Daily News
Stayaway over cash looms
THE executive of
the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) will
meet next week to endorse a
proposed stayaway and marches to Parliament and
the central bank following
the expiry yesterday of a 14-day ultimatum to the
government to resolve
severe cash shortages, it was learnt yesterday.
Sources within
the country’s labour umbrella body said the
organisation wanted to call for
workers to stay away from work and to
undertake marches to protest a cash
crisis that has plagued the country for
several months.
One
source told the Daily News: “The executive resolved to call for
stayaways and
marches which will have some people wielding placards outside
Parliament, the
RBZ (Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe) and (Finance Minister
Herbert) Murerwa’s
offices.
“Those who do not want to demonstrate will have to
remain at home,”
the source added.
But ZCTU president
Lovemore Matombo would not commit himself on what
action the labour body
would take, only saying it had three options.
“We have set the
23rd (of August) as the tentative date for the
executive to meet,” said
Matombo. “We might push the date because of some
logistical problems, but
whenever it is going to be, it will be just a
matter of endorsing the action
we want to take. We have the action on our
cards.
“We will
not announce what kind of action we will take, but we have
three options on
hand. Of course, we cannot rule out the traditional way
(stayaways). We do
not want to say much as that would arm our enemy.”
On when the
workers’ action was likely to start, he said: “After the
meeting, the longest
we will take is five days. The situation is very
desperate for the workers.
We have to act fast so that the government is
seen to be doing something to
address our plight. We will not stop our
action until the situation improves.
We want cash so that these queues will
become a thing of the
past.”
The cash shortages have forced banks to ration money to
clients, with
some financial institutions giving as little as $5 000 a day.
This has, in
turn, forced most workers to visit their banks on a daily basis
to secure
money to meet their expenses.
The central bank
last week introduced local currency travellers’
cheques (TCs) to alleviate
the impact of the cash shortages, blamed on
soaring inflation and the
government’s failure to raise foreign currency to
import the special ink and
paper needed to print bank notes.
According to measures
announced by Murerwa, the government will also
phase out the current $500 by
October, in an attempt to force people to
inject cash into the
system.
The $500 will be replaced by a different coloured note,
and a $1 000
note, made necessary by escalating prices, will also be
introduced.
But Matombo said these measures, especially the
TCs, had not addressed
the cash shortages. Several retailers are said to have
refused to accept
them.
Matombo told the Daily News: “The
government has done nothing to
address this issue – if anything at all, the
crisis is getting worse. The
(local currency) TCs will not help at all. Where
will merchants get cash
when someone wants change after using a TC as a form
of payment for services
or goods?
“Workers are now spending
more time in banks or looking for cash than
at their workplaces or with their
families. We feel we should not be exposed
to such horrible pain. Something
has to be done as a matter of urgency. It
seems the government is not
treating this as an urgent matter.”
Murerwa and his deputy
Christopher Kuruneri could not be reached for
comment
yesterday.
By Columbus Mavhunga
Staff
Reporter
Daily News
Magistrate seeks transfer after threats from war
vets
A MWENEZI district magistrate, Mogregor Kufa, is seeking
relocation
from the area because he says he has received threats to his life
in
connection with rulings he made in several farm eviction cases, the
Daily
News has learnt.
Kufa wrote to chief magistrate Samuel
Kudya last month, requesting to
be transferred from Mwenezi to Harare, but
his request was turned down.
The Daily News yesterday
established that after writing to the
Ministry of Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs asking for a swop or a
transfer from Mwenezi, Kufa
received a letter from Kudya advising him that
he could only be transferred
to Masvingo Provincial Court.
Kudya also advised Kufa that he
would have to meet his own relocation
expenses if he was moved from
Mwenezi.
But in a letter to Kudya, Kufa argued: “I am aware
that the transfer
was solely initiated by myself, but the risks and dangers
about to be
orchestrated result from my duties as a judicial
officer.
“It would be grossly unfair and unjust for me to meet
the said costs.
Regrettably, if I am made to meet the costs, it would be an
unfortunate and
erroneous precedent.”
The magistrate also
said that in Masvingo province, his life would
remain in danger because of
suspected war veterans who are unhappy with
rulings he made in cases
involving white farmers evicted from their land.
Masvingo
provincial magistrate Enias Magate has endorsed Kufa’s
transfer request,
saying his fear is “based on solid ground”.
War veterans are
among those who have been allocated land seized by
the government from white
farmers.
Kufa has passed several judgments against the
government in cases
where white farmers have been issued with eviction
notices by the Ministry
of Lands and Agriculture.
In his
judgments, Kufa ordered affected farmers to remain on their
properties
pending a ruling by the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of
Section 8
of the Land Acquisition Act, under which the eviction notices
are
issued.
Sources said for the past five months, suspected
war veterans had
repeatedly phoned and sent letters to Kufa, threatening to
kill him for his
judgments and for jailing three war veterans who beat up
opposition party
supporters in the run-up to the presidential election last
year.
The sources said the war veterans were even believed to
have written
to President Robert Mugabe, denouncing Kufa as a traitor and
asking for his
transfer from Mwenezi.
“They accused him of
betraying his fellow magistrates elsewhere who
were giving ultimatums to
farmers to leave their properties,” one source
said.
Kufa is
also being investigated for allegedly passing lenient
sentences on at least
five separate cases.
The Justice Ministry set up a three-member
committee to look into the
allegations levelled against the
magistrate.
Kufa is being charged with five counts of
misconduct for allegedly
passing light sentences without giving reasons for
such rulings.
It is alleged that on 22 January last year at the
Mwenezi court, Trust
Moyo, Manual Moyo and Buy Makechemu appeared before Kufa
facing eight counts
of stocktheft involving cattle worth $184
000.
The three accused were sentenced to three months in jail,
which were
wholly suspended for five years without adequate justification, it
is
alleged.
Staff Reporter
Daily News
Water shortage affects hospitals in
Masvingo
MASVINGO – Neshuro and Chivi district hospitals have
been forced to
transfer patients to health institutions nearby in the last
few weeks
because of serious water shortages, it was learnt this
week.
Health officials in the province said Neshuro hospital
was the
hardest-hit and had down-sized its operations as a
result.
The officials said the engine that was used to supply
water to the
health centre was washed away by heavy rains last year, and the
hospital was
depending on water ferried in bowsers.
However,
the shortage of fuel has affected the temporary measures
being used to bring
water to the hospital.
One official said: “Some patients from
Neshuro are now being
transferred to Matibi Mission Hospital as the water
problem continues to be
severely felt. We are not sure when normal supplies
will be restored.”
At Chivi District Hospital, the situation is
reported to have
improved, but water shortages continue to haunt the
state-of-the-art rural
health centre.
Health officials said
problems at Chivi hospital began early this
month when workers from the
Zimbabwe National Water Authority downed tools
to press for salary
increments.
Since then, the officials said, water supplies had
been erratic,
affecting the smooth running of the hospital.
A health official at Chivi yesterday said: “The situation has
slightly
improved, but the problem is not yet over. At times, especially
during night
time, the hospital runs dry, but I am sure something is being
done to solve
the problem.”
Masvingo provincial medical
director Tapuwa Magure yesterday confirmed
the crisis at the two
hospitals.
“I am aware of the problems that the two hospitals
are facing,
especially at Neshuro. We have had to transfer patients because
the hospital
has no water, but we are working on modalities to get funds and
solve the
problem,” he said.
He would not divulge the number
of patients and staff affected by the
crisis at the two
hospitals.
Own Correspondent
Daily News
Chissano jets into Harare for talks with
Mugabe
MOZAMBICAN President Joaquim Chissano yesterday flew into
Zimbabwe
to hold talks with President Robert Mugabe on the change of
government in
Liberia, with diplomatic sources saying the two were also
likely to discuss
issues relating to Zimbabwe’s political
problems.
Chissano, who is the chairman of the African Union,
was met at Harare
International Airport by Mugabe and the two immediately
left for closed door
talks at the Harare Sheraton Hotel.
Details of the meeting could not be immediately established by late
last
night, although sources said Chissano would update Mugabe on the events
in
Liberia, whose leader Charles Taylor resigned and went into exile in
Nigeria
this week amid pressure from the United States.
Chissano and
South African President Thabo Mbeki oversaw Taylor’s
exit.
