International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: September 1,
2007
HARARE, Zimbabwe: The government has ended a price
freeze affecting hotels,
restaurants and bars, citing "viability" problems
in the already ailing
tourism and hospitality industry, allowing them to
increase their rates by
up to 50 percent, the state Herald newspaper
reported Saturday.
Prices of accommodation and meals had been slashed by
half two months ago
under a sweeping decree meant to tame inflation of more
than 7,600 percent
by ordering price cuts on all goods and services. The new
tariffs, announced
by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, will initially be
valid until Sept. 30.
The announcement came just two days after a new
decree from President Robert
Mugabe ordering a freeze on wages and school
fees and striking down legal
provisions allowing them to be linked to the
state's own consumer price
index on inflation.
The Zimbabwe Congress
of Trade Unions condemned the salary freeze, saying it
would effectively
turn workers into "forced labor."
"The workers are tired of being
sacrificial lambs and bearing the brunt of
bad governance and bad economic
policies," it said in a statement Friday.
"We will leave no stone unturned
in opposing this ill-thought move," the
union movement said. It described
the salary freeze as "satanic" and said it
was particularly unjust given the
fact that workers were forced to buy on
the black market because the price
cuts had emptied shelves across the
country, with stores unable to sell
products for less money than they had
paid for them.
Gasoline
shortages have crippled transport services. At least 7,500 business
executives - including corporate directors, store managers, traders and bus
drivers - have been arrested, briefly jailed and fined since the June 26
price cuts for overcharging.
The countrywide Nando's spiced chicken
takeout franchise has shut down its
outlets frequently since June as
chicken, potatoes for fries, cooking oil
and diesel for generators ran out
during daily power outages.
Fast food takeouts, bars and night clubs were
included in a list of new
prices published Saturday, and hotel accommodation
rates were raised
according to their star rating.
Five star hotel
room rates were listed at about the equivalent of US$ 60
(?44) a night for
Zimbabweans, but remained at about US$200 (?146) for
foreign visitors under
a long-standing two-tier system differentiating the
two.
Saturday's
price list raised the price of beer and liquor by about a third
in hotels,
bars and restaurants, but not in shops and liquor stores.
The tourism
authority said the increases were agreed taking into account the
government's pricing policy "as well as the viability of the tourism
industry."
Tourism revenues, once the nation's third-largest hard
currency earner after
tobacco exports and mining, have plummeted in seven
years of political and
economic turmoil that followed the often-violent
seizures of thousands of
white-owned commercial farms that began in 2000,
disrupting the
agriculture-based economy in the former regional
breadbasket.
Along with acute food shortages in recent weeks, Zimbabweans
have faced
shortages of beer and cigarettes in a nation once the world's
second biggest
tobacco exporter after Brazil.
Independent estimates
put real inflation closer to 25,000 percent and the
International Monetary
Funds has forecast it would reach 100,000 percent by
the end of the year,
fueled by rampant black market dealing in scarce goods.
A cattle auction
at the annual Harare agriculture show was banned by price
control
authorities on Thursday, after it became clear bids were to exceed
the
government's price by several fold in the beef-eating nation where meat
has
become a rarity.
National Post, Canada
National Post
Published:
Saturday, September 01, 2007
China has joined the list of countries that have
abandoned Robert Mugabe,
the Zimbabwean tyrant whose kleptocracy transformed
a once-flourishing
African state into a pauper nation. On Thursday Beijing
bowed to British
pressure and pledged to drop all assistance to Zimbabwe
except for the most
basic humanitarian aid. We would hope this is so. For 30
years China has
supported Mugabe and his thugs as they systematically
plundered Zimbabwe's
economy and dismantled its last vestiges of democracy
and rule of law.
There is no way to list all that is wrong with Mugabe.
It is probably enough
to know Mugabe fashions himself after Kim Jongil, the
delusional leader of
North Korea. On these pages a few weeks ago, R.W.
Johnson, Southern Africa
correspondent for the Sunday Times, described what
Mugabe learned from his
North Korean friends, particularly in the area of
political indoctrination.
"The essential principle was that if, by physical
torture, isolation and
relentless humiliation, you could break down
someone's personality, it was
then possible to re-mould it along more
'acceptable' lines." When Mugabe put
these techniques to work, it resulted
in the murder of thousands of his own
citizens.
The American group
Freedom House, which monitors repressive states like
Zimbabwe, has an online
report about the African state. It outlines the
litany of misdeeds that
Mugabe and the goons who run his political party,
the Zanu-PF, brought down
on their own people. The only scope of optimism in
Freedom's House report
was that Mugabe is very old, and may soon leave this
world.
"Zimbabwe's political isolation and economic decline will
remain for the
foreseeable future," the Freedom House report reads. "Given
Mugabe's
advanced age (approximately 80 years) the task of addressing the
country's
structural problems should come fairly soon. A post-Mugabe
Zimbabwe will be
a failed state marked by economic collapse, a population
ravaged by HIV/AIDS
?"
Freedom House points to a sample period of
just a few months in 2005 when
Mugabe instituted programs to create his
bizarre vision of paradise. There
was Operation Clear the Filth that used
intimidation and violence to destroy
a number of urban townships, leaving
700,000 homeless. It instituted
Operation No Going Back, which demolished
thousands of private businesses.
The government also withdrew citizenship
from those of mixed heritage, a
blatantly racist policy.
Although
China now appears ready to step back from its support for Mugabe,
African
countries, such as South Africa, Tanzania, Angola, and Zambia, are
unwilling
to take the same step.
