International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: August 12,
2007
HARARE, Zimbabwe: Acute gasoline shortages crippled
transport services
Sunday, stranding thousands of travelers at bus stops
across the nation
before a two-day holiday honoring guerrillas who fought
against colonial-era
white rule.
At a main bus terminal in Harare,
travelers said buses were infrequent and
were not available at all to some
home districts for the cherished August
holiday.
Some people had been
waiting in line since 3:00 a.m. (0100 GMT) at the Mbare
terminus in the west
of the capital, where riot police were called Saturday
to stop passengers
fighting to board scarce buses. Police turned travelers
off overcrowded
vehicles.
The Heroes and Defense Forces holidays Monday and Tuesday
commemorate the
seven-year bush war that ended white rule with independence
in 1980. Tuesday
also celebrates the defense capability of the nation's
military, commanded
by many former guerrillas.
Thousands of travelers
dotted the sides of Harare's main arterial highways,
trying to flag down
rides. Crowds were three-deep on downtown sidewalks
waiting to clamber
aboard trucks and private cars.
Many people gave up and headed for their
township home - which became a
three-hour ordeal instead of the usual
30-minute trip.
"It's misery. There's nothing to celebrate," said a father
with two teenage
children who only gave his name as Lazarus. "I hope they
see their gogo
(grandma) at Christmas, God willing."
He said his
elderly mother was ill.
Across the country, it was a similar picture,
state radio reported Sunday.
It said some bus operators abandoned
government-controlled fares and
demanded "exorbitant" amounts from travelers
desperate to visit relatives in
rural areas.
The nation is facing its
worst gasoline shortages since the often violent
seizures of thousands of
white-owned commercial farms began in 2000, which
disrupted the
agriculture-based economy.
President Robert Mugabe blames the economic
meltdown on Western economic
sanctions and erratic rains.
In efforts
to tame rampant inflation, on June 26 the government ordered
price cuts of
around 50 percent on all goods and services, including
gasoline and
transportation, saying it would subsidize fuel sold at less
than the cost of
importing it.
The Sunday Mail newspaper, a government mouthpiece,
reported bus operators
were still buying fuel on the illegal black market at
about five times the
subsidized price.
Police spokesman James Sabau
said bus passengers often refused to disclose
fares to police at road
blocks.
"Some of the passengers do not say how much they have been
charged, making
it difficult to arrest the operators," he said.
At
least 7,000 executives, business managers, traders and bus drivers have
been
arrested in the prices clampdown that has driven corn meal, bread,
meat,
milk and other staples from the shelves.
Official inflation is given as
4,500 percent, the highest in the world,
though independent estimates put it
closer to 9,000 percent.
The government at the weekend backed down on a
ban on private slaughter
houses, which are accused of profiteering, and
doubled the price of beef to
restore meat supplies.
David Hasluck,
head of the Livestock and Meat Advisory Council, told the
official media the
new beef price still was not as high as the viable levels
of neighboring
South Africa and other countries.
Because of acute shortage of
commercially raised cattle, attempts were also
being made to buy cattle from
fiercely proud villagers who saw cattle as a
symbol of status.
"In
our traditional culture, the number of cattle one has translates into
his
wealth. We can't expect farmers to sell their cattle at ridiculously low
prices," Hasluck said.
He said the government was expected to approve
raised poultry and pork
prices soon.
Cigarettes and state-run
newspapers were the latest items in short supply
Sunday.
Beer was
trickling back onto the market after a 30 percent price increase
was
announced Friday.
But the Harare Sports Club, venue of a cricket match
between players from
Zimbabwe and South Africa, had no beer, the favored
drink of spectators, and
no bread rolls or ground meat for burgers.
A
restaurant at the cricket ground withdrew its menu Saturday, having just
chicken and potatoes on offer, and on Saturday nearby chicken and pizza
takeouts ran out of food and shut down early.
IOL
August 12 2007 at 10:56AM
By Peta Thornycroft
President Thabo Mbeki seems likely to go to the Southern Africa
Development
Community summit in Lusaka on Thursday unable to claim much
progress on the
Zimbabwe crisis.
Unless there is an unlikely and last-minute
breakthrough between the
Zanu-PF and opposition Movement for Democratic
Change, Mbeki will tell SADC
that Zimbabwe will not have a new constitution
ahead of national elections
next March.
Instead, Mbeki is
expected to tell his peers that any reforms will
have to emerge from an
amendment to Zimbabwe's independence constitution.
Mbeki was
appointed by SADC to mediate between Zanu-PF and the MDC at
a summit in Dar
es Salaam in March, two weeks after MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai and
colleagues were savagely beaten by police.
At the
start of the negotiations, a draft constitution hammered out in
secret
between the MDC and Zanu-PF in 2004 was used as the foundation to try
to
resolve disagreements.
But on the eve of the second round of talks
last month, President
Robert Mugabe made it clear he would never agree to a
new constitution
before elections next March.
His two
negotiators, Labour Minister Nicholas Goche and Justice
Minister Patrick
Chinamasa, failed to turn up for the scheduled talks on
July
7/8.
Nevertheless, the two teams from Zanu-PF and MDC had already
undertaken assignments from SA facilitators to isolate points of
disagreement in that draft constitution.
Last weekend, when the
two Zanu-PF negotiators finally turned up in
Pretoria and met the two MDC
secretary generals, Tendai Biti and Welshman
Ncube, it had become clear that
a face-saving mechanism for Mugabe had to be
reached if there was going to
be any progress at all.
They had to abandon talks on a new
constitution. Any reforms would
have to be accommodated within the 18th
constitutional amendment due to be
debated when parliament resumes in Harare
on August 21.
Political sources close to the negotiations are not
optimistic Mugabe
will agree to substantial changes.
Zanu-PF's
proposal to SA mediators on a way out of the crisis has no
political content
beyond constantly reiterating that Britain is entirely to
blame for the
crisis in Zimbabwe, and so the solution rests with Whitehall,
not reform of
obnoxious laws.
The 18th constitutional amendment, which has
already been gazetted,
would facilitate simultaneous parliamentary and
presidential elections,
expand parliamentary seats, and would give
parliament power to appoint a
successor should Mugabe retire or die in
office.
The MDC, political sources point out, is not an equal
partner in the
negotiations as Zanu-PF is backed by extraordinary state
power, while the
opposition is the principal victim of Mugabe's
repression.
