Reuters
Sun Dec 17, 2006 1:06 PM GMT
By Cris Chinaka
HARARE (Reuters) -
Embattled President Robert Mugabe has consolidated his
grip on power with
support from his party to extend his rule by two years to
2010, but analysts
say this will also delay the recovery of Zimbabwe's
crumbling
economy.
An annual conference of Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party on
Saturday "noted and
adopted" a motion approving a plan to move presidential
polls from 2008 to
2010 so they can be "harmonised" and held at the same
time as parliamentary
elections.
Although the controversial
resolution must still be approved by the party's
policy-making central
committee and by parliament to be effective, analysts
say this will be a
rubber-stamping formality as Mugabe has control over both
institutions.
Political commentators said the drive to prolong
Mugabe's stay in power
would hurt Zimbabwe's chances of turning around an
economy in recession for
eight years, a crisis many blame on his
policies.
Mugabe, 82, has ruled the southern African state since
independence from
Britain in 1980, and analysts say the opposition is
currently too weak to
challenge him.
"President Mugabe might be
winning his fights in ZANU-PF to hang onto power,
but the economy is losing
over his so-called victories," a senior Western
diplomat told
Reuters.
"I don't see any prospects of the international community coming
here soon
with financial assistance while the president maintains his
confrontation
stance and when there are no prospects of reforms," he
said.
"And, without large amounts of foreign assistance, without business
confidence and with the kind of management that we are seeing, the economic
crisis can only get worse," he added.
International donors --
including the World Bank and the IMF -- have frozen
aid to Zimbabwe in the
last few years over policy differences with Mugabe,
including his seizures
of white-owned farms for redistribution to landless
blacks.
Western
powers, including the United States and the European Union, have
also
imposed travel sanctions on Mugabe and his ZANU-PF officials over
vote-rigging and rights abuses charges.
But the veteran Zimbabwean
leader remains combative.
In speeches at the annual convention of his
party at the weekend, Mugabe
accused Western powers of trying to unseat him
and vowed his government
would not collapse under pressure.
And, in
an apparent warning to fellow African leaders to stay out of the
issue of
his controversial rule, Mugabe said on Saturday: "Even our friends
and
neighbours have no right and no power to change the government in
Zimbabwe."
Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of political pressure group
National
Constitutional Assembly, said although Mugabe had secured support
in ZANU-PF
to extend his rule to 2010, the deteriorating economy would keep
immense
pressure on him.
"Things are just getting worse, and worse
and worse every day and as the
economy deteriorates because the government
is fighting everyone, more
people, including those in ZANU-PF, will come to
accept that ours is a
crisis of governance," he said.
Zimbabwe is
struggling with a deepening economic crisis dramatised in the
world's
highest inflation rate of over 1,000 percent and characterised by
chronic
shortages of fuel, food and foreign currency.
Mugabe says the economy is
being sabotaged by foreign and domestic opponents
trying to oust him over
his nationalist policies, and is punting for
recovery on state investment in
agriculture and new investment from Asia and
the Far East.
Madhuku
and other analysts said Zimbabwe's economy would be damaged further
in the
coming three years by a leadership struggle in Mugabe's ranks over
the
succession question.
"The issue is unresolved and the fight will go on,"
he said.
International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: December 17,
2006
HARARE, Zimbabwe: Delegates of Zimbabwe's ruling party
dispersed Sunday
after their three day annual convention recommended
extending President
Robert Mugabe's term in office by two years to 2010,
although it did not
agree outright to the proposal.
In an unusual
step, a resolution on the electoral change was not formally
adopted by the
4,000 delegates but would be referred to the party's central
committee for
further discussion, said Elliot Manyika, political commissar
in the Zimbabwe
African National Union-Patriotic Front party.
Manyika said the convention
at a school in Goromonzi, about 30 kilometers
(18 miles) east of Harare,
"recommended" postponing the presidential poll,
the state Sunday Mail
newspaper reported.
Hinting there was some unease over the move, he said
it was still open to
debate and would eventually need approval in a
constitutional amendment
passed by the ruling party-dominated Parliament in
Harare.
Mugabe, speaking to reporters at the end of the convention, said
the party
meeting had reached "consensus" on proposals to hold the next
presidential
elections in 2010, when parliamentary elections are scheduled.
That would
mean skipping a presidential race now scheduled for
2008.
Mugabe said the "harmonization" of elections was a practical step
that would
save on the costs of polling and ease the handling of election
administration in a nation of nearly 5 million registered voters.
The
extension was seen, however, as a bid to give 82-year-old Mugabe more
time
to deal with rifts in the party over succession to the presidency.
"The
first and foremost issue is to reaffirm our loyalty to the party and
its
leadership," Manyika said.
Mugabe himself, in an address broadcast on
state television late Saturday,
acknowledged divisions.
"Almost in
every province we hear of friction, of factions. This person
belongs to
so-and-so, and this one belongs to so-and-so. This is a sad state
of
affairs," he said.
He called for "a new sense of order and discipline" as
delegates dispersed
to the nation's 10 provinces Sunday.
Earlier in
the convention, Mugabe castigated leaders in two main factions
for jockeying
for power.
"Stop it. The time will come when vacancies exist but now
there are no
vacancies, none at all," he said, adding he would not step down
if it meant
leaving the ruling party in what he called "a
shambles."
Mugabe led the nation to independence from Britain in 1980. He
denies he
plunged Zimbabwe into its worst economic crisis, largely blamed on
the often
violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms
since 2000
that disrupted the agriculture-based economy.
He argues
drought and Western aid and trade embargoes led to the crisis.
Aid and
investment have dried up during six years of political and economic
turmoil.
Mugabe's rivals within the ruling party have openly expressed
worries there
would be no meaningful economic reform as long as the ascetic,
stern and
authoritarian president remains at the helm.
Those fears fueled
opposition to the extension of his term and meant the
convention could not
reach outright unanimity on the issue, the independent
Sunday Standard
newspaper reported from Goromonzi.
The opposition Movement for Democratic
Change said Friday it opposed the
poll postponement which would make Mugabe
an "illegitimate and unelected
president for an extra two
years."
