Zim Online
Wednesday 26 September
2007
Sebastian Nyamhangambiri
HARARE - Zimbabwe civic
society leaders will this week meet in Bulawayo to
plot resistance to a
government constitutional reform Bill that received
backing from the
opposition but which civic groups say is piecemeal and was
drafted without
input from all stakeholders.
In a sign of increasingly hostile division
between organised civic society
and the main opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party,
authoritative sources said the Bulawayo
meeting will agree on a "programme
of action" that will among other things
include street protests against
Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Number
18.
Analysts have warned that the widening rift between the MDC and its
main
allies in civic society will weaken opposition to President Robert
Mugabe,
strengthening the veteran leader's grip on power months ahead of key
presidential and parliamentary elections next year.
"The feeling is
that there was great betrayal by the MDC (in backing the
government bill) so
civic groups want to come up with a position," said a
top civic activist,
who did not want to be named.
She added: "Street protests as well as
petitioning governments in the SADC
(Southern African Development Community)
region not to neglect the concerns
of civic society in their attempts to
resolve the Zimbabwean crisis are some
of the strategies we are likely to
adopt in Bulawayo."
Lovemore Madhuku, who is chairman of the National
Constitutional (NCA)
political pressure group confirmed the Bulawayo meeting
but refused to be
drawn into details.
"It would be proper to comment
after the conference otherwise I would be
accused of pre-emptying the
purpose of the conference," said Madhuku.
In addition to the NCA, other
civic groups expected to attend the Bulawayo
meeting include the Zimbabwe
Election Support Network, Christian Alliance,
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions, Women's Coalition, Zimbabwe National
Students Union and Crisis in
Zimbabwe Coalition.
Some of the civic groups boycotted a Monday meeting
called by main
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to explain why the MDC
endorsed
government constitutional reforms and have threatened to cut ties
with the
opposition party.
The two secretaries-general of the divided
MDC, Tendai Biti and Welshman
Ncube, were initially included among officials
to address the Bulawayo civic
conference but their names were struck off the
list of speakers, as
differences between the opposition party and its civic
allies appear to be
steadily turning to resentment of each
other.
Biti and Ncube were not immediately available for comment on the
matter but
an official of the Tsvangirai wing of the MDC downplayed the
widening rift
with civic society.
"Divergent views are welcome, as
long we still believe in taking Zimbabweans
out of this crisis. We, in the
MDC, will not be worried," said Nelson
Chamisa, spokesman of the
Tsvangirai-led MDC.
The SADC last March tasked South African President
Thabo Mbeki to mediate in
Zimbabwe's crisis.
The MDC, which had
initially pushed for an entirely new constitution that
would guarantee basic
freedoms and free elections, says it agreed to back
the government's
constitutional Bill in the spirit of the SADC-led dialogue
and in the
greater interests of resolving Zimbabwe's crisis.
The government's
constitutional Bill will see constituency boundaries
changed, parliamentary
elections brought forward by two years while
Parliament - which Mugabe
controls - will be empowered to elect a new
president should the incumbent
fail to serve a full term.
Analysts see the clause empowering Parliament
to elect a new president as an
exit mechanism allowing Mugabe, 83, to quit
active politics, handpick a
successor and possibly rule from the sidelines.
- ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 26 September 2007
By
Edith Kaseke
HARARE - Zimbabwe's military has raised the political stakes
against the MDC
by effectively threatening a coup if President Robert Mugabe
lost elections
in 2008, a sharp departure from the new spirit of
co-operation reached at
talks between the two parties.
Analysts say
Mugabe, who has ruled the country since independence in 1980,
has
increasingly relied on the military to hang on power amid tensions over
a
collapsing economy, mainly reflected in hyperinflation and rocketing
unemployment.
In 2002, on the eve of the controversial presidential
election, then army
commander retired General Vitalis Zvinavashe told a
press conference that
the military would not be loyal to a person who did
not participate in
Zimbabwe's liberation war.
This was seen as a
direct attack on Mugabe's main challenger MDC leader
Morgan Tsvangiria, a
former trade union leader who did not fight in the
1970s war of
independence. Tsvangirai went on to lose the closely contested
vote but
accused Mugabe of massive rigging.
Army Brigadier General David Sigauke
at the weekend repeated threats to
overthrow any government that is not led
by Mugabe and his ZANU PF party,
telling soldiers attending a graduation
ceremony that Zimbabweans should
vote wisely and that the army would defend
the country's sovereignty,
including using the barrel of the gun.
"It
therefore remains our duty to defend our rightful heritage," Sigauke
told
soldiers at a pass out parade. "As soldiers, we have the privilege to
be
able to defend this task on two fronts, the first being through the
ballot
box and second being the use of the barrel of the gun should the
worse comes
to the worst."
"I may therefore urge you as citizens of Zimbabwe to
exercise your electoral
right wisely in the forthcoming election in 2008,
remembering that 'Zimbabwe
shall never be a colony again'," Sigauke
said.
Defending Zimbabwe's sovereignty has been used by Mugabe in the
past to mean
denying the MDC power.
Mugabe has labelled the MDC a
puppet party of Western governments opposed to
his leadership and says the
opposition is being used by the West to
undermine Zimbabwe's sovereignty and
sweep him from power. MDC denies the
charges.
In July this year, the
veteran leader alleged that Britain had tried to
entice the military to
effect a coup against Mugabe but this had failed
because soldiers were loyal
to Zimbabwe.
Mugabe says the military is the vanguard of the country's
sovereignty and
last year warned opposition members that soldiers stood
ready to pull the
trigger against those seeking to oust him.
The
comments from Sigauke, a senior military officer are particularly
unsettling
as they come at a time when the ruling ZANU-PF and the MDC are
engaged in
political negotiations spearheaded by the Southern African
Development
Community.
One of the key demands by the opposition is the removal of the
military from
bodies running elections.
Mugabe has in the past five
years increased the number of former military
personnel to serve in state
parastatals and key ministry departments as he
seeks to bolster his grip on
power.
For example, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
that runs
polls, George Chiweshe, is a former judge advocate general in the
army and
was appointed to the High Court in 2001 after Mugabe purged the
bench of
independent judges. He took charge of the commission in
2005.
