Amnesty International
Date: 14 Dec 2007
Amnesty
International researchers just returning from Zimbabwe said that the
government continues to beat and torture human rights defenders and
political opponents, despite the ongoing mediation process being facilitated
by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).
The organization
has identified specific police units responsible for most
of the human
rights violations.
"Organised police violence and torture has continued
during the SADC
mediation -- in fact, the severity of beatings and torture
has been
increasing," said Simeon Mawanza, Amnesty International’s
researcher on
Zimbabwe.
"We have collected evidence from a wide range
of sources, including victims,
doctors and lawyers, showing how some units
-- particularly the Law and
Order Section -- within the Zimbabwean police
enjoy total impunity for human
rights violations perpetrated against
government critics."
Amnesty International found that the Zimbabwean
police continue to use
excessive force and torture to suppress freedom of
association and assembly
by human rights defenders and by members of the
Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC).
"Police stop small
demonstrations by just scores of human rights defenders,"
said Mawanza.
"Once in police custody, human rights defenders and MDC
members are severely
assaulted and denied access to lawyers, food and
medical care."
On 22
November, at least 22 NCA members were rounded up by unidentified
people and
bundled into two minibuses in Harare’s central business district
area. They
were reportedly taken to the ruling ZANU-PF’s Harare province
offices where
they were beaten on the soles of their feet with sticks and
iron bars. They
were later ordered to mop the floor of the room and a toilet
with bare
hands. The perpetrators allegedly called the police and the
victims were
taken to Harare Central police station, where police charged
them with
"obstruction" and they were made to pay fines. None of the
perpetrators was
arrested. Ten of the victims were later hospitalised.
On 25 July, at
least 200 activists from the non-governmental organisation
the National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA) were arrested by police in Harare
after
participating in a peaceful march. The activists were taken to Harare
Central police station, where many were severely assaulted by police and
unidentified people in plain clothes for about six hours. They were then
released without charge. At least 32 of the activists were later
hospitalised -- 14 had fractured limbs. Among the injured was a 19-month-old
baby, who had been assaulted by police with a baton stick.
"The
current SADC mediation process must prioritize human rights concerns,"
said
Mawanza. "SADC leaders should demand that the government takes
immediate
steps to ensure respect for human rights by the Zimbabwean police,
including
in particular the Law and Order Section. There must be no impunity
for those
responsible for human rights violations."
Background
information
Human rights violations in Zimbabwe are taking place against
a background of
a fast shrinking economy. At the end of October, inflation
was officially at
14,000%. Most basic goods -- including maize, the staple
diet -- are in
short supply. The prices of basic goods are beyond the reach
of ordinary
households. Most families cannot afford food, education and
health care. The
World Food Programme estimates that 4 million Zimbabweans
are in need of
food aid.
The current mediation process being
facilitated by the Southern Africa
Development Community (SADC) is the only
international process trying to
break the political impasse in
Zimbabwe.
Yahoo News
Fri Dec 14, 9:59 AM ET
HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe reserve bank
governor Gideon Gono on Friday said
President Robert Mugabe's cronies were
fuelling the country's runaway
inflation through illicit
dealings.
Addressing thousands attending a congress of the ruling party,
Gono said
some top government and ruling party officials were among "cash
barons"
blamed for the current cash shortages that had seen customers
waiting long
hours for scarce money.
"We think we are helping some people
with money for small to medium size
enterprises, they use the money to buy
foreign currency on the parallel
market and drive inflation," Gono
said.
"It's not ordinary members of the party who are doing this. It's
the top
officials because as we can all see ordinary people have no
money."
"Another problem is corruption, corruption, corruption," he
added.
"This country is losing a lot of money because of top
officials."
He said the central bank released 67 trillion dollars of
which 65 million
could not be accounted for.
The central bank chief
said the country's economy ravaged by high inflation
currently at nearly
8,000 percent would recover by end of next year.
He said: "Once we
implement what's in our secret bag, this economy will not
be the same by
this time next year."
Zimbabwe has been experiencing cash shortages since
mid-November with banks
dispensing half the daily cash limits to
customers.
Between May and September 2003, the country experienced
similar critical
cash shortages that saw customers sleeping outside banks to
withdraw their
savings.
The southern African country is in the midst
of an economic crisis,
characterised by the world's highest rate of
inflation, shortages of basic
foodstuffs like sugar and cooking oil, and
mass unemployment.
From The Times (UK), 14 December
Jan Raath in
Harare
Robert Mugabe was effectively crowned President for life
yesterday after
Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu PF party "affirmed" that he was its
sole candidate in
elections due next year. A carefully orchestrated special
congress passed
without a vote or a single word of debate, all but assuring
Mr Mugabe, 83,
another five-year term as President. Senior party officials
lavished praise
on the leader as thousands of supporters wearing shirts
bearing his image
brandished banners denouncing Gordon Brown, whom Mr Mugabe
regularly accuses
of trying to foment opposition. Possible challengers from
the two main
factions within the ruling party were sidelined by the
stage-managed
congress. Mr Mugabe, who has been Zimbabwe’s supreme leader
since
independence in 1980, has spent much of the past year manoeuvring to
block
the ambitions of Joyce Mujuru, one of two vice-presidents, and her
husband
Solomon, a former general who is regarded as a major party power
broker.
The "extraordinary" congress was called to rubber-stamp Mr
Mugabe’s
candidacy. After he made a wandering two-hour speech to the 10,000
delegates, mostly the rural poor, at an indoor stadium in Harare, the
congress moved on to the item of his "affirmation" as presidential
candidate. Each chairman of the party’s ten provincial councils rose in turn
to read out reports of their meetings in the past few months, each stating
that they had endorsed Mr Mugabe. "That was it," said a ruling party
official who asked not to be named. "He wasn’t going to risk taking a vote.
Of course no one objected. It would be suicide to challenge him openly."
Analysts say that the earlier provincial meetings were also orchestrated. In
2005, when Mr Mugabe nominated Mrs Mujuru as vice-president, six of the ten
provinces voted against her. In a rage, he sacked the chairmen in the six
provinces, replaced them and ordered the vote to be retaken. The required
result was then returned.
His most blatant manipulation was when
his late wife, Sally, stood for the
chair of the party’s women’s league in
1990. Although the results showed her
well behind in second place, he
declared her the winner. Observers say that
yesterday’s affair shows Mr
Mugabe’s extreme anxiety over his authority as
the country hurtles deeper
into economic chaos. Queues for cash outside
banks were longer than ever
yesterday, each person hoping for a maximum of
Z$5 million – scarcely enough
for a return trip between township and
industrial area. In the city centre,
people chopped at hedges for firewood
as power cuts lengthened. Mr Mugabe,
in a shirt featuring large pictures of
himself, mentioned none of this in
his speech. "I am 75kg, but I am carrying
the weight of 14 million people,
babies, ladies fat and thin," he said. "I
dare not abandon them. Every one
of them matters to me. Their welfare is my
welfare."
SABC
December 14, 2007,
22:30
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe said today he was confident he
would be
re-elected by a huge margin next year despite an economic meltdown
blamed on
his government.
But Mugabe said victory would depend on
"unity of purpose" and strong
organisation among his ruling ZANU-PF party
supporters -- some of whom
caused a chaotic scene at a congress to endorse
him as the party's candidate
for the March 2008 vote.
Addressing the
same congress, Zimbabwe's Central Bank Governor Gideon Gono,
who has been
critical of Mugabe's policies, said one of the biggest problems
facing the
country was corruption.
"One of the problems we have in this country is
corruption, corruption,
corruption. Your excellency, this country is losing
a lot of money from us
people in positions of authority," Gono
said.
Gono said graft was costing the country around $500 million each
year.
Mugabe, Zimbabwe's veteran 83-year-old leader whom the opposition
accuse of
rigging past elections, said he wanted a victory which would send
a message
to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US President George W.
Bush, both
critical of Mugabe's leadership.
"We want a resounding
victory which Brown and Bush will take note of,"
Mugabe said at the close of
the congress, which on Thursday formally
endorsed him as its candidate in
the presidential and parliamentary
elections.
"As we leave here, we
have a double function, to score an electoral vote and
then of course to
score agriculturally," he said, urging farmers who got
land from his
controversial seizure of white-owned farms to raise production
to end food
shortages.
Zimbabwe, once seen as the breadbasket of Africa, has been
forced to import
maize and wheat as its agricultural sector ground to a
halt.
Discipline
Mugabe called for discipline in the ZANU-PF ranks. He
was forced to
intervene after a war veteran leader involved in a political
spate with some
of his top officials tried to defy orders and march onto the
podium to give
a speech in support of the veteran
president.
Zimbabwe's sole ruler since independence from Britain in 1980,
Mugabe is
seeking to extend his rule for another five years but said
ZANU-PF's future
would depend on discipline.
"We want discipline, we
are for discipline and I shall not have indiscipline
in the party that I
lead," an angry Mugabe said.
Zimbabwe is gripped by a chronic economic
crisis, marked by the world's
highest inflation rate, surging unemployment
and shortages of foreign
currency, fuel and food.
Gono said the
central bank was working on measures to end the eight-year
economic
recession, saying: "Your economy will not be the same again by this
time
next year."
Previous forecasts of economic recovery have not been
met.
Gono also repeated accusations that "cash barons" trading in foreign
currency were holding on to 98% of all the cash in circulation. The cash
shortage has forced customers to jam banking halls in a bid to get money
ahead of Christmas. - Reuters
NEAR
FIGHT: Nkomo clashes with war veterans leader Jabulani Sibanda
By Torby Chimhashu
Last updated: 12/15/2007 09:14:21 Last updated: 12/15/2007 05:50:08
ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe was left seething when his ruling Zanu PF
party’s national chairman John Nkomo and Jabulani Sibanda, the leader of the war
veterans’ association, almost traded blows in front of thousands of delegates at
the party’s congress in Harare on Friday.
The dramatic developments came on the second day of an extra-ordinary congress called to endorse Mugabe to lead the party for a sixth term.
Sibanda -- an abrasive war veteran who was suspended from Zanu PF in 2004 -- has clashed with senior Zanu PF officials including Nkomo after leading war veterans in nationwide marches in support of Mugabe’s candidature in presidential elections due next March.
The marches culminated in the so called “million man march” which drew thousands of Zanu PF supporters on the streets of Harare.
Mugabe, keen to foil a growing lobby of Zanu PF officials pushing for him to step down, refused to intervene and curtail Sibanda’s activities. Nkomo, who also chairs the Zanu PF disciplinary committee, had maintained that Sibanda remained suspended in Zanu PF and should not be involved in party activities.
Sibanda’s deputy in the war veterans’ association Joseph Chinotimba sparked the furore when he asked the former Zanu PF chairman for Bulawwayo province to step onto the podium “and be saluted for organising the one million man march” held at the Zimbabwe Grounds in Highfield last month.
As Sibanda gracefully walked to the high table where Mugabe and the high profile party seniors including his deputies Joseph Msika and Joice Mujuru were sitting, his colleagues in the war movement embraced him before Nkomo swiftly blocked his way and ordered him off the podium.
Raucous jeers and heckling filled the packed National City Sports Centre as Chinotimba and others tried to force Sibanda to the table.
An angry Nkomo grabbed the microphone and pointed an
accusing finger at Sibanda before saying: “You! You are the problem. Stay away
from the table.”
This was all captured on state-run television which
broadcast the event live.
A seething Mugabe grabbed the microphone from Nkomo and bellowed instructions to have order, but for almost a minute, he appeared to have lost control.
“Chimurenga ichi. Hatidaro. Ngatiitei discipline. Ngatigarei pasi. Nyaya yaJabulani Sibanda tinoiziva tichaitaura pano. (This is a struggle. We don’t do that. Let’s show discipline and may everyone please be seated. We were going to discuss the issue of Jabulani Sibanda,” Mugabe said, gritting his teeth in an apparent show of suppressed anger.
