zimbabwejournalists.com
By James Parks
Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) President Lovemore Matombo
and First Vice
President Lucia Matibenga were among trade unionists badly
injured during
the government's September 13 attack on a peaceful
demonstration by the
nation's unionists. AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William
Lucy, who traveled to
Zimbabwe says "the police just went crazy" in their
attack in the capital
Harare.
Lucy described his experience today during a meeting with
union
members at the AFL-CIO building in Washington, D.C., where he showed a
12-minute video of the Sept. 13 assault given to him on their trip. (Note:
The date of the attack is incorrect on the video. The attack occurred Sept.
13.)
When Lucy, along with a delegation of members from the
Coalition of
Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), went to Zimbabwe to meet with the
unionists,
they were denied entry.
On Sept. 13, some 1,500 ZCTU
activists were peacefully protesting the
nation's abysmal economic
conditions. Witnesses say police attacked the
crowd and brutally beat many
of the union members and arrested 265. Matombo
and Matibenga were among
those arrested, as was ZCTU General Secretary
Wellington Chibebe, winner of
the AFL-CIO's 2003 George Meany-Lane Kirkland
Human Rights Award. (Last
night, Ela Bhatt of India received the 2005 Human
Rights Award for her
efforts in improving the lives of impoverished women in
India.)
Lucy, who also is a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, where he
chairs
the AFL-CIO Committee on International Affairs, says he believes the
Zimbabwean government sought to bar the delegation because they would relate
the real conditions in the country. In fact, after denying U.S. unionists
entry, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe said the Zimbabwean leaders
deserved the beating.
The trade unionists took to the streets
of Harare, Lucy says, to
demand a raise in the nation's minimum wage for
universal access to
antiviral drugs to combat HIV/AIDS. Here's
why:
- 50,000 children in Zimbabwe under five years old die each
year from
various causes.
- The average income is about $4,800 a
year in U.S. dollars or less
than $100 a week. In fact, 56 percent of the
country lives on less than $1 a
day and 85 percent to 90 percent live below
the official poverty line. Yet
inflation is running at 1,204 percent as of
last month.
- Seventy percent of the workforce is unemployed.
- HIV/AIDS is devastating the country, with some 1.6 million people
living
with the disease. Last year, 3,000 people, on average, died from AIDS
each
week. New drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis have broken out and
now TB
kills most of the people suffering from AIDS.
As Lucy put
it:
When you look at those statistics, it doesn't take a genius to
figure
out why the workers were demonstrating, it is not legitimate for a
government to beat folks up for raising their concerns.
Lucy,
president of CBTU, one of six AFL-CIO constituency groups, says
he and the
five other CBTU members in the delegation received visas to enter
Zimbabwe
three or four weeks ahead of their visit.
They planned to visit the
southern country in Africa after attending a
meeting in Johannesburg, South
Africa. The others in the delegation included
Harold Rogers of AFT, Miriam
Poe of UAW, Henry Nicholas of AFSCME,
Marguerite Morrison of the
unaffiliated 1199: The National Health Care
Workers' Union and Bob Wilson of
the unaffiliated United Food and Commercial
Workers.
When they
arrived at the Harare airport, the passport control officer
told the group
the foreign ministry had sent a memo that they were not to be
allowed into
the country.
In its annual report on workers' rights violations,
the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) cited Zimbabwe
for arresting and
torturing hundreds of union protestors. On Sept. 22, trade
unionists around
the world marched and rallied in an International Day of
Action on Zimbabwe.
Marchers in Washington, D.C., also demonstrated in front
of the Zimbabwean
Embassy that day and on Sept. 18.
AFL-CIO
President John Sweeney sent a letter to Zimbabwe's President
Robert Mugabe
urging him to release the ZCTU leaders and to enforce workers'
rights.
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson and ICFTU
President
Sharan Burrow also sent a joint letter on behalf of a global
coalition of
women union leaders, as well.
The U.S. State Department denounced
Zimbabwe's last-minute denial of
entry to the delegation. Zimbabwe has been
cited in the U.S. Department of
State's annual Country Reports on Human
Rights Practices for its repression
of workers' rights. In its most recent
report, released March 8, the State
Department pointed to a host of blatant
human rights violations, including:
restrictions on freedom of
speech, press, academic freedom, peaceful
assembly, association, and
movement . and harassment and interference with
labor organizations critical
of government policies and attempts to supplant
legitimate labor leaders
with hand-picked supporters.
Click on this link to watch video of
the attacks on the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) leaders by the
police on 13 September.
http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/09/28/zimbabwe-hiding-truth-behind-attacks-on-trade-unionists/
AFL-CIO Now
Zim Independent
Ray
Matikinye/Loughty Dube
THE United Nations yesterday
joined local and international
human rights organisations in remarks seen as
censuring President Robert
Mugabe over his endorsement of the brutal attack
on trade unionists by the
police.
The UN Country Team
(UNCT) in Zimbabwe yesterday expressed "a
profound sense of dismay" over
"Zimbabwean authorities"' statements
regarding the police, which it said
"might be interpreted as condoning the
use of force and torture to deal with
peaceful demonstrations by its
citizens".
The UNCT
reminded government of its obligations to the African
Charter on Human and
Peoples' Rights and the ILO Convention on Freedom of
Association, which
Zimbabwe has ratified.
"The UNCT calls upon the government to
respect the universally
held principle that the detention of trade unionists
for exercising their
right to defend their interests constitutes not only a
breach of their civil
liberties, but more particularly the fundamental
rights of trade unions,"
the body said in a statement.
Mugabe on Monday defended the police who assaulted ZCTU leaders,
saying they
deserved what they got. He said police will crush such protests
in the
future.
The UN statement came as the International Bar
Association (IBA)
executive director Mark Ellis on Tuesday said Mugabe's
statements added
weight to evidence that torture and other serious
violations of
international law were sanctioned at the highest level in
Zimbabwe.
"The torture of the trade union activists is not an
isolated
incident, but part of a dangerous and illegal system of repression
which
constitutes crimes against humanity in international law," Ellis said.
"Decisive action is required by both the United Nations and the African
Union to end impunity and violence in Zimbabwe,'' Ellis said.
He said there was urgent need for international and regional
action to hold
the Zimbabwean government to account.
l Meanwhile, this week
Zimbabwe was forced to reply to
allegations of human trafficking at the
United Nations Human Rights
Commission meeting while the US indicated it
would tighten sanctions on
Zimbabwe.
Washington said it
would suspend financial support for certain
projects in Zimbabwe except
pro-democracy and health programmes.
The human trafficking
allegations, the first against Zimbabwe,
arise from a June 12 report
Washington compiled on countries that have done
little to stop the
practice.
The UN Human Rights Commission meeting in New York
also gave
Zimbabwe a right of reply to allegations of human rights abuses
emanating
from the destruction of housing structures in Epworth in Harare
last month.
Zimbabwe's representative, Enos Mafemba, said the
evictions
being carried out were not arbitrary or illegal as notices had
been
published to forewarn people about pending demolitions. Zimbabwe had
been
adopting measures to uphold the rights of its people and to advance
development, Mafemba said.
But human rights groups
maintained their condemnation of the
government's handling of Operation
Murambatsvina saying there
was need to pool resources to help the
700 000 people left
homeless by the blitz.
Sebastian
Gilloz of Human Rights Watch, in a joint statement
with the Centre on
Housing Rights and Evictions said the UN rapporteur on
the right to adequate
housing should be invited to Zimbabwe to further study
the
situation.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
IN a week of
high drama within the corridors of power,
government is now scrambling to
cover-up the wholesale looting of
state-owned assets at steel-making
company, Ziscosteel, amid fears the
scandal could rock the political
establishment to its foundations.
The stampede to suppress
the report - to protect looters instead
of public assets - involved hurried
manoeuvres to withdraw the document from
those who have it and tightening
security measures to ensure those likely to
raise the alarm did not lay
their hands on it.
"Authorities are trying to bury the
detailed report which
exposes one of the biggest cases of graft by ministers
and MPs," a source
said. "This report is likely to suffer the fate of
similar previous
investigations which were buried to protect corrupt
government officials."
Ministers who had spoken out publicly
about the high-profile
corruption detailed in the report are said to have
been intimidated by the
powerful culprits into retracting their remarks,
even those recorded in
parliament.
Industry and
International Trade minister Obert Mpofu, who was
widely quoted last week as
saying "influential people" had pillaged
Ziscosteel through "underhand
dealings that have left the company bleeding",
was at pains on Wednesday to
withdraw his statements.
Mpofu's new line now appears to be
that ministers and MPs did
not loot Zisco but their companies benefited from
contracts, while the state
firm made huge losses. Observers say this is
clearly an attempt to sweep the
issue under the carpet via
semantics.
Anti-Corruption minister Paul Mangwana, who last
week threatened
that those implicated would be arrested soon, was quiet this
week. Although
President Robert Mugabe was vocal this week in justifying the
brutal assault
on ZCTU leaders for public protests, he has remained
tight-lipped on the
Zisco issue.
To dramatise the
cover-up, there was also official censure of
the state media, especially the
daily Herald, for agitating in an editorial
on Wednesday to "make the Zisco
report public". Sources said government
officials angrily complained about
the editorial which urged the publication
of the report and prosecution of
the suspects.
The report, done by the National Economic
Conduct Inspectorate
which is controlled by the Ministry of Finance and
state security agents,
was distributed to a few government officials, some
of whom were intimidated
from leaking it to the media.
Zim Independent
Lucia Makamure
THOUSANDS of
Harare vendors and push-cart operators in Mbare and
Highfield were on Monday
morning drafted from their stalls and press-ganged
into attending President
Mugabe's homecoming at the airport. Mugabe was
returning home from a
two-week trip to Cuba and the United States.
The vendors from
traditional opposition strongholds said they
had no option but to go as they
had been threatened with withdrawal of their
trading
licences.
"We were rounded up and told to go to the airport.
Most of us
could not refuse as these markets are our only source of income,"
said one
vendor.
Zanu PF Harare provincial officials who
were in charge of the
operation used market records to ensure that all the
vendors complied.
Zupco provided transport for the vendors
but failed to ferry the
crowd back from the airport. Most of them were left
stranded as they did not
have money to pay for transport. One woman who is a
vendor at Mupedzanhamo
said: "Can you believe that we spent the whole day
without eating anything
waiting for the president? To make matters worse the
weather was unbearable,
it was just too hot."
The vendors
were also prejudiced of income as they lost a day's
earnings while at the
airport.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
CONFUSION
swirled this week over whether the ruling Zanu PF
would dodge the 2008
presidential election by postponing it to 2010 under
the pretext of
harmonising it with the parliamentary poll.
Zanu PF spokesman
Nathan Shamuyarira unleashed a wave of
speculation on the issue after he was
quoted by state media on Sunday saying
his party would soon amend the
constitution to delay the election until
2010. He then made the situation
worse on Monday when he told the Voice of
America that the
Attorney-General's office was already working on the
constitutional
amendment.
Sources said the initial plan was to delay the
2008 presidential
poll and have Vice-President Joice Mujuru elected by
parliament as interim
leader from 2008 to 2010. This would give her the
opportunity to consolidate
her grip on power before the simultaneous
presidential and parliamentary
elections in 2010.
The
constitutional amendment would also restrict future
presidents to two terms
and possibly introduce the post of prime minister. A
new constitution in
2010 was also being mulled. But sources said President
Robert Mugabe was now
contemplating extending his term to 2010 instead of
doing it for
Mujuru.
While Mugabe has promised on several occasions to go
in 2008,
last week he refused in an interview with AP in New York to
guarantee his
departure in 18 months' time. He only said "I think the time
will come soon"
without giving details, suggesting he was keeping his
options open.
Mugabe has also of late slammed his party
lieutenants for
jostling for his job, claiming some were even consulting
witchdoctors to
secure the position.
Although Shamuyarira
has since denied having said the election
would be postponed, sources say he
did say that, but was backtracking
because his party colleagues were unhappy
with the remarks that confirmed a
story published by the Zimbabwe
Independent in May last year.
This is not the first time
Shamuyarira has denied something he
has said on the record to journalists,
even when recorded on tape.
