The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
Zimbabwe's informal
economy, where most people work, has been hit hard by
the deepening shortage
of bank notes.
Outside a Harare supermarket Friday, vegetable sellers
said their turnover
has slumped by 80 percent since the cash crisis began two
months ago. One of
the traders said he has been selling vegetables outside
the suburban
supermarket for 12 years, and that he traded in cash.
He
said he was saved from starvation by the supermarket, which has
long
tolerated competition from street traders because the store is keeping
him
afloat by cashing checks written by his customers.
But the lucky
beneficiaries of a benevolent supermarket are few, and most
struggle to
survive.
The latest figures show more than 70 percent of Zimbabweans are
unemployed,
and the number of those losing jobs is rising as more and more
businesses
close their doors. Over 400 large factories closed in a year, and
the number
of failures of smaller businesses is not even recorded.
The
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the Ministry of Finance said this week
people
should use credit cards or check books. But informal traders - those
who
don't appear in government records - say they cannot afford to buy
check
books or even pay bank charges.
On Friday, a week after
traditional payday, there were still long lines
outside every savings bank
and building society, which serves those in
formal employment. Most say they
managed to withdraw some cash, but even
they are dreading the day there will
be no income coming in.
Daily News
MDC seeks overturn of ZANU PF victory
ELEVEN members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) party
have petitioned the High Court to order Registrar General
Tobaiwa Mudede to
consider their nominations to contest council elections in
Chegutu at the end
of this month.
The opposition members were last month prevented
from submitting
nomination papers to the nomination court by suspected ruling
ZANU PF party
youth militias, who attacked and chased them away from the
Chegutu Town
House where nomination was held.
Seven of the
aspiring MDC candidates and six party activists sustained
various injuries
when they were attacked with stones and sticks by the
suspected ruling party
activists.
They were treated at a private clinic in the town.
All the MDC candidates were disqualified from contesting
the election
because they had not submitted their papers while ZANU PF
candidates were
declared winners because no contestants were registered
against them.
Chegutu mayor Francis Dhlakama, who was elected
on an MDC ticket, said
in an affidavit to court that
Mudede and
the police had failed to ensure that the nomination process
was conducted in
a free and fair manner.
He said despite his persistent appeals
to the police to provide
adequate security and the police’s own pledges to
maintain order at the
nomination court, rowdy youths invaded an open space
surrounding Town House.
“I was personally confronted by one
youth who had formerly supported
the MDC but is now a known ZANU PF
supporter, who demanded from me a folder
that I was carrying into my office,”
the mayor wrote in his affidavit.
He added: “The general
atmosphere was tense and threatening and the
Town Clerk and I phoned the
officer-in-charge at Chegutu Central (police
station) and asked him to clear
the Town House and its environs as
previously arranged. The police then
deployed 10 officers to monitor the sit
uation.
“However,
shortly after that, I found that again the venue for the
(nomination) court
and the premises of the Town House were full of people
who were in a large
crowd and challenging anybody carrying papers,”
Dhlakama
said.
One candidate, Shepherd Jack, said he tried
unsuccessfully to slip
into the nomination court with his papers tucked under
his jacket.
Revai Mahano, an aspiring contestant for Ward One,
said he sustained
injuries on his face and back when a group of men raided
his home and took
away his national identity card and other
documents.
ZANU PF and Mudede have not yet filed papers opposing
the MDC
petition.
Court Reporter
Daily News
Mwonzora has case
MASVINGO – Magistrate
Godfrey Macheyo yesterday ordered that
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA)
official Douglas Mwonzora be put on
his defence on a corruption
charge.
Mwonzora, who is a lawyer in the city, is facing a
corruption charge
in which he is alleged to have offered a $3 000 bribe to a
police officer
who was investigating one of his clients.
But
the NCA spokesman’s lawyers had applied for the charge to be
dropped arguing
that an audio tape recording of the alleged crime which was
done by the
police was inaudible and could not be relied upon as the basis
of the state’s
case.
Defence lawyers led by Advocate Deepak Metha had also
said that the
tape could have been tampered with.
Macheyo
ruled: “I am satisfied that the tape was audible and original.
Therefore, it
should be produced in court as part of evidence. It,
therefore, means that
the accused person has a case to answer.”