The veteran leader eventually won the crowd and sent
Sibanda back to the crowds.
Story continues below
FURY: Mugabe seized microphone and called for order
During
the chaos, Sibanda’s rivals, notably Msika and retired army general Solomon
Mujuru remained calm without betraying any emotion.
Sibanda teamed up with Emmerson Mnangagwa, the leader of a Zanu PF faction which is battling for control of the party against another led by Vice President Joice Mujuru, in the pro-Mugabe marches.
He quarrelled with Zanu PF leaders from Matabeleland who questioned his role in the marches. Among those critical of Sibanda were Nkomo, Msika and Dumiso Dabengwa who all argued he had no authority to use the war veterans since he was suspended in 2004.
The energetic Sibanda was suspended in 2004 as punishment by Mugabe for allegedly participating in an “illegal” meeting in Tsholotsho which was said to have been called to install Mnangagwa as Mugabe’s deputy ahead of Mujuru.
But the incident at the congress Friday left many analysts convinced that the ghost of Tsholotsho and the disquiet in Zanu PF over Mugabe’s pursuit of a new term show the party in a crisis.
They argued that the jeering of Sibanda and direct confrontation with Nkomo in front of the ageing leader, were an assault on him since he had brought Sibanda back into the fold under a shroud of controversy.
While Mugabe might have railed against Sibanda, analysts said this was tactical as Mugabe owed his new term to the war veteran’s efforts.
SW Radio
Africa (London)
14 December 2007
Posted to the web 14 December
2007
Henry Makiwa
There are serious health fears across Harare
after reports of a cholera
outbreak earlier this week.
According to
independent health experts in the capital, the cholera outbreak
has been
created by the inability of the Harare City Council to provide
residents
with clean water. Cholera is an extreme diarrhoeal disease whose
transmission in humans is mainly by ingestion of contaminated water or food.
In its most severe form cholera is one of the most rapidly fatal
illnesses.
Many Harare residents have been forced to drink unsafe water
from streams
and wells on the outskirts of the city. Complaints also abound
that the
Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA), is supplying people with
untreated tap water. The state run ZINWA took over the administration of
sewer and water reticulation from the City of Harare last year.
The
Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) says the take over has
resulted
in erratic water supply and persistent sewer blockages in several
high-density suburbs. According to CHRA at least 2000 cholera cases have
been reported at clinics around the city in the past week. They say the
township of Mabvuku in the east of the city has been worst hit.
CHRA
spokesman Mfundo Mlilo said on Friday: "A CHRA team visited Mabvuku and
Tafara and interviewed medical personnel in private and public clinics. We
also have reports from Mbare, Budiriro and Glen View townships. It has
emerged that between 500 and 2000 cases have been reported. The problem of
disease outbreaks comes after residents in Mabvuku and Tafara have been hit
by serious water shortages resulting in most households fetching water from
streams."
Health Minister David Parirenyatwa told an online
publication earlier this
week that officials from his department would soon
investigate reports of
the outbreak, but nothing has been done yet. Mugabe
has devoted more funds
to acquiring military tools to suppress the
opposition, rather than resolve
the water crisis and the many other serious
issues affecting the country.
SW RADIO AFRICA
TRANSCRIPT
Journalist Peta Thornycroft returns to the Hot Seat with
presenter Violet Gonda, to respond to what she calls misconstrued criticisms in
the state media over her comments about the MDC on the last programme.
Broadcast on 11 December
2007
Violet Gonda: We welcome journalist Peta Thornycroft on the programme Hot Seat. The state controlled media is guilty of publishing gross inaccuracies relating to an interview I did with Peta recently. The Sunday Mail and Herald newspapers have been using selectively, parts of the interview I did with Peta for its normal propaganda war against the MDC. Peta you made some very strong statements about the MDC and the private media in Zimbabwe, and it seems you have fallen into this trap where it appears the state media is using the interview I did with you to annihilate the opposition. What can you say about this?
Peta: It's not a trap Violet. I knew they would do this when I agreed to the interview in the first place. That is how the state media works in Zimbabwe and in any other police state. That doesn't mean to say then that I should then be terrorised into silence. You asked me for an interview and I gave you an interview. In fact I don't mind in the slightest what the Zimbabwe state media says about me, even if it misquotes me as it does or leaves stuff out. It is biased, unprofessional, and worst of all in some ways incredibly boring. However unbalanced their reporting of what I said was, it was I think a whole lot less boring than the usual claptrap that fills the columns of the world's most boring newspaper, the Sunday Mail. It surely would win that award.
What a relief then to read what I say, even if vital information I said was left out, compared to old man (Dr Tafataona) Mahoso says. I say old man maybe he is as old as me. He could win international awards for the world's most boring columns. Every week he trundles out this crap that no one in Harare anyway believes. Because if they believed what Mahoso wrote then, a majority would have voted for Robert Mugabe and not Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC in 2000, 2002, and even 2005. Whatever Mahoso and the ladies and gents churn out from the Herald is ignored by the people in Harare. Even now, even in its divided state, the MDC will still win most of the seats in Harare. That is if there are any people left in Harare by then and they are not all sitting in Johannesburg and Hillbrow (South Africa). And that is even if Mugabe cheats as he did in 2002. Let's open a booking on that, let’s take stakes, let’s open the booking Violet. I will go for at least 100 to 1 that the MDC will win most of the seats in Harare next election, whenever that may be.
So because a journalist who works for the foreign press criticises the opposition the following happens in any police state and Zimbabwe is no exception. The state uses that criticism to justify its brutality against a bona fide opposition group. The Sunday Mail only used part of what I said. I criticised the MDC, as any normal journalist would do, does do, all over the world every day, in every kind of analysis, comments, editorials, programs etcetera. But I also put it in a context, and I said that the MDC had been tormented by ZANU PF. I used the word tormented more than once. That was left out. I also never said that the foreign or local press had "lied" about the MDC, and the word “lied” was used to indicate it was a quotation.
Violet: I will come back to that issue of the quotation that was used in the Sunday Mail headline – which said: “We lied about the MDC”. I will come back to that but I want to go back to the issue of the MDC. You and many others have criticized the MDC for lack of organization, showing lack of strategies, that the MDC failed to stop the violence etc etc. But it appears there is this assumption that the opposition has been operating under normal conditions. Do you agree that the MDC has been operating under extraordinary odds in Zimbabwe?
Peta: The opposition in Zimbabwe right from independence has operated under abnormal circumstances, starting with ZAPU. Let’s not forget that. Then ZAPU was annihilated. The Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) had a hard time too, but not as hard as the MDC because the MDC got so close. The MDC operated under appalling circumstances. Its candidates for elections, its candidates for heavens sake, were arrested, beaten up, humiliated, etc. We journalists saw that, we have pictures, we have proof of that.
What ZANU PF, using state resources, did to the MDC in 2002 as the main focus was unique in Southern Africa. That was why all the journalists burst out laughing when the South African observer group made its ridiculous claims about the elections in Meikles Hotel just after the results were announced. The South Africans had approved violent elections in Zimbabwe the kind of elections they would never have approved of at home.
Violet: And back to that issue of the headline in the state controlled media where the Sunday Mail story implied that journalists including yourself “lied about the MDC” when covering the opposition. What more can you say about this.
Peta: I never used the world lie but the Sunday Mail used the word in the headline in quotes, implying I said it. That is how any court of law would interpret that sub editing and it was wrong. In fact I said I didn't know, and when I discovered the MDC had been beating people up, I wrote it immediately. In fact I wrote it the same week I first heard about it. To this day, opposition MP from Bulawayo South David Coltart does not know how I got the statement about the violence he left for the NEC meeting because he was in Australia at that time. I wish I had known about it earlier. If I had I hope I would have written it, because it would have been news and in the public interest.
I also wish I had known about Gukurahundi much earlier than I did. I wish I had known much, much earlier that many senior members of ZANU PF are cruel, and that they are not revolutionaries. They are incompetent, unable to earn a living, and therefore dependent on Mugabe’s patronage. I wish I had known that sooner. But in all cases when I found out these things I have written them. I have been writing about ZANU PF's atrocities since 1983, and when Andy Moyse then began editing Parade a year later, we were the first non ZANU PF publication in the country. Does anyone remember that? Does anyone remember the stories that we were doing at that time? That was a long, long time ago that was right there at the beginning. We were there, I was there right at the beginning and I didn’t change. I did just what journalists do.
Violet: Did you write about Gukurahundi
at that time?
Peta: Andy Moyse only came in as editor at the end of 1984. It had already been going on for two years by then. But we certainly did. We wrote about Gukurahundi at the end of 1984 and 1985. You will have to go back and look at those editions to look at what we did at that time, at what Andy did at that time and of course we were being helped by journalists on the ground in Matabeleland. We were very careful about how we put the stories together. Although there was MOTO which was a monthly publication, Parade was the only place you could get much information on what was going on in Matabeleland at the time.
I left the Herald in the middle of 1983. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I said to Farai Munyuki; ‘Come on send me down to Matabeleland if there is anything going on, it’s a racist old world, the world will believe me they won’t believe you when they say there is nothing happening.’ And he came back to me and said the management said it was too dangerous for me to go to Matabeleland. And it was shortly after that I broke my contract with the Zimbabwe Newspapers, although it wasn’t the only reason, and I think I was the only one who ever did that. I broke my contract with the Zimbabwe Newspapers and I had to pay them back all their money. They had paid for me to bring my furniture from South Africa and they took that out of my pension money. So I certainly left Zimpapers bankrupt. So that’s how it was.
But, yes, I wish I had known about the MDC earlier and I would still have found it more difficult because I didn’t work for the domestic press. In essence the Daily Telegraph did cover the story in July 2005 but it didn’t carry on with it because we did that. For example, when the first guys were beaten up and it was reported in the Telegraph in 2005, we never then reported when (MP) Trudy Stevenson was beaten up because we had already done one of those stories. And just because we were white the Telegraph wasn’t going to run the story again. We did that. So that’s why I am saying it was a domestic story more than a foreign story because any domestic newspaper would have wanted the first story, and the second story and whatever stories there were.
Violet: Can you also expand on what you
meant about the turmoil in the MDC in Johannesburg and the issue of money
regarding Secretary Generals Tendai Biti and Welshman
Ncube?
Peta: When the MDC split I tried to find out the truth of some of the accusations I was hearing about the reasons for the split. One of the reasons that I was hearing and which was published all over the world and which attracted my attention was about Welshman Ncube, where he was accused of being incredibly rich. Some of his accusers said he owned as many farms as some of them had owned before the land invasions. Obviously those accusations were coming from white people. That he owned shopping malls etc. So I started to investigate. And then the grassroots people were telling me that he must have been abusing the party's funds because he was not giving them any. So I asked more. And clearly the MDC had become a source of income of survival for so many people at a time when Mugabe's economy was failing even more than usual and there were less and less jobs. So people were frantic. People depended on the MDC for something to keep them alive. Ncube as Secretary General had a budget; there was less money for the party's activities at the time. If you could remember he had to retrench people from Harvest House. There is no question in my mind that some of the controversy around Welshman Ncube does originate from that grassroots fear when he cut off the money because he had no money.
Then I heard, in Johannesburg, the same accusations being made against Tendai Biti, that he was taking the money, when of course, he had to match income and expenditure as Secretary General just like Ncube. That was what I intended to say as I gabbled away in the first interview. It's a tough job being Secretary General of a party in a country in economic collapse, when people are so desperate, and when the MDC used to be flush with money and is no longer flush with money. Although, I have to say, it does seem that one faction, that is the Morgan Tsvangirai faction, obviously does have more money and more new vehicles than the other faction. And I am not sure why that is. Whether or not the other faction is more successful at raising more money or where it’s all coming from at a time when seriously, in the last 10 days in Zimbabwe, the wheels are coming off like never before.
Violet: So let me see if I understand
you here Peta, do you regret making the comments you made about the
MDC?
