Globe and Mail, Canada
STEPHANIE NOLEN
From
Saturday's Globe and Mail
HARARE - The young men sat in the shadow of the
huge stone walls of the
Great Zimbabwe Ruins and reminisced about the glory
days: not the 11th
century, when the ancient stone city ruled much of
southern Africa, but that
period just five or six years ago, when foreign
visitors used to flock here,
leaving behind tips in all manner of brightly
printed currencies. At the
Great Zimbabwe these days, they are lucky to see
two tourists a month.
The young tour guides said they have not been paid
in months. They sit in
the shade, play checkers with bottle caps and try to
make tea on a small
wood fire; the gas and electric stoves in the employee
kitchen were cut off
a year ago. Albert, though, clings to the belief that
things cannot get
worse.
"To be Zimbabwean is to endure," he said,
poking at embers with a stick.
"And the only thing greater than the
Zimbabwean ability to tolerate pain is
our capacity to believe that somehow
tomorrow will be better."
These are hard days for even the most
determined optimist. Zimbabwe's
riches-to-rags story grows only worse, the
once-lustrous economy in free
fall, the repressive government of Robert
Mugabe dug in deep.
Everyone has a story, but this may the worst: A young
woman, Doris (not her
real name), working for an AIDS organization in
Harare, recounted how she
and colleagues had to bury a 21-year-old woman who
couldn't afford ARV
treatment, one of 3,000 deaths from AIDS in Zimbabwe
each week.
"While we were there at the morgue to get her body, a family
came in with a
body and there were so many flies and such a terrible smell -
it had taken
them two weeks to raise the money for a burial," she
said.
It costs at least $20-million in Zimbabwe's collapsing currency, or
$200
(U.S.) at the official exchange rate, to bury the dead in Zimbabwe
these
days, money Doris and her colleagues had pooled together to pay for a
funeral for their friend. But for most people, it's a sum that's beyond
reach.
Lowering her voice to a whisper, though no one was around, she
described
something else that's happening in Harare now: The government has
posted
police to guard the cemeteries at night, she said, because people
were
sneaking in to bury their dead relations in unmarked plots under cover
of
dark.
"And you know, in our culture that's a terrible thing," she
said. "You must
have a funeral. You must have last respects. The family must
come, you must
gather. You can't just put someone in the ground - whomp!
-without even a
stone to say they are there. Can you imagine, this is how we
must live now?"
Two weeks ago, Zimbabwe's bakers rebelled and defied a
government price cap
on bread. Over the course of that week, the price of a
loaf went from
$55,000 - that's Zimbabwe dollars, of course - on Monday to
$75,000 by
Friday. That assumes a store even has bread; many lack staples
such as soap,
toilet paper or cooking oil.
To pay for a basic lunch
of cheese sandwiches and a Coke requires a stack of
money thicker than a
hockey puck - and don't get your heart set on that
Coke. The bottler has
packed up shop, after running out of foreign currency
to buy the precious
secret syrup, and stores that still carry Coke will sell
only one to a
customer. Inflation, even by the government's low-ball
estimate, was 782 per
cent more than last year, by far the highest rate in
the world.
Gas
stations will sell only to people who manage to buy a rare state-issued
coupon in U.S. dollars for fuel, but most stations have empty pumps in any
case. There is fuel to be had on the black market, at $250,000 a litre, if
you have connections and a jerry can to take to a dark alley to make the
transaction.
Over the past few years, one of the sole saving graces
of life in Zimbabwe
was sitting down at the end of the day with some friends
and a cold, locally
brewed Zambezi beer to complain about how things were
going to hell in a
hand basket. Now the breweries can't get the foreign
exchange to buy
ingredients, so they've put out warnings about imminent
production
stoppages. Could this be the thing that finally drives
Zimbabweans into the
streets?
In fact, there is little sign of
rebellion. The opposition Movement for
Democratic Change is in total
disarray, split by infighting that supporters
blame darkly on infiltration
activities by government agents. It takes most
of people's energy just to
negotiate the fuel shortages, the transport
crisis, the food scarcities and
the illness (an estimated one in four
Zimbabwean adults has HIV-AIDS),
leaving few to contemplate organized
rebellion.
"We know things won't
change here until people go into the streets," a group
of unemployed and
hungry young men in Harare explained.
"But everyone remembers the
[Rhodesian] war. Our parents tell us so many
people died, and even some of
us saw our parents killed. Mugabe knows he
will only go with a war, and he
knows that in Zimbabwe, we do not want
another war."