Justice minister Patrick
Chinamasa, Zanu PF administration
secretary Didymus Mutasa and
Attorney-General Sobusa Gula-Ndebele said
separately this week there was no
Bill as yet to amend the constitution to
delay the
election.
However, it is known in official circles that the
issue was
under discussion. The matter was discussed by the politburo on
Wednesday.
Zim Independent
A FRESH wave of evictions has hit the country and
further
disruptions are in the pipeline with Mashonaland West and Masvingo
provinces
being the worst affected areas.
Nearly a dozen
of the few remaining white commercial farmers are
threatened with eviction
before the start of the cropping season due in four
weeks'
time.
Farm evictions, that government officially said were
over, have
resurfaced with two white farmers being served with summons to
appear in
court next week for defying orders to vacate their
farms.
Government has also served eviction notices on an
additional 50
farmers across the country.
The fresh wave
is premised on the provisions of the
newly-promulgated Gazetted Land
(Consequential Provisions) Bill 2006 which
stipulates that anyone on any
land that received a Section 5 notice sometime
in the last six years, will
have 45 days to get out of his house and wind up
his farming operation. If
he does not, and he has no lease or offer letter,
he will face criminal
penalties that will involve up to two years'
imprisonment.
Endorsement of the Bill would automatically
push out all white
farmers by virtue of not having any lease or offer
letters.
Investigations by the Zimbabwe Independent
established that Dana
Neil of Templecombe Farm and G Terblanche of Dandazi
Estate would appear in
court on October 3 for failing to observe eviction
notices served on them on
June 14.
Their 90-day notices
expired on September 14 and they were
expected to have left the farms. Both
farmers are prominent producers of
wheat, maize and tobacco. Terblanche is
rated one of the biggest maize
producers in the country.
CFU officials confirmed that two farmers would next Tuesday
appear in the
Karoi magistrates court.
"Two farmers have been issued with
summons to appear in court on
Tuesday at 8am," the official
said.
"They are being accused of ignoring eviction notices
that were
served on them. But the tragedy is that the two are amongst the
best tobacco
and cereals producers. One of them had just delivered 1 000
tonnes of maize
to the Grain Marketing Board and now he is going to be
prosecuted for doing
that."
Reports from other provinces
show that pressure is mounting on
up to 50 farmers to give up their
properties.
"There are farmers facing threat of evictions
throughout the
country, from Mvurwi, Centenary, Chipinge, Rusape and the
Eastern Lowveld,"
one farmer said.
An estimated 400
large-scale white commercial farmers remain in
Zimbabwe after the land
reform programme drove the majority off the land.
Sources
said in Masvingo provincial governor Willard Chiwewe two
weeks ago wrote to
a number of white farmers ordering them to surrender
their land and
equipment to the government.
The move deals a deadly blow to
prospects of increased
production in the 2006/7 season.
"Your farm has been acquired by the government and we therefore
request you
to wind up your business before the start of the rainy season,"
Chiwewe
wrote to Ronny Sparrow, one of the remaining farmers in Masvingo
province.
"You are advised to comply with this order
since you risk being
forcibly removed if you fail to comply. We also take
this opportunity to
tell you that you are not allowed to move out with any
of your farming
equipment."
Under the government's
Constitutional Amendment 17, a farmer
cannot challenge in court the
expropriation of his land by the government
and faces jail for removing
equipment from the farm.
Sources said apart from Sparrow, at
least another 10 white
farmers have also received similar letters from
Chiwewe notifying them to
vacate their properties.
One
farmer from Masvingo, who identified himself as Mike
Nickson, described the
situation as unbearable, adding that farmers had no
option but "to surrender
our properties in order to save our lives".
Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono as well as
Vice-Presidents Joseph Msika and
Joice Mujuru have on separate occasions
this year publicly called for an end
to farm evictions, saying it was time
to consolidate the government's
controversial land reforms by increasing
food production.
But disturbances have continued on farms with powerful
government officials
who already own more than one farm being accused of
seizing more land from
whites. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
RURAL council
elections set for the end of October have all the
ingredients of yet another
stern test for the main contenders on Zimbabwe's
political
stage.
For the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) the
polls next month pose a challenge as to whether steady hysteria
whipped up
by its leaders claiming they have made inroads into Zanu PF
territory and
chiselled down its support in the countryside is real or
imaginary.
And although MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has
acknowledged a
critical mass of people was needed to dismantle the Zanu PF
behemoth and
exhorted his supporters to "be prepared to make a mark to
ensure that we
will never again be oppressed", the party appears unsure of
how to master
the trick.
Winning an election never rolls
on the wheels of perceived
success. "It comes," as American human rights
campaigner Martin Luther King
said, "through the tireless efforts of
men."
Seldom over the past six years has the MDC failed to
rehash the
claim that Zanu PF manipulates the electoral
process.
"The electoral laws require that prospective
candidates acquire
clearance letters from government institutions, which
clearly is a
ridiculous rigging mechanism," complained Nelson Chamisa,
spokesman for the
Tsvangirai-led MDC.
"Our candidates in
Bikita and Hurungwe have been fined various
amounts for coming late to seek
council clearance even though there is no
legal provision for such fines,"
said Chamisa.
Spokesperson for the Mutambara-led MDC, Gabriel
Chaibva,
appeared to sing from the same hymn sheet, blaming state
bureaucracy for
failure to field candidates in all wards
contested.
"We had serious logistical problems and undue
financial demands
from rural district council offices which made it
extremely difficult for
our people to get their nomination papers through,"
said Chaibva.
He said his party needed at least $2,55 million
to get police
clearance alone for all its candidates. "And that is besides
fees charged by
rural district councils before a candidate gets a letter
showing he does not
owe the local authority any levies or charges, apart
from the transport
costs involved," he said.
Excuses
aside, the main opposition party has failed to put
decent cover over its
failure to put forward candidates, despite claims of
gaining rural
ground.
The Mutambara-led MDC succeeded in fielding 294
candidates
mostly in rural Matabeleland North and South provinces. The party
won two
seats unopposed in Nkayi and Mangwe districts. At least 34 of its
candidates
were disqualified countrywide.
Significantly,
in the Midlands district of Zhombe, five of its
candidates were disqualified
in seven of the contested wards. Four
candidates each were disqualified in
the Zanu PF stronghold of Mhondoro and
Mberengwa districts. The rural
elections on October 28 serve as a sharp test
case of the success of the MDC
in eroding Zanu PF's rural support base and
broadening its own
reach.
Less than five weeks before decisive polls get
underway, the
ruling party already has pocketed more than 400 - close to a
third - of the
contested 1 277 wards in 59 of Zimbabwe's rural
districts.
Observers see signs of the splintered opposition
beginning to
flounder in these elections as evidence that it still has to
grasp the
critical role rural voters play in first-past-the-post polls under
which
Zimbabwe operates.
Both camps seem to lack the
inspiration to win elections where
it matters most.
Zanu
PF is able to keep a few streets ahead of its opponents by
ensuring that the
rural electorate, who form the bulwark of eligible voters,
is safely under
its wings.
Already the fractured opposition is howling
protests on being
short-changed by the electoral institutions and processes
under which the
polls are held.
Chamisa says the party
has proved its national character after
fielding candidates in all the
provinces despite Zanu PF machinations to
elbow them out of rural
areas.
"Over 300 candidates failed to file their nomination
papers due
to bureaucratic impediments orchestrated by Zanu PF," Chamisa
said. This
contrasts sharply with the gloating by the Tsvangirai-led MDC
after winning
uncontested in five wards in Gokwe South, Shamva, and Bikita
"where Zanu PF
candidates chickened out fearing imminent
defeat".
Chamisa claimed in other districts such as Shamva,
government
had connived with headmen "to deny our candidates letters
confirming that
they are ordinarily resident in the areas in which they are
contesting".
The party has already written to the Zimbabwe
Electoral
Commission raising serious reservations over these glaring
irregularities.
Interestingly, the Mutambara-led camp laments
that their
prospective candidate in the Bubi district, Timothy Tshuma, was
"bribed and
defected to the Tsvangirai group". It appears, from a list
announced by the
Mutambara-led camp, that there is a tacit agreement between
the two
opposition camps to concentrate their efforts in areas each stands a
better
chance of winning.
Chaibva denied complicity and
blamed logistical problems as a
major hurdle.
The rural
district council polls come three weeks before two
parliamentary
by-elections in Chikomba and Rushinga where the Mutambara-led
camp has not
fielded a candidate.
"It was strategic not to field a
candidate in each of those two
constituencies," Chaibva said. "We are glad
our colleagues who have a habit
of shunning elections have revised their
stance. We are impressed that they
have finally seen the
light."
He said the decision was not grounded on fears of
splitting the
vote. "We decided that our colleagues should have a go at it
so they can
test their support," he said.
"If they have
the courage to field a candidate in Rushinga it
signifies political maturity
beyond a stage where one thinks boycotting
elections is an answer to the
political crisis Zimbabwe."
Zim Independent
DISTRIBUTION of government aid is being politicised by
the
ruling party in Manicaland, according to a faith-based rights
organisation.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), in a report,
said most of the
victims were members of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC),
but did record instances of ruling Zanu PF
supporters being sidelined.
Lists of beneficiaries from
government assistance, like
subsidised fertiliser, anti-retroviral HIV and
Aids drugs, aid to orphans
and some food support, are drawn up by local
authorities, most of whom back
Zanu PF.
"The victims were
... asked to produce a Zanu PF card in order
to benefit from food and
agricultural inputs. In some instances they were
simply denied registration
for aid and were blatantly told that the food
belonged to members of the
ruling party," ZPP said in its report,
Politicisation of Food and Other
Forms of Aid.
Christine Kwangwari, ZPP's acting national
director, told Irin
the survey in August was part of a pilot project to
monitor allegations of
abuse of aid for political
influence.
"We had heard of claims of politicisation of aid
in many
provinces; we decided to study Manicaland as a test
case."
The group has documented 83 cases of abuse of aid
based on
political affiliation, which included not only denying food but
also
anti-retrovirals, and exclusion from the Basic Education Assistance
Module
(Beam), a national plan to help orphans get free healthcare and
schooling.
"Children are sometimes arbitrarily withdrawn from
the Beam
project on the basis that their parents are supporters of the
opposition ...
The main perpetrators of this type of violence are school
heads who
sympathise with the ruling party," claimed the
report.
"The complete disregard for children's rights,
particularly
those of orphans, is a major drawback to the attainment of
justice in
Zimbabwe."
According to ZPP, the
internationally recognised principles of
aid distribution, such as
neutrality, impartiality, independence and
universality," are rarely
respected because the beneficiation from food aid
is highly
politicised".
They, however, did not record cases of
diversion of
international food relief, which is distributed by respected
non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
"We did not find
instances of politicisation of aid at the hands
of NGOs like World Vision,
Goal and Christian Care, who also disburse food
aid in the province,"
Kwangwari said. The food-aid NGOs follow strict
international guidelines,
which stipulate the registration of beneficiaries
at public
meetings.
Political analyst John Makumbe said beneficiaries
of
state-sponsored food aid and agricultural inputs were listed by
traditional
leaders, and "the chiefs prefer to include people who have Zanu
PF cards in
their lists over MDC card-holders, and this is common place
across the
country".
Food has tremendous influence in
Zimbabwe.
Independent estimates indicate only 800 000 tonnes
of maize were
produced this year, or about two-thirds of the country's
annual requirement.
Government has insisted the harvest was around 1,8
million tonnes.
Zimbabwe has one of the world's highest rates
of HIV infection.
ZPP recorded instances of people being denied treatment on
the basis of
their political affiliation, and pointed out that food was also
a critical
element in ameliorating the effects of
HIV/Aids.
Agriculture minister Joseph Made slammed the ZPP
report as
"ridiculous" and "nonsensical".
"The Zimbabwean
government has made a commitment to ensure that
no Zimbabwean will starve,
so this cannot be true. Even in the urban areas,
which we do not control, we
have moved a large amount of maize to ensure
that everyone has food." --
Irin.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
A ZANU PF
supporter was on Wednesday fined $500 by the Chegutu
magistrates court for
calling the Minister of State for Policy
Implementation and Chegutu MP
Webster Shamu a liar at a farmers' meeting.