Peta: No, because I was telling the truth. We published with verification, we had named sources, which is unusual for Zimbabwe copy these days and photographs of people using their real names and that was two and a half years ago.
As I said before I wish I had known earlier, that's all. I also said that the MDC were tormented, that MP's were savagely beaten, so were supporters, that Tsvangirai, Ncube and Renson Gasela were charged with state arranged treason weeks ahead of the presidential poll in 2002. We all knew it was a state plot using taxpayer's money. They endured this with grace and conviction and they were eventually acquitted, not because the Zimbabwe judiciary is all good. No, it’s just that it’s not all bad all the time either. I have great sympathy for the MDC and particularly for Morgan Tsvangirai. It’s a young party and it has faced extraordinary odds, extraordinary difficulties.
Nevertheless if one is honest, one just has to say it has wasted so many, many opportunities. And many, many people suffered intensely to help the MDC. MDC leaders themselves have suffered intensely. And it is a very, very broad church, as Oliver Tambo once said of the ANC which let us not forget began in 1912. So the MDC had to cope with the working class, leftists, intellectuals, peasants, white farmers, black businessmen, bankers, you name it. All wanting one thing only - CHANGE. They weren’t after ideology. They were after change and all wanting it perhaps for different reasons. So it was an incredibly difficult constituency that Morgan Tsvangirai had to lead but let us be honest after the first flush of 2000 and after they were charged with treason – and I believe that was a very important moment, there seemed to be a dearth of leaders.
And there seemed to be that other problem in Zimbabwe that if you are Ndebele, you can’t be a leader in a Shona area and for me as a whitey I just can’t understand it. I just don’t understand why there is this fixation over it. It’s Ndebeles who told me that they knew they could never be leaders of the MDC because they were Ndebele. They told me that. That’s why the criticisms or accusations that Welshman Ncube was trying to take over Morgan Tsvangirai’s job were so absurd to me. And it’s written in that memorandum that David Coltart wrote in 2005 that was read out at the NEC meeting in June 2005 where he says two things:- There are only two names in Zimbabwe which have political resonance and recognition around the country – Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai. And it’s absurd to think that Welshman Ncube would be after his job.
Violet: How would you answer those people who say you seem to sympathise more with the Mutambara led MDC or that you are biased towards them. How would you answer that?
Peta: I don’t know how to answer it. I don’t know how to answer it because I am a journalist and I write what I see. Whenever I am accused of that, and I have been accused of it a lot, I say; ‘Why would I do it?’ I had a long conversation recently with one of my friends who is in the wires in Harare, about the various accusations that have come our way and both of us say the same things – ‘Why would we do it?’ ‘In whose interest would it be if I was to serve the Mutambara faction?’
I have known for example William Bango (former journalist now Tsvangirai’s spokesperson) longer than probably anyone in contemporary politics in Zimbabwe. I would consider him a personal friend actually – one of the few political figures who is actually a personal friend. I wrote what I wrote because I was there. I knew what happened in the vote (for participating) in the senate elections. I knew what the results were; we were getting sms out of the (MDC) NEC building. I heard what Morgan Tsvangirai said – about the constitution, the vote and that it didn’t matter if the MDC split. I heard that and I reported it and I was shocked as anyone else.
I have followed what has happened with the code of conduct that was negotiated in South Africa and with the coalition agreement and I was staggered by why it wasn’t carried out. And for me of course it was also the violence. I refer back to the violence because the MDC – and there was a misprint in the transcript of the first interview I did – where I said the MDC was almost a Ghandian party. In other words after Ghandi. It was a Pacifist party. It was going to effect regime change via the ballot box. It was never going to use violence or armed struggle or anything unconstitutional in its efforts to win elections and I just reported it as it happened. I happened to be, I think, one of the few foreign journalists who persuaded my employers in South Africa, Washington and London that the fight in the MDC was worth covering because they weren’t particularly interested in it. So I reported on it. I also wrote some editorials – two or three I think in which I reminded readers …(interrupted)
Violet: How do you see the MDC’s chances in a free and fair election?
Peta: If it was really free and fair elections, if there where six months for Morgan, Mutambara, Welshman and Biti to go into the deepest heartland of the communal areas in Mashonaland East, Mash West and Mash Central and say to people, especially the younger people;-‘Are you pleased with what you’ve got? You’ve got no fertiliser, there is no fuel, you can’t get into town to see your families, they can’t get from town to see you. Are you happy with life? We are the party that can offer you change.’ Do you think they will still vote for ZANU PF? I doubt it. I think the MDC would actually walk the elections.
But ZANU PF has a generation of supporters that
will support that party until they die because of the liberation struggle and
because of its role in their lives. It’s changed their lives completely even if
they are having bad times at the moment. But if you look at the average age of
Zimbabweans where many are under the age of 19, I think Mugabe would find it
extremely difficult – with a free media and people able to listen to other
points of views and able to read other points of views. Able to meet opposition
politicians, without worrying about meeting the police at open rallies, who can
point out to you exactly why your life has deteriorated, why you can’t get
school books, why there is no muti (medicine) in the clinics, why you can’t get
vaccinations, why there is no anti retroviral drugs. How on earth would ZANU PF
in a free and fair election ever be able to provide an argument good enough
against the MDC? The problem is that I wonder if we will ever see that in our
lifetime.
Violet: You also
criticized the private media heavily on how it has been covering the MDC. How do
you define the position of journalists in an oppressive environment, especially
those in the private media?
Peta: It’s
terribly difficult to get fairness and balance in a report when one can't
even get comment from ZANU PF, when sources are frightened to be identified. So
as a journalist, within the family of journalists, I would indeed again
criticise the Daily News for not telling us about the MDC's warts, and at the
same time cheer them on, cheer on the memory of Geoff Nyarota for his
magnificent efforts, his magnificent editing. Cheer on Strive Masiyiwa for being
determined to use some of his wealth to help Zimbabweans get information. And
the Daily News operated in appalling circumstances, watched all the time, under
scrutiny and then bombed. Its journalists arrested, beaten and terrified. It
doesn't matter that it supported the MDC, it was privately owned, and it can
support whoever it likes. I regret it wasn't more critical of the party, because
that is the press's function.
Violet: Why is it Peta that people have
so much difficulties dealing with the press?
Peta: There is no tradition of a free press in Zimbabwe from the time Ian Smith came into power. It was completely controlled first by Ian Smith and then there were these brief little moments at independence, and in the transition there were these brief little moments but there is no long term tradition of a free press in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans have had to fight for every spare centimeter of free press they’ve got and it is difficult, isn’t it, the circumstances under which journalists operate in Zimbabwe.
So because there is no tradition and people have no tradition of reading criticism, the people who make the criticism are then accused. So if you don’t agree with ZANU PF, you are an agent of the West. That’s what I am usually called by ZANU PF. Or if you don't agree with the MDC then you are accused of being ZANU PF. That’s what we do. We accuse each other. We don’t sometimes go and look at what is actually being written and of course if it’s not well written or well sourced it’s right for us to be suspicious.
So it’s a question of history, it’s a question that takes a long time. For example you can see what is happening at the moment in South Africa in the succession struggle in South Africa with newspapers trying very hard to put both candidates points of view – both Mbeki and Jacob Zuma’s point of view, even though one knows that one particular newspaper supports one candidate slightly more than it supports the other candidate. I am not sure if any of the press are particularly keen on either of the candidates but that is what they have in front of them. And I am watching very interesting stuff, if you go into the internet have a look at how they are dealing with it. We don’t have that tradition in Zimbabwe. It is very, very difficult and it has to begin.
One was hoping that if the negotiations lead to the implementation of the new electoral laws, the amendment to the Electoral Act where you read those clauses about the media then maybe we could start. Maybe we could start because Zimbabweans have no experience of tolerating a diversity of opinion in a free media, in a free society.
Let’s for example take your situation Violet and what the Herald wrote about you and I have known you personally for many years. I know you didn't get funded by x, y and z as you were accused in the Herald this week. I know you paid for your studies yourself in the UK, I remembered that. And I also know you chose to go to the BBC for your attachment during your studies for your work experience just as learners used to be seconded in Zimbabwe when there was some training going on. So when I read that in the Herald this week I had to smile because I had been accused of working for the CIO, Frederik de Klerk's NIS, Ronnie Kasril's NIA, the Nigerian Intelligence Community, the ANC, the CIA and MI6. I don't think I have been accused of working for the KGB. The one I regret is MI6. Had I worked for them I would have a pension now and I wouldn’t be yakking away on SW Radio Africa.
Violet: (laughing) you would have had a pension?
Peta: (laughs) Unfortunately they never even tried to recruit me. Nor did any of the others. The other thing I am ashamed of is that I have never been offered a bribe as a journalist.
Violet: (laughing) Well Peta I am running out of time but there was one other question I wanted to ask you about. You have been following the negotiations in South Africa very closely. What’s the latest on the talks?
Peta: The talks have been held in Johannesburg since December the 4th and they ended yesterday. From what I understand from African diplomats was that because of the ZANU PF extra-ordinary Congress Nicholas Goche and Patrick Chinamasa were called back to Harare. So they didn’t quite finish what they were doing but they got 99% of the work done and most of the legal work is done. I think the situation now is the unspoken question of what will happen now and I fear that Mugabe will insist on elections being in March and that the elections go ahead before the new constitution – that has been agreed – is put in place. Now President Thabo Mbeki, who has facilitated these negotiations on behalf of SADC, that is what he used to lure the MDC into supporting Constitution Amendment no.18 - was certainly that there was going to be a new constitution before the elections and that there would be time for these new electoral laws, which many political commentators have said are significantly improved, not perfect as they can be ruined in the implementation but they are significantly improved and that there would be time for a normalization of the country and for people to get used to and trust those elections.
What I am predicting is that – and this is after talking to a couple of African diplomats who have been watching these negotiations closely – is that if Mugabe insists on election in March, if the constitution is not in place before the elections, the MDC or the most important members of both factions of the MDC will boycott the elections.
Violet: Well Peta we have to end here unfortunately. Thank you very much.
Peta: Ok thank you Violet let’s wait for Chapter 5 of the Herald.
Violet: (Laughing) Bye for now.
Peta: (Laughing) Bye.
Comments and feedback can be emailed to violet@swradioafrica.com
ENDS/
Zim Online
by By Lizwe Sebatha Saturday 15 December
2007
BULAWAYO – The producer of a documentary on
1980s army atrocities in
Zimbabwe’s southern regions says he is in hiding
after receiving threats
from unknown people he suspects could be state
secret agents.
The 25-minute documentary titled “Gukurahundi: A
Moment of Madness”
narrates events during an army crackdown known as
Gukurahundi that was
carried out by the army’s notorious 5th Brigade
ostensibly to rid the
southern Matabeleland and Midlands regions of armed
dissidents opposed to
President Robert Mugabe’s rule.
An
estimated 20 000 innocent civilians, almost all of them belonging
to the
minority Ndebele tribe, died in the crackdown that is one of the
darkest
periods in Zimbabwe’s post-colonial history.
Producer, Zenzele
Ndebele told ZimOnline he fled his home after
receiving calls from unknown
people who demanded to know why he produced the
documentary.
“I
no longer stay at home but at a place in one location in Bulawayo
where I
feel I am safe,” Ndebele said by phone yesterday. “I have received
threats
to arrest and force me to reveal the reasons behind the documentary
and its
sponsors.”
The Gukurahundi massacres remain a sensitive subject
especially
because Mugabe’s government has refused to apologise for the
killings
although the Zimbabwean leader has called the crackdown a moment of
madness.
ZimOnline.
Financial
Gazette (Harare)
13 December 2007
Posted to the web 13 December
2007
Shame Makoshori
THE National Bakers Association (NBA) is
pressing for a 77 percent increase
in the price of bread, from the current
retail price of $200 000 per loaf to
$900 000, citing increasing fuel
costs.
The National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM) has failed to supply
the
baking industry with cheap fuel as promised when the current bread price
was
agreed upon.