Freedom House notes that "Condemnation of Mugabe
has not, however, been
universal. South Africa, the state with the most
leverage against Zimbabwe,
is generally pro-Mugabe. South Africa's positive
attitude is shared by many
African states and organizations, which see
Mugabe as a hero of Zimbabwe's
war for independence, achieved in 1980.
Furthermore, his land seizure
policies targeting white-owned farms are
viewed sympathetically by a number
of other southern African states. This
reservoir of goodwill has helped
Mugabe weather domestic and international
criticism."
If countries such as South Africa do not pull their support
for Mugabe, the
only hope the beleaguered people of Zimbabwe can cling to is
that Mugabe has
blown out the candles on his last birthday cake.
Mail and Guardian
Mail
& Guardian reporter
31 August 2007
11:59
They have fought over Zimbabwe's best farms, and now
senior
figures in Zanu-PF are limbering up for a new battle -- this time
over an
array of foreign assets that will be put up for sale with the
enactment of a
controversial new empowerment law.
Zimbabwe's Empowerment Minister, Paul Mangwana, has tabled the
proposed
legislation before Parliament and expects to push it through within
the next
two weeks. "This is a revolutionary Bill that I think is more
revolutionary
than the land reform programme," Mangwana said.
Should
President Robert Mugabe decide to pursue this new drive
as aggressively as
he did the seizure of white-owned farms, control of a
range of foreign
assets will be there for the taking.
The wording of the
proposed law makes it plain that even white
Zimbabweans will not be allowed
to hold majority shares. It defines an
indigenous Zimbabwean as "any person
who was disadvantaged by unfair
discrimination on the grounds of race before
independence in 1980".
The law is vague on how assets will be
valued and Zanu-PF
officials, seeing the loophole, plan to use their
influence -- and
threats -- to take over assets cheaply.
"The whites know they will have to find some accommodation. And
it will have
to be with people acceptable to the government," a senior
Zanu-PF official,
declining to be named, said this week.
Mugabe has publicly
showed his anger at the aggressive
accumulation of assets by his top
lieutenants.
In February he claimed in an interview with
state television
that there was "an insidious dimension where ambitious
leaders [in Zanu-PF]
have been cutting deals with the British and
Americans".
"The whole succession debate has given
imperialism hope for
re-entry. Now we are seeing our officials -- senior
Politburo officials --
joining up with white people, all in the name of
making money," Mugabe has
charged in the past.
Retired
army general Solomon Mujuru, one of the two main players
in the battle over
Mugabe's succession, has nosed ahead in the new race for
assets. Last week
he struck a deal with the white owners of the country's
largest private
security firm, giving him control of half of the company, an
associate
disclosed.
According to the proposed law, black Zimbabweans
will hold at
least 51% of "every business that is being transferred, merged,
restructured, unbundled or demerged and in any new investments of a
prescribed value".
The minister will have the power to
withdraw the operating
licences of companies that do not meet the
shareholding requirements and can
bar transactions by
them.
Ahead of the enactment of the Bill, large, white-held
corporations have aready begun selling shares to existing business partners
or staff. Old Mutual officials said in Harare this week that the company
would sell 20% of its shares to black staff.
Earlier,
Meikles Africa, the country's largest hotel group, with
business links to
Tokyo Sexwale's Mvelaphanda Group and Pick 'n Pay,
announced a merger with a
black-owned bank, Kingdom, in a deal that will
hand black investors
management control and a significant shareholding.
Observers
said the Old Mutual and Meikles deals allow foreign
and white businesses to
designate shareholders of their choice, avoiding the
mounting pressure that
business people report is coming from politicians
seeking a way in without
having to pay.
Economic commentator Eric Bloch said the
effect of the
empowerment proposals on the economy would depend on "how
vigorously the
government enforces the new law".
africasia.com
SYDNEY, Sept 1 (AFP)
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai warned Saturday
that the "end
game" for President Robert Mugabe was drawing near and that a
collapse of
the state could be around the corner.
Calling for
international pressure on Mugabe to respect democratic norms,
Tsvangirai
said the country's economic woes and humanitarian crisis could
not continue
forever.
The economy was in "free fall" with inflation at 12,000 percent,
he told a
news conference in Australia, wrapping up a week-long visit which
has been
denounced by Mugabe's government.
"It is an economy that has
shrunk by almost 68 percent with a consequent
humanitarian crisis. The
situation is really dangerous, because unless the
haemorrhage is stopped we
may have a serious collapse of the state."
Ordinary Zimbabweans were very
much aware of the seriousness of the
situation, he said.
"The people
of Zimbabwe are very much conscious of their dire straits. But
they are also
conscious that the end game is probably near."
Tsvangirai, the leader of
the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, is
due back in Zimbabwe on
Sunday. He said although inevitably he would feel
nervous he did not believe
any action would be taken against him on arrival.
He added that he was
not advocating economic sanctions against Zimbabwe, but
wanted members of
the government to be prevented from travelling freely
overseas.
Zim Online
Saturday 01 September 2007
By Patricia Mpofu
HARARE -
Zimbabwe's business, labour and private schools yesterday reacted
angrily to
the government's decision to put a moratorium on price and wage
increases,
and warned of serious repercussions on the country's comatose
economy.
President Robert Mugabe on Thursday invoked the Presidential
Powers
(Temporary Measures) Act to gazette new measures barring the public
and
private sectors from linking prices of goods, salaries, service charges
or
school fees to movements in inflation, the exchange rate, value-added tax
or
import duty for the next six months.
Under the regulations,
producers of goods and services and school
authorities must seek approval
from the newly created National Incomes and
Pricing Commission before
raising prices, salaries and fees.