Other former military officers appointed to head key state firms
and
institutions include Attorney General Sobuza Gula-Ndebele who is a
former
military intelligence officer, air commodore Mike Karakadzai who is
general
manager of the National Railways of Zimbabwe and retired colonel
Samuel
Muvuti who heads the state's Grain Marketing Board (GMB).
The
GMB is often accused by human rights groups of refusing food aid to
opposition supporters as punishment for not backing Mugabe.
Most of
the former military personnel participated in Zimbabwe's 1970s war
of
independence and have vowed unwavering loyalty to Mugabe, who at 83 years
is
one of Africa's oldest leaders. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 26 September 2007
By Chenai
Maramba
KAROI - Zimbabwe army soldiers on Tuesday invaded a white-owned
commercial
farm in the north-western Karoi farming district, barely 24 hours
after
Vice-President Joseph Msika called for an end to farm
seizures.
In yet another example of the confusion and chaos that has
characterised the
Harare government's controversial farm redistribution
exercise, a group of
about 15 soldiers from the army's 2.3 Infantry
Battalion invaded James
Stidolph's Grand Parade farm forcing the white
farmer - who was among the
about 600 white farmers remaining in the country
- to flee.
The soldiers, who were led by a Brigadier-General Dube, are
said to have
ordered operations at the farm to stop as they divided the land
amongst
themselves.
"They told us not to irrigate the tobacco fields
and also stopped us from
transporting beans and wheat from the farm to the
market," said a worker,
who declined to be named for fear of victimisation
by the soldiers.
Stidolph, who was among 11 white farmers that Msika had
reportedly said
should be allowed to continue producing food for the
country, told ZimOnline
from Harare where he has sought refuge: "I am here
in Harare where the issue
is being handled by senior government
officials."
Msika on Monday announced the government would not allow
further evictions
of white farmers who he described as a key stakeholder in
the country's
development.
The Vice-President, who has in recent
months spoken against farm seizures,
is among a group of top government and
ZANU PF officials worried about the
rapid decline in agriculture and who
have pushed to stop fresh evictions.
Zimbabwe's agricultural industry has
collapsed over the years and the blame
has been laid squarely on President
Robert Mugabe's land redistribution
policy that saw thousands of white
commercial farmers being forced off their
land since 2000.
Zimbabwe
has survived largely on food handouts from international relief
agencies
since the land reforms began seven years ago after black villagers
resettled
on former white farms failed to maintain production.
Poor performance in
the mainstay agriculture sector has also had far
reaching consequences as
hundreds of thousands have lost jobs while the
manufacturing sector, starved
of inputs from the sector, is operating below
30 percent of capacity. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 26 September 2007
By Lizwe
Sebatha
BULAWAYO - A Chinese company contracted by the government to
construct the
Gwayi-Shangani dam in Matabeleland North has pulled out from
the project
after the government failed to honour its contractual
obligations, ZimOnline
has learnt.
Chinese International Water and
Electrical (CWE), which was awarded a tender
to construct the dam,
reportedly pulled out after the government failed to
meet a "cash-upfront"
demand before more work could continue.
The dam is the main component of
the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project
(MZWP), a long-term plan to tap water
from the Zambezi River through the
construction of a pipeline to bring water
to Bulawayo.
Ruling ZANU PF politburo member and chairman of MZWP Trust,
Dumiso Dabengwa,
yesterday revealed that the government reneged on its
contractual agreements
forcing the Chinese company to suspend work on the
project.
The trust is responsible for implementation of the Zambezi water
project
seen as a long-term solution to problems currently faced by
water-starved
Bulawayo.
Addressing a meeting organised by the
National Association of
Non-Governmental Organisations in Bulawayo
yesterday, Dabengwa said CWE was
demanding payment before work could
proceed.
"The construction of the dam has stopped because of lack of
funding and the
Chinese company that was awarded the tender has pulled out
saying they need
to be paid first before more work could be done," Dabengwa
said.
The former Zimbabwean cabinet minister revealed besides
difficulties in
paying the Chinese contractors, the project had also been
dogged by problems
in financing purchase of raw materials.
"There are
no funds to purchase about 300 000 tonnes of cement that is
required for the
project, he said.
"There are no funds for the cement. We have approached
the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) but we have not got any response yet," he
said.
The Chinese company was also contracted to lay a 32-kilometre
pipeline
linking Mtshabezi dam to Mzingwane dam, one of the city's major
water
sources.
Zimbabwe's second city has faced perennial water
problems for more than two
decades during which both residents and the city
fathers have pinned their
hopes on an ambitious project to draw water from
the Zambezi River.
Boreholes which have been providing the residents with
most of their water
needs have also dried up in some parts, leading to the
surfacing of black
market water dealers who are charging as much as Z$50 000
for a 10-litre
container.
Bulawayo has five dams that supply water to
the city but three of the dams
have already been decommissioned.
The
two remaining dams have failed to meet the city's daily water
requirement of
120 000 cubic metres. The city council is only able to pump
out 69 000 cubic
metres of water daily from the available sources. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 26 September
2007
By Regerai Marwezu
MASVINGO -
President Robert Mugabe's government has reinstated the
licences of all
private abattoirs in another embarrassing admission that the
state beef
monopoly has no capacity to meet demand.
The government withdrew
the licences of all private slaughterhouses on
11 July, accusing them of
defying orders to reduce meat prices by half in
the state's attempts to rein
in rampant inflation.
Industry Minister Obert Mpofu said at the
time that the state-owned
Cold Storage Company (CSC) would be given sole
responsibility for
slaughtering livestock.
But Mpofu yesterday
announced that all abattoirs had now been given
the green light to
operate.
"We have re-licenced all the abattoirs because we have
discovered that
the CSC has no capacity to supply beef to the nation," Mpofu
said.
The reinstatement of licences of all slaughterhouses comes
about a
month after the Harare authorities announced the lifting of the ban
on 42
private abattoirs to alleviate severe shortages of beef around the
country.
The lifting of the ban had at the time sparked allegations
of
favouritism with some mainly white abattoirs accusing the government of
re-licensing slaughterhouse owned by individuals with close links to the
ruling ZANU PF party.
