Reuters
Wed 29 Aug
2007, 15:36 GMT
(recasts with Mugabe speech)
By Cris
Chinaka
HARARE, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
vowed on
Wednesday to win next year's elections and said nobody could ever
force him
into exile.
"I want to say here that I am not going
anywhere. Here I was born. Here I
grew up and here I shall die and will be
buried," he told veterans of the
country's 1970s war of liberation, calling
them the "torch bearers" of the
elections.
"We are going to organise.
We are going to win. But we want to win
resoundingly."
About 5,000
veterans of the independence war began marching hours earlier in
support of
Mugabe's candidacy in the presidential elections, disrupting
traffic in a
city plagued by food and fuel shortages and the world's highest
inflation
rate.
"The war veterans have a covenant with Mugabe.We will back you to
the hilt,"
they chanted in the local Shona language. "They (the West) want
to take our
land, no no no no, over our dead bodies."
"We will die
with our president," read one placard. Another one said:
"Mugabe be our
candidate for 2008".
War veterans, who fought alongside members of the
now ruling ZANU-PF,
occupied many white-owned farms in 2000, often violently
with Mugabe's
backing. There are 35,000 war veterans in
Zimbabwe.
CONTROVERSIAL DECISIONS
Mugabe turned on Zimbabwe's
white minority after voters rejected a new
constitution that would have
given him more power in a referendum in 2002,
one of the controversial
policies that his critics say has brought the
country its his
knees.
Analysts say he is now pursuing his classic strategy of trying to
draw
attention away from Zimbabwe's economic crisis by blaming Britain, the
United States and Australia, which have imposed sanctions, for widespread
hardships.
Mugabe was elected to a third six-year term as president
in 2002 in
elections western observers said were rigged, and his crackdown
on the
opposition and journalists increased his international
isolation.
Zimbabwe's leading state-run Herald newspaper on Wednesday
accused
Australia, where the country's leading opposition figure Morgan
Tsvangirai
is visiting, of trying to oust Mugabe and urged the Zimbabwean
government to
expel Australian diplomats.
On Wednesday Mugabe
suggested Tsvangirai had been "summoned" to Australia to
receive financial
aid ahead of 2008 elections.
"It does not matter how many millions they
pour into their politics. This is
our land, we will never let go," he
said.
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, is
seeking another
five-year term in next year's presidential election. Victory
would make him
one of Africa's longest-serving rulers.
The former
Marxist guerrilla hopes to push a bill through the ZANU-PF
dominated
parliament which would give him room to choose a successor if he
were to
retire. Parliamentary elections are also planned for next year.
If
passed, the bill would allow the 83-year-old leader to step-down mid term
to
allow for a dignified exit and give him an opportunity to influence
Zimbabwe's future, analysts say.
Mugabe also wants to give
Zimbabweans a majority share of foreign companies,
a move critics say would
drain what little confidence is left in the
battered economy.
The
veterans sang for hours denouncing Western sanctions, which have failed
to
weaken Mugabe. The country's divided opposition, which has failed to
challenge Mugabe, hopes an economic collapse will bring him
down.
Mugabe is struggling to prevent economic collapse. But analysts say
he
remains strong on the political front, cracking down on the opposition.
Mugabe denies allegations of human rights abuses.
Public pressure
from Mugabe's Western foes has faded, giving him room to
manoeuver.
"For those who think we are cowards, we shall never
retreat," said Mugabe.
His credentials as a former liberation hero still
makes him popular among
southern African nations, who have been accused of
being too soft on Mugabe.
The Zimbabwean
(29-08-07)
Panic seized the city centre at lunchtime today when an unrully
mob of
about 5,000, escorted by three police vehicles, noisily
dermonstrated
through the city of Harare waving placards and chanting
revolutionary songs
in praise of President Robert Mugabe.
"Down with
economic saboteurs" read one placard, "We will die with our
president," read
another, while others read "Down with hoarding" and "Land
to the
people."
The war veterans' march followed a deluge of inflammatory
rhetoric from the
ruling party, blaming the MDC for the acute shortages of
basics from
supermarkets following a government directive to retailers to
slash prices
by 50 percent.
The barrage of hard-line rhetoric also
included accusations against the
opposition that they called for sanctions
that were now allegedly hurting
the country's economy. Mugabe accused the
opposition party of coordinating a
plot with business leaders to raise
prices of basics in what he alleged was
a Western-backed ploy to incite
Zimbabweans to revolt against his
government.
War veterans' leader
Jabulani Sibanda told journalists : "This is the
beginning of marches in
support of our president, because he is operating
under sanctions from the
Western imperialists."
He said the war veterans were rallying behind Mugabe
and would not accept
any other candidate to stand on a ruling party ticket
in next year's
presidential ballot.
Observers say the march is a
prelude to Zanu (PF)'s violent offensive now
gathering momentum before
presidential elections next year.
Public anger in urban areas over economic
hardship - inflation is nearly
8,000 per cent - is at unprecedented heights.
The situation has never been
so volatile, observers said.
Opposition
spokesman Nelson Chamisa said it was shocking that the war
veterans were
literally escorted by excited policemen during their march
while the MDC and
other civic groups go through the rigorous motion of
notifying the police to
hold demonstrations.
"If there is consensus on Mugabe's candidature, why
would he need
demonstrations to endorse him?" asked Chamisa. "This
development is
indicative of the internal wars within Zanu (PF) about
Mugabe's candidature.
It is a fact that Zanu PF is candidateless. The
different factions are
campaigning for their horses and the demonstration
was just a poor show by
one of the several factions."
