| The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
Elderly farmer arrested in Chinhoyi
Chinhoyi - A 60-year-old farmer was arrested in Chinhoyi in northern Zimbabwe on Friday after he went to a police station to make a statement about skirmishes between farmers and illegal occupants of a farm in the area.
The Commercial Farmers Union said in a statement that Neville Whittaker of Bandira farm was arrested after police invited him to make a statement about clashes involving land invaders on Liston Shields farm which began earlier this month.
Whittaker was charged with public violence and appeared in court.
He was remanded in custody and will appear in court on Monday.
Last week 21 white farmers were released on bail after being jailed for two weeks on charges of attacking black squatters occupying white-owned farms in Mashonaland West province.
After each posting ZIM$100 000 bail and a guarantee for the same in assets, the farmers were reunited with their families, but were barred from returning home for four weeks.
Pro-government militants in the province have looted and burned white-owned homes over the past weeks.
They are among ruling party militants who have illegally occupied more than 1 700 white-owned farms since March last year, spurred by a government campaign to seize 4 600 white farms and redistribute the land to blacks.
SAPA
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| Zimbabwe farms set ablaze, labourers evicted
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HARARE:
Pro-government militants have set thousands of hectares (acres) of white-owned
farmland ablaze in Zimbabwe during the past week, as black labourers have been
driven off the land, farmers said on Saturday. ( AFP ) The fires come during the middle of the southern African country's dry season when a small bush fire can quickly spread into an enormous blaze, two months before rains normally begin falling. The Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU), which represents 4,500 mostly white commercial farmers, said in a statement that bush fires, locally known as veld fires, set by farm occupiers have been spreading throughout the country. Among the hardest-hit areas is the southern province of Masvingo, where one rancher lost 20,000 acres (8,000 hectares) of grazing land to fires, the statement said. "There is an alarming increase of veld fires in the area, and illegal occupiers are causing malicious damage to the environment," the statement said. Earlier fires had burned at least 11,000 acres of land last weekend. Farmers reported fires, sometimes burning across entire farms, across Zimbabwe, but especially on cattle land. Earlier this week, the CFU said that at least 2,500 labourers and their families - an estimated 12,500 people - have been displaced in the Hwedza farming district after illegal occupiers ordered work stoppages on 22 farms in the district. Workers on 14 of the affected farms were forced off the properties, the CFU stated. A dispute between two of the settlers on farms in Hwedza erupted into gunfire, leaving two farm workers with gunshot wounds, the CFU said on Saturday. Some 60 people, mainly farm workers, have been arrested in connection with the clash, the statement said. State radio said the clash stemmed from a dispute among settlers over a piece of land in Hwedza. A wave of widespread destruction and looting two weeks ago in Chinhoyi, a farming region 100 km northeast of Harare, left another 4,000 farm workers destitute. Some 350 whites fled the district as mobs ransacked more than 50 farms. The violence nationwide comes as two districts prepare for parliamentary by-elections to replace two MPs who died in office, former defense minister Moven Mahachi and the firebrand war veteran leader Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi. Zimbabwe's presidential elections are due in April, and political analysts have warned that violence in the countryside could escalate as President Robert Mugabe faces his toughest-ever challenge at the ballot box. Mugabe has staked his political future on his land reform scheme, earmarking about 95 percent of white-owned farms for resettlement by blacks, in a bid to correct colonial-era inequities in ownership. The area of white-owned farming land to be seized totals 5,327 farms, covering 9.5 million hectares, an area larger than Portugal. Veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war spearheaded the forcible occupation of as many as 1,700 white-owned farms in February 2000, in a violent campaign closely tied to intimidation of opposition supporters. The two-year-old Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has posed a stiff challenge to Mugabe's ruling party, winning nearly 57 of the 120 contested seats in last year's parliamentary elections. At least 34 people died before the June 2000 vote, and rights groups say the total number killed since the violence began could be far higher. |
| Last updated: 01-09-01, 15:05 |
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called
today for a credible land reform programme in Zimbabwe, where President Robert
Mugabe has embarked on a campaign to seize white-owned farms.
"Land reform in Zimbabwe has to be credible. It must be within the rule of
law, it must be a legal process", Mr Annan told reporters in Durban, where he
was attending a UN conference on racism.
"Individuals affected must be assured that the whole process will be a fair
process. It must be a fair process", Mr Annan said.