NBA chairman, Vincent Mangoma told The Financial
Gazette yesterday that the
industry had a scheduled meeting with the
National Incomes and Pricing
Commission (NIPC) later yesterday to discuss
the proposals.
He said the NBA had undertaken to peg the price of a loaf
of bread at $600
000 if NOCZIM supplied the cheap fuel, taking into account
the erosion of
value to the current price structure due to inflationary
pressures.
"We made the submission two weeks ago but the situation could
have changed
by now. The cost of flour has gone up to $1 billion per tonne
as opposed to
the official $111 million per tonne," he said.
"We
worked as a committee with bakers and millers making our submissions to
the
NIPC. The Grain Marketing Board made their submissions and there were no
divergent views. We will be meeting the NIPC today," Mangoma said
yesterday.
Bread is available on the black market at between $800 000 and
$1.2 million
per loaf.
The baking industry has previously argued that
the ultimate solution to save
their industry, which had suffered from a
perennial government grip on
prices, would be to peg the price of bread in
Zimbabwe at regional levels,
allowing it to track the prices in United
States dollars.
The NBA recommended that the bread price in Zimbabwe take
into account the
average price of bread both internationally and within the
Southern African
Development Community where an average price of US$1 per
loaf is considered
fair.
In Botswana, the price of a loaf is between
P6 and P7 while in South Africa
a loaf of bread costs between R6 and R7.
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
13 December 2007
Posted to the web 13 December
2007
Dumisani Ndlela
Harare
ZIMBABWE'S gold production remains
significantly restrained, with industry
players indicating the country was
unlikely to produce over eight tonnes of
gold this year.
A Ministry
of Mines official recently said the country needed to boost its
production
significantly to reach 10 tonnes to remain on the world bullion
market.
Production has nose-dived on the back of mine closures caused
by galloping
operational costs, which have not matched revenue due to a
controlled
exchange rate, as well as operational constraints at gold
mines.
The gold mining sector has previously complained about the delayed
foreign
currency payment for a part of gold sales by Fidelity Printers and
Refineries, the sole gold buyer in the country.
Zimbabwe is grappling
with crippling shortages of foreign currency. The
local production figures
have been on a slide since the peak of 1999 when
the country produced 27
tonnes.
Cumulative gold deliveries in 2006 stood at 10.96
tonnes.
A mining company executive said yesterday that a raft of
incentives awarded
to the gold mining sector in October had failed to
inspire increased
production, with mining companies still battling
electricity outages that
had significantly reduced production, as well as
lack of critical raw
materials and spares.
The delays in foreign
currency payments for gold have continued to hamper
production, with mining
companies failing to import raw materials to
increase
production.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono reviewed
the Zimbabwe
dollar payment for gold deliveries to the central bank in
October, and this
had raised hope for increased production, although
industry players had
nevertheless warned the review was too little to ensure
viability in the
sector due to escalating inflation, reported to have scaled
through 14 000
percent year on year for October.
The RBZ has unveiled
a number of measures it said were meant to boost
production in the mining
sector.
During his mid-term monetary policy review in October, Gono
increased the
Zimbabwe dollar price for gold.
The gold support price,
which had been successively raised to $350 000/gram,
$1 million/gram and $3
million per gram during the first half of the year,
was further increased
"to further stimulate this critical sector", Gono
said.
Gold price
reviews were made in retrospect.
Gold producers who had delivered gold to
Fidelity Printers and Refineries
from August 1, 2007 had their support
prices increased from $3 million per
gram to $3.5 million per gram, while
deliveries made from September 1, 2007
had prices reviewed from $3.5 million
per gram to $4 million per gram.
The support price was further reviewed
to $5 million per gram with effect
from this month.
"Subsequent to
these reviews, the Reserve Bank will continue to enhance the
gold support
price to ensure that the formal market remains not only
honourable, but also
attractive and viable," Gono said
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
OPINION
13 December 2007
Posted to the web 13 December
2007
Mavis Makuni
THE Minister of Information and Publicity,
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, has been
quoted in the official press as saying that as
"part of its policy to open
up and show the world the true Zimbabwean
story", government would continue
to invite foreign
journalists.
Ndlovu made the remarks while welcoming a group of French
journalists.
"Zimbabwe cannot live in isolation, so the world needs to know
more about
our country and we have decided to open up and receive the
foreign
journalists." This would be a profound statement if the extent of
its
veracity could be ascertained. It is difficult to believe that the
government of Zimbabwe, which has introduced a raft of draconian laws to
curtail press freedom, now intends to allow journalists to report on events
unhindered.
It has never ceased to amaze me that the government
prefers the "true
Zimbabwean story" to be told to foreigners abroad when it
can be a criminal
offence for a local journalist to "tell it like it is."
Whenever foreign
celebrities or groups of tourists visit the country, they
are exhorted upon
their departure to tell the true Zimbabwean story. When
Jamaican reggae
star, Luciano, visited Zimbabwe recently, a headline
appeared in one of the
official newspapers urging him to project the country
in a favourable light.
The question these people who are exhorted to be
spin doctors on behalf of
the government must ask themselves before they can
accept their assignments
is what the true Zimbabwean story is and why it
needs to be covered
differently from the way the international media covers
the rest of the
world. They should also ask themselves why they would be
allowed to report
"objectively" when local scribes who try to do the same
are subjected to
verbal abuse, threats and accused of being unpatriotic. "We
have to tell the
Zimbabwe story and not only the good things but also the
challenges and
difficulties we are facing as a nation including what is
causing them,"
Ndlovu told the visiting journalists.
What he really
meant is that foreign journalists should describe the
situation in Zimbabwe
from the official point of view so as to gloss over
the unpleasant
realities. These realities include the fact that Zimbabwe has
the highest
rate of inflation worldwide, the majority of its people are
unemployed and
live below the poverty datum line. This has been compounded
in recent months
by the government's ill-conceived and arbitrary price
controls, which have
emptied supermarket shelves of basic essentials,
including mealie meal, a
staple commodity. The people must spend endless
hours in long queues in a
bid to source the basic necessities which people
in other countries take for
granted.
Ndlovu obviously does not want foreign journalists to know that
in the midst
of this human misery and deprivation, official corruption is
rampant and the
ostentatious wealth and consumption of the politically
powerful and well
connected is a constant reminder that under a more
democratic dispensation,
there would be enough to go round to enable every
Zimbabwean to enjoy a
decent and dignified life. The embattled and weary
people of this country
are living through the seventh year of a political
and governance crisis
that the powers-that-be seem at best unwilling to
address and at worst bent
on perpetuating for reasons best known to
themselves. That is the crux of
the real story of this
country.
Ndlovu would have the foreign journalists believe that the
economic and
political problems in Zimbabwe are the result of "illegal
sanctions and lack
of balance of payments" without permitting them to
investigate and
independently establish the truth for themselves. He
neglects to explain how
it can be that targeted sanctions imposed on
individuals in President Robert
Mugabe's government can impact disastrously
on every facet of modern
existence in a sovereign country that has been
independent for almost 30
years. The pre-independence colonial regime of Ian
Smith survived a total
trade embargo imposed by the United Nations for
almost 15 years without the
country degenerating into the shell of its
prosperous former self that
Zimbabwe is now.
It is a fallacy to claim
that targeted sanctions are responsible for the
ruination of the
agricultural sector, the collapse of the health and
education systems, the
deterioration of infrastructure throughout the
country. Zimbabwean
authorities should not expect foreign journalists to see
things through
rose-tinted glasses when they themselves cannot explain
situations
truthfully. While government apologists have gone out of their
way to throw
the "illegal sanctions" red herring to absolve the government
of blame for
the general economic malaise, they have never given a
convincing explanation
as to why these measures are only hurting the
ordinary person.
It has
become the norm for officials calling for the lifting of targeted
sanctions
to give the impression that they do so for altruistic reasons to
ease the
plight of the ordinary Zimbabwean. They however never explain how
the ruling
elites have remained unscathed if the targeted sanctions have
affected the
whole country. It is clear different factors such as
corruption, looting,
plundering and economic mismanagement are at play.
Propagandists never
say why government officials regard the lifting of
targeted sanctions
against themselves as the only way to improve the lot of
the suffering
populace when they steadfastly refuse to consider the normal
tools at the
disposal of any people's government -- common sense,
transparency, adherence
to democratic principles, observance of human rights
and the embracing of
humane governance and justice for all.
The mantra about illegal sanctions
has worn thin even at home and only the
most gullible foreign journalists,
despite knowing the background to the
imposition of targeted sanctions,
should be expected to swallow this yarn.
In fact, the French journalists
should have asked Ndlovu why the Zimbabwean
leadership has not emulated the
example of Cuba which has been under United
States sanctions for almost half
a century. There, government officials have
not reacted by going into a
frenzy to amass as much wealth as possible and
robbing the populace of its
share of the economic cake as has been the case
in this country.
I
was amazed to read about Ndlovu telling the visiting journalists that
investors had been banned from investing in Zimbabwe by the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund and touting this as the reason why the
country could not generate enough foreign currency.
"This is the
Zimbabwean story, including our successes in agriculture that
we want the
world to know about and we are working very well with the ZANU
PF secretary
for information and publicity, Cde Nathan Shamuyarira in
implementing this
programme", the French journalists were told.
What agricultural successes
is Ndlovu talking about when drastically reduced
agricultural production and
the resultant food shortages are the main
outcome of the land
re-distribution programme, which, despite declarations
to the contrary,
continues to be mired in corruption and chaos up to this
day. Charity begins
at home. The Minister of Information and Publicity
cannot expect a
self-serving version of the "true story" of Zimbabwe to be
told abroad when
he and his colleagues do everything possible to deny
realities and suppress
the truth at home.
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
OPINION
13 December 2007
Posted to the web 13 December
2007
Patrick Saziwa
The year 2007 is almost over with the
equities market having fared
relatively well ahead of other investment
vehicles.
We expect that in 2008, nothing will change fundamentally from
the market
conditions that prevailed in the year 2007.
We may thus be
in for another year where the stock market may perform well.
Two main
factors were at play this year, a high inflation rate and low
investment
interest rates.
These two will remain the major determinants of how the
stock market may
perform.
I believe that the trend on the stock
market is most likely to be the same
for 2008 as the misalignment between
the inflation rate and interest rates
gap is expected to widen. Where else
can we obtain an investment vehicle
that can at least be nearer the
inflation rate -- money market, property
market or foreign currency market?
Well, may be none of the above.
As for the money market, it is a definite
no.
It is highly unlikely that the government will let the interest rates
loose
given the pressing issues to finance the productive sector of the
economy,
fuel, ballooning budget deficit and other fiscal
commitments.
An increase in investment interest rates will choke the
government given
that it is the major borrower on the local
market.
Giving another scenario where the rates may be left to be market
determined,
it is still unbelievable that they will go above 2 000
percent.
The industrial index has grown by a commendable rate this year
to date.
The property market is another form of investment that investors
can go
into, but looking at the high prices the properties are sold at, this
is
prohibitive.
Asking prices for properties are in the billions of
dollars therefore many
cannot afford such large amounts of money.
The
property market also has a problem of liquidity and divisibility.
Given
that some investors may want to take their profits at shorter notices,
the
property market may not be a good vehicle for investors.
Dealing in
foreign currency is illegal and that renders it an unattractive
investment
vehicle as it carries high risks. Therefore this is not a very
certain and
ready form of investment vehicle.
The performance of the stock market to
January next year may be affected by
the expected announcement of the
Monetary Policy and Sunrise 11.
Some investors may remain on the
sidelines waiting for the announcement of
the Monetary Policy which might
have an impact on the interest and exchange
rate policies.
However,
the impact on the financial markets may not be substantial.
A fall in the
equities market may be a great opportunity to buy into quality
counters with
well structured balance sheets.
Such companies include those with little
or no gearing, companies that have
pricing power and the currency hedge
counters.