The war
veterans proceed to the Rotten Row Zanu (PF) headquarters where they
were
expected to be addressed by senior ruling party officials. It was not
immediately clear if Mugabe was among the line up of people expected to
address the war vets, as a goon squad of ruling party militia were blocking
the entrance to the headquarters.
Monsters and Critics
Aug 29, 2007, 14:28 GMT
Harare - Zimbabwe's
main opposition Wednesday complained that excited police
joined in a march
in support of President Robert Mugabe even though they
have banned hundreds
of opposition demonstrations.
A spokesman for the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) said the police
behaviour during the march in Harare early
Wednesday morning showed their
strong links with Mugabes ruling ZANU-PF
party.
The police should allow Zimbabweans to hold marches in protest of
their
suffering, said Nelson Chamisa.
This month alone, the police
have refused to sanction 113 MDC rallies
nationwide while ZANU-PF and its
civic allies can do anything at anytime
without telling anyone, Chamisa said
in a statement.
Thousands of war veterans are reported to have staged a
march through the
capital in support of the 83-year-old Mugabe, who plans to
stand for
re-election in March next year despite Zimbabwe's deepening
economic crisis.
Official inflation has surged to more than 7,600 per
cent, while shortages
of basics like bread, milk, fuel and meat have
worsened following a
state-ordered price slash last month.
Any form
of protest in Zimbabwe is normally quickly quashed by police, who
have
arrested and sometimes beaten hundreds of MDC supporters and human
rights
demonstrators since the beginning of the year.
The MDC spokesman
described the police behaviour on Wednesday as
reprehensible.
Chamisa
alleged police had become part of a ZANU-PF show which disrupted
traffic and
disturbed the peace of workers during the early morning rush
hour.
In
March Mugabe created a special reserve force of veterans of Zimbabwes
1970s
war of independence from white minority rule. The force is meant to
shore up
the 40,000-strong Zimbabwe National Army.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche
Presse-Agentur
SW Radio Africa (London)
29 August
2007
Posted to the web 29 August 2007
Tererai
Karimakwenda
The government forced people to go to the airport to
welcome Nguema, Obiang
Teodoro Nguema, the dictator from Equatorial Guinea
who arrived on Tuesday
to open the Agricultural show.
We received
reports that in order to have crowds of loyal supporters of
Mugabe present
as a welcoming party, three buses were sent to Mbare Msika to
load a
"rent-a-crowd". People were told to board the buses for a trip to the
airport, and those who refused were beaten by the police and youth militia.
We were not able to confirm whether there were any serious injuries or
arrests.
A banquet welcoming Nguema was used by Mugabe as a
platform to push his
agenda that Zimbabwe's problems are due to sanctions
imposed by the West.
Journalist Angus Shaw told us that at the banquet
Mugabe spoke about the
sanctions passionately. He said the idea being
promoted is that the
shortages of basic food items that are now making life
extremely difficult
for many Zimbabweans are a result of the agenda promoted
by the opposition
and civil organisations. Shaw said state run television
and radio broadcasts
are being flooded with reports about non-existent
sanctions. Broadcasts are
also pointing to opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai as a supporter of these
'sanctions,' claiming he has been
travelling the world lobbying foreign
governments to isolate the Mugabe
regime through economic restrictions.
Shaw said the shortages have become
so severe that many people are beginning
to buy into the propaganda.
Cape Times
29/8/2007
Peta Thornycroft
Trevor Manuel got hot under the
collar in parliament on Tuesday saying the
best South Africa could do about
the crisis in Zimbabwe was to encourage its
citizens to solve their own
problems.
Quite.
Then, in some irritation, he brought Iraq
into the debate: "For those who
don't understand, I ask that President Bush
recruit them and send them to
Iraq. Then they will understand what regime
change is about."
Quite.
But Trevor Manuel has a short
memory.
That is certainly not what Zimbabweans wanted - regime change
via the George
Bush way. They wanted regime change the other way, through
the ballot box.
Very, very regretfully, South Africa chose to impede
that.
The South African government's election observer group, led by
its own
election supremo, Brigalia Bam, would overlook overwhelming evidence
that
Mugabe's 2002 victory in the presidential election was dishonestly
won.
The South African observer group voice carried the day in
Africa.
Even worse, South Africa decided at least 10 days before the
elections that
the poll would be adjudicated as having been 'credible and
legitimate.'
On the night before elections Patricia de Lille was the
only election
observer in the Harare High Court to witness yet another
argument over
disgraceful new election laws 11 hours before polling booths
opened.
South African observers in Harare, saw well behaved queues
of people
determined to vote, however long it took, but who would be unable
to
exercise their democratic right because Mugabe had dramatically reduced
the
number of polling stations in urban opposition
strongholds.
Trevor Manuel may have forgotten that Brigadier-General
Douglas Nyikayaramba
from Zimbabwe National Army headquarters organised the
army to run the
presidential election of 2002.
He claimed to have
retired from the military.
After the poll he was given a white-owned
farm at Nyabira 40 km north of
Harare, and is now commander of 2 Brigade at
Cranborne Barracks.
The election machinery Nyikayaramba controlled
also delayed people who
eventually got to the front of the endless queues to
cast their votes in
high density areas. At one queue I watched while it took
75 minutes for a
woman to vote.
MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai
immediately challenged Mugabe's victory in
court.