Metha immediately
made an application to engage an independent audio
recording specialist which
was granted.
The independent audio recording specialist is
expected to give
evidence next week.
The state alleges that
sometime in April 2001, Mwonzora was
representing a client who was facing
charges of theft of a motor vehicle.
A trap was later set by
the police and a conversation between the
investigating officer and Mwonzora
was recorded on an audio tape.
A government recording
supervisor Constantine Masango on Wednesday
told the court that there
were
possibilities that the audio tape might have been tampered
with since
he was not there when the recording was done.
He said some parts of the audio tape were deleted or inaudible.
Mwonzora was remanded out of custody to next Wednesday.
Own
Correspondent
Daily News
Fuel shortages hit food aid distribution
BULAWAYO – The World Food Programme (WFP) this week said fuel
shortages
affecting Zimbabwe were hampering distribution of food aid to
hundreds of
thousands of hungry people across the country.
The United Nations
food relief agency said it had at times been forced
to suspend distribution
of food to the needy because there was no fuel to
transport the
food.
WFP official Robinah Mulenga on Thursday told
journalists: “The
shortage of fuel has had negative implications on the
transportation of
relief food to distribution points, especially in the
Matabeleland province.
“As a result, the food is sometimes
distributed late to the people and
we feel that is an inconvenience to the
starving masses who are grappling
with widespread food
shortages.”
Mulenga, who was speaking during a tour of Tsholotsho,
a district in
southern Zimbabwe and among areas worst hit by hunger, said
much more work
needed to be done to cushion villagers from
starvation.
Zimbabwe, grappling with its worst economic crisis
in 23 years, is in
the throes of severe food shortages blamed on poor rains
and on
controversial and chaotic government land reforms which
disrupted
agriculture.
The food crisis has been exacerbated
by an acute foreign currency
shortage that has left the government unable to
import food to supplement
aid brought in by international
donors.
Donor groups say delays by Harare to appeal for 700 000
tonnes of the
staple maize grain needed to feed Zimbabweans for the 2003 to
2004 period
will further delay the delivery of food aid to the
country.
The WFP, which has led food relief operations in
Zimbabwe, had scaled
down food distribution in Matabeleland North province,
where Tsholotsho
lies, after indications that there had been significant
harvests in the
area.
WFP spokesman Luis Clemens said the
food agency was now intensifying
relief operations in the area after
realising that thousands of people
needed food.
From
Ntungamili Nkomo
Staff Reporter
Clemens said: “The
down-scaling process started after this year’s
harvest when we got a report
that there were people who had had significant
harvests from their
fields.
“We have, however, started scaling up operations in
most districts as
we realise people have finished what they had
harvested.”
The WFP official added that his organisation was
working on mobilising
more food aid from donors to forestall an “evidently
catastrophic situation”
.
But Clemens and Mulenga said they
had not yet received reports of
hunger-induced deaths.
The WFP
was distributing food to about 157 000 people in Tsholotsho
alone before the
figure had been scaled down to about 71 000 following
reports that more food
had been harvested in the area.
Meanwhile hundreds of villagers
who gathered at Tsholotsho business
centre to meet Clemens and Mulenga
accused the government of abandoning
responsibility to feed starving
Zimbabweans to donors.
Thubelihle Mpala, a widow who said she was
looking after four orphans,
called on the government to provide maize through
its Grain Marketing Board
which people with cash could buy.
She said: “It is unacceptable for the government to watch at a
distance
thousands of its people starving and doing nothing at all about
it.
“Most people are dying of HIV/AIDS-related illnesses that
are hastened
by the shortage of drugs in our clinics and an unbalanced
diet.
“What we are, therefore, requesting from our government
is that they
complement efforts by WFP to secure food in our area as deaths
are bound to
occur if adequate supplies are not delivered.”
One
of Mpala’s two daughters died of HIV/AIDS, she said.
Mulenga
concurred with most villagers that the government should do
more to
complement efforts by international donors to feed
hungry
Zimbabweans.
Daily News
War vets back church dialogue initiatives
THE pro-ruling ZANU PF party veterans of Zimbabwe’s 1970s war of
independence
yesterday said they backed an initiative by local church
leaders to broker
talks between the ruling party and the opposition Movement
for Democratic
Change (MDC) to end Zimbabwe’s political crisis.
