Zim minister acquitted in bribery case

Mail and Guardian

      Rusape, Zimbabwe

      04 September 2006 04:24

            Zimbabwe's Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa was on Monday
acquitted of trying to bribe a witness not to testify against a Cabinet
colleague accused of inciting violence.

            "The [prosecution] has dismally failed to prove its case beyond
reasonable doubt and the accused is therefore found not guilty and
acquitted," magistrate Phineas Chipokoteke told a court in Rusape, 180km
east of Harare.

            "A close analysis shows inconsistency and evasiveness in the
witness's evidence and, as always, evidence from one witness has to be
treated with caution."

            Chinamasa was accused of trying to stop James Kaunye, a
prosecution witness, from testifying against a supporter of Minister of
State for National Security Didymus Mutasa. The minister has been accused of
inciting public violence.

            Kaunye told the court during the trial that Chinamasa had
offered him a farm if he withdrew public violence charges against Albert
Nyakuedzwa, Mutasa's supporter.

            Nyakuedzwa and 23 other Mutasa supporters are accused of
assaulting Kaunye in the Makoni North constituency in eastern Zimbabwe two
years ago ahead of primary elections to choose the ruling party candidate
for the March polls.

            Kaunye unsuccessfully ran against Mutasa in the primary
election.

            Chinamasa had pleaded not guilty, dismissing the charges against
him as "baseless, false and malicious".

            "This was basically meant to harass and embarrass me, wear me
down and cause me to be kicked out of the system," Chinamasa told
journalists after his acquittal.

            "There was no evidence from the onset to justify mounting a case
against or prosecuting me."

            Chinamasa denied persuading Kaunye to withdraw charges against
Mutasa's supporters, saying he went to visit Kaunye to try to bring peace in
the district following in-fighting between ruling party supporters. -- 
Sapa-AFP

Zimbabwe bank governor wants six-month price freeze

Zim Online

Tue 5 September 2006

      HARARE - Influential Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon
Gono on Monday called for a six-month freeze on prices, which he said was
necessary to arrest inflation and spur economic revival.

      Gono - probably the most powerful of President Robert Mugabe's
lieutenants and whose word is often government policy - told a special
parliamentary committee that price controls that have had disastrous results
wherever they have been tried in the world would bring normalcy to
Zimbabwe's crumbling economy, if implemented for a short period.

      He said: "What we require as a nation is a moratorium on prices. For
the next six months let us put a freeze .. as an adviser to the government
this (price controls) is one complementary measure to bring the economy to
normalcy. I will continue to do my part to persuade the actors to consider
this position."

      The RBZ governor, tasked by Mugabe to revive the economy and improve
the government's chances of winning a presidential election due in 2008,
said he had already imposed limited price controls in the banking sector.

      "I would be happy to do that (control prices) in my sector. I am
already doing that," he said.

      Gono, who has won himself enemies within the ruling ZANU PF party
where senior leaders accuse him of by-passing them to consult Mugabe on
major policy issues, however admitted that it would be immensely difficult
to enforce the six-month price moratorium.

      Zimbabwe, grappling its worst ever economic crisis, has flirted with
Soviet-era price controls, which have however resulted in the disappearance
of basic commodities from supermarket shelves to the black market where
traders charge exorbitant prices. - ZimOnline

Prosecutor threatened as justice minister is acquitted

Zim Online

Tue 5 September 2006

      RUSAPE - Zimbabwe Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa was on Monday
cleared of charges of trying to obstruct the course of justice and in a
bizarre twist to the matter, unknown people threatened to harm the state
prosecutor who handled the matter.

      Retired magistrate Phineas Chipopoteke - summoned out of retirement to
hear the matter after sitting magistrates chickened out of presiding over
the trial of the Justice Minister - said Chinamasa had no case to answer.

      Giving reasons for dismissing the state's case that Chinamasa had
tried to bribe a key witness not to testify against a Cabinet colleague
accused of inciting violence, the magistrate said: "The state has dismally
failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and the accused is
therefore not guilty".

      However, only moments after Chinamasa was declared a free man, the
prosecutor who led the state in the matter received three telephone calls
from unidentified people who told him to flee and seek political asylum
outside the country or face severe but unspecified punishment.

      The prosecutor, Levison Chikafu, could not talk to ZimOnline about the
threatening telephone calls while his boss, Attorney General (AG) Sobuza
Gula-Ndebele, was not immediately available for comment on the matter.

      Chinamasa, who told journalists after his acquittal that the charges
against him were "baseless, false and malicious" and meant to destroy his
political career, denied knowledge of or association with whoever was behind
the threatening calls to the prosecutor. "I have no business threatening
people. No ways," he said.

      Chikafu's colleagues at the AG's office said the mysterious callers
accused the prosecutor of being used by Gula-Ndebele in his tussle with
Chinamasa for control of the justice department. They also accused the
prosecutor of being a pawn in the vicious battle within the ruling ZANU PF
party over President Robert Mugabe's succession.

      "Two of the callers said he (Chikafu) should think of seeking
political asylum outside the country. They said he should realise that the
cheap heroism (in prosecuting Chinamasa) he was looking for was gone and he
would now be hounded out of the system," said an official at the AG's
department, who spoke on condition he was not named.

      "One of the callers accused Chikafu of being used by Gula-Ndebele to
fight Chinamasa as well as being a pawn in the succession issue," said
another official from the same department, who also added that Chikafu was
"looking at his options" after the threatening calls.

      Chinamasa was accused of trying to stop James Kaunye, a prosecution
witness, from testifying against Minister of State Security Didymus Mutasa.
The minister has been accused of inciting public violence.

      Kaunye told the court during the trial that Chinamasa had offered him
a farm if he withdrew public violence charges against Albert Nyakuedzwa,
Mutasa's supporter.

      Nyakuedzwa and 23 other Mutasa supporters are accused of assaulting
Kaunye in the Makoni North constituency in eastern Zimbabwe two years ago
ahead of an internal ZANU PF primary election to choose the ruling party's
candidate for the March polls.

      Some of Mutasa's supporters have already been jailed for committing
political violence.

      But the trial of Chinamasa was also seen as yet another clash between
the two factions vying to control ZANU PF when and if Mugabe steps down at
the end of his term in 2008.

      Chinamasa belongs to a faction of ZANU PF led by former parliamentary
speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, who until late last year was the frontrunner to
succeed Mugabe.

      Gula-Ndebele, who pursued charges against Chinamasa is aligned to
former army general Solomon Mujuru's faction that is pushing to ensure party
and state second Vice-President Joice Mujuru (wife to Solomon) takes over
the top job should Mugabe leave. - ZimOnline

Zimbabwe church harassed for hosting whites

Zim Online

Tue 5 September 2006

      BULAWAYO - Police in Zimbabwe's second biggest city of Bulawayo have
barred a Pentecostal church from conducting services at a police station
because it has whites within its congregation, ZimOnline has learnt.

      President Robert Mugabe's government, facing international criticism
over its human rights policies and violent seizure of white land, has since
2000 pursued a hard-line anti-white crusade against the few remaining whites
in the country.

      There are just about 20 000 whites in Zimbabwe down from the 80 000
who were there at independence in 1980.

      Church members who spoke to ZimOnline said trouble began two weeks ago
after a white member, Chris Branfield who was accompanied by his family,
attended church at the largely black New Christian Assembly church at Rose
Camp in the city.

      The five white church members were barred from leaving the camp for
close to three hours and during which they were interrogated by a senior
police officer.

      A junior police officer who witnessed the harassment said: "The scene
was just not good. We knew that the organisation (police force) has always
been suspicious of whites but little did we think that that stance would
affect even church members."

      Elliot Chuma, a pastor with the church confirmed the incident saying
it had left everyone baffled.

      "We have been conducting our services here for more than six months
because some of our members are police officers.

      "At no point were we told that there should be a specific racial
composition in our church and I invited my friends (the white family) to the
church, not knowing that I would subject them to such an embarrassment," he
said.

      Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said he had not been briefed over
the incident but said the police did not stand in the way of those pursuing
spiritual matters.

      "We embrace Christianity and would not stand in the way of those
worshipping their God. We also do not have anything against anybody's race,"
said Bvudzijena.