"It's now up to the MDC. The ball is in their court to
see what they
can do with the 18th constitutional amendment," said Mugabe's
former
information minister Jonathan Moyo, now an independent
MP.
Even if the MDC and Zanu-PF reach some accommodation, little
time is
left. Zimbabwe will go into election mode in early
December.
It could begin even earlier if the fractured ruling party
does not
agree that Mugabe will be its candidate in the presidential poll.
If that
happens then Zanu-PF may call an unscheduled congress to elect new
office
bearers, including a presidential candidate.
One MDC MP
said on Friday: "I think Zanu-PF is just playing, and they
will not agree to
the substantial changes we want. Mbeki has been outflanked
by Mugabe who has
never had any intention of relinquishing power or even a
portion of it.
Mugabe knows he has to hang on with grim determination even
if his actions
result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
Zimbabweans."
If electoral reforms are inconsequential, the MDC has one trick up its
sleeve - to deny Mugabe undisputed election victory which he craves for his
legacy and re-entry to the international community by boycotting the
polls.
This article was originally published on page 10 of
Cape Argus on
August 12, 2007
Boston Globe
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist |
August 12, 2007
NO ONE is surprised when a Roman Catholic bishop condemns
the violence of
war. But when was the last time you heard of one pleading
for a military
invasion?
Zimbabwe's leading cleric has been doing
just that in recent weeks,
imploring Great Britain to invade its former
colony and oust Robert Mugabe,
the dictator whose brutal misrule has reduced
a once-flourishing country to
desperation, starvation, and death.
Given
the "massive risk to life" the regime poses, says Pius Ncube, the
archbishop
of Bulawayo, "I think it is justified for Britain to raid
Zimbabwe and
remove Mugabe. We should do it ourselves but there's too much
fear. I'm
ready to lead the people, guns blazing, but the people are not
ready."
Millions of Zimbabweans have fled the country, and those who remain
tend to
be hungry, impoverished, and intimidated by Mugabe and his goons.
"How can
you expect people to rise up," Ncube asks, "when even our church
services
are attended by state intelligence people?"
The archbishop is no
saber-rattler. But given the misery and murder spawned
by Mugabe and his
fascist Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front,
or ZANU-PF, it is
immoral not to fight them. "If you are no longer serving
your people and are
choosing death for them," says Ncube, "then certainly .
. . stronger nations
have a right to put you down."
Considering that "stronger nations" have
been unwilling to put down Omar
al-Bashir, head of the Sudanese regime that
is perpetrating genocide in
Darfur, the likelihood that they will muster the
fortitude to drive Mugabe
from power in Zimbabwe is, in a word, nil. Instead
they will go on issuing
empty condemnations, like the Bush administration's
recent statement that it
"deplores actions taken by the Mugabe regime," but
is "ready to engage a new
Zimbabwean government committed to democracy,
human rights, sound economic
policy, and the rule of
law."
Unfortunately, hollow pieties from the free world will not end the
chaos and
cruelty that have turned Zimbabwe into a hellhole. In the nation
once known
as the breadbasket of Africa, Mugabe's deranged policies are
starving
millions. In a land many hoped would be a model of postcolonial
self-government, opposition politicians are beaten and imprisoned and
elections are blatantly rigged to keep ZANU-PF in power. In a country where
a decade ago the currency traded at the rate of eight Zimbabwe dollars to
$1, it now takes 200,000 Zimbabwe dollars to buy a single American
dollar.
The wretchedness that is Mugabe's Zimbabwe was captured recently
by New York
Times reporter Michael Wines, who described what happened when
the
dictator -- in the face of hyperinflation estimated at more than 10,000
percent a year -- commanded merchants nationwide to cut their prices in half
or face jail time and the confiscation of their businesses:
"Bread,
sugar, and cornmeal, staples of every Zimbabwean's diet, have
vanished. . .
. Meat is virtually nonexistent . . . Gasoline is nearly
unobtainable.
Hospital patients are dying for lack of basic medical
supplies. Power
blackouts and water cutoffs are endemic. Manufacturing has
slowed to a crawl
because few businesses can produce goods for less than
their
government-imposed sale prices. Raw materials are drying up because
suppliers are being forced to sell to factories at a loss . . . As many as
4,000 businesspeople have been arrested, fined, or jailed."
Eighty
percent of Zimbabwe's adults are now unemployed. Life expectancy has
plummeted to 36 years. The death rate for children 5 and under has soared 65
percent since 1990. While Mugabe's kleptocratic cronies and thugs drive
expensive cars, build elaborate mansions, and amass fortunes by manipulating
the currency market, ordinary citizens are reduced to unspeakable
degradation. Schoolteachers sell themselves for sex in order to feed their
children, the Times of London reports. A man in Rushinga was convicted of
killing his 10-year-old son with an ax handle for eating four mice meant for
the family's lunch. One-time accountants, bankers, headmasters, now refugees
in South Africa, survive through menial labor or begging in the
streets.
Yet Mugabe, with his Hitler-style moustache and armed loyalists,
remains
firmly in control.
"Anyone who is ready to starve his people
to death for the sake of power is
a murderer," Archbishop Ncube says. "What
more does he have to do?"
Countless lives could be saved, and
incalculable suffering ended, if Mugabe
were forced from power. A detachment
of US Marines, I wrote on this page in
2002, could do the job on its lunch
break. The British could do it. South
Africa could do it.
But of
course no one will do anything. The death toll in Zimbabwe will
continue to
mount; the misery will continue to spread; the horror stories
will continue
to multiply. Cry, the beloved country.
Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.
Zim Online
Sunday 12 August 2007
Own
Correspondent
JOHANNESBURG - The United States-based Famine Early Warning
System (FEWSNET)
says a government crackdown on prices that began last June
has worsened the
food security situation in Zimbabwe.
In its latest
assessment report, FEWSNET said the Zimbabwean government's
controversial
price controls was further worsening household food security
in a country
where the majority of the people can barely make ends meet.
It warned
that the poor have been left more vulnerable to food insecurity
following
the disappearance of basic commodities from Zimbabwean shop
shelves after
President Robert Mugabe ordered a freeze on prices of goods
and services in
June.
The 83-year-old Zimbabwean leader, whom many in the country and
outside
blame for destroying what was once touted as southern Africa's
breadbasket
through bad policies, pegged all prices at mid-June levels and
arrested more
than 7 000 businesspersons who defied the order.