The militant
Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association
(ZNLWVA) also accused
some unnamed ZANU PF politicians of wanting to derail
proposed talks between
Zimbabwe’s biggest political parties because they
were benefiting from the
current economic crisis.
ZNLWVA secretary-general Endy Mhlanga
told the Daily News: “The
position of the war veterans is that the church
leaders must be allowed to
do their work in a professional and non-partisan
manner.
“We believe that it is now time for patriotic Zimbabweans
to come
together irrespective of their political affiliations to iron out
their
differences.”
Mhlanga, whose ZNLWVA has together with
ZANU PF youth militias become
the mainstay of President Robert Mugabe and his
government’s political
survival strategy, added: “There are people in ZANU PF
who do not want
things to be corrected because they are benefiting from the
crisis.
“These are some of the people who are causing the cash
shortages. If
they continue to disturb the talks for no apparent reasons, we
will expose
them to the public.
“We do not want such a
spirit of destabilisation. People are not happy
with these
shortages.”
Mhlanga, whose ZNLWVA has in the past been accused of
unleashing
violence against MDC supporters, spoke amid reports of divisions
within ZANU
PF over proposed talks with the MDC, with hawks in the ruling
party said to
be bitterly opposed to resumption of dialogue, which broke down
last year.
Talks between the two political parties collapsed
last August after
ZANU PF pulled out of negotiations after MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai
petitioned the country’s High Court to nullify Mugabe’s
re-election last
year.
The court has set the hearing of the election petition for 3 November.
Both Mugabe, Tsvangirai and
their senior officials, in separate
meetings held in the last two weeks, told
the leaders of the Zimbabwe
Council of Churches, Evangelical Fellowship of
Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe
Catholic Bishops Conference that they were willing
to resume dialogue
between their parties to find a solution to the country’s
problems.
The two parties were yesterday expected to confirm in
writing their
commitment to resume dialogue.
But there have been
rumblings of disapproval of the church initiative
from some sections of ZANU
PF, who have questioned the sincerity of
Sebastian Bakare, Trevor Manhanga
and Patrick Mutume – the three clergymen
spearheading efforts by the church
to restart dialogue in Zimbabwe.
Justice Minister and ZANU PF’s
legal secretary Patrick Chinamasa this
week blasted the church leaders
labelling them “MDC activists wearing
religious collars”.
Mhlanga accused people opposing attempts by the church to help
restart
dialogue of being ignorant of the role the church had played in the
past in
encouraging reconciliation in the country.
He said: “The
suffering we are enduring needs committed Zimbabweans to
stop it. The stance
taken by the churches is commendable and should be
supported. Father Mukonori
did it during our land occupations and those who
oppose the talks are
ignorant of the role of churches.”
Staff
Reporter
Daily News
Corruption, crime rise
HARARE – For years
Zimbabwe used to brush off questions of
corruption, crime and greed as
malicious.
But the country’s deepening economic crisis has left
many Zimbabweans
eking out a living on the edge of the law, and a brave
minority prospering
by “running around and stitching things
together”.
The phrase covers everything from hard work to
pick-pocketing and
money-laundering to queuing for days for scarce
commodities.
Criminal activity and corruption arising from
economic hardship is
dignified by the euphemism “survival
vices”.
President Robert Mugabe’s embattled government has
acknowledged that
the Southern African state has been hit by the scourge
common to many
countries on the world’s poorest continent.
Mugabe told parliament last month that his government would soon
introduce a
tougher anti-corruption law and legislation to
fight
money-laundering.
Some of Zimbabwe’s “survival vices”
have emerged as comic or tragic,
others have earned grudging admiration for
creativity.
Beggars and the jobless have turned commodity
shortages into an
industry by charging desperate consumers to stand for them
in endless
queues; some prostitutes offer their services to motorists
spending the
night in their cars as they wait for fuel at petrol
stations.
Last month, two mortuary workers were arrested and
accused of renting
corpses to motorists to enable them to take advantage of
special fuel
preferences given to hearses.
Some enterprising
Zimbabweans have responded to a severe cash shortage
by hoarding money and
selling it for a fee.
Zimbabwe’s banks have literally run of
cash and some have been forced
to call in riot police to control angry
crowds.