The new law also reverses all fee
increases effected by private schools
since 18 June pending approval by the
Commission. Previously such approvals
came from the ministry of
education.
The Association of Trust Schools (ATS), an umbrella body of
privately run
schools, described the latest government action as a blow for
private
education in the country.
"It is not a good move," ATS
chairman Jameson Timba said yesterday.
Most private schools had already
sent out circulars advising parents of new
fee structures for the third
term, which starts on 4 September.
"We are considering what action to
take but I think we will be forced to go
to the Supreme Court," he
said.
Watershed College, a private school in Marondera to the west of the
capital
Harare, had proposed charging $127 million per child for the third
term, up
from $40 million the previous term.
Wellington Chibebe,
secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Union (ZCTU), described
as "hypocrisy" the government's decision to freeze
salaries and
wages.
"There is no rationale in freezing salaries when only last week
prices of
commodities were reviewed upwards. What hypocrisy?" said
Chibebe.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) president Callisto
Jokonya could
not be reached for comment but CZI members warned that the ban
was
unsustainable under Zimbabwe's present circumstances.
"The price
freeze policy has been a monumental failure and now this is
another populist
policy with an eye on the 2008 elections. It is going to be
a disaster for
business and industry," said a leading industrialist who
spoke on condition
he was not named fearing retribution from the government.
Zimbabwe
National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) president Mara Hativagone said
her
organisation was looking into the issue.
"We heard it today, so we are
going to look at the impact of the issue," she
said without
elaborating.
Chibebe said the latest government move was a unilateral
decision that
effectively negated the social contract reached between
labour, business and
government early this year.
It also contravened
International Labour Organisation (ILO) statutes and was
tantamount to the
introduction of forced labour.
Zimbabwe, facing a crippling economic
crisis highlighted by world record
inflation of over 7 600 percent and
deepening unemployment, is a party to
the ILO.
The ZCTU had earlier
threatened to stage a nationwide strike to protest what
it called the
government's mismanagement of the economy. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Saturday 01
September 2007
By Thulani
Munda
HARARE - Equatorial Guinea President Teodore
Nguema
Mbasogo on Friday showered praises on Zimbabwe's crumbling farming
sector
describing the hunger-stricken country as "one of Africa's leading
agro-industrial nations."
Nguema, a friend of
President Robert Mugabe since 2004
when the Zimbabwean leader thwarted a
coup attempt against the Equatorial
Guinea strongman by arresting the
plotters, did not say whether his country
would supply oil to fuel-short
Zimbabwe but said the two nations would
co-operate in
agriculture.
Nguema, who was officially opening
Zimbabwe's agricultural
show in the capital, Harare, said: "Guinea will love
to learn from Zimbabwe.
The visit has given us the opportunity to learn in
order to ensure that the
experiences are transferred to the people of
Guinea."
The Equatorial Guinea leader appeared
unperturbed by the
widely reported hunger in Zimbabwe, praising the southern
African country
for leading the way in developing the agricultural sector to
the benefit of
the entire continent.
"We extend our
sincere congratulations to Zimbabwe for the
development of agriculture for
the benefit of Africa as a whole," he said.
"What we have experienced proves
Zimbabwe is able to export technologies and
in the near future our country
will begin to benefit from the experience of
Zimbabwe," added
Nguema.
Zimbabwe, which is grappling with its worst
ever economic
crisis, has faced severe food shortages since Mugabe's
haphazard fast-track
land reform exercise that displaced established white
commercial farmers and
replaced them with either incompetent or inadequately
funded black farmers.
Food production plunged by about
60 percent as a result
while chaos in the agriculture sector because of farm
seizures also hit hard
Zimbabwe's once impressive manufacturing sector that
had depended on a
robust farming sector for orders and
inputs.
Most of Zimbabwe's industries have since the
beginning of
farm seizures in 2000 either closed completely or scaled down
operations to
run at or below 30 percent of capacity, in a country where
unemployment is
more than 80 percent.
Mugabe saved
Nguema from being toppled when he ordered the
arrest of a group of
international mercenaries when their plane landed in
Harare to pick up
weapons they wanted to use to topple the Equatorial Guinea
leader and his
government.
Nguema has however appeared reluctant to
provide fuel to
Zimbabwe because Harare does not have foreign currency
required to pay. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Saturday 01 September 2007
On
Tuesday, 28 August 2007, ZimOnline carried a story that said the
Solidarity
Peace Trust had written to the South African Broadcasting
Corporation (SABC)
complaining over the "conduct" of its correspondent in
Harare, Supa
Mandiwanzira.
The Trust alleged that Mandiwanzira had deliberately misled
Archbishop Pius
Ncube, who is embroiled in a court case over alleged
adultery, to secure the
interview.
Below is Mandiwanzira's full
response:
By Supa Mandiwanzira
HARARE - I have noted your coverage
of a letter by some organisation in
Bulawayo and other stories relating to
the alleged sexual scandal by the
Archbishop of Bulawayo Diocese - Pius
Ncube.
In all articles, several fabricated and libelous allegations have
been
levelled about my conduct in getting the story.
Let me put it on
record that the allegations are malicious and only designed
at discrediting
my record as a professional journalist.
I see these allegations as part
of a wider campaign by reactionaries - who
see any exposure of scandals by
opposition and pro-opposition individuals or
groups - to rid the
international media in Zimbabwe of any balanced and
objective
journalists.
I was never involved in any sting operation against
Archbishop Ncube neither
did I go to interview him in the company of Tazzen
Mandizvidza and Happisson
Muchechetere of the ZBC as alleged in several of
your articles.
Allegations that I gave these two SABC jackets so that
Archbishop Ncube
could see them as SABC journalists are therefore
ridiculous.
