Harare (dpa) - The Zimbabwe government will provide emergency food aid to more than two million out of its 12 million people between now and the next harvest, press reports said Wednesday.
Orphans, the elderly and the sick will benefit from the food handouts, the state-controlled Herald reported, quoting an official from the government's social welfare ministry.
"This year, the country experienced a severe drought and there will be people who require food assistance," Sydney Mhishi, the director of social welfare told a parliamentary committee in the capital Harare on Tuesday.
"About 2.2 million people would require food assistance because they have no money to buy maize," he added.
"The rest of the country's population can afford to buy maize which is being imported, although there are those who are vulnerable because of, maybe, chronic diseases and old age," Mhishi added.
Harare's figure of those in need of food aid is around half the number international agencies say require assistance before next year's harvest.
Zimbabwe has refused to appeal for international food aid, even though it has to import virtually its entire annual maize requirement of 1.8 million tonnes.
"An appeal means you declare a state of disaster. The magnitude of the food insecure households was such that there was no need for an international appeal," Mhishi was quoted by the private Daily Mirror as telling the parliamentary committee.
However, the paper reported Mhishi as saying the government was due to sign an agreement with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to provide 300,000 tonnes of food aid.
Zimbabwe is one of several southern African countries that are facing severe food shortages this year due to drought and failed harvests.
Aid agencies and critics blame Harare's five-year old land reform programme, in which white-owned commercial farms have been seized for redistribution among blacks, as a major contributor to Zimbabwe's recent food shortages.
Cape Times
October 5,
2005
By Peta Thornycroft
Harare: Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank has paid
a further US$15 million to the
International Monetary Fund, which led to a
sharp devaluation last week of
the local currency on the parallel
market.
The parallel or black market is now the only source of foreign
currency for
importers, apart from about US$10m for the agricultural sector
- a small
part of its needs for the summer season.
Reserve Bank governor
Gideon Gono said he hoped the outstanding US$160m
would be paid to the IMF
within a year.
Some details are emerging from the private sector on how
some of the money
was raised last month by the central bank to pay the IMF
US$120m to stave
off expulsion.
Some companies, speaking on condition
of anonymity, said they had agreed to
exchange their foreign currency
account balances at the official rate of
US$1 to Z$26 000 but were allowed
to put the revenue from that into a select
fund that paid them 1 000%
interest for a limited period to bring the rate
of return close to the
parallel rate.
It was attractive to some companies because the near
parity with the
parallel rate was legal. Even though the parallel market is
the only source
of foreign currency, it is still illegal. Companies holding
export proceeds
in foreign currency accounts have to exchange 50% of their
forex immediately
at the official rate and spend the rest on imports within
30 days or it is
taken by the central bank at the official
rate.
Many companies struggle to keep going because the official
exchange rate
does not cover escalating running costs. Several companies say
the short
term 1 000% interest was a lifeline.
The Reserve Bank has
become a major purchaser of foreign currency for the
last three
months.
Allocations via the largely defunct auction system remain
unattainable by
local manufacturers, leading to a growing number of
companies which have
ceased trading, like Dunlop in Bulawayo.
It has
not closed down, as reported in the state media at the weekend, but
is
unable to trade as it has no foreign currency to import components to
manufacture tyres.
Speculators say if any South African loan were to
materialise, the parallel
rate could drop back to its level a week ago of
about US$1 to Z$80 000.
However, if the loan were goods and services
rather than cash, the rate
could remain at its present level or go slightly
higher, which will in turn
push inflation to about 1 000% by year
end.
Prices are shooting up in supermarkets daily. One major Harare
supermarket
said prices on incoming stock over the last two weeks were up by
200%.
Reuters
Wed Oct 5,
2005 12:04 AM BST
By Lesley Wroughton
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
Zimbabwe's crackdown on urban slums to root out black
market trading
threatened to inflame the country's already dire economic
problems, the
International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.
The warning came as state media
reported the arrest of 14,706 people in the
capital Harare on Monday, as the
government continued a nationwide drive to
clean up shantytowns and drive
out illegal vendors, leaving hundreds
homeless.
President Robert Mugabe's
government defended the original "Operation
Restore Order" crackdown in May
saying it was meant to curb black market
trade in foreign currency and other
scarce commodities.
IMF staff documents, released together with the fund's
2005 review of
Zimbabwe's economy, said such operations reduced informal
market activity
and incomes and "could contribute to lower GDP and upward
price pressures."
The IMF review said the pace of the country's economic
deterioration slowed
last year but had resumed again in early 2005 due to
rising inflation,
foreign exchange shortages and low agricultural output,
crippled by drought
and a botched government land reform program.
It said
gross domestic product should fall by 7 percent this year, further
than the
4 percent GDP decline in 2004.
Western critics blame Zimbabwe's economic
crisis on Mugabe's policies that
collapsed agricultural output and led to
unemployment of over 70 percent and
chronic food and fuel
shortages.
Between 1997 and 2003, the Zimbabwean economy tumbled by almost 30
percent,
while agricultural production collapsed as white-owned farms were
seized by
the government for redistribution to landless blacks. Investment
fell
sharply and donors retreated.
The IMF said Zimbabwe's widening
fiscal gap would contribute to money growth
and likely fuel year-on-year
inflation to over 400 percent by the end of the
year from around 130 percent
in January.
It said Zimbabwe needed a broad package of economic policies and
reforms to
lower inflation and boost growth.
"Without a bold change in
policy direction, the economic outlook will remain
bleak, with particularly
detrimental effects on the poorest segments of the
population," the IMF
said.
The IMF said a sharp tightening in Zimbabwe's 2006 budget was needed to
address mounting balance sheet losses.