Mr. Mugabe has
ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. Under his tenure,
the country
became an economic powerhouse and achieved rates of literacy and
health-care
access that were the envy of most of the rest of Africa.
But in the late
1990s, as Mr. Mugabe felt his popularity begin to wane, he
dealt the economy
a first harsh blow, making a massive, unbudgeted payment
to "war veterans"
of the fight for independence, a move that silenced one
sector of fomenting
dissent.
Then he undertook a huge land-reform campaign, expropriating
commercial
farms and turning them over to new owners, ostensibly landless
black people.
There is no question that land ownership in Zimbabwe was
terribly skewed: As
much as 70 per cent of arable land was then in the hands
of a small, white
minority, and a willing buyer/willing seller transfer
envisioned at
independence had not occurred. But the white farmers who were
driven off
their land, in often violent and brutal evictions, had been
growing the
maize that fed the country (and many of Zimbabwe's neighbours)
and the
tobacco and other cash crops that formed as much as two-thirds of
import
earnings.
Mr. Mugabe's government turned over the farms to
some war veterans, and to
many cabinet ministers and members of the ruling
Zanu-PF party. The economy
collapsed, contracting by as much as 75 per cent
since 2000, while a huge
food shortage emerged, exacerbated by
drought.
ZANU-PF has since blatantly used food aid plus other more
routine tactics of
intimidation to manipulate voters in order to take both
parliamentary and
presidential elections.
The polls were endorsed by
observers from his African neighbours and
condemned by both domestic and
other international monitors as patently
unfair. After the last election a
year ago, opposition supporters became the
target of a revenge campaign as
vicious as it was gratuitous.
Mr. Mugabe turned 82 in February, and told
supporters at lavish birthday
celebrations that he felt instead like a man
of 28. The state-owned Herald
newspaper (the government has choked out all
but the last flickers of
independent media here) ran a special 16-page
supplement, which described
the President as "the greatest hero ever to
grace Zimbabwe and Africa."
He has given no indication he intends to
leave office any time soon, and
ZANU-PF is riven by squabbling over a
successor in any case. Just this past
week, at a state dinner for a fellow
visiting despot, Equatorial Guineau's
President, Teodoro Obiang Mbasogo, Mr.
Mugabe reiterated his theory that
meddling Western states, enraged by his
government's independent streak, are
to blame for the country's crisis,
imposing sanctions that they disguise in
the rhetoric of human
rights.
"Those opposed to our principles have enlisted the services of
like-minded
countries and their leaders, and deceitfully and dishonestly
used the media
. . . vilifying us as undemocratic because we have dared to
put the
interests of the poor and downtrodden first," he said to thunderous
applause. "The born-again democrats in London and Washington would like to
hoodwink the world on the situation in Zimbabwe in the very same manner they
have done on Iraq."
The meddling foreign states were at it again two
weeks ago when U.S.
Ambassador Christopher Dell gave an interview to the
local news media in
which he said Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis
had "passed the point
of no return" for recovery without huge internal
reforms and substantial
international help.
"It is our hope that in
the face of the massive crisis that it has brought
on itself, the government
here will recognize that it needs to do more than
talk about bridge
building," Mr. Dell was quoted as saying.
Yet there is no sign of that
change. In the neighbourhood of Mabvuku, on the
edge of the city - known, in
the Zimbabwean euphemism for slum, as a
high-density suburb - there is
higher density than ever before, after the
government's Operation
Murambatsvina begun nine months ago.
Police with bulldozers levelled tens
of thousands of houses and market
stalls across the city in an ostensible
urban-renewal program that was a
thinly veiled retaliatory attack on
supporters of the Movement for
Democratic Change. People were forcibly
relocated out to empty fields in
rural areas, left without food or
possessions. Some 700,000 people lost
their homes or jobs or
both.
Many have crept back to the city. Families are crammed together in
tiny
houses. But the police still patrol Mabvuku and smash any little stalls
that
desperate women set up in their yards to sell soap or
sweets.
One family of 17, who cannot safely be identified by name, is
living in two
rooms. Parents and small children sleep in the beds, older
ones sleep below
them; possessions that they salvaged from the wreckage of
their homes are
piled almost to the ceiling, and thin curtains carve up the
already tiny
space in a vain nod to privacy.
One brother worked at
the Coke bottling plant; he's been laid off. Another
was a mechanic; the
small shop where he worked was bulldozed. Two of the
women used to sell in
the market. Now nobody has any income at all. Two
family members have
advanced AIDS, but cannot afford to buy treatment (at
$5-million a month) or
even to pay the $150,000 bus fare in to the clinic.