      Mugabe accuses whites of being the brains behind the main opposition
Movement for Democratic Change party that has posed the greatest challenge
to his 26-year rule. - ZimOnline

Zimbabwe: Surviving the turmoil

Business in Africa

Charlene Smith
Published: 04-SEP-06

Can South African companies continue to ride out the long winter of
blizzards in Zimbabwe? That's the key question raised in A Nation in
Turmoil: The experience of South African firms in Zimbabwe. After all, three
years ago a report by the Zimbabwe Research Initiative noted that Zimbabwe's
crisis had cost the region about $2,5bn since 2000 and had shaved 1,3
percent off South Africa's GDP.

How much damage can the region weather?

Zimbabwe was, until recently, South Africa's main trading partner in Africa.
Mozambique now holds that title, but despite Zimbabwe's profoundly depressed
economy, trade between it and South Africa remains brisk with R6,2bn (about
$870mn) in exports in 2004, somewhat less than the R7,3bn spent in 2002.
Games suggests that some of the real trade figures may now be undetectable
as part of "the mushrooming informal trade that has been taking place across
South Africa's border with Zimbabwe since the beginning of the economic and
political crisis in that country".

Twenty-seven of South Africa's biggest listed companies have operations in
Zimbabwe and some are listed on that country's exchange including Old
Mutual, Pretoria Portland Cement and British American Tobacco. The fact that
Zimbabwe has not signed the trade and investment protection agreement drawn
up with South Africa gives some businessmen the jitters. These are not
assuaged by the "government's erratic policy decisions and the resulting
hyperinflationary environment", suggests Games.

Foreign currency shortages are routine, price controls hamper business, fuel
is routinely in short supply, a shrinking domestic market and skills
shortages due to migration and sickness and death from HIV/Aids don't make
doing business in this landlocked nation any easier.

"Zimbabwe's ailing parastatals have also incurred large debts in South
Africa. At the end of 2002, an estimated R60mn was owed to Telkom, R80mn to
Eskom, R75mn to the Reserve Bank, R55mn to Transnet, more than R75mn to the
fuel sector and about R120mn to other companies. (Since then) many of these
debts have been paid off and nowadays companies, particularly fuel
companies, are demanding payment upfront."

Zimbabwe's GDP has dropped 30 percent in the past four years and "has been
classified by the United Nations as the fastest shrinking economy during
peace time in the world. Factory output has fallen 45,6 percent since 1998,
and manufacturing levels are at their lowest since 1971."

Games says that "economic policies have been driven by the need to keep
reform at bay while trying to keep the economy afloat, a balancing act that
has had little success, but continues nevertheless".

From 2000, as political uncertainty has deepened, first with an apparent
real threat to President Robert Mugabe in the form of the Movement for
Democratic Change's Morgan Tsvangirai whose party now seems as despotic,
intolerant and prone to human rights abuses as Zanu-PF, "negative growth
became the norm". The sharpest decline, Games notes, came with the first
land invasions in 2000. At the time 60 percent of agricultural output fed
into manufacturing and 20 percent of manufacturing output was absorbed by
agriculture. The land invasions effectively sabotaged that.

According to Games, "In 2005, agriculture contributed only 15 percent to
GDP, compared with about 20 percent in 2000, according to the UN. Rapid
declines in agricultural production had an extremely negative effect on
manufacturing, foreign exchange levels (due to reduced exports) and
employment. The land redistribution programme changed the fundamental
structure of the economy."

With declining income, the question is this: where can government get money
from? Games says, "The government has depended heavily on inflation to
finance public spending. In the private sector, quick fortunes have been
made on the back of inflation and fuel and currency trading. Profiteering
has become the driver of the new economy." But in a nation where two loaves
of bread are the equivalent of a teacher's salary, even profiteering is not
always enough. Even the rich are diverting funds away from luxuries to pay
for increasingly expensive basics "such as school fees, fuel, rates and
taxes".

In her survey, she quotes a Harare businessman: 'The government introduces
something one day and a few weeks of months later decides it no longer likes
the idea and makes it illegal. Before you know it you are on the wrong side
of the law for doing something the government allowed you to do the day
before."

This means that "businesses are unable to plan ahead. Many companies review
staff salaries once a month or at least quarterly to keep ahead of
inflation. Supply chain management is made difficult because of the
continually varying rates for foreign exchange."

On top of that, "because of the high returns the banking sector continues to
generate, it has been targeted by the government as a source of funding.The
government has forced banks to buy treasury bills offering interest of 17
percent over two years, with their excess liquidity." Short term funds have
to be borrowed from the Reserve Bank at high rates.

What can be done to resolve the situation?

SAIIA provides a list of "recommendations to the Zimbabwe government"
including:

a.. Changing the political leadership
a.. Restoring the rule of law
a.. Reinstating legal property rights
a.. Encouraging the recovery of commercial agriculture.
a.. Making policy more predictable
a.. Re-evaluating monetary policy
a.. Shifting government spending priorities to address the country's, rather
than the party's needs
a.. Significantly reducing the budget deficit
a.. Introducing policies more conducive to foreign investment
a.. Making the Reserve Bank more autonomous.
a.. Allowing market forces to determine economic fundamentals
a.. Increasing forex
a.. Addressing problems in the energy, power and transport sectors
a.. Reducing the requirement for exports to surrender their foreign currency
earnings
a.. Increasing national savings
a.. Improving tax collection
a.. Restoring the informal sector
a.. Reforming the civil service
a.. Privatisation or restructuring of parastatals
a.. Fighting corruption.
Ultimately Games goes back to an argument that has long fallen out of
favour: South Africa should intervene in Zimbabwe. "South Africa is
economically powerful, and is a leading player in resolving conflicts
elsewhere on the continent. It is nothing short of ludicrous that the
government has, until recently, aligned itself with the limp-wristed
response of the Southern African Development Community and the African Union
to the problem."

SA companies in Zim
ANGLO AMERICAN - once the largest investor in Zimbabwe it has downscaled
operations significantly, partly influenced by government seizures of some
of its commercial farmland. its largest remaining stake in Zimbabwe is its
platinum operations. its subsidiary Angloplat is developing the $92mn Unki
Plantinum project, they hope to increase production to 60 000 ounces a year.

MMAKAU MINING AND SHAFT SINKERS - bought eureka gold mine for $6mn in 2005.
eureka is estimated as having reserves of more than 250 000 ounces.

AFRICAN CABLES - owns a 75% share in Zimbabwe company Cafca which
manufactures, markets and distributes electric cables and over head aluminum
conductors.

Other companies include Absa, Murray and Roberts, Metallon Gold, Impala,
Platinum, Dunlop Africa, Edcon which has a 42% stake in the Edgars group in
Zimbabwe, Truworths, Old Mutual, Stanbic, Nampak and African Explosives.
Multichoice Africa, Pam Golding properties and Woolworths have franchise
operations in Zimbabwe.

An eerie passivity on trampled ground

Business Day

Mzukisi Qobo

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THERE seems to be no end in sight to Zimbabwe's economic meltdown. Ordinary
citizens bear the brunt of President Robert Mugabe's misguided policies and
corruption by the political elites. The latest tinkering with monetary
policy, evidenced by introduction of the new currency notes, has so far not
helped. This latest cosmetic exercise - where the Reserve Bank simply struck
three zeros from the old currency - is designed to mask the incompetence of
the political elite, and postpone the inevitable collapse of the state in
Zimbabwe.

If anything, the recent monetary policy changes have further complicated the
lives of ordinary citizens in that country, and compounded the economic
burdens of the poor. Challenges related to fuel shortages, power cuts,
unproductive land, poor crop yields, and rising prices of basic commodities
have become the norm.

Zimbabwe's economic crisis is generalised and, with the exception of the
ruling elite and its cronies, affects everyone. Indeed, it boggles the mind
that the institutional sinews of the country are still functioning. In the
public service, the situation of teachers, policemen and nurses worsens
daily as the purchasing power of their meagre earnings erodes rapidly in the
face of triple-digit inflation. Earning between Z$30000 (R350) and Z$60000
(R700) a month, they can barely take care of themselves, and are
increasingly finding it difficult to send remittances to their extended
families in the rural areas, where poverty is most severe.