The government has no foreign exchange to import the
special paper
required to print money.
The government says
some people are hoarding money for use on the
black market and that cash
supply has not matched inflation, now at a record
365 percent – one of the
highest rates in the world.
The Zimbabwe chapter of the
corruption watchdog Transparency
International says the country is now
classified as one of the most corrupt
in the world, ranked 45 this year from
71 in 2000 in a “corruption
perception index”.
“Our recent
survey shows that over 80 percent of Zimbabweans believe
corruption is rising
as a result of the economic crisis, and that because of
shortages even those
who want to stay on the right side of the law are
breaking some laws as a
matter of survival,” said an official with
Transparency International
Zimbabwe.
“There is a culture of survival vices taking root
because the formal
market is slowly breaking and giving way to the black
market,” he said.
Cement, sugar, paraffin, fuel, foreign
currency and the staple
maize-meal – which are in short supply – are all
found on the black market,
in most cases at five times the official
price.
Those who sell these goods deny they are charging
extortionate prices,
arguing the rates reflect a market where they are forced
to fork out a
premium in bribes to suppliers and producers.
Police raid the black market every now and then. But while they have
noted a
big rise in crime – from house breaking to bank fraud – they have no
figures
yet.
In addition to corruption and crime, Zimbabwe political
analysts say
the country has been hit by another scourge –
greed.
“This country is falling on account of greed,” said
Brian Kagoro,
co-ordinator of the rights campaign group Crisis
Zimbabwe.
Mugabe, 79, denies mismanaging the economy, and says
it has been
sabotaged by local and foreign critics in retaliation for his
controversial
programme to seize white-owned farms for distribution to
landless blacks. –
Reuter
Daily News
Dangerous games
JUSTICE Minister Patrick
Chinamasa this week had
unpleasant words to say about Zimbabwe’s
church leaders who are racing
against time to try to hammer out a negotiated
solution to the country’s
rapid descent into Somalia-style
anarchy.
He branded Anglican Church Bishop Sebastian Bakare and
Evangelical
Fellowship head Reverend Trevor Manhanga as opposition “Movement
for
Democratic Change (MDC) activists wearing religious collars” who were
also
ostensibly working on behalf of foreign interests.
In the
same statement, timed to dampen optimism on the outcome of the
clerics’
mediation and to also signal the negotiating stance of the ruling
ZANU PF
party, Chinamasa said the MDC should withdraw its court challenge
to
President Robert
Mugabe’s disputed re-election last
year.
We find it most unfortunate, to put it mildly, that Chinamasa
should
publicly attack well-meaning mediators, whose only
concern is to see an end to the long-running suffering of
Zimbabweans caused by none other than Chinamasa’s party.
Chinamasa’s unease over the mediation role of the churchmen apparently
stems
from the fact that they have spoken out in the past against the rape,
torture
and murder of many Zimbabweans by elements linked to ZANU PF and
the
government, an undisputed fact.
The minister seems to be
suggesting that Zimbabweans must just forget
their recent bloodied past in
order to move forward, hardly the formula for
any successful national healing
process.
The church leaders have rightly criticised the
criminal human rights
abuses being perpetrated on innocent Zimbabweans by
ZANU PF’s political
thugs – as should all right-thinking people – which makes
them even more
qualified to take the “peace” process forward because they
know first-hand
the devastating effects of the current madness on the
nation.
The stance of the minister, himself reportedly involved
in parallel
talks with the MDC, will not help efforts by Zimbabweans who want
to see
genuine reconciliation between the two opposing political parties for
the
sake of the country’s future.
If anything, Chinamasa’s
comments are likely to harden many within and
outside Zimbabwe who believe
that ZANU PF can never be trusted to negotiate
in good faith and that the
latest talks, just like previous ones, are only
aimed at buying time for the
beleaguered regime.
Chinamasa and all others within ZANU PF who
think like him need to
know that these talks perhaps give the ruling party
its very last chance to
negotiate a peaceful exit from power because the
party has not only
miserably failed its own members but the larger population
of Zimbabwe.
ZANU PF stands to gain more than the MDC or anyone
else from these
negotiations, which offer the governing party an opportunity
to depart from
the political high ground with some semblance of dignity or
the party faces
the people’s wrath.