I have no SABC jacket and have not seen one in my term as an
SABC journalist
in Zimbabwe.
A check at the SABC office in Auckland
Park would have also revealed that
that there are no such jackets and if at
all they are there, none has ever
been issued to me.
The Archbishop
himself, who as a Zimbabwean would definitely know
Mandizvidza and
Muchechetere, can confirm that none of those people where
ever present at
the interview.
Allegations that I have "quoted" the Archbishop out of
context are also
ludicrous. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
Nowhere in the interview did I ever ask Archbishop Ncube on the
goings on in
the USA regarding Roman Catholic bishops who were facing
allegations of
abusing young children.
An unedited copy of the
interview is available from my office in Harare
(productions@mightymoviespl.com)
for anyone with interest to watch my entire
25-minute interview with the
Archbishop.
It is appalling that journalists who have jumped onto the
bandwagon of
repeating propaganda spewed by anti-Zimbabwe government
websites which have
no respect for the basic tenets of journalism (balance,
objectivity and
fairness), without even checking with me for my side of the
story.
I perceive this the lowest point of media polarisation in
Zimbabwe. It is so
sad that anybody seen to be writing anything critical of
the government is
seen as an enemy.
In equal measure, anyone writing
critically of the opposition or those
opposed to President Mugabe is called
names, not least that they are members
of the Central Intelligence
Organisation.
I think this is a sorry state of Zimbabwean journalism and
I think that your
publication must take a position to end this kind of
polarisation. Simply by
tackling issues and not people, will our country
move forward.
If the media and media practitioners need to play a
meaningful role in
positively changing Zimbabwe, it must move from being a
vehicle of hate
propaganda.
It must stop character assassinations of
fellow professionals as is being
done to me. I have not done anything wrong
except do my work.
Tough if anyone has found the story unpalatable but my
facts are intact and
it is undeniable that any allegations of sexual conduct
by a Roman Catholic
Archbishop would make headlines anywhere in the
world.
In Zimbabwe, the story is even more interesting because it has a
political
angle too. I do hope you publish these facts which form my side of
the
story.
Supa Mandiwanzira
VOA
By Ndimyake Mwakalyelye and Netsai Mlilo
Washington
31 August 2007
Experts say water
shortages in Zimbabwe have reached alarming proportions.
Residents of
Harare, Bulawayo and and other cities go without water for days
and say
daily rituals including bathing, cooking or general cleaning are
virtually
impossible.
Join the discussion of the water crisis on Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe
- send an e-mail to Studio7@VOANews.com
Shortages have
several causes: ageing infrastructure with pipes and pumps
installed before
independence in 1980 breaking down, poor system management
and a lack of
political will to tackle and solve the massive problem.
Many say the
recent takeover of municipal water operations across the nation
by the
Zimbabwe National Water Authority has merely exacerbated the
problem.
Health experts worry that as people turn to unsafe water
sources, there
could be more outbreaks of disease - diarrhea, dysentery,
cholera - with
fatal consequences.
Harare Director of Health Services
Prosper Chonzi said recently that
contaminated water from burst sewer pipes
and water shortages were
responsible for 900 cases of diarrhea recorded in
the capital's 60 clinics.
In July, 20 children in Kadoma, Midlands,
reportedly died from diarrhea
after drinking contaminated water.
The
water shortage and general erratic supply of water, along with almost
constant electric power cuts, has also been blamed for reduced economic
output.
Reporter Ndimyake Mwakalyelye of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe
turned to
experts Michael Davies, chairman of the Combined Harare Residents
Association, and Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube, executive director of the Bulawayo
City Council, who said that the nationwide water crisis has not at all been
exaggerated in news reports.
In Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's
second-largest city, the deepening water crisis has
caused tempers to flare,
resulting in residents desperately seeking ways to
cope with the scarcity of
water for drinking, cooking and washing.
Correspondent Netsai Mlilo
reported that city officials say the efforts of
some citizens to find
alternative water sources are hindering efforts to
solve the problem.
VOA
By Patience Rusere
Washington
31
August 2007
Police in Harare, Zimbabwe, released child rights
activist Betty Makoni on
Friday after arresting her Thursday on charges she
revealed the identities
of girls who had been sexually abused - charges her
lawyer said were cooked
up to harass her.
Makoni was scheduled to
appear in court on Monday for arraignment.
Police late Thursday released
television personality Rebecca Chisamba, host
of the program on which Makoni
appeared with the girls. Sources said that
during the show the faces of
those victims of rape had been electronically
obscured.
It was the
second time in 10 days that Makoni had been arrested. Last week
she and two
American women making a documentary on rape in Zimbabwe were
taken into
custody. The U.S. filmmakers were deported and she was held for
three
days.
Meanwhile, American activist filmmaker Michealene Risley, deported
to South
Africa last week with assistant Lauren Carara, gave reporter
Patience Rusere
an account of her arrest with Makoni last week from her home
in San Mateo,
California.
www.cathybuckle.com
Saturday 1st September 2007
Dear Friends. Nelson Mandela was in London this week for the unveiling
of
his statue in Parliament Square. Almost without exception the papers here
hailed Madiba for his courageous stand against the forces of repression and
racism. Among all the praise heaped on the great man, the comment that most
impressed me came from Paul Vallely writing in The Independent. 'Mandela is
one of those individuals who, when he enters a room, seems to have about him
a golden aura. something which emanates from deep inside. It seems to make
those in the room feel somehow blessed by his presence.' And later Vallely
adds ' Mandela's moral authority grows from the extraordinary magnanimity he
displayed to the white community on his acquisition of power in South Africa
in 1994. His gentleness and wisdom were key in preventing that
conflict-ridden nation from descending into a post-Apartheid bloodbath of
revenge and recrimination.'