Chissano refused to speak to the Press on his arrival yesterday, but
the
sources said apart from the Liberian crisis, the Mozambican leader would
also
seek an update on initiatives by Zimbabwean church leaders to
revive
inter-party dialogue between Zimbabwe’s main political
parties.
“The primary reason for his visit is to brief his
counterpart on
issues relating to the stepping down of Taylor in Liberia. But
Chissano will
also take the opportunity to get an update on the how far the
political
players in Zimbabwe have gone in terms of resumption of
dialogue.
“Chissano is as concerned about the Zimbabwean
problems as all the
other African leaders,” one source
said.
Staff Reporter
Daily News
Talks, what talks?
TATENDA Shava, an
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
supporter, contorts his face
in disdain when asked what he thinks about
efforts to broker talks between
his party and the ruling ZANU PF.
“I am very disappointed. How
can our party be seen to be supping with
the devil? The economy has all but
collapsed because of ZANU PF’s misrule,”
he says from a long cash queue at an
automated teller machine.
Moments later, security guards
brandishing batons tell Shava and other
desperate cash hunters that money has
run out.
In another part of town, Farai (not his real name), a
20-year-old
graduate of Zimbabwe’s controversial national youth service
programme,
launches into a tirade when asked about the proposed
talks.
“The ruling party is a nationalistic organisation and
there is no way
we can talk to Tony Blair’s puppets,” he says, using the
denigrating term
President Robert Mugabe and other ruling party officials
frequently apply to
MDC leaders and supporters.
He adds:
“The MDC represents the interests of the white people who are
not happy that
our people have been empowered through the land reform
exercise. We may be
experiencing food shortages, but things will soon
improve. All these
shortages are being caused by the MDC and their white
masters in the United
States and Britain.
“Do you know that it is possible for some
MDC scientists to interfere
with the weather and ensure that there is no
rain? This will make our
enemies believe that the land reform was a
failure.”
Shava and Farai spoke as local church leaders
shuttled between
Zimbabwe’s main political parties in an attempt to convince
them to resume
talks that stalled last year when the opposition filed a court
application
challenging Mugabe’s 2002 re-election.
Representatives of churches have met separately with Mugabe and MDC
leader
Morgan Tsvangirai in the past few weeks and say both have expressed
interest
in the church initiative.
In addition, party officials indicate
that there has been informal,
low-level contact between officials of the two
parties.
But while analysts say there is a thawing of relations
between ZANU PF
and the MDC, their supporters seem sceptical and unconvinced
of the need for
dialogue.
The Daily News interviewed eight
Zimbabweans – four supporting the MDC
and four ZANU PF activists – who all
said they agreed that there was need to
end the political impasse that has
contributed to the crisis.
But all eight said they were
suspicious of the politicians’ motives.
For instance, as far as
Farai and some ZANU PF supporters are
concerned, there is no need for the
ruling party to enter into any
negotiations with the MDC.
The governing party, they say, won the 2000 parliamentary and the
2002
presidential elections “in a free and fair atmosphere”.
“If ZANU PF won the two elections, why should we accommodate losers
from the
MDC?” Farai asks.
Opposition party supporters, on the other
hand, remain convinced that
ZANU PF “stole” the two elections from the MDC
and fear the resumption of
talks could mean the death of the
party.
Shava expressed the sentiments of other MDC supporters
interviewed by
the Daily News: “I am very sceptical of the motives behind
these so-called
talks. As MDC members, we would like to know what these talks
are supposed
to achieve and what has forced the parties to the negotiating
table.
“Is it because ZANU PF has realised that it has failed
to lead this
country, or is it because the MDC is chickening out because it
cannot stand
the heat?”
He warned, as other commentators and
MDC party supporters have done,
that Zimbabwe’s main opposition party ran the
risk of being swallowed by
ZANU PF, as happened with PF-ZAPU when it entered
into the 1987 Unity Accord
that created a virtual one-party
state.
“The MDC should remember that PF-ZAPU, a formidable
opposition party,
was absorbed by ZANU PF in 1987 and should ensure that a
similar fate does
not befall them. Unity with the ruling party would be a
betrayal of MDC
members who have been killed, raped and tortured for daring
to support the
opposition,” Shava said. Political analysts attributed much of
the suspicion
to lack of information on the objectives of the proposed talks.
University
of Zimbabwe lecturer Heneri Dzinotyiwei pointed out: “The MDC
leadership
would have to give a clear indication of what it wants to achieve
from the
talks to avoid any suspicions on the part of their supporters. “The
ZANU PF
supporters would not see much benefit or gain from the talks because
their
party is in power and they might feel that any outcome would be to
their
disadvantage. The other cause for such an attitude would be failure
to
separate partisan goals from national ones.” The analysts also noted
that
MDC supporters who had been injured or lost family members to
political
violence in the past three years might also see dialogue with the
ruling
party as a betrayal. ZANU PF supporters are blamed for most of the
violence
that has affected Zimbabwe since 2000. The analysts said ruling
party
activists might also fear abandonment by their party and prosecution
for
involvement in the violence if ZANU PF cosied up to the MDC. They added
that
attitudes drummed into their supporters by the two parties might also
be
contributing to resistance to dialogue. For instance, while MDC
supporters
interviewed by this reporter insisted that “the only acceptable
compromise
would be for the two political parties to agree that the electoral
laws are
amended, culminating in internationally supervised elections”,
ruling party
activists were uneasy about internationally supervised polls.
They have been
taught that the international community favours the MDC and,
therefore, fear
that any international involvement in future polls would be
detrimental to
their interests. One ZANU PF supporter said: “Except for our
African
brothers, the rest of the international community would only rig
elections
in favour of their surrogate MDC. In my opinion, there is no need
for fresh
elections because we won in free and fair elections. If there are
to be
fresh elections, then they should be monitored by our African brothers
who
are not biased in favour of the MDC.” MDC secretary-general Welshman
Ncube
was quick to try and allay opposition party followers’ fears, saying:
“I don
’t know where people get the notion that dialogue could be about unity
talks
between the MDC and ZANU PF. “Unity between the two parties cannot and
will
never be on the agenda of the talks. The purpose of dialogue as far as
the
MDC is concerned is for the return to a democratic dispensation,
where
people would be free from torture, arbitrary arrest and see the return
of
basic freedoms of assembly and association. The other item on the agenda
is
the issue of how the country can be returned to legitimacy.” Contacted
for
comment yesterday, ZANU PF deputy secretary for the commissariat
Sikhanyiso
Ndlovu would only say: “Negotiations are done behind closed doors
– you
cannot negotiate in public. In fact, I cannot comment on talks about
talks.”
By Foster Dongozi Features Writer
Daily News
Industry to pay for pollution
ZIMBABWE’S
environmental watchdog, Environment Africa, is taking the
“polluter pays”
principle a step further and has drafted a River Charter
under which local
company executives would commit themselves to taking
responsibility for the
prevention of pollution.
Environment Africa financial director
Robin Wild said his organisation
had been consulting various stakeholders
about the draft Charter since June.
“We hope to also involve
all schools, residents and users of the river
in a Charter which will be
signed, promising to clean up the river, to stop
pollution and to restore it
as a beautiful icon of the city,” he said.
“We are, therefore,
asking the industries to voluntarily adopt and
commit themselves to this
Charter, to take responsibility for a cleaner
river system by establishing
standards of accountability, methods of
collaboration and a system of
self-monitoring,” Wild added.
Companies would initially
voluntarily commit themselves to abiding by
the provisions of the Charter,
but Environment Africa will eventually lobby
for it to be made into
law.
The draft Charter stipulates that industrial executives
would be held
accountable and responsible for the actions of their
organisations, which
would be required to reduce water consumption by a
measurable target within
a specified time frame.
Industries
would be expected to pledge to recover and recycle water
used in their
production processes and wherever it is technically possible
and
cost-effective, to discharge industrial effluent according to the
standards
set by the government.
“We hope many industry executives will
join in efforts to plan,
develop and manage water resources and to reduce the
amount of water they
use, recycle water and ensure that they do not pollute
our water courses,”
Wild said.
He said in Harare,
Environment Africa’s vision was to restore the
Mukuvisi River and its
tributaries to their former natural beauty and health
by cleaning them up,
encouraging biodiversity and reducing pollution.