More than two
years after the election and seven court orders later, he
eventually got
access to ballot boxes in 12 constituencies. The documented
results of the
search showed that the results announced by the election
'command centre'
run by the army in Harare did not coincide with the ballot
papers in the
boxes.
There was also some double voting, 2000 in one rural
constituency, but no
ballot box stuffing.
The command centre was
off limits to journalists. The South African
observers certainly didn't
check out the command centre in 2002, and didn't
even know there was a
command centre in the 2005 general election.
Despite voting delays -
and tens of thousands in Harare never got to vote -
secret last minute voter
registration, appalling violence against opposition
polling agents,
candidates, supporters etc., Morgan Tsvangirai won the 2002
presidential
poll by a small margin.
Mugabe's 15 percent victory was manufactured
by the army in the command
centre.
So, Zimbabweans had tried
very hard to effect democratic regime change.
Maybe it is recent
events Trevor Manuel was thinking about when he became
cross in parliament
this week: that many Zimbabweans who want democratic
regime change have not
been doing their cause much favour in recent times.
The vibrant young
MDC had already started sliding into disunity even before
the presidential
poll, but certainly we, the foreign press didn't know that.
The first
known intra party violence took place took place in June 2001,when
a young
woman activist in Harare was beaten up by thugs loyal to Tsvangirai,
accused
of being sister to the secretary-general Welshman Ncube. She wasn't
his
sister, she just shared the same common surname.
Other violent
episodes within the MDC we later found out about were in 2004
and 2005. We
discovered there were cliques and tribalism and vast sums of
money had gone
missing.
People were accusing each other of working for Zanu PF and
or President
Thabo Mbeki, stealing farms, secretly owning shopping malls,
doing secret
deals with British prime minister Tony Blair at the G8 summit
in Gleneagles
etc etc. etc.
Tsvangirai broke the MDC constitution
over a narrow vote in his sharply
divided national executive committee
supporting participation in senate
elections in 2005. He also said "so be
it" if the MDC split as a result. He
also lied to the press about that
vote.
His call for a boycott of senate elections in November 2005 was
enormously
successful. But there was, as usual, no follow up, and so the
momentum
disappeared and Mugabe became the winner as he could further extend
his
patronage to a new bunch of Zanu PF senators.
And it has been
downhill all the way since then. Most civil society
organisations dropped
their neutrality and supported Tsvangirai after the
split and their donors
didn't seem to mind.
The new umbrella organisation, Save Zimbabwe,
which seems to have resources
is largely an extension of the Tsvangirai
faction.
Donors chose sides, mostly Tsvangirai, even if they believed
he had failed
to provide effective leadership.
Tsvangirai
scuppered an election co operation agreement between the two
factions in May
after 10 months of negotiations. The other faction, lead by
Arthur
Mutambara, was exasperated and will field its own candidates in the
next
polls due in March. At a recent press conference Mutambara lashed out
at
Tsvangirai which embarrassed his colleagues.
So the split shows no
hope of being papered over for an election alliance,
and each faction will
put up its own candidates.
The winner in all of this will be Mugabe,
who may now have enough confidence
that a deeply divided opposition means he
doesn't have to beat people up or
cheat in elections next
March.
Maybe this is what Trevor Manuel is thinking
about.
He must have forgotten what went on in 2002 when his
colleagues chose Mugabe's
violence and cheating over the will of the
majority of Zimbabwean people.
Fin24
Aug 29 2007 12:59
PM
Chris Muronzi - Finweek's Harare correspondent
Harare - President
Robert Mugabe's price control and monitoring policy could
trigger a new wave
of shortages - blood. Yes, donor blood.
This is because the National
Blood Services Zimbabwe (NBSZ) can not find
refreshments to lure young
donors.
The refreshments - orange juice and cookies - according to the
NBSZ does the
trick and works like a charm in luring young donors in the
economically
troubled southern African nation to kindly part with a pint of
blood.
Although the refreshments are meant to help blood donors regain
strength,
poor Zimbabweans volunteer so that they can get by.
But
after Mugabe ordered price cuts in June, the NBSZ has not been spared
from
the shortages of basics.
The NBSZ says its blood banks could dry
out.
Emmanuel Masvikeni, the NBSZ's programmes officer, was quoted as
saying in a
UK based online publication that the organisation has not been
spared by the
worsening economic crisis.
"We failed to secure
refreshments critical after donors have given blood,
and the country is
likely to suffer a serious blood shortage," he said.
Crumbling health
services
The blood shortages will restrict the country's already
crumbling health
services in dealing with major crises like road accidents
and women who
suffer complications during or after
delivery.
Masvikeni also says NBSZ had temporarily stopped importing
Rhesugam required
by pregnant women whose blood types fall under Rhesus
Negative and are
carrying Rhesus Positive foetuses.
Zimbabwe imports
the Rhesugam (Anti-D) from South Africa but NBSZ said they
had cut
deliveries owing to the unavailability of foreign currency.
Rhesus
Negative pregnant women must be injected with Rhesugam within 48
hours of
giving birth to a baby with a Rhesus Positive blood type.
Health experts
explained this was because the body system of a Rhesus
Negative woman
regarded a Rhesus Positive baby as a foreign body and infects
the mother
with anti bodies during pregnancy or at birth.
Says a medical expert: "If
not injected the Rhesugam, the infection, which
will remain in the mother's
body, would not harm the mother or the child but
would destroy all the
children to be conceived years later."
Personal arrangements with
SA
Masvikeni confirmed some pregnant women suffering from this rare
medical
complication needed urgent assistance.