Zimbabwe has been in crisis since February 2000 when self-styled veterans of
the 1970s liberation war began invading white-owned farms, demanding more land
for the country's black majority.
The militants say the farm invasions are a show of support for Mr Mugabe's
drive to seize large tracts of white-owned farmland for redistribution to
landless blacks.
The 77-year-old Zimbabwean leader, in power since independence from Britain
in 1980, defended his land takeover campaign yesterday, saying it was vital to
the country's economic development.
"The land belongs to you and you must claim it. Land is where our wealth is",
Mr Mugabe told supporters at the opening of a new mint in the southern city of
Bulawayo.
In the past three weeks, militants have tightened their grip on hundreds of
farms across the southern African country, pegging out more plots of land and
driving out farmers and their workers.
About 70,000 black Zimbabwean farm workers and their families have been
displaced since militant government supporters began occupying white-owned farms
18 months ago, a farmers' union said yesterday.
The farm invasions have led to a sharp fall in commercial food production in
the past year, with output of key crops such as the staple maize dropping by
over 60 percent.
Nine farmers have been killed and scores of farm workers assaulted in
violence which many analysts say is part of Mr Mugabe's campaign strategy to
intimidate political opponents and retain power in presidential elections due by
April.
But Mr Mugabe says his land seizure drive has nothing to do with the
elections.
He says Britain should pay compensation to Zimbabwe's dispossessed white
farmers, but London has said it will not finance land reform carried out amid
violence and disregard for the rule of law.
British Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw is scheduled to attend talks in
Nigeria next week aimed at reducing tension between Harare and London over the
land issue.
| Kadhafi's all praise for Mugabe, jibes against US
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TRIPOLI: Libyan
leader Moamer Kadhafi, on the 32nd anniversary of the nation's revolution said
Washington's inability to catch Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden demonstrated
that "crazy" western powers cannot deal with the new nature of warfare.
( AFP ) Kadhafi (59), on Saturday, also praised Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's controversial land reforms, and warned Sudan's southern rebels he was "weary" of their conflict. The Libyan leader told the final session of the General People's Congress marking his overthrow of the monarchy, as well as several African leaders, that the world powers were unable to fight the new types of rebellion because of technological changes, including the Internet revolution. "We no longer wage war with the old weapons. Now they can fight you with electrons and viruses," Kadhafi said in a two-and-a-half-hour speech under a sprawling tent as the meeting was relayed live on Libyan television. "The crazy world powers that have invested huge amount of money in weapons of mass destruction have found themselves unable to fight the new strain of rebellion," he said. As an example, he mocked the United States for failing to nab Bin Laden, wanted in connection with the bombings of two US embassies in Africa in 1998 which left 224 people dead and thousands injured. "As a simple example, the USA is unable to fight someone called Osama bin Laden," he said, referring to the Saudi dissident who has taken refuge in Afghanistan. |
From ZWNEWS, 2 September
Bunting a danger to the state
Bulawayo - Amid campaigning for the mayoral and city council elections in Bulawayo due to take place next weekend, police harassment of the opposition MDC continues. The party's candidate for city councillor in Pumula ward was arrested on Thursday for "preventing a Zanu PF poster being displayed". The candidate has evidence to prove he was nowhere near where the incident was alleged to take place, but by Saturday evening, efforts to have him released from police custody had proved fruitless. On Saturday, the MDC's "showboat" - a small convoy of vehicles festooned in bunting and carrying musical groups, which has become a feature of campaigning in Bulawayo - was stopped by Inspector Matira, the Bulawayo-based policeman who has become notorious for his involvement in political violence, most recently the severe assault on Matabeleland rancher David Joubert. The drivers of two vehicles in the "showboat" were arrested under the Law and Order Maintenance Act for having part of their vehicle's registration plates obscured by the bunting. They were still being held by the Bulawayo Law and Order section on Saturday evening.
President Mugabe, in Bulawayo to officially open a new mint for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, had been later due to speak at a "star rally" for the Zanu PF candidate for mayor of Bulawayo. The rally, widely advertised in the state-owned press, went off without him, however, as he had flown to Libya for the 32nd anniversary celebrations of the coup that brought Muammar Gaddafi to power.