Companies that
would have committed themselves to abiding by the
provisions of the River
Charter and which fail to do so would face
penalties.
Imposing penalties against companies responsible for pollution is an
integral
part of the “polluter pays” principle advocated in Zimbabwe’s
Environmental
Management Act, which was gazetted last year.
The legislation
stipulates that organisations that cause pollution or
environmental
degradation should meet the cost of remedying such pollution
or
degradation.
Under the Act, the polluter should be liable for
the health effects of
pollution, as well as the cost of preventing,
controlling or minimising
further pollution and environmental
damage.
Focus in the past has been on industrial firms, accused
of
contributing to atmospheric pollution and the pollution of water sources
in
urban areas.
But Environment and Tourism Ministry
permanent secretary, Margaret
Sangarwe has indicated that the government
plans to extend the polluter pays
principle to Zimbabwe’s food industry,
saying, “As we widen our ‘polluter
pays’ principle, the ministry is looking
at companies whose packaging is
littered on the streets and levy(ing) them.
This is a measure to check on
who is responsible.”
If the
proposal is implemented, food outlets, whose paper and hard
plastic packaging
materials have become an eyesore on urban streets, would
be forced to pay
penalties if their customers litter the streets.
This is
supposed to encourage the outlets to look for alternative
packaging that
would not easily be disposed of on the streets.
But the
proprietors of local food outlets interviewed by the Daily
News expressed
reservations on the extension of the polluter pays principle
to the food
industry, saying they should not be held responsible for the
actions of their
customers.
Sylvia Manhanga, who runs a fast-food outlet in the
Harare city
centre, said: “It would be unfair for the government to levy us
because we
are not the ones who pollute the environment. In as much as we
appreciate
that our clients throw litter in the streets, we cannot pay for
their
irresponsibility.”
She said the government should
rather make individuals pay spot fines
when they are caught littering,
something the Environment Ministry has
already indicated is in its
plans.
But while environmentalists say individual polluters should
be made to
account for their actions, they insist that industry and commerce
should be
roped in if Zimbabwe’s anti-pollution strategies are to succeed. In
this
regard, the government has gazetted fines of up to $15 million and
jail
sentences for polluters. “The government will ensure that the laid
down
regulations are enforced and that stiffer penalties are imposed
for
non-compliance by the perpetrators,” Sangarwe said. Environment
Africa’s
Muthuso Dhlamini added: “Industrialists boast that they pollute and
pay the
fine instead of obeying the law, so we hope with the new concept,
they will
be deterred as they will have to pay much greater fines or even
risk being
imprisoned. “Now it won’t be easy to degrade the environment and
get away
with it as was done before onerous fines and jail sentences were
set.”
Environmentalists say failure to rein in pollution will have
serious
consequences for Zimbabwe, where water and air pollution is rising
because
of industrial activity and surging urban populations. In Harare,
companies
are accused of depositing raw effluent in water sources, while
peri-urban
agriculture has also contributed towards pollution. Harare City
Council
reports indicate that atmospheric pollution levels in the capital
city are
far above World Health Organisation standards, increasing the risk
of
respiratory problems, lung infections and heart
conditions.
Environmentalists say littering is also dangerous to public
health and can
cause blockages and flooding of drain systems, which cost city
councils a
large amount of money to rectify. Litter is also said to store
carbon,
contributing to the greenhouse effect, a concentration of gases in
the
atmosphere that are reflected back to the earth and are believed to
be
responsible for global warming, which is said to be causing adverse
changes
to the world’s climate. By Angela Makamure Staff Reporter
Daily News
Will to work for common good has
disappeared
DURING the early years of our Independence, we may
have had a common
vision for Zimbabwe and political objectives embracing all
its citizens in
our socialism. The slogans were Education for All, Health for
All, Housing
for All.
But divisions and exclusion of parts
of the population from
nation-building were pre-programmed even then, insofar
as the socialist
ruling party needed a class enemy and justified its
permanent hold on power
by declaring it a matter of historical
necessity.
Whatever had been positive in our socialist
policies, notably the
expansion of education and health services, could not
be sustained: if you
subsidise social services, you first have to create the
economic wealth with
which to do the subsidising.
That did
not happen.
Also, many people used to benefit from free health
care who were well
able to pay.
Living beyond our means and
spending more than we produced, we were
finally asked to get real and bake
the cake first before eating fat slices
of it.
Socialism and
the concern for the welfare of all were debunked.
Instead, we had a new and
dangerous drug prescribed called ESAP (Economic
Structural Adjustment
Programme).
Promoting private enterprise and personal
responsibility, it went to
the other extreme of recommending sheer
self-interest as the engine of all
economic progress and
development.
It did not work either.
And its
champions had to admit eventually that ruining the health of
the workforce
and depriving future workers, and especially future mothers,
of education is
a lousy way of trying to achieve greater productivity.
It has
done no good to the economy, and will not work in politics
either. The
political equivalent of neo-liberalism goes something like this:
let
different groups and parties compete with each other, and the end result
will
be a political equilibrium and stability.
There is some truth
in this insofar as a multi-party system does not
allow any one party to be
totally dominant, and thus prevents corruption and
abuse of power. In
fighting each other through the vote, they neutralise
each other, or so the
theory goes.
But what if one party manages to crush its
opponent and live out in
reality its insane dream of absolute
power?
Self-interest has a place in any social interaction, in
economics,
internal politics and international relations. But it must never
be allowed
to be the only motivating force and thus run
wild.
It must be counterbalanced by the will to take into
account the
interests of all and cater for the common good.
The will to work for the common good, which may have been there
initially,
has completely disappeared from our political scene. It shows
most
outrageously in what is called the politicisation of food
distribution.
Church organisations wishing to import badly
needed food for starving
villagers and hungry urban destitute were denied
import permits.
No one must be seen to come to the aid of
starving people except the
party. Saving lives is no concern of current
political leaders. Only the
propaganda value of doing so is.
If you are known to be an opposition supporter, or just suspected to
be, you
are left to starve to death.
National leaders do not feel
responsible for the nation as a whole.
They merely bribe, and buy the support
of, their own voters.
A healthy community says: We will survive by
sticking together, or we
will not survive at all. But this solidarity is fast
disappearing under the
impact of the divisive self-absorption and obsession
with staying in power
at whatever cost of the ruling elite. Now the unwritten
law seems to be
everyone for himself! A woman with a heart condition comes
from seeing her
doctor. Her prescription costs tens of thousands of dollars
which she has
not got, being an unemployed widow with five children. She begs
and pleads
with family members, neighbours, her church pastor, anyone. What
can they
do? They shrug their shoulders: “Sorry, we have troubles of our own.
We wish
you good luck.” Another one needs hundreds of thousands of dollars
for a
life-saving cancer operation. If you don’t have children in London
or
nephews in Australia, you are done for. Even traditional family
solidarity
is sorely tried. The leaders are looking for people tough and
ruthless
enough to keep the population in their iron grip and force it into
a
semblance of unity by sheer terror and intimidation. But this fosters
only
resentment, which one day will explode into orgies of revenge. Even
now,
countless people, tortured, humiliated and nursing old wounds, harbour
deep
bitterness. Countless people refuse to accept the killing of loved
ones
while the killers walk free. This is the stuff civil wars are made
of.
Violence breeds violence. Divide and rule keeps rulers in power for a
time,
but eventually consumes them in the fire of civil strife. Government
needs
to accept full responsibility for all citizens regardless of their
political
affiliation. Government must respect the life of everyone in the
country and
its law enforcement agents must protect all without asking
political
questions. The Church cannot say this often enough. A government
that no
longer strives for the common good, but is partial to a dwindling
minority,
loses its legitimacy. Leaders merely looting the state in favour of
their
supporters fail the nation. What we need are people capable of
universal
solidarity who feel for their suffering brothers and sisters. We
ourselves
need to be able to feel the pain of the hungry unprovided for, of
the sick
uncared for, of those beaten merely for saying out loud what we all
know to
be true. We even need to feel for tormentors who destroy, not only
the
humanity of their victims, but their own as well. Excluding no one
and
reaching out to everyone is the first step on the long road to
peace.
By Father Oskar Wermter SJ
Father Oskar Wermter
is a Catholic priest and social commentator
Daily News
No alternative to dialogue
AN UNREPENTANT
President Robert Mugabe on Monday used Heroes’ Day,
as he has often done in
the past, to inflict more despair and anguish on
crisis-weary
Zimbabweans.