It's a struggle to
figure out where to get food each day, although in a bit
of grim
practicality, they've taken the two little plots where the other
houses used
to stand and turned them into vegetable gardens.
"We want something
better, it's awful how we live now - truly, we are
suffering," one of the
women said. "We don't know why they would do this to
us. We're just poor
people, and now we're poorer, while we see so many rich
people getting
richer."
There are still those who live well in Zimbabwe: At one of the
city's best
restaurants, for example, there was not a free table to be had
last week for
a prix-fixe four-course dinner at $3-million a head. Lunch
time in a popular
café draws an all-white crowd of matrons in designer
sunglasses who sip
South African sauvignon blanc and compare notes on what
they can't find any
longer at the illegal-import supermarket they
frequent.
In one of the rare pieces of good news, there was plenty of
rain this year,
but driving across Zimbabwe, one passes only hectare after
hectare of
unplanted land. Many "new farmers" don't have the basic skills to
grow
crops, or have not been provided with seeds and fertilizer, which they
now
cannot afford to buy.
Yet one farm on the edge of Harare stands
out for its huge fields of crops -
it is now owned by Mr. Mugabe's wife,
Grace. She is expecting a bumper
harvest.
Dear Family and Friends,
One year ago this week, Zanu PF declared themselves
the winners of
Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections. They returned to their
government
offices, strode back into parliament and continued the party's
quarter of
a century in power under the same leader. At that time, in March
2005,
inflation in Zimbabwe was 123% and we thought life was hard. We
didn't
realise that we were about to enter the worst of times when you
only
bought petrol or diesel on the black market, when clean water from the
tap
would become a luxury and when electricity supplies would be
interrupted
every single day. It is hard to believe that just a year since
those
elections inflation has become unstoppable and is now officially quoted
at
782%.
It is still incomprehensible that just a year ago there were
many
thousands of ordinary Zimbabweans surviving by making and selling goods
on
our road sides, pavements and flea markets. The vast majority of
those
people, cleared away in the government's Operation Murambatsvina
last
winter, have not been seen again in our local neighbourhoods. The
trauma
of that cleansing remains with all of us, whether we were victims or
eye
witnesses: the sound of the bulldozers, the smell of dust and smoke
and
the sight of smashed homes and piles of rubble. After a quarter of
a
century in power this is the legacy of our ruling party and now
every
single Zimbabwean asks just one question : how much longer.
Week
after week I have delayed writing about or commenting on the
opposition MDC.
I don't want to have to write about sides and factions;
about each insisting
they are the official party, each saying they own the
name, the slogan and
the assets. Sadly though, it is still going on - the
squabbles, bickering and
accusations, and while it does, Zimbabweans, just
ordinary men, women and
children, are simply not coping anymore and are
falling by the
wayside.
This week I met a man I know who begged me to help him with
money so that
he could buy cough mixture for his two month old baby. Day and
night this
tiny little baby coughs and coughs. The baby is weak and failing,
the
parents are exhausted and desperate but neither government clinic
nor
hospital can help - they have no cough medicine to dispense. 25 year
old
promises of free health for all are mirages on a receeding horizon.
The
man dragged a shaking hand over his face to wipe away exhaustion and
tears
as we talked about how to help his baby and the huge cost of a
simple
bottle of infant cough syrup.
I do not have a direct line to
Zanu PF or either of the two MDC's but if I
did I would say that what they
are all doing is not in our name. While
Zanu PF leaders warn and threaten and
MDC leaders argue and accuse, people
are barely alive out here, on the point
of death for a spoon of cough
syrup. Until next week, love cathy. Copyright
cathy buckle 1st April 2006.
http://africantears.netfirms.com
IOL
Basildon Peta
April 01 2006 at 01:22PM
Harare - Zimbabwe was happy to help
Equatorial Guinea foil a coup
planned by South African mercenaries in 2004
but it is now payback time.
President Robert Mugabe's government,
which is running on empty, has
confirmed that it has asked visiting
Equatorial Guinea president Teodoro
Obiang Nguema for desperately-needed oil
to get the economy turning again.
"They are an oil-producing
country and we are trying to see how we can
operationalise some kind of
agreement," Mugabe's spokesperson George
Charamba told state
radio.
While Nguema took a short break to tour the Victoria Falls
yesterday,
his ministers and their Zimbabwean counterparts were locked in
negotiations
on a fuel supply deal. Charamba could not say how Zimbabwe
would pay for the
oil since Zimbabwe's government is known to be virtually
bankrupt. All major
fuel suppliers have discontinued supplies due to non
payment.