Comparisons may be odious but it
hard not to compare that picture of
Mandela with the outpourings of racist
hatred coming from Zimbabwe's
president in recent years. 'Gentleness and
wisdom' are not qualities we have
come to associate with Robert Mugabe. And
we know that Mugabe gives the lead
while his parasitical followers
faithfully echo his views. Now, with the
Indigenization of Companies Bill
laid before parliament this last week in
Harare we see yet another attempt
to enshrine Mugabe's racist agenda into
law. The Bill defines 'indigenous'
as 'any person who was disadvantaged by
unfair discrimination on the grounds
of race before independence in 1980'.
No doubt economists and
lawyers will expand at great length on the
economic and legal implications
of this Bill but it is pretty clear, even
for a lay person, to see that this
is yet another way for the Zanu PF
government to get their hands on the
country's resources. The truth is that
Mugabe is running out of the means of
patronage by which he buys the loyalty
of his supporters. This Bill is
perhaps the last weapon in Mugabe's armoury
designed to maintain his grip on
power while enriching the few at the
expense of the majority. It is for the
political analysts to uncover the
possible motives for this piece of
legislation and its consequences for the
country as a whole, what concerns
me is the definition of 'Indigenous' that
accompanies the Bill and the
racist implications.
The subject of race and identity has always
dominated politics and
society in Southern Africa but in Zimbabwe before and
since Independence it
has never been openly discussed. It's rather like the
elephant in the room;
a huge presence but never actually talked about or
acknowledged. At
Independence, most white people born in the country assumed
that they were
Zimbabweans; certainly those that stayed in the country after
Independence
owed their love and loyalty to the country and Mugabe's
reconciliatory tone
for the first few years reassured them that their
contributions as farmers
or business people were valued. What this new
definition does is to explain
what is meant by the term 'indigenous' but
without using the label
Zimbabwean. Is that an admission that it is possible
for non-indigenous
people to be considered Zimbabwean by the Mugabe
government - or is it
simply another move designed to deprive white people
of any sense of
belonging to the country of their birth? Accurate population
figures are
hard to come by in Zimbabwe but a recent statistic suggests that
there are
about twenty two thousand whites left in the country. I suspect
that what
Mugabe wants is for all whites to leave but he hasn't quite got
the courage
to issue a blanket Idi Amin-style expulsion which would bring
further
opprobrium down on his head from the international community.
Instead he
uses the bullying, intimidatory tactics that we saw during the
farm
invasions. The illegal march through the city of Harare this week by
five
thousand so-called war veterans - unchallenged and even supported by
the
police - simply shows yet again that brute force is Zanu PF's only
answer to
every problem. The fact is that many of these alleged war veterans
were not
old enough to fit the definition of 'Indigenous' as stated in the
Bill and
are thus not eligible to benefit from company seizures in the way
they did
from the often violent farm invasions. To have 'been disadvantaged
by unfair
discrimination on the grounds of race before independence in 1980'
cannot in
common logic apply to anyone born after 1980 in terms of this
nonsensical
definition. Implicit in this definition is the notion that
anyone
discriminated against on grounds of race after Independence, ie.
whites and
people of mixed race (or any other ethnic group the Zanu PF
government wants
to exclude from economic enrichment) cannot be allowed to
benefit from this
latest ploy by the government to carve up the country's
resources to their
advantage.
According to Robert Mugabe and
his cronies, racism is a crime only
when it is committed by whites against
blacks. In Zanu PF thinking all
whites are racists if they disagree with the
present government's policies.
The accusation of racism is flung at any
country which dares to criticise
the regime or imposes limited sanctions
against Mugabe' top-ranking
supporters or questions the regime's governance
or human rights record. By
definition they are all racists. Only this week
Australia came under fire
because they have stated that they will expel the
children of top officials
studying in the country. ' What do we stand to
benefit by maintaining
diplomatic relations with such a racist country that
imposes barbaric
sanctions on innocent children and sports people' screamed
the state-run
Herald newspaper.
Now I see in a Daily Telegraph
report today that the Chinese are said
to have withdrawn their support for
Robert Mugabe. No doubt they too will be
accused of racism. To sum it all
up, anyone, black or white, who does not
agree with Robert Mugabe is a
racist. That's the long and short of it!
Ndini shamwari yenyu.
PH
www.cathybuckle.com
Saturday 1st September 2007
Dear Family and Friends,
When you
arrive at a shopping centre these days you are immediately
bombarded by
Zimbabwe's new mobile shop keepers. They come in all ages and
sizes: men,
women and teenagers. There are some of the usual, expected
gaggle of street
kids, vegetable vendors and beggars but this new breed are
people doing
serious business for serious amounts of money. Most of them
have mobile
phones with ear pieces, are wearing dark or mirrored sunglasses
and can
calculate huge sums of money before you've even worked out how many
zeroes
there should be on the total.
There is little point going into the
supermarkets because two months into
the government's control of prices,
there is almost nothing left to control.
Staple foods have disappeared
completely, tinned and dry goods, dairy
produce, perishables, toiletries,
soft drinks - all are gone. The most
common sight in supermarkets now is
empty shelves, freezers and fridges,
massive queues for bread and employees
wandering around chatting amongst
themselves with nothing to do. This week,
for some obscure reason, red jelly
powder is plentiful in my local shops,
but very little else. And so shopping
in Zimbabwe has taken to the pavements
and alleyways. The black marketeers
don't display their goods, they just
rattle off the lists of what they've
got: sugar, flour, rice, cooking oil,
margarine, eggs, cigarettes, soap,
washing powder. When you say what you
want (or rather what you can afford)
they disappear into alleyways, flats
and nearby offices and emerge with the
groceries concealed in dirty plastic
or old newspaper. One quick peep under
the filthy wrapping, money handed
over and you're done, stone broke but with
one item in hand.