"Given the high spending ratio,
the bulk of the adjustment will need to come
from spending cuts, especially
in the wage bill, and subsidy and transfer
payments" the fund
added.
GAPING SHORTFALL
It said higher spending was likely to widen the
fiscal gap in 2005 to 11.5
percent of GDP from 4.7 percent of GDP last year.
The IMF urged the
government to lower the deficit to 5 percent of
GDP.
The IMF urged Zimbabwe to tighten monetary policy, sufficiently to
ensure an
inflation target of 80 percent by the end of 2005.
In IMF staff
papers of their consultations with the government, the
Zimbabwean
authorities had a different view of the country's economic
prospects and
policies.
The IMF said the government estimated economic output declined only
2.5
percent last year and will grow by 2 percent this year, due to strong
performance in tobacco, wheat and mining.
The IMF said authorities
believed support prices and subsidised credit
facilities for agriculture and
manufacturing would stimulate a supply
response and increase flows into the
official market.
The government also disagreed with the IMF's inflation
outlook.
"Moreover, they stressed that in comparison to the peak in early
2004,
inflation had declined considerably by mid-2005 on account of their
policies
to turn around the economy," the IMF said of its discussions with
authorities.
The IMF said the authorities indicated they had limited room
for manoeuvre
on the exchange rate, in part because of the lack of foreign
financing and
concerns about the inflationary impact.
The IMF said
Zimbabwe's debt burden was "unsustainable," with data showing
that about 70
percent of external debt is owed to official creditors with
half of the
total in arrears.
Yesterday we broke a milestone of sorts - the
Zimbabwe dollar collapsed to
100 000 to 1 against the US dollar. Just three
months ago it was about 25
000 to 1. A businessman in Harare told me that in
his business, inflation
had been 600 per cent in six months. There is no sign
of any stopping this
slide - if anything it is accelerating.
We are
weeks away from the traditional planting season and there is still no
sign of
significant land preparation or major movement of fertilizer and
other
inputs. Last year Mr. Mugabe confidently predicted a 2,4 million
tonne
harvest of maize - plus high levels of production of other crops
including
160 000 tonnes of tobacco. We produced about 600 000 tonnes of
maize and 70
000 tonnes of tobacco - half of it very poor
quality.
This past week the Minister responsible for Social Welfare
quietly signed a
letter urgently appealing to the international community for
food to feed up
to 5 million people until the next harvest. Over the weekend
Mugabe stated,
yet again, that Zimbabwe had enough food and did not need
help.
Astonishingly the donor community agreed to keep the formal request for
food
aid confidential - in deference to the government's sensitivity to the
issue
and for fear that if it was made public they might not be "allowed" to
give
Zimbabweans food!
On May the 19th the Zimbabwe government
launched "Murambatsvina" and in the
subsequent three month period, with Khmer
Rouge efficiency they destroyed
some 300 000 homes and made 2,4 million
people homeless and at the same time
they destroyed up to 1 million small
businesses and made 3 million people
destitute.
Last week the Minister
responsible for Local Government and technically,
Murambatsvina, wrote to
donors asking them to fund the provision of tens of
thousands of garden
sheds. The purpose - to replace the shacks knocked
down - many of which were
in fact brick under asbestos or iron dwellings,
fitted with electricity and
water. The crowning feature of this letter was
the suggestion that the
government of Zimbabwe would nominate the supplier.
So get this into your
head - they destroy the homes of millions of people,
destroy their livelihood
and then ask donors to bring their hard earned
money into the country where
it will be converted at a quarter of its real
value and then spent with a
Zanu PF gravy train thug to give thousands of
people a wooden shack - which
would probably be "leased" to them by some
corrupt official. The only sanity
that accompanied this revelation was the
laughter of the officials recounting
the story to me.
The fact that Chombo (the Minister in question) has the
temerity to write
such a letter in the first place is astonishing - even more
amazing is the
fact that he expected his request to receive serious
attention. Oh did I
tell you that he also asked for aid to fund the clean up
of the total mess
left in our townships by the campaign!
But I am not
at all bemused at these developments for, after all, this past
weekend we saw
the FAO and the United Nations spending millions of US
dollars on a
conference in Harare attended by 170 delegates from 50
countries to discuss
"food safety". Mr. Mugabe was asked to open the
conference - no doubt in
recognition of the fact that he now has the world
community feeding half his
population, one third of his population in exile
as economic and political
refugees and has overseen the most precipitous
decline in life expectancy and
life quality in any country in the world in
the past 50 years. No doubt the
UN thinks that these achievements merit
granting the Mugabe regime this
recognition. Just like putting Cuba and
other totalitarian States in charge
of the Human Rights Commission of the
UN. If it were not so tragic it would
be vastly amusing.
Then you have the specter of this smashed and abused
country - like a mugged
man lying in the street and being run over by the
passing traffic - actually
paying money to the IMF. Money taken from private
schools and NGO's, food
agencies and exporters. $50 000 here, a million
there. Money critically
required for food, drugs, fuel - all basic
necessisities and the IMF has the
audacity to welcome the payments! Shown the
source of the funds they express
shock and promise to investigate - but they
still bank the cheques. I wrote
to the Fund and said send the money back - we
need the stuff more than you
do to keep life and limb together - not even the
courtesy of a reply.
When will this nightmare end? I said to a friend
that we live in a lunatic
asylum where the lunatics are in charge and the
sane are the inmates.
Sometimes I think the UN is a bit like that as well.
You can leave the UN -
you can walk in the front door and out the back and
ignore its lunatic
activities but you cannot do that with your country. In
fact right now, they
are contemplating removing even our freedom to flee. We
are locked in and
must work things out for ourselves. It does not help
however when the rest
of the world accepts the lunatics who run our country
as sane and sensible
people. One day they will appreciate that by doing so
they demean themselves
and give credence to what would otherwise be a clear
case of collective
insanity.