Mpofu was yesterday confident that beef
supplies would have improved
by the end of the week following the entry of
more players and the recent
increase in prices.
"We have also
increased the price of beef with immediate effect and we
hope by the end of
the week meat will be available in most butcheries," said
Mpofu.
A kilogramme of economy beef is now going for $685 000,
up from the
previous recommended price of $144 000.
Super beef
now sells for $800 000 a kg from $250 000 previously.
Mpofu said
the government would continue to push for greater
participation by
indigenous blacks in the beef industry but said
implementation of such a
policy was being frustrated by some white abattoir
owners who opted to
remain closed than to be forced dispose of their shares
to
blacks.
Most white owned abattoirs in southern Zimbabwe had
remained closed
since last month after the government refused to re-licence
them, demanding
that they first dispose of at least 50 percent of their
shares to blacks.
ZimOnline is reliably informed that one of the
abattoirs was being
forced to sell part of its shares to ZANU PF bigwigs and
army generals in
return for an operating licence.
It could not
be immediately established yesterday whether the
concerned abattoir that
resumed operations on Monday this week had sold part
of its stake to ZANU PF
politicians.
"The policy has not changed and we are still
encouraging and not
forcing all white owned abattoirs to take on board
blacks," said Mpofu.
In the south-eastern Masvingo province, most
butcheries started
receiving meat deliveries on Monday from
abattoirs.
"We slaughtered about 54 cattle yesterday (Monday) and
today we are
slaughtering 55," said an official with a local abattoir who
refused to be
named.
"The government has however ordered us to
supply the local market
first before exporting the product," he added. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 26 September 2007
Own
Correspondent
JOHANNESBURG - Southern African Development Community
(SADC) states on
Monday said they would boycott the European Union-Africa
summit in Portugal
in December if President Robert Mugabe is barred from the
meeting.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week raised the stakes
when he said
he would boycott the summit if Mugabe is allowed to attend the
summit, the
first in seven years.
South Africa's President Thabo
Mbeki has since last March been leading a
regional initiative between the
ruling ZANU PF party and the main opposition
Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) party to break the eight-year impasse.
SADC leaders, who have in
the past consistently rallied behind the veteran
Zimbabwean leader, say the
Portugal summit could be scuttled if Mugabe is
barred from the
summit.
"Attempting to isolate His Excellency President Robert Mugabe
would be
contrary to the letter and spirit of that initiative and, thus, the
SADC
position is that of non-participation if one of the region's leaders,
namely
President Robert Mugabe, is not invited," said Leefa Martin, the SADC
spokesperson.
Mozambique's foreign affairs minister Alcide Abreu told
the international
media that Maputo was fully behind the SADC position on
Mugabe's invitation
to Portugal adding that southern African would boycott
the sumit if Mugabe
is barred.
"We support African strategies," Abreu
said. "We support the position taken
by the leadership of these bodies (SADC
and the African Union)."
Last week, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa said
he would boycott the
Portugal summit in sympathy with Mugabe if the
Zimbabwean leader is barred
from the meeting.
Meanwhile, the European
Commission said European leaders must take the
Portugal summit as a chance
to engage with Mugabe in the search for a
solution to the southern African
country's crisis.
"If Mugabe attends, we cannot think of a better
occasion to raise our
concerns about fundamental human rights and democracy.
We think the agenda
is rich enough and we have waited too many years to
devote too much
attention to this singular issue," said commission
spokesperson, Amadeu
Tario. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 26 September 2007
By
Patricia Mpofu
HARARE - An intern with the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
pressure group who
was arrested for distributing literature demanding free
and fair elections
next year has been released from police custody without
charge.
Memory Kadau, a university student on attachment at Crisis, was
arrested on
Thursday while manning the group's stand at the Non Governmental
Organisations (NGO) Expo that was held at the Harare Gardens last
week.
Kadau was detained at Harare Central police station where she was
interrogated during the night by state security agents who accused her of
working for a "bogus organisation" bent on effecting regime change in
Zimbabwe.
She was released on Friday after spending the night in
filthy cells at the
police station.
Sources within the civic group
said Kadau was picked up at the Expo by
plain-clothes police officers from
the Law and Order section.
The police accused the civic group of abusing
the name of the late Zimbabwe
African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) chief
General Josiah Magama
Tongogara after it used his pre-independence speech on
free and fair
elections on the organisation's banner that was on display at
the Expo.
The former ZANLA chief called for free and fair elections
supervised by the
international community in a seminal speech at the height
of the liberation
struggle in 1978.
Tongogara died in a car accident
a year later on the eve of Zimbabwe's
independence.
Kadau's lawyer,
Charles Kwaramba, said his client was subjected to intensive
interrogations
while she was being detained at the police station.
"Police officers were
threatening to beat her up if she failed to disclose
where they could find
the Crisis Coalition's leadership," said Kwaramba.
Police spokesperson
Oliver Mandipaka could not be reached for comment on the
matter.
Thousands of civic activists have been arrested over the past
seven years
for allegedly violating the country's tough security laws while
others have
been arraigned before the courts on flimsy charges.
The
main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party has often
accused
the Zimbabwean government of arresting and harassing its supporters
in an
attempt to intimidate and stop them from backing the opposition
party. -
ZimOnline
Village Voice
posted: 2:19 PM,
September 25, 2007 by Michael Clancy
By Chris Thompson
Village Voice
Staff Writer
Now that everyone's finished live-blogging and
hyperventilating over Iranian
strongman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Columbia
address, maybe New Yorkers can
finally notice that a gen-yoo-wine,
Pol-Pot-ain't-got-shit-on-me monster is
walking the streets of our fair
city.
Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, who has spearheaded a genocidal
starvation campaign against his political opponents and murders tens of
thousands of his own people every year, has arrived in the city and plans to
address the United Nations General Assembly tomorrow. The aging, cynical
despot, whose wife shopped for shoes in European capitals while his soldiers
forced 1 million people to flee Harare and starve in the countryside, will
reportedly argue that American and European sanctions are illegal and
have-get this-caused terrible deprivation in Zimbabwe.
But so far,
only the New Republic's James Kirchick has noticed that one of
the worst
human beings on the planet is browsing the aisles at
Bloomingdales. "What's
going on in Zimbabwe, in genocidal proportions, is
worse than Darfur," says
Kirchick. "It's unfortunate that people don't care
about it. But that's the
way it's always been."