Analysts said the electoral change, as with previous sweeping
media and
security laws, could be railroaded through by ruling party
lawmakers.
Zimbabwe is facing 1,090 percent inflation, the highest in the
world, and
acute shortages of gasoline, hard currency, food and essential
imports.
People's Daily
Former Ethiopia's ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam
has abandoned his Harare
home and is now living in Kariba, near the Zambian
border, a report said
Saturday.
Mengistu, who was found guilty
of genocide following a trial in
absentia in his homeland, left Harare
sometime in July and has not set foot
at his Harare home, according to a
report, published by the website
http://newzimbabwe.com.
He is
living at a private residence in Kariba, said the report, adding
that once
in a while he visited Harare as he acquired a stake in a local
wholesale
company.
It was not clear whether the man who once ruled Ethiopia
with an iron
fist had decided to live in Kariba permanently.
Mengistu, who has lived in exile in Zimbabwe since he was ousted in
1991,
was convicted on Tuesday in a 12-year trial that focused on the
killings of
thousands of political opponents during his military
government's 17-year
rule.
Little is known about his life in Harare. On the rare
occasions when
Mengistu has been seen in public, he has been seen wearing
military boots
and carrying a pistol.
Security for Mengistu was
increased in the mid-1990s after a failed
assassination attempt by two
Eritreans who ambushed him during a stroll.
Source: Xinhua
Newsday
BY ERIK
GERMAN
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe -- A few miles
south of the empty luxury hotels in
this once-dazzling tourist spot, dozens
of gaunt young men survive by
scavenging food from the town
dump.
Allan Sibanda, 23, has been coming here on and off for the past
five years,
scuffling with baboons and vultures for the least-rotten scraps.
Since
mid-summer, garbage has been his sole source of food, he
said.
"I think a lot about the way I'm living," he said,
watching the horizon
anxiously for the next rubbish truck. "I am
suffering."
Despite plentiful rains, the specter of starvation haunts
thousands of
Zimbabwe's poor, and even the well-off are running short of
food because of
low crop yields. Needy households will face "serious
difficulties" feeding
themselves in the coming months, the U.S. Agency for
International
Development warned in its most recent report in
August.
If the report's authors had met the bony squatters outside
Bulawayo,
Zimbabwe's second largest city, they might have used the phrase
"utter
misery" instead.
Tembeni Mzizi, 28, lives west of Bulawayo in
a doorless hovel fashioned from
mud and scavenged bricks. Late on a summer
afternoon, she said her four
children -- ages 11, 9, 7 and 7 months -- had
last eaten the day before. The
family's only income comes from chopping the
wrist-sized brush surrounding
the small shantytown and selling it as
fuel.
Mzizi clutched her baby girl, Patience, and inspected the meager
family
larder: a splash of cooking oil, three handfuls of beans and a few
greens
wilting in a chipped enamel bowl. When the firewood didn't sell one
week,
Mzizi said, the family survived on boiled leaves and sugar.
"We
are trying our best to earn money," she said. "But at the moment, we
have
got nothing."
A nation changed
Less than a decade ago, Zimbabwe
was an economic powerhouse whose cornfields
fed much of southern Africa.
This year, in the wake of land seizures that
lowered crop yields, it
produced only four-fifths of the corn it needs to
feed itself, according to
USAID. The 435,000-ton shortfall made the national
staple scarce at any
price. Most Zimbabweans eat a thick corn porridge
called sadsa with every
meal.
Even if the country imports huge amounts of grain, as it did last
year,
relief agencies say few consumers will be able to afford it. Prices
rise
weekly -- sometimes hourly. October's inflation rate soared to 1,070
percent, the highest in the world -- a legacy of economic collapse that some
experts worry will spread to neighboring countries.
"There could be
widespread famine here," said John Makumbe, a professor of
politics at the
University of Zimbabwe in Harare. "I think we could have 60
to 70 percent of
people desperate for food by February."
Malnutrition, a lack of doctors
and a 20-percent HIV-infection rate already
are killing at least 3,000
people per week, according to Zimbabwe's Ministry
of Health. Government
critics say the real numbers are much, much higher.
"If you care about
poor people dying in great numbers, then Zimbabwe is a
story that should
have the attention of the world," said David Coltart, a
member of parliament
from Bulawayo.
Even Zimbabweans with money find there is little if any
cornmeal to buy.
Store shelves are bare in urban centers like Bulawayo,
Harare and Victoria
Falls. While some patches of corn can be found in rural
areas, the
Commercial Farmers Union of Zimbabwe estimated in July that the
country's
fields are producing 60 percent less grain than they did in
2000.
Historical roots
The roots of the decline go back more than
two decades, when Zimbabwe was a
former British colony called Rhodesia and
President Robert Mugabe was a
guerrilla leader fighting white rule. After
his 1980 victory, he promised to
give land to blacks without driving out the
rich whites whose commercial
farms formed the bedrock of the
economy.
In the years that followed, however, black Zimbabweans -- whose
ancestors
lost the best farmland to white colonists -- remained landless.
Blacks also
grew poorer as Mugabe spent resources on high government
salaries and,
starting in 1998, a four-year war in the Congo that cost
Zimbabwe more than
$1 million per day.
Land takeover
As the
economy worsened, Mugabe's hold on power began to slip. Armed groups
of
veterans demonstrated and demanded land. In 2000, Mugabe began to
deliver.
Government trucks transported veterans and their supporters to
white-owned
farms across the country. Dozens of white farmers were killed in
the
takeovers.
The invasions transformed 3,000-acre spreads into a patchwork
of tiny
subsistence farms.
The less-experienced newcomers have been
cultivating far fewer acres and
getting lower yields than the landowners
they displaced.
Thokozani Gumbi's family moved onto a portion of one of
these farms outside
Masvingo in southern Zimbabwe in 2002. They cultivate
just a few dozen acres
and plan to consume their entire 3-ton summer
harvest.
"It should last us until April," Gumbi, 24, said as he sat
inside the
thatched hut where his family sleeps and cooks over a small fire.