Thank goodness for market forces and the
fact that no matter what the
management of this asylum does - they cannot
fool the trade. No matter what
Mugabe and his cohorts do, the evidence of
their failures are there in the
relentless slide in the value of the
currency. Like white water rafting, the
rules in this game are simple, keep
your life jacket tied tight and trust
its buoyancy to get you to the surface.
Face downstream and put your feet
forward first to take any rocks or other
obstacles. Enjoy the ride and get
back into the raft as soon as conditions
permit. Work together and help each
other when conditions are really rough.
The beauty of white water rafting is
that you do not need to know how to swim
- just how to float, the water
eventually gets you where you want to go. For
us - that is just around the
bend.
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 4th
October 2005.
SW RADIO
News
By Violet Gonda
4 October 2005
There has been an outcry from
many quarters who have criticised the United
Nations for inviting Robert
Mugabe to host a regional conference on food
safety for Africa. This
conference was jointly organised by the Food and
Agriculture Organisation
(FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
True to form, Mugabe used this
platform to defend his chaotic land seizures
which resulted in nearly half
the population depending on food aid. He
blamed the food shortages in Africa
on weak food safety control systems and
droughts. Mugabe also accused the
West of dumping genetically modified crops
on the developing world.
An
Amnesty International spokesperson Audrey Gaughran says the food
shortages
in Zimbabwe are a result of a combination of several factors and
some of
those have to do with government policies. She said while there are
factors
like HIV/AIDS, the government's Operation Murambatsvina internally
displaced
thousands of people. The government's chaotic implementation of
the land
reform programme has also contributed to the food shortages in
Zimbabwe.
Amnesty International said the government of Zimbabwe under
international
law is responsible for addressing the human rights of the
people and that
nobody in Zimbabwe should go hungry. But the Mugabe regime
deliberately
implemented policies which have prevented people from accessing
food.
Gaughran hoped the food conference in Harare would shine a spotlight on
the
very serious food situation in Zimbabwe. She also hoped that this would
force the Zimbabwe government to allow aid agencies, including the UN itself
to distribute food to affected areas.
Many observers have criticised the
United Nations for continuing to give
Robert Mugabe such high profile
platforms.
Political Commentator, Dr Stanford Mukasa said the UN report on
Operation
Murambatsvina clearly holds the regime accountable for all the
misery that
it has brought on its people. Mukasa said for the UN, which has
this adverse
report, to invite Mugabe to open a conference on food security
is one of the
greatest ironies of our time. "Common sense would dictate that
for a person
who has wreaked such havoc, destroyed agriculture, reduced
Zimbabwe from a
bread basket to a basket case and invite that person, is the
height of
hypocrisy and creates serious doubts about the integrity of the
United
Nations."
On Monday, MDC spokesman on agriculture, Renson Gasela
attacked the FAO and
WHO for allowing Mugabe to address the regional food
conference. He asked
what someone like that would talk about when
Zimbabweans are starving and
dying. Gasela blamed Mugabe's land reform
exercise for killing agriculture
in Zimbabwe. He said the delegates will see
what they choose to see in
Harare, but the signs of hunger are clearly
there.
It's reported that The FAO said that Zimbabwe had offered to host the
conference and that African nations had accepted. Tom Cargill, the Africa
programme manager at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said: "In
Africa he is still seen very much as the leader of a liberation movement
that took over from racist rule in the 1970s. There is a huge amount of
support, not necessarily for the policies he is pursuing but for his stand
against the West."
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
ZIMBABWE:
[This
report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United
Nations]
JOHANNESBURG, 4 October (IRIN) - Poor rural households in
drought-ravaged
southern Zimbabwe have exhausted their food stocks and are
resorting to
eating wild roots in a bid to stave off hunger.
Erratic
supplies by the state's Grain Marketing Board (GMB) and the lack of
essential commodities in rural shops have combined to undermine food
security in the semi-arid Matabeleland region, aid workers told
IRIN.
In the district of Tsholotsho, in Matabeleland North province,
49-year-old
widow Sharon Mpofu said she was foraging for wild roots,
identified as fit
for consumption by an elder of the San clan from her
village, to feed her
two children. The San are renowned for their survival
skills.
The family had also begun to reap the rewards of a small
community vegetable
garden, established as part of the NGO Christian Care's
irrigation and
self-sufficiency programme.
"This has become our way
of survival. Our maize-meal got finished last week;
it is not even available
in the shops. In the past few weeks it was
available, although some of us
would struggle to get the money, but these
days it is not there," said
Mpofu.
A Christian Care aid worker told IRIN they had established that
over 300,000
of Tsholotsho's population of around 600,000 were food
insecure.
"We have done some research in readiness for food [aid]
distributions ...
people are literally going for days without food and there
is high risk of
malnutrition. Some are now eating wild roots - the situation
is very dire,"
the aid official warned.
Tsholotsho Tjitatjawa's
village headman, Nkosilathi Sibanda, said: "Although
no one has died as a
direct result of hunger, people are starving - they
need food. Shops are
empty and families are going for days without a decent
meal." He noted that
supplies from the GMB were sporadic, and when
maize-meal was available it
was often unaffordable.
A 50 kg bag of maize-meal normally sold for Zim
$80,000 (US $3), which was
beyond the reach of most rural
people.
"What we need at this point is assistance from [aid]
organisations," Sibanda
said.
Aid agencies had been waiting for
authorisation from the government to begin
programmes in
Zimbabwe.
The World Food Programme (WFP) received written authorisation
from the
Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare to begin food
distributions to targeted vulnerable groups in 49 districts around the
country on 29 September.