In fact, New York has a sordid history of
accommodating Mugabe, thanks to
everyone's favorite race-baiter, City
Councilman Charles Barron. Four years
ago, Barron led a "fact-finding
mission" to Zimbabwe and returned with a
report that exonerated Mugabe as
much as the English language will allow.
("Zimbabwe remains one of the most
stable countries in Africa," read the
report's conclusion.) Barron even
invited Mugabe to speak at City Hall,
where roughly a dozen councilmembers
applauded and fawned over Africa's
worst dictator.
Pundits around the
country have filled their gullets with the easy
satisfaction that comes with
denouncing a Holocaust-denyin',
terrorist-financin' demogogue like
Ahmadinejad. But when it comes to
confronting people who have refined the
art of deliberate mass starvation,
no one seems terribly interested. When
Bill Bennett learned that President
Bush planned to use his time at the
General Assembly to denounce
Myanmar-which rivals only Zimbabwe and North
Korea as the worst place on
Earth-he went on his radio show and sighed, "I'm
for democracy in Burma, but
do we have to talk about that today?" National
Review Online editor Kathryn
Jean Lopez echoed Bennett's sentiment, as if
presiding over a regime of
fifty million slaves was somehow less odious than
a Persian nutjob trying to
lay a wreath at Ground Zero.
Fortunately,
Mugabe has finally done something every American pundit will
find truly
monstrous-he met with Ahmadinejad this morning.
Reuters
Wed 26 Sep
2007, 0:29 GMT
By Jason Szep
BOSTON (Reuters) -South African Nobel
peace laureate Desmond Tutu said on
Tuesday he was "devastated" by the human
rights abuses of President Robert
Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe, where the
economy has virtually collapsed.
But Tutu, who has criticized South
African President Thabo Mbeki for his
policy of "quiet diplomacy" toward the
Zimbabwean leader, said he was
growing more confident in Mbeki's efforts to
coax it's southern African
neighbor toward political reform.
"I
have in the past lambasted the softly, softly approach. But I have to
admit
I have been very surprised," Tutu said in an interview with Reuters.
He
cited signs that Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party and its political
opposition, had moved toward a compromise that could lead to elections next
year.
Tutu said he struggles to understand how Mugabe, denounced as
"tyrannical"
by U.S. President George W. Bush at the U.N. General Assembly
in New York,
changed so drastically after steering the former British colony
to
independence in 1980.
Under Mugabe's 27-year rule Zimbabwe has
plunged from prosperity -- it was
once called the "bread basket" of southern
Africa -- to penury.
"I'm just devastated by what I can't explain, by
what seems to be an
aberration, this sudden change in character," said the
75-year-old former
archbishop of Cape Town.
"But it does not in any
way remove that he did do very well. Zimbabwe was
for a very long time a
showcase country."
Mugabe, a former Marxist guerrilla, is accused of
engineering the country's
chaotic descent with controversial policies, like
the seizure of white-owned
commercial farms, many of which were handed to
cronies or inexperienced
blacks.
Zimbabwe is now wracked by severe
shortages of food, fuel and foreign
currency. It has the world's highest
inflation rate of more than 7,000
percent, it's mines and industries are
crumbling and the unemployment rate
is estimated at around 80
percent.
An estimated two to three million Zimbabweans have fled to South
Africa.
Mugabe's government has widely condemned for rigging elections,
beating
opposition leaders, crushing street protests and intimidating the
press.
Tutu, who took on South Africa's apartheid government as the
country's first
black bishop and won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, said
Mbeki's policy toward
Mugabe's government now appears to be working better
than expected.
He said he was encouraged by constitutional changes that
could bring
presidential and parliamentary elections to Zimbabwe next year,
citing
recent talks between the opposition and the ruling Zimbabwe African
National
Union-Patriotic Front that could "pave the way for possibilities of
change."
"And that has been exclusively due to the SADC (Southern African
Development
Community) initiative where President Mbeki has played a
critical role and I
am ready to commend them and to say let us give them a
little more time and
see whether something substantial actually does
emerge," he said.
The Telegraph
By
Sebastien Berger in Musina
Last Updated: 2:55am BST
26/09/2007
More than a million Zimbabweans will have fled
into South Africa by
the end of the year, according to a new
report.
The survey for Zimbabwe's Mass Public Opinion Institute is
the first
scientific examination of emigrants forced out by Robert Mugabe's
political
and economic misrule.
"People are leaving for
survival," said Daniel Makina, a professor at
the University of South
Africa, who carried out the study.
As they arrive in Musina, the
northernmost town in South Africa and a
nondescript sprawl of buildings at
the end of the road to Johannesburg,
immigrants are greeted by a giant
yellow poster.
"We know why you're in South Africa," it reads. "Life in
Zimbabwe is
murder these days." It implores emigrants to return to vote "for
freedom" at
the next elections.
Nearby, the Sibanda cousins,
illegal arrivals from Bulawayo with
nothing but the clothes on their backs,
rested after their journey.
In the dry season Kipling's "great,
grey-green, greasy" Limpopo, the
river frontier, is more of a narrow stream
and in many places holes have
been cut in the triple border fence.
Nonetheless, the journey is not easy.
The cousins paid a guide 80
rand each, about £6 but more than a
month's wages for many
Zimbabweans.
"Now we don't have money to buy anything like food,"
said Bernard, 23,
a sculptor with a wife and son to support.
It
took the pair three days to walk from Beitbridge, the official
border post,
across the frontier and to Musina. They did not eat, slept in
the bush and
had to run the gauntlet of police and robbers, both of whom, he
said, would
"hit you thoroughly"; the former if you tried to escape and the
latter to
demand money and clothing.
But he added: "It's better to come like
this because there in Zimbabwe
it's bad. There's no jobs. There's no
money."
Leo, also 23, a trained hairdresser, said: "We're sitting
here because
we are hungry and too tired.
"We are starving in
Zimbabwe. There's nothing to do. We are just
looking for a job, for
piecework. Then we can buy bread and eat."
Their thin build and
threadbare clothes were evidence of their plight.