The
effect of the price freeze was to drive most producers underground where
they now supply their goods on a thriving black market.
"The run on
commodities is having the biggest impact on the poor, who are
forced to make
frequent purchases in smaller amounts and are not able to buy
in bulk when
commodities become available," observed FewsNet.
The plight of Zimbabwe's
poor has been by tightening economic conditions,
marked by runaway inflation
estimated at more than 4 500 percent in May.
The cost of a household's
monthly basket of goods monitored by the
state-controlled Consumer Council
of Zimbabwe was pegged at $12.6 million
for June before price controls
lowered the cost to $8.3 million.
Such a family needed $3.3 million to
survive in April 2007 and $5.5 million
in May, representing month-on-month
inflation in May of 65.6 percent.
Mugabe - Zimbabwe's sole rule since
independence in 1980 - has accused the
southern African country's opposition
and Western countries of plotting to
unseat him and has been accused by
critics of a draconian crackdown on
political opponents.
FewsNet said
besides the impact of price controls, Zimbabwe's overall food
security
situation was poor this year compared to other years, largely due
to the
protracted economic decline and the poor 2006/07 harvest.
According to
the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation and World
Food
Programme estimates, Zimbabwe's cereal production for this year is
expected
to meet only 55 percent of the country's requirements.
The 2006/07
harvest was severely compromised by poor access to inputs, the
underutilization of land and, in the south and west, by El Niño-related
drought conditions.
To mitigate the impacts of the production
deficit, the state-controlled
Grain Marketing Board has indicated it would
import 400 000 tonnes of the
staple maize from Malawi and another 200 000
tonnes from Tanzania.
To make up the balance, WFP plans to import about
352 000 tonnes of food aid
to feed 4.1 million people. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 13 August
2007
By Brendon Tulani
BULAWAYO - Zimbabwe army officers have stormed Ross Camp police
station in
Bulawayo and recovered hundreds of looted grocery items from
police officers
enforcing a controversial price crackdown that began last
June.
Sources at Ross Camp said the soldiers stormed the housing complex at
the
main police station and conducted a thorough house-to-house search to
flush
out police officers who had looted the basic goods.
Zimbabwe has
since last June grappled with severe shortages of basic
goods in
supermarkets after President Robert Mugabe's government ordered
shops to
halve and roll back prices to mid-June levels.
The police, who are
among the lowest paid civil servants in Zimbabwe,
have taken advantage of
the chaos brought about by the price crackdown to
loot basic goods that they
sell on the illegal parallel market at exorbitant
prices.
Although the source could not quantify the goods that were recovered,
he
said senior police officers who are members of the price control
inspectorate were implicated in the looting spree.
The police
spokesperson for Matabeleland North province, Assistant
Inspector David
Nyathi refused to comment on the incident.
"As you know, operations
of such a national scale are best dealt with
at Police General Headquarters.
It would be best to contact those offices. I
cannot comment further than
that," Nyathi said.
The Zimbabwean government, which has defiantly
said the price
crackdown will continue, has over the past few weeks admitted
that the
controversial operation, codenamed Operation Dzikisa Mutengo, had
its flaws.
Last week, Deputy Anti-corruption and Anti-monopolies
Minister, Samuel
Undenge telling businessmen in the eastern city of Mutare
last week that the
police will arrest anyone who hoarded basic goods for
resale.
The Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) protest group, last week
staged an
illegal demonstration in Bulawayo demanding a thorough probe of
police
officers who were accessing goods from shops on the cheap only to
sell them
at inflated prices. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 13 August 2007
By
Tanonoka Joseph Whande
GABORONE - Fittingly, they call the Southern
African Development Community
(SADC) Summit 'ordinary.' Ordinary, indeed,
were it not for the expenses
involved to soothe bruised egos and to fill the
tummies of under-performers.
African heads of state love forming
organisations and holding 'summits' in
different countries, like true
tourists who have the tab picked up by
someone else.
They love these
talk shops where nothing happens. SADC should have been
called 'A T & T'
(Always Talking and Talking).
After Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa's
analogy of Zimbabwe to the Titanic,
I am hoping that the African leaders
have started seeing the need to be
honest with each other and 'fix
things'.
But, with hardly 10 days before the carnival started in Lusaka,
I read,
"Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has dispatched a special envoy to
Harare
to repair relations with Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, diplomatic
sources
said on Wednesday (August 1)."
Zambia hosts the regional road
show, dubbed 'the 27th Ordinary SADC Summit
of Heads of State and
Government' from this week. And I am holding my breath
that Mwanawasa does
not retreat.
I am hoping he continues with his crusade against Mugabe,
mild as it may be,
and, at last, allow us to actually count the number of
teeth SADC has.
"To repair relations" sounds very ominous to me. SADC,
the African Union
(AU) and other countless African organisations particular
to the welfare of
Africa always brew highly commendable
suggestions.
They put forward and lay down attractive suggestions and
always urge
Africans to practice democracy and uphold human rights. During
their
talk-shops, they come up with a united front and show a great deal of
prima
facie caring.
They are so very able to prove that Africans are
no different from anyone
when it comes to unity, democracy and good
governance.
Unfortunately, during tea-breaks, some of them get on the
phone to their
deputies back home and demand the arrest of political
opponents or judges
and order the brutal putting down of any demonstrations
that demand
democracy and the repeal of oppressive laws.
Africans are
just different from others when it comes to unity, democracy
and good
governance. Two days before leaving for the SADC 'Summit", Malawi's
Bingu wa
Mutharika sent his police to spring a raid and ransack the home of
a judge
because the judge had ruled against the government.
These are the 'Heads
of State and Government' who are sitting down and
deliberating on the
fortunes of the region and mapping its economic way
forward and in enforcing
democracy and good governance.
At such gatherings, Africa has always
provided SADC and the AU with good
opportunities to prove that indeed
African leaders have come of age.
But as soon as they sign the protocols
and leave the conference tables, they
flout the set of rules, which they
themselves had just suggested and signed.
Is someone going to talk about the
rule of law?
Is anyone going to complain that Mutharika, Mugabe, Mswati
and others'
behaviors are tarnishing the image of SADC, if not, why
not?
South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki has been hovering over the
Zimbabwean
crisis for years and was at one time accused of making it
impossible for
Zimbabweans themselves to settle their problems since he
himself had proved
to be totally incapable.
