• 'Burning plastic'
• Democracy Bill passed
• Reserve Bank officials in alleged $1,4bn scam
• War veterans besiege veterinary services office, fire clerk in Chipinge
• Divisions rock Zanu PF in Mashonaland Central
• Morale high in Zanu PF camp
• Bindura by-election farce a defeat for democracy
• A nation looks for elusive scapegoats - Comment
• It’s not being spineless but having principles - Comment
• War veterans to take charge of national youth training

The Senate committee on foreign relations had earlier approved the Bill on 12 July. The Bill will now be tabled in the House of Representatives in September. The House is also expected to pass the Bill before President George W Bush signs it into law.
If passed into law, it will restrict President Mugabe, his immediate family, Cabinet ministers, government officials and Zanu PF officials implicated in political violence, from travelling to the US.
While the travel ban on Mugabe, Zanu PF and government officials is least worrying, Zimbabweans, already reeling under harsh economic conditions,would be concerned about the withholding of aid by the US.
According to the Bill, the American government and all institutions with American links will also be barred from dealing with the government.
It will also stop aid flows and bilateral trade worth millions of dollars.
The move comes after several countries and international finance organisations froze aid to Zimbabwe.

The jewellery was manufactured by Aurex (Pvt) Limited, a subsidiary company of the RBZ, sources in Harare said this week.
The Aurex jewellery consignment was sold to an undisclosed foreign country most likely the United States of America but proceeds from the sale never found their way into either Aurex or RBZ coffers, the sources confided.
The matter is understood to have been investigated by the anti-corruption unit of the National Economic Consultative Forum (NECF), a quasi-government, multi-sector body set up about three years ago to help spearhead the country’s economic revival.
The NECF, according to our sources, recommended that the three senior RBZ officials step down for their respective roles in the transaction. It was not immediately clear what roles they played.
The three officials, who were all said to be out attending workshops and could not be reached for the past five days, are reportedly resisting measures to remove them.
Other officials at the RBZ, Aurex and NECF were not forthcoming when contacted for comment, amid suggestions within financial and political circles that the matter was being kept firmly under the carpet to protect the image of the central bank.
Aurex, which has undergone a restructuring exercise and announced a new board of directors on Thursday, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reszim Investments (Pvt) Limited, which in turn is wholly-controlled by the RBZ.
The company, based at Ruwa outside the capital, manufactures jewellery for export to the US, which earns it an average of $55 million (US$1 million) a month in foreign currency earnings.
Both John Dhliwayo, the managing director of Aurex, and Ignatious Mabasa, the RBZ spokesman, said they were unaware of the matter.
Nonetheless, the pair suggested this newspaper submit questions in writing.
At NECF, the chairman of the anti-corruption unit, businessman and politician Phillip Chiyangwa, denied the quasi-governmental body had investigated such an issue.
“I’m hearing this for the first time from you,” said Chiyangwa, referring further questions to Nhlanhla Masuku, the NECF’s chief spokesman. Masuku did not return messages left at his office.
“There have been all sorts of rumours going around about that, but there is no substance to it,” Lovemore Chihota, the chairman of Aurex, said on Thursday. He then suggested the newspaper visit him for a face-to-face interview over the allegations.
In advertisements flighted in issues of yesterday’s newspapers, Aurex said it had appointed new directors as part of a restructuring programme that would culminate in the marketing of machine-made and hand-made jewel products to Europe, the Middle East and the Americas.
“Currently, Aurex is producing and selling jewellery to the American market only,” the company said in the advertisement. “The exports are earning the country an average of US$1 million a month in foreign currency.” At the official exchange rate, that is $55 million a month, or $660 million a year.