Worse, the formal economy is no longer functioning. The informal economy and
the black market have become the de facto institutions that people -
including the elite - trust, and through which almost everyone facilitates
their economic transactions reliably. This includes, inter alia,
transactions in currency, fuels and other basic commodities. For example,
when government announced price controls on fuel two weeks ago, depots
simply refused to sell at government gazetted rates of Z$320- Z$335 a litre,
opting to divert their fuel to the parallel market where they could fetch
upwards of Z$800 or more. Amid all of this, it beggars belief that the
ruling Zanu (PF) would lavish $141m on the acquisition of another six K-8
Chinese fighter jets.

As things stand, there is a danger that more sophisticated forms of crime
could emerge. People's circumstances are becoming more desperate by the day.
Thus, cross-border spillover effects such as the military-style shoot-out
that took place in Johannesburg recently - between police and a criminal
gang that included former Zimbabwean security force personnel - could become
a norm.

How far must things go before a serious grassroots backlash emerges? And
what would be the critical point before there is an emergence of a
revolutionary tide in the mould of Georgia's Rose Revolution and the Ukraine's
Orange Revolution? What distinguished these revolutions was their extensive
grassroots campaigning and co-ordination among the opposition. Their
initiatives were built strongly around a well-organised and politically
coherent civil society movement that included the poor, the students and the
workers. Undoubtedly, external support helped to reinforce these efforts,
but the ultimate success came from within. It was the determination,
courage, self-sacrifice and resilience of citizens in these countries they
that won their freedom.

You will be hard put to find this in Zimbabwe. There is no sense of a
simmering revolution in that country; rather the population seems resigned
to its fate. Instead, people adjust their circumstances to fit the shape of
life as defined by the policies of Zanu (PF). This can be explained partly
by the viciousness with which the state has responded to dissent. But even
so, that the people have allowed the political elite to push them this far
is still unfathomable.

When I asked a cab driver, on our way from Marlborough to Harare City, why
Zimbabweans seem to have resigned themselves to their plight instead of
standing up to the regime, his response was: "We are cowards; perhaps if the
opposition can now use this opportunity (of currency confusion) to tell
people to take to the streets, they might."

There has never been a more perfect window opportunity than there is now for
the opposition to plug into widespread discontent and mount a challenge to
Zanu (PF). Yet, disconcertingly, the opposition has failed to seize the
moment. Could it be that there is no definable cause which the opposition is
pursuing?

It is hard to imagine what precisely its governing programme would be if it
were to come to power any time soon. The opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC), in which most people placed their hopes in 2000 and 2002, is
torn between two factions. Short of internal attrition within Zanu (PF), the
people of Zimbabwe will have to endure their plight for many years to come.

While SA should speak out against the misgovernance of its neighbour, and
consistently push Zimbabwe's crisis on to the Southern African Development
Community agenda, this on its own will not help bring about a resolution of
the crisis. It will only help to internationalise it. The reality is that no
one from the outside can do for Zimbabweans what they cannot do for
themselves.

With Zanu (PF) weakened by its own internal tensions between two factions,
and the army increasingly drawn into either of these, there is no better
time for the civil society and the opposition to show mettle and rescue
Zimbabwe's future.

Dr Qobo is a research associate of the South African Institute of
International Affairs and research fellow at the department of politics,
University of Stellenbosch. He recently conducted field research in
Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe Vigil Diary - 2nd September 2006

A great show of solidarity with the protest back home.  We were relieved
that the MDC march on Parliament ended without bloodshed and excited that
peaceful confrontation with the regime had reached a new stage, following
the example of the brave WOZA demonstrations.  The atmosphere was charged.

Despite Zimfest being held in London and an MDC fundraiser in Milton Keynes
we were overwhelmed with support, including two carloads from Leicester.  It
is so good to welcome new people every week, each of them bringing their own
energy.  As one of the organisers of the "Make Poverty History" campaign
pointed out this week, if enough of us stand up to be counted it will have a
big impact.  Individual acts make a difference: Robert Kennedy said "It
sends forth a tiny ripple of hope building to a current which can sweep down
the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance".

Everyone is keyed up with the sense that something is going to happen.  They
are reaching out to each other and thinking always about the people back
home.  We want them to know that we are with them and doing everything we
can to help, such as motivating MPs here to put pressure on the government
to keep the Zimbabwe crisis in mind - even though we know the Middle East
and other issues pushes us from the headlines.

A good augury was that, despite the weather forecast, the threatened
downpours did not take place.  It was very windy though, and during the
national anthem we watched with alarm as our table gradually took off down
the Strand.  Half a dozen people dived at the last minute to save it.

We were sorry to hear from one of our supporters that she could not come
because she was in hospital for depression. For many Zimbabweans the UK is
not a bed of roses. Friends from the Vigil who live near her are planning to
visit her and comfort her in a strange land.

For this week's Vigil pictures:
http://uk.msnusers.com/ZimbabweVigil/shoebox.msnw.

FOR THE RECORD: 81 signed the register.

FOR YOUR DIARY:
-         Monday, 4th September, 7.30 pm: there will be a branch assembly
for all members of the MDC Central London Branch.  This will be in place of
the Central London Zimbabwe Forum. Upstairs at the Theodore Bullfrog pub, 28
John Adam Street, London WC2 (cross the Strand from the Zimbabwe Embassy, go
down a passageway to John Adam Street, turn right and you will see the pub).
-         Saturday, 9th September, 10 am - 5 pm.  MDC-UK Congress to elect
MDC-UK leadership.  All elected members of UK branches are invited.  Venue:
Oxford Brookes University, Cheney School, Cheney Lane, Headington, Oxford.
-         Saturday, 16th September, 2 pm - 6 pm.  Open Forum 2006 Zimbabwe:
Skills and Reconstruction. Venue: University of London Union, Malet Street,
London WC1E 7HY.  For details check: www.britain-zimbabwe.org.uk.

Vigil co-ordinator

The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place
every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of
human rights by the current regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in
October 2002 will continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair
elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk

More of Mugabe's magic tricks?

Pretoria News

September 04, 2006 Edition 1

Peter Fabricius

So is former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa the official mediator on
Zimbabwe or not? And if he is, what is his mandate?

On August 22 at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in
Maseru, Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili, the new SADC chairman,
announced at a Press conference that the SADC heads had appointed Mkapa as
the organisation's mediator on Zimbabwe.

South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad confirmed this at a Press
briefing in Pretoria the next week.

But 10 days ago the Zimbabwe Independent in Harare reported that Mkapa had
declined to mediate in Zimbabwe. Then last Friday SADC executive secretary
Tomaz Augusto Salomao insisted, through his spokesperson Leefa Martin, that
Mkapa was still SADC's mediator. A senior South African official who had
attended the Maseru summit said the same.

So what's going on?

There has been flurry of confusing diplomacy in the past few months about
Mkapa's role. Earlier this year Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe floated
his name as a mediator between Zimbabwe and Britain. Mkapa had publicly
supported Mugabe's land grab as a legitimate culmination of the
decolonisation process.

And by defining his mandate as mediation with Britain, Mugabe was obviously
trying pre-emptively to define the Zimbabwe problem as one between Zimbabwe
and Britain. That implied it was mainly about Britain having failed to pay
for land redistribution, rather than about Mugabe's gross mismanagement of
the country, which most observers believed to be the problem.

Mkapa was quite a shrewd choice as he had just served on British Prime
Minister Tony Blair's Commission for Africa.

But a little later Blair and President Mbeki announced after meeting in
London that they were looking to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
to mediate in the Zimbabwe conflict instead. Mugabe dismissed this idea,
evidently fearing that if he became a UN agenda item, he would get an
unsympathetic hearing and could end up on the receiving end of Security
Council sanctions.

Annan met Mugabe on the sidelines of the African Union (AU) summit in
Banjul, Gambia, early in July this year. But he emerged to announce that as
Mkapa was already on the case, there was no need for him to do anything.
Mbeki, who was at the summit, agreed with Annan.

According to diplomats, Annan then approached Mkapa after the AU summit to
ask him if he would become special envoy on Zimbabwe - presumably for the
UN. Mkapa declined, saying he was too busy and that he didn't think he would
succeed since Britain clearly did not regard him as neutral.

Mkapa complained to Annan that so far the international community had
offered Mugabe nothing but sanctions and isolation. If it was prepared to
offer him a retirement package that included more, Mkapa said he would be
prepared to present it to Mugabe and even to sell it to him. But he was not
prepared to play the role of envoy or mediator.

As of late July this was still Mkapa's position. What happened in the next
four weeks for SADC to be able to announce on August 22 that Mkapa was
taking the job after all?