Was it not these same
leaders who gave Mbeki the assignment? The prevailing
situation in Zimbabwe
provides African leaders, especially Mbeki, with an
opportunity to show that
they are real leaders with a purpose and who can
take Africa away from its
rotten past.
There is also the situation in Sudan, Lesotho and DR Congo
yet African
leaders talk more and do less. African leaders form many
organisations to
serve them and many of them are duplications of the
others.
NEPAD, ECOWAS, ECCAS, PTA, WAEMU, SEMAC, IGAD, SADC, COMESA, East
African
Community, etc. They were all formed to serve Africa but the
participants,
along with their presidents, wait for donated air tickets to
enable them to
attend these numerous meetings.
And when they do, they
announce they can't do anything about particular
problems because they have
no funds. The AU is a pathetic creation which is
totally unable to sustain
itself.
The AU is not leading Africa but is itself being led by people,
organisations, and situations outside Africa. Look how it failed the people
of Darfur in Sudan!
Like the countries that formed it, it squats
there with a begging bowl
hoping someone will drop a few coins for "its
operations." And yet most
African presidents are richer than the donor
organisations who give them the
money. (Remember reports that the nation of
Zaire - now DR Congo - once
'borrowed' money from its president Mobutu Sese
Seko).
Because of SADC, Zimbabwe is caught in a very sorry and confusing
situation.
For example, SADC put out minimum requirements to be followed by
its member
states when holding elections.
They all approved and
signed the recommendations, dubbed 'The SADC
Principles and Guidelines
Governing Democratic Elections'.
And last time Zimbabwe held presidential
elections, it met only one of those
10 requirements: that of holding regular
elections at intervals as
stipulated in the constitution.
When the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) hinted at not
contesting, it
was SADC that put pressure on it to contest, defeating their
own
pronunciations agreed upon at a 'summit' in Mauritius.
Now, elections are
coming our way again and Zimbabweans want the leveling of
the playing field
but neither Mbeki, who is chairing negotiations between
the Zimbabwe
government and the opposition, nor SADC, which supposedly 'gave'
Mbeki the
'mandate' to do so, care to pressurise Mugabe about not only the
constitution but meeting SADC's own election guidelines.
If the MDC,
once again, participates in these silly elections and offer
Mugabe an
opportunity to steal yet another election, to whom will the MDC or
the
people of Zimbabwe run to complain about rigged elections?
Won't SADC
tell the MDC that they should not have participated since the set
up was
such that free and fair elections could not be held successfully?
This is
how SADC leads the region.
It is my hope that SADC leaders wake up and
show not only the rest of Africa
but the world that they are leaders worthy
their positions.
They represent more than their individual countries and
there is no reason
why we should lag behind in democracy and good governance
when we have such
a rich and diverse historical and intellectual
background.
Every time we look at the past, we are talking about the
future. And SADC
must try to learn from its dismal impotence, failure and
lack of purpose. I
plead with our SADC leaders to please break with the past
and be more
responsible to the people.
I urge them to look at how
their countries and peoples have been good to
them. They should just
introspect for a while, and see how their roles are
reflected on the
wide-screen of history.
Our leaders attained their positions through
different means and
circumstances but they all have one thing in common:
they are serving their
nations.
SADC itself and the SADC leaders are
not at all definitely sure of
themselves. Leaders make decisions based on
how another leader would react
should they take certain
positions.
'Collective responsibility' and agreeing with the rest, just
to be
considered "one of the boys", is not good for any country or
leader.
Citizens of SADC are unsure about SADC and view it as a largely
ineffective
organ because of its inconsistency and inability to take and
implement
proper positions on important matters and for its failure to
follow its own
rules.
Leadership is not about making friends but
guiding the nation. Like in many
countries of Africa, life in Zimbabwe is a
struggle to survive on a
day-to-day basis.
Like almost everywhere in
Africa, there is danger, hunger and violence.
Desperately, we put our faith
and hope in these men who are meeting in
Lusaka and expect from them a show
of concern and love for the motherland.
It is our hope that the old
mentality of long dead rulers, who failed and
brutalised their nations, is
only history that stands no chance of being
resuscitated by our current
leaders.
There is no time to reminisce simply because there is nothing in
our
combined past to get nostalgic over. Africa and SADC are counting on
those
gathered in Lusaka to show us that they care about our countries as
much as
we, the so-called 'ordinary people', do.
And SADC should
redeem itself by imposing punitive sanctions on Mugabe and
his
lieutenants.
*Tanonoka Joseph Whande is a Botswana-based Zimbabwean
writer
The Times
August 13, 2007
Sir, Thousands of
Zimbabwean citizens are fleeing to South Africa daily as
their country
collapses, yet the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, like the
South African
Government, does not recognise them as refugees and is doing
nothing to help
them. According to the UNHCR spokesman these are "economic
refugees, not
refugees as defined by international convention". He adds that
the UNHCR
could only be involved "in the case of the total collapse of the
Zimbabwe
State". We must now presumably wait for that before acting.
The South
African Government claims that the Zimbabweans streaming into
South Africa
are not refugees as they are not facing persecution in their
own country; no
special measures are necessary. The UNHCR agrees, adding
that there is no
crisis in Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, 100,000 per month cross into
South Africa and
86,000 were forcibly deported back again between January
and May this year
alone, according to the International Organisation for
Migration.
Has
the UN learnt nothing from Rwanda or Darfur where it acted too late or
not
at all? The UN has an immediate duty to protect, which it has signally
failed to carry out so far. The last Secretary-General of the UN, too late,
finally described the situation in Zimbabwe as intolerable. His successor
should at once call the attention of the Security Council to the urgent need
for action, and the British Government should be the first to support
him.
BARONESS PARK OF MONMOUTH, Oxford
Times of Zambia
By
NEBERT MULENGA
EVERY morning, 48-year-old Tracy Zulu walks some five
kilometres in the
sweltering heat across the Kariba Bridge from neighbouring
Zimbabwe into the
border town of Siavonga where she sets up a stall outside
the open market to
sell groceries.
With her low-cost foodstuffs of
juices, baking powders, ginger nuts, tomato
pastes and biscuits, which are
all smuggled from Kariba town across the
Zambezi river, she basically
targets retail Zambian buyers who do not seem
to ever get tired of
bargaining for cheaper prices.
On a good business day, she says, she only
makes as much as K10,000 in
profits; otherwise many are the days when she
crosses back the international
border with nothing at all.