If there are any ZANU PF
members who still believe that they can hold
back the winds of democratic
change for much longer, they are clearly
daydreaming.
Daily News
Mbeki’s selective diplomacy
In by gone
years, the United States pursued what was called
“constructive engagement” in
it’s dealings with the apartheid regime of
South Africa.
South
Africa’s neighbours rejected this, calling it “destructive
engagement”, and
chose to support guerrillas fighting the regime.
We all know what
the end result was. Thabo Mbeki’s so called “quiet”
diplomacy in his handling
of the Zimbabwean crisis is just another version
of the ineffective US policy
of “constructive engagement”.
Mbeki himself does not believe in his
own policy, as recent
developments have shown. Mbeki applies his policy only
in his dealings with
ZANU PF. When it comes to the MDC, he switches over,
with vigour, to
megaphone diplomacy.
At one point, Mbeki was
heard urging the world to leave Zimbabweans
alone to solve their own
problems! Motsuai “Terror” Lekota lashed out at
Tsvangirai and the MDC for
their week-long stayaway. Montlane attacked
Tsvangirai for telling the world
that George W Bush had been misinformed by
Mbeki when the latter said he had
been told ZANU PF and MDC were
(constructively) engaged in
talks.
ZANU PF, too, made the same remark that Mbeki was wrong to
say there
were talks going on. Montlane, however, singled out the MDC for
a
tongue-lashing. A neutral arbiter indeed!
Zimbabweans can read
through Mbeki’s pretences. Montlane went on to
utter statements aimed at
dividing the MDC.
He said the ANC would rather deal with Welshman
Ncube than Tsvangirai.
Clearly, he is playing tribal politics, and the sooner
the MDC realises this
tactic the better.
Surely, this is leaving
Zimbabweans alone to solve their own problems!
The ANC is shamelessly
anti-MDC and in favour of a “renewed” ZANU PF, and is
doing whatever it can
to thwart the MDC’s relentless march to power.
I dreamt seeing the
ANC’s invisible hand in attempts to frustrate the
final push. In
matters of intelligence, the ANC could be spying on the MDC on behalf
of ZANU
PF. Quiet diplomacy indeed! Mark my words. The US sidelined Arafat
in favour
of his prime minister. Mbeki is
following in this track by
attempting to sideline Tsvangirai in favour
of his secretary general, Ncube.
The MDC should resist all such moves. The
MDC is too patriotic for tribalism
to succeed.
C.B. Dziva
Masvingo
Daily News
Letter
What a waste of resources
So the government is going to throw away many thousands, if not
millions, of
$500 notes, which must have cost many millions as well to
print.
Why? Just to print more of the same, also at a great
expense both
in terms of the actual printing cost and in forex to buy
the paper. Surely
this must be the most wasteful way to achieve
whatever
objective.
If they merely printed the blue notes
(surely a bad colour as we are
blue enough as it is) and the $1 000 notes,
there would be no need to hoard
the old red $500 notes and they would come
into circulation anyhow.
Res Ipsa Loquitur
Harare
JUSTICE FOR AGRICULTURE TRAINING COMMUNIQUE - August 1, 2003
Email: justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet:
www.justiceforagriculture.com
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Subject:
Marine Skippers Licences
Attention all offshore boat owners.
The
South African and Mozambican authorities are becoming more diligent
in
checking marine skipper licenses. Operating at sea in S.A. without
a
license will mean a R10 000.00 fine or 6 months in jail or
both.
Prospective skippers need to complete a theory course and pass the
3 - 4
hour exam. Then the practical comprises of at least 12 surf launches
and 25
hours at sea.
There are two ways of passing the
practical.
1. Go down to a bar overlooking the sea, look at the wave
patterns and then
skipper through the lull periods.
2. Do a
comprehensive and intense 4-day course with Marine Skippers Academy
at
Sodwana Bay.
Although the costs for Zimbabweans may seem high, what value
do you put on
your families lives and your boat and equipment? You may fool
the
authorities but you won't fool the sea.
I've been there, done it
and got the T ' shirt...... IT'S WORTH IT!
Email me on benfer@mweb.co.zw for more details on the
theory and practical.
Sincerely.
Ian Ferguson