Since Mkapa seems to be avoiding the media, some guesswork is required.
Perhaps Mkapa declined the job of UN special enjoy knowing that Mugabe did
not want Zimbabwe to become a UN issue - but was prepared to be a SADC
envoy, knowing Mugabe would be much more comfortable in the hands of his
sympathetic regional peers.

It's possible that Mkapa still didn't want the job on August 22 and the SADC
heads allowed themselves to be persuaded by Mugabe that he did want it
without checking with him.

Either way though, some sort of sleight of hand by Mugabe seems to lie
behind the apparent contradiction.

Zanu PF seizes Red Cross cars

New Zimbabwe

By Staff Reporter
Last updated: 09/04/2006 10:15:04
WITH the take over of the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society complete, Zimbabwe's
ruling Zanu PF party has already started looting the organisation's donated
vehicles and assigned them to Mashonaland Central province where they are
being used in politicalo campaigns for the up coming council elections, New
Zimbabwe.com can reveal.

Two vehicles, a Nissan Hardbody registration number 774-502 Z and a Toyota
truck, registration number 565-463 H, have been withdrawn from regular Red
Cross activities and assigned to Zanu PF officials.

The cars have been placed in the custody of a provincial Zanu PF official
identified as Nyangani, who is also a businessman in Bindura.

The vehicles were recently handed over by Edmore Shamhu, the Red Cross
president, and now form part of the fleet of Zanu PF vehicles in Mashonaland
Central.

Three Suzuki motorbikes, also donated to Red Cross, have also been deployed
to Mashonaland Central, Shamhu's home area, where he has been promised a
parliamentary seat for delivering the Red Cross to Zanu PF.

The registration numbers for the motorbikes are 608-683, 608-683 and
533-590.

The vehicles were part of a donation from one of the organisation's
international donors to develop water and sanitation facilities in rural
areas. The Red Cross is mainly funded by the European Union, Denmark and the
United Kingdom.

New Zimbabwe.com revealed last week how Zanu PF had covertly muscled into
the Red Cross, seizing control of one of the major international aid
organisations seen as likely to play a central role in delivering food aid
in coming months as the country graples with a severe food deficit.

The Red Cross is currently leading aid efforts at helping Aids orphans and
people made destitute by a government blitz on unplanned dwellings which the
United Nations says left 700 000 homeless.

Our investigations revealed that the ZRCS's secretary general, Emma
Kundishora, was elevated a few years ago after having been "recommended" by
the government. through the Ministry of Health, to keep an eye on operations
at the Red Cross.

Senior Zanu PF officials were reportedly behind the removal of former
president, Dr Jimmy Gazi and his replacement by Mashonaland Central Zanu PF
official, Edmore Shamhu.

The late Dr Swithun Mombeshora, who was a top Zanu PF official and
government minister, was at one time president of the ZRCS. Zanu PF senator
for Masvingo, Dzikamai Mavhaire, is a former board member.

Last month Sam Mavurutsa, a soldier, was recommended from the Air Force of
Zimbabwe to head the organisation's training centre in Westwood, Harare,
which co-ordinates the training of volunteers and food distribution.

New Zimbabwe.com can also reveal that last year, a senior Red Cross official
identified as Ndoro used the organisation's vehicles to ferry land invaders
to evict the few remaining white commercial farmers in Mashonaland Central
province.

Shamhu's diversion of the organisation's assets has sparked a looting frenzy
among senior management workers at the Red Cross, a board member with the
organisation told New Zimbabwe.com.

"After it became clear that the president was looting assets at the
organisation, officials threw caution to the wind and grabbed vehicles of
the organisation," the board member revealed.

Kundishora, the secretary general of the Red Cross who is a former
government employee, has helped herself to a Toyoya truck.

Another senior staffer, identified as KK Manyongo also seized a Toyota
truck. The organisation's treasurer, H Chikumbirike also has grabbed a
Toyota Hilux. B Ncube, a finance officer with the Red Cross, has helped
himself to two Yamaha bikes with Ndoro grabbing a Nissan Double Cab.

New Zimbabwe.com has also learnt that Shamhu and Kundishora also bought
themselves expensive top of the range cellphones using Red Cross funds. In
January, the two officials awarded themselves shopping vouchers worth $50
million each. The money was diverted from a budget which was supposed to
reward volunteers for serving the organisation without remuneration last
year.

Shamhu, a school teacher in Mashonaland Central, has flooded the
organisation with unqualified fellow teachers and Zanu PF supporters from
Mashonaland Central, among them Lucky Goteka, Calvine Matsinde, a Raradza
and one S Chinhaire.

Kundishora has employed her niece, Nyasha Kuwamba, as a consultant who is
being paid double for consultancy, and as an employee.

Other cronies of the secretary general include a Netsai Chizema, a former
colleague with the Ministry of Health, who has been made the Red Cross'
human resources manager.

Shamhu and the secretary general have been accused by workers of fleecing
the Red Cross through unnecessary foreign trips and awarding themselves
thousands of US dollars in per diems.

The take-over of the Red Cross comes as President Robert Mugabe, in power
since 1980, has been strategically positioning his adherents in key state
firms in preparation for threatened national protests by his opponents.

The Zimbabwe government has been desperate to control the activities of aid
organisations. The NGO Bill which bans foreign NGOs as well as foreign
funding of local NGOs was passed in 2004. The government claims NGOs are
used as proxies by Western powers to destabilise the country.

President Robert Mugabe's opponents will be watching the developments at the
Red Cross with concern given Zanu PF's history of denying aid to opposition
supporters.

Several international aid organisations, and the respected Archbishop of
Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, have accused Mugabe's government of preventing food
aid from reaching Mugabe's opponents.

No official comment could be obtained from the Red Cross last night.

Zimbabwe Cricket's draft constitution rejected

Steven Price in Harare

September 4, 2006

Zimbabwe Cricket is again in trouble after it was revealed that the
country's Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) has refused to endorse its
new draft constitution.

The SRC, a government-appointed body responsible for overseeing all sport
inside Zimbabwe, is understood to have rejected the controversial
constitution and asked ZC to re-draft some of the clauses. Sources close to
the board have told Cricinfo that that the SRC is particularly unhappy with
the way the constitution effectively rules out any challenge to the ruling
elite.

It was the SRC who scrapped the old board in January and appointed Peter
Chingoka to head an interim executive, with the proviso that a new
constitution and fresh elections be organised by July 31. It is now believed
that the tenure of the interim committee has been extended to December 31.

The Zimbabwe's Independent corroborated this, and claimed that it had seen a
copy of a letter from Charles Nhemachena, the SRC's director general, to
Ozias Bvute, ZC's general manager confirming that the draft constitution had
been rejected. That was subsequently confirmed by a ZC spokesman.

Critics of the board had been deeply unhappy with the constitution, claiming
that as over half of the executive would be unelected government appointees,
it was simply not democratic. There was also understood to be a clause
effectively barring anyone from tabling a motion of no confidence in the
executive.

The source added that the fact the SRC had been able to challenge ZC - even
though the new constitution gave more power to government - suggested that
senior figures in the country were also unhappy with the way ZC was being
run and were willing to allow the SRC to tackle the issue unchecked.

© Cricinfo

Incentives to stop Zimbabwe skills exodus

Medindia

04 Sep 2006

The Zimbabwe government has decided to spend US$2 million to curb a massive
exodus of skilled workers like doctors, lawyers and nurses from the country.

This amount was allocated by the government as a part if a skills retention
package. The state-controlled Herald was told by Washington Mbizvo,
chairperson of a special government taskforce on skills retention, that
improvement of conditions of service for recently trained doctors serving in
remote rural districts would get Zim$121m (US$484000).

To protest their deployment to the countryside, junior doctors at the main
hospitals in Harare and Bulawayo went on strike last month. According to
them no drugs, equipment, decent accommodation or amenities at district
hospitals were available.

"We will give them (recently trained doctors) furniture, refrigerators,
stoves, television sets and beds as incentives for rural deployment," said
Mbizvo.
Key staff members would be identified by all government ministries and they
would benefit from the financial package, according to Mbizvo.