"We are unable to
significantly help them at the moment. An arrangement we
have made on their
behalf is that patients or hospitals requiring Rhesugam
should obtain a Pro
Forma invoice from us. They will then make payments to
the suppliers in
South Africa through their bank," he added.
Blood joins the list of
things which are now in short supply. Zimbabwe is
facing a severe shortage
of beer, meat and sugar among other commodities.
Shops have run out of
stock owing to the price controls.
The troubled country has the highest
rate of inflation in the world now
above 7 600%.
Critics say Mugabe,
83, in power since independence from Britain in 1980,
has dragged Zimbabwe's
once vibrant economy into crisis.
- Fin24
Business Day
(Johannesburg)
29 August 2007
Posted to the web 29 August
2007
Amy Musgrave
Johannesburg
HOME Affairs Minister Nosiviwe
Mapisa-Nqakula has stuck to her guns on not
granting Zimbabweans refugee
status in SA, saying her department was instead
considering temporary
measures to accommodate the surge of Zimbabweans
escaping massive
unemployment in their country.
She told reporters in Cape Town that one
of these measures could include
providing Zimbabweans with temporary
resident permits so that they could
legally work in SA.
SA is
struggling to deal with the thousands of Zimbabweans who have fled to
the
country in search of economic opportunities. Zimbabwe's unemployment
stands
at about 80%.
Mapisa-Nqakula appealed to Zimbabweans to bring proof of
their
qualifications with them, saying they could take advantage of SA's
scarce
skills.
"I believe as government we should challenge them to
take up that
opportunity," she said.
The minister, who was
participating in a briefing with her counterparts on
the government's
governance cluster, said there was no point in giving
Zimbabweans refugee
status as most of them wanted to earn money and then
return home.
She
said a refugee camp would have a "pull effect".
"If people are hungry and
we open a camp along the borders of course people
will jump over and come
and have a meal and cross back to Zimbabwe," she
said.
Another
concern about making people refugees was that they could then return
home
only once the problems had been resolved, the minister
said.
Mapisa-Nqakula said the government was "throwing money into a
bottomless
pit" because the thousands of Zimbabweans being arrested and
deported every
week were simply returning to SA.
"We definitely need
a new approach," she said.
Business Day
(Johannesburg)
COLUMN
29 August 2007
Posted to the web 29 August
2007
Johannesburg
OUR northern neighbour Zimbabwe is often
caricatured in news columns and
bulletins as a country tottering on the
brink of collapse, but more than
seven years into recession the country
limps on.
Most businesses there, the bulk of which are still in foreign
hands, have to
date survived inflation levels of more than 5000%, the
highest in the world.
And as if the situation there is not grave
enough, the Zimbabwean government
last week tabled before parliament a draft
law that would give blacks
majority control of foreign-owned companies
operating in that country. Could
this be the final nail in the coffin of
this supposedly moribund economy?
Probably not, as most big businesses
operating in the country do not seem
perturbed by the developments. They
have seen and survived worse.
Old Mutual, the largest financial services
group in Zimbabwe, said yesterday
that it would comply with the law. And as
a first step it agreed to dispose
of 20% of its stake in Old Mutual Zimbabwe
to staff. In complying with the
law, it said it would structure an
empowerment deal that would create value
for shareholders and stability for
clients.
Lonrho, another big player in Zimbabwe , is raising £100m to
prop up its
Zimbabwean operations. It says the problems in the country are
temporary and
not insurmountable.
Standard Bank last week said while
trading in Zimbabwe was challenging, it
was determined to keep its
operations running.
There is a siz able number of British and American
companies operating in
Zimbabwe, and none of them appear to be packing their
bags. What do they
know that we don't?
Viwe Tlaleane edits The Bottom
Line.
Mail and Guardian
Tara
Polzer
27 August 2007 11:59
Refugee
camps can be dangerous, expensive and degrading. Is this
how South Africans
want to treat their fleeing Zimbabwean neighbours?
The Mail
& Guardian ("SA's Zim exodus plan", August 10) reported
that the
government may update a 2002 plan to help structure its response to
Zimbabweans entering South Africa.
That plan included a
"reception centre" near the Beit Bridge
border post that could house a mass
influx of refugees fleeing violence tied
to that year's national elections.
Clearly, South Africa must do something
now to help those in need, both
South African and Zimbabwean, but questions
remain over whether this is an
appropriate and ethical strategy for the
current asylum seekers and
migrants.
In 2002 Wits University issued a report assessing
the plan and
many of our concerns remain valid today. As we move forward, we
must keep
the following questions in mind.
First, and
most crucially, who does this plan intend to help?
The DA has demanded the
establishment of a camp for Zimbabwean refugees,
implicitly suggesting that
all Zimbabweans are refugees. While many of them
are asylum seekers - more
than 20 000 Zimbabweans have applied for asylum in
the past 18 months - many
are labour migrants, while others are simply
shopping to help their hungry
families back home.
Should all of these people be held
indefinitely near the border?
And how likely is it that everyone will report
to a border official if it
means being immediately locked up? And what of
the Zimbabweans already in
the country? Would they be rounded up and trucked
out to Limpopo, making the
"reception centre" just a more isolated and
long-term version of the Lindela
repatriation centre?
In
fact, would this plan replace or coexist with the government's
current
dominant response to Zimbabwean immigration, which is to deport
thousands
every month?
Second, what is the legal and institutional
basis for the plan?
Is it based on the Disaster Management Act of 2002, on
the 1998 Refugees Act
or on the 2002 Immigration Act? This has implications
for which agency takes
the lead and how the plan is
funded.