They besieged the veterinary services office and demanded the office keys from the clerk, identified only as Randinyo.
The source said the veterans took the office keys and handed them to the Chipinge district head of veterinary services, Dr Wilmot Chikunhe.
They declared they had “sacked” the clerk for being an MDC supporter. They threatened to take unspecified action against the clerk if he returned to work, a police source said.
Chikunhe could not be reached for comment at his Chipinge office. An officer in Chipinge said Chikunhe had gone to Mutema on business.
Dr Elton Muusha, the provincial veterinary services officer in Mutare left for Chipinge on Wednesday to “iron out the differences in Chipinge” between the war veterans and his officer, according to an officer, at the Mutare office, who refused to be named.
“We understand Muusha has gone to Chipinge today but the purpose of his visit is not very clear. However it must have something to do with the matter you are raising,” said the officer.
Meanwhile, Mlambo last Sunday led a group of 14 illegal settlers to Ben Viljoen’s Nest Farm in Chipinge.
They demonstrated at Viljoen’s homestead against the alleged poisoning of Mlambo’s five dogs and three head of cattle.
Police sources said the demonstrators gathered at Viljoen’s gate and accused the farmer and his employee, Nelson Chireya Mtetwa, of poisoning the animals.
The source said Mlambo ordered Viljoen to bar Mtetwa from further patrols of the plots at the farm where the war veterans have illegally resettled.

Manyika was elected MP for Bindura last the weekend.
Senior Zanu politburo members have recommended Edward Chindori-Chininga, the MP for Guruve, Chen Chimutengwende, the Mazowe East MP, and flamboyant businessman James Makamba.
But party youths in the province are pushing for a younger person to be appointed.
The youths have told Manyika and other senior Zanu PF politburo members that they have worked so hard for the party to ensure the province retained all its seats in Parliament, and should be rewarded for their efforts.
Itai Dickson Mafios, a former temporary teacher and current vice-chairman of Pfura Rural District Council, is being recommended by the youths to take over the provincial governor’s office.
Mafios, 34, is the Zanu PF provincial youth chairman and is also in charge of security.
Sources in Zanu PF said a meeting was called by Joyce Mujuru, the acting Minister of Defence, at Makamba’s house on Wednesday to discuss the issue.
The youths told Manyika at a meeting in Chiwaridzo that Mafios should be rewarded for working so hard with the people to shut out the MDC from Mashonaland Central. They said he was at home with the people and enjoyed their support.
Manyika is said to have drawn the attention of the politburo to the youths’ concerns.
It is unlikely Mafios will be appointed ahead of the old guard in Zanu PF.
Chindori-Chininga, the Deputy Minister of Environment and Tourism, has turned down the offer, preferring to keep his constituency. Sources say there is intense lobbying to ensure he is appointed governor.
He acknowledged he was aware of the lobbying but refused to answer questions.
Another turbulent by-election would be on the cards if either Chimutengwende, a former Minister of Information, or Chindori-Chininga is appointed to succeed Manyika.
Sources say the name of Leslie Gwindi, a public relations executive with the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority and a former Dynamos Football Club official, has also been mentioned. They said although he was closely connected to some senior politicians in the province, he was unlikely to land the big job as he was virtually an unknown quantity among senior Zanu PF officials at the national level.