Outside,
plowed patches of soil quickly give way to dense tracts of weeds
stretching
to the horizon -- land once lush with crops. "We are not
selling," Gumbi
said of his corn.
Worry over
neighbors
Regional experts worry that, if Zimbabwe-style expropriations
spread to
neighboring countries, instability will follow. In neighboring
Namibia and
South Africa, much of the best farmland is still white-owned and
the black
population is largely landless.
"Zimbabwe is now a
wasteland," said Alfred Chanda, a professor of human
rights law in
neighboring Zambia who monitors Zimbabwe for the
anti-corruption watchdog
group Transparency International. "What happened
there could happen anywhere
else."
Newsday
To fund studies, students turn to
prostitution
BY ERIK GERMAN
Newsday Staff Correspondent
December
17, 2006
HARARE, Zimbabwe - From afar, the University of Zimbabwe seems
healthy
enough. Its modern, multi-storied buildings stand on generous lawns.
Shaded
paths cross just the sort of quiet, verdant scene you might expect at
the
largest university in the capital of one of Africa's most educated
nations.
But up close, the campus that once boasted 14,000 students is
largely empty.
Few undergraduates pass down unlit hallways; sparse groups
share books under
jacaranda trees outside. Professors estimate more than 70
percent of
students couldn't afford tuition this fall, and the true
enrollment is
anyone's guess. As fees skyrocket - a consequence of the
world's highest
inflation rate - students cope any way they can.
For
accounting major Tariro, a soft-faced 18-year-old, that means turning to
prostitution. She charges $5 for a short time, $10 for all night. After
classes, she, like so many of her fellow students, studies for three hours
and then steps into the streets for her evening work.
"I'm angry
because I don't like this job," she said. "But there's no
option."
The crisis is nationwide. "Half of the students who were in
school are out
now," said Pius Ncube, a Roman Catholic archbishop describing
conditions for
pupils in his diocese of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second-largest
city.
"They have no food, they have no money, and these young people sell
themselves," he said. Ncube, one of the most outspoken critics of President
Robert Mugabe's autocratic regime, then cut the interview short. His next
appointment was a young student fidgeting in a chair outside the cleric's
office who'd come to beg for help paying his school
fees.
Literate, but unemployed
A nation where many still
cling to middle-class aspirations, Zimbabwe is
unusual among this
continent's failing states. Eight in 10 Zimbabweans can
read, and in the
1990s, almost half had attended a secondary school.
Its education system,
once the envy of Africa, is collapsing as rapidly as
the country itself. The
economy began failing in 2000 after the government
seized thousands of
white-owned commercial farms that were Zimbabwe's
largest employer.
Following the seizures, foreign investors fled, industry
collapsed and
inflation took off at a gallop. Eight in 10 Zimbabweans now
lack jobs. As
the August inflation rate hit 1,200 percent, tuition soared.
On top of
economic collapse, drought struck last year, and among the
affected farmers
was Tariro's father. At school in Harare, the accounting
student faced her
bills alone. She said a single university term costs her
about $935 in U.S.
dollars - almost two years' salary for many government
workers. At first,
she said, she resisted the pull of her friends, the girls
who paid for
school by selling themselves at the dance halls in town.
" 'No, no, no,'"
Tariro recalled telling them. "But they said, 'Ah, this is
the way. If you
want, we can go together to the nightclub.'" Her resistance
wore down
quickly. Her girlfriends helped her pick out a short skirt and
showed her
how to wash and perfume her body. They steered her to Live Wire,
a downtown
nightclub where sex sells as readily as liquor. On a February
night in 2005,
the needy teen lost her virginity to a man who paid her less
than
$10.
"I was very afraid," Tariro said. "When my friends told me that you
can do
this - it was my first time." Her fingers trifled with a braid of
hair and
then traced the butterfly she'd sewn near the hem of her denim
skirt.
Classes on Monday and Wednesday begin at 8 a.m. and Tariro said
the long
hours mean she rarely makes it through lectures without falling
asleep.
Since she was 12, she said, she wanted to be an
accountant.
Desperate for money
Fifteen percent of the
University of Zimbabwe's female students prostitute
themselves to pay for
school, according to the national AIDS-prevention
charity SHAPE Zimbabwe,
which stands for Sustainability, Hope, Action,
Prevention and Education. It
estimates that, at two of the next-largest
colleges - Midlands State
University and Chinhoyi University of Technology -
the number reaches 20
percent. The phenomenon first appeared during the
downturn of 2000, the
report says, but it grew worse as Zimbabwe's crisis
deepened.
The
report details how, at Chinhoyi, student prostitution is so commonplace
that
elaborate euphemisms have grown up around the practice - borrowing
vocabulary from the sport of cricket. A "one-day international" is a sexual
transaction lasting a single night; "test matchers" are financial
relationships running the course of a whole term, and a "world tour" is a
financial and emotional sugar-daddy arrangement lasting much
longer.
Tariro sums up the situation among her girlfriends simply. "We
are many,"
she said.
Risking their health
They are
earning their keep in a minefield of disease. The World Health
Organization
estimates one in five Zimbabwean adults has HIV. Only a
fraction of students
here use condoms - about 15 percent, according to the
SHAPE report. Tariro
said she always insists on protection, but girls who
don't can make double
what she does.
The professor who prepared the SHAPE report, surveying
thousands of students
over five years, agreed to discuss its contents on
condition of anonymity.
Herself a 39-year-old mother of three, she said she
decided to confront the
issue after discovering six of the students she
advised had been forced into
prostitution by poverty.
"Either they
engage in commercial sex work and stay in school, or they drop
out and do
commercial sex work anyway," she said. "They do a cost-benefit
analysis in
their heads and say, 'I'm better off doing commercial sex work
for three
years, and when I graduate I just drop it.'"
Not all of them make it that
far. Of the six young women she started
advising, two died of AIDS before
graduation. Two others were terminally ill
when they received their
diplomas.
So far, the highest price Tariro has paid is
loneliness. When she told her
parents how she earns money, they first tried
to forbid her, and then said
nothing. During her yearly Christmas visit
home, silence reigned.