The government cannot therefore suddenly raise foreign
currency to pay
for the fuel. It is understood that Zimbabwe is asking
Equatorial Guinea for
oil on what one official termed "generous credit
terms" - meaning it would
pay much later.
Zimbabwe hopes to
raise foreign currency at tobacco auction floors
that are to open next
month. However, it is very unlikely that enough would
be raised there after
an admission by the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association that
the country will
produce its lowest tobacco crop in many years.
Only 55 million
kilograms of tobacco are due to be delivered to the
auction floors this
year, down from a peak of more than 220 million
kilograms sold in 1999,
earning the country nearly R6-billion then. That was
just before Mugabe
started sponsoring invasions of white farms by his
militant supporters in
2000 which sabotaged tobacco production.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
governor Gideon Gono is already facing
problems in allocating the scarce
foreign currency (forex) that would be
raised from tobacco.
Manufacturers have been queuing up for forex allocations which never
materialise. The bank is reportedly in arrears of two years or more with
manufacturers who have applied for foreign currency, resulting in many
factory closures.
The country is also short of basics like
essential drugs. Tuberculosis
drugs became the latest to run out on
Thursday.
Mugabe's government played a key role in foiling the
planned coup when
it arrested a planeload of mercenaries who had landed at
Harare
International Airport in 2004 to pick up arms en route to Equatorial
Guinea
to topple Nguema.
The 70 South African mercenaries have
since finished serving jail
terms over arms and immigration charges. Their
ringleader Simon Mann remains
in jail.
This article was
originally published on page 9 of Cape Argus on April
01, 2006
Mail and Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
01 April 2006
09:24
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday vowed to
crush
opposition protests as he hit back at a call for "democratic
resistance" in
the Southern African country.
"Some of you
say they want to go out on the streets and
protest," Mugabe told thousands
of mourners who gathered at a shrine on
Harare's outskirts for the burial of
his long-time bodyguard.
"That's not the way to go. It will
never happen. We will not
allow it," he told the crowd, adding: "If they are
looking for death, let
them go ahead and follow that
route."
"I mean you, Tsvangirai, and your MDC [the opposition
Movement
for Democratic Change]," Mugabe added.
Once
posing the greatest threat to Mugabe's 26-year rule in the
crises-hit
Southern African country, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's
party split
late last year over his decision to boycott Senate elections.
Tsvangirai, who was elected to lead one of the MDC's two
splinter factions,
called for "peaceful, democratic resistance" at a party
conference last
month.
"The dictator must brace himself for a long, bustling
winter
across the country. The bustle should lead us to a bright political
season.
A storm is on the horizon," he told thousands of
supporters.
Tsvangirai did not say in what form and when the
protests would
take place, but urged Zimbabweans to stock up provisions in
anticipation of
the action.
Mugabe said his bodyguard
Winston Changara, who was buried and
declared a national hero, was driven by
white Rhodesians to join the
country's liberation
movement.
Changara, who headed Zimbabwe's police protection
unit since the
early 1980s, died in Harare on Monday. -- Sapa-AFP
Reuters
Sat Apr 1, 2006
3:30 PM GMT
HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe has dismissed an
uproar over a
draft law that could see the state take control of
foreign-owned mines,
saying the proposal is still being debated, state media
reported on
Saturday.
Last month the Mines Ministry said cabinet
approved amendments to the mining
law "to indigenise 51 percent in some
instances of all foreign owned
companies", stoking fears Zimbabwe could
become even less attractive to
foreign investors.
Zimbabwe is
battling a six-year recession. Mining has emerged as the top
foreign
currency earner after the collapse of the agriculture sector, blamed
on
Mugabe's seizures of white-owned farms for redistribution among
blacks.
Mugabe, in his first public comments on the issue, told a meeting
of his
ruling ZANU-PF party's central committee on Friday that the
government was
yet to set a policy as discussions on the mining laws were
still at an early
stage.
"There is no policy in place just yet and
the present furore is needless,"
Mugabe was quoted as saying. "This is (a)
paper that is at a very early
stage of discussion in government."
The
Mines Ministry in a statement to the Chamber of Mines said the amended
law
would give the government 51 percent in "energy minerals mining
companies",
including 25 percent on a "non contributory basis," upon
promulgation.
Industry officials say a non-contributory basis means
the government would
acquire shares without paying for them.
The
proposals have rattled an industry hit hard by erratic electricity cuts
and
mine closures in the last five years as operating costs spiralled.
Last
month a senior official from the world's second largest platinum
producer
Implats met Mugabe over the proposals. Zimbabwe, with the second
largest
platinum deposits after South Africa, is the main area for Implats
future
growth.