When he could have used the occasion to rally the
nation behind the
search for a negotiated end to Zimbabwe’s bitter crisis,
Mugabe
single-handedly tried to scuttle prospects for an end to the
country’s
political impasse when he demanded that the opposition “repent”
before there
can be co-operation with his government.
Repent
to who, we ask?
Poverty is worse in Zimbabwe today than at any
other time in the
modern history of this country, thanks to the ruinous land
and economic
policies of Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party in the last 23
years.
Shops are empty of food because hired political thugs
drove productive
farmers off the land, while the government stood watching,
if not actually
cheering on the madness.
Inflation has hit
an all-time high of 364.5 percent because the
government refuses to live
within its means and reduce the budget deficit,
the chief cause of Zimbabwe’s
high inflation.
Unemployment is around 70 percent as industry
and commerce, just like
everything else in once prosperous Zimbabwe, hurtles
towards total collapse.
HIV/AIDS-related illnesses are killing
at least 2 000 Zimbabweans each
week because the government would rather
spend money on self-serving
projects such as its national youth training
programme and not on
resuscitating the collapsing public health sector or
providing
anti-retroviral drugs.
At least another 30
Zimbabweans have died in the last three years
because of mindless political
violence and lawlessness, which Mugabe and his
government should have and
could have prevented.
That in the face of all this, Mugabe –
who as President of Zimbabwe
bears the most responsibility for the way things
have fallen apart in this
country – can turn around and demand that others
should repent and beg for
forgiveness is arrogant hypocrisy of the worst
kind.
The kind of arrogant hypocrisy the world has come to
expect from the
likes of Liberia’s embattled Charles Taylor.
After 14 years at the centre of two bloody wars that claimed more than
200
000 lives and brought Liberia to its knees, Taylor still had the cheek
to
portray himself this week as a “sacrificial lamb” giving up power and
going
into exile in Nigeria for the sake of his beloved Liberians.
But then Taylor was always an uncouth warlord prepared to do anything
for the
love of political power and diamonds.
This is not the kind of
behaviour that Zimbabweans want or expect from
Robert Mugabe, a former
freedom fighter and an elder president on the
continent.
Zimbabweans expect Mugabe to negotiate, not only with the opposition
Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC), but with the devil himself if that is
the only
way to break the country’s political impasse and allow Zimbabwe a
chance to
make a fresh beginning.
Indeed, only three weeks ago, Mugabe
himself appeared to accept
dialogue as the only viable route forward,
promising local church leaders
that he was committed to resumption of talks
between ZANU PF and the MDC.
Or are we to believe those that
say Mugabe agreed to the church
leaders’ efforts to revive dialogue only as a
callous and selfish move to
buy himself political space?
After Monday’s performance, only Mugabe can reassure Zimbabweans that
his
word can be trusted by taking firm and visible steps to create an
environment
conducive for talks with the MDC to resume.
We can only watch
and wait!
Daily News
Zimbabwe economy feeding off itself
A
FRIEND in Zimbabwe, normally astute in his economic observation,
had me
wondering recently when he asserted that business in the country was
actually
booming.
He said the South African press had created
unnecessary gloom and doom
about the economic situation across the Limpopo,
and challenged me to update
myself on the situation.
I took
him up on it. During a trip to Harare last week I saw what he
was on about.
There was indeed a sense of greater normalcy about the city’s
everyday life
than I had expected.
The streets were full of people, cars and
buses, imported goods were
flying off the shelves, basic foodstuffs appeared
to be available, the stock
exchange was on an extended bull run, new houses
were going up in upmarket
suburbs and four major companies reported results
well ahead of inflation.
But, of course, you just need to
scratch below the surface to see a
rather different picture. This is an
economy feeding off itself, that will
soon cave in on a hollowed-out
centre.
While cars clog the streets, the regular petrol
stations are deserted,
with the whole fuel industry having “gone private” and
migrated to backyard
caches, roadside tankers and smalls adverts in
newspapers, with prices
determined by the desperation of the
buyer.
On the pavements outside banks the throngs are actually
lengthy queues
of people, often patrolled by riot police, waiting for the
paltry sums of
precious cash they are allowed to withdraw from their
accounts.
The shops might be full, but they are rapidly turning
ordinary
Zimbabweans into paupers with prices few can really
afford.
The 400 percent inflation rate is fuelling the stock
market, the
spending spree in the retail and housing sectors, and the quick
fortunes
being made by local entrepreneurs exploiting
shortages.
Of course, these include many senior government
officials and top
ruling-party politicians who have used their positions to
enter the
money-trading business on the side, capitalise on the foreign
exchange
shortage and become instant millionaires.
In the
past fortnight alone, the value of one US dollar on the black
market has
nearly doubled to more than $6 000.
Local currency, too, has
become tradeable with banks offering up to 30
percent commissions on the
value of cash sold back to them.
In the weird world of the
Zimbabwe economy, an IPO is known among
cynics not as an initial public
offering but as an “individual profit
opportunity”.
The
banknote shortage is about more than a lack of foreign currency to
print
money. It is the culmination of a series of interlocking distortions
propping
up the economy. It has been a rude wake-up call for many
Zimbabweans, a
reminder of this rather Alice in Wonderland-like environment
in which they
function.
The boom boast is unsustainable. Outside of the
profiteers, desperate
poverty is consuming the people.
The
government is without a plan. Domestic debt spirals as it borrows
madly to
prop up a malfunctioning land programme and keep restive public
servants at
bay.
While the basis of most of the new capitalists’ wealth
will disappear
with the hoped-for return to normality, an intriguing and
compelling irony
is emerging from the chaos.
The very ruling
party stalwarts that are currently skinning the masses
could actually be
turning into one of the major forces for change.
ZANU PF
heavyweights who used their often dubious gains to buy
companies that are now
doing nicely, including a number listed on the
soaring stock exchange, are
actually starting to hanker for a return to
international acceptance and
long-term sustainability as any sensible
businessman would.
The government’s diminishing capacity to dispense patronage and
largesse has
the sometime faithful looking beyond the current mess to a new
order in which
their acquisitions and wealth will really mean something.
Daily News
Government to slash debt to GDP
THE
government plans to whittle down the ratio of debt to gross
domestic product
(GDP) from 52 percent to 25 percent in the next 12 years,
according to a
report by the Ministry of Labour, Public Service and
Social
Welfare.
The report, dubbed the Millennium Growth
Report, was produced last
week and says the government is planning to reduce
the debt to GDP ratio by
half in the next decade, although it will still be
the highest in southern
Africa.
According to statistics in
the report, the government says it has
reduced Zimbabwe’s debt to GDP ratio
from 114 percent in 2000 to 52 percent
at the end of last year. GDP is the
total goods and services produced by a
country in a year and a high debt to
GDP ratio is a sign of an unhealthy
economy.
Zimbabwe’s
total domestic debt was $340 billion at the end of last
year, while total
external debt amounted to U$4 billion, with arrears of
around US$1.3 billion.
Domestic debt, however, leapt to $542 billion at the
end of June this year,
while foreign arrears have climbed to US$1.6 billion.
According
to the report, Zimbabwe’s GDP was minus 13.2 percent last
year, which the
government plans to improve to positive growth of 6.6
percent by
2015.
Analysts said the government could only make progress in
reducing the
country’s debt to GDP ratio if it committed itself to living
within its
means and channelling a significant proportion of resources to
debt
servicing.
But they said this was unlikely in the near
future because of
declining revenues and the withdrawal of foreign aid and
investment, which
have forced the government to finance its huge budget
deficit by borrowing
on the domestic market.
The analysts
also pointed out that Treasury could not direct resources
to debt servicing
because of the government’s many commitments, which
include fuel and food
imports and a ballooning wage bill.
Meanwhile, the Millennium
Growth Report also indicates that the
government plans to increase the
country’s trade to GDP ratio to 80 percent
from 52 percent by
2015.
The government statistics show that the total trade to
GDP ratio fell
from 63 percent in 1995 to 52 percent last
year.
This is a result of the decline in exports, which dropped
to US$1.4
billion last year from US$2.4 billion the previous year. The
decline is
largely blamed on the fall in commercial agricultural output
following the
government’s controversial land reform
programme.