"Days are hard
for us in Zimbabwe now, and no one can pretend that things
are okay
anymore," Zulu, a mother of four school going children recently
told the
TIMES in Siavonga. "I once had a powerful business selling
expensive duvets,
blankets and clothes; everything is gone and I can't even
have a decent meal
or afford to pay for my children's school."
Zulu's economic woes mirror the
crumbling living standards in Zimbabwe, once
one of Africa's strongest
economies but now in free fall. Recent data
released by the Consumer Council
of Zimbabwe (CCZ) puts annual inflation
above 13,000 per cent, which the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts
could reach 100,000 per cent by
the end of the year, four out of every five
Zimbabweans are said to be
unemployed, basic commodities are unobtainable,
while shortages of fuel,
electricity and water are a daily occurrence with
hospitals and clinics
reportedly operating without adequate medical
equipment or supplies.
All
these factors have over the years been at play to force thousands of
Zimbabweans to flee into neighbouring countries in search of both economic
and political refuge. And while the likes of Zulu have opted to stick around
and make the best out of the worst situation in the hope of a better
Zimbabwe sooner than later, several others have already started settling
down in neighbouring communities.
"Many of my friends are now living
comfortably in Zambia, Botswana and South
Africa but I still feel I can't
leave Zimbabwe just as yet. My children must
finish school first, although I
am having a lot of problems raising money to
pay for them, to buy food, to
pay for medical facilities and even to pay for
my (house) rent," she
disclosed.
Nqobizitha Mlilo, the liaison officer for international revolution
under
Zimbabwe's main opposition political party, the Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC), charged that political repression had reached an
all time
highest level in the southern African country.
Mlilo who is
based in Johannesburg, South Africa, from where he 'sells' the
Zimbabwean
story to the rest of the world, said there was need for all
African
countries to join hands and find a lasting solution to the problems
in his
native land.
"The world must know the truth, the Zimbabwe story must be told
in totality,
and we must all work towards finding a lasting solution to the
political
crisis in Zimbabwe. We believe that the situation in Zimbabwe is
an African
problem and we hope that the people of Africa will be able to
find a
solution to it. Our government is in perpetual combat with its own
citizens,
and the further African countries delay in resolving this
political crisis,
the more Zimbabwe will deteriorate into an open-crisis
country," he said.
Ahead of the 27th Southern African Development Community
(SADC) Heads of
State Summit, which opened in Lusaka yesterday with the
council of ministers
meeting, Mlilo has been in the country to lobby all
influential forces to
press for urgent attention to the Zimbabwean
situation, over which South
African president Thabo Mbeki was in March this
year appointed mediator.
Mlilo's group came in as an advance party to hold a
number of meetings on
the sidelines of the regional meeting of the 14-member
countries. The group
has so far met some Zambian church mother bodies,
political parties and the
Oasis Forum, and would soon be engaging the
students community at the higher
learning institutions.
"We have a lot of
faith in president Mbeki's mediation efforts, and we hope
it will achieve
positive results especially as we go to the general
elections in 2008. But
above all, we hope that all Zambians will give us a
hand in this noble fight
for change in Zimbabwe," he said.
"Zambia has always been our saviour
starting from the pre-independence days
and we are very confident that a
solution to the Zimbabwe crisis could be
born out of this particular SADC
meeting being held in Zambia."
Soon after attaining political independence
from Britain in 1964, Zambia,
formerly part of the three nation Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland which
encompassed Zimbabwe and Malawi, played a
pivotal role in spearheading the
regional liberation struggle by hosting
former freedom fighters from
neighbouring countries.
Regional leaders who
found political refuge in Zambia at the height of the
independence struggle
include Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe and his
former vice president,
the late Joshua Nkomo, Mozambique's late leader
Samorah Machel, Namibia's
president Hifikepunye Pohamba and South Africa's
president Mbeki, former
leader Nelson Mandela and the late nationalist
Oliver Tambo, among
others.
Historians say it is because of playing host to the likes of Mugabe
and
Nkomo that Zambia was at some point bombed by the Ian Smith minority
regime
in 1975. The declining bilateral relations with Zimbabwe at the time
also
crippled Zambia's energy sector as the Kariba North Bank, the country's
biggest source of hydro-electricity shared with Zimbabwe's Kariba South
Bank, was shut down.
"One thing which is clear is that the current
confusion in Zimbabwe is
having far-reaching consequences on the region and
SADC countries should no
longer remain quiet. They are all hosting refugees
from Zimbabwe and in as
much as it is costly for them, we can only appeal
for the continuous warm
reception until the Zimbabwe situation is completely
resolved," added Mlilo.
According to the United Nations Economic Commission
for Africa (UNECA),
Southern Africa sub-region director, Jennifer Kabbo,
Zimbabwe's
deteriorating economy and political instability has affected the
economic
growth of the region.
"From an economic point of view, the
Zimbabwe crisis has had adverse effects
on the growth of the region . Once
concerted efforts are put in place and
the crisis in Zimbabwe is reduced to
manageable levels, the southern African
region will perform a lot better,"
Kabbo recently told local media.
But SADC executive secretary, Tomaz Augusto
Salomao maintained that the
Zimbabwe crisis was not beyond redemption and
blamed the country's economic
meltdown partly on the sanctions imposed on
it.
"The economy of Zimbabwe is (still) viable, and that is under sanctions.
Zimbabwe maybe the only country in the world where when one needs to import
a pen, they need to pay tax and you cannot run an economy like that,"
Salomao, who was tasked to assess the Zimbabwe economic situation at March
2007 last SADC extra-ordinary summit in Tanzania, said at a press briefing
in Lusaka on Thursday.
Zimbabwe's sharp downward spiral started in 2000,
when the ZANU-PF
government embarked on its fast-track land-reform
programme, which
redistributed white-owned farmland to landless blacks,
setting off a chain
of events that have now led to more than a third of all
Zimbabweans facing
severe food shortages.
In the process, over 30 white
farmers were brutally murdered in the land
redistribution exercise, a
further 700,000 black Zimbabweans were displaced
in the 2005 operation to
keep the capital Harare clean, and in March this
year opposition MDC leaders
including party president Morgan Tshangarai were
brutally tortured by
military forces.
Political activists and critics of President Mugabe's
government say all key
institutions are now run by top military officials, a
situation that has
left the ordinary people and members of the Opposition
with little say in
the running of the country's affairs.