Her social life consists mostly of playing on an
intramural volleyball team
a few times per week. Going out for fun is a
memory, she said, and what she
called rumors quickly made dating impossible.
Her first and only boyfriend -
the one she met in high school and followed
to Harare for college - was
unforgiving when he discovered her
occupation.
"When he heard I was going to the nightclubs, he said, 'no,
let's break
away,'" Tariro said, resigned to two more years of a life that
she, too,
longs to leave behind. "Things will become easier. When I finish
school, I
will leave this job."
Newsday
BY ERIK
GERMAN
Newsday Staff Writer
December 17, 2006
In a country
where many poor people are starving in mud huts, one tidy,
mint-green house
provides a study in luxury.
Lindiwe Gadhlula, 52, one of three sisters
who share the home, took a
visitor on a brief tour: In the kitchen, a
refrigerator stood beside a new,
four-burner electric stove; the living room
boasted three love seats grouped
around a TV tuned to Japanese cartoons; out
back, dozens of fat chickens
clucked beside a lush vegetable
garden.
"Everything here," she said, swirling her hand, was financed from
a cramped
Harlem apartment - the home of Gadhlula's youngest sister,
Sibusisiwe, 34.
She keeps house for an elderly Westchester couple and each
month wires or
sends home to Zimbabwe more than $500 - about one third of
her pay.
Millions like her are sustaining this beggared
nation.
"I'm not just taking care of my two kids, I'm taking care of
nieces and
nephews and my siblings," Sibusisiwe said in a recent interview
in Harlem as
she packed cash, shoes, two pairs of jeans, an orange dress for
her sister
and heaps of T-shirts into a black nylon suitcase destined for
Zimbabwe.
In 2000, a cousin paid for Sibusisiwe to fly to New York City
for a visit.
That was the year Zimbabwe's government started seizing
commercial farms and
the economy began its long slide into ruin. As
Sibusisiwe's tourist visa ran
out, the young single mother came to a sad
conclusion: She could do her
children more good if she found work in New
York and left them in Zimbabwe.
"Our government is so corrupt. Things are
out of hand," she said. "My
family - they are so blessed to have me this
side of the world."
She joined a surge of immigrants that the 2000 census
says brought more
Africans to the United States than during the days of
slavery. Like many
undocumented workers, she shares an apartment and labors
at a job for which
she is overqualified. The former accountant asked that
her address and
employers' names not be disclosed.
"I'm illegal here.
I've overstayed," she said. "If I go back I will be going
forever."
Sibusisiwe works day and night during the week, coming back to
Harlem on
weekends, when she often finds other housekeeping work rather than
socializing.
"I really want to work hard for my kids," she said of
her son, 9, and
daughter, 13. "If you go out, you spend."
Like
Sibusisiwe, more than 3 million Zimbabweans - about a quarter of the
country's population - have fled to work abroad, according to an August
report from the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit think tank that
monitors unstable countries. Half of all Zimbabweans survive from regular
infusions of cash, food and other goods sent by relatives working abroad,
Oxford University's Global Poverty Research Group estimated in
June.
"We have exported our labor, and that labor is sending money home,"
said
Moses Mzila-Ndlovu, a member of parliament representing Plumtree, one
of
Zimbabwe's poorest constituencies. "It's a crucial component of our way
of
life."
Sibusisiwe's family agrees. "Each month you find that
prices have gone up,
but your salary has not," said her brother Babriba, 54,
a primary school
teacher in Bulawayo. His sister's money "covers all the
gaps."
That morning, the family had received a shipment. Sibusisiwe's
friend - a
doctor on her way to Botswana - had agreed to deliver everything
to her
sister near the border.
Lindiwe spent two days riding trains
to meet her. Dealing in foreign
currency is illegal, so she will spread the
goods and cash out among several
trips, leaving the remainder with the
doctor.
This time, she returned with just essentials, and a pair of
soccer shoes
sent for a 9-year-old boy with little memory of his absent
mother. He was 3
when she left. Back in Harlem, the mother's memory has also
proven ruefully
fragile.
"I don't even know my son," Sibusisiwe said.
She wept, clutching a
photograph of a boy in a striped blue shirt whom she'd
last hugged six years
ago. "I recognize him only by the clothes. Those are
the ones I sent."
From The Sunday Times (SA), 17 December
Sunday Times Foreign Desk
Zanu PF leader hints that
his next move will be similar to land grab in
2002.
The car park
resembles a Mercedes- Benz showroom. C-classes, E-classes - and
over there
is an M-class off- roader imported from Germany. Inside a huge
tent are men
wearing designer Italian suits - Armani, it seems, is the order
of the day.
But this is not a Hollywood awards ceremony or a meeting of the
world's top
businessmen and political leaders. This ostentatious display of
wealth is to
be found at Goromonzi High School, 100km outside the capital of
Harare on
Friday at the opening of the annual conference of Robert Mugabe's
Zanu PF -
the party which rules Zimbabwe, a country facing economic ruin.
Inflation
stands at more than 1000% and at least seven out of every 10
people are
unemployed. As veteran politicians saunter into the huge tent
they are
greeted with the chorus: "Gushungo [Mugabe's family name] tongai
zwenyu
ranini. [Mugabe you can rule forever until you are tired]."
Inside
the tent are tons of bottled water, a luxury in a country where the
capital
city's piped water is deemed unfit for human consumption. For lunch,
delegates are treated to a five-course meal including chicken, turkey, lamb,
pork and venison. Meanwhile, just outside the school, villagers complain
that they are starving as a result of a poor harvest that they blame on the
chaotic land reform programme implemented by Mugabe and Zanu PF. But the
highlight of the conference, titled "Consolidating Independence Through
Land, Mining Reforms and Economic Empowerment", is undoubtedly the address
by Mugabe, resplendent in Zanu PF regalia - including a matching scarf and a
baseball cap - and waving his fist in his trademark style. And the
83-year-old does not disappoint. "We are here today," he says, as he steps
onto the podium swathed in the party's signature colours of green, yellow,
red and black, "to celebrate the defeat of Tony Blair [the British Prime
Minister] and his sponsored opposition MDC [Movement for Democratic
Change]."