Meanwhile, the government also plans to reduce the
percentage of the
country’s total population living under the total
consumption poverty line
(TCPL) from 80 percent at the end of 2002 to 40
percent in 12 years.
TCPL separates the number of people able
to afford three square meals
a day from those who cannot in a
country.
The country’s deteriorating economic environment has
impoverished many
Zimbabweans, with workers’ wages lagging behind official
inflation of 364.5
percent, while rural populations have been the hardest
hit, surviving mostly
on humanitarian aid.
In the same
report, the government forecasts that by the year 2015,
there will be 70
personal computers per every thousand persons in Zimbabwe,
up from 13 in 2000
and only three in 1995.
Business Reporter
Daily News
Hypocrites, heroes, harlots and hobos
THE
world needs heroes because in many ways it has no use for
hypocrites, harlots
and hobos – political or otherwise.
Which, by the way, does not
suggest that the world as a whole is
dead-set against the existence of and
even the adulation of hypocrites,
harlots and hobos.
All
three categories have scored successes of sorts in one or two
fields of human
endeavour.
What is even more disgusting is that, although
secretly despised as
hypocrites, harlots and hobos, such people have won
accolades fit for heroes
and heroines. Some of them have gone on to become
such respectable members
of society, their past has been buried so deep that
only after their deaths
has it been dug up to remind the world of who they
really were.
I will not cite examples: the laws of libel in
this country are so
manifestly unfair on The Seekers of Truth, they virtually
let The Doers of
Evil get away with murder.
I realise it is
pompous to speak of The Seekers of the Truth. But when
you swear on a Bible
to “tell the truth and nothing but the truth”, aren’t
you being a bit pompous
too? You know you will lie and hope the prosecutor
or the defence lawyer will
not find out.
When discovered to be telling a fib, do you say:
“I am sorry. I lied
through my teeth.” Or do you say: “So what? A little
white lie never hurt
anybody.”
Anyway, to return to the
heroes, hypocrites, harlots and hobos: the
cynics like to believe that we are
all, at the end of the day, sinners.
Journalists are supposed
to be that way too, completely without
emotion, hard-boiled as hell, able to
look at the face of a murderer before
the hangman’s noose tightens around his
neck and say: “So, do you now accept
that crime does not
pay?”
Someone told me, apropos of nothing in particular, that
there were
heroes, hypocrites, harlots and hobos buried at the Heroes’
Acre.
The occasion has become a little fuzzy in my memory. It
could have
been when I too sat solemnly on that once-hallowed ground, at the
burial of
someone I admired. I have attended the burials of Willie Musarurwa,
George
Nyandoro, George Silundika, Edward Ndlovu and a few others. I
couldn’t
attend Joshua Nkomo’s because I would have had to walk
there.
But I have always admired countries which don’t set as
much great
store as we do for our heroes. The concept was born around the
same time as
the dream of a one-party state. We all know why the original
statues of the
soldiers looked like North Koreans.
We have a
One-Party Heroes’ Acre. This has to be the ultimate in
ideological conceit.
How one political party, as capable of venality and
lapses of good judgment
as any other from here to Zambowanga city, can
assign to itself this enormous
task is the peak of political pompousness.
The Zambian
champions of the one-party state, Kenneth Kaunda’s United
National
Independence Party (UNIP), would have erected a Heroes’ Acre of
their own. I
am not sure why they didn’t because I suspect ZANU PF learnt
some of its
one-party lessons from UNIP, before graduating summa cum laude
after their
tutelage by Frelimo (the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique)
under Samora
Machel, a man who realised, perhaps too late in his life, that
the one-party
state was its own executioner.
Joachim Chissano, who succeeded
Machel, knows why the multi-party
system, though full of pitfalls, is
ultimately more sensible than the
straitjacket of the one-party
system.
In Zambia, there is no debate on what to do with
Frederick Chiluba
should he die an early death. He is a two-time elected
president, a hero of
the country’s labour movement and the little David who
felled the great
political Goliath that was Kenneth Kaunda.
For all that, they would lionise him, but for his arrest on
corruption
charges, for his interrogation by the police in a police station,
for the
probability of his imprisonment as a crook, they would not bury him
at their
Heroes’ Acre, if they had one.
Hastings Kamuzu
Banda was called in by a desperate people in
Nyasaland.
He
fought the good fight, buried the Federation and then rode in
majesty to the
one-party presidency of his country. If they too had a Heroes
Acre’, they
would not have buried him there after his death.
For what he
did, they would not have called him a hero.
The way he has
performed in his two terms of office, Bakili Muluzi is
unlikely to qualify
for Malawi’s non-existent Heroes’ Acre either. His
shameless campaign to
amend the constitution so he could serve a third term
cast him as a real
political villain, if not a hobo, a tramp. Now, he seems
to be preparing to
create a comfortable retirement for himself by selecting
who should take over
from him.But they never learn, do they – political
hypocrites like Muluzi and
Chiluba? What Levy Mwanawasa did to Chiluba,
Bingu waMutarika is quite likely
to do to Muluzi: hound him until the police
arrest him for corruption.
Botswana remains a sea of calm in this ocean of
storms that is southern
Africa. Sir Ketumile Masire has enjoyed life as an
ex-president the way
Julius Nyerere did after he excused himself for
burdening his country with
Ujamaa. Festus Mogae, his successor, may have
opinions about his predecessor,
but he has not set the police on him. Thabo
Mbeki, for his arrogance over
HIV/AIDS, could risk being toppled from the
pedestal of a hero unless he
confesses his great blunder, especially after
the Durban conference on the
pandemic came out with a stinging rebuke to him
by freeing the drugs to
people living with AIDS. As if everything else,
nobody lives their life to
ensure they will be remembered as heroes after
they have passed on. I have
always wondered how Joseph Chinotimba and
Herbert Chitepo would relate to
each other when they meet in the dark bowels
under the Heroes Acre. I am
assuming Chinotimba will be in time to be buried
at Heroes Acre before
someone decides that the criterion for heroism is no
longer to be decided by
the Zanu PF politburo. “So, what did you do during
the struggle, comrade?” “I
helped with The Third Chimurenga.” “What was
that?” “I was No.2 to Chenjerai
Hunzvi, sir. Hunzvi has been here with you
for some time now. Haven’t you met
him?” “No. When did he come? Oh, I
remember now. He didn’t make it, in the
end. You might not make it either.”
“How is that again, sir? The Politburo
makes this decisions. They are
irrevocable, sir.” “Yeah... but this is the
other Politburo, the real heroes
’ Politburo. We have the power to turn down
your Politburo. Heh! heh! heh!
heh!” Poor Chinos.
By Bill Saidi
bsaidi@dailynews.co.zw
Daily News
Zimbabwe greater than both ZANU PF, MDC
combined
Now that both the MDC and ZANU PF have realised that
coming to a
table to talk is the only way out of Zimbabwe’s political and
economic
malaise, it must be aptly pointed out that President Robert Mugabe’s
future
and fate should not be on the agenda for the future road
map.
What Zimbabweans decide to do post-Mugabe should focus on
rebuilding
the economy and the restoration of the rule of
law.
Both parties must realise that their differences must be
subordinate
to the nation’s future.
Untold suffering is the
order of the day in present-day Zimbabwe. We
have literally been reduced to
beggars and condemned to unending shortages.
No amount of words
is enough to describe the amount of suffering that
Mugabe and ZANU PF have
brought to Zimbabwe. I don’t intend to recount the
sufferings
here.
Nonetheless, what is more important now is how to bring
the country
out of this mess caused by Mugabe and his clowns masquerading
as
politicians.
Now is the time to dig deeper and come up
with a relevant and
foolproof constitution by the people, from the people,
for the people of
Zimbabwe.
Never again in history should
Zimbabweans live in awe of one man. Let
the suffering that we have endured
this far be a lasting lesson to the
present generation and the one to come,
that no one institution has a right
to hold the country to ransom merely
because they fought the liberation war.
Regardless of political
opinion and alignment, Zimbabweans should now
forge ahead resolutely and come
up with a blue print for the nation’s
future.
We must guard
jealously against repetition of events during the Mugabe
era. In the same
vein, whatever we strategise to do now must leave a lasting
legacy for future
generations to come. The last two decades have been
dominated by ZANU PF’s
stubbornness to common sense due to the liberation
war
factor.