Passing judgement
on Wednesday, magistrate Remigious Jemwa, said
Forbes Mutsvangwa had
violated the Miscellaneous Offences Act in the
incident that occurred last
year at Selous Tobacco Estate. Forbes is a
brother of Zimbabwe's ambassador
to China, Chris Mutsvangwa.
The magistrate said the law
"prohibits people from misbehaving
in public or using foul
language".
Mutsvangwa, who had no legal representative,
denied saying "the
minister is a liar and is talking s.t" while under the
influence of alcohol.
The accused in his defence said Shamu
had told farmers that they
should all grow tobacco and sell it to a certain
white farmer, which he
contested saying doing so violated the Tobacco
Act.
In his judgement the magistrate said Mutsvangwa had said
he was
only making a modest contribution to the meeting, but Shamu had
denied
telling people to sell their tobacco to a third party other than the
tobacco
auction floors.
After examining submissions by
both parties, the magistrate
ruled that the accused person's side of the
story could not be trusted.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
A CLASH is
looming between the Zimbabwe National Water Authority
(Zinwa) and Harare
City Council over non-payment for water treatment assets
taken over by the
parastatal.
Sources at Town House said council shot down a
government
directive to transfer council workers, liabilities incurred by
council on
water treatment chemicals and other assets to Zinwa at no
cost.
Despite the protest, Zinwa proceeded to take over the
Harare
bulk water supply, Morton Jeffery Waterworks plant, workers and other
council assets, making a conflict imminent.
Council
spokesman Percy Toriro confirmed that Zinwa had not paid
anything since last
year when it took over water distribution.
"It's a year now
since Zinwa took over water distribution but
they have not paid anything,"
Toriro said. "It is not likely that Zinwa will
pay anything to
council."
Zinwa chairman Willie Muringani said the authority
was not going
to pay anything to the city council because that would
unnecessarily
increase water rates and overburden the
ratepayer.
"The assets we took over are owned by the
ratepayers and for us
to pay council would mean making ratepayers buy the
assets for the second
time," Muringani said.
"Zinwa as a
government-owned company would have to increase its
water rates to get money
to pay Harare council which translates to demanding
more money from the
ratepayer."
Muringani said the assets were after all bought
using government
grants.
"Virtually all the assets were
bought using government grants
and loans so it is the government which
decides the fate of the assets," he
said.
Council
officials said assets taken over by Zinwa include all
dams that supply water
to Harare, treatment plants, engineering staff,
houses and even the council
bus, which used to ferry staff to the waterworks
in Norton from
Harare.
The rift is worsened by Zinwa's continued failure to
resolve
Harare's water crisis in the face of increasing demand due to the
current
hot spell. Harare's northern, eastern and southern suburbs are
experiencing
serious water shortages and have been subjected to rationing,
sometimes
going for weeks without water.
Zinwa on
Wednesday published its schedule of water cuts that
would apply until the
onset of rains expected in November.
The authority said
"northern suburbs will be cut at 7am on days
when the date is an even
number, with supplies resuming at 7am the following
day. Southern and
north-eastern suburbs will be cut at 7am on days when the
date is an odd
number," Zinwa said in a statement.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
JUSTICE
minister Patrick Chinamasa cannot escape conviction in
the High Court in his
attempt to obstruct the ends of justice case if all
the evidence led by the
state is considered, the Attorney-General's Office
has
said.
In appeal papers filed at the High Court last week
against
retired magistrate Phenias Chipopoteke's decision to acquit
Chinamasa, the
AG's office said the lower court had
erred.
Chinamasa stands accused of putting pressure on key
state
witness and war veteran James Kaunye to drop charges against National
Security minister Didymus Mutasa's supporters, who have since been
imprisoned for three years.
"It is humbly submitted that
the respondent (Chinamasa) cannot
escape conviction if a complete and
meaningful judgement touching on all the
material evidence led during the
trial is passed," the appeal says.
It says that the lower
court misdirected itself when it assessed
evidence on the alleged rift
between Kaunye and Mutasa as the Zanu PF
secretary for administration was
not on trial.
"The learned court erred and misdirected itself
in law when it
assessed evidence in a case which was not before it, inter
alia the
representation between James Kaunye and Didymus Mutasa was not
material to
the issue before the court. Didymus Mutasa was not on trial,"
the appeal
said.
Chinamasa has denied any wrongdoing
saying he was caught in
"crossfire" between Kaunye and Mutasa after the
former had failed to wrestle
the right to represent Makoni North on the
ruling party's ticket.
The appeal also disputed the lower
court's ruling that the state's
key witness James Kaunye could not be
trusted.
"There was no basis in law to disbelieve the
evidence of James
Kaunye, a competent and credible witness," the appeal
said.
It added that the magistrate's court also failed to go
through a
court record involving one Kudzanai Chipanga as that matter
resulted in a
court order being issued culminating in Chinamasa's
arraignment.
"The court stated that it could not go through
that record as it
was voluminous. In its wisdom, the court went on to
comment on a court order
that was issued in the Kudzanai Chipanga case
without reading the record,"
the appeal further
contended.
Chinamasa's lawyer James Mutizwa said the appeal
was just an
academic exercise.
"The AG has every right to
appeal but it will not change
anything. It is an academic exercise which may
achieve a clear statement of
the law," said Mutizwa
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
THE board of
the local chapter of the Media Institute of
Southern Africa (Misa) met on
Monday to discuss allegations that one of its
officials is a member of the
Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), board
chairman Thomas Deve
confirmed yesterday.
Deve said the issue came up during an
induction meeting for new
board members.
Apart from
claiming mid this month that the top Misa official
was an intelligence
operative, a local news website, NewZimbabwe.com, also
alleged that the
media organisation's member "is very close" to President
Robert Mugabe's
press secretary George Charamba, a relationship said to have
begun during
their days at the University of Zimbabwe.
In an interview
yesterday, Deve said: "We discussed how to
respond to the allegation. Since
the source of the allegation did not name
the official, we agreed that for
now there is no need to respond to the
allegation."
Deve
refused to answer other questions regarding the meeting
saying issues
discussed were confidential until approved by board members.
"It was an induction meeting for new board members. I cannot
comment because
our minutes are confidential until we pass them as a correct
record at our
next board meeting," Deve said.
On claims that he was asked
to step down during that meeting,
Deve said: "There is nothing like that,
there was nothing like that."
Misa is a media freedom
advocacy organisation with chapters in
11 southern African countries
including South Africa, Namibia and Zambia.
Zim Independent
Itai Mushekwe
THE country's coal
crisis, which is threatening to cripple
economic activity, has been blamed
on government's non-payment of coal
supplies by Hwange Colliery, a document
titled "Update on Coal Supply
Situation" prepared this week by the coal
producer reveals.
Government, through power utility Zesa and
steel company
Ziscosteel, consumes 66% of national coal output, according to
the document.
Without making a candid reference to government, the coal
producer says the
supply of adequate coal to all industries in Zimbabwe is
well within the
company's capacity as "a permanent solution that addresses
the non-payment
by major customers is being put in place with the
involvement of all
stakeholders".
Zesa's Hwange power
station and its old thermal power stations
alone chew 2 700 000 tonnes of
coal annually, which equates to 55% of
national output estimated at 4 945
600 tonnes.
Ziscosteel uses 540 000 tonnes of coal per annum
or 11% of total
production. Other key customers of the company include coal
distributors,
cement companies, mines, brick makers, agriculture and general
industry
accounting for 34%.
Hwange Colliery marketing
and public relations manager Clifford
Nkomo on Wednesday said the firm was
facing cashflow problems and had
obsolete equipment. He said production had
plummeted due to Zesa and
Ziscosteel's failure to make timely payments for
coal supplies.
"We're facing cashflow challenges and our
machinery is now
obsolete," he said. "Failure to make payments by companies
such as Zesa and
Ziscosteel - our biggest customers - has left us without
money to buy spare
parts and fuel, thus reducing production capacity.
However, the two are now
showing willingness to pay. In July the central
bank paid $1,5 trillion to
settle Zesa and Zisco's
debts."
Failure by Hwange to produce adequate coal supplies
has resulted
in some companies importing it from Zambia and Botswana. Nkomo
said the coal
miner had since come up with investment
valued
at over US$15 million to achieve optimum production
through two new mines -
the 3-Main underground and Chaba Opencast.
The new mines mark
Hwange's transition from its old mine, the No
3 M Block underground and JKL
Opencast opened in 1981. The two new mines,
Nkomo said, have a lifespan of
25 years.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
ZIMBABWE'S
defenceless dollar this week plumbed fresh depths on
the parallel market as
buyers scrambled to park their funds in foreign
currency on the back of a
grim inflationary outlook.
Dealers said even after suffering
massive losses over the past
few weeks, the Zimbabwe dollar was still
battling to find a bottom due to
escalating demand from both institutional
buyers and individuals trying to
escape inflation-induced losses on local
currency holdings.
The local unit, which traded on the
thriving parallel market at
a rate of $900 to the greenback last week, was
by yesterday selling for $1
500: US$1 for large volume transactions, with
small transactions attracting
a rate of between $1 200 and $1 300 per US
dollar.
Other currencies, mainly the Euro, the British pound
and the
South African rand, were moving around the benchmark US dollar
rate.
The Zimbabwe dollar traded at $100 000 (or $100 under
the new
currency system) per US dollar on the parallel market at the
beginning of
the year, from between $95 000/$96 000 per greenback at the
close of 2005.
Parallel market dealers said the currency had
been moving daily
during the week in line with mounting
demand.
They indicated that supply was being limited by fears
on the
part of the seller that they would sell short in a rapidly moving
market.
An International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast putting
inflation
at an average 1 200% this year, and 4 279% next year had sparked
heavy
buying on the parallel market as both individuals and institutions
sought to
hedge themselves against inflation, market analysts
said.
Inflation last month touched an all-time high of 1
204,6%
year-on-year, and there are indications it could swell to record
levels in
the coming months.
The hyperinflationary cycle
has made it unattractive to hold the
local currency when costs for goods and
services go up almost everyday.
This has meant that rather
than saving, people are now making
sure they spend their little incomes as
fast as they can, on goods.
Analysts predict a pronounced
flight from the domestic currency
as a store of value by people holding cash
shifting their wealth into hard
currency or durable goods.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
MONEY supply
surged 126,7 percentage points during the month of
June to 826,6% on the
back of increased demand for cash and increased cash
circulation in the
economy, the central bank said this week.
Money supply was at
669,9% in May.
"Annual broad money continued on an upward
trend, rising to
826,6% in June 2006 from 669,9% in May 2006," the central
bank said.
Narrow and quasi money for the period increased to
823,9% and
817,4% from 690,2% and 657,6% respectively.
Money supply growth has been blamed for worsening inflationary
pressure in
the economy. Inflation reached 1 204,6 year-on-year for August
after a brief
decline during the previous two months.
The central bank said
reserve money rose to $56,6 billion in
June from the May figure of $48,3
billion. The increase was largely driven
by currency in circulation which
increased by $10,6 billion.
The bank's required reserves and
other deposits however declined
by $2,8 billion and $430 million
respectively.
Analysts said money supply was too high and
detrimental to any
prospects of economic stability in the
country.
Brains Muchemwa, chief economist at Metropolitan
Bank, told
businessdigest that the latest increases were a reflection of how
the
monetary bases in the economy were ballooning due to high domestic
credit
from government borrowing.
Muchemwa said the large
concessionary facilities availed to the
private sector were stoking
inflationary pressures in the economy because
these were not being
complemented by increased productivity.
Output growth, he
said, was not responding to increases in money
supply from both the demand
and supply sides.
"The problems of high money supply growth
are expected to
continue haunting the country from the perspective that the
revenue base of
the government is shrinking in real terms and to meet its
expenditure
requirement, it has to continue resorting to the domestic market
to raise
funds," he said.
Muchemwa said the recent
bloated supplementary budget was
testimony to the problems facing the
government.
Zim Independent
THE central bank remained unperturbed by market
concerns over
low interest rates in a hyperinflationary environment and
continued to
suppress bids asking for higher rates on its daily treasury
bill (TB)
auctions.
The three-month paper, which the
Reserve Bank had abandoned on
August 4, bounced back on Tuesday with an
average rate of 66,33%, down on
the old rate of 200% when the central bank
last issued the three-month
paper.