The
prices on the black market are astronomical, usually at least ten times
more
than the stipulated figures and if Zimbabweans were poor before the
governments' price controls started, they are much, much worse off now. Most
people are simply going without the usual requirements of a balanced diet
and are barely existing on what little they can find and afford. The black
market dealers are, so far, getting on with their business completely
unhindered by law enforcers - despite the regular and visible presence of
numerous Police on our streets.
The black market dealers are the new
warlords in our neighbourhoods - they
are in control - of goods,
availability and prices. They are fast becoming
the nouveau riche of
Zimbabwe and in just a few weeks have amassed vast
fortunes. They have no
overheads. They don't pay rates and levies, don't pay
taxes or VAT, don't
have employees and so don't pay wages or make
contributions to medical and
social welfare schemes. The black market
dealers also pay nothing towards
the maintenance of the roads, pavements and
alleyways where they conduct
their business and so the deterioration of
infrastructure
increases.
The leaders in our government, who clearly do not shop at the
same
supermarkets as the rest of us, continue to be unwilling or unable to
see
this diabolical state of affairs. This week came the announcement that
using
the Presidential Powers Act, the price controls have been extended for
another six months: no increases in the prices of goods, services, salaries,
charges, wages or school fees. The black market dealers, and their behind
the scenes backers are laughing all the way to the bank.
Until next week,
thanks for reading, love cathy.
IOL
Staff
Reporter
September 01 2007 at 11:50AM
The widespread
slaughter of wildlife, domestic pets being eaten and
donkey meat passed off
as beef - these are some of the effects of the
chronic food shortages in
Zimbabwe.
In its latest report, Glynis Vaughan, the chief inspector
of the
ZNSPCA, paints a grim picture of the fate of the country's wild and
domestic
animals, terming the past few months a "test of endurance" for its
small
team, also affected by basic food shortages.
"With the
population getting hungrier and no food on the shelves to
alleviate the
situation, the inevitable result has been the first incident
of a companion
animal being eaten," she said.
The ZNSPCA had initiated an
awareness campaign to educate the public
on the "ethical and moral issues"
regarding the killing and "consumption of
our trusted companion animals. But
in the face of starvation and the
burgeoning number of stray and abandoned
animals, the moral issues become
far more complex and we should not be too
hasty in our condemnations when
people and animals are suffering equally,"
Vaughan said.
Draught animals, she said, had also joined the list
of meat sources
for humans, with the theft and slaughter of donkeys, which
some unscrupulous
individuals are selling as "beef" to desperate
consumers.
"And once again the natural wildlife is now being hunted
and poached
all the more, to satisfy the hunger of our people."
The ZNSPCA, she said, had directed its member societies to suspend all
rehoming activities for pets due to the unstable situation in the
country.
"Our national rehoming policy is very strict to ensure the
provision
of lifelong care for any animal adopted. We cannot perform this
task at
present as the current shortages of food, water and the unstable
climate
will result in animals being starved or abandoned."
Vaughan said all surrendered animals and "animals past their pound
time"
would have to be euthanised.
"All animals in the country share the
peril faced by domestic pets.
The ZNSPCA is concerned for the future of
livestock animals and wildlife in
captivity. The vast shortages of stockfeed
for livestock have serious
repercussions," she said.
A lack of
rain last season had compounded the problem as there was
limited grazing for
livestock.
"With the scarcity of fresh meat, the ZNSPCA is
uncertain as to how
the daily requirements of the carnivores [in captivity]
are going to be met.
Our concerns are that owners are going to look towards
hunting the already
depleting natural wildlife to feed the animals in their
care, and elephants
are not being excluded from the list of animals being
targeted as a food
source," she said.
In an article on the
slaughter of wildlife in Zimbabwe, the UK's Daily
Mail this week reported
how 60 percent of the country's animals - including
those in game reserves,
nature conservancies and national parks - had been
killed since President
Robert Mugabe launched his controversial land reform
programme in
2000.
The newspaper quoted Johnny Rodrigues, chairperson of the
Zimbabwe
Conservation Task Force, as saying: "Many animals are being poached
because
there's no meat on the market. Rare species like the leopard, rhino,
blue
duiker, cheetah and African wild dog are being killed in numbers that
could
push some to the brink of extinction."
This
article was originally published on page 5 of The Star on
September 01,
2007
From VOA News, 31 August
By Blessing Zulu
Washington -
Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai met with
Australian Prime
Minister John Morgan in Melbourne on Friday amid warnings
from top officials
in Harare that his contacts with the Australian
government jeopardized
ongoing crisis talks. Mr. Howard told journalists
before the closed-door
meeting that he admires Tsvangirai for his
persistence and bravery in
standing up to President Robert Mugabe, whom he
described as an
"undemocratic bully." Voicing concern about deteriorating
conditions in
Zimbabwe, Mr. Howard said he looks forward to a democratic
power shift. Mr.
Tsvangirai told reporters that his five-day visit had been
a productive
round of encounters with officials, political analysts and
members of civil
society. He delivered a lecture Thursday at the human
rights center of the
University of New South Wales. In Harare, government
officials and state
media denounced Tsvangirai's contacts with Australian
officials, saying they
threatened to put a stop to crisis resolution talks
that South African
President Thabo Mbeki has been mediating for the past
five months.