Given that money market rates are most likely to remain low in
an economic
environment with high inflationary pressures, I still put my
money on the
stock market for the year 2008, though in selected stocks.
of the global village.
No breakfast, no transport, no
electricity, no running water, no pocket
money, no warm clothes – this is
the stark reality of the majority of school
going children in
Zimbabwe.
Poverty is defined in three categories; absolute,
relative and social
exclusion. Those living in absolute poverty lack the
resources to live.
Relative poverty relates to those children whose
parents can not live to a
standard that is accepted as normal for the
majority of the people in the
country. This results in them being excluded
from ordinary activities that
most people in other countries take for
granted, such as visiting the local
Mosi a Tunya, Kariba, reading with
proper lighting at home, let alone owning
a computer at home or
school.
Social exclusion refers to a combination of factors
linked together that
mean a person is excluded from support that is
available from most people.
Since most families are living just on the
threshold, it means a whole
generation of children in Zimbabwe are missing
the opportunities other
children (in the global village) are having at this
juncture. Parents under
stress and failing to cope can transmit that feeling
to their children. Most
children whose parents are failing to provide the
basic needs for them lack
self esteem.
One director of education
noted that the effects of poverty on children from
the earliest stages means
they are often lagging behind their peers in
education. By the age of three,
children can be 9 months behind their
better – off peers; and by the age of
14 they can be two years behind. It is
at the younger ages where cycle of
need is crystallised. Poverty cripples
children in a way that scar them for
life. Children can not learn if they
are hungry, insecure and their families
are being fractured, one
educationist observed.
Now, my dear
brothers and sisters, friends and foes alike, the majority of
children in
Zimbabwe fit all the three categories of poverty. How are we
going to
explain this calamity to them in the next ten years when they start
to ask
questions? How can we, as a nation fail them? Can we tell them that
“zvaitoda muteuro” (Mutukudzi, 2007).
I would like to believe that
our children would find it less relevant and
unconvincing when we tell them
about the sovereignty of Zimbabwe, defending
our country against
imperialism, post colonial effects, smart- sanctions.
These political
jargons do not bring food on the table, continuous supply of
running water
and electricity. All the hard work done by their parents to
defeat
colonialism will be in vain. Our children today are looking to the
future.
Children are always asking questions about the world, about
themselves,
about their family and friends, about their parent’s triumphs
and tragedies,
about reasons and causes and consequences. In the way of
these things,
questions lead to answers lead to questions and so on. But
there is always a
point, whether for the “doubting Thomas” or “Zealot”,
expert or amateur,
when the answers stop. “Unoiwanepi mhinduro pasina
mubvunzo?” Tichabvodoka
(talking rubbish) (Mutukudzi.Tsimba Itsoka 2007)
Tendai
Hamadziripi Kwari
VOA
By
Peter Clottey
Washington, D.C.
14 December
2007
Zimbabwe white farmers whose farms were confiscated by
President Robert
Mugabe’s government have welcomed a tribunal ruling
ordering the government
to stop its land seizure policy. The Southern
African Development Community
(SADC) backs the tribunal, which is based in
Namibia’s capital Windhoek. A
white Zimbabwean farmer had petitioned the
court to stop Mugabe’s government
from confiscating his family farm,
claiming he had exhausted his legal
options in Zimbabwe.
Some
political analysts believe the ruling would set a dangerous precedence
in
the government’s land seizure policy, which could potentially cause chaos
in
Zimbabwe. John Makumbe is a political science professor at the University
of
Zimbabwe. From the capital, Harare, he tells reporter Peter Clottey the
court’s ruling brings good tidings to Zimbabwe’s white farmers.
“This
is a very welcome development because it ensures that there would be
justice
for people whose lands were taken by the Zimbabwe government
compulsorily.
It places Zimbabwe in a difficult position because Zimbabwe is
a member of
SADC and it would like SADC to uphold the land reform process,
which
Zimbabwe embarked upon in 2000. And this first test case really has
set a
very dangerous precedence for Zimbabwe, but it is a welcome decision
by the
tribunal because it actually falls within the ambit of justice,”
Makumbe
opined.
He said it would be unlikely that President Mugabe’s government
would refuse
to abide by the court’s ruling.
“I think they would have
no choice but to abide by it. And I think they are
in a stickler of a
position because if they do not abide by it, they would
have problems within
the SADC region. As members of SADC community, they
would have to explain
why they violated the ruling of the SADC tribunal. The
tribunal sits in
Namibia, but it is not a Namibian tribunal. It’s a SADC
tribunal,” he
said.
Makumbe said the court ruling paves the way for other farmers whose
farms
were confiscated to go back to court to seek redress.
“There
are scores and thousands of white commercial farmers who lost their
lands to
the Zimbabwe government through the farm invasions, the land grab
activities
by the war veterans. They are likely to use this case as
precedence, and
they are likely to approach the tribunal as well as ask it
to look at their
cases. And they are likely to demand that the tribunal
should rule in their
favor as well. And that would not go down well with the
Zimbabwe
government,” Makumbe pointed out.
He said the Zimbabwe government could
resolve the controversial land reform
crisis by returning the seized lands
to the commercial farmers.
“It can be resolved if the verdict of the
court in Zimbabwe upholds that
under the Land Acquisition Act, the Zimbabwe
government has a right to take
lands which under utilized or which is need
for resettlement of landless
people or which is necessary for security
purposes, and that is what the law
says. But when they invaded the farms,
they did it on a political platform,
and they invaded which is didn’t
qualify in that order,” he noted.
zimbabwejournalists.com
14th Dec 2007 07:49 GMT
By a Correspondent
UK Parliament
House
of Lords
Thursday, 13 December 2007
From the debate
‘Africa:Conflict’ edited extracts referring to Zimbabwe
Lord Alton of
Liverpool rose to call attention to the causes and
consequences of conflict
in Africa.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, for the past 12 months I have
been seeking a
debate on conflict in Africa, and I am delighted that the
House is to
address the issue today. I express my gratitude at the outset to
all those
noble Lords who will participate.
Others will speak with
greater knowledge and authority on the crisis in
Zimbabwe. The Government of
Zimbabwe have in effect declared war on their
own people. It will be years
before we are able to quantify the full costs
of Robert Mugabe’s destruction
of Zimbabwe’s infrastructure. Not only
agriculture, industry and commerce,
but the entire health and education
systems will need to be rebuilt.
Compared with much of sub-Saharan Africa,
Zimbabwe was well developed and
exported food; now half the population of
Zimbabwe depends on donor food
aid. While unable to provide adequate water
in the major cities, Robert
Mugabe’s regime allocates almost half the
national budget to security and
the secret police. How will Africa ever
attract the inward investment
necessary for sustainable development while
her leaders fail to condemn such
wanton destruction and such squandering of
natural and human resources? Many
of us are full of admiration for the
forceful leadership given by the most
reverend Primate the Archbishop of
York on the need for change in
Zimbabwe.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: The mantra set out by NePAD, the
African peer
review mechanism, decrees on the contrary that no change may be
required of
a country if it does not itself initiate a peer review of good
governance.
The AU has succeeded in using its bloc in the UN to prevent any
discussion
of Zimbabwe, even in the Human Rights Commission, and in
preventing any
discussion of Zimbabwe in Commonwealth forums, despite the
precedent set in
the case of South Africa, which the Commonwealth continued
to put on its
agenda after the apartheid Government took the country out of
the
Commonwealth on the grounds that the people of South Africa had not
voted to
leave. That precedent was recognised in the Harare Commonwealth
declaration
and the Millbrook programme. The African members have also
frustrated any
action by the Commonwealth even to place Zimbabwe on the
agenda, just as
they have done in the UN.
We are never going to solve
conflict in Africa by the use of troops—with
small exceptions, such as
Sierra Leone—or even by attempts to control the
inflow of arms. The Russians
have always made a lot of money selling small
arms; they will continue to do
so. They and the Chinese will continue to
sell military aircraft and arms
because of their interest in African oil and
minerals.
The UN may do
its best, although apart from the admirable Anna Tibaijuka,
who reported
with devastating honesty on the Murambatsvina, it has not
distinguished
itself in Zimbabwe. Much of the money that DfID has channelled
to the
Zimbabwean people through UN agencies—we and the Americans are very
generous
givers—has gone straight to the Mugabe Government. In the last
analysis,
ways must be found to make the African Union, and SADC in
particular, use
its strength constructively rather than being an obstructive
dog in the
manger.
We have meekly accepted NePAD’s insistence that aid must be
accompanied by
absolute acceptance of AU policy, on the grounds that
conditionality is
colonialist imperialism. Why? Desmond Tutu said that there
are no African
rights; there are human rights. At least some of our problems
in this area
arise from our readiness to accept the thesis that
conditionality equals
political intervention.
However, I was greatly
encouraged by the sturdy decision of the last
Secretary of State to cut off
immediately the £50 million of direct budget
support a year that we were
giving to the Ethiopian Prime Minister when his
security forces killed 88
people in demonstrations during the elections. We
continued to subsidise
work through the aid agencies, but he received no
more direct funding. If we
could do it then, without, so far as I know,
suffering any consequences in
our relations with Ethiopia, we can surely do
it again.
After the
woeful failure of the EU-AU summit in Lisbon to send any message
of hope to
the despairing and beleaguered people of Zimbabwe, I hope that we
shall
challenge the SADC countries to stand by the AU’s own Constitutive Act
and
their own human rights commission, which reported honestly but has never
been allowed to publish its report and act to save the people of
Zimbabwe—and their own economic skins—by intervening before it is too late.
They can no longer fail to act because of a wholly dishonest policy of not
listening to us—and it is generally the West whose help will be needed—on
the ludicrous grounds that they are striking a blow for
liberation.
We have been given a lead by the admirable most reverend
Primate the
Archbishop of York. Let us tell the African Union that
committees and quiet
diplomacy and, sadly, even an African force, are not
enough if they are used
to obstruct any action to save a suffering people.
We should recognise the
limitations of such bodies as the EU and the UN
which often by their acts or
failures to act obscure awkward facts and take
away the individual
responsibility of nations to do something. The presence
of a number of UN
agencies in Zimbabwe, for instance, encourages the
illusion that through
them the world is acting to care for people suffering
under tyranny. DfID,
which is one of the two major world givers of aid, does
it through the UN
agencies, yet those agencies, with those funds at their
disposal, actually
feared to act to support the victims of Murambatsvina as
one of them
admitted to Anna Tibaijuka and was so recorded in her
report.
We have been complicit for too long in allowing food aid to be
handed out
only to ZANU-PF supporters, with the knowledge of the UN. The
UNHCR, when
urged to set up refugee camps for Zimbabweans fleeing to South
Africa, or at
least to intervene on their behalf, claimed as recently as
this year that
they were not refugees in the accepted UN sense; they were
economic
migrants.
The UN is being exploited by the AU to prevent any
discussion in that forum
and to flout even the UN's own mechanism to protect
human rights. The AU has
replicated its success in these bullying tactics in
its only-too-effective
moves to keep Zimbabwe off the CHOGM agenda. I hope
that a number of decent
nations, including especially the Scandinavians, who
of course ruthlessly
colonised us in their day, will work together with the
many right-minded
Africans such as Moeletsi Mbeki, Pius Ncube and Anna
Tibaijuka to broker and
secure press freedom in Zimbabwe and promote a
series of life-saving
missions to help the sick and the starving at once
while a truly free
political climate is created by Zimbabwe’s own civil
society; still a
potentially effective instrument to restore the rule of
law. What we must
not do is require the people of Zimbabwe to accept as
valid the elections
that have already been comprehensively rigged and in
which, in any event,
the millions now in the diaspora driven from their
country would not be able
to vote.
Lord Luce: My Lords, my noble
friend Lord Alton has performed a service in
raising this issue of conflict
in Africa and set out clearly the scale of
the devastation that conflict
causes. I would pick only two facts: first, 50
per cent of the states that
have emerged from conflict lapse into conflict
within five years and,
secondly, at least 32 per cent, a third, of the
population of Africa are
affected in their countries by conflict or
emergence from conflict. However,
I wish to concentrate on another angle.