Disaster management is largely the responsibility of
local
government with national funding. But this can be released only once
an
emergency has been declared, something that is unlikely to happen. If the
"reception centre" is established under the Refugees Act, then the agency
responsible is home affairs, the capacity constraints of which are all too
well known.
Would management of the "centre" be
outsourced, like that of
Lindela? And what are the roles of the South
African Police Service and
South African National Defence
Force?
The DA calls for the involvement of international
agencies and
NGOs, which are unlikely to allocate their scarce resources to
a
medium-income country such as South Africa, which usually likes to
emphasise
its independence from international aid.
If
this plan is not done within the law, the government will
open itself up to
international scorn and legal action, much as it has done
with
Lindela.
Third, what is our exit plan? The original 2002
scenario was to
provide assistance to 1 000 people for three days at a
single "reception
centre". Any plan now would need to consider the
possibility of long-term
unrest in Zimbabwe, respond holistically to the
wide range of people coming
into and already in the country and have a
national reach.
If the centre is intended only to hold people
until their legal
status can be determined, we should keep in mind the years
asylum seekers
now wait to get refugee status. Unless South Africa wants to
maintain
expensive camps on a permanent basis, wouldn't we be better off
finding ways
to strengthen our crisis and emergency response services
throughout the
country and help Zimbabweans gain access to these? In the
long run such
added capacity will help South Africans if they, too, are ever
in need.
Finally, given due consideration of all these
questions, is a
reception centre or camp really the best way for South
Africa to respond to
Zimbabweans within our borders?
Tara
Polzer is a researcher with the forced migration studies
programme at the
University of the Witwatersrand. In 2002 she co-authored
the report,
Emergency Preparedness in South Africa: 24 Lessons from the
Zimbabwean
Elections. It is available online at http://migration.wits.ac.za
Comment from Mmegi (Botswana), 28 August
A week after the Lusaka Southern African Development Community
(SADC) summit
concluded in Lusaka, nothing much has improved for the people
of Zimbabwe.
There is every indication that with every passing hour, the
situation is
becoming unbearable for ordinary Zimbabweans. Shop shelves are
bare of even
the basic foodstuff. With the state bullying traders to operate
under the
most fiscal repressive environment, it is close to impossible for
any
business to trade in Zimbabwe. A four-digit inflation rate, which is
said to
be the highest in the world, has only compounded matters.
Zimbabweans do not
talk of employment anymore. Employment has become the
biggest sham.
'Economic factors in Zimbabwe have turned gainful employment
into an
impossibility for the majority of Zimbabweans. Even for those that
have
still kept their jobs. The pay is worthless as ordinary people cannot
pay
their bills or buy essentials from the wages that cannot compete with
the
ever-ballooning inflation. The biggest preoccupation amongst Zimbabweans
is
to quickly get away from the anarchy that is Zimbabwe. On a daily basis,
able-bodied Zimbabweans jump borders at ungazetted points into neighbouring
countries to eke out a living in foreign lands.
Outside their
motherland, millions of Zimbabweans lead a life of begging and
scavenging
and many more are reduced to low lives of theft and prostitution.
Many more
rot in prisons while some are buried in unmarked graves all over
the world.
Under these sorry circumstances, Zimbabweans had put all their
hopes on SADC
leaders to at least ensure that the Zimbabwean problem is
resolutely
confronted. Once again, the African leaders have proved what we
have always
known, that SADC like many other breast-beating bodies, is just
a talk shop.
Leaders have no interest in the deteriorating conditions in
Zimbabwe. All
they are interested in is to validate the warped policies of
their own
brethren. Once again, SADC leaders have failed the people of
Zimbabwe. As
they continue to sanitise and theorise the Zimbabwean
situation, many more
innocent lives are lost. Democracy and social cohesion
is taking a heavy
beating. When Zimbabweans suffer this indignity, Robert
Mugabe continues to
hog all the limelight as the fearless African leader who
can tell the West
to take a hike. At the minimum, we ask the SADC
secretariat to release the
Executive Secretary's report on the situation in
Zimbabwe. People need to
know what plans are in place to restore the
situation to normalcy in
Zimbabwe.
IOL
August 29
2007 at 03:06PM
Harare, Zimbabwe - President Robert Mugabe,
accusing the West of
trying to push Zimbabwe into collapse, declared it
would survive thanks to
its people's resilience and support from Africa,
state radio reported on
Wednesday.
Mugabe said Britain, the
former colonial ruler, and his opponents
sought his ouster.
"In spite of their heinous attempts to destroy the country and bring
down
its democratically elected government, Zimbabwe has not collapsed and
will
not collapse," the radio quoted him as saying at a state banquet late
on
Tuesday for visiting President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of the oil-rich West
African nation of Equatorial Guinea.
Mugabe
thanked Equatorial Guinea and other African nations for their
"solidarity".
He told Obiang Zimbabwe would always be grateful for his
support against
enemies who "sought to demonise the country's leadership at
every
opportunity and deceive the world about what is happening in my
country".
Mugabe said his nation had not come to a standstill
because of what he
called "the resilience and revolutionary spirit of the
Zimbabwean people".
Western countries have imposed a travel ban on
Mugabe and ruling party
leaders to protest violations of democratic and
human rights following the
government ordered, often violent seizures of
thousands of white-owned
commercial farms that began in 2000 and disrupted
the agriculture-based
economy. Some US enterprises are barred from trading
with Zimbabwe.
Foreign loans, development aid and investment have
dried up in seven
years of political and economic turmoil in the former
regional breadbasket.
