down its involvement in
Zimbabwe.
"That has been the trend since 2005," he said.
China has
moved in to fill the vacuum left by the West and has
signed a number of
agreements and secured several trade deals, including
supplying a fleet of
buses to the state transport utility, Zupco, aircraft
to AirZim and fighter
aircraft to Zimbabwe's air force.
Le Pere pointed out that
China is "pragmatic" and always ensures
that "the spirit and letter of the
agreements are mutually beneficial". He
said 90% of China's imports from
Zimbabwe consists of tobacco; other imports
are minerals, such as chrome and
iron.
"A range of factors has soured the bilateral
relationship," Le
Pere said, pointing out that thousands of textile workers
in Zimbabwe have
lost their jobs because of cheap Chinese imports. He said
the joint venture
that established a cement manufacturing company in Gweru
has suffered
because of poor infrastructure, energy and transport
problems.
Le Pere said China's involvement in Africa is
propelled by its
own economic interests, which are the basis of any
political engagements.
There is a growing realisation that
the agreements that have
been entered into have not borne fruit, largely
because of the economic
crisis, he said, describing the relationship as
"unpredictable".
Although China has a policy of
non-interference in sovereign
states "it can't turn a blind eye to what is
going on", Le Pere said.
However, he argued, if the security council
proposed sanctions against
Zimbabwe, China would veto the
move.
Christopher Burke, a research fellow at Stellenbosch
University's Centre for Chinese Studies, doubted whether China had changed
its policy toward Zimbabwe. He said none of the Chinese government officials
he has been in contact with is aware of a change in the government's policy
toward Zimbabwe.
Burke said much of the trade between
China and Zimbabwe is
conducted using barter and exchange, a form of
commerce that requires a
"high degree of goodwill".
"I do
not expect we will see any significant changes in
Beijing's policy toward
Harare," Burke said.
When Chinese President Hu Jintao visited
Southern Africa at the
beginning of the year he made stops in Zambia,
Namibia, South Africa and
Mozambique, but did not stop over in
Harare.
International Federation of Journalists
10/09/2007
The
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today urged the government
of
Zimbabwe to put and end to the ongoing crackdown on the media in the wake
of
increasing attacks on media professionals and the enactment of a
draconian
communication bill that could lead to monitoring of journalists'
communications.
The attacks have been on both local and foreign
media.
On September 3 Shinji Ito a journalist with the South Africa
office of
Japanese Kyodo News Agency was arrested, detained, and
interrogated for
three hours by Zimbabwean police after he was seen taking
photographs in the
capital city Harare. Ito was shooting people queuing to
buy basic
commodities, which are in short supply. When he was released,
police
officers warned him not to take such pictures again. Ito was
accredited by
the government appointed Media and Information Commission and
had a
temporary Press Card.
"We are very concerned about this latest
wave of attacks in total impunity
on journalists in Zimbabwe," said Gabriel
Baglo, Director of the IFJ Africa
office.
On August 3 Zimbabwe's
President Robert Mugabe signed into law the
Interception of Communications
Act which allows the government to "monitor
and intercept certain
communications in the course of their transmission
through a
telecommunications, postal or any other related service system."
"This
law is a very serious and unacceptable violation of freedom of
expression.
With all these unpunished attacks and this draconian law the
Zimbabwean
authorities are choking independent journalism in the country,"
said Gabriel
Baglo.
The Zimbabwean Union of Journalists (ZUJ) believes journalists are
among the
first targeted by the Interception of Communications
Act.
"A lot of journalists whose media organizations were shut down are
now
stringing for web based or foreign radio stations as they know no other
job.
They naturally use the internet or the telephone for working," said
Foster
Dongozi, Secretary General of ZUJ and a member of the IFJ Executive
Board.
On August 23 Godfrey Mutimba, a journalist with the only remaining
independent newspaper, The Standard, was detained for four hours by
supporters of the ruling party Zanu PF for covering the memorial service of
a senior opposition official who died recently. According to local sources,
police officers who were in the area did nothing to help Mutimba. The
journalist was only released following the intervention of senior Zanu PF
officials.
On August 1 Tsvangirai Mukwazhi, a freelance
photojournalist was slapped and
insulted by the wife of Zimbabwe Defence
Forces commander, Jocelyn Chiwenga.