I suggest that the exploits of the liberation war
should be confined
to archives and libraries. Generations to come will refer
to these archives
in order to appreciate the many lives that were lost in
order for us to gain
independence from the white minority.
Zimbabweans are known for their hard work and diligence. Let us
exercise our
right as citizens to rebuild our nation and learn from
Mugabe’s
misrule.
If we have not learnt anything from this,
then we will never learn
anything at all.
We are capable,
able and have the means to restore Zimbabwe to its
former global regional
position as the “breadbasket of Africa”. We can only
achieve this by
forgetting the past and charting a new road plan for a
future Zimbabwe based
on the hard lessons learnt up to now.
Our nation’s future is
more important than any one individual dead or
alive. The country’s future
must now hinge on our irrevocable right to
determine our children’s
future.
We, therefore, urge those at the negotiating frontiers
to carry our
hopes beyond our present sufferings. These men and women will go
down in
history as citizens who put their personal issues aside in order to
steer
Zimbabwe’s recovery into higher economic echelons.
While Mugabe and ZANU PF have generated enough chaos to patronise
history
books for generations to come, the MDC has generated enough
resistance to
bring about lasting hope and change.
Let’s remember, fellow
Zimbabweans, that Zimbabwe is greater than both
the MDC and ZANU PF
combined.
Ndabezinhle Robert Ndlovu
New
York
USA
BBC
Zimbabwe receives timely aid
The United
Nations World Food Programme has received $28m from the
European Commission
to spend on food for Zimbabwe.
The WFP says the money could not
have come at a more critical time.
It will stop emergency food
supplies running out at the end of the
month by speeding up the delivery of
about 60,000 tonnes of maize, they say.
A recent World Food
Programme assessment found that over three million
Zimbabweans are urgently
in need of food aid and this figure is likely to
jump to 5.5 million in six
months.
Other regional countries affected by drought last year
appear to be
faring better than Zimbabwe this year.
Aid agencies
blame President Robert Mugabe's controversial land reform
programme for
exacerbating the food crisis.
Land
The reform has seen
most of Zimbabwe's 4,500 white commercial farmers
evicted from their land,
but farm productivity has also declined rapidly.
His
programme to redistribute white farms to landless black
Zimbabweans began in
2000 but has been hit by violence, lengthy legal
battles and criticism that
ruling party members were acquiring many of the
prime farms.
Mr
Mugabe was reported to have ordered senior ruling party officials
to conform
to his "one man, one farm" policy.
The deadline for this to happen
expires on Thursday.
Zimbabwe is mired in a deep economic crisis,
with annual inflation
running at 365%, according to official
figures.
His critics accuse him of ruining the economy, which used
to be among
the most successful in Africa.
The government blames
the economic problems on a plot by western
countries opposed to its land
reform policy.
conservatives.com
Time for Mugabe to quit
Zimbabwe
Michael Ancram has called on African leaders to
follow up the
departure of Charles Taylor from war-torn Liberia by pressing
for the
removal of tyrant Robert Mugabe from crisis-wracked
Zimbabwe.
Just hours after the former Liberian president quit
Monrovia and
settled into a life of exile in Nigeria, the Shadow Foreign
Secretary
proposed a similar way out for the brutal dictator in
Harare.
He told conservatives.com: "The end of Charles Taylor
is first
and foremost a welcome relief for the people of Liberia - but it
also sets
African leaders a challenge. For too long they have turned a blind
eye to
violence and persecution. Letting brutal dictators off the hook has
caused
untold damage to the New Partnership for Africa's Development, scared
off
potential investors, and exacerbated poverty, disease and
corruption."
Mr Ancram cited the crisis in Zimbabwe as "an
extreme example"
with its impact felt well beyond the country's
borders.
"It has often been rumoured that Robert Mugabe is to
be offered
the ‘Taylor route' out of power. We cannot know if this is now
more likely,
but two things are clear," he said. "First, if African leaders
want to make
progress for their people they have no option but to work with
the
international community to ensure that dictators like Mugabe are
removed.
"And second, there must be no question of Mugabe or
Taylor being
replaced by yet another tyrant who will abuse his people."
Business Day
Mbeki should get rid of
torturer
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
PERHAPS
the saddest but also the most revealing moment of the current
Liberian crisis
came with Kofi Annan's desperate attempt to persuade
President George Bush
that he should send in a US intervention force. This
came only days after
Annan had told the United Nations (UN) Security Council
that he wanted to see
foreign troops out of Iraq at the first possible
opportunity.
The
irony must surely have struck both men: on the one hand Annan telling
Bush to
take his troops out of one part of the third world and the next
moment
pleading with him to send them into another part of the third world.
Even
sadder was the attempt to argue that the US "ought" to send its troops
into
Liberia because it had a "historic obligation", having helped set up
the
country to allow freed slaves to settle back there.
What is happening
here is this. Africa is disintegrating into endless civil
wars and collapsing
states, producing a state of anarchy roughly similar to
that which the early
European explorers found when they "discovered" Africa.
In retrospect the
colonial period is coming to seem an interval of peace and
order between the
anarchy before and the anarchy afterwards. Just think: in
1950 you could have
walked from Cape Town to Cairo without much risk. Today
the same trek would
take you through three or four civil wars and endless
territory now again
subject to banditry. If you escaped all that in most
places you'd still have
to face worse corruption, more disease and worse
public services than you'd
have had to deal with in 1950.
As much of Africa reverts to precolonial
chaos African countries are quietly
shelving the old rhetoric of
anticolonialism and are asking to have the old
colonial order back. The
integrity of Sierra Leone has been preserved thanks
to British troops and the
locals want them to stay. Côte d'Ivoire is held
together by French troops and
the locals want them to stay too. There is
nothing the people of the Congo or
the Sudan would like better than western
intervention to stop the eternal
civil wars there.
Moreover, Africa looks to the developed world to solve
its AIDS problem: no
one believes Africa can do this on its own. Now the
demand is for the US to
rediscover a semi-mythical colonial link with Liberia
to justify sending
troops in there and the US is still criticised for not
having intervened in
Rwanda to stop the genocide there. Note that Liberians
are far less happy to
have a Nigerian-led Ecomog force in their midst: such
was the behaviour of
the Nigerians last time that Ecomog is now popularly
translated as Every Car
or Movable Object Gone.
Two points arise.
First, no African state really trusts other Africans to
intervene and would
infinitely prefer the old colonial power even the US to
do so: even if
President Thabo Mbeki can get an African Union intervention
force set up,
most Africans won't want it. Second, this process renders the
African Union
laughable. The real question is not whether Africa will unite
of course it
won't, any more than Asia or Latin America will but whether
more states will
collapse and further civil wars erupt.
Thus Mbeki, instead of spending
time on Charles Taylor, would do better to
get rid of the torturer and
murderer next door: for state collapse and civil
war are now not far away in
Zimbabwe.
Moreover, with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe openly
threatening to use
British and US citizens as hostages, the prospect of
western military
intervention there now inevitably exists. Should this occur,
the Mugabe
regime would not last an afternoon, but Mbeki would not escape the
fall-out
from these fresh Zimbabwe ruins.
Johnson, former Oxford
academic and former director of the Helen Suzman
Foundation, is a freelance
writer.
From The Times (UK), 13 August
After Liberia, Africans ponder
face-saving exile for Mugabe
By Richard Beeston
The
peaceful removal of Charles Taylor’s regime in Liberia has spurred hopes
that
such intervention can be used to resolve other flashpoints in Africa,
in
particular the continuing crisis in Zimbabwe. Only hours after the
former
Liberian President settled into life in exile in Nigeria, leaders
across the
continent were following events and drawing parallels with other
countries.
The clear link with Zimbabwe was provided by President Chissano
of
Mozambique, the current head of the African Union. No sooner was he
home
from his "successful" mission to Liberia than he announced that he
was
leaving for Harare for his latest attempt at "conflict
resolution".
According to officials and commentators in Africa and beyond,
the
face-saving formula devised to ease out the Taylor regime, under
the
supervision of African leaders and US warships, could be adapted. "There
is
a new mood in Africa. There is hope that we are turning away from
conflict
and entering a new era," a senior South African official
said.
Peace efforts are under way in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, the
Democratic
Republic of Congo and Sudan. There has also been a peaceful
transfer of
power in Kenya following elections widely praised for being free
and fair.