Mugabe said the country's resources belonged to locals who had
the sole
right to determine the level of foreign investment.
"There
must be recognition that our minerals are a depleting and
non-renewable
resource, which we have allowed in the past to be wholly owned
and exploited
by foreign-owned companies for well over a century. This will
not be allowed
in future," Mugabe said.
Implats, along with the world's biggest platinum
producer Anglo Platinum Ltd
and mining giant Rio Tinto Plc, have interests
in Zimbabwe.
zimbabwejournalists.com
By a Correspondent
THE National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA) says it is outraged by the
government's
efforts to establish a human rights commission when the country's
human
rights record is itself in tatters due to government-sponsored
violence and
related issues.
NCA spokesperson, Jessie Majome says the creation
of the commission is
"yet another instance of the government's piecemeal,
tokenist and
undemocratic approach to Zimbabwe's urgent and dire need for
comprehensive
and people driven constitutional reform". She says the people
of Zimbabwe
should say No to such acts by the government.
"Although a human rights commission is urgently required in Zimbabwe,
to
introduce it in the form of an 18th patch to Zimbabwe's tattered torn,
and
shabby constitution, is in itself a mockery of the noble concept of
human
rights protection," she said. "A human rights commission established
on the
dilapidated and emaciated declaration of rights framework of the
current
constitution is an exercise in futility."
She asks what use the
commission will be when the declaration of
rights in the same constitution
is so narrow and shallow as to literally
give rights with the left hand and
claw them back with the right, "hence the
flourishing of fascist laws such
as the notorious Public Order and Security
P.O.S.A. Act, and the Access to
Information and Protection Act AIPPA".
Many civic groups in the
country, including the Zimbabwe Lawyers for
Human Rights (ZLHR), have been
asking how effective the human rights
commission can be when the provisions
of the same constitution which
subordinate human rights to executive powers
remain intact, how relevant
will the work of the proposed human rights
commission will be to the life of
the ordinary suffering woman or man when
the same constitution does not
recognize economic and social rights such as
the rights to food, health and
education?
"The last thing
Zimbabweans need is to have paternalistic drops of
constitutional reform
doled out to them at the whim of the government.
Zimbabweans have a right to
craft their own new and democratic
constitution," says Majome.
She
adds the NCA rejects a partisan rights commission designed merely
to serve
as an additional bureaucratic ruling to prevent and delay
Zimbabweans from
mounting human rights complaints in the international arena
which offers
their only hope.
The NCA fears that such an amendment will also serve
as a vehicle for
more sinister amendments designed to keep the government's
grip on power.
There seems, however, to be differences within the
civic groups as to
how to respond to the announcement by the government for
the creation of the
human rights commission. Individuals within the
institutions are said to be
advocating for engagement with the government
over this issue, especially
since the United Nation's country team will be
assist in its formation. The
rejected draft constitution had a clause on the
human rights commission
while the NCA one and the one offered to Zanu PF by
the opposition MDC
recently, also has in it the need to have a human rights
commission.
The UN Paris principles call on all countries to establish
human
rights commissions but the opposition and civic groups in Zimbabwe
fear the
government wants to stop people from taking complaints outside the
country.
News24
01/04/2006 17:46 -
(SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe says a recent furore,
sparked by
proposed changes to legislation that could give the government a
majority
stake in mining companies, is "needless".
According to the
country's official Herald newspaper on Saturday, Mugabe
told a meeting of
top officials from his ruling Zanu-PF party there was
still no firm policy
on the nationalisation of mines.
However, the paper said Mugabe still
firmly backed the process of black
empowerment.
Mugabe said: "There
must be recognition that our minerals are a depleting
and a non-renewable
resource which we have allowed in the past to be wholly
owned and exploited
by foreign-owned companies.
"This will not be allowed in the
future."
Zimbabwe mines minister Amos Midzi said the Zim government
planned to amend
mining laws.
The amendments would give the
government and local companies a 51 percent
stake in all mining
concerns.
International critics say this would provoke a crisis in a
mining industry
dominated by foreign players and the policy could spell
disaster for the
economy.
Zimbabwe London Forum Monday 3rd April - speaker Peter Tatchell
How to do
Effective Campaigning - Ways to put Zimbabwe on the UK National
Agenda
As this is what we all want to achieve, we at the London
Forum, hope that
you will come and listen and lend your voice to the lively
discussion that
will follow. We will undoubtedly learn some tips for
livening up our
activist campaign skills and developing future
plans.