The economic crisis of Zimbabwe forced millions of Zimbabweans to go to
neighbouring countries in search of better work prospects. According to an
official report, South Africa, Britain and other countries have nearly 4
million skilled Zimbabweans living and working there. This exodus has had a
major impact on the public service of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe at the crossroads: The unheard debate

New Zimbabwe

By Mutumwa D. Mawere
Last updated: 09/04/2006 08:51:59
WHILE Zimbabwe now finds itself at the crossroads, it is ironic that the
conversations taking place about the future of the country may not be
different from the conversations that were taking place during the
pre-independence era.

During the anti-colonial struggle, the conversations were focusing on
political issues and in particular how efficiently to remove Ian Smith as
Prime Minister of Zimbabwe and replacing him with a democratically elected
leader. It was evident to all that unless the majority of the population was
given the right to elect their own leaders, the political and economic
crisis facing Rhodesia was not going to end.

The conversations were accordingly restricted to regime change and Smith
became the personification of the problem and his removal energized the
proponents of change. With respect to the economic question, conversations
were mainly informed by a socialist ideology largely because the financial
and logistical support for the struggle was provided by socialist countries.

Among Zimbabweans, the debate regarding the broader post-colonial economic
and ideological challenges to be addressed in order to provide hope and
promise to the majority of the population was missing.

For the crafty liberation struggle practitioners, the lack of debate was
convenient as it provided an avenue to hijack the post-colonial state using
a populist agenda without affording the people an opportunity to openly
debate the critical governance and economic issues. What has been striking
is that the lack of debate has become institutionalized and has come to
characterize the contemporary Zimbabwean political scene leading to the
widely held view that while Zimbabweans are generally regarded as hard
working and intelligent people, they appear helpless in the face of a
humanly induced economic and political nightmare.

The world has been surprised that a people who twenty six years ago were
distinguished architects of their own liberation against an organized and
economically strong regime, has now been transformed into a nation that now
pins its hope on the retirement of one man. If anything, the conversations
in Zimbabwe are not about the kind of society the country should be but
regrettably about Mugabe and who should be his replacement. Among the
political actors, the preoccupation is on who will be in the State House
forgetting about the interests of the people up and down the country.

The implications of a misplaced and misguided conversation of the heritage
of a nation cannot be overstated. If one critically examines the cause of
the Asian economic miracle and the emergence of the newly industrialized
countries in the post-Second World War era, one finds that the quality and
content of the conversations that informed the economic policies and
political issues were dramatically different from the kind of conversations
taking place in Zimbabwe. The focus in Zimbabwe, like many African
countries, is on identifying a leader and not on constructing a foundation
for a society that will not tolerate the imprisonment of the majority to
failed programs and bankrupt ideologies.

The emergence of characters like Professor Jonathan Moyo and Dr Gideon Gono
to fill the conversation gaps should not be surprising because of the
context and content of the conversation taking place, and the kind of
information that citizens are polluted with, as a basis of making choices.
There are people who genuinely believe that it is the leaders who are
single-handedly culpable for the economic meltdown and yet forget that the
only power that people who do not have power have is the power to organize.
Such organization must be guided by quality conversations informed by facts.
I have chosen to focus my intervention of economic issues in the knowledge
that the Zimbabwean space has been polluted with political issues where
individuals without any content have prostituted Robert Mugabe's name to
make political careers for themselves at the expense of the majority.

If one accepts that Zimbabwe is at the crossroads, then it is important that
those privileged to know better use their knowledge to improve the general
literacy of citizens not as a means to State House but as a necessary nation
building experiment. We should accept that Mugabe is the only black
Zimbabwean to have risen to the position of President and over the past
twenty six years he may have been the loneliest person in Zimbabwe with
no-one to talk to about what it means to be a President.

The situation is no different in the private sector for any first generation
office holder who faces the same challenges where your friends and family
may not fully comprehend the enormous obligations of being the first in
anything. If we accept that Mugabe has been talking to himself and perhaps
to foreign heads of state for the longest time in Zimbabwe about what it
means to be a President of a population where 99% of the people continue to
blame less than 1% of the population for lack of progress, then we can
understand the magnitude of the dilemma.

The construction of our democracies where the majority vote and the minority
govern does not lend itself to a participatory framework whereby citizens
can easily recall their leaders when there is evidence that their
development and progress is arrested by policies and programs that having
nothing to do with poverty alleviation and job creation but to entrench the
powerful. We need also to appreciate that countries only get the leaders
they deserve because no President can ever assume office through an
examination but rather he/she is a product of the choices made by the
governed. In a situation where issues are distorted and the leaders may also
be ignorant of their responsibilities, it is incumbent upon us to elevate
the conversations so that those who find themselves in wrong jobs even after
twenty six years of rule can find it in themselves to step aside in the
national interest.

It may be naïve to assume that political leaders will behave differently
from private sector leaders who in the face of a collapsing enterprise may
not make the right choices for the company but would rather focus on their
personal interests. It is difficult to locate individuals in history who
have voluntarily stepped aside even in the face of evidence that their
actions may be responsible for undermining the interests of the institutions
they claim to be serving and protecting. I believe that it is only when the
quality of conversations is improved that interests begin to be defined and
the state or company becomes the amalgamation of stakeholder interests
rather than the CEO/President's view of the world.

When one looks carefully at the Zimbabwean crisis, it is not difficult to
observe that President Mugabe may not have had any honest conversation with
his colleagues over the last twenty years to give him reason to exit. We
have seen people make much out of the alleged disagreements between Finance
Minister Herbert Murerwa and Gono about economic policies and yet no one has
questioned why, if Murerwa is a man of principle, he will remain in the
cockpit of a plane that has lost direction without looking for a parachute.

In fact, apart from Moyo, who was desperate to have a seat in Parliament in
anticipation that his co-conspirators would have the courage to join the
coup, we have not seen anyone leaving Zanu PF to join the opposition. Why
then would we be convinced that if there is change of leadership in Zanu PF,
the management of the economy will significantly change for the better? Even
with respect to the opposition, do we get a sense of what kind of society
they are advocating and if there was clarity why would it not be sensible
for Zanu PF to switch parties? Is there something we do not know about the
Zimbabwean society and its people that needs to be exposed in order to
explain why we should assume that Gono is acting alone when the people who
are exposed most i.e. Zanu PF members appear to be helpless?

Having accepted that Mugabe is the first black person in modern day Zimbabwe
to have used the State House as his address, it is important that we engage
in conversations on what kind of leader should use the address. It is
equally important that the governed also appreciate that a leader who
emerges from the blind may not have the eyes to see better than the people
he purports to represent. In supposedly democratic society like Zimbabwe, it
is incumbent upon citizens to know what to expect from their leaders and the
limitations imposed by ignorance. Some may argue that the destiny of any
nation is written by its leaders without appreciating the unique
circumstances in which African leaders find themselves and the attitude they
develop against those who may have different views about governance. The
centralization of power becomes a natural development where a leader is
misled by his own people who may not know any better that he alone has all
the answers against a background where such leaders were never adequately
prepared to assume such high offices.

I have often said that Old Mutual was not started by old people but the
people who created the institution were clear that it would outlive them and
also that it would be sustainable. However, the Zimbabwean people were never
clear on what kind of New Zimbabwe they needed to address the colonial
legacy while providing promise to its citizens leading to the confusion that
the country now faces where the leadership has abdicated and unelected
people like Gono have assumed power and yet are not accountable to the
people.

For observers who continue to watch the unfolding drama in Zimbabwe, they
will not have been surprised by the actions of Gono in Matabeleland when he
committed RBZ funds to the Zambezi Water Project without even considering
the need to get the approval of his board. Gono is now Mr Fix It and yet he
is using public funds and the people who benefit from such fragrant abuse of
power cheer him without even thinking of the implications on democracy and
governance. Yes, some will argue what choices does Zimbabwe have, but it is
ironic that even so-called intellectuals like Moyo would not find it absurd
where a Central Bank governor goes on a road show in the country dealing
with the public when the role of any central bank is nothing different from
a wholesaler.

The central bank should be dealing with banks who are its clients and then
the banks would then deal with the retail public. However, in the Gonomics
era, the central bank has now been converted into a pedestrian institution
and the behavior of Gono is now no different from the late great leader of
North Korea and his son, where the state is personalized and the leader
provides on-the-spot guidance and has a random-walk-budgeting-process. Is it
acceptable for the resources of the country to be allocated in the manner in
which Gono is behaving? Where is the voice of Parliament? Why is Moyo silent
and yet vocal on Mugabe? Do people of Zimbabwe deserve any better
explanation of what has gone wrong in Zimbabwe to create a monster that
would make rights privileges and trample upon citizens' rights with impunity
and yet even the opposition parties continue to focus their conversations on
who should be the leader when the people need to adequately informed of
their rights?