Like migrants the world
over, though, Zimbabweans in South Africa face
accusations that they are
criminals and deprive locals of employment.
The South African home
affairs minister has suggested legalising
economic migrants, but for now
Zimbabweans found without papers face
immediate deportation - at a rate of
17,000 a month so far this year.
Prof Makina said the government's
attitude was determined by its
foreign policy. "There seems to be a
reluctance to accept that there is a
political crisis in Zimbabwe," he
said.
Independent, UK
By Daniel Howden
Published: 26 September 2007
Zimbabwe's
long-heralded food crisis has finally arrived in the big cities
as empty
supermarkets have begun to enforce rationing.
Huge queues are forming in
towns and cities for staples such as cooking oil
and milli-meal porridge and
millions are now trying to survive on a single
meal a day.
"Even if
the shops have cooking oil you are only allowed one bottle per
person," said
a teacher in Harare, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"People are
watching for delivery vans on every corner and then running to
wherever they
stop."
In the desperation, two babies died in the crush of food queues
last week in
the second city of Bulawayo and another small child has
reportedly died in a
similar incident in Harare.
Previously, even in
the worst periods of the economic crash, the
supermarkets' shelves, in what
was once among Africa's most affluent
countries, have been full. The World
Food Programme estimates that as many
as four million people are in danger
of starving as the situation
deteriorates.
Zimbabwe's 83-year-old
president has sought to blame the economic meltdown
on international
sanctions but in reality they only apply to the movements
and assets of his
own cabal of apparatchiks and cronies.
While senior officials loyal to
Mugabe continue to live lavishly, the
southern African country is in the
grip of unimaginable superinflation, with
the real rate climbing above
13,000 per cent. The cost of keeping above the
poverty line has this week
risen to ZD12m per week. Average salaries for
police officers, teachers,
soldiers and factory workers remain around ZD4m.
The response of Robert
Mugabe's government to the economic collapse has been
to clamp down even
harder on all forms of opposition. While talks between
the ruling Zanu-PF
party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
go on behind closed
doors in South Africa, the arbitrary arrests and beating
of Mugabe's
opponents continues at home.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the largest
of the two opposition factions,
has reportedly sent an envoy to the South
African president Thabo Mbeki,
saying he will abandon the Pretoria talks
unless there are firm guarantees
that intimidation of his supporters will
stop.
Mr Tsvangirai, who was himself badly beaten by police earlier this
year, has
been criticised by civil liberty groups after agreeing to a
constitutional
deal with the Mugabe regime this week that will see the
President increase
his control over the election process.
Opposition
leaders insist in private that they have wrung concessions from
Mugabe but
their claims have been greeted with widespread scepticism.
VOA
By Carole Gombakomba
Washington
25 September
2007
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of
Iran, whose countries were once designated "outposts
of tyranny" by the U.S.
administration, met Tuesday on the sidelines of the
United Nations General
Assembly and called for developing nations to unite
against Western
"domination."
Iranian state media said the two
leaders discussed "the need for unity of
the developing states against.U.S.
and British neocolonialism." The Iranian
report said President Mugabe lashed
out at what he described as "the
unilateralist approach and misuse of the
U.N. Security Council by the
bullying powers."
He urged countries in
the developing world to "confront such approaches by
the big powers,"
according to the Iranian dispatch. The report said the
Iranian president
expressed appreciation for Zimbabwe's "active presence" in
the Non-Aligned
Movement ministerial session on human rights held in Tehran
recently.
Offering perspective, independent political analyst Hermann
Hanekom of Cape
Town, South Africa, told reporter Carole Gombakomba that the
alliance
between Mugabe and Ahmadinejad was unlikely to bring about much of
a
response from developing countries, which stand to benefit from aid
provided
by the major powers.
On Tuesday, U.S. President George Bush
in remarks to the General Assembly
called Mr. Ahmadinejad's government a
"brutal regime" that denied
"fundamental rights" and said the behavior of
Mr. Mugabe's "tyrannical
regime" was "an assault on its people and an
affront to the principles of
the Universal Declaration" of human
rights.
Independent, UK
Letters: Zimbabwe
Published: 26 September 2007
Sir: Dominic
Lawson (21 September) misunderstands the exchanges on land
between Britain
and Zimbabwe both in 1979 and in 1997.
In the early years after
independence I was the British government's
representative on the committee
in Harare that approved the resettlement
projects that both governments
jointly financed, including the cost of land
purchase and infrastructure.
Each scheme was appraised for economic
viability by British officials and
most were visited. Independent
evaluations showed that the great majority
worked well, enabling thousands
of small-scale farmers to make a living.
More than two million hectares
changed hands in this way.
President
Mugabe showed no interest, then or later, in solving the complex
issue of
land ownership via this carefully planned route. The flow of new
proposals
slowed and the Zimbabwean capacity to implement them was
dismantled. British
aid funds pledged after independence were not fully
claimed and a renewed
offer made by Lynda Chalker in 1989 was not taken up.
In 1997 Mugabe
thought the arrival of a Labour government would enable him
to tear up the
compromises he had made, but never acknowledged, at Lancaster
House. He
wrote to Tony Blair asking for a fresh start based on the British
government
accepting full responsibility for buying out the white farmers
(most of whom
were not British) and handing the land to his government to
distribute as he
thought fit, the position he had consistently taken. The
letter from Clare
Short that Lawson criticises was a rational response. It
again offered
financial and technical assistance for an organised,
Zimbabwe-led, programme
of land purchase and resettlement in partnership
with other
donors
Further efforts by Britain, the UN and the World Bank over the
next two
years to negotiate a sustainable rural development programme that
would meet
justifiable political expectations were brushed aside. Mugabe
eventually
acted alone, with the tragic results that The Independent
continues to
report. The responsibility lies wholly with him and his
associates.
Peter Freeman
Brighton
A snub to Zimbabwe's leader will be seen as a
patronising and arrogant act
by the former colonial power
Marcel
Berlins
Wednesday September 26, 2007
The Guardian
Which is more
important, the future of Africa or Gordon Brown's need to
demonstrate that
he's a tough man of unbending principle? I ask because I
genuinely cannot
understand the prime minister's out-of-the-blue ultimatum
that he will
boycott the Africa-EU conference in Lisbon in December if
Robert Mugabe is
there. What is he trying to achieve? He cannot really think
that his
portentous statement of intent will scare or persuade Mugabe into
abandoning
his own trip; on the contrary, it will merely reinforce his
desire to
come.