"Through this programme, an estimated three
million food insecure people
will receive a monthly ration of cereal and
pulses. WFP will work with 11
NGO cooperating partners. Distributions will
begin as soon as possible and
continue through to April 2006," the aid
agency said in its latest situation
report.
An official from the GMB,
who wished to remain anonymous, said although the
state grain procurement
agency's silos in both Matabeleland North and South
regions were fast
running empty, "the ministry of agriculture says there are
several tonnes of
maize in transit from South Africa".
"We are aware of the dire situation
facing many people, and we hope food
security will improve if we are to get
such deliveries," the official added.
A recent report by the Famine Early
Warning Systems Network and the WFP on
informal cross-border food trade
quoted the South African Grain Information
Service as saying that by the end
of August, the GMB had imported 403,000 mt
from South Africa at a rate of
86,000 mt per month.
"A rate which is 28 percent below the planned
monthly import of 120,000 mt
per month - Zimbabwe requires a total of 1.2
million mt of maize before the
next harvest," the researchers
commented.
Thubalami Mkhosi, a grain miller in the Mangwe district of
Matabeleland
North, told IRIN: "The last time I got supplies from the GMB
was in early
August, but now their reserves have gone dry, there is
virtually nothing in
some of them [the silos]. This means that we are out of
business, and that
people are going hungry because there is no mealie-meal
[maize-meal]."
Aid agencies have estimated that some four million people
will require food
aid in Zimbabwe in the months ahead.
The UN Food
and Agriculture Organisation has also warned that prospects for
the 2006
agricultural season are being seriously threatened by the short
supply and
high costs of inputs such as seeds, fuel, and
fertiliser.
[ENDS]
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[This report does
not necessarily reflect the views of the United
Nations]
JOHANNESBURG, 4 October (IRIN) - The Combined Harare
Residents Association
(CHRA) said on Tuesday that the arrest of thousands of
informal traders over
the past two weeks was likely to exacerbate the
economic crisis in the
capital city.
On Monday the official
newspaper, The Herald, reported that around 14,000
illegal vendors and
foreign currency and fuel dealers had been arrested
during a follow-up
operation to the urban clean-up campaign earlier this
year.
"Yes, we
have launched Operation Siyapambili, Hatidzokereshure (Going
forward, No
turning back). [It] aims to make follow-ups to monitor the city
so that we
deal with any of those who are returning to the city and
conducting shady
dealings," police spokesman Loveless Rupere was reported as
saying.
The police claimed that the most recent campaign had brought
Zim $782
million (US $30,000) into the city coffers in
fines.
However, CHRA chairman Mike Davies told IRIN he was unsure whether
the
latest arrests were informal traders who had returned after being
evicted by
Operation Murambatsvina ('Drive Out Filth') or other traders who
had come to
set up shop in their stead.
"There is an assumption that
those who were arrested are people returning to
their stalls, but it is
still unclear because there is very little
information. We do not have
access to the records of the arrests, or if
people have just been given a
spot fine and then released," Davies said.
"Fines are supposed to act as
a deterrent and not be seen as an income
generating exercise," he pointed
out. "Furthermore, we have learnt that even
though the trader may be
breaking city by-laws, the proceeds from the fines
are being sent to the
national government."
A UN report estimated that Operation Murambatsvina
- which the government
said was aimed at clearing slums and flushing out
criminals - had left more
than 700,000 people homeless or without a
livelihood after kicking off in
mid-May.
IRIN reported last month
that although traders were slowly returning to the
city to do business, a
new set of stringent by-laws had made it difficult
for them to make a
living.
[ENDS]
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IRIN-SA
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"Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but
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BBC
Millions now need food
aid
Soldiers in Zimbabwe have spoken of being sent on forced leave, as the
army
was unable to provide them with food.
The country is already
struggling to feed an estimated 3.8m starving people
in the rural areas, and
has to import at least 37,000 tons of maize a week.
The army denies that the
forced leave was the result of food shortages.
According to soldiers in
Bulawayo, the food shortages began early this year
which forced their
superiors at times to buy maize on the black market.
The soldiers told the
BBC's Focus on Africa programme there were serious
shortages of food in
barracks.
They believe that 300 soldiers have been forced to take leave in
Bulawayo,
and 2,000 countrywide.
Black market
"Sometimes we are forced
to buy our own food for lunch because of
shortages," said one of the
soldiers from Imbizo Barracks, 20 km from
Bulawayo.
Imbizo Barracks
produced some of the best infantry soldiers and fighting
units of the
Rhodesian army during Zimbabwe's independence war.
"Some of our colleagues
have been told to commute to work everyday because
of food and transport
problems facing the army," said another soldier from
Imbizo.
A large
number of soldiers have also been affected at Braddy Barracks, which
trained
soldiers who fought for Britain in World War II.
An army spokesman, Agrey
Wushe, denied that the soldiers were sent on forced
leave because of food
shortages.
'Rest days'
In an interview with the weekly Standard newspaper
he said the soldiers were
only asked to take their leave days in order to
rest.
"We have enough food to feed the soldiers until our next financial
year.
It's not true that there are shortages of food," he told the
newspaper.
Soldiers who spoke to the BBC dismissed the army's version.
The
Zimbabwe government has a regular army of 30,000, supported by 5,000
militiamen who support the governing Zanu-PF
party.
'Catastrophic'
Elinor Sisulu of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
described the situation in
the country as "catastrophic".
Mrs Sisulu told
the BBC of acute shortages of fuel, a breakdown in garbage
collection, and
police so short of food they have taken to looting from
ordinary
people.