In the interests of broadening and deepening the conversations that are
required by Zimbabwe in making the rights choices to move forward, I thought
it would be useful to benefit the larger audience from the feedback that I
continue to receive on my articles. I quote below one such response to my
article of last week on the RBZ v Asset Managers:

I have read some of your articles (in fact all of them) and I am impressed
by the kind of information you are giving the readership of NewZim and would
encourage you to continue. What amazes me most is the lack of information
Zimbabweans have about what is going on in their backyard. It would help us,
your readers, if you could get the story from other 'so called' fugitives so
we get to hear their story.

For example if Mthuli Ncube is a criminal why is appointed director of Wits
Business School -- one of the most respected institutions on the continent
and even on the world stage? I found that puzzling. The media situation is
Zim is a total blackout and it was only when I installed a satellite dish
that I realised that the majority of people don't have a clue about what is
happening in the world, less so in their own country.

Can you please enlighten us on (1) the Tsholothso project? (2) the real
motivation for the disastrous land reform programme? (3) the succession
battles in Zanu PF? can you give us more background on this matter? (4)
ZanuPF/ZAPU unity is that a genuine arrangement or it was forced down
Nkomo's throat? Some people feel that Nkomo betrayed the nation by supping
with the devil and in the process denying the people an opposition party
hence we had to wait almost 15 years before MDC got on the scene. He gave
ZANU PF the free ride they wanted to consolidate power. Can you expound on
this?

My response: I believe that Prof. Moyo, one of the architects of the
Tsholotsho project, has provided his side to the story and the information
is publicly available. However, what is not clear is the identity of the
economic players whose resources underpinned the project. I have observed in
Moyo's articles that he has not attacked Gono's policies and you will hardly
find any mention of Gono in his articles. The project appears to be founded
on the premise that the constitution of Zanu PF virtually gives a veto to
the Mashonaland Provinces to decide on who should be a successor to Mugabe.

You may be aware that under the Zanu PF constitution, the country is divided
into ten provinces. However, Mashonaland was allocated four provinces i.e.
Mashonaland West, Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East and Harare. Any
prospective leader of the party needs at least five provinces to win. It is
also important to note that the Presidium of the party comprises four
individuals drawn equally from former ZANU and ZAPU. The basis of the Unity
Accord was that ZANU would continue to have Mugabe and Muzenda as the
President and Vice President while Joshua Nkomo and his deputy became Vice
President and National Chairman, respectively.

There was no clarity as to what would happen in terms of succession. The
first test occurred when Joshua Nkomo died and his replacement was contested
because there were no rules and it emerged that the unity accord was only
meant to entrench Mugabe in power and did not provide for a clear succession
taking into account the fact that two parties were now one and it was
unlikely that any person from Matebeleland could ever rise to the post of
Vice President in Zanu PF given the demographics of the country. Given the
ambiguity, Nkomo was succeeded by Msika who was not challenged but Msika's
replacement was challenged by Mnangagwa. John Nkomo then won the party
election and then became the Chairman. However, when Muzenda died, his
replacement became a critical issue in determining the successor to Mugabe.

Whereas Mnangagwa had not received the support of the party for the National
Chairmanship on the grounds that the post was meant for a former ZAPU person
in the interests of national unity, Moyo and his project partners felt
strongly that Mnangagwa being a Karanga should takeover Muzenda's post. They
also felt that it was time to rid the party of the old guard to replace it
with a new team that could then fight against MDC. The construction of MDC
also gave impetus to the Tsholotsho team to argue that they needed a similar
Karanga/Ndebele team in Zanu PF on the basis that the country had had enough
of power centralization by one tribe. The team then put the argument that
even Mugabe was part of the plot on the basis that during the struggle, it
was always the intention that a Karanga would take-over from Mugabe and
after Muzenda, there was no other qualified Karanga than Mnangagwa.

The crux of the project is as described above. The project was still born
because it could never have succeeded under Zanu PF as they needed the same
people (Zezurus) they wished to undermine to succeed. How could a Zezuru
support such a project? Equally, the project was misconceived by Moyo in
assuming that the old ZAPU was dead and that he was the inheritor of the
Matabeleland constituency. Given that another intellectual, Welshman Ncube,
was a de facto leader of the region and MDC had proven that ZAPU was
essentially a dead institution, Moyo saw himself as Ncube's counterparty in
Zanu PF. They had not counted on Mugabe honouring his end of the bargain to
ZAPU that as long as he was not threatened he did mind anyone being his
deputy even if it was a frog.

Having benefited from the demise of ZAPU, Mugabe did not wish to alienate
his junior and humiliated partners in ZAPU. I think that Moyo and his
partners wanted to put Mugabe to the test and naively believed that he would
support them. It appears that the project was founded on speculation and
some kind of ivory tower analysis that is no different from the discourse
taking place in Zimbabwe today. I do not believe that Mugabe was aware of
the plot as alleged by Moyo. What is clear is that it is a Herculean task
for anyone who is not supported by Mashonaland to be a President of Zanu PF.
The assumption that they could influence the Chairmen of the party in
Mashonaland to go with Mnangagwa showed the naivety and ignorance of the
project leaders. When push came to shove, the real power structure of the
party was exposed and the plotters had nowhere to hide.

(2) The real motivation for the disastrous land reform programme?
I know you strongly believe in empowerment but I think we can agree that
what has happened on the land is a far cry from empowering anyone. It has
destroyed the country! You are right that I believe in empowerment but had
problems with the motivation, construction and execution of the land reform
program. Like the Tsholotsho project, the land reform was not a planned
initiative but a reaction and a political ploy to distract attention. My
company put this to a test to determine whether the country was serious
about an agrarian reform. We invested heavily in agriculture as an attempt
to demonstrate that blacks can operate commercially in agriculture thereby
diffusing the argument that if you given land to blacks you necessarily will
destroy the country. I believed then and still hold the belief that any land
reform founded on the state using a national resource for patronage purposes
will not succeed. Equally an agrarian reform program underpinned by a
confused ideology will not succeed.

Even Tanzania came to the realization that socialism has its own limits. For
twenty six years the government failed to provide leadership on the land
question and yet would like the world to believe that it is land that has
the answers to national problems. To date, the beneficiaries of land have no
legal instrument regarding their right to land. Some who had been allocated
land covered under bilateral investment agreement are now being asked to
relocate after making an investment. Without security of tenure, one is
clear on what to expect in terms of success. You may not be aware that a
program that I spearheaded in 2000 and was the only significant black
response to a chaotic land reform program was nationalized by the government
as part of the expropriation of my assets.

I am sure that as we improve our conversations, the real story of my
contribution to the land question will be told and people will then judge
for themselves. You may be aware that when the land reform program started,
the government's target was to acquire only 5 million hectares of land but
with the emergence of MDC the target changed to all land. My company
purchased farms that were not on the list for acquisition on the assumption
that the government will follow its own stated policies. Long and behold
this was arbitrarily changed and my company's assets were expropriated
without any compensation. This is no different to what has happened to Dr.
Mthuli Ncube who has lost his investment while being accused of
externalization.

(3) the succession battles in Zanu PF? Can you give us more background on
this matter?

To the extent that Mujuru is a Zezuru, there is an issue in terms of
succession. Some would argue that how can you have Mugabe (Zezuru) and
Mujuru become the two most senior members of the party when it is common
cause that Mugabe has been at the helm for more than thirty years. According
to the constitution of Zanu PF, it is more probable that Mujuru will emerge
as the next leader of the party. She already has four of the required six
votes in her bag. Masvingo, Manicaland and Midlands, notwithstanding their
population, only have three votes and I am not sure where the battles will
leave Mnangagwa in the party.