Nor can Brown be so naive as to believe that all the other African
leaders
will happily attend the party if Mugabe is left off the guest list.
He
surely realises that a snub to Zimbabwe's leader will be seen as a
patronising and arrogant act by the former colonial power. The leaders of
most of the former British colonies are worried and angry that Mugabe is
destroying his country, but they will rally around him in the face of some
ham-fisted gesture emanating from Britain. At a recent summit of southern
African states, which leader was given the most rousing acclamation in the
conference hall? It wasn't praise for the way he runs Zimbabwe; it was the
applause of solidarity.
In any event, I cannot see the Portuguese
acceding to Brown's wish to have
Mugabe excluded, nor is there any
likelihood of other EU states (except,
perhaps, a couple of small ones)
joining the Brown initiative. So what will
it achieve? It is possible that
the prime minister's clumsy intervention may
damage the prospects of the
conference, the outcome of which is important to
both Africa and the EU. He
cannot want that. If he is making a purely moral
point, he can be accused of
hypocritical selection. There are many nasty
governments and leaders with
whom he is perfectly happy to break bread.
· The Living Tongues Institute
and the National Geographic Institute have
revealed new research showing
that a language is dying every two weeks, and
that 40% of the world's 7,000
or so languages can be considered endangered.
I know I should care, but I
can't. An unwritten, undocumented language
expires with the death of the
second-last person to speak it. The last
survivor may mutter it to himself,
or explain it to a researcher, but it is
no longer a living language. One
may regret its loss because it had a vivid
vocabulary or because it was the
last link to a community that is no more.
But does it
matter?
Languages decline because members of the societies that sustained
them adopt
other options. They move from villages to towns or cities. Having
jobs
obliges them to speak the language of the workplace. The children watch
television, and go to schools that don't teach their native tongue. Soon the
only people who speak it are the elderly; they die off. A language cannot be
separated from the society that nurtures it. When that society goes, so -
inevitably and rightly - does its means of communication, and I do not see
the point of trying to keep it alive artificially.
It is different,
of course, where substantial written records of the
language survive the
demise of the community that used it, but that is
rarely the case with the
tongues said to be endangered. So I am not sad that
we may be losing a
couple of thousand small, hardly used, languages. We will
still have several
thousand left.
· I owe Marcel Marceau a strange debt. He did me a big
favour, long ago,
without knowing it, just by being who he was. I was in
Johannesburg; my
parents had emigrated there from Marseille. I found out
very quickly that
Marcel was an unknown name there - except in its feminine
form. "Why have
you got a girl's name?" I was asked a thousand times, not
kindly, usually
accompanied by a snigger. Much of my post came addressed to
Marcelle.
It was no use citing Proust as proof of the name's maleness; he
was not well
known in the schoolboy and other ignorant circles that were
teasing me (not
that I knew much about him myself, but my father assured me
that he was very
famous, back in the old country). Nor had the reputation of
Marcel Cerdan,
the boxing world champion I was named after, reached South
Africa.
And then Marceau came touring and was a big hit, much written
about and
discussed. Suddenly there was another Marcel, overwhelming
evidence of the
masculinity of the name. The teasing and the girlie-oriented
remarks
stopped. Thanks to the great mime, I had a real name at
last.
· I am surprised to find myself writing in support of President
Ahmadinejad
of Iran. Columbia University in New York had invited him to
speak there,
last Monday; but before he was allowed to utter a word, the
university's
president, Lee Bollinger, who had extended the invitation,
spent 10 minutes
insulting his guest in the most boorish, crude, crass,
intemperate, hostile
and personally offensive manner. Later, Ahmadinejad
made many unacceptable,
provocative and absurd comments, most of them
predictable, but, to me, it
was the American who emerged from that session
the more dislikeable figure.
I don't of course mean that an impolite host is
more objectionable than a
holocaust denier, but Bollinger did something I
would have thought
impossible - force me to sympathise, however fleetingly,
with the president
of Iran.
· This week Marcel saw (on the same day)
Yella: "A gripping German thriller,
bleak and menacing"; A Mighty Heart, the
film of Daniel Pearl's kidnap and
murder: "Disappointingly shallow; Angelina
Jolie acts OK, but no more"; and
A Disappearing Number, at the Barbican:
"The Complicite theatre group's
clever, exciting and imaginative
interpretation of higher mathematics."
VOA
By Blessing Zulu
Washington
25 September
2007
Zimbabwean consumers are feeling the shock of yet
another round of price
increases for food and transport driven, economists
say, by the Zimbabwe
dollar's continued tumble against the U.S. dollar and
other convertible
currencies.
The U.S. was fetching Z$500,000 on the
parallel market on Tuesday compared
with Z$40,000 to Z50,0000 in May - in
effect a tenfold depreciation. The
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe recently reset
the official rate to Z$30,000 from
just Z$250, though most economists said
the move was too little of an
adjustment to make a
difference.
Transport costs in Harare and most rural areas have doubled
recently while
the cost of food keeps rising. A a loaf of bread goes for
Z$150,0000 on the
parallel market though the official price is Z$30,000. A
10-kilogram bag of
maize meal - Zimbabwe's staple food - sells for Z$500,000
- ten times the
official price of Z$50,000.
Few firms are maintaining
output, as they are losing money at state-imposed
prices.
Independent
economic consultant Bothwell Deka told reporter Blessing Zulu of
VOA's
Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that the scarcity of foreign currency is hitting
businesses hard.
Meanwhile, South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito
Mboweni said Tuesday
that the erosion of property rights in Harare has been
one of the causes of
the country's economic crisis. Mboweni was giving a a
lecture at Rhodes
University.
New Zimbabwe
By Jethro
Mpofu
Last updated: 09/26/2007 08:18:59
AS I write, the Zimbabwean
political and economic atmosphere is heavily
pregnant with important
possibilities. Like any other pregnancy, there is
the much prayed for
possibility that a new bouncing baby Zimbabwe will be
born when a new
constitutional and political order is realised.