From The Daily News, 1 September
Opposition official survives bomb attack in Zvimba
Tafara Zhanda, the MDC district chairman for Zvimba North, and his wife, Lenia, narrowly escaped death on Tuesday night after suspected Zanu PF supporters locked them in their house in Mutorashanga before bombing it. Property worth over $50 000 was destroyed in the attack, said Zhanda. Lenia is the MDC’s provincial chairperson for the area. A policeman at Mutorashanga, who refused to be named, confirmed the incident. He said: "I went to the house a day after the attack, and I can confirm that a bomb was used and destroyed part of the house. It was placed beneath the bedroom window. At the moment we have bomb experts examining the residue and the damage to determine the type of bomb which was used."
Zhanda, an employee of Zimasco, said the bomb went off at around 10pm, and shattered three bedroom windows and the asbestos roofing. The impact of the blast shattered the windows of his neighbour’s house. Zhanda said: "I was sleeping in the main bedroom when all of a sudden I heard a loud bang. My wife was still watching television. I rushed to the lounge to see whether she was fine. She was screaming. I tried to open the doors, but they were jammed. I thought that was the end of the world for me. When I peeped outside, I saw a group of people standing outside my house. They remarked that it was miraculous we were still alive." Asked why he suspected Zanu PF supporters were behind the attack, Zhanda said a Zanu PF official in the area had warned him of the pending attack two days earlier.
From The Sunday Times (UK), 2 September
Mugabe's men force workers to join his unions
The embattled Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, is trying to coerce workers to join a puppet trade union movement in a further attempt to undermine the opposition Movement for Democratic Change before next year's elections. Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, derives much of his power and influence from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), from which his movement grew. After a failed attempt to install his own man as ZCTU president, Mugabe has now decided simply to edge it out by means of the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU). The new group is headed by Joseph Chinotimba, the brutish semi-literate head of the so-called war veterans responsible for the recent wave of violence against white-owned farms. July Moyo, the minister of labour, authorised the new set-up within weeks – a process that normally takes a year.
Opposition sources say workers are persuaded - often with the threat of violence - to leave unions affiliated to the congress and join those linked with Mugabe's federation. Employers are, meanwhile, bullied into handing over union dues deducted from pay. The federation, which claims 560,000 members, is based in the same building as Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party. Funds have also been made available to set up 13 splinter unions, all affiliated to the ZFTU. With the help of insiders placed by the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), Mugabe's secret police, these will be used to break up the more established unions.
David Mills, managing director of TM Supermarkets, part of the Meikles Africa Group, said his 52 outlets were under severe pressure from a new union, the Zimbabwe Commercial Workers' Union, which is affiliated to Mugabe's federation. "The whole thing is completely unconstitutional," Mills said last week, as war veterans lingered menacingly outside his office. "They turn up outside our warehouses and supermarkets, shouting and dancing and ordering everyone out. Some of our guys join because they have little choice."
Chinotimba rose to prominence for his role in threatening violence against several leading judges. Theoretically on leave from his job as a security guard at Harare city council, Chinotimba also faces charges of possessing an unlicensed firearm and attempted murder against an MDC official. The government's anti-union offensive has been accompanied by attempts by the CIO to infiltrate and destabilise human rights groups. Several new, non-government organisations suddenly appearing are also little more than Zanu PF fronts, including the Inyika Trust, which promotes the handover of land to indigenous people. Despite the growing wave of intimidation, the MDC is still determined to fight pending parliamentary by-elections. It is also heavily involved in the battle for control of the council of Bulawayo, where Mugabe has never been popular.
From The Sunday Times (SA), 2 September
Mugabe man's plush SA mansion
Zimbabwe government's chief spin-doctor has a 'safe house' in a fancy Johannesburg suburb as his country spirals deeper into crisis
Zimbabwe's chief political spin-doctor, Jonathan Moyo, owns a palatial home worth R1-million in a plush Johannesburg suburb. And while the Zimbabwe government forcefully removes farmers from their land to resettle landless peasants, Moyo's six-bedroomed home in exclusive Saxonwold stands empty. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change this week described President Robert Mugabe's Minister of Information as a "hypocrite" for owning the expensive house.
Moyo has launched scathing attacks on the media, the courts and the opposition in a country plunged into crisis. But while Zimbabwe's economy collapses, Moyo's got a safe investment in his home in Saxonwold, home to some of SA's best-known personalities. The residence features six bedrooms, a large modern granite kitchen, a swimming pool, double garage, an office, Oregon pine floors and underfloor heating. Most of the home is hidden behind a high wall topped with an electric fence. This week, his wife Betsy, spoke fondly of the home - though her husband earlier denied to the Sunday Times that he owned the property. While on holiday in Johannesburg this week, she said: "It is a wonderful place and my six-year-old misses the house. But we have no present plans to sell...we will be keeping it." The couple had attempted to put the house on the market at the beginning of the year - but kept it after they could not get their asking price.