Reports from Zimbabwe also say the food shortages in prisons are
getting
worse, with relatives of prisoners being told to bring food in for
inmates
regularly.
Armed prison guards are commonly seen walking with
prisoners on the way to
court, because of fuel shortages.
Zim Online, 4 October
Makoni - The husband of Zimbabwe High Court Judge
Annie-Marie Gowora has
grabbed a farm as a fresh wave of farm seizures
spreads across the country.
In papers filed at the High Court last month,
white farmer Ben
Purcell-Gilpin says the judge's husband only identified as
Mr. S. Gowora
seized his Helensvale Estate also known as Nyamera Farm in
Makoni district
in Manicaland province. Gowora, who told Purcell-Gilpin that
he would never
get his farm back even if he went to court, allegedly seized
the farm with
the help of Agriculture and Justice Ministers Joseph Made and
Patrick
Chinamasa respectively. The farmer says in his court papers that
Gowora has
since taken over the farm house, seized farm produce that was
ready for
marketing, as well as equipment valued at several billions of
dollars.
Gowora has also hired a private security firm to keep guard at the
farm and
ensure Purcell-Gilpin is prevented from entering the
property.
The farmer's workers had also been barred from carrying their
duties while
at one time Gowora is said to have ordered that sheep at the
farm be
confined to their pens without access to water or food. The sheep
were
released from the pens by the police. "Although he has continued to
remain
in occupation of my house he has done little to farm the place himself
.
Mr. Gowora has done little other than to take my house and diesel (that
was
stored at the farm)," read part of a court affidavit by
Purcell-Gilpin.
Justice Gowora and her husband could not be reached for
comment on the
matter yesterday.
According to the displaced farmer,
Gowora did not have an official letter
from the government showing the state
was acquiring the farm and allocating
it to him. Under the government's Land
Acquisition Act, blacks allocated
land seized from whites are given official
letters stating which specific
farms they have been allocated. A new
constitutional amendment signed into
law by President Robert Mugabe last
month bars courts from hearing appeals
by white farmers whose land has been
seized by the state. But the new law
requires the government to pay
compensation for improvements such as dams,
roads and houses constructed on
seized farms. It also requires the state to
pay for farm equipment.
Purcell-Gilpin said Gowora had barred him from
preparing an inventory of
equipment and farm improvements for which he
could claim compensation from
the state. "Mr. Gowora appeared on the scene
claiming that he was now the new
owner and demanding that I stop farming
and leave everything for him," wrote
Purcell-Gilpin in his affidavit to
court.
More than 4 000 white
farmers have been expelled off their land by the
government and its
supporters under a chaotic and often violent land reform
programme that
destabilised the agricultural sector causing a massive drop
in food
production. Zimbabwe has grappled severe food shortages since the
farm
seizures began five years ago.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe ordered mass arrests of street traders and demolition of houses in May as a pre-emptive strike against opponents before they could attempt a popular revolution, a state-controlled newspaper reported Tuesday.
The Herald said that Western agents had hoped to instigate mass demonstrations similar to those in Ukraine which forced new elections earlier this year.
"Somehow, Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organization, one of the best spy agencies on the continent, if not the world, got wind of the impending operation -- and they must have panicked because they chose to deal with it in a most unusual way -- nip the danger in the bud by dispersing the slum dwellers via the demolition of their habitats," said The Herald.
"The security agency quickly got hold of the president, showed him the evidence ... and sold him the hasty solution," the paper said.
Nearly 92,500 dwellings were destroyed in Operation Murambatsvina, or Restore Order, according to U.N. special envoy Anna Tibaijuka, who said some 570,000 people were left homeless as a result of the three-month blitz that started in May.
The Herald article said it "could now reveal that the operation was the brainchild of Zimbabwe's intelligence community, which felt it had to move quickly to nip in the bud a Ukrainian-style revolution ... then being planned and funded by the same Western countries who paid for Ukraine's so called 'Orange Revolution' earlier this year."
"They had hoped Zimbabweans would do it by themselves in the aftermath of the March 31 parliamentary elections ... The metropolitan powers upped the ante by secretly channeling funds for an insurrection via opposition elements who were going to use vulnerable slum dwellers to confront the government in what they hoped would be bloody street clashes," it said.
Some criticism
'justified'
The operation was launched without going through the
normal route of Cabinet discussion and approval, it said.
[It] is very revealing, and a major embarrassment to the
government.
-- John Makumbe, University of Zimbabwe lecturer
"As the security
services drove the operation ... serious errors were made, leading to
international outcry and condemnation," said the article. "Therefore some of the
criticisms contained in Tibaijuka's U.N. report were
justified."
Mugabe previously dismissed
Tibaijuka's findings as "biased" and a product of Western
pressures.
John
Makumbe, a lecturer in public administration at the University of Zimbabwe, said
the article, reproduced from New African magazine, could never have been
published in the Herald without approval from Mugabe's office.
"That is very revealing, and a major embarrassment to the government," said Makumbe. "I am surprised The Herald actually printed it. I think there is credibility in the story."
Makumbe said Operation Murambatsvina temporarily succeeded in intimidating urban Zimbabweans and they were still not prepared to confront ruthless security force violence on the streets.
Within days of the clampdown, prices of bread and maize meal, Zimbabweans' staple diet, were increased up to 51 percent. Similar price hikes in 1998 triggered countrywide food riots which only ended when troops and tanks were deployed in townships, killing at least six people.
Mail & Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
04 October 2005 02:36
A former
veteran of Zimbabwe's independence war who led invasions of
white-owned
farms has come under fierce criticism for setting up a fund to
help the
victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The Zimbabwe National Liberation War
Veterans Association said it had taken
over the fund set up by controversial
former guerrilla Joseph Chinotimba who
wanted to raise Z$30-billion
($1,1-million) for victims of Katrina, the
privately-owned Daily Mirror
reported.