With stupid grins on their faces they bask in the so-called victory and crow about how Zanu PF is going to win the other forthcoming elections as well as the presidential election in 2002.
Professor Jonathan Moyo, the government’s spin-doctor, said: “The results show that the people are supportive of government programmes and its determination to turn around the economy by putting people first.”
May someone out there tell the errant professor that winning an election is not a matter of getting the most votes. When democracy and freedom have lost one is mistaken to think they have won for their victory is but a hollow sham. The nation has lost.
In a democratic society, unlike ours, one can only be deemed to have won if the elections were reasonably free and fair.
No one in his right mind can call the Bindura by-election free and fair. It was not so by any stretch of imagination because the opposition did not have any access to the public media as required by democratic principles.
They were selfishly monopolised by Zanu PF for electioneering and propaganda purposes. It is also no secret that there was open intimidation through threats, violence and unwarranted police detention of opposition members.
Someone from the Bindura constituency told me that they were warned by war veterans and Zanu PF supporters that if they voted for the MDC candidate, President Mugabe’s helicopters would come and bomb their villages. In such circumstances, who would expect unsophisticated and uneducated voters to go ahead and vote for the MDC?
The land redistribution exercise also proved its worth as a campaign tool.
According to Tendai Biti of the MDC, no less than 5 000 peasants were bought with land in the constituency and were immediately registered there as voters.
Heaven knows what dirty trick Zanu PF did not use to make sure they retained the Bindura seat. Their candidate, Manyika, won in an election which was in reality a travesty of democracy.
Anyway, all is fair in love and war and to the Zanu PF warped mentality violent coercion is legitimate in their concept of democracy. What civilised people the world over consider to be democracy is anathema to Zanu PF.
According to their primitive reasoning, they fought the war and, therefore, are entitled to rule until they die. Anyone who dares to question that is a traitor and an enemy to be prosecuted and persecuted.
They are not capable of understanding why the Church, civic society, the courts and the rest of the world say they are wrong. They have become so power-drunk that they have lost all sense of reality. They now live in a world of their own - a world of delusion not different from that of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Wilhelm Goering, Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichmann. In fact, all these have their budding counterparts in Zimbabwe.
It is indeed frightening to see how Zimbabwe is following in the footsteps of Nazi Germany.
Like Hitler, Mugabe gained power legally through elections. Both men were charismatic leaders who promised their people justice, peace and prosperity.
When he was entrenched in power, Hitler soon overthrew the constitution and created a dictatorship. His Nazi party seized control of the courts, industries, newspapers and schools. Zanu PF’s moves in this direction have been well orchestrated.
Those who opposed Hitler’s dictatorship were murdered, imprisoned or forced out of Germany.
Some were beaten up by Hitler’s private army of hoodlums called storm troopers. These acted just like the war veterans, whose patron is Mugabe, are doing in Zimbabwe today.
Hitler hated Jews. They became very convenient scapegoats for all Germany’s ills just like Zimbabwean whites are being blamed for the country’s self-inflicted woes, be they political or economic. The number of Jews murdered by the Nazis is proportionate to the number of whites killed in Zimbabwe during the land redistribution exercise. Where did this end for Nazi Germany? The Nazis declared war on the rest of the world just as Zimbabwe is almost doing. This brought about World War II. Who knows where the so-called Third Chimurenga is going to lead us to? When Germany was brought to its knees by the international Allied Forces Hitler committed suicide. Many Nazi leaders accused of war crimes were tried, found guilty, imprisoned or hanged. Most of the trials took place in Nuremberg. I wonder where the trials of Zimbabweans who are committing crimes against humanity will be held?
Hitler was elected in a free and fair election but went ahead and forged the most vile dictatorship on earth. You see, democracy is much more than having people put an “X” against the name of some political candidate.
It is a philosophy - an internalised way of life. Elections are but a tool of democracy for it is an acknowledged fact that freedom flourishes best when people choose their leaders. But the mere fact that people have chosen their representatives does not guarantee democracy and freedom.
Writing in an American magazine called The Freeman (October 1999), Donald Smith said: “Freedom is something that exists alone, and of itself. A big turnout on election day (as in Bindura) is meaningless if those elected are not primarily concerned with the rights of the individual. If indeed the people who are elected are intent on passing laws that impinge on personal freedom, then representative government is working against the people.”
What is the answer? We must be thankful to God that Zimbabwe has a civil society which is fighting for democracy against very heavy odds. However, things have so much gone out of hand that as in Nazi Germany’s case, it will take the might and influence of the international community to bring sanity and order to the country.
I am against the idea of blanket sanctions for they will harm most of those already suffering. I whole-heartedly support the notion of freezing the ill-gotten overseas assets of the perpetrators of violence and mayhem and the kicking-out of America and Europe of their children and close relatives.
Curtailing their overseas travel will also save the country much needed foreign currency.
If the international community fails to bring about change in Zimbabwe, then only God can save us.

War veterans to take charge of national youth training