If the House would bear with me,
I would like to start with my recollection
of an experience as the last
British administrator—later, when I was a
Minister, President Mubarak
described me as the last British
imperialist—when I was a district officer
in Kenya. There was a crisis and a
policeman reported to me that there was
fighting over a water hole some 70
miles away. I went straight there with an
escort and, probably rather
patronisingly, summoned the two tribes who were
fighting to sit under a
baobab tree while I lectured in very bad Swahili
that they should not fight
wars. If they were to share the water hole they
would find that they could
all get some water. Whereupon, a man put up his
hand at the back. “Bwana,”
he said in Swahili, “could I ask you a
question?”. I said, “Yes, of course”.
He said, “You tell us not to fight,
but how is it that you in Europe have
fought two world wars this century?”.
“Of course”, I said, “you win”. They
went away rocking with laughter and
shared the water.
I came to the conclusion, probably subjectively, that
the time had come for
Britain to leave Africa and her empire. I am in full
support of Mbeki’s
approach to the problems of Africa: that there must be
African solutions to
African problems. It is no good anyone in Europe or
Africa blaming the past.
The cobwebs of the empire have now gone;
colonialism is now dead and
independence means taking responsibility for
your own country. It is worth
reminding ourselves that Mugabe obtained
independence as the first leader of
Zimbabwe 27 years ago. He takes full
responsibility for the condition of
Zimbabwe today. Ian Smith may have been
the other major contributor, but Mr
Mugabe carries the responsibility for
the condition of his people today.
Africans themselves say that what they
need most is leadership from
Africans. All of us who know Africa can see
that it is capable of producing
great leaders, from Kenyatta to Mandela to
Kofi Annan to Bishop Tutu. The
people of that continent no longer need
outdated leaders who are leaders of
anti-colonial liberation wars. They need
leaders who can develop their
countries and can develop democracy in their
countries. African leaders do
great harm to our perception of them from
outside the continent when they
fail to condemn brutal dictators like Mugabe
or Omar al-Bashir of the Sudan.
It is always the people of Africa who suffer
from it, not the former
colonial masters.
The key is how Africans
solve their own problems. What do they most need and
want to do? Here I must
commend a very remarkable book published by the
British Council called Under
the Tree of Talking: Leadership for Change in
Africa. It gives African views
rather than European views on how they can
and want to best solve their
problems.
The Commission for Africa’s executive summary report of 2005
highlighted two
weaknesses in Africa over the past 50 years. The first was
the capacity of
African states to prevent and manage conflict and their
ability to design
and deliver policies. The second was accountability—how
well a state answers
to its people. In my view, there is much that we can
do—either
multilaterally or bilaterally—to help these countries, and to help
them help
themselves; our experience through the Commonwealth is one
illustration.
However, the growing competition between China, the United
States and the
European Union to trade in Africa is producing dangers for
its people
because, if the issue of governance, accountability and human
rights is
forgotten in this competition, it will do the biggest possible
disservice to
the people of Africa—it is they who will suffer.
Our
approach must be to help the African nations build on success. In Ghana,
Nigeria, Tanzania, Liberia and South Africa strong Administrations are
emerging with success stories. We should encourage that and through the
African Union and other nations we should demonstrate to the people of, say,
Zimbabwe, Somalia, Sudan, the Congo and the Ivory Coast that it is possible
to have African leaders who can lead their countries back to a better and
happier condition.
I end on one particular area. We need, both in the
European Union and the
African Union, a positive approach to reconstruction
and peace building.
This requires a strategic plan which can be adapted to
different countries.
One specific issue of interest is that there is now a
diaspora of Africans
living outside the continent—20 million have left since
the Second World
War. They are people with great experience and skill; their
remittances back
to their continent amount to exactly the same as the amount
of overseas
development that is given to Africa. These skills are badly
needed back in
Africa. I would like to see the European Union, our country
and the African
Union develop a plan to mobilise these people—or at least
some of them—into
a kind of peace corps of African expatriates who could
help to rebuild these
countries that have been devastated by conflict. After
all, we have to
remember that the first priority must be the people of
Africa.
Lord Blaker: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton,
on
introducing this topical debate. He spoke a bit about Zimbabwe. My noble
friend Lady Park also made some useful points about that country, and I
congratulate her too. I also want to congratulate our colleague the most
reverend Primate the Archbishop of York who must have brought home for the
first time to millions of people the fact that there is a Mugabe problem
when he cut up his white collar on television and said that he will not wear
it again until Mugabe has gone.
Mugabe claims that he is fighting
against Britain, but he is not; he is
fighting against his own people. Our
role was to end the war of independence
and to arrange the elections that
put Mugabe into power. He makes two
allegations against us: neo-colonialism
and that our sanctions have caused
the appalling economic condition of
Zimbabwe. Both charges are ridiculous.
The “sanctions” are not sanctions,
but targeted measures, and it is not
likely that they have caused the
inflation in Zimbabwe which, according to
the latest report that I saw
today, has now reached a rate of 14,840 per
cent. So good is Mugabe’s spin
that it seems he has convinced a majority of
the leaders of the SADC
countries of what he is saying. The three principal
African treaties have
been breached by Mugabe, but the SADC leaders appear
to be unaware of
that—at least they do not refer to it. The effects of the
economic situation
in Zimbabwe are horrifying. One-third of the population
has fled, especially
the best qualified people and young people who were
born after 1980, when
Mugabe came to power.
On 11 March, a prayer meeting in Harare was
violently broken up by the
police and the military. That shocked even the
leaders of SADC and led them
to give a mandate to President Mbeki of South
Africa to facilitate
negotiations between the opposition and Mugabe. That
was accompanied by a
police warning to the MDC opposition, who are entirely
peaceful, not to
cause any trouble. No such warning was given to Mugabe, who
has been causing
turmoil among the opposition by the beatings and the
intimidation of all
sorts that he was conducting before that event and which
have continued
until now. Mugabe is preparing for elections with the usual
measures that he
has used in the past. The latest one—which is new, so far
as I know—is that
4 trillion Zimbabwe dollars have been set aside as a fund
available to
Mugabe in preparation for the elections. We can imagine that it
will be used
to persuade voters—so far as they need persuading, given the
violence that
has been going on—to vote for Mugabe.
Is there any ray
of light on the horizon? Four representatives of the
European Union recently
made speeches in Lisbon that criticised Mugabe. I do
not remember other
members of the European Union often criticising him, so
that is a step
forward. In a few days there will be an election for the next
president of
the ANC in South Africa. It could be quite important if it
leads to the
election of Zuma, who is a robust character compared to
President Mbeki. His
history is not entirely without blemish, but it is
possible that he will be
much more active in pursuing peace in Zimbabwe than
President Mbeki has
been. Kofi Annan recently made an important speech—the
Nelson Mandela
lecture—in which he cited Zimbabwe as one of the crises in
the world that
the United Nations should pay attention to. He said that
Africa is
particularly crying out for resolute action by fellow Africans.
That was
with particular reference to Zimbabwe, so one or two straws are
beginning to
blow in a light wind. However, we cannot regard the end of
Mugabe as being
likely soon. We have to bear in mind also that his mother
lived to 100, and
he is only 84. An end could be put to the problem if the
SADC leaders got
together with a powerful president of SADC in the form of
Zuma, if he
wins.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble
Lord,
Lord Alton of Liverpool, on this timely debate—I am tempted to call
him “my
noble friend” because we go back a long way. This debate is timely
because
of the recent meeting between Europe and Africa which highlighted
the
continuing conflicts on that continent, most notably the grinding
oppression
of the people of Zimbabwe. I shall not say much about Zimbabwe,
but a
snapshot that may be of interest to noble Lords is that its latest
issue of
postage stamps has a denomination of half a million dollars; if you
are a
dollar millionaire in Zimbabwe, you can buy two stamps.
Several
years ago, the eminent broadcaster and writer Alan Whicker was
interviewed
on a chat show. He was asked about Africa and replied that in
his view there
was no hope for Africa and, consequently, he rarely went
there. I disagree
with that analysis.
Since entering Parliament in 1992, I have taken every
opportunity to visit
Africa to learn more about that fascinating continent.
There is no doubt
that there are some good countries and that there are
others which are not
succeeding. There are many still suffering the after
effects of conflicts
which have ended; there are others where conflicts are
taking place
today—the noble Lord, Lord Alton, told us about those; and
there are others
where future potential conflicts are bubbling under the
surface.
Lord Sheikh: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton
of
Liverpool, on initiating the debate and on his excellent
presentation.
The subject is very broad and we do not have time to talk
about the details
of any particular country. I wish, therefore, to make
general comments.
During recent history, Africa has experienced significant
turmoil, upheaval
and war. That ranges from large conflicts including the
problems in Darfur
and the statelessness of Somalia, to the smaller, more
localised problems
including the turbulence in the north-east of Kenya
involving disputes
between different tribal groups.
Africa is a vast
continent comprising hundreds of distinct ethnic groups
with complex
histories. Therefore, the continent has witnessed conflicts of
tremendous
diversity in nature, size and scope, including struggles for
independence,
civil war, tribal conflict, genocide and terrorist attacks.
All this means
that it can be difficult to draw broad conclusions about the
causes and
consequences of these conflicts. Having said that, it appears
possible to
draw a clear link between conflict in Africa and poverty. Poor
economic
development can be seen as both a cause and a consequence of
conflict.
Conflict can quickly cause inflation, debt, reduced investment and
unemployment.
Poverty, in its many facets, can create social
discontentment which in turn
can create an environment more prone to
conflict. Poverty, and specifically
financial inequality within a society,
can be exploited by leaders to
mobilise followers and legitimate violent
actions. Thus the nature of the
problem goes in a cycle. Poverty results in
conflict and conflict results in
further poverty. There are also reasons to
relate conflict to the absence of
good governance. Weak government
institutions, a lack of transparency and
poor adherence to democratic
principles all predispose a state to conflict.
The ideas developed by
Immanuel Kant in his essay, Perpetual Peace, in 1795
have since evolved into
the theory that democracies rarely fight or go to
war. It could be suggested
that the absence or weakness of democracy in
certain African states has led
to conflict and war.
Furthermore, conflicts have arisen from the failure
of leaders to relinquish
power, resulting in military coups and other
attempts to seize power. The
example set in 1991 by Kenneth Kaunda in
Zambia, who gave up power, needs to
be repeated in states where unpopular
leaders, such as Mugabe, cling to
power. In the spirit of working with
Africa as a partner, I would like to
see Africa solving African problems,
through an empowered African Union,
albeit working with strong support from
the international community. I feel
this is probably the best way to deal
with problems in Darfur.
The implementation of an international arms
trade treaty would represent an
important step forward in preventing
tomorrow’s crises in Africa becoming
violent conflicts. Ninety-five per cent
of the small arms in use in Africa
were made outside the continent and
ensuring tighter global controls on the
sale and movement of such weapons
would help to stem their flow into Africa,
where they fuel conflicts and
cause untold damage.
If Africa is to become a peaceful, stable and secure
continent, we need to
show support to countries recently emerging from
conflicts, otherwise those
countries may slip back into a cycle of violence
and conflict. Conflict
resolutions are therefore very important. I would
like to take this
opportunity to remind us all of China’s heavy involvement
in Africa. The
concern is that the numerous projects and financial aid
packages funded by
China seem to be unrelated to any requirements for good
governance.
However, we are pleased to note that the EU remains the
largest donor to
Africa and that there seems to be a shift away from
projects for Africa
towards a more mature partnership involving projects
with Africa. This
method is to be commended as it represents a stronger and
more responsible
solution for obtaining peace and development in Africa. I
am pleased that,
despite problems connected with Mr Mugabe, the EU-Africa
summit was held
last week in Lisbon.