The only construction under which Mnangagwa or anyone from another tribe
will succeed is if they are operating outside the party or if there were
calls for a constitutional amendment of the party constitution. No-one is
calling for an amendment of the constitution of the party and hence I do not
see where the Mnangagwa/Mujuru battles are taking place. However, there is
another phenomenon that you need to watch i.e. Gono who behaves no
differently from any military coup leader, mafia, and pocket book politician
in one. You should be watching for any populist who comes from Buhera and
has invested heavily in his constituency (that is next to Morgan
Tsvangirai's rural home) as a way of demonstrating his credentials. The
contest may end up being between Tsvangirai v Gono. The future of Zanu PF
may be located outside the party and anything is possible. It is for this
reason that Zimbabweans must urgently improve their conversations with a
view to detecting the real dangers to the nation building project of a
financially strong dictator emerging as the only savior for the country.

(4) I think that the 1987 Unity Accord was meant to entrench the one party
state construction that would then benefit one individual. I am sure for
example the Pope of Rome will not behave differently in the face of
opposition. The Unity Accord has been tested twice before i.e. succession of
Joshua Nkomo and Muzenda and in both instances, it was exposed that there
were no rules guiding the post-unity dispensation. In fact, the mere fact
that there is no explicit definition of how the pact should deal with
succession issues is a cause of concern but it appears that the deal was
only meant to accommodate the leadership and may not have had anything to do
with the interests of both organizations.

Accordingly, the observation by many that ZAPU got a raw deal may be
accurate but there may have been no viable choices. You will recall the
circumstances that led to Nkomo's externalization. There may be similarities
between how Nkomo was treated and how Makamba, Nyemba, Goromonzi, Zimuto etc
have been treated. When it happened to Nkomo, we thought it was a joke and
when it happened to Kuruneri, we still thought it was a dream. When are
Zimbabweans going to wake up? Yesterday it was Nyagumbo, Mutumbuka, Nkala
etc selling cars at controlled prices and losing their careers and nobody
ever cared to question the leadership that would create an environment where
rules are different for each person. Today we see Impala Platinum, Bindura
and other companies cutting deals with the same person that you call a
devil.

I have chosen to use the above conversation to help start a new form of
dialogue among the people concerned about not only the future of Zimbabwe
but the rest of the continent of Africa. We need to continue to interrogate
the leadership issue not only because it is the people who ultimately decide
on who should lead them but because if there is a literacy vacuum the
probability of the majority being taken advantage of by the few who
monopolize the knowledge agenda is high.

A country is only as good as the interests that inform it and no power or
force can ever substitute the interests of the many who are organized and
angry. The only question is who benefits from the ignorance of the many
while continuing to confuse them with special purpose initiatives in the
form of Project Murambatsina, Sunrise, etc

Mutumwa Mawere's weekly column appears on New Zimbabwe.com every Monday. You
can contact him at: mmawere@global.co.za

Mine tycoon admits having illegal SA passport

IOL

          September 04 2006 at 10:48AM

      By Peta Thornycroft

      Harare - Controversial tycoon John Bredenkamp has pleaded not guilty
to breaking Zimbabwe's tough immigration laws, although he has admitted to
having a second passport.

      Prosecutor Fungai Nyahunzvi told the Harare magistrate's court that
Kimberley-born Bredenkamp (66), detained for four days in July, had
illegally acquired a South African passport in 2001.

      He said on Friday the South African government confirmed it had issued
him a passport and provided detailed proof to Zimbabwean police that he had
used it 65 times on leaving and entering South Africa.

      Bredenkamp owns several companies, including a luxurious lodge for
wealthy tourists in northern Zimbabwe. He also owns a cigarette company that
has recently launched several new brands in Zimbabwe.

      He has created a densely stocked wildlife paradise and a registered
conservancy, where he is producing breeding stock for several species, whose
numbers have dwindled during the past five years.

      Bredenkamp, a former Rhodesian rugby star who went on to marry a Miss
Rhodesia, made a fortune out of tobacco and then out of controversial
weapons deals.

      He put that behind him, he said, when he returned to live in Zimbabwe
full-time about eight years ago and invested heavily in several companies he
had created.

      During the traumatic forced removals on Zimbabwe's white-owned farms
from early 2000, Bredenkamp and his staff helped many of those who had been
violently kicked out of their homes.

      He was one of the brains behind a fully funded 1-million-hectare land
resettlement project proposal in 2002, which was spurned by President Robert
Mugabe.

      He now appears to have no friends left in the ruling Zanu- PF, which
is consumed by internal faction fights over who will succeed Mugabe.

      Bredenkamp's advocate, Eric Matinenga, told magistrate Tapiwa Godzi
that Bredenkamp had "never used his South African passport to leave or enter
Zimbabwe" and that the country's laws could not apply outside the country.

      Bredenkamp seemed disappointed that the case was not concluded last
Friday and he was heard telling his legal team he had urgent medical
appointments in South Africa.

      Judgment will be given on Friday. If found guilty, he faces up to two
years in jail.

      After five years losing money in his first and only mining venture,
Bredenkamp struck gold in July when he sold his half-share of the super-rich
cobalt deposit, Mukondo mine, in Katanga province in the DRC, for over
R300-million.

ZNPSCA Update 30 August 2006

Uncertainty and distrust cast a blight on promised land reform

    The Times, UK September 04, 2006

           
            From Jonathan Clayton in Tzaneen

            THE mountains of the South African Limpopo province on the main
highway to Zimbabwe, clad in blue gum and pine trees, soar out of lush
tropical valleys bursting with orange, purple and red flowers.
            In the valley of Levubu, honeysuckle and macadamia trees line
the side of the road, their scent mingling on the light early-morning
breeze. Farms and guest houses with quaint English and Dutch names sell
fresh milk and piles of mangoes, avocados and tomatoes.

            But this is no countryside idyll. It is a land in crisis, beset
by political upheaval and insecurity. Deep-rooted suspicions and mutual
distrust between descendants of early white settlers, who trekked from the
Cape in the mid-19th century to farm the new Eden that they found in the
interior, and the black Government of post-apartheid South Africa have
brought the once-buoyant economy of the area to a near standstill.

            Last year, income generated from agriculture and tourism in
Limpopo declined by 6 per cent, whereas most other provinces registered
large increases.

            An area once known for its agricultural wealth is now the
second-poorest in the country, according to Andre Naude, chairman of the
chamber of commerce in Makhado, a market town.

            The heart of the problem is the Government's stuttering land
reform policy. Under its drive to redress the injustices of apartheid, every
farm in this valley - more than 200 in total - has been designated for
restitution to black communities who say that they were forcibly removed
from their land during the years of minority white rule.

            On paper it is hard to argue with the Government's stand.
Statistics indicate that 12 years after the end of apartheid only about 4
per cent of commercial farmland is in black hands. Only 16 per cent of all
land is owned by blacks, even though blacks make up more than 80 per cent of
the population.

            The African National Congress Government, under pressure from
its radical wing, has now said that it will abandon the so-called willing
buyer, willing seller approach and, if necessary, expropriate white-owned
farms in order to meet its target of 30 per cent of commercial farmland
being in black hands by 2014.

            But fearful of copying the example of neighbouring Zimbabwe,
where foreign investors fled after white farms were seized with no
compensation, the Government has been at pains to tackle the issue legally.
Compensation will be paid. The uncertainty about the future, however, is
killing a once-thriving industry. Farmworkers are losing their jobs as the
industry grinds to a halt. Many white owners are only too willing to sell,
but accuse the Government of incompetence and delays. "Just pay the market
price and we are gone," one said.

            Ambling around his family's macadamia and lychee farm, Stephan
Hoffman, a 42-year-old father of two, said that he would stay if possible
but that the long delay in settling the issue could ruin his business.

            "Once a farm is gazetted, you are not allowed to make any
improvements or investments until the claim is settled. But the Government
takes for ever to settle claims," he said.

            Many of the farms also now have competing claims from different
black groups and rival clans within a tribe. As a consequence, land reform
has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare. Since the cut-off date of December
1998, by which time all claims had to be registered, only about 500 out of a
total of about 9,000 have been settled.

            Violent attacks on white farmers have become commonplace. About
20 white farmers have been killed in Levubu in the past five years, only a
fraction of the 2,000 killed nationally in rural areas over the past ten
years, but enough to shake a community where everyone knows everyone else.
Farmers say that it is part of a wider intimidation to make them move.

            Human rights organisations say that they are often to blame
themselves by hiring illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe and then reneging on
agreed pay deals. Farmers say that local officials, steeped in the history
of the black liberation struggle, are instinctively hostile to their
arguments, ignorant of modern commercial farming and offer prices that do
not take account of improvements to the land.