"As expected, there
was an awful stampede for it as total bids
of $12,1 billion were received
yet the central bank only allotted $1
billion," equities firm, Kingdom
Stockbrokers, said in its weekly commentary
to investors.
"Surprisingly, one bank went in at 200% and obviously got
nothing. The
highest tendered rate was 200% while the lowest was 50%,"
Kingdom
said.
The stockbroking company said indications were that
Tuesday's
tender "was only meant to align rates to what has happened to six
months and
one-year papers".
"For instance, the 181-day
rate, which stood at 250% prior to
its stoppage on August 31, resurfaced on
Tuesday (12/09/06) and Wednesday
(13/09/06) lower at 199% and 143,44%,
respectively. Last week the paper was
on offer since Tuesday (19/09/06) and
the rate closed lower at 128,5% while
on Wednesday (20/09/06) it slumped
further to 105.91%," the firm's analyst
said in the weekly
report.
On Monday, the rate closed even lower at
100,93%.
The 365-day Treasury bill that had early this month
stabilised
at 300% fell to 192,38% when the central bank brought it back
during the
middle of the month.
Last week, the rate
closed lower on Friday at 150%. - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
By Jonathan Moyo
AS President
Robert Mugabe's troubled days in power become truly
numbered amid ill-fated
machinations by his military and security handlers
to keep him at State
House until 2010 through a subversive constitutional
amendment that has been
on the evil deck of cards for more than a year, his
continued stay in office
has become a source of national pain and
international shame for
Zimbabweans.
Three events in the past week conspired to make
this point with
some telling drama.
The one event is the
confirmation by Nathan Shamuyarira, Zanu PF's
secretary for information and
publicity, that Zimbabwe's military schemers
have resolved to extend
Mugabe's presidency outside the electoral process
through an undemocratic
constitutional amendment that will put Mugabe's
interests first and those of
the people last.
The other event was Mugabe's visit to New
York for the annual UN
General Assembly meeting where his growing
international isolation once
again came to the fore.
And
the third event was Mugabe's unpresidential, unstatesman and
scandalous
response to the shocking brutality against some 15 arrested
leaders of the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) in police cells.
The
facts surrounding the arrests and the severe beatings of the
trade union
leaders are now common cause. According to the police, the
arrests were made
because the labour activists were about to lead a widely
publicised
demonstration that predictably the authorities considered
illegal. By all
reported indications, the demonstration was doomed to fail
as those who had
been expected to participate in it had stayed at work for
one reason or
another.
As such there was no commotion of any kind when the
police
arrested the trade union leaders because there were only a handful of
individuals present and the atmosphere was uneventful. What has shocked the
world is that after they were arrested and while they were in police cells,
the 15 labour leaders were subjected to savage brutality at the hands of
police and other spooky security personnel.
The severe
beatings were illegal and therefore without any good
cause whatsoever. When
Mugabe was initially asked about the brutality by the
Associated Press in
New York he acknowledged the savagery of the security
personnel involved and
described the incident as "the overzealousness of one
or two police
exaggerating their role".
It was quite some relief to hear
these presidential words from
Mugabe speaking to a foreign news agency in
New York and the words fuelled
positive expectations that legal action was
on the way against the
overzealous security personnel who had violated the
human rights of the 15
trade union leaders to the detriment of the national
interest.
But, alas, it did not take long for Mugabe to come
out in his
true traditional violent mantra. Mugabe only needed an obliging
Zimbabwean
audience, away from New York, to rant and rave in support of
naked violence.
That audience was delivered to him by the Zimbabwean embassy
in Egypt during
a stopover from New York on his way back
home.
Perhaps feeling secure in Africa, Mugabe abandoned his
New York
view that the severe beatings of the 15 trade union leaders had
been the
result of overzealous security personnel who had exaggerated their
role and
adopted a violent Cairo stance that the beatings were most
deserved.
By the time he got back to Harare on Monday,
Mugabe's Cairo
anger had become as brutal as the severe beatings themselves,
effectively
telling a Zanu PF crowd that received him at the airport, most
of it drawn
from Mbare Musika which had to be closed for the purpose, that
when the
police say move you must move or risk being left with broken
limbs.
Forgetting about the effects of sanctions against him
and others
associated with his contested rule, Mugabe claimed that there was
nothing
that the Americans and Europeans could do about the savage beatings
and
those complaining about them.
Many well-meaning
people have been left dumbfounded by Mugabe's
claims that the beatings were
deserved and his promise of more and worse of
the same
brutality.
Here is a president on his way out, whose 26-year
controversial
rule has left him open to various serious charges of
committing crimes
against humanity including Gukurahundi and Operation
Murambatsvina, still
refusing at this eleventh hour to secure his legacy by
atoning for his
brutality; still continuing to cherish the language of
brutality and torture
when the bells of justice are tolling by his exit
door.
As a grandfather emeritus, Mugabe is squandering his
last
opportunity to engender good national will. If you ask anyone with an
80-something grandfather, they will tell you that old age can be a wonderful
blessing that brings with it not just exemplary wisdom but also a kind of
engaging human innocence and spiritual purity that breed
fairness.
Yet for some reason, most probably a very strange
one, Mugabe
continues to lack these essential qualities found in abundance
among his
African peers like Nelson Mandela and Kenneth Kaunda and the late
vice-presidents Joshua Nkomo and Simon Muzenda.
Mugabe's
lack of human innocence and spiritual purity explains
why he has become a
very lonesome and now irrelevant figure as demonstrated
by the kind of cold
reception he now gets at various international forums.
An examination of his
recent trip to the United Nations shows that it has
now become dangerous to
allow Mugabe to represent Zimbabwe at any
international
forum.
The speeches that he makes at the UN, at Sadc or
wherever have
become too predictable and utterly inconsequential in terms of
defending or
promoting Zimbabwe's national interest. For example, his recent
trip will be
remembered for his scandalous defence of the severe beatings
and torture of
the 15 trade union leaders whose crime was to be in police
custody for
engaging in a peaceful demonstration that did not even take
place.
It is notable that while in New York, the only foreign
leader
that Mugabe met was Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete whom he had
ample
opportunity to meet only last month closer to home in Lesotho during
the
Sadc summit which he inexplicably left in a huff.
If
there is anybody in government or Zanu PF or anywhere else
who thinks it was
proper for Mugabe to travel in the national interest to
New York with his
wife and a retinue of mandarins to read an old speech and
thereafter only to
meet with the president of the Republic of Tanzania, then
that person needs
to have their head examined by a competent psychiatrist.
Some
cynical Zimbabweans are now openly saying the reason Mugabe
and his wife
continue to make these trips to the UN in New York and
elsewhere in western
capitals is to beat the travel sanctions for the First
Family's
shopping interests only, with nothing for Zimbabwe to
gain. This is indeed a
cynical view but it does drive the point home rather
well.
Against this backdrop, and given the worsening
economic meltdown
in the country that has seen galloping inflation projected
at more than 4
000% next year in an economy in which there is no shortage of
shortages of
anything important or essential, it is unbelievable that
Shamuyarira had no
qualms confirming that the Constitution of Zimbabwe would
be amended yet
again to deny Zimbabweans their right to elect a president in
2008 in order
to give Mugabe at least two more years at State House through
a manipulated
Zanu PF vote in parliament.
Apparently, the
military and security establishment that is
behind Mugabe's throne has
realised rather too late that Mugabe has not only
become internationally
isolated but also that he has failed to groom a
successor and, even more
ominously, to make any room for interested or
potential successors to groom
themselves. This is the reason for the
proposed amendment - to ensure that
Mugabe succeeds himself.
But in the name of what
Chimurenga?
The argument that the presidential election due
in March 2008
should be nullified to save costs by harmonising parliamentary
and
presidential elections in 2010 is so manifestly stupid that even those
advancing it cannot possibly believe it and still remain
sane.
If there is indeed an argument about high election
costs, then
the rational thing to do is to harmonise presidential and
parliamentary
elections in 2008 because there is nothing at law preventing
the dissolution
of parliament at anytime during its life.
This would give the nation the much-needed space and opportunity
to provide
a critical political solution to the economic meltdown which
would otherwise
get worse should presidential elections be nullified through
a
constitutional amendment that puts Mugabe above the people.
*
Professor Jonathan Moyo is independent MP for Tsholotsho and
former
Information minister.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
NEWS last week
that Zimbabwe's domestic debt had doubled in half
a month was the clearest
sign yet that government continues to spend beyond
its means and confirms
its role as the major driver of inflation through
printing of money to fund
the debt.
Domestic debt this month doubled in a space of less
than 15 days
to reach its highest peak of $127 billion, a serious indictment
of a
government which has consistently promised to cut its excessive
expenditure.
According to Reserve Bank figures released last
week, government
debt opened the month of September at $64 billion, reaching
$97 billion in
seven days before jumping to $127 billion by
mid-month.
About $45 billion of the debt is the principal
amount of
treasury bills that have been floated while $81 billion (about 67%
of total
debt) is in interest that government will have to
pay.
The debt translates to 15% of nominal gross domestic
product -
the country's total wealth of $840 billion. Put differently, by
borrowing
excessively government is eating into the national
pie.
So far there are no signs that government will ease its
foot on
the pedal of borrowing any time soon. If anything, the debt crisis
will get
worse.
Events in the past six months indicate
government is not, even
though it claims otherwise, committed to cutting
down its expenditure. It
remains tethered to the irrational notion that the
flow of time will
inevitably cure such skewed practices.
Over the past six months President Robert Mugabe's government
has come up
with policies and activities that can only drain the fiscus and
force the
state to borrow more to fund them. They show that reducing
expenditure is
certainly not a priority in the government.
The government
has overrun its budget targets to force a
supplementary budget of $327
billion, an amount that far exceeds the revenue
that it has
generated.
The introduction of the senate, the purchase of
fighter jets and
a new fleet of vehicles for ministries, together with the
expensive currency
change bear testimony to a government unwilling to live
within its means.
All these expenses were not originally
budgeted for and so were
financed through borrowing that was facilitated by
money printing. They were
all inconsistent with policy priorities and could
therefore have been
postponed or avoided altogether.
Economists say it is these irrational policies that have driven
the country
into a debt trap.
Commentator Eric Bloch said public debt was
increasing at an
alarming rate because government had resigned itself to
running on borrowed
money.
"They will continue to borrow
because the country is not
generating enough revenue to fund its activities.
Such a high debt leads to
more inflation and is an indication of the poor
policies that they have been
implementing," Bloch said.
While government seems unfazed by the surge in domestic debt,
experts say
the "borrowing craze" has far-reaching consequences on the whole
economy
especially on the vulnerable groups who are already battling with
swingeing
inflation and shortages of most basic commodities including
food.
Government has no means of raising money other than
through
taxes and any debt that it acquires will have to be paid by
taxpayers as its
major source of revenue.
Bloated public
debt means government is pushing it citizens into
an abysmal debt trap.
Apart from the normal debt that every Zimbabwean has
acquired in their
individual capacities, they also have a national
obligation that has been
created for them by a government that cannot tame
its
extravagance.
Calculated on the assumption that Zimbabwe has
a population of
13 million, the debt figures mean that each person it this
country,
including children born today, has a debt of $9
769.
Economic consultant Peter Robinson said the debt made
Zimbabweans poorer because government would charge them high taxes to meet
its obligations.
Robinson said while in the short-term
money would be printed to
cover the debt, that expedient would come back to
haunt the people of
Zimbabwe because it would increase money supply,
resulting in even higher
inflation.
"The debt affects the
poor because if government prints money to
fund it this will lead to more
inflation. Inflation will not come down for
as long as government continues
to run the printing machines," said
Robinson.
"High
domestic debt, four-digit inflation and high money supply
are a
characteristic of failed regimes."
Zimbabwe has had to rely
on the local market for funds because
it has been isolated from the rest of
the world.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World
Bank and the
Paris Club have refused to give money to Zimbabwe because of
its poor
economic policies and political risk profile. A very poor human
rights
record and lack of property rights have compounded
things.
International financial isolation has forced Zimbabwe
to rely on
local borrowing.
That trend, economists say,
is crowding out productive private
players from the
market.