There is also the rude
possibility of an abortion or the uninvited
disappointing miscarriage. Yet,
it remains the task before all serious
Zimbabweans to work over time to
ensure that this historic opportunity to
reinvent Zimbabwe is not again
squandered.
Prosperity might forever charge us with the capital sin of
constitutional,
economic and political negligence if we once again miss this
opportunity to
restore to normalcy the legal, economic and political
workings of our
country through sober debate, serious dialogue and free and
fair elections.
The national troubles that Zimbabweans from all classes
and all walks have
endured during the violence, food shortages, water
shortages, high cost of
living and collapse of law and order should
naturally condition all of us to
sobriety, seriousness and concrete resolve
to unite and navigate our country
out of the angry seas of economic and
political chaos that currently
punctuate the condition of our country --
reducing it to the status of a
colony of hell on earth.
At this
stage, it is as obvious as the sky that all Zimbabweans, in the
ruling
party, in opposition ranks and in the church and general civic
society can
sense and also see the urgent need for a new constitutional,
political and
economic order in our land. The questions are what must be
done, who must do
it and how must it be done?
I must state at this point that I am humbly
and politely addressing myself
to the honour, the courage, patriotism,
commitment and the sacrificial
spirit of the men and women of Zimbabwe who
so far have risked life and
limb, tempted fate and diced with death himself
by leading opposition
political parties, civic groups, churches, student
organisations and other
societies that have for so long been struggling and
negotiating for a new
Zimbabwe.
I must also state that I am applying
myself to those Zimbabweans who are
still operating within the leadership
ranks of the ruling party, but have
the preparedness to work together with
all other Zimbabweans in the grand
historic project of delivering Zimbabwe
back to glory and progress.
I must also emphasise that I wish to salute
the collective heroism, courage,
endurance and patience of the ordinary and
common Zimbabwean citizens who
have seen it all at its worst in Zimbabwe.
These are the populations and
communities of Zimbabwe who have for so longer
than life chosen peace under
economic and political conditions that have
long clearly justified war.
I also wish, finally, to observe the essence
of, and the concern, interest
and commitment sometimes rightly and sometimes
very wrongly of the global
community of other nations and countries who must
have above all other
interests seen the light that the economic,
constitutional and economic
recovery of Zimbabwe will be a giant
contribution to the prosperity of
humanity under the sun.
"The fly
that does not listen to advice", the Masai of East Africa say,
"will follow
the corpse to the grave and end its young life."
I hereby seek to
politely offer my humble personal advisory words to the
comrades and friends
who populate and drive the engines of opposition
politics in Zimbabwe. They
include Cde Morgan Tsvangirai, Professor Jonathan
Moyo, Professor Aurthur
Mutambara and many other luminaries who have taken a
generational stand that
a new Zimbabwe must be born.
To these men and women of courage, I wish to
repeat these words of the late
revolutionary Amilcar Cabral that "Unity In
Struggle" is what we need in
Zimbabwe. As our elders also have said, "no
matter how big your hand is, it
unfortunately cannot cover the
sky."
We have arrived at a historical corner of our country's condition
where no
opposition leader is either too small or too big for these
demanding
political exigencies in our country. The stubborn reality before
us comrades
and friends is that we will be challenging common sense and
contradicting
common political wisdom if we ever imagine that a single
opposition grouping
will single-handedly unseat Zanu PF and sentence Mugabe
to the dustbins of
history.
There is an inevitable need for unity of
purpose and strategy comrades. To
concentrate on coining clever insults
about each other, to invest our
energies and efforts in phrasing hurtful
labels against each other and to
waste words describing and defaming each
other is but to major on minor
issues and to minor on major issues like the
proverbial villager who burnt
down the whole village to fix a troublesome
rat.
I wish to forward the point comrades, that if Zanu PF is to be
consigned to
its rightful place as the vanquished in the impending elections
in the year
2008, there is need for opposition political parties in Zimbabwe
to come up
with a strategic alliance formula that will ensure that
opposition
candidates do not contest each other in all constituencies in the
country.
Any move otherwise will donate unexpected victory to Zanu
PF.
It is also said by our elders that "those who spit at the sky will
only soil
their own faces," which donates to us the wisdom that whilst
criticism
amongst opposition political parties and other groupings is
healthy and
democratic, jealousy and malice, inspired condemnation and
criticism of each
other will only work hard to protect the status quo and
reduce us to the
status of "enemies of the people and opponents of
progress."
It is not an exaggeration that when brothers fight over a
field it is a
stranger who will reap the harvest. We need to unite and
solidify into a
deadly force that will engineer a revolutionary conspiracy
that will make
victory a must for Zimbabwe.
There are also the
brothers and sisters who occupy positions within the
functions of the
current government. It is so easy to bundle them into one
black bag of
condemnation and blame and label them traitors, criminals,
killers and other
labels, but what happens in the history and life of all
nations is that
there are some among the ruling clique who we can talk to
and work with
openly and covertly to achieve the goods for our country.
To ignore their
presence, to minimise their experience, to forget their
abilities can as
well indicate that we are like the innocent mechanic who
chooses not to know
the efficiency of used spare parts. There are valuable
eyes, brains and
bones of Zimbabwe that we need to liberate from the history
of Zanu PF and
invest in the future of Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe is also very rich with civic
organisations of serious cause and
concern. The NCAs of our country, the
WOZAs of our country, the MISAs of our
country, the Crisis Coalitions of our
country, Bulawayo Dialogue, Bulawayo
Agenda, NYDT and others are all
organisations that can help shepherd the
hearts and minds of the populations
of Zimbabwe to register as voters and to
seek election as candidates in the
coming elections.
To be angry with Zanu PF alone, to shout angry slogans
and march down the
streets in protest when one is not a registered voter is
not only to work
for the status quo but it is also clearly comparable to
pelting an elephant
with pebbles and to threaten a mountain with a needle.
It is our civic
organisations that must act as watchful touts of the
vehicles of liberty in
our land.
Talking about the masses, it is
important for us in the opposition political
parties and civic society
organisations to remember that while we are proud
of the wealth of
professors and other elites in our ranks, it is the
peasants who own history
and are the water that we swim in as we pursue our
varied goals in the
process of seeking a new Zimbabwe.