The general's wife was not happy that
Mukwazhi was covering the opposition
activity and accused him of being "a
sell out." The reporter was part of a
crew of journalists who were covering
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's
tour of supermarkets to assess the
impact of the price blitz. A week later,
the Media and Information
Commission launched a procedure to cancel Mukwazhi's
accreditation for
allegedly not disclosing all the media outlets he
freelances for at the time
submitted his application.
For more information contact the IFJ at + 221
842 01 43
The IFJ represents over 600,000 journalists in 114 countries
worldwide
Business Report
September 10, 2007 Edition 1
If parliament were a theatre, it
would not require its actors to change
their performances all that much.
It's all about raising or lowering
curtains on the truth; disguise and smoke
screens; and people talking in
riddles and metaphors.
Take, for
instance, President Thabo Mbeki. Any reader of his internet column
or
student of his speeches and replies to the national assembly would wonder
whether some of his actions - and writings - are constructed as a form of
comical farce. His extraordinary attitude to Zimbabwe, revisionist views on
HIV/Aids and bizarre defence of the health minister provide evidence of
this.
While Bad Bob on our border can rewrite the game of economics
while charging
around in an ancient Rolls-Royce, in the eyes of Mbeki any
sanction - or,
indeed, regime change - must be ruled out. No one has been
able to work out
exactly what the president's motivation is for his
continued support of Bad
Bob. Perhaps we will never know.
Indeed,
simply put, Mbeki is not going to do anything meaningful to resolve
the
problem on our northern border. We need to find other ways of resolving
that
crisis: perhaps boycotting Zimbabwean products or assisting the
non-government organisations that are working with the tens of thousands of
people economically marooned or ruined.
While all this is happening,
the president finds time to refer to the need
for name change. Take a look
at his obsessive desire to see the name of
Grahamstown
change.
Replying to questions in parliament, Mbeki said, referring to
Colonel John
Graham, the founder of the city: "He did bad things in that
conflict on the
border ...
"While a descendant of an 1820 settler in
Grahamstown might say 'Viva
Colonel Graham', I would say 'Down Colonel
Graham'," Mbeki said to MPs'
laughter.
Graham was certainly no
liberal democrat or human rights activist. He was
probably a little like Bad
Bob: he didn't particularly care about the lives
of people. He probably had
not even the vaguest desire to promote democracy
in the Eastern Cape. A hell
of lot like Bob, now that one comes to think of
it.
But it is beyond
puzzling that the president feels the need to focus on
Grahamstown's name
change. Most people now would hardly remember Colonel
Graham or his
evilness, while we are all heartily sick and tired of the fact
that Bad Bob
can continue to get away with ruining a perfectly fine nation -
one which,
25 years ago, showed great promise.
But there is not a bad word about Bob
from Mbeki.
Which takes me back to the theatre of parliament. Last week
we saw the
upsetting interaction over health minister Manto
Tshabalala-Msimang in the
national assembly, when opposition MP Mike Waters
was kicked out by the
speaker.
Shakespeare himself would have found
it difficult to construct such a
bizarre plot.
Earlier in the week
Jimmy Manyi - now head of just about every black
politically correct
organisation in the country - accused opposition MP
Anchen Dreyer, in a
hearing on workplace discrimination in the labour
committee, of misleading
people through her eloquence.
Dreyer had just referred to her sadness
that the rainbow nation appeared to
have flown out of the window and now it
was like George Orwell's Animal
Farm.
She was referring to Manyi's
allegation that the corporate world was simply
wrapped up in racism: black
people were seen as bad and white people seen as
good.
One is not
sure of where this debate is taking the country. But the Prague
Spring - or
is it the Tshwane Spring? - has broken. We have gone back 15
years to the
antagonistic politics of the previous order. The curtains have
been lowered
on a new - and forward-looking - South Africa.
Business Day
10 September 2007
Wilson
Johwa
Political
Correspondent
THE home affairs department has downplayed reports that it
is planning to
set up a temporary shelter for Zimbabwean asylum seekers at
Beitbridge.
A draft report released last week by the University of the
Witwatersrand's
Forced Migration Studies Programme (FMSP) and the Musina
Legal Advice Office
said the department was contemplating establishing a
"transit facility" at
the border post .