The government has over the past three years become
the major
player in the money market, taking a significant chunk of funds
that key
sectors should be using enhance production.
The
disaster, according to economist David Mupamhadzi, is that
government is
borrowing for consumptive purposes and therefore denying funds
to other
sectors that urgently need money for capital projects.
"Government is crowding out private players who are supposed to
borrow for
production to drive the economy," Mupamhadzi said. The debt only
adds to the
budget deficit that has been widening at an alarming rate.
Government's debt should certainly not help Zimbabwe's case when
the IMF
team comes here for the Article IV Consultations that are now
scheduled for
early November.
The bloated expenditure, budget deficit,
money printing and
government borrowing are some of the issues the IMF has
advised Zimbabwe to
deal with.
Harare has however failed
to deal with the problems despite
promises to do so.
Zim Independent
By Gabriel Shumba
THE
Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF) is deeply disturbed by the
public and shameful
confirmation that torture in Zimbabwe is orchestrated
and supported by the
government itself.
The report in the Herald of September 25
that President Robert
Mugabe openly encouraged police brutality has chilling
effects.
ZEF is shocked that while commenting on the serious
torture of
15 Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions leaders including Wellington
Chibebe
and Lucia Matibenga who suffered broken limbs while in police
custody for
organising peaceful labour protests on September 13, the
president was
unsympathetic and unapologetic.
Rather, he
openly gloated that those who dare challenge his
authority will face the
wrath of state agents and that there is nothing the
international community,
particularly the European Union and the United
States, can do about
it.
It is highly unsettling that Mugabe shows scant regard
for the
victims of this gruesome assault, even though they might suffer
permanent
injury. This incident is another telling example of how President
Mugabe is
more concerned about perpetuating his own misrule of the country
at all
costs.
ZEF believes that, in part, this vicious
cycle of torture is
exacerbated by impunity and the war mentality of those
that govern us. The
government has turned monstrous, sanctioning the
butchering of its own
people.
We agree with the
International Bar Association's and others'
view that there is need for
regional and international action to hold the
Zimbabwean government to
account for its actions. This call has been
repeated several times and we
repeat again that Zimbabwe needs urgent
international intervention, even a
military one as in Darfur and the DRC.
International law
cannot be flouted with impunity while the
world remains silent. We warn that
if this persists, Zimbabweans may be
forced to resort to violence against
this repressive regime, a situation
that should be
prevented.
* Gabriel Shumba, a human rights lawyer, is
executive director
of ZEF.
Zim Independent
By
George Ayittey
IT is extremely difficult to criticise opposition forces
in Zimbabwe because
of the heinous brutalities unleashed on them by the
Mugabe regime. Criticism
may sound like condoning the brutalities or rubbing
salt into their wounds.
But the opposition in Zimbabwe needs a good
talking to. The aborted Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) protest
march was, to put it mildly, dumb.
To effect peaceful change in Zimbabwe,
we need an intelligent opposition,
not one which continuously repeats old
stupid mistakes. Harsh words but they
need to be spoken because if the
corrupt and incompetent Mugabe regime can't
get it right, those who seek to
replace that regime ought to get it right.
The people of Zimbabwe demand
nothing more or nothing less.
A failed opposition strategy or move
prolongs the tenure of a brutally
repressive regime and the suffering of the
people. Further, it demoralises
the people and lulls them into thinking that
if the squabbling and
ineffective opposition groups can't get their act
together, then they might
as well let the tyrant stay or join him in order
to survive. It is called
"politics of the belly".
Opposition groups
need to realise that public patience is not inexhaustible.
If their actions
continue to fail, the public may simply write off the
feckless opposition.
Next time they call for a national strike, the public
will ignore
it.
The ZCTU action was flawed on all fronts and doomed to failure right
from
the get-go. The ZCTU had planned to march in protest against high
levels of
taxation and inadequate anti-retroviral drugs for HIV and Aids
patients
among the country's workforce. Some marchers intended to present a
petition
to Labour minister Nicholas Goche and Finance Minister Herbert
Murerwa.
First, the objectives were too broad, general or amorphous. How
does one
define "high levels of taxation" for example?
The second
problem was the exclusivity of the language chosen. It is not
just the
country's workforce that is suffering. All the people are
suffering,
including housewives, peasant farmers and everyone who is
self-employed in
the rural and informal sectors of the economy.
Where was the ZCTU during
Operation Murambatsvina that rendered more than
700 000 traders and
informals homeless in May 2005? If the ZCTU does not
represent them, why
should they embrace any planned mass action by the
union?
Third, the
nature of the objectives suggested that ZCTU does not want a
"regime change"
but wants the same regime to introduce new policy changes to
alleviate the
suffering of the country's workforce. It is an exercise in
grand delusion if
the ZCTU thinks the regime, which has failed Zimbabweans
for the past 25
years, is capable of improving the lot of the country's
workforce, let alone
that of all Zimbabweans. The vast majority of the
Zimbabwe people want
regime change - a new horse, rather than flogging a
dead
horse.
Fourth, the objectives were non-achievable. The regime could have
allowed
the strike to proceed, accepted the petitions, and promise to import
more
anti-retroviral drugs as well as introduce legislation that would give
each
worker $1 million. Would that have amounted to victory?
It also
appears the ZCTU acted on its own, without collaborating or
consulting with
other opposition groups - the political parties, churches
and student
organisations. But it is not the ZCTU alone that is guilty of
this. At one
time, you hear of church leaders mobilising for action, then at
another time
you hear of opposition parties taking their own separate
action.
Divided opposition groups are a delight to a barbarous
regime. If each group
does its own thing, the regime will play one group
against the other and
remain in power. It is called "divide and rule",
stupid.
It needs to be reiterated that no single opposition party or
group by itself
can remove entrenched tyranny from power. It takes an
alliance of opposition
forces. If Zimbabwe opposition group leaders don't
get it by now, they never
will and the country will slide into
war.
ZCTU leaders don't seem to have learned anything at all from their
own
experience or that of other African countries. Name me just two
objectives
that protest marches have been able to achieve in the past five
years. Just
two!
Protest marches, to put it bluntly, are just plain
dumb. Just because they
worked against the white colonialists, who were
"frightened" by a huge mass
of black people, does not mean they will work
against black
neo-colonialists.
Have ZCTU leaders not heard about
security forces in other African countries
arresting leaders of protest
marches, beating up demonstrators and even
opening fire on protestors? Have
they not followed events in Ethiopia where
45 were killed when police opened
fire on demonstrators protesting
fraudulent elections in May 2005? How about
Nigeria, where trade union
leaders were arrested in a bid to protest high
fuel prices in 2004?
You don't fight a tyrannical regime with protest
marches unless the security
forces are neutral and professional or are on
your side. Short of this, the
regime will unleash them on the protestors and
their leaders. This does not
require rocket science.
There are better
ways of fighting a tyrannical regime and they require a
huge dose of the
imagination and learning from the experiences of other
countries. First, if
a strike should be called, it must be of the "stay
home" nature, not in the
streets for security forces to beat people up and
arrest leaders. Such a
successful "stay home" - dubbed "dead city"
campaign - was launched by Pa
Fru Ndi, of the Social Democratic Party of
Cameroon in 1991. On a certain
particular day, all the residents of a
certain city just stayed home,
rendering the city "dead". And it revolved
from one city to another across
Cameroon.
The objective was simple: a demand for a new voter register.
The government
caved in, although President Paul Biya subsequently stole the
1992 election.
Second, if a strike must be called to put pressure on
government, the most
effective is a civil servants' strike. In March 1978,
civil servants in
Ghana went on strike to press their demands for better
working conditions.
It led to a chain of events which culminated in the
ouster of the military
regime of General IK Acheampong in July
1978.
General Akuffo did not address the grievances of the civil
servants. Another
strike was called in November 1978. That too set in motion
events which led
to the overthrow of the Akuffo regime by Jerry Rawlings in
June 1979.
In 1989, civil servants in Benin went on strike to demand
payment of their
salary arrears. That strike too paralysed government and
the country,
setting in motion events which led to the ouster of Mathieu
Kerekou in
January 1991.
In Benin, the political parties, churches,
and civil society groups stepped
in and convened the first Sovereign
National Conference, which tossed the
Marxist-Leninist Kerekou out of
office. Benin has been a democratic country
since then.
In the case
of Ghana, Rawlings stepped down after three months in 1979. Two
years later,
he staged another military coup to remove the civilian
government in 1981
and ruled for nearly 20 years. In 2000 and fed up with
his tyrannical rule,
Ghanaians kicked him out of office. I was part of that
effort.
The
bottom line is this: if opposition groups in Zimbabwe cannot shut down
the
civil service or think imaginatively of effective ways of instituting
political change, they will be politely ignored by the international
community and the people of Zimbabwe will continue to suffer. Protest
marches, appeals and petitions don't work against a regime that is blind and
stone-deaf.
* George BN Ayittey is a Ghanaian academic who teaches at
the American
University in Washington DC.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
By Vincent Kahiya
JUST a week after its publication the much-awaited MDC
commission of inquiry
report into the assault on MP Trudy Stevenson and
others has dissipated in
the wake of this week's presidential support for
the police's brutal assault
on ZCTU demonstrators.
That the report has quickly lost
public interest is not
surprising because its "findings" were as predictable
as sunrise. It was
wafer thin on tangible evidence to nail the Central
Intelligence
Organisation in the assault on Stevenson and her colleagues
from the
Mutambara faction. Even before the appointment of the commission,
there were
two ready answers for anyone vaguely interested in politics as to
who was
responsible for the beating up of the activists - it was either
Tsvangirai's
people or the CIO.
The report accuses both
and to some extent tries to suggest
collaboration between the
two.
"Infiltrators could have used members of the MDC or
their own
people pretending to be MDC members to perpetrate the attack in an
effort
(which has been successful) to cause instability and further friction
between the two opposing groupings," said the report.
The
report said there were three factions in the constituency
and all of them
had been seriously infiltrated by state intelligence. It
said "the
infiltrators in all three groups were working together and
coordinating
their activities in the lead up to and the perpetration of the
attack".
Conspiracy theories are clearly not the preserve of Zanu PF!
In the end the hazy picture of the plot is further muddied by
statements
that the sort of violence which befell the Harare North MP did
not surprise
the dozens who gave evidence. It appears to be the modus
operandi of the
party.
This is summed up by the party's director of security
Nhamo
Musekiwa's admission in a 2004 Report of the Commission into
Disturbances at
MDC party headquarters, that violence was necessary. The
report captures the
admission in this way:
Question: "Do
you have faith in the use of violence as a way of
investigating offences in
the party?"
Answer: "Oh yes, it is a useful method because
people always
feign innocence when in actual fact they are guilty, so the
best way is to
beat them up until they admit."
This is
deadly ammunition for Zanu PF and the state.
It is
blood-chilling to contemplate that this brazen admission
on the use of
torture has been left to fester to this day. I do not recall
the statement
being recanted anywhere.
This tactic could be employed
tomorrow with impunity because
mere words by the party's leadership
denouncing violence are not necessarily
supported by tangible action on the
ground. The unwillingness of the
leadership to deal with violence was
highlighted in the 2004 report. It is
also there in the current report
because the cancer has remained untreated.
While the
commission struggled to tell us "who dunnit", the
report is very useful in
as far as it portrays the MDC as a sick political
entity rotting at the core
as a result of disunity, self-aggrandisement and
lack of proper direction.
This is not about Tsvangirai vs Mutambara. It is a
dislocation within the
Tsvangirai faction itself, according to the report.
The evidence adduced by
dozens of people who testified shows lack of trust
among office bearers in
Mabvuku, hence accusations and counter-accusations
of officials working with
the government intelligence
agencies.
There is
a disrespect of leaders, there is no clear policy
direction and there is
also a feeling that occupying an executive position
in the party has become
a vocation for officials. They are in it for the
money and they do not seem
to mind where the money comes from. The testimony
of Mabvuku MP Timothy
Mubhawu - himself not a paragon of virtue - supports
this unfortunate
observation.
The commission makes this important
recommendation on what the
party needs to do in Mabvuku: "The national
organising secretary, together
with the Harare provincial chairperson, need
to urgently put in place
measures to ensure that all office-bearers within
Mabvuku constituency are
familiar with the provisions of the party
constitution, especially insofar
as they relate to their own structures, the
composition thereof, how they
are elected, how they may be removed, their
mandate and function, and how
they interact with other structures within the
constituency."