Zimbabwe is facing the world's highest
official inflation of 7 634
percent, though independent estimates put real
inflation closer to 25 000
percent. The International Monetary Fund has
forecast inflation reaching 100
000 percent by the end of the year,
prompting some predictions of economic
collapse and Mugabe's departure from
office.
Cornmeal, bread, meat and most staples have disappeared
from the
shelves since a government edict June 26 to slash prices of all
goods and
services by about half in efforts to tame inflation.
Acute shortages of gasoline have crippled transport and delivery
services.
The food shortages have spurred illegal black market trading in
scarce goods
sold at more than four times the government's fixed prices.
Stores
were mostly left with a few canned foodstuffs on Wednesday.
Bath soap,
toothpaste, biscuits and tea were among the latest goods to
disappear.
Equatorial Guinea President Obiang arrived in Harare
on Tuesday. He is
scheduled to officially open the country's main
agriculture show in the
capital on Friday.
Officials at the
showground said the government allowed pricing
controls to be lifted for a
single livestock auction that was part of the
show. State media has given
prominence to this year's show, arguing farming
is reviving.
Amid Zimbabwe's growing international isolation, the government and
distant
Equatorial Guinea have signed an extradition treaty and a series of
trade
and cooperation deals since a group of mercenaries plotting to
overthrow
Obiang were arrested in 2004 when their plane landed in Harare to
collect
weapons from the Zimbabwe state arms maker. - Sapa-AP
The Zimbabwean
BULAWAYO
The
government has been accused of violating the International Humanitarian
Law
(IHL) by taking control of food distribution programmes in rural areas
by
NGO's amid the worsening food situation in the country.
According to the
Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET), over 1, 4
million rural
households in Zimbabwe already need food aid and the situation
is expected
to get worse following an erratic rainfall season.
The National
Association of Non-Governmental Associations (NANGO) says the
situation has
been further worsened by the looming polls next year as Zanu
(PF) has
already taken control of NGO food procurement, storage and
distribution
process along political lines thereby infringing the IHL.
"It is clear
that we are facing a food crisis where over 3 million are in
urgent need of
food assistance while a significant number of people are in
dire straits,"
said Fambayi Ngirande, the NANGO spokesperson in an
interview.
"But
Zanu (PF) officials are forcibly taking NGO humanitarian food for
political
expedience and distributing it on political lines and violating
the
International Humanitarian Law (IHL) as humanitarian work (aid) should
be
done without any interference."
Nicholas Goche, the Minister of Public
Service, Labour and Social Welfare
and his deputy Abednico Ncube, could not
be reached for comment.
But Ngirande added: "What has happened as a
result is that NGO's have
downscaled food aid distribution in politically
hot areas as they cannot
effectively carry out their work due to a high
level of uncertainty." - CAJ
News
From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 29 August
Harare - Zimbabwe's state media on Wednesday
called on the government to
sever ties with Australia, accusing Prime
Minister John Howard's government
of seeking to topple veteran President
Robert Mugabe. "There is no need to
continue keeping up appearances when
diplomatic ties between the two
countries have irrevocably broken down," the
state-run Herald said in its
editorial. "The only remaining option for
Zimbabwe is to shut down our
mission in Sydney and order the Australian
embassy in Harare to pack up and
go." The editorial comes amid a visit to
Australia by Morgan Tsvangirai,
leader of Zimbabwe's main opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
who held talks earlier this week with
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Were the government to follow the
Herald's advice, it would be the first
time that Zimbabwe has broken off
diplomatic relations since independence in
1980.
The government
mouthpiece said Australia had "done everything it can to
effect illegal
regime change in Zimbabwe", accusing it of openly siding with
the MDC, which
it called "imperial Britain's puppet opposition". "The
Australian government
has not made it a secret that it is working to subvert
the same government
it purports to have relations with, while we have
continued to pretend that
bilateral relations still exist between the two
countries," the paper added.
"We have nothing to lose by closing our mission
in Sydney and kicking out
the reactionaries they post here at three-year
intervals. The question is,
what do we stand to benefit by maintaining
diplomatic relations with such a
racist country that imposes barbaric
sanctions on innocent children and
sports people."
After his meeting with Tsvangirai in the southern
Australian city of
Adelaide on Tuesday, Downer made clear that Canberra
wanted a change of
regime in Harare. "We would like to see the back of
President Mugabe, there
is no question of that," Downer said. "I think it
would be in the best
interests of the people of Zimbabwe if he made an exit.
Most objective
observers would say that President Mugabe has pretty much
come to his use-by
date." Relations between the two countries have become
increasingly strained
and hit a new low in May when Zimbabwe, furious at the
cancellation of a
cricket tour, accused Canberra of funding "terrorist
activities". Earlier
this month, Australia said it was cancelling the
student visas of eight
Zimbabweans whose parents have links with Mugabe's
government. Downer said
the move was an extension of existing sanctions
against the African nation,
and had been provoked by what Canberra says was
Mugabe's disregard of
democracy and human rights.
The Star
August 29, 2007
Edition 1
We read that, at the Southern African Development Community
conference of
African leaders in Zambia, President Robert Mugabe got the
loudest applause
from his fellow leaders.
I ask myself why and what
this means.
I cannot think of a president who, in recent times, has done
more harm to
his country and his people than Mugabe.
Most of his
support comes from those who surround him and benefit
financially from the
association, at the expense of Zimbabwe's majority.
Anyone in opposition
to his regime is brutalised and even starved.