Anna Meryt
Sam Takaravasha
for the Forum Team
Time: 7:30 -
9.30pm
Venue: Upstairs function room, Theodore Bullfrog,
28 John Adam
Street, London WC2N 6HL
Underground: Charing Cross (1 minute), Embankment (3
minutes)
Here is a map link:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z38A22E2C
For
more info contact: london_mdc_forum@yahoo.co.uk
Views
Expressed at Forums are not necessarily the views of the MDC, nor
necessarily endorsed by the MDC. A Platform is given to concerned
individuals and groups about the Zimbabwe situation.
Mike
Bennett
MDC-UK Information and IT Co-ordinator
mailto:mdc@hypercube.co.uk
People's Daily
Zimbabwe is testing the world's first ever HIV/AIDS
toolkit whose
results are expected to form the basis for a massive worldwide
antiretroviral therapy rollout plan.
The International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
produced the toolkit in
partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO)
and the Southern Africa
HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Service.
"The rationale behind
the development of this toolkit is related to
global efforts to help access
antiretroviral drugs. It's one of public
strategies aimed at making the
drugs available," Getachew Gizaw, the
federation's senior health officer for
the Global Program on HIV/AIDS Health
and Care Department said on
Friday.
The testing process involves examination by local
communities to check
how usable the toolkit is before it can be implemented
worldwide.
Professionals from the University of Zimbabwe, the Blair
Research
Station and from Kenya are facilitating the testing
process.
"Zimbabwe was chosen to test it because of its excellence
in
initiating different strategies on home based care," said
Gizaw.
The testing exercise is expected to end on April 15
culminating in the
publication of the first English version by end of
June.
"We hope to publish others in French and Spanish before the
end of the
year because demand is quite high," he said.
Many
governments, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, are facing
difficulties in
implementing policies aimed at mitigating the effects of the
deadly pandemic
due to lack of technical support.
Zimbabwe has managed to reduce
its HIV/AIDS prevalence rate from 24.6
percent to 20.1 percent in recent
years.
Source: Xinhua
The Independent, UK
By Jonathan Brown and Rob Sharp
Published: 01 April
2006
British tourists are fuelling a booming industry reliant on the
slaughter of
thousands of lions and other exotic animals by travelling to
Africa to hunt
semi-tame big game.
Rich huntsmen are willing to pay
up to £625,000 a time to shoot and stuff
animals bred commercially for their
sport as part of the so-called "canned
hunting" trade.
British and
other European governments are coming under mounting pressure
from
international animal welfare groups to ban imports of hunting trophies
in an
attempt to cut off the demand for the trade.
Figures reveal that 164
trophy licences have been granted to British hunters
since 1999 allowing
them to bring big game mementoes home. However, it is
estimated that as many
as a thousand UK citizens a year travel abroad in
search of quarry after
having booked a canned hunting safari over the
internet.
The
Independent was offered the opportunity to shoot and kill all of the big
five game animals - elephants, rhino, buffalo, leopard and lion - within
minutes of contacting ranch owners. One even indicated he could arrange a
hunt using fox hounds to chase down lynx.
Campaigners say the most
sought-after trophies are the heads and feet cut
from dead lions, leopards,
wild dogs and elephants. But as competition
grows, commercial hunts are
offering increasingly exotic prey, introducing
tiger, jaguar, puma and grey
wolves, according to new evidence from the
International Fund for Animal
Welfare (IFAW).
Animals with a recessive gene, such as white lions, black
leopards and king
cheetahs, are particularly sought after, while breeders
can also charge a
premium by crossing sub-species of leopard and tiger, IFAW
says.
The demand is so great that animals are being hand-reared from
birth in
cages and sold on to stock the growing number of game ranches where
they end
their lives in fenced-off killing enclosures. They may be drugged
into
docility and habituated to human contact, it is claimed.
Welfare
groups say such breeding practices render the animals sitting
targets to the
hunters who dispatch them with a choice of weapons, ranging
from
high-powered rifles to bows and arrows.
Video footage obtained by
anti-canned hunting campaigners has revealed
wounded animals writhing in
agony as they die after being shot, often
against fences.
Such is the
scale of the trade that IFAW claims it is critically undermining
big cat
populations and threatening their long-term survival. Christina
Pretorius, a
spokesperson for IFAW, says there are up to 3,000 lions in
captivity in
South Africa waiting to be shot by overseas hunters who come
mainly from the
United States, France, Germany, Spain and Britain. "There is
absolutely no
sport in this. They are being bred to be shot in enclosed
areas where they
have no chance of escape or a fair chance. They are already
accustomed to
humans and associate them with food.