A feasibility study for such
a structure had been circulated to
stakeholders, the report said. The
facility would provide asylum seekers
with shelter and food while they await
a decision on their refugee status.
The proposal followed what had been
interpreted as a possible change of
policy. Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe
Mapisa-Nqakula told journalists last
month that deporting Zimbabweans intent
on getting back into SA wasted
resources. It would be more desirable to
allow them to stay and find work,
she said. But Mapisa-Nqakula ruled out
setting up refugee camps, saying they
would have a pull
effect.
"While this minister is publicly at odds with the DA on camps,
officials
within the department appear, at the very least, interested in a
facility
that would house certain members of the migrant population," said
the FMSP
report, prepared last month.
However, inconsistencies have
clouded what could be new thinking in the
department. Home affairs
director-general Mavuso Msimang said assisting
Zimbabwean asylum seekers was
not among his department's priorities. "It's
not that we should not help
Zimbabweans but that it's not a function of home
affairs," he said at a news
conference in Johannesburg last week .
Zimbabwean lobby groups have
expressed scepticism. "What we know is that
there has been an expression to
set up a facility at the border - as to
whether it will take off we don't
know," said Rev Nicholas Mkaronda of
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, which
lobbies for good governance in that
country.
Mkaronda warned that
such a shelter would be shunned by Zimbabweans, many of
whom wanted to be as
far away as possible from the insecurity of their
country.
On Friday,
home affairs spokesman Jacky Mashaphu denied knowledge of the
department's
proposed Beit Bridge transit facility. "I don't know who the
FMSP spoke to,"
he said.
South Africa's interpretation of international refugee
conventions
disqualified Zimbabwe's "economic migrants" from refugee status,
which
normally covered victims of war and political persecution. "It takes a
bold
mind to say there is war in Zimbabwe," said Abel Mbilinyi of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Pretoria.
But others, like
Michael Gallagher of the Jesuit Refugee Service, said the
government could
help Zimbabwean migrants by issuing temporary protection
permits, allowing
them to work, attend school and seek medical attention
under the 1969
African Union Convention on Refugees . The convention
broadens the
definition of a refugee to include someone fleeing "events
disturbing public
order".
"Whether the people of SA can muster the will to comply with what
is a moral
obligation is the question," Gallagher said.
Extract:
September 10, 2007
Zimbabwe
The human rights
situation in Zimbabwe remains dire. Over the past year, the
government has
reacted to peaceful protests by intensifying its efforts to
intimidate,
silence, and punish those who expose abuses and exercise their
basic rights
to freedom of expression, association, and assembly. The
authorities
continue to use repressive laws to prevent criticism of the
government.
Since the beginning of the year, the police have arbitrarily
arrested
hundreds of civil society activists and opposition members and
supporters
during routine meetings or peaceful protests, often with
excessive force,
and in some cases have subjected those in custody to severe
beatings that
amount to torture, and to other mistreatment. The government
has taken no
clear action to halt the rising incidence of torture and
ill-treatment of
activists while in the custody of police or the
intelligence services. The
human rights violations that have occurred in
Zimbabwe in particular over
the past six months-and the complete lack of
accountability of those
responsible for these violations-is of special
concern given the
longstanding and pervasive culture of impunity in
Zimbabwe. Recently, the
government introduced the Interception of
Communications Act, which further
threatens Zimbabweans' rights to freedom
of information, expression, and
privacy.
SW Radio
Africa (London)
10 September 2007
Posted to the web 10 September
2007
Tererai Karimakwenda
Several weeks after the state media
ambushed the Catholic Archbishop of
Bulawayo Pius Ncube, with pictures of an
alleged affair with a married
woman, we have received unconfirmed reports
that the much respected
clergyman is due to resign on
Tuesday.
Archbishop Ncube has insisted he was set up by central
intelligence agents
and a support group has been formed in solidarity with
him. He has been an
outspoken critic of the Mugabe regime and has publicly
lobbied for the
removal of Robert Mugabe from office. Many believe the
allegations are an
attempt by government to silence him. The case is now in
the courts and the
Catholic church is conducting its own
investigation.