The campaign for "unity in struggle",
voter registration and unity of
purpose must be taken out of the comfort of
hotels, boardrooms and halls to
the rural areas where the devil has made it
a habit to conceal his ugly self
plotting unwanted and retrogressive
victories for the common enemy.
The role of the international community
in influencing what happens in the
economy and politics of Zimbabwe cannot
be ignored although it should not be
exaggerated. Zimbabwe is indeed a
global economic and political player, but
in the interests of our
sovereignty and dignity as an African people, it is
important that we
realise that democracy for us will not be donated from
anywhere or imported
from any foreign capital but will be produced here in
Zimbabwe for the
consumption of the Zimbabweans.
In conclusion, I wish to put it before
Zimbabweans and all others around the
globe who value humanity and wish
Zimbabweans well in their pursuit of
economic and political happiness that a
new Zimbabwe is indeed possible. A
new constitutional and political order in
Zimbabwe is feasible and
opportunities for the creation of the same are
abundant.
It is important however for Zimbabweans in opposition political
parties and
those in the civic society to understand that only a broad
united front of
politicians from all formations in the Zimbabwean political
landscape will
unseat the ruling regime. If we approach the coming elections
as fragmented
entities we will surely be sleep-walking our country into
doom.
Jethro Mpofu is Bulawayo based political activist and advocate
for a United
Opposition Political Front. He can be contacted on e-mail:
bayethej@yahoo.co.uk
SW Radio Africa (London)
25 September
2007
Posted to the web 25 September 2007
Tichaona
Sibanda
Police in Mutare are still to charge MDC youth leader Lloyd
Mahute who is
alleged to have insulted Robert Mugabe by describing him as
senile. The
youth leader is being held at Mutare central police
station.
Mahute's lawyer David Tandire said his client denies he ever
said those
words. Tandire explained that police intend to transfer Mahute to
Chipinge
where the 'crime' was committed. The MDC youth secretary for
Manicaland is
alleged to have told a party rally in Gaza, Chipinge north,
two weeks ago
that Mugabe should be relieved of his duties because he was
'insane and
mad'.
'My client denies allegations being levelled
against him. He believes he is
being framed by the police. We will wait
until 48 hours elapses before we
apply for discharge if they don't charge
him,' Tandire said.
Mutare police have failed so far to transport
Mahute to Chipinge because
they have no fuel. Tandire said if they fail to
do so by Wednesday they will
compel the police to bring him to court in the
city, as authorities might
consider to making an application for further
detention.
Pishai Muchauraya, the MDC spokesman for Manicaland laughed at
reports that
police had no fuel to transport Mahute to Chipinge. He said it
showed
government was no longer in control of things in a country that was
going
downhill on daily basis.
'They are saying there is no fuel, but
their chefs are driving around
needlessly around the country and visiting
their farms. This is a joke. If
people say Mugabe has destroyed the country,
this is exactly what they
mean,' Muchauraya said.
SW Radio Africa
(London)
25 September 2007
Posted to the web 25 September
2007
Tichaona Sibanda
National Constitutional Assembly
chairperson Lovemore Madhuku has denied he
was assaulted, as reported in
many sections of the Zimbabwe media. The
constitutional expert said he sees
no reason why he should be assaulted in
Zimbabwe, by people attending
pro-democracy activities.
Reports said a group of MDC youths broke up a
civil society meeting in
Chitungwiza on Saturday and assaulted Madhuku for
denouncing the two
factions of the MDC for agreeing to piecemeal changes to
constitutional
amendment number 18. Madhuku said he was surprised by the
origins of the
report, blaming the MDC information
department.
But party spokesman Nelson Chamisa said their youth
chairman Thamsanqa
Mahlangu issued a statement on Sunday saying his party
categorically denied
it's youths had anything to do with the alleged
assault, after the media
reports had emerged.
But Madhuku maintained
that he blamed the MDC for the leaked report, that
incorrectly said he had
been assaulted.
'It is not true I was assaulted and it is also not true
the meeting was
disrupted. There were two guys, whom I know very well, who
wanted me to
explain fully why we were against the MDC--Zanu-PF deal. The
other guy was
querying why I was criticising the MDC and said I should
either retract or
withdraw my statement,' Madhuku said.
During the
meeting Madhuku said he criticised both Zanu-PF and the MDC and
that his
speech was well received. He was more critical of the MDC because
he said
they had abandoned their quest for a people-driven new constitution.
He
said as far as he was concerned there was nothing else to discuss with
the
MDC concerning the amended Bill, because the two factions had sold out.
The
only solution to the crisis was overhauling the whole constitution and
not
'panel beat' bits and pieces that still favour the ruling party.
'They
were lied to by Zanu-PF that they will get a new constitution before
an
election. That's why we boycotted Tsvangirai's meeting yesterday (Monday)
because we cannot be part of that stupid agreement,' he
said.
However, Madhuku tried to be conciliatory when he said they have
not
completed slammed their door on the MDC, adding there was still a lot
they
can talk about as long as they admit they made a mistake dealing with
Zanu-PF.
'These guys should just admit they made a big blunder. I
have no problem
working with them again, but again they should be open and
tell Zimbabweans
they blundered,'
VOA
By Ndimyake Mwakalyelye
Washington
25
September 2007
Hopes that relations between Harare and London
would have improved with the
arrival of Prime Minister Gordon Brown are fast
evaporating.
Mr. Brown declared last week in a London newspaper that it
would be
inappropriate for him to attend December's European Union-African
Union
Summit in Lisbon if President Robert Mugabe were to be present. He
cited the
country's steep descent into poverty and the human rights record
of the
Mugabe administration.
That statement drew a barrage of
protests from Harare and some African
leaders threatened to boycott the
summit themselves if Mr. Mugabe were
excluded.
This week, Harare's
government-controlled Herald newspaper personalized the
issue in an article
that implied that Mr. Brown, of Scottish origin, was of
much the same ilk as
former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith and other
Scots-descended
Rhodesians.
Director Gordon Moyo of the Bulawayo Agenda told reporter
Ndimyake
Mwakalyelye of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that any expectations
Mr. Brown
would have taken a less confrontational line than his predecessor,
Tony
Blair, were misplaced.