"They are drugged to keep them even
more docile so they put up even less of
a fight."
She said the
industry was growing "out of control" and measures were
desperately needed
to stop the expansion that was undermining South Africa's
international
reputation for wildlife management.
Six years ago trophy hunting in South
Africa was worth about £14m a year. By
last year that figure reached nearly
£80m. Zimbabwe is also vigorously
promoting itself as a canned hunting
destination and other African nations
are also developing it.
Liberal
Democrat MP Mike Hancock has been campaigning for Britain to impose
a total
ban on the import of trophies and the promotion of the practice. "It
is just
about as low as it gets to kill animals in this way and it is beyond
belief
that people can be allowed to make money out of it. We are actively
encouraging people to sell these so-called holidays and why anyone would
want to bring back an elephant's foot as a trophy is beyond belief," he
said.
Mr Hancock is holding out little hope that the Government could
implement a
ban despite a recently concluded consultation exercise on the
trade in
exotic pets and animal parts.
Jim Knight, the Bio-diversity
minister, told the House of Commons that he
did not consider new legislation
as enforceable. But he said existing powers
could be used to outlaw the
possession of tiger, bear and other protected
species' parts.
"We are
currently considering responses to a public consultation on the
subject and
I will announce our conclusions in the summer," Mr Knight said.
At
present many species hunted for trophies are covered by the EU laws
implementing the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species
(Cites), which allows for imports to be refused where the trade is
considered detrimental to the conservation of individual species.
The
South African government is also expected to announce soon the findings
of a
panel of hunting experts on the future of wildlife resources. But some
campaigners believe it is a cynical exercise. Chris Mercer, a South African
conservationist who is in the middle of a British speaking tour to convince
people against going on canned hunts, said: "The hunting industry now owns
conservation in South Africa and what you will get is a splendid exercise in
public relations. Even if the law is changed there will be no one to enforce
it and the policy will not be worth the paper it is written on."
The
Independent was offered a two-week hunting trip costing £5,000 a person
with
impala, warthog, kudu and zebra. Another operator quoted the cost of
killing
and skinning an elephant at £10,000 with taxidermy charged extra.
The most
sought-after trophy of all is that of a black-maned lion, which
will cost up
to £625,000.
British tourists are fuelling a booming industry reliant on
the slaughter of
thousands of lions and other exotic animals by travelling
to Africa to hunt
semi-tame big game.
Rich huntsmen are willing to
pay up to £625,000 a time to shoot and stuff
animals bred commercially for
their sport as part of the so-called "canned
hunting" trade.
British
and other European governments are coming under mounting pressure
from
international animal welfare groups to ban imports of hunting trophies
in an
attempt to cut off the demand for the trade.
Figures reveal that 164
trophy licences have been granted to British hunters
since 1999 allowing
them to bring big game mementoes home. However, it is
estimated that as many
as a thousand UK citizens a year travel abroad in
search of quarry after
having booked a canned hunting safari over the
internet.
The
Independent was offered the opportunity to shoot and kill all of the big
five game animals - elephants, rhino, buffalo, leopard and lion - within
minutes of contacting ranch owners. One even indicated he could arrange a
hunt using fox hounds to chase down lynx.
Campaigners say the most
sought-after trophies are the heads and feet cut
from dead lions, leopards,
wild dogs and elephants. But as competition
grows, commercial hunts are
offering increasingly exotic prey, introducing
tiger, jaguar, puma and grey
wolves, according to new evidence from the
International Fund for Animal
Welfare (IFAW).
Animals with a recessive gene, such as white lions, black
leopards and king
cheetahs, are particularly sought after, while breeders
can also charge a
premium by crossing sub-species of leopard and tiger, IFAW
says.
The demand is so great that animals are being hand-reared from
birth in
cages and sold on to stock the growing number of game ranches where
they end
their lives in fenced-off killing enclosures. They may be drugged
into
docility and habituated to human contact, it is claimed.
Welfare
groups say such breeding practices render the animals sitting
targets to the
hunters who dispatch them with a choice of weapons, ranging
from
high-powered rifles to bows and arrows.
Video footage obtained by
anti-canned hunting campaigners has revealed
wounded animals writhing in
agony as they die after being shot, often
against fences.
Such is the
scale of the trade that IFAW claims it is critically undermining
big cat
populations and threatening their long-term survival. Christina
Pretorius, a
spokesperson for IFAW, says there are up to 3,000 lions in
captivity in
South Africa waiting to be shot by overseas hunters who come
mainly from the
United States, France, Germany, Spain and Britain. "There is
absolutely no
sport in this. They are being bred to be shot in enclosed
areas where they
have no chance of escape or a fair chance. They are already
accustomed to
humans and associate them with food.