Chinotimba, who led fellow veterans in farm invasions in 2000,
said he
planned to travel to New Orleans to witness the destruction caused
by the
hurricane which struck on August 29.
But spokesperson Andrew
Ndlovu of the war vets association said the money
would be better spent
helping Zimbabweans.
"It's folly of the highest order for him to say we
want to donate 30-billion
dollars to the Americans when some of our own
comrades and spouses of
deceased war veterans are living in abject poverty,"
Ndlovu was quoted as
saying.
Chinotimba dismissed Ndlovu as "mad"
saying that the money would come from
private donors, not from the
Zimbabwean government.
"Spouses of late war veterans are receiving
pensions from the government. If
Ndlovu wants to help them he must give them
money from his own pocket,"
Chinotimba said.
President Robert Mugabe,
last month attacked the US government for its slow
response to the hurricane
disaster.
"A whole community of mainly non-whites was deliberately
abandoned to the
ravages of Hurricane Katrina as sacrificial lambs," he
said.
'I will hear these screams for the rest of my life'
Meanwhile,
US authorities said on Monday they arrested a man who allegedly
ran a fake
charity for Katrina victims by claiming he was airlifting
emergency supplies
and evacuating sick children from affected areas.
The scam allegedly
earned Florida resident Gary Kraser $40 000 in charitable
donations,
according to the US State Attorney's Office in Miami.
Kraser used a
website to claim he and other compassionate Florida pilots
were flying
volunteer missions to Louisiana, and needed more funds to
continue
delivering medical supplies and evacuating sick children.
"I saw people
on their roofs ... waving at us as if we were Air Rescue ... I
will hear
these screams for the rest of my life," Kraser said in one appeal
for
donations, according to his indictment.
In a blog meant as a diary of his
missions of mercy, he claimed he spotted
Air Force One over Louisiana and
tipped the wings of his aircraft to salute
the US president.
But
authorities say Kraser made the whole thing up and doesn't even have a
pilot's licence.
"It is simply unconscionable and intolerable that
anyone would seek a
personal financial benefit from the horrible human
tragedy caused by
Hurricane Katrina," said US Attorney Alexander
Acosta.
Kraser could face up to 20 years behind bars if he is found
guilty on all
four counts of wire fraud, Acosta said at a news conference in
Miami.
Authorities said several other Katrina charity fraud cases were
being
investigated. - Sapa-AFP
Email: jag@mango.zw;
justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Please send any material for publication
in the Open Letter Forum to
jag@mango.zw with "For Open Letter Forum" in the
subject
line.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
1:
Dear JAG,
Re: Stuart Chappell
Fancy those silly silly
whites becoming involved in African politics. You
don't see black or Asian
people involved in British or American politics,
thank God, or ethnic Chinese
involved in Malaysian or Indonesian politics
or Kurds involved in Turkish
politics. Or having the downright cheek to buy
property on the open market in
a country in which they are a racial
minority or.....hang on. Actually, you
do.
White people living in Africa, whether as residents or citizens, have
the
same rights as everyone else and that includes the right to participate
in
a nation's political life and to own and enjoy property. The whites
who
shake their heads wisely and mutter 'never get involved in
African
politics' are foolishly short-sighted. Why should the likes of
Mugabe
respect rights that those whites deny themselves?
Africa can
and will only improve through the actions of good and wise
and
public-spirited people and those people may as well be white as
anything
else. Step forward the Coulthards and the Stevensons. And well done
to
them.
As for the rest of Mr Chappell's nonsense: many British
Labour MPs did not,
and do not, like white farmers in Africa. Their opinion
reflects that same
sort of values as those of people who say that whites
should not get
involved in 'African' politics and are about as valid. But the
UK did not
cease to fund land reform out of spite but because it could see
that funds
provided through the 1990s, actually quite small annual sums, had
been
misappropriated or had gone to waste. Even if they had continued to
provide
funds to buy white farms such funds would have been eggshells on the
road
before the steamroller of Mugabe's Fast Track. And that Fast Track,
we
cannot remember too often, had nothing to do with land, or a
colonial
legacy that had all but disappeared, or Lancaster House, and
everything to
do with power.
No sums of money could have stopped
Mugabe once he had resolved to
sacrifice Zimbabwe to political obsession.
The problem is not that whites
became involved in African politics. It is the
contemptible nature of
Mugabe's politics.
Simon
Pirbright
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
2:
Dear JAG,
Stuart Chappell's letter was interesting, but he got
quite a few facts
wrong.
1. It was called Zimbabwe Rhodesia, not
Rhodesia Zimbabwe.
2. The land was not taken by the white settlers, but
by the BSA Company,
which paid the settlers for their work in occupying the
country with land
grants and they sold land to the other white
settlers.
3. Did the British Government actually pay money for land
reform? I think
they agreed to it, but did not pay because the agreement
reached between
the farmers and government was thrown out by
government.
4. The main reason the land grab started in 2000 was because
the war vets
were becoming restless and Mugabe had to appease them. Hunzvi
was one of
the few people who opposed him and got away with it. In fact the
war vet
who occupied my farm told me that it was the war vets that started
the farm
invasions and then government "legalised" them.
5. Smith
actually reached several agreements with Harold Wilson's
government, some of
which the British reneged on and some others were
thrown out by the Rhodesian
electorate.
6. Was the land "rightfully theirs"? Treaties were signed
with Lobengula
and other chiefs and there was a very small black population
which was
mainly nomadic. As Tony Blair (Mugabe's bete noir) said, most
countries
have been occupied by foreign powers at some stage in their history
- and
been improved by them! Where would Britain have been without the
Romans?