"For them, it is a political issue. Blacks want land for a house, not to
farm," Theo de Jager of Afri-SA, the main white farmers' union, said. "What
they don't realise is that I am an African and I will still be here when the
last hut is left burning. We have been through tough times before and I am
confident things eventually will work out."
MOVING ON FROM APARTHEID

Government achievements since 1994

1.8m new houses built or being built
70% households have electricity
11.4m have access to water

Challenges ahead

2.4m families still in shacks
3.2m houses need electricity
3.5m people without water
3.5m hectares redistributed since 1994
772,600 hectares of state land delivered

Zimbabwe unions plan mass protests

Sunday Times SA

Monday September 04, 2006 06:11 - (SA)

HARARE - A series of mass protests will be held across Zimbabwe this month
against the mounting economic hardships under the regime of President Robert
Mugabe, the country's largest trade union said.

The September 13 day of action would see nationwide demonstrations despite
laws banning unauthorised protests.

Police responded to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions' (ZCTU) call by
vowing to "deal with any unlawful acts".

ZCTU general secretary Wellington Chibebe said the decision to hold a day of
action was taken at a meeting of the organisation's general council in a bid
to counter growing poverty levels and increased taxation, as well as the
limited access to antiretroviral drugs for HIV sufferers.

"We want the government to urgently address these concerns and are now
organising our structures nationwide to prepare for the day of the
demonstrations," Chibebe said.

Zimbabwe's public order and security act (Posa) prohibits political rallies,
processions and other forms of protests without prior police clearance which
is almost certain to be withheld for an anti-government demonstration.

"It really depends on the nature of the protests they intend to embark on
but we are ready to deal with any unlawful acts," police spokesman Wayne
Bvudzijena was quoted as saying by the state-controlled Sunday Mail
newspaper.

"For any demonstration to be lawful one has to follow the provisions of the
law. If this is not done we will make sure that the law is followed."

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, the ZCTU's former general secretary,
defied the public order act on Friday by leading an unannounced protest
march on the parliament building in Harare, along with around 40 senior
members of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Zimbabwe is in the throes of an economic crisis characterised by high
unemployment, record inflation which recently peaked at nearly 1,200 percent
and shortages of fuel and basic goods like the staple cornmeal and cooking
oil.

At least 80 percent of the population is living below the poverty
threshhold, often skipping meals or cycling or walking long distances to
work in order to stretch their wages to the next payday.

Sapa-AFP

Zimbabwe Defends Lack Of Housing

Mmegi, Botswana

      9/4/2006 5:51:54 PM (GMT +2)

      A Zimbabwe government minister says there is no truth in a report by
Church leaders that heavily criticised the state's housing demolitions last
year.

      Church leaders said in a report that almost nothing had been done to
house 700,000 people who lost their homes and livelihoods in the
demolitions.

      Operation Murambatsvina, which the government said was a drive to
clean up cities, was also condemned by the United Nations.

      Minister Didymus Mutasa said the church report was "absolutely not
true".

      Asked how many new houses had been built, Mr Mutasa replied: "I can't
tell you the number immediately, I will have to check. But everyone in the
country whether affected by Murambatsvina or not is being considered for
decent housing."

      He also denied claims made in the report by the church-based
Solidarity Peace Trust that most of those people expelled from the cities
had since returned.

      They've constructed a few hundred houses and none of them have been
occupied "People cannot have been living in thin air. They must be living
somewhere," he said.

      The report claimed that people in the cities had been crowded into
those houses that had not been demolished. "In some houses, people now
co-exist in around one square metre per person of floor space," the report
states.

      Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, chairman of the Solidarity Peace
Trust, told the BBC that the government had failed to live up to its
promises.

      "They themselves said that they would construct 300,000 houses," he
said.

      ey've constructed a few hundred houses and none of them have been
occupied."

      report said that out of more than 100,000 displaced people in the west
of the country, not one person has been officially housed by the government.

      informal economy, which was targeted by Operation Murambatsvina, is
still in disarray a year after the operation, according to the report (BBC).

Zimbabwe Film Festival Survives in Spite of Country's Economic Problems

VOA

      By Tendai Maphosa
      Harare
      04 September 2006

The curtain came down on the ninth annual Zimbabwe International Film
Festival Sunday. The local media and film lovers have hailed it as a
success. But the festival has not been spared the economic problems facing
the country.

For more than a week, Zimbabweans could choose from more than 100 films from
more than 40 countries.

Despite the problems facing the country, the festival seems to be in fairly
good shape. But festival director Rumbi Katedza told VOA that holding the
festival in the country's hyper-inflationary environment is a growing
challenge.

"Obviously we come up with our budgets almost a year before the next
festival and we peg it at a U.S. dollar rate and try to project inflation.
This goes beyond art. ... the projections can change on a day to day basis,
but we just have to do what we can do and we try to be as open as possible
with our funders," said Katedza. "I think they also appreciate the difficult
environment that we live in and they have also been flexible in terms of the
funding that they are giving us."

The sponsors have done more than just finance the festival. This year one of
them provided a generator at the main venue to ensure the show would go on
even if there was a power cut. Power blackouts have become commonplace in
Zimbabwe as the country does not have enough foreign currency to import
electricity.

The trust that runs the festival also operates a short-film project, which
according to its producer, Nakai Matema, is the only film-making training
facility in the country. In previous years she has produced five short
films, which premiere at the festival. But because of budgetary constraints
this year, Matema only produced three.

"In theory I could have made four films, maybe four and half, but the
budgets that I started off with at the beginning of the year kept on
changing from month to month. It ended up working fine because we only did
three films," she said. "We actually went out of our way to do them as best
as we possibly can. We did lots of preparations, we re-wrote the scripts
until they were exactly right and we had enough pre-production for each
film. So In a way it sort of worked out well."

Matema lamented that most of the people she has worked with end up leaving
the country because of a lack of opportunities in Zimbabwe. But this year's
winner of the Best Short Film award, who also won it last year, Brighton
Tazarurwa has no plans to leave.

"I figure by sticking around we have kind of raised the bar a bit on what Is
expected of Zimbabwean film and people will have somewhere to aspire to
reach because everybody who has been doing good, yes they do good then they
leave and go and exalt other countries' film productions," said Tazarurwa.
"I think we need to start pushing this Industry, what has been killing this
Industry Is everybody else leaving."

The organizers are still assessing this year's festival, but director
Katedza Is already looking into the future. She promises a big party to
celebrate the Zimbabwe International Film Festival's 10th anniversary in
2007.

Ministers ask for forgiveness

News24

04/09/2006 19:57  - (SA)

Harare - A group of church leaders from Europe has stirred debate in
crisis-ridden Zimbabwe by coming to ask forgiveness for past wrongs
committed by Western countries, it emerged on Monday.

The leaders knelt on Friday before officials including the former Mozambican
president Joaquim Chissano and the head of Zimbabwe's traditional chiefs,
Fortune Charumbira, to ask for forgiveness for ills committed during the
slave trade era as well as during colonial times, reports the
state-controlled Herald newspaper.

The delegates, from an organisation calling itself the European African
Reconciliation Process, said Zimbabwe's former colonial power Britain had
dehumanised Africans.

"We repent for taking rather than giving," said Briton Chris Seaton at the
event in Harare.

"We repent for robbing Africans of their history and identity.

"Today we ask forgiveness in Jesus name before you and God," Seaton was
quoted as saying in a front-page report in the official daily.

Imposed illegal sanctions

The gesture has aroused mixed reactions in a country struggling amid
sky-high inflation and spiralling prices.

President Robert Mugabe's government blames Britain and the West for his
country's economic crisis, saying Zimbabwe's enemies have imposed illegal
sanctions on the poor.

A columnist in the official Sunday Mail ridiculed the church leaders
confessions, saying Western countries had continued with their
destabilisation tactics well after Zimbabwe's independence in 1980.

"How can anyone expect African people to forgive them, when the holocaust
continues today?" said the writer.

But ex-Mozambican president Chissano once touted as a possible mediator
between Mugabe and the West - said he was humbled by the church leaders
gesture.

Zimbabwe's science and technology minister Olivia Muchena was also reported
to have attended the event, as were Zimbabwean pastors and representatives
from 24 African countries.

Church leaders from Britain, Germany, France, Portugal, Spain and the
Netherlands were among the European delegates, according to the Herald.