The commission further recommended that the
measures "be
undertaken as part of a nationwide educational process of
members by the
party, as we are convinced such lack of awareness is not
limited to Mabvuku
constituency, and it is hindering the party's
efficacy".
Reading Zanu PF Bulawayo province secretary for
information
Effort Nkomo's Q&A session in the Sunday News this week
about indiscipline
in the party, I couldn't help but draw parallels with the
commission's
observation about the MDC. How ironic!
Zim Independent
Comment
PRESIDENT Mugabe's endorsement of police violence has
with one
stroke stripped the mask of reason that he likes to present to the
world.
And it will have tarnished the nation's image
irretrievably.
Abandoning the role of a
more-sinned-against-than-sinning ruler
projected during his interview with
Associated Press in New York, Mugabe has
now revealed the more vicious
streak that has come to the fore in recent
years. ZCTU leaders got what they
deserved, he told Zimbabwe embassy staff
in Cairo last Saturday, after
complaints by foreign governments and human
rights bodies began to pour
in.
He repeated these damaging remarks on arrival at Harare
airport
on Monday, saying labour leaders who break the law and disregard
police
orders would be beaten up. They got what they deserved for refusing
to
disperse, Mugabe told supporters.
"The police must do
their work," he said. "Anyone who resists is
actually inviting police to use
force."
It is instructive to note here how Mugabe has given
the
impression that the ZCTU leaders got their bones broken because they
refused
to disperse when told to do so. Leaving aside the obvious point that
the
police have no right to assault people in any circumstances, Mugabe must
not
be allowed to get away with his deceptive spin on
events.
The ZCTU leaders and others were assaulted in police
holding
cells, not on the streets. Their attempt at mounting a protest on
the
streets had been thwarted by a blanket police
presence.
A magistrate who saw the condition of the ZCTU
leaders in
hospital ordered a police investigation. It will be interesting
to see how
this proceeds following Mugabe's remarks.
There is a precedent for all this. After Standard newspaper
editor Mark
Chavunduka and his colleague Ray Choto were tortured in state
custody in
January 1999 over a story claiming that disgruntled soldiers had
planned a
coup, Mugabe went on television to warn them of further military
retribution
if they published such a story again. He also threatened the
Standard's
owners.
Meanwhile, a court-ordered police investigation of
the two
journalists' treatment came to an abrupt halt at the gates of the
KGVI
barracks.
Just as egregious is the case of Joseph
Mwale who, although an
employee of the Office of the President, continues to
roam free despite
court cases linking him to the murder of two MDC
supporters in 2000.
What Mugabe has done now is to spread the
fire-wall of impunity
to rogue police officers who systematically assaulted
the ZCTU detainees
held in their custody. The victims' only offence was to
have attempted to
protest against prevailing economic
conditions.
The head of state has sworn to uphold the
constitution which
protects citizens from torture and other cruel
punishment. Zimbabwe is a
signatory to international covenants barring the
use of torture. His latest
outburst, coming a month after his threat that
the armed forces have their
fingers on the trigger, expose him to the
scrutiny of the international
courts. The maladroit remarks are also likely
to embarrass the police who
have always denied the use of torture. This can
no longer be portrayed as
the work of a few overzealous officers, as Mugabe
suggested in New York. It
is clearly state policy approved by the highest
office in the land.
Reported on the same day as Mugabe's
menaces, acting Home
Affairs minister Nicholas Goche was lecturing the
defence forces on the need
to conduct themselves "in bona fide". Members of
the defence forces should
"conduct themselves in a manner that recognises
the norms and values of a
civilised society when called upon to assist
during times of civil
disobedience", Goche said.
Sadly
these enlightened exhortations are likely to be overlooked
by a police force
which has been given a greenlight to engage in brutality
against individuals
held in its charge.
It is to be hoped that the victims of
this violence will explore
their options in the civil courts. That includes
identifying those giving
the orders.
At the end of the
day Mugabe has compounded a bad situation. His
remarks will have appalled
most people reading them around the world and
will make defence of his
regime doubly difficult for his few remaining
friends. At best they show a
complete absence of judgement and at worst they
border on incitement. The
nation has the right to expect better of the
president.
Zim Independent
Muckraker
SO, the "plot" to force the Reserve Bank
governor to abandon his
currency reforms by burning his maize crop has
turned out to be a less
dramatic affair.
Last month we
were told suspicious visitors to Gideon Gono's
Donnington Farm in Norton had
set fire to his maize crop to deter him from
pursuing Project Sunrise.
Security around the governor was stepped up as a
result of this "arson
attack" and President Mugabe warned Gono's detractors
against harming
him.
But like so many other state-invented plots, this one
has now
been exposed as a non-event - a "damp squib" as the Herald likes to
say.
A Norton magistrate last week fined two villagers $400
each for
carelessness under the Forestry Act. They had allowed ash from
their
home-made cigarettes to set fire to dry grass. There was no plot, just
an
accident. And all that fist-waving about the governor refusing to be
intimidated proved to be empty melodrama.
Then, with the
assassination of Andrei Kozlov, Gono got to play
the role of heroic besieged
banker a second time. It was an "occupational
hazard", he declared. Let's
hope not.
The CZI, ZNCC and Emcoz have been complaining
bitterly about the
detention of business people for hiking the price of
their products. This
was all grossly unfair, the CZI remonstrated. How could
they function like
this?
But just a week earlier CZI
president Callisto Jokonya and ZNCC's
Mara Hativagone were shrill in their
opposition to the ZCTU's planned
protests. Participants should have a day's
pay docked, Jokonya declared. "We
are not into politics and we do not want
to associate ourselves with those
elements that can create adverse
conditions for us in the future."
Hativagone said much the
same thing, pointing out that the mass
action was not her
concern.
We are reminded here of Pastor Niemoller's remarks
about the
Nazis.
"When they came for the Jews I said
nothing, I was not a Jew.
When they came for the Catholics I said nothing, I
was not a Catholic. When
they came for me there was no one left to
speak."
It is grossly naïve for leading business figures to
pretend that
they can conduct their business in a politics-free zone.
Politics is about
policy. It is about creating the climate in which business
can flourish. The
ZCTU protests against the economic wasteland the
government has created
should elicit at least a sympathetic hearing from
business leaders. Instead
they fall over themselves to see who can make the
most hostile comments in
order to ingratiate themselves with the
authorities.
Then it was their turn to feel the lash of the
state's
delinquent response to market pricing. And nobody is feeling very
sorry for
them.
It is not the ZCTU's fault that inflation
is at 1 200% or that
commercial agriculture has been decimated dragging
industry down with it.
Jokonya and Hativagone must think of
something intelligent to
say the next time protests are planned - lest we
mistake them for government
spokesmen.
Meanwhile for
once government can pat itself on the back for a
master stroke of policy
genius. Its controls on the price of bread have been
a complete success:
there is none in the shops and so no one is complaining
about bakers
profiteering. Instead a few enterprising individuals rush in
the morning to
buy all the loaves available from the bakeries and sell them
to the public
at almost twice the gazetted price. What a tricky way to
"protect consumers
from unscrupulous" businessmen!
Still on bread and butter
issues, government said this week the
bread crisis was due to "pricing
wars", not a shortage of wheat. The
official position was that there were
"sufficient wheat supplies" to meet
national requirements. Unfortunately
that assurance came from Agriculture
minister Joseph Made. They say once
bitten twice shy.
Another institution not to be trusted
to tell the truth is the
National Oil Company of Zimbabwe. On Friday the
firm claimed to have
distributed 3,2 million litres of diesel and petrol at
130 filling stations
across the country. This was duly lapped up by the
Herald without any
attempt to verify where these stations were
located.
The filling stations that got the fuel were obliged
to sell it
at the official prices of $320 and $335 per litre for diesel and
petrol
respectively, the paper told readers.
Noczim
spokesperson Zvikomborero Sibanda told the paper that
initially they had
experienced problems with filling station owners failing
to pay for supplies
in advance but that this had been resolved "since
dealers could now pay from
the proceeds of their allocations".
Naively we started
looking around hoping to stumble upon a
filling station with either diesel
or petrol out of the 130.
It was one of the most forlorn
searches in Harare. Even queues
were scarce, suggesting either that all
motorists had taken their fill
(impossible), that there was none (most
probable) or that some filling
stations were hoarding it (likely) to sell
later on the black market.
But we were quickly disabused of
the possibility of hoarding by
a firm assurance from Noczim's Sibanda. "We
are working closely with our
security forces to make sure that this does not
happen and that is why you
see police officers and soldiers manning filling
stations," chirped
Zvikomborero merrily.
Welcome to the
world of propaganda Zvikomborero. But the
transition might not be that
painful given lessons learnt at ZBC. Still we
could do with a few litres of
fuel in our vehicles instead of newspaper
columns.
The UNDP no doubt believes that by assisting the Ministry of
Justice it can
help produce a meaningful human rights commission. Evidently
the UN agency
chose to ignore statements from government that human rights
abuses were
"fabricated" and that NGOs would be the target of the new
body.
The workshop in Kariba last weekend bringing together
the UNDP,
government and civics to brainstorm the issue of human rights
ahead of the
legislative process got off to an inauspicious start when
officials barred
the participation of NGOs they didn't like. Others thought
participation
would be pointless.
The Crisis in Zimbabwe
Coalition refused to participate on the
grounds that laws such as the Public
Order and Security Act (Posa), the
Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act (Aippa) and the NGO Bill
"clearly show that government was not
serious about the issue of human
rights".
The government
could not deceive people of its "commitment" to
human rights, Crisis said,
while it participates in organised torture
against its citizens, and
recently the ZCTU leadership.
"The government has ignored and
in general terms dismissed the
United Nations report on Operation
Murambatsvina/Restore Order and its
recommendations on human rights," Crisis
pointed out.
The government had failed, if not refused, to
implement various
recommendations by the African Commission on Human and
Peoples' Rights
(2002) which recommended that Posa and Aippa should be
amended to meet
international standards for freedom of expression, the
police depoliticised,
youth militia camps closed and the independence of the
judiciary assured.
These are fundamental conditions around
which civil society
should mobilise. Otherwise the commission will very
quickly become another
weapon in the state's armoury, particularly as it can
block appeals outside
the country, and no self-respecting civics should lend
themselves to its
design until they have the democratic basics in
place.
The appearance of Jonathan Moyo on BBC's Hardtalk
generated much
interest locally last week. Viewers were perhaps hoping he
would use this
opportunity to distance himself from his checkered past as a
leading hawk in
President Mugabe's cabinet and make an unequivocal apology
to those he has
persecuted, particularly in the media.
Instead he attempted to justify himself, declaring: "I have
nothing to
apologise for.I never harmed anyone."
"But you threw out
journalists," Steven Sakur interjected. All
Moyo could manage in response to
that was: "Nobody should be above the law."
And the furthest he would go in
making an apology was to say: "You make
mistakes in public office. I made
mistakes and I regret it."
And that confession came only
after intensive probing by Sakur.
On the Daily News bombing,
Moyo said it could have been done by
a "Third Force". We weren't told who
constituted that murky outfit.
And he still clearly feels a
parent's fondness for Aippa. It was
a bipartisan piece of legislation, he
disingenuously claimed, and was
adopted "unanimously" by
parliament.
The fact that he is still making such misleading
claims suggests
he is in denial over the matter. One useful revelation was
his disclosure
that it was difficult to see President Mugabe outside of
cabinet meetings.
Moyo said he could count on one hand the number of times
he met Mugabe in
the course of a year.
He admitted
receiving a farm under the land reform and said
Zimbabwe would be a
democratic and prosperous society if the Constitutional
Commission's reform
agenda had succeeded. It was Eddison Zvobgo who had
invited him home to take
up that cause, he pointed out, not Mugabe.
There were some
interesting insights here but an absence of full
disclosure. Significantly,
Moyo was interviewed in Johannesburg because the
BBC is not allowed into
Zimbabwe - since Moyo banned them.