I don't think white Rhodesians have anything to apologise for,
except that
they should have pushed birth control much harder. The poverty
comes from
over population, not the whites grabbing the best land. Look at
the farms
that have been occupied in the last five years and see how they
have
deteriorated.
The idea of white Zimbabweans paying for the land
they hold now falls away,
as government has nationalized it all. What we
need is payment for our
improvements and equipment, then we can get on with
our lives!
Colleen
Taylor
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
3:
Dear JAG
In reply to Stuart Chappell's letter, if I remember
correctly in 1998,
British government representatives came to a Land
Conference in Zimbabwe.
A way forward was worked out and the British
agreed to pay, once the
Zimbabwean government had done its part.
The
Zimbabwean government did not comply with its side of the bargain, so
there
were no positive developments.
I stand to be corrected.
As for us
paying the government, what
for?
petra
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
4:
Hi there,The appropriated land has nothing to do with British non
payments.
It was always a foregone conclusion that Mugabe hated the whites
and was
only waiting for the ten years to be up before he could thieve the
land
from the whites. An awful lot of whom had in fact paid for it over
the
years. Yes, originally, the land was given, PLEASE NOTE, given to
the
whites by a black leader. A far cry from the land being taken
from
them!What is happening there today is simply politics by Mugabe. Support
my
rule, or die of hunger!!!!! This not aimed at the white population, but
at
his own kind. (We, the whites can get out, albeit with nothing that we
have
worked and paid for and saved. Lots of us are pensioners that have had
to
leave everything behind). They, the majority of blacks who have nowhere
to
go, are the people suffering the most, and for what? to appease M's
wife
and party supporters. Where is their humanity? They simply do not have
any
HUMANITY. This is a monster of note, just as bad as Hitler, only in
a
different coloured coat. How many more are to die before the world
takes
notice? Those of you that support his monstrous regime still have a
higher
power to face at the end of your lives. Show your face and humanity if
you
dare!Lilian
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
5:
Dear JAG,
In response to the letter & opinions published
today, from Stuart Chappell,
British Citizen wanting to live and buy property
in Zimbabwe.
Let us say: Please DO come, live and buy property, hopefully
a farm, in
Zimbabwe, and under Zimbabwe's freshest Constitution
changes.
Paul
Broad.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
6:
Dear JAG,
We have just been looking at a programme on CNN at 13
: 15 hrs.this
afternoon with Robert G Mugabe concerning the situation in
Zimbabwe. There
is not a single word that is anywhere near the truth about
Zimbabwe.
Can you please send a copy of my letter to the Prime Minister
of Great
Britain and another copy to the president of the United States of
America
requesting their comments, as a programme on the world TV for all to
hear
and see. At the same time could a copy of the CNN programme be sent
to
both these important men.
Retired Farmer - Campbell
Smith
hscsmith@mweb.co.zw
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
7:
Dear Jag
As a Non-African, I am sure that Stuart Chappell
(British Citizen wanting
to live and buy property in Zimbabwe - Jag open
letters forum no 384) will
not mind having his property returned to it's
rightful owners once he has
invested a life-time's work, effort, blood, sweat
and tears into this
country called Zimbabwe. And I am also sure that he will
not expect a
single cent from our Government in
compensation.
Yours
Veronica Scott
Zimbabwean Born Citizen living
and owning property in
Zimbabwe
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
8:
Editor,
Derek Sparrow's suggestion that farmers in Zimbabwe
should now "serve as
latter day pioneers and take another substantial risk by
participating in
the leasehold system.....with a democratic regime which
would administer
the leasehold system satisfactorily" is a most encouraging
view point.
However, it is interesting to note that Derek left Zambia at
about the same
time as the farms and the mines were all nationalised. My
reading of the
economic and social results of that nationalisation indicates
that it
actually acted as a bench mark for Zimbabwe's results but simply
occurred
thirty five years before the wonderful Third Chimurenga.
My
concern is that Derek's idea is based on what I learnt from my late
father
sitting by the fireside at night in Matabeleland, on the farm that
his father
bought for eight hundred pounds - over one hundred years ago.
"Willy my boy,
what you must realise is that an Englishman is liberal
abroad but
conservative at home" he would inform me over a sundowner.
Is it just
possible we now again experiencing "liberalism abroad" from an
ex Zambian who
left forty years ago for the conservative preserve of Her
Majesty's
Government in Westminster? Sadly, history tells us (David
Dimbleby BBC) that
Margaret Thatcher, Lord Carrington and Lord Soames "were
ever so jolly" and
said "Cheers to the foreign office" on the installation
of one Marxist Robert
Mugabe in 1980. Dimbleby was also very explicit as to
the origins of the
problem - the Victoria Falls conference where "RAB"
Butler was also "ever so
jolly and nice" to win support from Southern
Rhodesia to dissolve the
Federation. Later, so jolly was Her Majesty's
Government with Marxist Robert
that he was invited for a State visit years
after he had dispatched Perence
Shiri to Matabeleland with the Fifth
Brigade to execute a highly effective
and well documented ethnic cleansing
exercise.
Mugabe has never been
in any doubt of the threat posed to him by Title - in
the 80s Norman Reynolds
(the former Govt. chief economist) drew up a
financial system to convert
villages into trust companies - which was
adopted by all fifty five district
councils. Mugabe simply cast it aside
saying "it is not in the interest of
Zanu because no one need vote for us
again."
Simply, the title for the
whole of Zimbabwe is now held by one man - Robert
Mugabe - with a facade of
democracy in the form of 103 or so Mujibas who
know full well what happened
to Tongogara, Mahachi and Nyagumbo. Hitler,
Stalin, Castro and Chaka, bless
them, all helped write his script. Derek's
"latter day pioneer's" leases
(like those of an international tycoon) will
all be from one
landlord.
Cynics that follow the theory of the New World Order might well
contend
that what is happening in Zimbabwe today is in fact going exactly to
plan
when Henry Kissinger promised to "protect" BJ Vorster's regime if he
put
the screws on the Rhodesian Front. Again this was shown in Dimbleby's
BBC
documentary. Vorster - according to the documentary - happily played
along
with Kissinger thinking blissfully that it would save his Republic from
the
international money lenders - forgetting that it had been destroyed by
them
in the Boer War some 75 years earlier because Oom Paul just had too
much
gold for his own good!
J.L.
Robinson.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
9:
Re your insert on 1/10/05 - writer was Stuart Chappell a British
Citizen
wanting to live and buy property in Zimbabwe.
What an absolute
load of c rap this man talks.
The British Gov't put the money there for
purchase of farms for people.
When it found only politicians were benefiting
from the scheme it pulled
the plug. Most of the dispossessed farmers had "no
interest" certificates
from the Zim. Gov't. The land was taken to get
election results, not
better crops OR for the people.
No wonder the
world is confused with liars like this around.
Please ensure this gets
back to him.
Amazed reader - not a
farmer!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
10:
Dear Jag:
I help to run a small web-based conservation group
called ZimConservation
(www.zimconservation.com) that gets about 3000 unique
visits and over 8000
hits per month . I have been trying to find someone who
could write an
opinion piece for the site about the effects of the land
reform on
Zimbabwean game-farms and the game-farming industry. If any experts
in the
JAG network would volunteer to write a 1500-word opinion piece for
the
website I would be most grateful, or if you know anyone who is up to
the
job, please let me know.
I am also asking people to send me their
personal stories that I can
compile as a composite piece to give an overall
impression of the issues
being faced in different parts of the
country.
ZimConservation sends out a bi-monthly conservation news update,
if you
would like to subscribe please write to
brian.gratwicke@zimconservation.com
Best wishes,
Brian
Gratwicke
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
11:
Dear JAG,
Re Stuart Chappell
This guy is real and looks
at the reality of things. Thanks very much for
your version and its down to
earthiness. If there were more of you around
or better still in Britain,
things would have been different. I hope the
others who seem to deny the
truth will learn from you. Thanks once
more.
Dutiro
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
12:
Subject: Car Jackers
Last night at around 8.30pm as I was
coming from a church meeting I was
nearly car jacked. As I approached our
gate, I noticed a car driving behind
me and decided to drive past our gate in
order to make sure the black
Mercedes Benz was not following me. As our gate
is manual I would have had
to park by the gate and get out to open the gate
and could not risk this if
the people behind me were indeed car jackers. I'm
always cautious of cars
driving behind me so I took a couple of turns to make
sure this car wasn't
following me. After making the first turn I started to
panic as this car
seemed to pick up speed and was in close pursuit of me.
After the 2nd and
3rd turns and I still had them bearing down on me I was in
full panic and
tried to call home. I couldn't get our home number correct
though, as I
tried to manoeuvre round the bends while keeping my car running
(my car has
a problem with the fuel pump and often cuts out went I slow down
at
intersections). I now realize the importance of setting the
important
numbers on speed dial. By then I'd run out of ideas and I'd gone
full
circle round my block. Not knowing what else to do, I decided to just
hoot
incessantly hoping someone would hear and come to my rescue!!!! I
drove
past our house again and wasn't even sure what to do now and just
carried
on driving as I headed towards Enterprise road. By then for some
reason
they seemed to slow down and I pulled away from them just hoping
there'd be
no traffic that would hinder me from turning into Enterprise road
quickly.
I quickly cut though a little dust road leading onto the main road
and only
felt reasonably safe once I was on Enterprise road. Since I was now
a bit
calmer I managed to call home and told them I was being followed and
they
should wait for me by the gate. I got to the gate and Dad was waiting
with
his shot gun in hand and finally I could actually breathe!!!! I
suspect
that these car-jackers pulled away and figured I'd go round the block
again
and they could catch me on the other side of the block. Luckily I
thought
fast and didn't go back the way I'd come. Needless to say I am
now
terrified of driving alone at night. I am glad, though, that I
was
observant enough to notice that a suspicious looking car was driving
behind
me and that I had the presence of mind to think quickly.
Please
learn from my experience and always be observant of cars driving
behind
you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All
letters published on the open Letter Forum are the views and opinions
of the
submitters, and do not represent the official viewpoint of Justice
for
Agriculture.
JUSTICE FOR AGRICULTURE DEATH NOTICES - October 4, 2005
Email:
jag@mango.zw;
justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mrs.Peggy
Nelson, ex Wengi Farm Concession, died at Malvern House, Mvurwi
on Wednesday,
28 September at the age of nearly 97. Her memorial Service
will be held at
Malvern House, Mvurwi on Saturday, 8 October at 10 a.m.
Mrs. Nelson was a
much loved and well respected member of the community for
many
years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear
Jag,
A short note to advise that my father, CLIVE HAYES, passed away in
George
on 01 October 2005.
Regards
Brian
Hayes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMBINED HARARE RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION
PUBLIC MEETING: At the Anglican
Cathedral Yard
Date: Wednesday, October 5, 2005
Time: 1-2pm
Harare Residents!
You are cordially invited to attend an
important public meeting on the State of the City of Harare. Please come and air
your views on this crucial public discussion. Issues to cover service delivery,
Operation Murambatsvina, and the Commission running the affairs of
Harare.
Speakers: Open Public Discussion
NB: POLICE HAVE BEEN
NOTIFIED OF THIS MEETING