Elsewhere change has been slower. In the West African nation of
Togo,
President Gnassingbe Eyadema, the continent’s longest-serving leader,
has
clung to power for 36 years. Zimbabwe stands out as the most
pressing
unresolved problem. President Mugabe and his Zanu PF party have
used
intimidatory violence to cling to power. The country’s political crisis
and
economic collapse has impoverished millions and led to an exodus of
refugees
into neighbouring states. All this has been divisive for relations
between
Africa and the West and within the Commonwealth. "Zimbabwe is now on
the
front burner," said a source close to President Mbeki of South Africa,
who
played a key role in the departure of Mr Taylor from Liberia and is
regarded
as the central figure in any solution in Zimbabwe. "Mugabe is
pushing 80 and
will sooner rather than later seek to hand over power. Liberia
demonstrated
that it is possible to do this peacefully and without
humiliation."
Alex Vines, head of the African programme at the Royal
Institute of
International Affairs, said that several aspects of the Liberian
example
could be adapted for use in Zimbabwe. In particular, the creation of
a
transitional government would help to overcome the political stalemate
in
Harare, he said. He also envisaged a possible role for African leaders,
who
provided a face- saving cover for Mr Taylor’s resignation and departure,
and
could provide dignity to any ceremony that would ease Mr Mugabe out
of
office. Michael Ancram, Shadow Foreign Secretary, said that Africa had
long
"turned a blind eye to violence and persecution" and that the events
in
Liberia had set the continent’s leaders a challenge. "First, if
African
leaders want to make progress for their people they have no option
but to
work with the international community to ensure that dictators like
Mugabe
are removed. And second, there must be no question of Mugabe or Taylor
being
replaced by yet another tyrant who will abuse his
people."
Exile is a common fate for deposed African leaders. In
addition to Mr
Taylor, at least seven former African rulers are in exile,
including
Mengistu Haile Mariam, of Ethiopia, who is in Harare as a guest of
Mr
Mugabe. But there are doubts whether the Zimbabwean leader, a
former
guerrilla commander, would ever contemplate voluntarily stepping down.
In
remarks this week to veterans of his country’s civil war, he renewed
his
attack on the Opposition, and he has resisted all attempts at
compromise.
Lord Renwick of Clifton, who served as British Ambassador to
Pretoria and to
Washington, doubted that the Zimbabwean leader would leave
power unless he
felt directly threatened, as Mr Taylor had by rebels and US
forces closing
in on the Liberian capital. "Who is going to make him stand
aside?" Lord
Renwick said. "It is no good sweet-talking Mugabe."
Comment from ZWNEWS, 13 August
Share-cropping
By Michael
Hartnack
As the annual Commercial Farmers' Union congress took place
last week,
Zimbabwe's Minister of Agriculture Joseph Made boycotted the
event, and said
he hoped it was the end of the union which had become
"irrelevant" following
the "successful" resettlement of 300 000 families on 5
000 former
white-owned farms - once 17 percent of Zimbabwe. He predicted the
principal
spokesmen for agriculture would in future be the Zimbabwe Farmers'
Union,
formed by small-scale peasant cultivators. "There are a few remnants
of
former white commercial farmers, about 200 of them, and the tendency is
to
lecture 11 million Zimbabweans about the destruction of the economy,"
Made
told the state-controlled Herald. He added that the former farmers
had
destroyed the economy by resisting land reform, exporting crops
and
depositing the profits in foreign banks, "growing flowers instead of
food
crops, and they even slaughtered dairy cows, and now they are
burning
pastures. This group has played mischief all the time because they
think
they are a special race." And then there’s reality. Impartial
estimates
suggest way less than half of the claimed 300 000 peasant farmers
have been
able to take up and work plots allocated them over the past three
years.
Many farms have been diverted from the war veterans who first seized
them to
the elite, but remain derelict. There have been violent
confrontations
between new recipients and the original invaders. Zanu PF
Information
supremo Nathan Shamuyarira said that Robert Mugabe had ordered
black
Zimbabweans who owned more than one farm to surrender the rest for
peasant
resettlement by July 13. Nothing has happened and it has become clear
this
is just another hoax by the ruling Zanu PF party - like the
"Marxist
Leninist Leadership Code" Mugabe promulgated in the 1980s. Party
leaders
were prohibited from owning private business interests, more than
one
dwelling house, or more than 80 hectares of land. When Herbert
Ushewokunze -
supposedly the party's chief socialist ideologue - died in
1995, he
bequeathed twenty properties, including ten farms, to his ten sons
(all
called Herbert).
At the CFU congress, incoming president Doug
Taylor-Freeme said it was Made
who should be called to account for the
wrecking of agriculture. Billions of
dollars worth of infrastructure had been
looted or vandalised, and
foot-and-mouth disease was rife. "We have massive
food imports and yet there
is infrastructure sitting idle such as irrigation,
tobacco facilities,
greenhouses. Crops are being abandoned or stolen,
pedigree herds
slaughtered, and farmers being evicted while silos are sitting
empty." The
CFU says only 400 white farmers remain unaffected by the turmoil
of the past
four years. They include – to the resentment of Zimbabwe-born
farmers –
Italian nationals whose government has told Mugabe that their
eviction would
breach a bilateral investment protection agreement. Another
800 farmers are
managing to sustain production on a remnant of their
property. Other farmers
have reached "private arrangements" with influential
persons who have
claimed land. Some such agreements have already been
dishonoured after the
farmers assisted with planting of crops. "Zimbabwe
continues on a downward
path to ruin, with no relief in sight," Taylor-Freeme
told the CFU congress.
Tobacco production was down 60 percent, wheat 90
percent, while 300 000 farm
workers and their families were left destitute
and homeless. "A reversal of
the calamitous macro-economic situation just
described can only happen if
current destructive policies are abandoned in
favour of rational ones, and
international assistance is both sought, and
quickly forthcoming," he said.
The Justice for Agriculture group last
week urged farmers not to abandon
hope and quit Zimbabwe. "We need every
single one of you to rebuild when
rebuilding becomes possible through the
re-establishment of the rule of law
and a legitimate responsible government,"
said a statement. It added that
those forced to leave should ensure lawyers
and accountants were briefed to
defend their rights "so the farm cannot be
acquired by default." It will,
however, be difficult to attract back those
who find their feet in less
stressful environments, after suffering naked
violence and plunder in the
land of their birth. Tanzania recently tried to
lure back farmers forced to
quit by Julius Nyerere's nationalisation campaign
in the 1960s. One would-be
returnee reported he was not deterred so much by
the annihilation of
infrastructure - dams, roads, fences, houses - but by the
absence of any
form of community. The neighbours who once supported each
other were
scattered to the four winds. Tanzania is more likely to
attract
multinational companies which will restore modern-style production
with the
aid of expatriate managers on contract, and underwritten by
international
aid and guarantees.
The tale of the ten Herberts
reflects the traditional Zanu PF cocktail of
megalomania and greed which is
likely to prove toxic to commercial use of
the soil. The elite will have
difficulty turning their booty from "fast
track land reform" into cash cows,
even with the lavish subsidies now
promised them by a bankrupt state. Made
cannot change economics: competitive
advantage on world export markets rests
with large-scale, efficient,
uncorrupt, modern methods. Commercial
agriculture is therefore certain to
make a comeback - sooner or later -
whether white Zimbabweans are involved
or not. There is as little hope for
the subsistence cultivator, who lacks
expertise, capital, and title deeds, as
there is for the "telephone farmer"
who has a desk in a government ministry
in Harare and maintains rural
holdings as dumping grounds for superannuated
wives. The traditional
family-owned commercial farm may be doomed to
disappear in Zimbabwe because
the business is perceived to be just too risky.
Although radical reformers
will not mourn the passing of the concomitants -
the exclusive country club,
the polo field and rugby pitch - it will also
mean the end of clinics run by
farmers' wives, schools, and care for retired
workers. It will mean
commercial agriculture run by technocrats who do not
speak the local
languages, understand the culture, or have a stake in the
land. If that
happens, Mugabe will have achieved his dream of reducing those
operating
commercial agriculture to the status of landless, rootless
share-croppers,
although in a way he did not foresee. Commercial farming will
still be
there.