Surrounded by walls emblazoned with his portrait
interspersed with slogans
such as "Down with Blair", "No to Sanctions" and
"Blair, its [sic] a
bilateral issue, period" - a reference to the strained
relations between
Harare and London, he continues: "We have taken land from
the whites, we now
must look at mines. We need to empower our people by
ensuring that they have
shares in the foreign-owned mines. These are our
resources and we need all
our people to have a share of our God-given
resources. God is with us," he
tells the approximately 10000 delegates drawn
from Zimbabwe's 10 provinces.
"We have discovered some minerals such as
platinum, which God hid from our
former colonisers," says Mugabe, in a broad
hint that suggests his next move
will be to nationalise Zimbabwe's mines in
much the same way as he did with
land in 2000 when faced with fierce
opposition from Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC.
We are a sovereign country. Britain
and [US President George W] Bush and
their other European friends should not
interfere in our internal affairs.
It is because we are black and they are
whites that they don't want to work
with us. Hence, the plot to effect a
regime change." The party faithful
erupt into a frenzy and visibly drunk
youths toyi-toyi and chant Mugabe's
name.
Invoking the image of
the hated Blair once again, Mugabe also vows to ensure
no one starves - a
response to humanitarian agencies, which last week urged
him to move with
speed to import about 700000 tonnes of grain to feed
vulnerable people, many
of whom are surviving on less than 1 a day. "I know
that we did not harvest
and Britain and its friends in the West are happy,"
he says. "[But] we are
going to ensure that no one starves." In his speech,
Mugabe's right-hand man
and confidant, Didymus Mutasa, the Zanu PF secretary
for administration who
doubles as security minister, says that no one is fit
to rule Zimbabwe as
long as Mugabe is alive; the conference will later
concur when faced with a
resolution to extend his term of office. "Long live
Mugabe. Forward with
Mugabe alone and no one else except Mugabe," says
Mutasa. Zanu PF moved a
step closer to anointing Mugabe life president after
delegates moved a
resolution to harmonise presidential and general elections
in 2010. Mugabe's
presidential term officially ends in 2008 but delegates
voted to extend it
by a further two years, which would ensure that he serves
exactly 30 years
in office.
Reuters
Sun Dec 17, 2006 12:32 PM GMT
GOROMONZI, Zimbabwe
(Reuters) - Zimbabwe's ruling party said higher
agriculture output and a
better image among foreign investors could improve
an economy in the throes
of a deep eight-year recession.
The southern African nation is grappling
with an acute economic crisis,
shown in shortages of foreign currency, food
and fuel, rocketing
unemployment and deepening poverty.
Richard Hove,
the ruling ZANU-PF party secretary for economic affairs told a
two-day
weekend conference that although Zimbabwe was under sanctions from
Western
powers, it also needed to improve its image abroad and to boost
farming
output.
"Yes, we are under sanctions but if we had a good investment
environment
maybe those individual (Western) companies will invest in the
country if
they know that they will have a good return," Hove said in
resolutions
passed late on Saturday.
The annual conference of
Mugabe's ZANU-PF party wrapped up late on Saturday
with a number of
resolutions, including proposals to move presidential
elections due next
year to 2010 -- effectively giving Mugabe two more years
in
office.
The proposal had overshadowed discussions on the
economy.
Hove also urged the government to impose blanket price freezes
to ease the
plight of consumers who have to contend with weekly price hikes
and to
tackle rampant graft in both the public and private
sectors.
Zimbabwe's key agriculture production has plunged in what
critics largely
blame on Mugabe's government policy of seizing white-owned
commercial farms
for blacks.
Mugabe, whose party approved a
preliminary move to extend his rule by two
more years to 2010, charges that
Zimbabwe's battered economy is a victim of
sabotage by Western powers
opposed to his land seizures.
Jani Meyer
December 17 2006 at 03:36PM
Zimbawean elephants are under threat -
not only from poachers, but
also from game rangers who "execute" rogue
animals.
In the past few weeks at least two animals were shot dead,
in full
view of visitors, by National Park staff at Chirundu in the Zambezi
Valley.
According to an eyewitness, who did not want to be named,
he heard
what sounded like an AK-47 firing four or five shots in rapid
succession.
"I jumped up to see what the commotion was about. Right
below me, I
saw an elephant stumble while trying to run away. It collapsed
on to its
front knees. It appeared to me that it had been shot in its knee
caps,
disabling it from running further. I then saw a national parks member
shooting at random, up to a further 40 shots into the elephant. After about
seven minutes the elephant fell over on its side, and a single shot was
fired with a heavy calibre weapon."
Another blow to elephant
conservation in the country was the decision
of "Presidential Elephants"
volunteer, Sharon Pincott, to leave Zimbabwe.
The Presidential
Elephants of Zimbabwe is a clan of more than 400
free-roaming elephants in
more than 20 family groups. The elephants were so
named when Zimbabwe's
President, Robert Mugabe, decreed them protected in
1990.
Pincott spent almost six years monitoring the social structure and
population dynamics of the clan, and raised awareness about
snaring.
She said, despite the land having been returned to the
parks and
conservation areas, and sport hunting banned, more problems and
concerns
continued to arise.
"One can only bang one's head
against a brick wall for so many years.
The Presidential Elephants deserve
better, as do other Hwange National Park
elephants. But I have come to the
conclusion that the Presidential Elephants
will probably never get the
'better' which they deserve," said Pincott.
She said the
Presidential Elephants visited the Hwange Estate
relatively infrequently, as
there was little water to drink or bathe in.
"Key pans are not being
properly maintained," said Pincott.
Water is pumped to the pans at
a cost of about $50 000 (about R350
000) a month, money that is mostly
privately donated.
Johnny Rodrigues, Chairperson of the Zimbabwe
Conservation Task Force,
said another concern was that juvenile elephants
were being sold to be
trained to give elephant rides to
tourists.