Zimbabwean opposition leaders were this week outraged that Moyo owns a home across the border. Welshman Ncube, the general secretary of the MDC, said: "All we can say is that Moyo has demonstrated that he is one of the biggest hypocrites...owning a luxurious home in South Africa that he can run to when everything in Zimbabwe falls apart." Morgan Tsvangirai, president of the MDC, said: "All those people who claim to be patriotic are not patriotic at all...this shows a very split and divided personality and demonstrates underlying insecurities." Moyo this week denied that he owned the Saxonwold property. "There is no evidence whatsoever that I own a house there...the trust does not link me as an owner. "I used to live there two years ago...the house is owned by a trust and I am not a trust." He added: "The trust is a children's trust and they are not going to talk...and even if I owned that house, I would not be interested in talking. "I don't think it makes sense for people to be talking about their properties," Moyo said.
August 28, 2001
Note: View the full text of the programme on the MDC website at www.mdczimbabwe.com/archivemat/statements/economy/mt010828txt.htm
After 22 years of Zanu-PF rule, Zimbabweans are as poor as they were in the early 1970s. Unemployment has grown fivefold; age expectancy has fallen sharply; the country has the world’s third highest HIV-AIDS adult infection rate (25%); in Africa only war-torn economies like Angola and the DRC have higher inflation rates. The UN ranks Zimbabwe as one of only five countries in the world whose Human Development index is lower today than in 1980, when Zanu-PF took office.
That Zimbabweans should be worse off in 2001 than a generation ago despite the injection of US$6 billion in foreign aid, given to the government but squandered by an inefficient and corrupt administration, highlights the need for radical political and economic change.
Over US$500 million in private foreign capital has fled the country, along with thousands of skilled Zimbabweans – doctors, teachers, nurses, accountants and engineers. The ratio of Zimbabwe’s population with jobs in the formal sector has near halved since 1980.
At the end of 1979, the Zimbabwe dollar was worth US 148 cents. Today, in the official market it is worth less than two, while on the parallel market, it is virtually worthless. (0.33 US cents).
Industrial production is lower than at the end of the 1970s, commercial agricultural production has slumped to its lowest since the great drought of 1992, while mining’s share of GDP has fallen by three quarters.
The country has an unsustainable domestic and foreign debt in the region of US$10 billion – more than ten times its level at independence. The budget deficit of at least 15% of GDP is unmanageable and will be lower in 2001 only because the authorities have imposed a punitive inflation tax on savings and pensioners.
The Zanu-PF government has little to show for this massive debt. In 2001 alone real spending on education and health will fall by a third – and this in a country with falling life expectancy and one of the worst AIDS infection rates in the world. The country’s physical infastructure – roads, railways telecommunications, bridges, and public buildings has been rundown, and huge parastatal debts incurred –all of which will have to be settled by future generations of Zimbabweans
A vote for Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF is a vote for more of the same. Zanu-PF cannot halt the economic rot it has created, because the necessary policies would destroy its election platform.
Three major differences stand out between the MDC’s programme that is being launched today and the polices followed by Zanu-PF: -
Job Creation: Formal sector employment has declined by 25 per cent in the past 18 months with informal sector opportunities declining even faster. The MDC’s comprehensive set of stabilisation measures will ensure that macro-economic concerns do not take undue precedence over the immediate needs of the majority of Zimbabweans. Higher budget allocations will be made to health & education, even while total expenditure is being reduced. There will be programmes to rapidly expand employment opportunities and to ensure a dramatic increase in housing construction. At the sectoral level, urban jobs will be created and resources provided to people capable of generating their own income.
Exchange Rate: Upon assuming political power, an MDC government will stabilise the exchange rate which has been devalued excessively in the parallel market since August 2000. Exchange rate stability will only be achieved when inflation is reduced to the levels experienced in our main trading partners. That in turn, will require strict fiscal and monetary policies without which there can be no economic stability, no investment and job creation and no improvement in the living standards of all Zimbabweans.