"We are
demanding equal access to the State media so that we have equal
chances of
reaching out to the people because the State media seems to only
cover our
activities in the negative, we need a people-driven Constitution
that shall
guarantee free and fair elections next year and we also need
immediate
repeal of all repressive legislation like the Public Order and
Securities
Act," Mlilo said.
So, in the final analysis, it remains highly indisputable
that whichever way
the Zimbabwean situation proceeds from now, it will
certainly remain a
mammoth challenge especially for Zambia whose president
Levy Mwanawasa now
takes over the chairmanship of the regional body from
Lesotho's prime
minister, Pakalitha Mosisili.
SADC countries can surely
only afford to remain silent on Zimbabwe at own
peril!
Monsters and Critics
Aug 12, 2007, 12:51 GMT
Harare - Fifty-one bus
drivers were arrested for overcharging this weekend
in the Zimbabwean
capital Harare as riot police were brought in to control
crowds of desperate
travellers, official media reported Sunday.
Thousands of would-be
travellers were stranded at Harare's main railway
station, unable to catch
trains for the holiday weekend, according to the
Sunday Mail.
Fuel
shortages and a government directive to slash bus fares have
contributed to
a critical shortage of transport in Zimbabwe, which is
trapped in its worst
economic crisis since independence in 1980.
The 51 bus drivers were
arrested on Saturday, according to the Sunday Mail.
'They have been
forced to pay 40,000 Zimbabwe dollar fines and some will be
prosecuted for
repeatedly overcharging,' a police spokesman said.
'Some of the vehicles
are also being impounded as we have detected faults
which make them
unroadworthy,' according to Inspector James Sabawu.
But bus drivers and
owners say they cannot reasonably slash fares because
they have to buy their
fuel on the black market, where a litre of petrol now
costs up to 400,000
dollars - more than six times the price set by the
government.
We
have no access to cheap fuel, one bus driver told the Sunday Mail.
Police
are angry that some commuters are unwilling to incriminate their bus
drivers, according to the report.
'When questioned, some of the
passengers do not say how much they have been
charged, making it difficult
to arrest the operators,' said Sabawu.
Meanwhile passengers at the main
Mbare Msika terminus spoke of waiting for
hours in the vain hope of securing
transport for the four-day break.
In at least one case police forcibly
removed passengers from an overloaded
bus, according to the Sunday
Mail.
There was also little joy for would-be train travellers. One
dejected man
told the Sunday Mail he had slept at the main train station for
two nights
to try to board a train to Rusape, around 170 kilometres from
Harare, but
without success.
Railway tickets were mostly only
available on the black market at more than
four times the gazetted fares,
the report said.
On Monday, Zimbabwe marks Heroe's Day to honour fighters
killed in the 1970s
war for independence. The country is due to celebrate
Defence Forces Day on
Tuesday.
The holidays come amid worsening
shortages of power, water and basics like
bread and milk in many towns and
cities across this once-prosperous southern
African nation.
© 2007
dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
News24
12/08/2007 14:33 -
(SA)
Chris Muronzi
Harare - Zimbabwe has relicensed six
private abattoirs in a desperate bid to
ease a worsening shortage of meat, a
state newspaper said.
The official Sunday Mail newspaper said government
has so far relicensed six
private abattoirs and is considering other
applications in a bid to end a
shortage of meat.
This comes a month
after industry Minister Obert Mpofu revoked licenses of
private abattoirs
and said the inefficient Cold Storage Commission (CSC), a
near defunct state
enterprise, would be the only abattoir.
President Robert Mugabe's
government accused private abattoirs and retailers
of profiteering from
basic commodities and attempting to oust him out of
power in connivance with
his enemies.
The government hopes the relicensing of private abattoirs
will help ease
supply constraints, which have seen meat disappearing from
the butcheries
and all other traditional outlets.
Mugabe ordered
business to lower prices of basic goods by 50%.
Early this week, the
government increased the price of meat by 20% to ZW$150
000 and adjusted the
price the CSC pays for a cow to ZW$12m.
But critics say should Mugabe
continue pursuing his authoritarian economic
policies, the decision to
relicence abattoirs would not end the shortage of
meat and other
products.
Zimbabweans are traditionally fond of beef relishes.
The
troubled southern African nation has the highest inflation in the world,
believed to be 4 500% in April.
SABC
August 12,
2007, 18:15
Government says it cannot give refugee status to Zimbabweans
who cross the
border into South Africa. This was in response to urgent
requests by several
youth organisations who have gathered at the Union
Buildings in Pretoria.
They say South Africa is not doing enough to
assist Zimbabweans. The deputy
minister of safety and security, Susan
Shabangu, says in terms of the United
Nations Convention, Zimbabweans cannot
be classified as refugees, because
they are not seeking refuge in South
Africa.
Shabangu says because people from Zimbabwe are coming into South
Africa to
look for employment and often return to their country, they cannot
be
classified as refugees. ". We all know refugees are people who are not
able
to go back to their countries. They (Zimbabweans) just come here to get
some
things and go back to their country and take care of their families,"
says
Shabangu.
Appalling conditions
The Methodist Church has
opened its doors to Zimbabweans pouring into the
country. Although
conditions are appalling, most say they prefer it to the
political and
economic hardships back home. The influx of Zimbabweans is
raising concern
in several quarters -- from farmers and politicians, to
church and human
rights groups.
Shabangu said the public should not only focus on
Zimbabwe, as South Africa
hosted refugees from many African and Asian
countries. Just more than a week
ago, deputy foreign affairs minister, Aziz
Pahad, described the influx of
Zimbabweans as a serious problem, requiring
action and many activists
believe South Africa is not doing enough.
News24
12/08/2007 11:01 -
(SA)
Johannesburg - The Department of Home Affairs' unveiling of a
resurrected
plan for refugees has come too late for thousands of
Zimbabweans, the
Democratic Alliance said Sunday.
DA spokesperson for
home affairs, Mark Lowe, said the failure of the
department to admit to a
refugee crisis was a reflection of "incompetence
and ignorance" in the
department.
"The truth is that government has never known what to do
about the
Zimbabwean crises that have hit the country with frightening
regularity
since 2000," he said.
"Their stance has been to do
nothing, and until recently this worked because
the overflow of the crises
into South Africa was manageable."
Lowe said there were ways to make the
lives of fleeing Zimbabweans better,
but government refused to admit to the
failure of "silent diplomacy".