Rodrigues has been running the Zimbabwe Conservation Task
Force since
its inception in 2001, using donations from concerned people to
relocate
animals under threat, buy veterinary medication, remove snares from
animals
and to expose the wildlife situation in Zimbabwe.
He
said a company was recently awarded a permit from National Parks to
capture
15 juvenile elephants from Shumba Pan in Hwange National Park, and
this was
in contravention of the accepted policy that no wild animal would
be
domesticated.
"The attempted domestication of wild elephants is not
only unspeakably
cruel, but it is also very dangerous to unsuspecting
tourists. An elephant
that has been trained will most likely have been
subjected to cruelty and
abuse. The usual method to make an elephant
obedient is to break its spirit.
This breeds resentment and, in time, some
elephants have been known to turn
on humans. In Zimbabwe, if an elephant
kills a human, it gets the death
penalty," said Rodrigues.
In
2001 the Zimbabwean government said there were 84 000 elephants in
the
country. However, Rodrigues said there were no more than 40 000
left.
The Zimbabwean government claimed that the country's wildlife
sanctuaries could no longer hold the elephants which have increasingly
become a real danger, not only to human beings, but also to the environment
and other wild animals.
Rodrigues said before the land
distribution programme, Zimbabwe was
renowned for protecting its wildlife
and strict controls were enforced. Game
ranchers and safari operators had to
regularly submit to National Parks'
detailed lists of animals, and accurate
hunting quotas were issued based on
these figures.
However,
there were no longer any controls in place and National Parks
was bankrupt,
he said.
"Almost all the game ranches and conservancies have been
confiscated
from their legal owners . . . taken over, mainly by high-ranking
government
officials . . . most of whom know nothing about
wildlife.
jani.meyer@inl.co.za
This article was originally published on page 16 of Tribune on
December 17,
2006
The People, UK
17 December 2006
EXCLUSIVE
Outcry at scandal
By Nigel Nelson
AT least 20,000 failed asylum-seekers
are begging in Britain, The People can
reveal.
And the number could
be MUCH higher after ministers admitted another 200,000
have
vanished.
The homeless refugees have been refused permission to work and
are banned
from state handouts.
But Britain cannot send them back to
countries like Sudan, Rwanda, Congo and
Zimbabwe because they face torture
and death.
Refugee Council official Hannah Ward said: "They are reduced
to begging
because the Government gives them nothing."
Her colleague
Sally Daghlian added: "They are living in a twilight world
without support
and that pushes them to the margins to survive."
After the scandal
was revealed to Parliament's Joint Human Rights Committee,
Shadow Home
Secretary David Davis said: "Britain has a proud tradition of
offering a
safe haven for those in need.
"But under Labour the asylum system is
a shambles. Tens of thousands are
living in conditions which shame us
all."
Only a few refugees get charity food and
shelter.
Many suffer mental health problems or have untreated wounds
picked up in
war-torn homelands.
And those who refuse government
cash to leave may get nothing if they stay.
A 67-year-old refugee
from Zimbabwe said: "We are scavenging. That makes me
sound like an animal
but that's what I am now."
Amnesty UK boss Kate Allen warned: "The
policy on refused asylum-seekers is
both a practical and humanitarian
failure."
nigel.nelson@people.co.uk
Andrew
Meldrum in Johannesburg
Sunday December 17, 2006
The
Observer
British property tycoon Nicholas van Hoogstraten had a
Channel 4 film crew
put under house arrest in Zimbabwe when he discovered
that they intended to
make a documentary critical of Robert Mugabe.
Hoogstraten, who owns a vast
estate and other businesses in Zimbabwe, told
reporters he had arranged
press accreditation for the crew in return for an
assurance it would be
positive about the Harare regime.
Jerome Lynch, a
barrister, led the three-man team and they visited sites in
Harare with
Hoogstraten and Nathan Shamuyarira, the secretary of information
for
Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party.
Article
continues
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hoogstraten
began to suspect that the crew intended to make a film that
would show
Zimbabwe's crisis, especially state torture and human rights
abuses. He said
he discovered notes left by the journalists in his car which
showed they
planned to interview government critics. Hoogstraten had the
team confined
to a hotel room and threatened to have them jailed, said the
Zimbabwean
press. He tried to force Lynch to sign a statement admitting they
double-crossed him.
'I told Shamuyarira they were crooks. They were put
under house arrest. If I
had had my way, we would have made a case out of it
and put them in prison,
because they were here with evil in their hearts,'
he told the Zimbabwe
Independent. A spokesman for Channel 4, Howard
Needleman, said the crew
managed to fly out of Zimbabwe last week.
Hoogstraten said the team signed a
contract agreeing not to report on
Zimbabwe's land seizures, the
Matabeleland massacres, when an estimated
20,000 people died in the 1980s,
or mass housing demolitions last year. The
government agreed to allow the
men into Zimbabwe to produce an upbeat
documentary. 'The government agreed
they should come, but I said I must
control their product,' Hoogstraten told
the Zimbabwe Independent. 'I told
them that, if they stepped out of line, I
would deal with them
personally.'
Yesterday the Zanu-PF party backed a plan to extend Mugabe's
rule by two
years, a step critics say would plunge the country deeper into
crisis. The
main opposition has condemned the plan as the work of a
dictatorship and
says Mugabe, now 82, who has been in power since
independence from Britain
in 1980, has nothing more to offer the
country.
Raw Story
dpa
German Press Agency
Published: Sunday December 17, 2006
Harare-
Police in the Zimbabwean capital Harare Sunday
fired tear gas at angry
football supporters and a TV van was
overturned in the ensuing chaos, radio
reports said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Tempers
ran high when the local Dynamos team appeared to be
losing, state radio
said.
There was also controversy over the high entrance fees
being
charged for the Premier League match, between Dynamos and
another
local team, Shooting Stars, who risked relegation.
The match
was abandoned after angry fans threw missiles onto
the pitch, plunging the
stadium into a battleground during which
several vehicles were damaged,
including a Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Corporation van, the radio said.
The
van was overturned, the host of a phone-in show on state
radio
said.
In 2000, 13 football fans were killed in a stampede at
Harare's
National Sports Stadium, after police fired tear gas
at
bottle-throwing supporters.
© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency
1st Stage of
(All SADC Member
states Embassies)
Friday the 22nd of December 2006
Meet 12:00
Zimbabwe
House
429 Strand,
London
WC2R 0JR,
(Zimbabwe,South
Africa,Botswana,Tanzania,Malawi,Mozambique)
NO TO MUGABE
2010
ZANU PF betrays the
revolution
Free-Zim Youth welcomes the initiative by CIVICUS: World
Alliance for
Citizen Participation and Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition in
advocating for
regional civic societies and the International community to
offer solidarity
and sympathy with people of Zimbabwe who are struggling to
realise their
fundamental human rights such as freedom of expression,
association,
assembly and the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural
rights.
The group comprised of representatives from civic society from
different
African Countries pledged their commitment to further urge
regional
Governments and civic society institutes, continue to offer
practical
solidarity and tangible assistance to the Government and the
People of
Zimbabwe.
Speaking from Brighton Free Zim Youth ,
Wellington Chibanguza said
"This comes in awake of the initiative by SADC
to appoint a TROIKA to assess
the Political crisis in Zimbabwe and it calls
on us as Young Africans to
realise that the regional influence is absolutely
imperative to any
political or social aspect of any Nation, noting the
success of regional
inter version 'Chimurenga, civil wars in Namibia and
Mozambique, Apartheid
in South Africa, and continued efforts in the DRC and
Sudan.'
Such initiatives are idle platforms for us to address the
misconceptions
amongst the prominent African influences of the Political,
social and
geographical mapping of the Zimbabwean crisis and challenge the
Zimbabwean
community (Pro-Democracy)to do more ground work mainly in
Sub-Sahara to
articulate and present a more transparent people driven
road-map to the
resolution of the crisis.
There is a need to break
the shackles of political incompetence ,we have
been chained to by Mugabe
Regime and the African Community ,but there is a
greater need to highlight
the difference between Political incompetence and
un-constitutional
repressive and oppressive legislature tailored to
eradicate any political
interest or opinion deemed unfit to the Zanu (PF)
ideology. Hence regional
civic societies and institutes like SADC and AU
have social, economic and
political responsibilities and should be for the
empowering of the African
people in advocating for political consciousness
and a democratic
environment.
Alois Mbawara says:
"From a social point of view
if you look at all sectors of the economy it is
a clear indication that the
oppressor has failed to deliver for the
nation,so instead of acknowledging
that Zimbabwe will never proper under his
rule,ZANU PF wants to resuscitate
more rule to Mugabe."
SADC's objectives are to achieve development and
economic growth,alleviate
poverty,enhance the standard and quality of life
of the people of Southern
Africa and support the socially disadvantaged
through regional
integration.To promote and defend peace and
security,Contrary to this,
Zimbabwe violates all these respected objectives
so our questions to SADC as
young Africans is what we going to learn from
such a corrupt Organisation
which is failing to act on a member state which
has chosen not to live by
the rules"
"And we are saying enough is
enough should we continue with polite
lobbying,the electoral system is
corrupt,no rule of law.Should we wait for
Mugabe to extend term of office or
should we bury people alive.We really
need to go back to the drawing board
and re-strategise.Mugabe is trying to
potray that he is a black
revolutionary yet he has betrayed the dreams of
Cde Tongogara, we really
need to link out with our African
brothers(Movements)in Africa for them to
help in the emancipation from the
oppressor and to restore Black majority
rule.Diaspora really need to play a
big role in helping our fellow Comrades
back home".
So we are calling to all human rights defenders and
Zimbabweans to come and
take part in this series of crying to our neighbours
to see the horror in
our Motherland."We wish elders here in diaspora will
unite and be
responsible in restoring sanity in our motherland.
The
March(lanch of Africa Liberate Zimbabwe Movement) will be supported by
Black
African Socialist Movements in UK who also feel Mugabe has betrayed
the
Revolution.
POWER TO
THE PEOPLE
More Info:
Alois Mbawara 07960333568
Wellington
Chibanguza 07706868955
Email: Freezim6@yahoo.co.uk
Zim online
Monday 18 December
2006
HARARE - Zimbabwe's tottering economy
is in for another bumpy ride in
2007 with analysts warning of yet another
year in which political expedience
and economic grandstanding rather than
rational macroeconomic management
will drive economic policy and
planning.
The analysts spoke as the ruling ZANU PF party completed
a two-day
annual conference whose other key objective - in addition to
extending
President Robert Mugabe's term by two years - was to figure out a
plan to
achieve a sustainable turnaround of the country's
economy.
Among other recommendations, the party supporters resolved
that the
government should institute tougher measures to rein in a
continuous rise in
prices of goods and services as well as ensuring the
availability of basic
commodities.
Zimbabwe currently has the
highest rate of inflation, which was pegged
at 1 098.8 percent in
November.
ZANU PF also recommended stiffer controls on thriving
black markets
for foreign currency and goods as well as measures to ensure
the viability
of the tourism and mining sectors.
Analysts
yesterday warned that a lot of pressure would be brought to
bear on the
Ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) in
2007, a
development expected to plunge the country deeper into economic
problems.
"We are now waiting with bated breath to see how far
(RBZ governor
Gideon) Gono will dance to the ZANU PF tune when he presents
his monetary
policy statement in January. We wait to see how much
grandstanding will come
out of 80 Samora Machel Avenue," said a member of
the Confederation of
Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) who spoke on condition he was
not named.
80 Samora Machel Avenue is home of the central
bank.
Gono, who in terms of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act is
supposed to
act independently of ZANU PF, has postponed announcement of his
2006 second
half monetary policy statement to January in order to
incorporate views of
the ruling party annual conference.
The
analysts said Zimbabweans should brace for more shortages of goods
in the
coming months as the government starts implementing the unworkable
policies
such as more stiffer price controls recommended by the party
conference and
which analysts said could only force producers to go
underground.
"There were a lot of vague statements made at the
conference and it
will be interesting to see how they will implement some of
them," said
University of Zimbabwe business school lecturer Tony
Hawkins.