The MDC will initially adopt a managed float of the dollar as part of an exchange-rate-based stabilisation strategy. This will require complementary action from an independent Reserve Bank charged with re-establishing the integrity of Zimbabwe’s currency both domestically and in foreign markets. This will be achieved by curbing inflation and excessive monetary growth and prudent fiscal policy.
Exchange rate policy will be part of a package designed to improve the supply and use of foreign currency, focusing on public expenditure control, revenue collection, fiscal discipline, and other supporting institutional mechanisms and macroeconomic policies. These will send confidence-building signals to the markets, domestically and externally, while securing the support of the donor community.
Specific measures will be taken to broaden and diversify Zimbabwe’s export base, with the medium-term intention of reducing dependence on commodity exports and promoting value-added exports of services, especially tourism but also financial services, as well as goods.
Poverty Elimination: Most working Zimbabweans (teachers, nurses, commercial and factory workers) are poorer today than in 1980. MDC will immediately make a break from ZANU PF’s history of paying lip service to "alleviating" poverty while actually making many more people much poorer than they were and will genuinely commit itself to elimination of poverty. This will be achieved by liberating the economic potential of Zimbabwe to increase incomes and create a more equitable society. Poverty elimination will start by tackling the highly unstable macro-economic conditions that have prevailed for the past decade. The programme also calls for a comprehensive rethink on the issue of agrarian reform throughout the agricultural industry.
Inflation: In order to combat and reverse the current spiralling increases in the cost of living, the MDC will immediately tackle the underlying causes of Zimbabwe’s inflation. These are exchange rate misalignment, liquid fuel price escalation, excessive monetary expansion, an unmanageable budget deficit falling agricultural production, corruption and the accelerating deterioration in the national economy.
Privatisation: For the MDC, privatisation will be a means of restoring the efficient management and competitiveness of the economy and establishing equal access to economic opportunities. Through privatisation of public enterprises, MDC will change the current practice of corruptly parcelling out public wealth in favour of a very narrow, politically well-connected elite.
Privatisation will be carried out in a transparent manner using well worked out instruments and through the intermediary of independent institutions. The MDC will seek to economically empower indigenous Zimbabweans by:
Taxation: In order to do justice to the aspirations of the Zimbabwe population, an MDC government will maintain a revenue target of no more than 28% of GDP. However, the revenue will be raised through a more progressive tax structure – that is people paying rates of tax related to their incomes. People earning below the poverty datum line will not pay income tax. The money that is raised from taxation will be used for the intended purposes of restoring services in the health and education sector, providing a social safety net for vulnerable groups and investing in agrarian reform, job creation and infrastructure. The MDC will immediately correct the use of the peoples tax revenues currently being wasted on an inefficient, bloated bureaucracy and corruption-ridden deals. These matters will be dealt with, with honesty and transparency in the planning and executing of all state activities.
Restoring economic growth & well-being: It is widely recognised that Zimbabwe has the potential to become a fast growing and more equitable society if it has the right form and practice of government. By committing itself to restoring the rule of law, sound macro economic policies and a strong poverty reduction programme, the MDC government will win wide backing for its approach within Zimbabwe. It will also attract the international support required to ensure it can deal with the debt crisis, solve the problems of foreign exchange instability and shortages and attract direct foreign investment.
In sum, the MDC is pledged to deliver:
28th August 2001
ZANU-PF’S ECONOMIC TRACK RECORD
|
1980 |
1990 |
2000 | |
|
Income per head Z$ (1990 prices) |
1970 |
2050 |
1820 |
|
Income per head US $ |
755 |
897 |
536 |
|
Z$:US$ |
0.68:1 |
2,65:1 |
55:1 |
|
Share in SADC GDP % |
4.3 |
5.4 |
4.4 |
|
Human Development Index |
0.570 |
0.598 |
0.554 |
|
Unemployment |
10% |
20% |
45% |
|
Average Real Wage (Z$ 1990) |
6420 |
7050 |
5300 |
|
Exports (US$ millions) |
1400 |
1750 |
1800 |
|
Imports (US$ millions) |
1500 |
1510 |
1550 |
|
Life Expectancy –Years |
56 |
59 |
43 |
|
Investment:GDP (%) |
17.5 |
10 | |
|
Formal Sector Employment - % of population (%) |
14.2 |
13.7 |
9.5 |
Morgan Tsvangirai,
MDC President.