Presidential spokesman George Charamba told the
government-controlled Herald
newspaper that Mr Tsvangirai had decided to
"sacrifice ongoing negotiations
under the aegis of President Mbeki by
patronizing white Australia" as the
ruling party had demanded an end to what
it characterized to foreign
interference in the crisis. Tsvangirai told
reporter Blessing Zulu of VOA's
Studio 7 for Zimbabwe Thursday that in fact
it was President Mugabe who was
negotiating in bad faith and that Mr. Mugabe
and his ruling Zanu PF party
sought an excuse to break off the mediated
talks.
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 31st August
2007
An elderly man stopped me as I parked near a supermarket this
morning. "Have
you got a plan?" he asked. "Of course" I said. Behind me a
queue stretched
around the corner as people waited in line for bread. Inside
the shop we
bought 20 kilos of coarse salt and the last bag of dog meal plus
four
bananas. There was little else to buy.
In a sense our plan has
not changed since 2000. We are planning to effect a
change of government by
peaceful, legal and democratic means in one of the
periodic elections that
are held for this very purpose. We are bloodied,
beaten, vilified and
subjected to every sort of tactic you can imagine, but
we are not defeated,
not by a long way and the regime here knows this.
Will it work? Well
maybe, this time.
It seems to me quite clear now that the SADC process,
facilitated by the
government of South Africa, is about to yield some sort
of an agreement.
There is still too much confusion about the talks and the
leaks that we are
being fed to know what this agreement will contain but I
can state, with
certainty, that it will be a giant step towards the goal of
our first free
and fair elections since Independence in 1980.
I can
state that because I know the people negotiating on our side and they
will
not be brow beaten or intimidated into accepting anything less. I am
certain
also because unless it meets the criteria laid down in SADC's own
standards
for elections and the benchmarks prescribed by the international
Community,
there would be little merit in the whole exercise anyway.
The devil lies
in the detail and we just have to wait for that before we can
comment. There
is also the other issue of implementation and holding this
rogue regime to
the agreement - none of which is going to be easy. In the
meantime I can
assure everyone that both Zanu PF and the MDC and its allies
now think that
we are in for a real fight, not a one sided contest where the
opponent of
the Zanu PF has his hands tied behind his back, is denied food
and water for
a week before the fight and is then expected to stand up and
slug it out for
12 rounds with a thug armed with a baseball bat.
Today we took delivery
of some new vehicles - I think they are the first new
vehicles that we have
had for at least 5 years. It was good to see the MDC
logo on the side of
each and to greet the drivers back from training and
raring to go. Just
plain, 4x2 pickups but they are tough and reliable and
will help us
immensely as we set about this campaign. Now we have to find
fuel! That is
another mission.
We will only commit ourselves to the election after we
have seen and had the
opportunity to debate the agreement. This process is
anxiously awaited and
in the meantime the situation in the country just goes
from bad to worse.
The cocktail of measures taken by the regime in recent
weeks has been a
potent mix designed to decimate what is left of our formal
economy,
liquidate established firms and drive a significant portion of the
population out of the urban areas into the rural districts and across the
borders into South Africa. They are well on their way to achieving this goal
and it occurred to me last night that for this reason alone, one of the most
critical aspects of any agreement must be the right of those driven out of
their homeland, to vote where they are.
We have at least 4 million or
more adult Zimbabweans living outside the
country. Their numbers swell by
the day as this economic and political
crisis deepens. The objective for
Zanu PF is to reduce the voting capacity
of those who are independent of the
State and free spirits politically
inside the country to a level where they
can be overwhelmed by the vote that
they can control and direct. This was
clearly enunciated by Mutasa in his
statement about reducing the population
to no more than 6 million people who
can be relied upon to vote Zanu. They
are well on their way to achieving
this extraordinary objective.
How
the vote of the Diaspora is captured if they are allowed to vote is
another
key issue and as I mused over this in bed this morning at about 5
am, I
thought that there is only one way to do that without administrative
chaos
and leaving it open to manipulation and fraud and that is to treat the
centers with major Zimbabwean populations as extensions of the election
process with their own polling stations set up and supervised by an
Independent Electoral Commission and voting on the same day as the election
here at home. The exercise would be massive and would require significant
assistance from resident governments. The resulting ballot boxes would be
flown home for counting.
Potentially there are more voters outside
Zimbabwe than within - even today,
let alone after the full impact of the
present collapse in the economy works
it's way through our society. By
forcing such a mechanism down Zanu's throat
we would be negating the essence
of the present strategy they are following.
But this aspect is only one
of many that we are going to have to take into
account. The one thing that
is sure, there is no way that a free and fair
election can take place
against the backdrop of these disastrous economic
policies. We simply will
not get to an election if the situation does not
improve shortly and unless
Zanu PF is forced to stop this mad dash to
destruction.
I had lunch
with some foreign friends this past week and I said to them that
there were
three key issues to be addressed in the period after the
agreement is
reached in South Africa - implementation of the agreement with
significant
international support for the whole electoral process; the
normalization of
the situation in the economy; and the restoration of the
faith of the
security forces that there is life after Zanu PF and that in
fact it might
be quite good!
Comment from The Sowetan (SA), 31 August
Bill Saidi
Dave Brubeck, the celebrated
jazz pianist, recorded Take Five in 1957, with
the composer of the piece,
the late Paul Desmond on saxophone. The first
album of the quartet I ever
owned was Dave Digs Disney. It does not include
Take Five, a unique piece of
jazz improvisation which brought immediate fame
to the quartet. My album was
a gift from Frank Crump, an aficionado of jazz
who worked for the US embassy
in Lusaka in 1971. In 1972, on a visit to the
US, I asked about Crump at the
state department in Washington, DC, hoping to
renew our friendship and chew
the fat on jazz and related subjects.