British Airways said
on Friday it would continue supporting
initiatives being taken by the
Zimbabwean government and other stakeholders
to promote tourism in the
country. The airline's sales support executive
Rachelle Gough said they
would support the Zimbabwean government's tourism
drive "because they
believed the country would soon regain its status as one
of the world's
premier tourist destinations".
And what leads her to play
Pollyanna? She doesn't say. There has
been no improvement in the supply of
fuel, in the inflation figures or in
the rule of law. On the contrary,
President Mugabe last weekend said trade
union protesters got what they
deserved when they were beaten up in police
holding
cells.
Is this the sort of country BA should be encouraging
people to
visit? Should they be joining in the official deceit that things
are getting
better?
Please Rachelle, can we borrow your
rose-tinted spectacles. It
may be good at times not to notice
things!
Meanwhile, we gather Zimbabwe delegates to the UN
summit had a
bumper harvest in New York. As their motorcade swept into the
capital on
Monday, several trucks packed with cardboard boxes could be seen
bringing up
the rear.
The Mbare boyz-in-the-hood who
normally pillage vehicles
returning from the airport along Dieppe Road
clearly gave this well-escorted
convoy a wide berth!
Finally, we rather liked the robust tone of the Sunday Times'
Hogarth
columnist who responded as follows to a demand for an apology from
Jacob
Zuma.
"Hogarth has incorrectly suggested that Jacob Zuma is a
blood-sucking, misogynistic, corrupt, shameless nincompoop who is gormlessly
seeking power at the expense of the nation's image.
"Zuma
is in fact not shameless. Hogarth regrets the error."
Zim Independent
By Eric Bloch
INFLATION in Zimbabwe has never been so great as it is at
present. Based
upon the Consumer Price Index (CPI), it soared to an all-time
high of 1
204,3%, year-on year, in August, which is higher than anywhere
else in the
world. As frighteningly abysmal as that is, even more fearful is
that it
appears inevitable that, for the immediate future, inflation is
going to
continue to spiral upwards, unless some very drastic and dynamic
actions to
hold the inflation surge are taken by government and by all
sectors of
society. In fact, a recently issued report of the International
Monetary
Fund (IMF) foreshadows that Zimbabwe's inflation in 2007 will reach
4
279%.
The intense upward movement in inflation in August was
concurrent with the redenomination of Zimbabwe currency, the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe having slashed three zeros from all the country's currency.
Unavoidably, many had thought, albeit erroneously, that the primary
motivation for the restructuring of the currency had been in order to
contain inflation.
When, instead of inflation declining,
it rocketed upwards, there
was widespread criticism of the currency
redenomination, with the majority
of the populace being oblivious to the RBZ
statements that the exercise had
been driven, wholly and solely, in order to
restore effective currency
management and security and was completely
unrelated to other economic
objectives.
It had been
undertaken in order to restore transaction
efficiency, reinstate the ability
of computers, cash registers, calculators,
petrol pump meters, and the like,
to function effectively, whilst
simultaneously virtually eliminating
dependency upon mechanical note
counters, and markedly reducing security
risks of those necessarily handling
large volumes of
cash.
Not recognising that these were the motivations and
intents of
the introduction of the redenominated currency, and being aware
that RBZ has
been taking a major role in endeavours to halt and reverse
inflation, the
greater part of the population unilaterally assumed the
exercise to be one
of inflation-targeting and the sudden, exponential rise
in inflation fuelled
vitriolic attacks upon RBZ for an allegedly failed
endeavour.
Concurrently, there was widespread allegation by
the masses that
retailers had exploited the opportunity of the change of
currency to
"conceal" yet further price increases, by resorting to upward
rounding-off
of prices, and that had also contributed substantially to the
cataclysmic
rise in inflation. Undoubtedly some retailers will have done so,
but all
indications are that they were relatively few. Some recognised that
doing so
would render their products uncompetitive, whilst most were fearful
of
excessive governmental responses and actions if they did
so.
The realities were diverse other very major causes of
inflation.
First and foremost will have been the intensifying scarcity of
foreign
exchange, having two very severe inflationary repercussions. The
first has
been, and is, that all are dependent upon imports for their
production, be
they raw materials, consumables, spares, plant and machinery,
or otherwise
have been unable to access the foreign currency necessary for
continuing
inflows of their needs. The result has been that productivity has
plummeted
downwards. At the same time, as a result of inflation, fixed costs
continue
to soar upwards. In order to survive, the producers have had little
or no
choice but to increase prices on what little they do produce in order
to
recover those fixed costs (fixed not as to price, but as to having to be
incurred, irrespective of whether or not production is attained, such as -
for example - salaries, rents, insurance, and so forth).
The second consequence has been that an ever increasing demand
for foreign
currency has developed within the parallel and black markets, as
producers
strive desperately to obtain critically needed currencies to fund
imports
and other foreign-exchange based costs. The demand in those
alternative
markets has also been fuelled by a massively increased endeavour
by some in
the populace to externalise resources, in order to halt the
inflation-driven
erosion of value. The demand has accelerated in part in
reaction to the
continuing rise in inflation, and in part due to the
inability to invest
funds in the money market at rates realistically aligned
to
inflation.
As foreign exchange demands in the alternative
markets rose and
rose, far in excess of availability, the rates of exchange
ineviblity moved,
causing increases to the producer's input costs, and
thereby necessitating
yet further price increases. A prime example, of a
myriad that can be cited,
is the trend in prices of fuel. In July the black
market average rate for a
litre of petroleum was approximately $450, whilst
in August the average was
in excess of $600, and a week ago prices were as
high as $1 030! Fuel costs
impact upon every part of the economy, and
therefore their increases are
major stimulants of inflation. The same
applies to much else that has been
subject to the gargantuan rise in
parallel market rates.
Yet another key contributant to the
overwhelming surge in
inflation has been, and continues to be, inflation
itself. Almost all wage
negotiations include, as fundamental element of wage
demands, that wages
increase by at least the extent of inflation
(irrespective of whether or not
the employer is able to fund the increases).
Most commercial, industrial and
residential rentals are closely linked to
inflation. And most businesses, in
pricing their goods and services, do so
having regard not to the original
costs of the goods, and to the operational
expenses of the enterprise, but
also to the anticipated replacement cost of
the goods. Thus, inflation is a
very great fuellant of further
inflation.
A further escalating element of inflation is
corruption. The
immensity of the hardships faced by the majority of
Zimbabweans is so great
that ever more are resorting to corrupt practices in
order to supplement
their meager incomes. Corruption has become pronouncedly
endemic in both the
public and private sectors. Within the public sector,
that exacerbates the
fiscal deficit, intensifying the state recourse to
printing of money.
Although, on occasion, the ends justify the means, the
printing of money is
necessary, and not always highly inflationary, more
often than not such
printing has disasters inflationary consequences. Within
the private sector,
the corruption increases yet further the operating costs
of the business,
thereby necessarily repercussing upon pricing, and hence
further stimulating
inflation.
All these, and other
factors, are resulting in inflation going
berserk. Even worse is that its
rapidly escalating upward trend will
continue apace, unless very positive
measures are now persued extremely
resolutely. First and foremost,
government and the RBZ must very
expeditiously move official exchange rates
to realistic levels which accord
viability to exporters, thereby enabling
substantive export-generated
foreign exchange inflows.
Admittedly the Zimbabwe dollar was depreciated from $100: US$1
to $250: US$1
on August 1, but not only was that not wholly insufficient
devaluation, it
has been negated by subsequent inflation. Merely on the
strength of August
inflation, the rate should have moved to at least $325:
US$1 and, allowing
for September inflation, it should probably now be in
excess of $400:US$1.
In addition, exports must have creditable assurance of
continuing exchange
rate adjustment commensurate with ongoing inflation.
Concurrently, interest
rates must rise to inflation related, real rates.
At the same
time, there must be a cessation of talk of
attracting investment, and
instead a genuinely investment conducive
environment created. Not only must
Zimbabwe drive towards rapid
re-establishment of democracy, justice, law and
order, respect for human
rights, and economic deregulation but it must also
cease its endless
declarations and actions of asset appropriation, be they
of land, mines,
industries or otherwise. Instead, constructive,
internationally and
nationally equitable economic empowerment
incentivisation and facilitation
measures are needed.
And, at the same time Zimbabwe must urgently restore its
relationships with
the international community in general, and the first
world states and
international monetary bodies in particular. Zimbabwe's
"Look East" policy
needs to become a "Look Far and Wide" policy,
encompassing North, South,
East and West! Then Zimbabwe may enjoy meaningful
foreign exchange
inflows.
Zimbabwe also needs to cease it's endless talk of
containing
corruption, and must finally do so. And of especially great
importance, the
long overdue social contract between government, private
enterprise and
labour must finally be concluded, with utmost urgency and
near total
unconditionality, in order to limit the ongoing creation of
inflation by
inflation. Failing all these actions, inflation will continue
to run
berserk, at an ever greater pace, the economy will reach almost total
collapse, and poverty and misery will be more and more universal amongst the
Zimbabwean population.
Zim Independent
Candid Column
By Joram Nyathi
I ENDED this
column last week by asking the tormented question
of who will protect us
"from a vengeful police force so emboldened by a
culture of impunity that
they can break people's skulls in broad daylight
without any fear of
prosecution".
The response was swift from the supreme
executive authority in
the country.
I asked that question
because we live under very trying times,
as a terrorised population -
terrorised by what in a democracy should be a
people's police force, not a
colonial institution. I have asked myself
several times whether our armed
forces have a code of conduct in relation to
the civilian population in
peace time.
So much has been said about the excellent
behaviour of members
of the ZRP on peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and other
trouble spots.
However, these commendations ring hollow when you consider
their terror
exploits back home, for the brutality perpetrated on ZCTU
leaders at Matapi
police station two weeks ago was by no means an
aberration. It is the staple
diet of all poor souls who are unlucky enough
to land in the hands of the
police for whatever petty crime. The police have
become a law unto
themselves.
Last week we carried a
letter from a man who witnessed a brutal
attack on an innocent woman in
Avondale by suspected members of the ZRP from
Avondale police station. Her
crime was to ask whether the vehicle they were
in was going to
Greencroft.
About a month ago soldiers went on a rampage at
Kuwadzana bus
terminus in town, beating up commuter bus drivers and
civilians allegedly to
avenge a colleague who had been beaten by touts the
previous day. There have
been tales of night revellers in pubs being forced
by soldiers to have
unprotected sex with prostitutes.
These claims are always denied by officials or they are
"investigated"
forever. We are still to get the "official truth" about the
"Butchers of
Matapi" when the inquiry is over. This will be a particularly
telling
example of state terror as the ZCTU leaders were seized in broad
daylight in
full view of the public and before the end of the day all of
them had
suffered multiple injuries or fractures inside a police camp. The
attacks
duly drew worldwide condemnation.
What I however found
extraordinary is the complicit silence on
the fate of the 70 or so other
arrested workers. While the ZCTU leaders have
virtually been compensated for
their injuries by the publicity they are
getting, a Martian would imagine
there were only 15 people arrested on
September 13.
Even
the private media have forgotten about these wretched of
the earth who
probably don't have money to go to private hospitals for
treatment, let
alone the luxury of travelling to South Africa. Instead the
spotlight has
been on the headline-grabbing lives of the leadership. The
public media have
become the voyeuristic "Watchers of Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo" atrocities
while they see no evil at home.
Trade unionists from across
the globe have protested against the
attack on the ZCTU leadership, not the
majority of the workers who are
likely to suffer greater harm because they
remain nameless outside the media
spotlight. Yet for any trade union
movement or political party to succeed it
must rely on these nameless
multitudes flippantly called the masses. They
are seen as expendable and
come in limitless quantities. It is only the
leaders who matter when it
comes to suffering pain because they are a rare
species of
men.
Anyway, the executive response to my question came
through an
interview President Mugabe gave in New York. Asked about the
attacks on the
ZCTU leaders by the police, he blamed it on "one or two
overzealous
policemen exaggerating their role".
This
might be true, it might not. My prayer is that it is not
true because if it
is, it confirms my fears of a complete breakdown of law
and order in the
country.
The Butchers of Matapi have become too numerous in
the police
and the army to be dismissed as a few deviant elements. Police
brutality has
become the norm, especially among ordinary civilians who take
the beatings
for granted.