"For the ANC to actually admit that there
is a refugee problem is to admit
that their and President Mbeki's "silent
diplomacy" Zimbabwe policy has been
a failure."
He urged the
government to publicly hold Zimbabwe's government accountable
for their
actions and stop deporting asylum seekers, while setting up places
of safety
for refugees.
We had well over one hundred
people at a swirling, vibrant Vigil - despite
being blacklisted by the
Zimbabwean government! News of this accolade came
in an article in the
Zimbabwe Independent
(http://www.zimbabwesfrrituation.com/aug10b_2007.html#Z2,
Batch 3 Posted
10/8/07: "Zanu-PF plans cyber warfare against online
publications"). We were
surprised to be thought of as sufficiently important
to figure on their
radar taking in some 40 or so websites perceived as
unfriendly by Zanu-PF.
It's sad evidence of their paranoia.
The
lovely sunny weather may have contributed, but our large attendance
might
have been helped by SW Radio Africa putting up a big banner on their
website
urging people to support the Vigil. They are planning to do this on
a
weekly basis. They say that, with only seven months to go to the
elections,
it is up to Zimbabweans in the diaspora to do everything they can
to put on
pressure for change. We are very pleased to have this solid
support from
such a reputable news outfit.
Supporters were kept busy signing our
letters to President Thabo Mbeki of
South Africa (see www.zimvigil.co.uk diary item of 09/08/2007
for text) as
he prepares to leave for the SADC meeting in Zambia. We have
done a lot of
lobbying at the Vigil over the past few weeks and it was a
great help to
have a second table at the Vigil today. This was also used for
signing the
register and it freed up the front table to be much more
accessible to the
general public passing by - these of course are the people
we are trying to
reach with the message about our suffering friends and
families in Zimbabwe.
People were much taken with the impromptu decorations
on the Embassy, closed
for the Heroes Day weekend.
We have been
contacted by a musician, Ian Thornton, who heard about us
through the
Zimvigil myspace page operated by our supporter, Ian Pocock
(www.myspace/zimbabwevigil). He has
written and produced a song "President"
highly critical of the Mugabe
regime. It is available for sale and download,
check: www.myspace.com/ianthorntonband
and a video on:
www.youtube.com/ianthorntonband.
Ian has kindly suggested that proceeds
from the download sales should come
to us to help the people of Zimbabwe.
Thanks to Chipo and Arnold for
their hard work in supervising the signing of
the letters and generally
overseeing the new table.
For this week's Vigil pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/
FOR
THE RECORD: 115 signed the register.
FOR YOUR DIARY:
-
Monday, 13th August 2007, 7.30 pm, Central London Zimbabwe Forum.
Tor-Hugne
Olsen, the co-ordinator of the international liaison office of the
Zimbabwe
Human Rights NGO Forum, will be speaking to us about what may
happen at the
27th Ordinary SADC Summit of Heads of State where President
Thabo Mbeki will
be updating the participants on his mediation on Zimbabwe.
Upstairs at the
Theodore Bullfrog pub, 28 John Adam Street, London WC2
(cross the Strand
from the Zimbabwe Embassy, go down a passageway to John
Adam Street, turn
right and you will see the pub).
- Friday, 17th August 2007, 2 - 5
pm. PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF DATE.
Kate Hoey MP will be joining the Zimbabwe
Solidarity Campaign at their Vigil
outside City Hall, Belfast. As agreed
with Ian Paisley Jnr, our Belfast
friends are presenting a petition to
Stormont on 10th September. They plan
to do a presentation to the assembly
members in the long gallery and then
get as many members as possible to sign
the petition in front of the press.
They are trying to get some high profile
campaigners along to raise the
profile of the campaign.
-
Saturday, 1st September 2007, 12 noon - 10 pm. Zimfest 2007 (food,
sports,
music). Venue: Prince Georges Playing Fields, Bushey Rd, Raynes
Park,
London, SW20 9NB. For more information check; www.wezimbabwe.com.
- Tuesday,
4th September, 12 - 1.30 pm. The International Liaison
Office of the
Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum will be hosting 'Zimbabwe's
Gukurahundi:
Lessons from the 1980-1988 disturbances in Matabeleland and The
Midlands' at
Chatham House in London. Further information on the Chatham
House website
at: http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/events/view/-/id/572/.
-
Friday, 7th September 2007, 6.30 pm. Debate on human rights opened
by
barrister James Keeley. Discussion on Zimbabwe by Albert Weidemann.
Venue:
Ripon, North Yorkshire, Address: YMCA, Water Skellgate, HG4 1BQ. For
more
information, contact: Albert Weidemann on 01765-607900 or mobile 0779
340
1407
- Saturday, 13th October - Zimbabwe Vigil's 5th Anniversary. An
early marker. Don't book anything else for this date.
Vigil
co-ordinator
The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London,
takes place
every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross
violations of
human rights by the current regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil
which started in
October 2002 will continue until internationally-monitored,
free and fair
elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk
:: Steve Mvula - The Southern
African
Sunday, 12 August 2007
LUSAKA - International
Revolution, a new pressure group with links to
Zimbabwe's main opposition
party, the Movement for Democratic Change, has
sent representatives to
Lusaka to lobby SADC leaders to ensure a solution is
sought for Zimbabwe's
political and economic problems.
Johannesburg-based International
Revolution's liaison officer,
Nqobizitha Mlilo told The Southern African.com
that the crisis in Zimbabwe
is an African problem requiring an African
attention.
According to data released by the Consumer Council of
Zimbabwe (CCZ),
the inflation rate is now estimated at over 13,000 percent
with four out of
every five Zimbabwean unemployed. Much worse there are
constant shortages of
basic commodities including fuel, electricity and
medical supplies.
Mlilo and his group saw the 27th SADC Heads of
State and Government
summit in Lusaka this week as a golden opportunity to
press the regional
leaders, especially South African President, Thabo Mbeki
who was last March
appointed as mediator of the Zimbabwe
crisis.
So far Mlilo and his colleagues have met with the Oasis
Forum (a
coalition of opposition and civic groups in Zambia) and students at
institutions of higher learning. They will try to meet some government
leaders.
"The story of Zimbabwe must be told to the world in
its totality so
that a lasting solution can be found. Our government is in
perpetual combat
with its own people and the further the African countries
delay in resolving
this political crisis, the more Zimbabwe will
deteriorate." Mlilo said.