A major challenge facing Africa
as a continent is climate change, the
effects of which could stoke new
conflicts in the continent in the years to
come. There are predictions from
some scientists that the continent will
have 25 per cent less water by the
end of the century. This points towards
an increasingly bleak scenario for
certain areas of Africa, in which the
availability of water will decrease
and there will be a reduction in viable
agricultural land and an increase in
food shortages, possibly leading to
conflict. We all appreciate that the
problem of climate change needs to be
tackled globally, but I am very
pleased that we have taken the initiative
and are discussing the Climate
Change Bill.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I am grateful to the
noble Lord, Lord
Alton, for securing this debate and for drawing our
attention to this vital
issue. I am grateful also for the characteristically
well informed
contributions from all noble Lords who have participated in
this powerful
debate.
The noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, and
the noble Lord, Lord Blaker,
quite rightly and properly drew our attention
to the appalling situation in
Zimbabwe. The tragedy is unfolding daily
before our eyes and continues to
endanger stability in the whole area. Like
them, I pay tribute to the most
reverend Primate the Archbishop of York for
his persistence where Zimbabwe
is concerned. Like the noble Lord, Lord Luce,
the Government believe that
the solution to Zimbabwe’s current crisis has,
ultimately, to be an African
one, supported by the international community.
We support President Mbeke in
leading efforts to resolve Zimbabwe’s problems
and President Wade of Senegal’s
recent comments on the need for the whole of
Africa to solve the problem. We
want to see positive outcomes on the ground.
That is the only real test of
any initiative.
Zimbabwe’s crisis is
not only a regional or African problem, although it
requires strong African
leadership that is willing to condemn atrocities and
recognise injustice. I
cannot quite remember the very excellent quotation of
the noble Lord, Lord
Blaker, but I entirely agree with him about resolute
actions. At the last
meeting in August, SADC’s leaders did not blame the EU
or the West for
Zimbabwe’s problems. It was a very small step forward, but
perhaps we should
take some small comfort from that.
I listened carefully to the
experiences and wise words of the noble Lord,
Lord Luce. I very much like
his idea of an EU/AU plan to mobilise members of
the diaspora who have
skills that can be used in peacebuilding. Having had
discussions with
various diasporas in the past, I am sure that they would
warm to such a
suggestion.
The Government are fully committed to addressing both the
fundamental causes
of conflict in Africa and its consequences. We will
continue to put that at
the heart of our broader agenda for Africa’s
development and to use our
influence within the wider international
community.
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, every contribution to this
debate has
demonstrated a breadth of knowledge and, from all parts of your
Lordships’
House, a profound love of Africa and African people. The debate
has been
enriched by the experience of three former Ministers, by the noble
Baroness,
Lady Royall, speaking from the government Front Bench and by the
other
Front-Bench speakers, and by many other notable contributions based on
personal experience and real knowledge.
Many speeches have
concentrated on the situation in specific countries such
as Sudan, Zimbabwe,
Congo and Somalia. Others have looked at the human
costs, especially to
women and children, at the opportunity costs and
economic costs of conflict
and the correlation between conflict and poverty.
Others again have talked
about conflicts that have arisen, how we might end
them and the role of
international agencies and countries such as China and
Russia.
Zim Online
by Never Chanda Friday 14 December
2007
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s central bank will have to
go back to the drawing
board and take a phased approach to currency reforms
as analysts warn of an
invasion by counterfeit notes.
The
analysts spoke as Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon
Gono
announced on Wednesday plans to introduce new banknotes by Christmas in
a
move aimed at easing crippling cash shortages that have gripped the
country
over the past two months.
According to the analysts, Gono would
have to shelve the long-awaited
launch of the new Zimbabwean currency and
instead opt for the introduction
of higher denomination bearer cheques as a
stop-gap measure to ease current
cash shortages.
“I see the
governor first introducing higher-denomination bearer
cheques to the value
of $500 000 and $1 million after which he may have to
remove some zeros from
the currency as the next step of the currency
reforms,” economic commentator
Eric Bloch told ZimOnline.
According to Bloch, introduction of the
new currency would have to
wait until the economic situation
stabilised.
Gono has given conflicting signals to the market in the
past month
over the introduction of the new Zimbabwean
currency.
He hinted at the beginning of November that the new
banknotes would
not be due before early 2008, citing the unstable economic
climate in the
country.
He later changed his song, insisting
the new currency was “imminent”
and warned what he called cash barons that
they could be caught unawares if
they continued to hoard cash for
speculative purposes.
But observers have dismissed the governor’s
warning as mere cheap talk
aimed at hoodwinking the market.
Analysts yesterday accused Gono’s brand of “ambush economics” of being
the
source of Zimbabwe ’s economic crisis.
They warned that by not
addressing the current cash crisis, the RBZ
governor was inadvertently
creating fertile conditions for the injection of
counterfeit
banknotes.
“The cash situation is beginning to prove right those
people who have
always said Mr Gono is the worst Reserve Bank governor this
country has ever
had.
“What is most worrisome is that the more
the governor delays in
resolving the cash shortages, the more the likelihood
of counterfeit
banknotes entering the system because people will accept
anything that
resembles cash out of desperation,” said an investment banker
with a
Harare-based commercial bank.
The threat of counterfeit
money entering the financial system would
worsen Zimbabwe ’s trouble-some
inflation, estimated at a world
record-busting 15 000 percent. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Own Correspondent Friday 14 December
2007
JOHANNESBURG – The United Nations World Food Programme
(WFP) has listed
Zimbabwe among seven hot spots in the world where conflict
has led to
widespread hunger.
Strife-torn Somalia, Afghanistan, Chad,
Sudan, the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea (DPRK), and Bangladesh were
the other countries where the
relief agency has to regularly step in with
food or thousands of people
would starve.
People in these countries
“don’t know what tomorrow will bring and they
often have to rely on WFP for
their next meal,” the agency said this week in
an appeal for greater
international support for its aid operations.
An acute economic crisis
that the World Bank says is the worst in the world
outside a war zone has
exacerbated hunger in Zimbabwe with President Robert
Mugabe’s government
unable to import adequate food or fuel to ensure
whatever food is available
reaches all corners of the country.
The WFP said while distribution of
food was taking place in Zimbabwe, there
were several difficulties which
included fuel availability, power cuts and
communication problems.
An
estimated three million Zimbabweans or about a quarter of the country’s
12
million population are in need of food aid, according to international
relief agencies.
Critics blame Zimbabwe’s food crisis directly on
Mugabe’s haphazard
fast-track land reform exercise that displaced
established white commercial
farmers and replaced them with either
incompetent or inadequately funded
black farmers.
Food production
plunged by about 60 percent as a result while chaos in
agriculture because
of farm seizures also hit hard Zimbabwe’s once
impressive manufacturing
sector that had depended on a robust farming sector
for orders and
inputs.
Most of Zimbabwe’s industries have since the beginning of farm
seizures in
2000 either scaled down operations to about 30 percent of
capacity or shut
down altogether, in a country where unemployment is more
than 80 percent. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Nigel Hangarume Friday 14 December
2007
HARARE – England have offered Zimbabwe up to £200 000 if
they pull out of a
tour scheduled for May 2009.
Although England and
Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman Giles Clarke claimed
they wanted to stop
the Zimbabwe tour for “logistical” reasons, the main
issue appears to be the
political protests that always arise whenever the
two sides
play.
British politicians have called for cricket sanctions against
Zimbabwe as a
way to protest against President Robert Mugabe’s human rights
record.
If Zimbabwe players or officials are denied visas of entry into
Britain,
that might force the International Cricket Council to move the 2009
ICC
World Twenty20 tournament from England.
Giles met Zimbabwe
Cricket chairman Peter Chingoka a fortnight ago in
Johannesburg where he
presented the ECB proposals to cancel the tour.
Chingoka rejected the
offer, including the £200 000 carrot, and insisted
Zimbabwe would fulfil the
tour as scheduled on the ICC’s future tours
programme.
Clarke
yesterday appeared to downplay the agenda of the Johannesburg
meeting.
"These are the normal and regular conversations which take
place between the
boards in international cricket," Clarke said in a
statement.
"The summer of 2009 is exciting for the ECB but it also has
some logistical
issues which need to be resolved."
England in 2003
boycotted a World Cup match against Zimbabwe in Harare to
protest against
Mugabe, who was accused of stealing the ballot in
presidential elections the
previous year.
Australia have also refused to tour Zimbabwe over Mugabe’s
human rights
record.
England have been under pressure to follow suit
by imposing sporting
sanctions against Zimbabwe until Mugabe leaves office.
- ZimOnline
The Times
December 14, 2007
Riders for Health in Zimbabwe has become a model for
Africa, but economic
meltdown means that outside help is urgently
needed
Jan Raath in Rusape
It comes as a shock to find that almost the
only part of Zimbabwe’s
Government still functioning is the health system in
the country’s remote,
deprived rural areas.
It functions so well,
says Victor Nyamandi, a senior Health Ministry
official for the Makoni
district 170 kilometres (105 miles) east of the
capital, Harare, that the
monitoring system ensures that tuberculosis
medication is taken by every
patient to whom it is prescribed.
Cholera has been kept away from the
district’s 300,000 people, who live in
scattered villages connected by
rutted tracks in the rolling landscape, for
seven years. They have not seen
a case of measles for more than three years.
Measles immunisation days in
any part of the district receive a 90 per cent
attendance. Even the
white-robed, crook-wielding Vapostori (Apostolic) sect,
whose religion
abhors Western medicine, are having their children immunised.
“It’s
undoubtedly the best health structure in Africa,” said the
paediatrician
Greg Powell, chairman of the Zimbabwe Child Protection
Society. It was
functioning in the bush far better than in the urban areas,
where hospitals
have been overwhelmed by national infrastructural failure,
he
added.
The system could not work without a highly mobile corps of
dedicated health
workers who stay in constant contact with rural
communities, using a fleet
of tough, reliable motorbikes. “Three quarters of
the ministry’s vehicles
are managed by Riders for Health,” Mr Nyamandi said.
“They are the key to
our success. We cannot do without
them.”
Starting before independence in 1980, and accelerating
dramatically
afterwards, health authorities created a unique and almost
self-contained
system of primary preventive healthcare among the country’s
unsophisticated
rural communities, which had been devastated regularly by
disease.
It comprises a constantly reinforced basic education programme
that drives
home to nearly every village a recognition of common diseases
and their
symptoms, the simple steps to prevent them (such as building safe
wells and
the remarkable Blair toilet, a simple brick structure, named after
the state
laboratory that designed it, with a deep pit and built-in fly
trap, that has
wiped out faeces-bearing flies all over the country), a
limited range of
treatments, and a nutritious diet to strengthen their
immune systems.
The education is so thorough and simple that it needs
outside control only
in serious cases and is run virtually by the villagers
alone.
“When we are not there, our backs are covered,” Mr Nyamandi said.
“They are
quite conscious of their health.”
The bottom rung of the
system’s infrastructure comprises thousands of unpaid
volunteers drilled in
a limited range of specific, simple tasks – home-based
care givers who wash
Aids sufferers, “choloroquine holders” who hand out
malarial prophylactics
at the correct intervals, village health workers with
basic treatment skills
keeping records of illnesses and symptoms, village
Aids action committees
staging cautionary plays about husbands visiting
prostitutes, and garden
clubs that grow nutritious foods.
The key to their success is their link
with the outside world – the
environmental health technician (EHT), who is
responsible for bringing a
steady supply of essential drugs, cement for
building lavatories, and the
constant surveillance of suspected disease
outbreaks. The position also
involves mobilising mothers for the
immunisation of their children, raising
awareness of HIV, and acting as the
villagers’ principal teacher.
Motorbikes were introduced in the 1980s so
that the EHTs could move between
villages and to the nearest hospital. After
1998, when the country’s
economic crisis began, the repair and replacement
of motorbikes by the
Government evaporated, and the rural health system
began to stumble.