Many are forced to vote for
him out of fear of being beaten or having their
food supply cut
off.
There are, of course, those who - from a cultural point of view -
will
always support the "strong man" who metes out brutality.
He
does not care that millions of his subjects have had to leave Zimbabwe to
find food and work elsewhere. He and his close allies have enriched
themselves on a massive scale.
We repeatedly hear about how all
Zimbabwe's problems have been cause by
overseas sanctions, mainly those of
Britain. But why did Rhodesia, with Ian
Smith in charge, have such a booming
economy with jobs for all under even
tougher world sanctions?
So why
the biggest applause for Mugabe from other African leaders?
Do they
approve of what Mugabe is doing and would they consider doing the
same to
their country's economy and people to enrich themselves and stay in
power?
NJ Passet
Halfway House, Midrand
The First Post
August 29, 2007
By Moses
Moyo
Maternity care in Zimbabwe - please provide cotton wool, water
and candles
Thabo Ncube and his childhood sweetheart Stella married two
years ago. I met
them when they moved next door. They wanted a large family,
so were
delighted when Stella, 19, learned she was pregnant. Last Saturday
night,
right on schedule, she began feeling labour pains.
They both
knew - or thought they knew - what they had to do. Stella put a
few things
together, while Thabo telephoned for an ambulance. And, perhaps
surprisingly
in today's Zimbabwe, the ambulance arrived promptly.
As they rode to the
hospital through the dark streets, Thabo and Stella
believed they were at
the beginning of an experience that might be testing,
but would be
well-organised, efficient, caring, perhaps even joyous.
Their
optimism was shattered at the entrance to the labour ward. A large
notice
was pinned to the door. 'Bring a packet of candles and three gallons
of
water and cotton wool' it instructed them.
A matron explained to Thabo that
the hospital had no water, no electricity
and no fuel to power its
generator. Water and cotton wool they could manage
without. But the
management could not take the responsibility of Stella
having her baby in
the dark. Without candles they would have to go
elsewhere.
Thabo had
enough cash to buy candles. There was a shop near the hospital,
and he ran
to it. But it was out of candles. Like so many shops now, it was
out of
almost everything.
A nurse told me later: "Scores of women are giving
birth in the dark and the
result is many more newborn deaths. Now we have
instructions not to admit
anyone to the maternity wards at night without
candles, but it is painful to
see them turned away."
Stella and Thabo
were about to be turned away. And the baby was coming.
Thabo was
frantic.
Then a nurse came running with her cellphone which included a
small torch.
And by the light of that torch their son was safely delivered.
Both mother
and baby are doing well.
Thabo and Stella have named
their son 'Blessing'.
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 30, 2007
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk?storyID=8377
SW
Radio Africa (London)
29 August 2007
Posted to the web 29 August
2007
Lance Guma
In a tacit admission that the Zimbabwean
crisis has gone out of hand, South
Africa's Home Affairs Minister broke new
policy ground by saying they were
considering issuing temporary residence
permits for those who had fled the
country.
On Tuesday Nosiviwe
Mapisa-Nqakula is reported to have said the government
needed to adopt a new
approach to deal with Zimbabwean citizens flocking
into South Africa and
that allowing them to work until the political
problems had been resolved
was a possibility.
She said a lot of people were coming to the
country to get jobs and money so
as to be able to go back home every month
to look after their families. She
told reporters it was a waste of money to
keep deporting people since the
majority of them return back within a few
days. Mapisa-Nqakula was also keen
to stress that no refugee camps would be
built to absorb the influx of
economic and political refugees. Just last
week the Director General of the
Home Affairs department also spoke out,
saying no decision had been made to
establish refugee camps. 'I don't know
that it would be taken in the future.
If I had any say in that, I would
argue strongly against the establishment
of refugee camps on the border,' he
said.
The Zimbabwe Exiles Forum has meanwhile welcomed the development
and
expressed hope the suggestions will not end at mere rhetoric, without
any
form of implementation. Executive Director Gabriel Shumba says the
introduction of such a measure would probably only benefit Zimbabweans in
South Africa, who have travel documents. He urged those going through the
asylum system to remain inside the process until it was clear what criteria
or requirements the home affairs department will put in place, if they
introduce the temporary residence permits. Shumba says it is clear the South
African government is overwhelmed by the enormity of the crisis in Zimbabwe
and that their softly-soft approach to Mugabe has not worked
New Zimbabwe
By Renson Gasela
Last updated: 08/29/2007 21:45:33
REPORTS
that Dorowa Mine, Iron Duke Mine and Zimphos were closed last month
due to
power cuts and none-availability of various raw materials spells
disaster
for the production of food this coming season.
Zimbabweans have learned
to rationalise around problems and instead of
calling a spade a spade, we
call it 'agricultural implement'.
What has happened at these companies is
nothing other than total failure by
the government. It should not be called
challenges. If it was a challenge,
Chemplex Corporation would get around the
power cuts. It is not a challenge
to them; it is failure not by Zesa, but by
government.
Zesa does not operate in isolation outside what is happening
in the country.
Can we expect Zesa to perform when no other entity is able
to? Problems in
this country do not lie with individual entities, but with
the way the
country has been governed.
Last week, I did an article
where I showed that when this same government
was caring, it was able to
pump water from Darwendale Dam into Serui River.
This water then gravitated
into Mufure river and saved Chegutu. The
government drilled many boreholes
in the Nyamandlovu Aquifer and saved
Bulawayo. The government laid pipes
from Pungwe River to Smallbridge Dam and
saved Mutare. I I can give more
examples; all this was in 1992.