Our sources in Italy said the Vatican is due to
release a statement Tuesday
and that Ncube himself will announce his
resignation at a press conference
in Zimbabwe. He is expected to say he does
not want to hold back the church
from its work as he feels the accusations
against him have put the church in
disrepute.
With the Vatican's
approval, a Zimbabwean Bishop from the St. Augustine
parish is rumoured to
be the man who will take over Ncube's position, until
a permanent
replacement is appointed. Sources said the outspoken Archbishop
is likely to
remain involved in the fight for democracy. Given the impact of
his past
work with suffering Zimbabweans and the support he has been shown
by
parishioners and several organisations involved in the Pius Ncube
Solidarity
Coalition, he would be a great loss to the fight for democracy in
the
country, should he be silenced.
zimbabwejournalists.com
10th Sep 2007 14:36 GMT
By Andrew M Manyevere
OUR
sources reliably have it on confirmed basis that Zanu PF plans
to give 50 000
ploughs, 50 000 simple ground agricultural harrows
and 50 000 Scotch Carts to
voters in rural areas commencing October 2007.
In 2005 Zanu-PF used maize
seed and fertilizers to buy voters in the
rural areas. The Zanu-PF ruling
party has always used some blackmail in
addition to using military force to
have people cast votes for it. In
by-elections that have taken place
in-between, Zanu PF has used village
heads to coerce villagers to vote for
her party candidates or have no corn
meal given to that family or
village.
The elections for both presidential and parliamentarian are
scheduled to
take place in March 2008. Meanwhile every sensible person in
the
country hopes that President Mugabe will observe the SADC
electoral
protocol, even though ground indications show the negative signs
only.
President Robert Mugabe is intransigent, belligerent and
recalcitrant.
While he scores a plus for scorning on western powers, his
poor human rights
observations have earned him an abject dictator name,
which he has lived to
be.
The new effort to buy the voters , which
does not happen during all other
years but towards elections, show that
Zanu-Pf is very much afraid of the
contest from the MDC. With other
political parties denied political campaign
despite that they have obtained
police permit, Zanu-PF is allowed campaign,
even without being granted
police permit, any time. The police even join
Zanu-Pf when they are
protesting for Mugabe to be Zanu-Pf's only
presidential
candidate. Any
political party or civil organization to protest attracts
heaviest
punishment from government.
A Zanu-Pf company in Norton is stockpiling
the agricultural items above that
Zanu-pf shall give to the rural farming
peasants with a view to buy and
retain their loyalty and support during the
coming elections. The funding is
said to have been bankrolled by Gideon
Gono's Reserve/Central Bank of
Zimbabwe. The question is, why would the
country bank finance a political
party to buy its political campaign
propaganda equipments?
On one hand, the rest of political parties in
Zimbabwe cannot raise funds
externally or internally, without their source
being visited from the secret
police or central intelligence organization
(CIO) boys. Fear of being
charged with being subversive or treasonable
haunts every organization hence
every one being careful to deal with
opposition political parties.
Recently Morgan Tsvangirai visited
Australia and at the same time strong
anti Zanu-Pf's human abuse reaction
come forth when children of Zanu-PF
officials were send back home. Zanu-pf
is now looking at a way of charging
Morgan Tsvangirai with some accusation
to justify either arrest or detention
in order that he may not be in touch
with the outside world. Mugabe visits
SADC countries any time and carries
his propaganda at state expenses. His
party campaigns are sponsored from
state coffers.
The world once more need watch carefully the mischief of
Zanu-pf in
undermining people vote through very corrupt bribery of the few
cronies.
Zimbabweans yes need ploughs, harrows and scotch cats, but not as
blackmail
to show the world that Zanu-Pf supports people needs. On the
contrary
Zanu-Pf government supports those who support it in her oppressive
orchestrated efforts. We will weekly highlight the short circuited ways of
Zanu-pf towards rigging March 2008 elections as they usually do year after
year.
We pray the world to make reality their condemnation of human
abuse and help
us achieve democratic rule in Zimbabwe. It is abuse of power
and people to
buy people with what they need by giving it as a condition for
supporting
and voting for a ruling party.
MANYEVERE IS AN MDC
ACTIVIST BASED IN CANADA.