ZIMBABWE: Skills lost in "internal" brain
drain
|
© ILO
Informal sector shoe
repairer |
HARARE, 13 Aug 2003 (IRIN) - Chamunorwa
Chirova is a new type of Zimbabwean entrepreneur - he makes his money by
illegally selling fuel on the thriving black market.
It was not a job he
anticipated when he graduated eight years ago with an engineering degree from
the University of Zimbabwe. Until two years ago he was working at a beverage
firm, struggling along in the depressed formal economy, when the economic crisis
and rising cost of living made him reassess his future.
"The salaries
were so small, and we were working shifts as a result of reduced production.
This meant our salaries were sometimes cut," explained 35-year-old Chamunorwa.
In the meantime, government price controls on basic commodities had created a
booming black market. He decided to resign and take his chances
there.
Now he supports his two children by selling fuel illegally on the
street to desperate motorists, on behalf of dealers who have licences from the
authorities to import the scarce commodity, while keeping an alert eye on the
police. They are trying to stamp out the black market as it diverts fuel from
the official outlets, where it is more than three times cheaper than the street
price of Zim $1,500 (US $1.80) a litre, but seldom available.
The fuel
shortage resulting from the government's crippling lack of foreign exchange has
kept Chamunorwa in business. Despite the risks, he has been able to buy an old
pickup truck with his earnings. "It's better than nothing, and I almost earn
five times what my colleagues I left at that firm do," he said.
Tabeth
Zuze, 25, made a similar decision to try her hand in the parallel market. She
graduated from teachers' training college in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo
only last year, but did not relish the idea of working in the rural areas,
living in a one-roomed house with no transport, no clean water - and worse - no
teaching aids, including even chalk.
She now owns two flea market stalls
in Harare's city centre, selling plasticware and china imported from South
Africa. "I earn enough to pay rent and buy food. I can [turn over] up to Zim
$200,000 [US $244] a month," she said. Teachers in Zimbabwe earn an average of
Zim $150,000 (US $183).
A recent report by the Scientific and Industrial
Research and Development Centre has shown that nearly 500,000 Zimbabwean
professionals have left the country since 1990 in search of better opportunities
overseas (See IRIN report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=35578).
But an internal movement of skilled Zimbabweans is also under way, robbing the
country of much-needed capacity, and shrinking the government's tax revenue
base.
Both Chirova and Zuze represent the phenomenon of the "internal
brain drain" - trained professionals who have remained in the country but chosen
not to utilise their skills in formal careers.
The impact is felt
throughout the professions. One lawyer told IRIN that his firm lost two junior
lawyers this year alone. "The guys are now cross-border traders, selling sugar,
cooking oil and clothes to Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia. They say they earn at
least US $5,000 every month," he explained. The average salary for a junior
lawyer is Zim $450,000 (US $549).
Social worker Michael Phiri said
Zimbabwe's formal sector is increasingly understaffed as professionals seek
opportunities elsewhere. In many rural communities where he has worked, clinics
were manned by orderlies because nurses drifted to urban areas to look for
alternative jobs, or joined the legion of Zimbabwean health care workers
employed abroad, typically in Britain or South Africa.
"Education is no
longer a guarantee of employment, nor a good salary, as the economy is now more
and more informal," Phiri said.
Chivora and Zuze deliberately opted out
of formal employment. But for most Zimbabweans, the country's shrinking economy
has left them with little other choice.
Zimbabwe's unemployment rate is
estimated at 75 percent and is expected to reach 90 percent by the end of 2003.
According to George Making, a human resources consultant, 400 companies closed
in 2002 alone, leaving at least 350,000 people jobless.
Estimates put
the number of formal jobs lost at over 800,000 since 2000, employment agent
Tapiwa Chikudo told IRIN. The losses were mainly in the agriculture,
construction and manufacturing industries. In addition, over 250,000 school
leavers join the job market every year.
One independent researcher
believes Zimbabwe's decline has been so severe that the economy would need to
grow by an unprecedented 25 percent over five years to achieve a reasonable
recovery.
"For Zimbabwe to recover to levels where it can generate
sufficient jobs and wealth to ensure the repayment of loans on one hand, whilst
allowing a significant improvement in the conditions of life for a poverty
stricken and AIDS-ravaged population, the economy must sustain a minimum of a 25
percent economic growth rate over a space of not less than five years," said the
researcher with the NGO, the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and
Development.
ZIMBABWE: Aid pipeline saved but "situation still
alarming" - WFP
|
© IRIN
Beneficiaries depend on WFP
rations |
JOHANNESBURG, 13 Aug 2003 (IRIN) - A US
$28 million cash injection has rescued the World Food Programme's (WFP) aid
pipeline in Zimbabwe.
The WPF said in a statement that the donation from
the European Commission (EC) "could not have come at a more critical
time".
"Without [the donation], food aid supplies for Zimbabwe would have
run out by the end of this month. This contribution will enable us to fast-track
a regional purchase of about 60,000 mt of maize," WFP Zimbabwe Country Director,
Kevin Farrell, was quoted as saying.
Last year the EC and European Union
member states donated about 40 percent of all contributions raised for Zimbabwe.
"Thanks to the generous and timely response by donors such as the European
Commission, WFP was able to avert widespread starvation last season," Farrel
said.
However, he warned that "the food security situation in Zimbabwe
remains alarming, and without continued international support, a significant
proportion of the population will remain at serious risk".
A recent joint
assessment by WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organisation found that about 3.3
million Zimbabweans are currently in urgent need of food aid. By January 2004,
that number is expected to jump to 5.5 million.
"People are increasingly
showing up at rural food distributions, begging to receive food aid, but due to
scarce resources, WFP is forced to restrict its rations to the most vulnerable,
many of whom live in households affected by HIV/AIDS," WFP said.
As
further evidence of the desperate situation in Zimbabwe, at some distribution
sites "beneficiaries have been seen opening and eating uncooked rations on the
spot", the organisation said.
In August WFP plans to feed 1.4 million
people in rural areas and is looking to expand its programme in urban areas,
"where food shortages have become acute".
ZIMBABWE: Women raise their voices
JOHANNESBURG, 13 Aug 2003 (IRIN) - As
momentum gathers for renewed talks between Zimbabwe's rival political parties,
civil rights groups have highlighted the impact of the ongoing political and
economic crisis on the daily lives of women in the country.
Crisis in
Zimbabwe (CZ), a consortium of NGOs, has called for the greater participation of
women in the proposed talks, arguing that any negotiated settlement between the
government and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would
lack legitimacy if women were excluded from the process.
"Today women in
Zimbabwe find themselves at the confluence of the political, economic and
HIV/AIDS crisis. It is imperative that any future dialogue between the
government and the MDC includes women as key players," CZ spokeswoman Everjoice
Win told IRIN.
In a recent paper, "Crisis in Zimbabwe: A Women's
Perspective", the advocacy group noted that the current economic crisis had left
scores of women without work, while the high cost of living had "very specific
gender dimensions".
"To illustrate just how affected women are by the
crisis, all one has to do is consider that a packet of 8 sanitary pads now
costs, on average, Zim $5,000 (about US $6). Most domestic workers only earn Zim
$5,000" Win said.
The price of a packet of 3 male condoms - more commonly
used by women to prevent pregnancy and HIV infection - costs Zim $2,000 (about
US $2). "Women are having to compromise their own health, just so that they can
feed their families," Win noted.
CZ also drew attention to the effects of
government legislation on the ability of women's groups to organise themselves.
For example, the introduction of the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) had
reversed many of the gains women had made in the first years after independence.
"Women's organisation that have outreach activities in communities are
finding it difficult to reach the women, thereby denying women space to
participate in their own development programmes," the NGO said.
There
were also concerns over increased sexual violence. The organisation said the
rape of women by ruling party militia was well documented.
"Poor black
women have borne the brunt of this violence; in the townships, on commercial
farms, and in the rural areas. Documentation by the NGO Human Rights Forum shows
that scores of women have been raped, gang raped, beaten up, taken into forced
concubinage by state trained and sponsored 'Green Bombers', and young women in
particular now face the prospect of HIV/AIDS infection," the paper
alleged.
Win said talks between the MDC and ZANU-PF should focus on
revisiting the constitution. "It is imperative that a comprehensive
constitutional review takes place, and in that process women want to represent
themselves. We want to see a constitution that gurantees our right as
Zimbabweans."