Incredibly, nobody in that
labyrinthine building could remember the name. He
had returned to the US by
then, but nobody remembered him. I smelt a rat -
in fact, an insidious
conspiracy, because this was during the height of the
greed for power
engendered by the multiheaded monster called the Cold War.
Conspiracy
theories tended to sprout like weeds in my mind then. For the
Africans,
Asians, Latin and South Americans and East Europeans and other
poor nations,
politically-challenged races, even minions like myself, were
targets - or so
I firmly believed. Had Crump defected to the East? Was he in
the Kremlin,
heading the real SMERSH, the shadowy, murderous outfit created
by Ian
Fleming for James Bond to fight in the name of Her Majesty's
government?
Then we were interviewed by the Voice of America. The 1972
presidential
election, to which we had been invited, was overshadowed by the
Watergate
scandal, in which Richard Nixon had star billing, not only as the
front-runner, but as the chief villain. We, four Africans and one
Bangladeshi, talked at length about Watergate and what it meant to the
election. Back in Zambia, I was invited to watch the filmed interview at the
USIS, everything we had said about Watergate had been excised. The
conspiracy weeds took on the size of baobab trees.
In 1976, while
posted to Ndola, I moved house, and Dave Digs Disney was
stolen, along with
my turntable. The conspiracy theories now gave me the
mother of all
headaches. Years later, after friends in London, including the
writer Doris
Lessing, had helped me replace Dave Digs Disney, I bought other
Brubeck
albums, including Summit Sessions, which features the quartet
playing at the
John Fitzgerald Kennedy White House. So Dave Brubeck was an
admirer of that
liberal, charismatic leader. Didn't that suggest that my
benefactor, Frank
Crump, was also one? Nixon had lost to Kennedy in 1960.
When Nixon resigned
over Watergate in 1974, my relief was massive. Today, I
no longer believe
any of that conspiracy tosh. Or that someone stole Dave
Digs Disney because
they identified me as a fellow traveller of Crump.
Lately, I tend to
laugh at my conspiracy obsession, much as I now laugh at
the way some
African leaders were used as pawns during the Cold War. Many of
them still
believe in the Cold War, trying to play the two blocs - East and
West -
against one another. Presidents Robert Mugabe and Thabo Mbeki,
particularly,
seem stuck in a time warp. For them the Cold War is alive and
kicking. They
should both be warned: enjoy the music while you can - Dave
Brubeck's and
Hugh Masekela's - and forget the carcass of the Cold War.
Bill Saidi
is deputy editor of The Standard in Zimbabwe
AFP
LUSAKA
(AFP) - Zambia's former foreign minister who was sacked last week by
President Levy Mwanawasa ostensibly on health grounds on Saturday challenged
the official reason for his dismissal, saying he was very fit.
"I am
what you call fitness itself. I am fitness personified," Mundia
Sikatana
told journalists, even flexing his muscles to prove his point.
Government
sources said that Mwanawasa really took issue with his foreign
minister over
a political crisis in Zimbabwe because Sitakana insisted that
Zambia should
take a hard-line stance against Harare.
The Zimbabwean government was
unhappy with Sitakana for publicly criticising
Zimbabwe leader Robert
Mugabe's policies and condemning human rights abuses
in that
country.
"Let your attention be on Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans are flocking
looking for
food in the region," Sikatana said, addressing
Mwanawasa.
Sikatana, originally a close family friend of Mwanawasa, said
he had turned
down an offer to become a member of parliament, saying that
was not an
effective use of his time.
American Thinker
Rick
Moran
With inflation unofficially at 15,000% (the official rate of 7,600% is
bad
enough), Robert Mugabe continues to plunder what's left of the
Zimbabwean
economy while visiting untold misery on those who are too poor to
have
already fled.
Mugabe's latest gambit is to freeze wages for the
next 6 months - wages that
were already lagging far behind the hyper
inflated cost of living.
The freeze follows a decree issued in late
June that forced merchants and
wholesalers to reduce all prices by at least
50 percent.
Shoppers stripped store shelves of clothes, meat and other
basic goods
after that decree, and producers have largely failed to ship new
stock
because goods now sell for less than it costs to make them.
Most commodities are now available only on the black market, where prices
have continued to skyrocket. Moreover, as the last remaining stocks of goods
trickle out of factory warehouses and onto the market, Zimbabwe could soon
see the start of an inflationary spiral that would make today's prices seem
cheap, John Robertson, a Harare economist, said in an interview.
"It could go much higher - 10 times as much for some things in the next
couple of weeks, as goods cease to exist," he said.
Swell. Note the
economist said as goods "cease to exist" not grow scarce. So
even with less
money, there's not going to be anything to buy anyway.
Economic activity
is as close as a modern country can get to a standstill.
What workers that
are left are being laid off which means less payroll tax
revenue pouring
into government coffers - 13 trillion Zimbabwean dollars
less which works
out to $55 million in real money. This is a considerable
sum for a
government that can't pay its teachers, or civil servants, or more
ominously, the army.
Zimbabwe would be an interesting laboratory to
study economic collapses
except for one thing; the fear, panic, and real
pain being endured by
ordinary people is unlike any seen in modern history.
For the sake of the
Zimbabwean people, let us hope that there is an
intervention by either a
foreign power like Great Britain (Zimbabwe is a
former colony) or perhaps
the army whose patience must be wearing thin given
the fact that their
salaries are not buying much of anything.