One only needs to observe
police arresting vendors selling their
wares at undesignated points or
soldiers controlling commuters in a bus
queue to appreciate their propensity
to violence. And the people appear
completely overawed to respond even if
it's just one unarmed soldier.
No Mr President, it's not the
odd deranged soldier or policeman
spoiling it for the rest. Violence has
become endemic in the uniformed
forces because there are no sanctions
against those who violate people's
rights. It has become a part of policing
culture that needs to be stopped
swiftly to heal the trauma that Zimbabweans
are living everyday.
The experience of ZCTU leaders at Matapi
served well to
dramatise the horror of Zimbabwean detainees more generally.
Unfortunately
this perverse pleasure in violence and torture is not a
sickness that can be
cured by merely setting up a Human Rights Commission or
passing a Domestic
Violence Act about which there has been melodramatic
hype.
And when a president pronounces a peaceful protest by
hungry
workers an insurrection and extols the virtues of police savagery, it
fills
me with a deep sense of dread. It means every little officer can now
make a
papal bull against you, knowing it will get presidential
assent.
Zimbabweans must be afraid, very afraid indeed.
Mugabe has just
opened for us the gates of hell.
New law is the final straw
LAST week was a cataclysmic week
in the history of Zimbabwe. It
was cataclysmic not so much for the law that
sailed through parliament
without a hitch - we have come to expect it of our
legislators that more and
more draconian laws will be passed by them for the
sake of power - the week
was cataclysmic more for the deafening silence that
met it.
The senate will pass the Bill (it next sits on
October 3) and
then, after that, the president will sign it into
law.
On that day, anyone on any land that has received a
Section 5
notice sometime in the past six years will have 45 days to get out
of his
house and wind up his farming operation. If he does not, and he has
no lease
or offer letter, he will face criminal penalties that will involve
up to two
years' imprisonment.
Not a single white man has
a lease or an offer letter to my
knowledge except perhaps the odd foreign
non-Zimbabwean passport holder.
The silence appears to be
all-encompassing. The legal
fraternity, the press, farmers and their workers
themselves, the church, the
international community, businesses in town, the
unions, opposition
political parties, human rights groups, people that
eat... all appear to
have greeted the passing by parliament of this Bill
with silence.
If the law takes its course, and it surely
will, the last 400 or
so white farmers and perhaps a hundred thousand
workers and their families
will be off the land. Many, if they try to stay,
will be in jail. The ethnic
cleansing will be complete.
What country in the world would greet a law which will deprive a
certain
racial group and their workers of their homes and livelihoods with
such a
silence? Imagine if it were the minority blacks in America or the
Muslims in
Europe who had built their homes and businesses in those
countries and were
having such a draconian law passed against them!
The effect
of this new law in Zimbabwe will be to speed up the
economic demise.
Productivity will decrease. Food and forex will become
scarcer. Investment,
already at an all-time low, will shrink further.
National infrastructure
will fall further into disrepair. Schools and
hospitals will deteriorate.
Poverty will increase....but the party's power
base will be consolidated.
The history of the past six years speaks for
itself in this
regard.
Like the last plums in the Christmas pudding, the
farms will go
to a few high ranking party faithful who will ingest and
destroy them. These
are the obvious results of this Bill that our country's
leaders are pushing
through and that everyone else seems to be allowing to
pass in silence.
Ben Freeth,
Harare.
-----------
Bob's ticket for
violence
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's continued failure to
condemn
torture is worrying. This week, state media quoted him saying that
"police
were right" in dealing "sternly" with Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions
demonstrators.
Given the "command" culture
in Zanu PF where a leader's
actions and statements are not questioned, it is
very likely that his
statements will be seen by those under him, including
the youth militia Zanu
PF has turned into law-enforcement agents, as a
ticket to perpetrating more
violence against perceived opponents of his
misrule and bad governance.
Simply put, Mugabe is
openly and publicly encouraging
lawlessness.
Further, it should be noted that Mugabe's comments come at
a time when
senior officers of the law have admitted to their excesses by
instituting
investigations into allegations of torture levelled against
them. It is
unlikely that the results of these investigations will be taken
seriously,
especially when they confirm what is already known, after Mugabe's
outrageous comments.
This is the time Zimbabweans,
and indeed the international
community, should start asking whether the old
man is still fit to be
president, let alone a father figure to our
constitution and values of
ubuntu embodied in most
Zimbabweans.
Khafula!
Pthuu!
Brotherhood,
Harare.
---------
Barclays
charges extortionate
RESERVE Bank governor Gideon
Gono embarked on a
campaign to punish alleged "speculators" who hoard large
sums of money which
he thinks belong to the banking
system.
He obviously ignored one crucial factor
discouraging
people from taking their money to banks: most people are fed up
with being
plundered by heartless banks debiting large sums of money from
customers'
accounts in so-called bank
charges.
I am particularly peeved by one
particular bank, the
"big" one called Barclays. The kind of charges made by
this bank amount to
extortion, and, to be honest, do not encourage saving,
but discourage it.
As a customer of the bank for
the past 10 or so
years, I am discouraged to think that when other
commercial banks are busy
sweating their assets to ensure they provide
shareholder value, Barclays
appears determined to survive through hefty
charges on customers.
A cursory look at the
bank's recent results is
overwhelming: the bank's net interest income/total
income was less than 10%,
with non-interest income/total income at some
90%.
Where did most of the non-interest income
come from
given that the market has been bereft of any meaningful
deals?
Apparently, banks like Barclays are taking
advantage
of the flight to safety occasioned by the banking crisis of 2004,
and
punishing undemanding depositors for choosing them rather than the newer
banks.
Of all the commercial banks in the
country, NMB had
the highest net interest income/total income after Barclays
at a negligible
45%, and the rest were at 50% and above. Barclays also took
the distinction
of having the highest cost to income ratio at 75% against a
market average
of 38%.
We need an explanation
from Barclays management,
otherwise Gono has to forget about people parking
their hard-earned money in
the banking system to prop up inefficient
banks.
Disgusted
Customer,
Harare.
* Barclays
responds:
We are cognisant of the effect on
customers of the
difficult operating environment. A significant portion of
our fee income is
not driven by bank charges as we have tailored structured
facilities which
benefit our customers and provide us with opportunities to
earn additional
fee income.
The bank reviews
its charges periodically and takes
into account various factors such as cost
to provide service to the customer
as well as the absorptive capacity of our
customers.
The income earned from bank charges
was well below
inflation. The high cost of funding reduced the contribution
of net interest
income which adversely affected the non-funded income to
total income and
cost to income ratios.
-----------
Did Gono do
economics?
I DON'T think our learned
Reserve Bank govenor
Gideon Gono did economics at school because of all his
experiments none has
worked.
He once
introduced fuel buying coupons and the
system never
worked.
What he should know is that serious
investors
are not interested in Zimbabwe because of political instability
and
mismanagement of the economy.
What
you should, Mr Governor, tell your boss
is that he should remove all
deadwood surrounding him. All they can complain
about are "sanctions" but
they are busy milking parastatals such as
Ziscosteel.
Inflation is now around 2
000% but you are
saying we should be patient because you are staying in a
leafy suburb of
Harare getting everything you
want.
Why did you waste billions of dollars
buying
expensive cars like Pajeros for "Project Zuva Radoka", not "Project
Zuva
Rabuda"?
Today Zupco is bleeding
because the state
transporter doesn't have buses. As a serious person who
wants ordinary
Zimbabweans to have at least a better living, you should have
bought
minibuses for your so-called project which were going to help ease
transport
problems.
Only a few are
benefiting from your
experiments, Mr
Govenor.
Lovemore P
Maseko,
Harare.
----------
Zimbabwe waiting for a Black
Moses?
RECENTLY, I travelled to South
Africa for a
conference I met a gentleman who was very candid on his
attitude towards
Zimbabweans.
He
talked about Zimbabweans as if he had
lived in the country. He said
Zimbabweans, among other things:
* are
hardworking, innovative and reliable;
*
are arrogant, know everything about
anything;
* are tough and
uncompromising;
* are good at preaching
their folly to
others. They love platforms to shout to the world that they
have been
wronged. Even their leaders also shout when an opportunity arises,
especially at United Nations
conferences;
* are good at
destroying;
* create unemployment and
force-march their
citizens to neighbouring countries and abroad to work as
slaves and
repatriate foreign
currency;
* believe among them that some
Black Moses
will pitch up to liberate them from the tide of
poverty;
* look to others to solve their
own in-house
problems. For example, Abuja Chogm, the Troika, Thabo Mbeki,
Olusegun
Obasanjo and Kofi Annan;
*
spend hours selling wares at traffic
lights in South
Africa;
* fight among themselves instead
of the
enemy Zanu PF; and
* are
unacceptably tolerant. They never
raise a voice or revolt even if the Zanu
PF government steals elections,
destroys their livelihood (agriculture),
fuels inflation to over 1 000%,
destroys their houses with bulldozers and
steals their money by removing
three
zeros.
I also note they are blaming trade
union
leaders for being savaged by the Zanu PF
government.
All Zimbabweans should accept
they have a
problem and the problem is themselves. Why berate others for not
doing
enough when we can't do anything
ourselves?
Vincent
Gwarazimba,
Harare.
-----------
Let real cockroaches stand
up
READING through Tony Namate's comments
(Zimbabwe Independent, September 22), I really appreciated his first
sentiments, as I was once a victim of speeding kombi
drivers.
Every time I pass through
Manchester Road to
Glen Norah it reminds me of one kombi driver who after
evading the police
sped all the way to OK shops shouting insults to
passengers for failure to
change things than complaining of fare
increases.
The writer said Zimbabweans
are now living
like cockroaches. I felt insulted and at the same time it
reminded me of an
incident where for sure I acted as
one.
I agree with Namate that our
docility and
failure to change things where unfairness and oppression occurs
makes us all
failures and we are where we are because of that, Tony
concluded.
However, I would like to ask
Tony what he is
really doing to change things, besides drawing
cartoons?
Tony belongs to the same
generation of
cockroaches that have failed to change things. Power lies in
the people not
necessarily consumer
power.
Tony's closing remarks of power to
the
people and not to the opposition make me really wonder how he wants us
to
tackle the current regime and neither is he suggesting an
alternative.
An opposition is a healthy
situation in all
democracies and all we need is a formidable opposition -
accountable,
non-tribalistic, transparent and supported by the
people.
Power is the people and changing
things is
not merely cartoons but joining others in the
revolution.
Shouting with one voice is
the solution.
Keshor,
Glen Nora
B,
Harare.
----------
The power is in our
pockets
I COULD not help but notice a
comment in
your article headlined "Of Cockroaches and the opposition"
(Zimbabwe
Independent, September 22).
The remark was made "we have the power in
our pockets". I totally agree with
this.
I as a "whitey" well remember
during the war
in Rhodesia the banning of the three B's. The price of beer,
bread and bus
fares were raised to a level that the povo thought enough is
enough, no one
must buy it until it comes
down!
I well remember driving round Gwelo
and
seeing the United buses driving round empty, and seeing no one with a
loaf
of bread in hand. In the industrial sites there was a beer hall which
was
normally very busy but then empty. I did see the odd person hauled off a
bus
and there was the odd loaf of bread trashed in the gutter but these were
normally people who were unaware of the
situation.
Sure enough after a week or so
of this the
companies relented and prices were brought back to their old
levels. In view
of this why is this not tried now? Not on products but on
unfair charges
levelled these days. Much easier to enforce without relying
on thuggery, I
think. Hit them where it hurts - in their
pockets!
Geoff
Crimes,
slackytambo@yahoo.co.uk
------------
Let's start a
forum
I HAVE read a lot of letters in the
papers
from people who seem to have real and practical ideas that could see
the
real turnaround of our economy. Unfortunately, they are suggested
randomly
and I feel we need to put them together and work a way
forward.
I would like to propose a forum
where such
ideas can be put together, panel-beaten if necessary and
presented to the
responsible people for implementation be it at local or
national government
level.
Let's not
sit back and cry all the time
while our country continues down the abyss.
For those of us with children,
what future do you see for them at the rate
we are going now?
If anyone is for this
idea, please write to
zimfuture2006@yahoo.com with your
ideas and suggestions.
John
Banda,
Harare.