Monsters and Critics
Aug 12, 2007, 19:03 GMT
Harare - Nine people were
killed and 52 injured Sunday in Zimbabwe in a
collision between a bus and a
car, the second major transport accident in
less than a week, state radio
reported.
The crash occurred in northern Zimbabwe. The passenger bus
carrying 74
people was on its way to the capital Harare from Mukumbura on
the Mozambican
border.
All five people inside the car were killed, as
well as four passengers on
the bus, said the radio.
The injured are
being treated at the state-run hospital in the mining town
of Bindura, near
where the accident occurred, said the radio.
The latest accident comes
two days after a collision between a freight train
and a passenger train in
Harare killed one person and injured 83 others.
Zimbabwe is in the middle
of a severe transport crisis, with thousands of
desperate rail and road
commuters struggling to find transport from towns
and cities to rural
villages ahead of a public holiday here early next week.
The southern
African country's roads are notorious for traffic accidents
caused by
speeding vehicles, poor driving and lack of vehicle maintenance.
© 2007
dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
The Telegraph
By Alex
Morfey
Last Updated: 1:37am BST 12/08/2007
Money was not
the motivation for Tatenda Taibu's return to play for Zimbabwe
nearly two
years after he quit in protest against his country's cricket
authority.
The former captain said he could not ignore his desire to
play international
cricket again, and that his wife had played a big part in
persuading him to
change his mind.
Taibu had been playing overseas
during his self-imposed exile, but his wife,
Loveness, had suggested the
couple returned to Africa.
"My wife was tired of travelling and asked if
we could come back home and I
agreed," he said. "She was against the idea of
me leaving in the first
place. All the time we were away she was always
asking me when we were going
back home."
The inspirational wicketkeeper
said he had missed playing at the highest
level. "I realised that God gave
me a talent not to play club cricket, but
to play international cricket and
the only way I could play international
cricket was to return
home."
Taibu turned his back on his motherland at the age of 22, in
November 2005,
citing his displeasure with the way Peter Chingoka, chairman
of Zimbabwe
Cricket (ZC), and Ozias Bvute, the managing director, were
running the game.
He had also feared for his life after getting threatening
telephone calls.
Taibu spent a month playing for a club in Bangladesh in
January last year
before coming to England to join Pyrford in the Surrey
Championship. He then
signed a six-month deal with Namibia, who play in the
South African domestic
first-class set-up, but did not renew that contract
and returned home in
May.
Speculation grew that Taibu would make a
return to Zimbabwe colours when he
trained with Kevin Curran's team last
month. He joined the Zimbabwe Select
squad playing two four-day matches
against India A, and scored 123 in the
first innings of one match, although
his side lost by nine wickets.
"I am back to score hundreds, double
hundreds and take more catches. Cricket
fans will see more of me," he said,
adding that he had patched up his
differences with the ZC
administration.
"ZC and myself have realised that there is more to life
than having
disagreements."
Taibu said his return had nothing to do
with financial gain because he had
earned enough money to care for himself
and his family. "It is now a matter
of playing for my country, I have made
enough money in my life and I still
have other things that bring me money,"
he said.
Zimbabwe have also been boosted by the return of Brendan Taylor,
a top-order
batsman. He had refused to play for his province, Northerns, in
Zimbabwe's
first-class competition, the Logan Cup, soon after his return
from the World
Cup and then defied Bvute's order not to accept contracts
with clubs abroad
in the off-season by taking up a club deal in
Holland.
Taylor joined the Zimbabwean squad for training on Friday, ahead
of two
four-day games against South Africa A, which start on Thursday.
Zim Online
Monday 13 August 2007
By
Nqobizitha Khumalo
BULAWAYO - The state-controlled Media and Information
Commission (MIC) has
postponed a hearing for award-winning Zimbabwean
photojournalist Tsvangirayi
Mukwazhi who is facing charges of
misrepresenting facts in his application
for accreditation.
Lawyers
representing Mukwazhi told the MIC that they could not appear before
the
commission last Friday because they had been called at short notice
forcing
the media body to postpone the case to 20 August.
In a statement released
at the weekend, Harrison Nkomo, Mukwazhi's lawyer,
said they had also asked
the MIC to furnish them with full details of the
allegations against their
client to enable them to prepare for the case.
The MIC summoned Mukwazhi
to appear before the commission last week accusing
the journalist of
deliberately falsifying information on his application for
the renewal of
his accreditation for 2007.
Nkomo said they had also asked the MIC to
provide them with details of
Mukwazhi's application going to the time he
first submitted an application
for accreditation as a free-lance
journalist.
The state media body has also summoned freelance film
producer, Tendai
Musiyazviriyo, also on 20 August, to answer to similar
charges of falsifying
information on his application for
accreditation.
Under Zimbabwe's draconian Access to Information and
Protection of Privacy
Act (AIPPA), journalists must first register with the
MIC before they can
practise their profession.
Mukwazhi and
Musiyazviriyo were last March arrested and brutally tortured
while in police
custody after they were caught up in political disturbances
in Harare's
working class suburb of Highfield.
Main opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan
Tsvangirai and other civil society
activists, were brutally assaulted by
state agents last March for attempting
to organise an "illegal" rally in
Highfield.
The MIC has over the
past four years banned four newspapers including
Zimbabwe's biggest
circulating daily, The Daily News. At least a hundred
journalists have also
been arrested during the same period while hundreds
others have been barred
from visiting the country.
The World Association of Newspapers lists
Zimbabwe among the three most
difficult countries for journalists. -
ZimOnline
Monsters and Critics
Aug 12, 2007, 11:43 GMT
Harare - A top state
journalist in Zimbabwe appears to have committed
suicide after his car was
involved in a fatal road accident, the official
Sunday Mail
reported.
The body of Moses Gumbo, 37, was found hanging from a tree with
a shoelace
round his neck shortly after the accident, in which one person
was killed
and 10 were injured, said the report.
Gumbo, who worked
for the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) was
driving his company car
when the incident occurred near the central city of
Gweru on
Saturday.
The car appears to have rammed into a truck that was turning
ahead of him.
Gumbo, who was ZBC bureau chief for Midlands province, fled
to a nearby
hotel where he washed his face, reported the accident and then
disappeared.
His body was found 45 minutes later hanging from a tree,
said the Sunday
Mail.
Police investigations are continuing.
©
2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur