Shift your gaze to the plain that stretches towards the city and you see a
small forest which swiftly thins and gives way to row after row of tree stumps.
The people of Harare have started hacking down wood for fuel.
On the surface, many things seem normal. There is food in the shops,
traffic-lights work, children attend school. Compared with other African
capitals, Harare is calm and orderly.
Reports of ox-wagons ferrying the sick to hospitals and famine stalking the
countryside are belied by functioning ambulances and villagers who say they are
hungry but not starving. Zimbabwe has not quite collapsed. But it has hollowed.
Behind a facade of normality, a crisis is gouging the economy and society,
causing incalculable suffering in what was once one of Africa's most developed
countries.
Agriculture and industry are in ruins, unemployment is pushing 80% and the
official inflation rate of 913% is widely deemed a gross underestimate. The
economy has shrunk by 50% in the past six years - the fastest contraction
anywhere outside a war zone.
The result was visible in the ragged clothes and skinny frames of the crowd
attending independence day celebrations at Harare's football stadium last week.
"I haven't had a proper meal in a long time," said Herbert Mwinjilo, 29, a
now-destitute former gardener. He says he cannot always afford the insulin to
treat his diabetes.
International pariah
The crisis dates from the government-sponsored invasions of white-owned farms
in 2000, a chaotic land-reform programme that destroyed agricultural exports,
frightened off investors and helped make Mr Mugabe an international pariah.
"There is so much suffering out there. Social services - health, education,
public works - have completely degraded," said Emmanuel Munyukwi, chief
executive of the stock exchange.
Teachers at Mr Mugabe's alma mater, the elite St Francis Xavier college, say
that a third of the 1,000-plus pupils have left because parents cannot afford
the fees. Text books are not being replaced, classrooms are falling apart and
blackouts prevent evening study. But the teachers are grateful for free eggs and
chickens from a nearby estate owned by Mr Mugabe.
More than 3 million Zimbabweans are thought to have emigrated. The ruling
Zanu-PF party has branded healthcare workers who moved to Britain as "British
bum cleaners", a pun on the BBC, which is banned as part of draconian media
censorship. Last week, the casualty unit of Harare's main Parirenyatwa hospital
was pristine but short of drugs, blood and stitches. It was staffed entirely by
Cuban and Congolese doctors.
The World Health Organisation says average life expectancy for women has
plunged to 34 - the world's lowest - and for men to 37. This is the result of
Aids and poor nutrition and medical care. Prostitution has grown. Sex workers
loiter on street corners alongside black-market currency traders. Some street
children have become entrepreneurs, buying groceries in the morning hoping the
hyper-inflation will enable them to sell at a profit that evening.
Game reserves have reported a surge in poaching, with 17 rhinos lost in
Kwekwe park alone. Tourists have all but vanished. The government's "look east"
policy - an attempt to lure Asian investment - has flopped: Chinese tourist
numbers are down 70%.
Relief agencies say good rains should boost harvests by 50% compared with
last year, but several hundred thousand tonnes of food aid will still be needed.
"My family is down to two meals a day and that's just maize and pumpkin
leaves," said Violet Charehwa, 42, as she queued in Chegutu district, 90 miles
south of Harare, for a wheat ration from the World Food Programme.
The opposition, meanwhile, seems to have lost its relevance. Since being
defeated in last year's election, which observers said was rigged, the Movement
for Democratic Change has split in two.
Zanu-PF is also hollowing. In theory, it rules Zimbabwe. The cabinet meets
every Friday, and state media report ministers' statements as if civilians were
in charge. In reality, the party is paralysed by in-fighting and the economic
crisis. Power has shifted to a cabal of senior officials from the army, police,
prison service and intelligence agencies.
Internal coup
Over the past 18 months, serving and retired officers have been slotted into
ministries and parastatal bodies such as the grain marketing board. Soldiers are
responsible for house-building, farming, tax collection and, to some extent,
monetary policy. The takeover was formalised by the recent establishment of a
Soviet-style Zimbabwe National Security Council, a group of elderly securocrats,
chaired by Mr Mugabe and tasked with managing the economy.
"The whole government has been militarised. You could almost call it an
internal coup," said a western diplomat.
Mr Mugabe is still in control and plotting to safeguard his future after
2008, when his presidential term expires, by installing relatives and loyalists
in key positions. He retains some support from fellow members of the dominant
Shona tribe who accept his claims that drought and sanctions - not his misrule -
are responsible for the country's plight.
"The president is doing a good job. He is constant about everything," said
Dick Chingaira, 53, a singer better known by his stage name, Comrade Chinx, who
appears at rallies singing the regime's praises. An official version of
Zimbabwe's situation is not possible to obtain. Due to restrictions on foreign
media working in the country, the Guardian was not able to approach ministers
for comment.
Most people pine for change. The question many ask, though, is: will the
economic crisis puncture the atmosphere of intimidation and fear inhibiting
protest? "People are angry - yes. But willing to express it in any visible or
tangible manner - no," said one aid worker, who declined to be named. "The
politics of survival has overtaken the politics of opposition. People are
consumed simply by trying to get by day to day."
About 30,000 people packed Harare's football stadium on independence day last
week. They came not for the president's state-of-the-nation address but the
football match that followed: a rare free treat. Mr Mugabe, wearing a green
sash, spoke for an hour, promising initiatives to revive the economy, a familiar
refrain that might have been expected to provoke a hostile response from a crowd
who had heard it all before.
It provoked nothing. No jeers, no shouts, no whistles. Some people snoozed,
the rest chatted among themselves. Mr Mwinjilo, the unemployed gardener,
shrugged. "What good would it do to heckle? It would change nothing. Anyway the
speech is almost finished. The match will start soon."
State of decline
20mins Frequency that a child dies of Aids and another is orphaned,
according to the United Nations children's agency, Unicef, which estimates that
1.6 million children, almost one in three, are orphans.
3,000 Number of people estimated to die of Aids-related illnesses each
week, despite an apparent slight decline recently in the HIV rate.
4.3m Number of people receiving food aid after several poor harvests
blamed on drought and chaotic land reform.
34 Average life expectancy for women - the lowest in the world. For
men it is 37, according to the World Health Organisation. The government says
the figures are exaggerated.
3.5m Number of Zimbabweans said to have emigrated, mostly to South
Africa, Botswana and Britain.
In a rare dispatch from Robert Mugabe's tightly controlled country, the
Guardian has found a land heading towards collapse
Rory Carroll in Harare
Monday April
24, 2006
The
Guardian
SABC
April 24, 2006,
06:30
Zimbabwe's opposition leader has defied Robert Mugabe's threat to
crush mass
protests, saying he will confront the president head on. Morgan
Tsvangirai,
who is president of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
has called for
peaceful mass action to drive Mugabe from
power.
Yesterday, he addressed more than 5000 supporters in Harare,
saying the
struggle will continue until final victory. However, his call has
provoked
threats from the veteran Zimbabwe leader who said his opponents
were
"playing with fire".
"The struggle continues until final
victory, the struggle continues in the
township, in the villages, in the
streets, everywhere in Zimbabwe. Mugabe
must read the national mood." Rising
prices of basic food, transport and
housing, and the world's highest
inflation rate, have badly affected the
population.
The MDC has held
rallies across the country, despite threats from Zimbabwe's
82-year-old
leader, who says his opponents are playing with fire. Taking a
stand against
Mugabe is dangerous. In 2002 protests led to Tsvangirai being
arrested on
treason charges. - Reuters
IOL
April
24 2006 at 12:45AM
By MacDonald Dzirutwe
Harare -
Zimbabwe's opposition leader on Sunday defied President
Robert Mugabe's
threat to crush mass protests, saying he would confront the
challenge "head
on" by taking his fight into the ruling party's rural
strongholds.
Morgan Tsvangirai, Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) president, has
called for peaceful mass action to drive Mugabe from
power but his call has
provoked threats from the veteran Zimbabwe leader who
said his opponents
were "playing with fire".
Addressing more
than 5 000 supporters in Harare on Sunday Tsvangirai
was
defiant.
"Mugabe intimidates people but we are saying we are going
head on with
the regime... there is a dark cloud on the horizon and it will
soon rain,"
Tsvangirai said.
"From here we are going into the
rural areas to sell them our
programme so that the struggle will be fought
in the streets and every
village until victory," he said.
Tsvangirai has held rallies in Zimbabwe's main cities and towns
rallying
people to prepare for anti-Mugabe protests. Tsvangirai, a former
trade
unionist, would not say when the protests would start or give any
details.
Political and economic analysts say rising prices of
basic foodstuffs,
public transport and housing is stoking anger in an urban
population already
struggling with breaking sewerage systems, water and
electricity cuts,
uncollected garbage and roads riddled with
potholes.
But they say the MDC still needs to shore up support for
a unified
stand against Mugabe's forces, with the military, police and
security
agencies still seen firmly behind the man who has ruled the country
since
independence from Britain in 1980.
On Sunday Tsvangirai
mocked the security forces saying they were being
called to defend Mugabe
when they were also affected by an economic crisis
dramatised by the world's
highest inflation rate, growing joblessness and
shortages of foreign
exchange, fuel and food.
Previous MDC protests have been met with
tough tactics by Mugabe's
security forces, the last being in June 2002
dubbed "final push" to drive
Mugabe from power. It failed and led to
Tsvangirai's arrest on treason
charges.
Tsvangirai, who has led
the MDC since its formation in 1999, has been
constantly outmanoeuvred by
Mugabe but analysts say he has emerged from his
party's recent split intent
on taking the battle to the veteran 82-year-old
leader.
iafrica.com
Mon, 24 Apr
2006
Zimbabwe's veteran opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Sunday vowed
to
remove the country's long serving President Robert Mugabe through a mass
but
peaceful campaign.
"We are going to rally every Zimbabwean in the
urban areas and rural areas
for a peaceful resistance against this regime,"
Tsvangirai told at least
6000 supporters at a giant rally in the capital
city of Harare.
"I have told him (Mugabe) that we have no intention of
throwing him out of
power but simply that he should pack his bags and go
home to his rural area.
The struggle continues until the final victory," he
said.
"Mugabe must read the national mood."
Once posing the
biggest challenge to Mugabe's rule, Tsvangirai's Movement
for Democracy
(MDC) party split late last year over Tsvangirai's decision to
boycott
senate elections, which he said were a luxury in the face of acute
food
shortages.
Last Tuesday, Mugabe warned Tsvangirai that his plans to
topple the
government were like playing "with fire".
But a defiant
Tsvangirai on Sunday also appealed to veterans of Zimbabwe's
liberation war
against Britain to refrain from being used as pawns by
Mugabe's
government.
"I am making a call to all war veterans to be true to the
spirit of the
liberation struggle," he said. "The military is a noble
profession but you
should not be used against your people."
Many
veterans of the liberation war, which culminated in independence in
1980,
have been richly rewarded by Mugabe and many have become the new
owners of
white farms they were either given by the state or they forcibly
occupied.
AFP
By Martin
Plaut
BBC News
Zimbabwe says it is prepared to
provide land to white farmers who had
their property seized under President
Robert Mugabe's land reform programme.
Deputy Information Minister
Bright Matonga told the BBC any Zimbabwean
can apply for land and that farms
would be allocated on long leases for
free.
But he said that
farmers would not necessarily get back land they
lost.
On
Friday the Commercial Farmers' Union said 200 white farmers had
applied for
land over the past two weeks.
Cronies rewarded
The
Zimbabwe government is portraying white farmers as having finally
come to
their senses, accepting that they cannot resist Mr Mugabe's land
reform
programme.
They are begging us for land, Mr Matonga told the
BBC.
But it is hard facts that has driven this policy U-turn. By
confiscating the whit- owned commercial farms, the government transformed a
country that was once the breadbasket of Southern Africa into a net food
importer.
And despite good rains there is every prospect of
another deficit over
the coming season.
Many of the best farms
were awarded to government cronies.
The urban unemployed were
frequently dumped on less favourable land,
and left to fend for themselves.
Without capital, implements or seed, many
failed.
This policy
has left Zimbabwe poorer than it was at independence in
1980, after it had
survived 16 years of sanctions and eight years of civil
war.
The result is the current crisis, with ordinary Zimbabweans now
trapped in
grinding poverty, and over 2m having sought sanctuary in
neighbouring South
Africa.
Business Day
Foreign
Staff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZIMBABWEAN
opposition MP Roy Bennett's application for asylum in SA was a
victory for
President Robert Mugabe and ruling party Zanu (PF), a newspaper
said at the
weekend.
The New Zimbabwean said the Harare regime would benefit from the
exit of the
political veteran as the move would weaken the opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change.
Bennett's family has confirmed his
asylum application on the grounds that
his life was in danger from state
security forces.
He fled Zimbabwe in March after reports of the finding
of an arms cache led
to accusations from the state that the MDC was planning
a coup. Charges
against all accused have since been dropped for lack of
evidence.
Bennett is living in SA after the state-run Zimbabwean Herald
newspaper
alleged he was linked through the discovery of the arms cache to a
plot to
topple Mugabe's Zanu-PF government.
Bennett's Gauteng legal
consultant, Danie Fourie, said Bennett had applied
for asylum through
Lawyers for Human Rights, backed by Amnesty
International, and that he was
safe. Bennett would not be available for
comment.
Bennett has long
taken the brunt of the distain of the ruling Zanu (PF)
party for the
parliamentary opposition .
On April 9 2004 Bennett was evicted from his
farm in the Chimanimani
district in defiance of court orders prohibiting
acquisition of the farm by
the state.
He was subjected to humiliation
and suffering during a year-long prison
sentence in 2004 after an incident
in May that year when he pushed Justice,
Parliament and Legal Affairs
Minister Patrick Chinamasa to the floor during
a heated exchange. Chinamasa
had referred to Bennett's father and
grandfather as "thieves and murderers".
With Sapa
April 23,
2006,
By ANDnetwork .com
Zimbabwe is making efforts to
woo Russian investors to partner with
local businesses to commence the
exploration of uranium in Kanyemba
district.
According to
sources in the mining sector, Reserve Bank Governor, Dr
Gideon Gono,
recently negotiated with the potential investors in Moscow.
Several
Australian companies are jostling for the special grant to
explore the
mineral.
Contacted for comment, the Deputy Minister of Mines and Mining
Development, Mr Tinos Rusere, would not shed light on the matter indicating
that he was out of the office and could be available for a detailed comment
on Monday.
"We have got information on the exploration at Kanyemba
and I am sure
our guys have got information in the office," said Mr
Rusere.
About seven potential investors are reported to be interested
in the
exploration and are awaiting approvals from the Government.
Sources in the mining sector said Zimbabwe went to Russia as it is
pushing
for greater economic co-operation between the two countries, which
date back
to the liberation struggle.
However, some international investors have
since halted plans to
invest in the country's mining sector pending the
implementation of the
proposed mining bill.
The amended law could
give the Government up to 51 percent stake in
mining companies including 25
percent on a non-contributory basis upon
promulgation.
It is
understood that the Mining Affairs Board last year granted Omega
Corporation
and Lowenbrau, an Australian company, a special grant to extract
uranium in
the country and the company made initial plans to invest US$5
million into
the project.
Lowenbrau is a joint venture between Omega Corporation
Limited and an
Australian company with a 70 percent shareholding and locals
who include
Robert Zhuwao, Roderick Mlauzi, Nkonzo Chikosi and Charles
Matezu.
Zimbabwe is giving first preference to Russia and China given
the
political and social relationships that exist.
Last year the
two countries voted against a decision to have Zimbabwe
censored by the
Security Council when Government embarked on Operation
Murambatsvina.
The Government says it intends to explore the
mineral for electricity
production.
The Ministry of Mines failed to
award Exclusive Prospecting Orders
last year resulting in Zimbabwean
companies losing potential investors.
The Government is talking to
investors interested in extracting
uranium, which is considered a strategic
resource because of its application
to nuclear weapons.
Australians, South Africans, Zimbabweans and Namibian nationals have
shown
interest in prospecting for the prized mineral.
The valley is also rich
in natural gas used to make energy. Geologists
say the initial explorations
have isolated Kanyemba District, Kariba,
Mhangura, Hwange, Victoria Falls,
West Nicholson, Mana Pools and Chimanimani
in the eastern part of the
country as areas with exploitable uranium
resources.
Initial
explorations suggest that there is about 450 000 tonnes of
uranium ore.
Early estimates also suggest that the explored areas have 20
000 tonnes of
extractable uranium.
Companies which have applied for special grants
include Lowenbrau,
which has isolated the Hwange, Victoria Falls and
Mhangura districts; Africa
Energy Resources, which has isolated the highly
priced Kanyemba areas;
Altrock, Bennydale Miners, Heavy Metals
Syndicate-Binga, Chimanimani and
West Nicholson and Mutoko, Geo
Associates-Mana Pools and Stonefields Mining
which have applied to explore
the Kanyemba district.
Source : Zimbabwe Chronicle
April 24, 2006
By
Andnetwork .com
A huge health crisis is developing in areas where
hundreds of
thousands of poor rural Zimbabweans and their families have been
resettled
on commercial farms as part of President Robert Mugabe's socially
and
economically disastrous land reform
exercise.
Mugabe's ZANU PF government moved
some 400,000 rural families on to
Zimbabwe's mainly white-owned commercial
farms over the past six years
without a corresponding development of health
and sanitary structures.
As conditions have deteriorated on the
once rich and highly developed
farms, a major health crisis is
developing.
As rural people were resettled on the farms, some
900,000 farm workers
and their families were simultaneously displaced from
their homes on the
land, according to new statistics by the Farm Community
Trust of Zimbabwe,
FCTZ, an organisation created by trade unions and the
Save the Children Fund
UK to raise farm labourers' standards of
living.
However, these workers remain huddled in some pockets
of the farmland
and continue to compete with the new peasant settlers for
increasingly
scarce and ill-equipped health services.
Most
farms no longer have fresh water supplies because pipes are in
disrepair and
pumps have stopped working for lack of spares. The new
settlers cannot
afford water purification chemicals, and the main water
sources are now
streams and dams.
"The situation is terrible. We know the risks of
waterborne diseases
such as bilharzia, cholera and dysentery that we could
catch, but there is
really no choice," said Savious Muromba, a veteran of
Zimbabwe's 1970s
liberation war resettled at a farm in Odzi, about 32
kilometres outside
Mutare in Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands.
He said most settlers had hoped the government would quickly move to
provide
basic sanitary facilities on the farms when the land confiscation
process
was deemed to be complete.
People, said Muromba, were using open
land as toilets while they
waited for the government to construct pit
latrines called Blair Toilets.
The latter were developed to improve rural
sanitation during the 1980s at
Zimbabwe's Blair Research Institute. Its
clever design makes use of air
currents, a septic tank-like pit and fly
traps to create an odourless and
hygienic toilet not dependent on water
supply.
Most of the settlers cannot afford the six bags of cement
necessary to
construct a Blair Toilet. During the rainy season, just ending,
human waste
from the surrounding bush has been seeping into the reservoirs
from which
the new settlers draw their water for domestic use.
With the government unable to afford to build clinics for the
resettled
villagers, their leaders have proposed using abandoned white
farmhouses as
health centres. "This is the best option, pending the
establishment of
permanent clinics," said Farai Bazaya, a health worker.
In
desperation, the Zimbabwe government has appealed to the United
Nations
Development programme, UNDP, to provide help for people resettled on
the
confiscated farms. But first, the UNDP has called for a comprehensive
survey
to identify the scale of the problem. Agostinho Zaccharia, UNDP's
resident
representative in Zimbabwe, told IWPR, "Before this has been
achieved, we
can't even talk about the next step."
FCTZ's national director
Godfrey Magaramombe told IWPR that his
organisation is deeply concerned by
the lack of sanitation on the farms.
"The situation is bad," he said.
"People are drinking surface water from
streams and dams and this water
needs to be treated or boiled to reduce the
risk of infection. Since farm
occupants cannot afford electricity they are
not able to get the power
needed to pump their water from unpolluted
boreholes."
In the
first two months of this year 51 cholera deaths were reported
countrywide.
In the absence of toilets and clean water on the occupied
farms, further and
more serious disease outbreaks are feared.
Even before Mugabe
launched his land reform programme, government
policy had contributed to the
deterioration of health facilities on
commercial farms by discouraging the
development of public infrastructure on
private land. Research conducted by
the FCTZ showed that up to nine out of
ten farm workers had to walk more
than 20 km to get to the nearest clinic,
contrary to government policy that
no one should have to travel more than
eight km.
For the
majority of farm worker communities, the only contact with
health services
is through basic health care workers employed by the FCTZ.
These workers
were recruited from among the farm labourers and their
families and trained
in first aid and other simple health care provision.
The disruption
of farming communities has resulted in a corresponding
dislocation in this
programme on most resettled farms. Some of the health
workers have been
displaced from the farms where they used to live, while
those health
activities that were supported financially by the former farm
owners have
collapsed. Previously, each heath care worker covered two or
more farm
villages consisting of about 400 people.
Four charities running
home-based care projects for HIV/AIDS patients
on farms in Mashonaland West
and Mashonaland Central provinces had to
abandon this work in the face of
the farm invasions and the violence that
accompanied them. These were the
Batsirai AIDS Group, the Red Cross Society
of Zimbabwe, Silveira House and
the FCTZ.
UNAIDS estimates that more than 20 per cent of adults in
Zimbabwe are
infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and that there
are over 100
000 AIDS orphans on farms in the country. Farm worker
communities are among
the worst hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
The government has yet to announce what, if anything, it plans to do
about
the deteriorating conditions on the resettled farms or even
acknowledge the
looming public health disaster there.
Source : Relief
Web
Business Report
April 24,
2006
Zesa Holdings, Zimbabwe's state-owned power company, posted a loss
of Z$32
trillion (R2 billion) last year, the Zimbabwe Independent reported
on
Friday, citing company documents.
Zesa said the loss was due to a
decision by the central bank preventing it
from raising prices, the
newspaper reported.
The company lost Z$2 trillion in 2004 and
Z$230 billion the previous year. -
Bloomberg, Maputo