"They are drugged to keep them even
more docile so they put up even less of
a fight."
She said the
industry was growing "out of control" and measures were
desperately needed
to stop the expansion that was undermining South Africa's
international
reputation for wildlife management.
Six years ago trophy hunting in South
Africa was worth about £14m a year. By
last year that figure reached nearly
£80m. Zimbabwe is also vigorously
promoting itself as a canned hunting
destination and other African nations
are also developing it.
Liberal
Democrat MP Mike Hancock has been campaigning for Britain to impose
a total
ban on the import of trophies and the promotion of the practice. "It
is just
about as low as it gets to kill animals in this way and it is beyond
belief
that people can be allowed to make money out of it. We are actively
encouraging people to sell these so-called holidays and why anyone would
want to bring back an elephant's foot as a trophy is beyond belief," he
said.
Mr Hancock is holding out little hope that the Government could
implement a
ban despite a recently concluded consultation exercise on the
trade in
exotic pets and animal parts.
Jim Knight, the Bio-diversity
minister, told the House of Commons that he
did not consider new legislation
as enforceable. But he said existing powers
could be used to outlaw the
possession of tiger, bear and other protected
species' parts.
"We are
currently considering responses to a public consultation on the
subject and
I will announce our conclusions in the summer," Mr Knight said.
At
present many species hunted for trophies are covered by the EU laws
implementing the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species
(Cites), which allows for imports to be refused where the trade is
considered detrimental to the conservation of individual species.
The
South African government is also expected to announce soon the findings
of a
panel of hunting experts on the future of wildlife resources. But some
campaigners believe it is a cynical exercise. Chris Mercer, a South African
conservationist who is in the middle of a British speaking tour to convince
people against going on canned hunts, said: "The hunting industry now owns
conservation in South Africa and what you will get is a splendid exercise in
public relations. Even if the law is changed there will be no one to enforce
it and the policy will not be worth the paper it is written on."
The
Independent was offered a two-week hunting trip costing £5,000 a person
with
impala, warthog, kudu and zebra. Another operator quoted the cost of
killing
and skinning an elephant at £10,000 with taxidermy charged extra.
The most
sought-after trophy of all is that of a black-maned lion, which
will cost up
to £625,000.
New Zimbabwe
By Cris
Chinaka
Last updated: 04/01/2006 06:18:55
ZIMBABWE'S President Robert
Mugabe on Friday warned opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai not to organise
street protests to overthrow him, saying such a
campaign would be dicing
with death.
Tsvangirai, leader of the main faction of the opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), said earlier this month he would soon
lead a wave
of "mass action" demonstrations against Mugabe, Zimbabwe's ruler
since 1980.
Tsvangirai charges that Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party have
rigged three main
elections since 2000 to remain in power.
In that
time Zimbabwe has descended into economic crisis, and critics blame
Mugabe's
policies for food, fuel and foreign currency shortages, huge
inflation and
unemployment. Mugabe says his opponents have sabotaged the
economy to
undermine him.
Addressing thousands of his supporters in Harare at the
burial of a senior
security aide, Mugabe said he would crush any attempts by
the MDC to force
him out of office.
Speaking in Zimbabwe's main
vernacular Shona language, Mugabe mocked
Tsvangirai as a coward who deserted
the country's independence war in the
1970s, but was now posing as a patriot
in a country struggling with a severe
economic crisis.
"Who do you
think you are threatening? Who do you think will be moved by
your threats?"
Mugabe said, adding that ZANU-PF was a battled hardened
liberation
party.
"These threats, that if we won't leave office you are going to
remove us
through violence -- Aaah, this man! Does he know our history, does
he know
our record?"
Tsvangirai said on March 18 sustained protests
were the only way to overcome
government brutality, and that he was ready to
lead peaceful demonstrations.
"Don't dice with death in that manner,"
Mugabe warned. "It will never
happen. We won't allow it," he added, saying
Tsvangirai should concentrate
on the ballot box.
The MDC was formed
in 1999 and has for years been seen as the greatest
threat to Mugabe's hold
on power. But analysts say a recent split in its
ranks over how to tackle
Mugabe has weakened its potency.
At a recent congress of his main MDC
faction, Tsvangirai said his group was
still a resilient force capable of
launching a strong political campaign.
Mugabe, Zimbabwe's ruler since
independence from Britain in 1980, has kept
the opposition in check mainly
through tough policing, including routine
deployment of security forces to
crush all street protests -- Reuters