In 1998 Barry Coleman, the founder of Riders for
Health, came to Harare to
talk to worried Health Ministry officials. He
shocked them when he pointed
out that the ministry’s vehicle repairs
amounted to the second highest item
on the ministry’s budget. Fif-ty-five
scrambler-type motorbikes were
introduced with the charity’s programme of
vehicle maintenance to ensure
that its two-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles
did not break down.
The results were breathtaking. In Gokwe, one of the
most remote districts in
Zimbabwe, Toyota Land Cruiser ambulances with a
million kilometres on the
clock are still going after eight years. The first
bikes introduced in
Binga – as remote as Gokwe – and Makoni are still on the
road. After the
charity’s first year in Binga, malaria incidence fell by 20
per cent,
because of the suddenly enhanced distribution of prophylactics and
pesticide
spraying.
The outbreak of HIV and Aids in the late 1990s
was turning into an
uncontrollable catastrophe. “We reached a period of
great uncertainty. It
was getting like the Ugandan experience, with whole
villages dying out,” Mr
Nyamandi said. “We all lost lots of relatives.
People were thinking, ‘Maybe
we are all going to die’. We were frightened.”
Whole new structures for HIV
awareness, surveillance and counselling were
built into the rural primary
healthcare system, largely through the EHTs.
“People are now aware,” Mr
Nyamandi said. “Talk to anyone in Makoni, they
will tell you what causes
HIV. We can safely say that people’s behaviour has
changed.”
Mr Coleman said: “Zimbabwe now has the highest level of public
health worker
mobility in Africa. It may well account for the drop in HIV
infection rates
[from 24 per cent three years ago to 16 per cent now,
according to World
Health Organisation figures]. There isn’t a system like
this anywhere. It is
simple. It is made for Africa. This is good news for
global health.”
There are 529 Riders for Health motorbikes in the Health
Ministry, serving
every district. In the whole of last year, thanks to the
charity’s training
programme, the only accidents were two fall-offs with
minor injuries; there
have been no accidents this year.
But economic
collapse is now causing the extraordinary achievements of the
health system
to crumble. Fuel and spare parts have become erratically
available and EHTs
are losing touch with their villages. “In Makoni district
10 out of 14 EHTs
were immobilised for lack of fuel,” Mr Nyamandi said.
“More and more
motorbikes are breaking down. Now a bike can spend six months
without being
ridden.
“We made big gains in the health system. We have to keep that
momentum – the
Riders system has to be sustainable.”
The Board, staff and members of Crisis in
Zimbabwe Coalition congratulate
the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
for winning the inaugural
Freedom Defenders Award presented to them by
United States of America (USA)
Secretary of State, Condoleezza
Rice.
ZLHR received the award on the 10th of December 2007 at the United
States
Department of State, in recognition of the dedication by the
organization to
represent victims of human rights violations perpetrated by
the government.
In its 10 years of existence, the ZLHR has exhibited
itself as a beacon for
promoting and protecting human rights. Its existence
has been punctuated by
the harassment, beatings, arrests and abduction of
its staffers owing to
their selfless dedication to the promotion of human
rights and the rule of
law in the Zimbabwe.
ZLHR remains a colossal
of defending and representing the weaker sections of
our nation. Its
outstanding performances are noted in providing legal
representation to
human rights activists, journalists and members of the
public facing
political persecution.
The award confirms that ZLHR has become a vital
institution irrespective of
operating in the environment which is littered
with restrictive laws such as
the Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act (AIPPA),
Interception to Communication Act (ICA), the
Broadcasting Services Act
(BSA), the Public Order and Security Act (POSA)
among others.
ZLHR remains resolute in the struggle against the
restrictive and oppressive
governance models implemented by the government
which are reminiscent of the
policies of segregation which the Ian Smith
regime employed as a mechanism
to contain dissenting voices from the
nationalist movement in the country.
Crisis Coalition takes this
opportunity to congratulate and commend the
organization for the work done
in saving activists from politically
motivated incarceration. The Coalition
calls upon ZLHR to remain resolute in
the struggle for a democratic and just
society as it has been doing for the
past 10 years.
Letters
Friday December 14,
2007
The Guardian
Detestation of Robert Mugabe inside and outside
the Labour party has nothing
to do with patronising attitudes to African
social conventions and
development needs, illusions of "shared ideology", or
disenchantment among
those who supported campaigns in support of liberation
struggles decades ago
(Labour's Lisbon pain: Mugabe has exploited the
party's naivety in believing
it has a natural empathy with Africa, December
10). It arises from revulsion
at the horrors inflicted by Mugabe
today.
Like Zimbabweans in the movement to re-establish democracy in that
country,
we despise Mugabe because his corrupt, incompetent, vicious regime
has
devastated a once thriving economy, halved life expectancy and inflicted
hunger and untold other miseries on his people. Some African national
leaders, as Mr Cargill reports, try to excuse Mugabe as an unbowed
"revolutionary" and dismiss criticism from outside Africa as "misinformed".
Others, like Presidents Kufuor of Ghana and Kikwete of Tanzania have, to
their great credit, publicly voiced a very different view.
The most
impressive testimony to Mugabe's cruel and crooked misrule must, in
any
case, be the millions in Zimbabwe who suffer the effects of his tyranny
and
from the 5 million refugees who have fled the country in economic
desperation. Those people certainly carry what Mr Cargill calls "emotional
baggage". It is the raw anguish caused by Mugabe's despotism. That is the
compelling reason for opposing Mugabe, isolating his regime and supporting
Africans working for the re-liberation of Zimbabwe.
Neil
Kinnock
Labour, House of Lords
From The West Australian, 13 December
Ryan Pedler
A former member of
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s notorious police
force who admits he
beat the African dictator’s political opponents has
thwarted an Immigration
Department bid to throw him out of the country for
committing crimes against
humanity. The 27-year-old man, who also admits
involvement in bulldozing the
homes of Mr Mugabe’s opponents, has
successfully claimed that his actions
should not be held against him because
he had only been following orders he
was too scared to disobey. The identity
of the man, a member of the Zimbabwe
Republic Police from 2001 to 2005, has
been suppressed. He came to WA on a
three month business visa in November
2005 to apply for a position with WA
Police but was not successful. He
applied for a protection visa in February
2006 but the Immigration
Department refused that in October 2006 because
there were "serious reasons
for considering he had committed crimes against
humanity". He went to the
Administrative Appeals Tribunal and its deputy
president Stanley Hotop
upheld his appeal in Perth on Wednesday. Mr Hotop
sent the man’s visa
application back to the Immigration Department for
reconsideration and
directed that it could not be refused on the grounds
that he had committed
crimes against humanity. The department said yesterday
it had sought a legal
opinion on the prospects of an appeal. Any appeal must
be lodged within 28
days.
The department submitted at the AAT there
was ample evidence the ZRP
committed torture and inhumane acts and the man’s
admissions showed he
committed crimes against humanity and was an accessory
to such crimes by
other ZRP officers. The man told the tribunal he obeyed
orders in 2002 to
disperse a rally of 10,000 people led by Morgan
Tsvangirai, leader of the
Movement for Democratic Change. "I cannot put a
number on how many people I
struck with my baton," he said. "I only struck
people on their thigh when
they were coming towards me and I was trying to
protect myself. I did see
some other officers violently beating people." The
man told the tribunal he
also followed orders of superior ZRP officers in
2005 to escort political
opponents from their homes before they were
bulldozed. "I was afraid that if
I did not follow the instructions to
participate in the operation, I would
be labelled an MDC sympathiser," he
said. "I could have been arrested, kept
in prison, beaten and tortured." Mr
Hotop said he accepted the man’s
evidence and ruled there was insufficient
evidence that the man had
committed crimes against humanity. He said there
was no evidence the man had
injured anyone and found that he "did not share
a common purpose with other
officers of the ZRP to engage in violent conduct
constituting a crime
against humanity".
VOA
By Carole Gombakomba and Blessing Zulu
Washington
14 December 2007
Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe’s insistence elections will be held in
March has sparked
objections from the opposition, which says South
African-mediated crisis
talks must be completed and a new constitution
adopted before polls can be
held.
But the outlook for finishing the talks any time soon is not very
good.
Sources say that an impasse has developed with negotiators for the
ruling
party insisting that ZANU-PF will not agree to put a new constitution
in
place before the elections.
This raises the prospect of the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change
staging a boycott of the elections
for lack of a level playing field.
Negotiations in Pretoria have been stormy
lately, sources close to the talks
say, even as South African mediators
press for conclusion by what now seems
an impossible deadline on
Saturday.
The MDC formation led by Arthur Mutambara dismissed reports
that its
negotiator in the talks, faction Secretary General Welshman Ncube,
walked
out of the negotiations on Tuesday. Harare's Independent newspaper
reported
that Ncube stormed out “after sharp differences emerged” with the
two
negotiators for the ruling party.
Mutambara grouping spokesman
Gabriel Chaibva said that to the contrary, the
talks were going on smoothly
and Ncube would be "the last person" to walk
out of the talks. But informed
sources said the talks had entered a very
rough patch and could hit a dead
end unless the ruling party shows more
willingness to
compromise.
Chaibva told reporter Carole Gombakomba of VOA's Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe that
his grouping will only agree to elections in March if the
playing field has
been leveled.
Speaking for the formation of MDC
founding president Morgan Tsvangirai,
Thabitha Khumalo said President
Mugabe’s insistence on elections in March
shows the ruling party is not
serious about the crisis talks, which should
determine the poll
date.
Observers saw Mr. Mugabe's declaration as a serious blow to the
crisis
talks, as is the position taken recently by the ruling party
negotiators
that the discussions are a work in progress and accords can be
implemented
after the elections
For perspective on the rapidly
evolving situation, reporter Blessing Zulu
turned to lawyer and Crisis in
Zimbabwe Coalition Coordinator Jacob Mafume,
and researcher Chris Maroleng
of South Africa's Institute for Security
Studies. Maroleng said it is not
realistic to expect free and fair elections
can be held just three months
from now.
VOA
By Patience Rusere and Thomas Chiripasi
Washington
14 December 2007
Having nominated
President Robert Mugabe for re-election, Zimbabwe's ruling
ZANU-PF party
pressed on Friday with day two of an extraordinary congress
amid charges,
published in a Harare newspaper, that the nomination of Mr.
Mugabe was
staged by his designated successor and violated ZANU-PF's own
party
constitution.
Unnamed ruling party dissenters told the Independent, a
Harare weekly
newspaper, that the nomination of Mr. Mugabe on Thursday was
"unconstitutional and fraudulent" and that his loyalists used intimidation
to quell any resistance to his candidacy.
The Independent said the
endorsement of Mr. Mugabe as the party's candidate
in the presidential
election set for March was made under Article 6, Section
30, Paragraph 3 of
the party constitution, but said the clause allows a
conference, not a
congress, to declare the president elected at the previous
congress the
party’s candidate.
In other words, only a "people's conference" could do
what was done
Thursday - at least according to the interpretation offered by
the
Independent's sources. The paper said the issue was discussed by the
ZANU-PF
politburo in October and November and that the procedure used to
nominate
Mr. Mugabe was “carefully crafted” by favored Mugabe successor and
party
legal affairs secretary Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Political analyst
and University of Zimbabwe Professor John Makumbe told
reporter Patience
Rusere of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that it appeared
some coercion was
involved in nominating Mr. Mugabe as there are dissenters
to his
selection.
There was an uproar within the congress Friday as when
delegates booed the
party's national chairman, John Nkomo, and Vice
President Joseph Msika, for
challenging the credentials of prominent war
veteran Jabulani Sibanda, a
major Mugabe backer.
The two officials
said he had been suspended as chairman of the Zimbabwe
National Liberation
War Veterans Association. President Mugabe had to
intervene as the congress
protested the officials' efforts to keep Sibanda
off the
podium.
Reporter Thomas Chiripasi of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe provided
an account
of the congress fight over the standing of Sibanda, long a
ZANU-PF lightning
rod.