Now, there is hardly a city with
sufficient water. The Sunday Mail reported
that nearly every township in
Harare has no water. Gweru is the same.
Bulawayo is disaster with Minister
Mutezo boasting that nothing will be done
by government until the City
Council hands water distribution over to Zinwa.
I must come back to
Dorowa and others. If this problem, not challenge, had
been highlighted at
the beginning of the year, there would have been time to
try and do
something. The country will remember that when the power cuts
started to get
bad and that was beginning of May, we were all told that
'don't worry you
will have wheat' as the power was going to wheat producers.
Ask wheat
producers how much power they have been getting. I happen to be
one of them.
I am sure that the management of these companies have loads of
correspondence to government about the impending disaster. Closing the
companies was a last resort for them. What should have been done is to use
the little foreign currency properly and importing maximum power from Snel,
Eskom and Mozambique. Instead fleets and fleets of the latest vehicles have
been imported to please a few powerful people in Zanu PF.
God
Almighty, in his Divine Impartiality, will pour sufficient rain this
season,
which by the way, starts in eight weeks. Those farmers who got
tractors are
raring to go, so we are told.
Only 160 000 tons against
600 000 tons of fertilizer, have been produced.
There is no more production.
Even if something was done now there will still
be a shortfall of more than
50%. It is common knowledge that compounds are
required at planting.
Planting should really be over by the end of each
year.
In all crops,
the best planting time is extremely limited. You miss that,
you
are
finished, at least for that year. Every day counts and lost opportunity
can
only be remedied the following year. For example, the bulk of our
tobacco is
irrigated. Seedlings are put in very early in the year. The
planting is at
the beginning of
September. If the planting is delayed,
that will have an adverse effect on
both the size and quality of that
tobacco crop.
It was reported by farmers in the state media this week
that there is no
compound C fertilizer which they need for planting tobacco.
Dorowa mine is
not producing phosphate. Compond C comes from phosphate.
Tobacco planting
starts next week. Please don't blame shortage of tobacco
and foreign
currency in April next year. The consequences of omissions and
commissions
done now will visit the nation next year.
One can see
these closure spilling to Sable Chemical as their production AN
has as one
of its ingredients, phosphate. The problem will also spill to
Windmill and
Zimbabwe Fertilizer Corporation.
The long and short of what I am trying
to say is that there will not be
enough food produced next year since we
cannot turn back the clock. It
appears to me that one of the greatest
lacking things or ability in this
government is the ability to sit down and
plan ahead. No I am wrong; the
government is able plan how to do the wrong
thing all the time.
Renson Gasela is Secretary for Lands and Agriculture
in the MDC faction led
by Arthur Mutambara
Blogger News Network
by Peter Davies
August 28th, 2007 by Peter Davies
"Life is cheap"
in Zimbabwe, "and the lives of animals are cheapest of all."
So says a
report in London's Daily Mail on Saturday August 25, 2007.
Yes, now people
are breaking into Zimbabwe's Game Reserves and killing the
last remaining,
previously protected wild animals for food. But it's not
just people in
need of food who are destroying the last of Zimbabwe's once
rich stock of
Elephants, Rhinos, Buffalos, Lions, Leopards and a host of
other smaller
wild animals. Mugabe's government officially ordered the
killing of 100
wild Elephants for an "Independence Day Feast" in April this
year. And many
licences are being sold to rich "hunters" so they can kill
wild animals for
trophies from an already dangerously depleted stock of
wildlife.
Conservationists are in despair, but Mugabe's Government insists
they have a
surplus - when everyone can see looming extinction of many
species in
Zimbabwe.
Having already ravaged privately owned Wildlife Farms (Daily Mail,
July
2007) after the Zimbabwe regime confiscated them from their white
owners and
gave these former havens of safety to his cronies, Mugabe's
Marxist
'comrades' are now making money out of the killing in public Game
Reserves.
And because they're unpaid and without rations, Zimbabwe's Game
Rangers (now
turned poachers) and the national armed forces are joining in
the massacre
too. In parts of the country no wildlife is left and it seems
inevitable
that Zimbabwe will soon be stripped of this once wonderful
asset.
Meanwhile, South Africa's "quiet diplomacy" that the United Nations
and
western governments are relying on to bring some semblance of order and
sense into Zimbabwe has failed. At last week's Southern African Development
Community (SADC) summit, led by South Africa's President Mbeki, Mugabe was
cheered and treated as a Hero by the other African leaders. No wonder Roman
Catholic Archbishop Ncube of Bulawayo (Zimbabwe's second city) is calling
for Britain to invade Zimbabwe to restore democracy.
Do the World Council
of Churches and other liberals who supported Mugabe and
his terrorists
during the Rhodesian Civil War now feel their liberal ideals
have been
vindicated? We all know the communist states have got what they
wanted, but
what about the media and the Western Governments, who also
supported Mugabe?
The damage their idealistic views - forced onto people who
knew better - is
increasingly evident. Not only are African people
suffering - now its
Africa's beleaguered wildlife heading into extinction in
Zimbabwe thanks to
liberal "do gooders".
END
Peter Davies was a territorial soldier in
Rhodesia from 1963 to 1975, where
he took part in the capture and
interrogation of terrorists. Davies' novel,
Scatterlings of Africa, is based
on his own experience in the war, and
personal observations of how terrorist
activities impacted Rhodesia (now
Zimbabwe) and its people.
Learn more at
http://www.peterdaviesbooks.com