One of the concerns raised during the conference was the
non-competitiveness of Zimbabwe 's tourism sector, a key foreign currency
earner before the economic crisis began in 1999.
In a move
likely to further impinge on the fortunes of the country's
faltering tourism
sector, some of the delegates felt that the country's
tourism products are
over-priced and that these should be brought "in line
with others in the
region".
"What we are now seeing is the case of a hen that has gone
wild and is
now coming back to eat its own chicks. The real issue here is
that of a
sub-economic exchange rate that is beginning to make our exporters
uncompetitive," said the CZI member.
Zimbabwe's monetary
authorities have maintained a cap on the official
exchange rate for most of
2006. The exchange rate was only adjusted once
this year when the RBZ
allowed the local unit to slide from 101 000 dollars
against the American
greenback to 250 Zimbabwe dollars to one United States
dollar on 31
July.
This was at the time when Gono also introduced new bearer
cheque notes
by slashing three zeroes from the old "currency".
"What they should simply do to enhance the performance of the tourism
industry and the many other exporters out there is that they must be
prepared to devalue the Zimbabwe dollar some more," said
Hawkins.
The analysts said that the problem arises from an
"exchange rate
illusion" caused by the weak exchange rate. Using the
official exchange rate
of 250 Zimbabwe dollars to the US unit, one would
always get the impression
that prices in Zimbabwe are higher compared to
other countries in southern
Africa.
This is also the case with
the cost of such utilities as electricity
and water.
Another
challenge for the Zimbabwean economy in 2007 will be how to
balance the
insatiable demand for foreign investment and the quest for
"self-determination" in the utilisation and exploitation of the country's
natural resources.
The ZANU PF conference endorsed President
Robert Mugabe's call for all
foreign mining houses to reserve a 51 percent
stake for indigenous black
people.
"We are not sure whether we
can afford to do that at the moment," said
Hawkins.
The
analysts said, unlike agriculture where the government just moved
in to grab
farms from former white farmers, mining was a capital-intensive
industry
where any expropriation plans had to be carefully planned and
executed.
"There is need to tread carefully on this one because
any slip-up
would be the end of us as an economy," said the CZI official. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 18 December
2006
GOROMONZI - From a distance, rolling
white tents set up on football
fields dwarf surrounding villages. It could
very well pass for a wedding of
Hollywood stars in a remote countryside
hamlet but for the heavy state
security personnel and thousands of
Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU PF party
supporters clad in party
regalia.
In one of the tents, 3 500 people from the country's 10
provinces
convened for two days to shape Zimbabwe's future.
Here President Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF party's weekend conference
resolved
that the former liberation movement should not debate on who should
succeed
the veteran leader and that parliamentary and presidential polls
should be
"harmonised".
The motion, like many others, was noted and referred
to the policy
formulation body Central Committee, which will hold the first
of its four
annual meetings next February.
"President please we
want you to continue with the Presidency because
that is how we can have
security," Oppah Muchinguri, the chairwoman of the
party's powerful women's
league said to frenzied ululation and echoing the
feeling of many attending
the conference.
ZANU PF fears Mugabe's departure will see the
party, which has been in
power since independence in 1980, disintegrate and
the majority have
continued to worship him like a demi-God.
Muchinguri's resolution, like the one passed by the youth league and
national commissariat also seeking to extend Mugabe's term, were met with
thunderous applause from virtually every delegate. It would have been
suicidal for anyone to behave otherwise.
While the resolutions
were not explicitly adopted, this was the first
step towards constitutional
changes to "harmonise" parliamentary and
presidential elections in 2010,
effectively giving Mugabe a further two
years at the helm.
"The
central committee is ZANU PF's supreme body in between congresses
and
conferences and is empowered to make decisions on their behalf. So
basically
the proposal is as good as adopted because eight provinces are
behind it so
far," a politburo member said.
He said the Central Committee would
now formally direct Justice
Minister Patrick Chinamasa to craft a
constitutional amendment to that
effect, adding that this should be ready
for debate by April when Zimbabwe
celebrates 27 years of
independence.
Analysts say the move to extend Mugabe's rule would
worsen an economy
already on the brink of total collapse chiefly because of
the veteran leader's
controversial policies such as the seizure of white
commercial farms to
redistribute to blacks.
And as one drove to
the conference venue at Goromonzi school, one
could not have encountered any
better reminder of the results of Mugabe's
failed land reforms than the
patchy fields and grass thatched huts now
standing on what were once highly
productive white-owned commercial farms
that by this time of the year have
been rolling fields of lush green crops.
Inside the main tent
senior ZANU PF officials, including Mugabe,
hailed the conference as a huge
success, but some who spoke in whispers -
afraid of being labelled sell-outs
- dubbed it a "routine meeting which is
directed by the same faces and
lacking any aspect of dynamism."
"Clearly the core issues that are
affecting our people back in the
provinces have not been tackled, some were
just mentioned. We wanted the
President to take a stand against corruption
and the state of the economy
but they were glossed over," a Central
Committee member from Manicaland
province told ZimOnline.
Mugabe, who has deftly and at times brutally kept opponents at bay,
instead
chose to take his usual shots at former colonial power Britain and
the
United States, which he blames for leading a Western campaign to
sabotage
Zimbabwe's economy.
He avoided directly commenting on either the
succession issue or moves
to extend his rule, instead focusing on
indiscipline and factionalism in the
party.
But there was no
disguising the tension at the top table where
politburo members from the two
camps competing to succeed Mugabe seemed to
ponder on what more they could
do to force the veteran leader into deserved
retirement. All their plans and
plots have failed so far.
At lunch breaks - clearly the highlight
of the conference for
multitudes who had nothing to contribute - one could
not miss the murmurings
of disapproval among some delegates.
Others jokingly dubbed the meeting "conference tourism" meaning they
were
virtually at Goromonzi like tourists, out to have some fun in a typical
African village - plus of course the free meals for a bonus.
"We know who started with this 2010 issue but they don't know we are
setting
a bad precedence," a female delegate could be heard saying in a
hushed tone,
clearly fearful of a vicious backlash from colleagues.
"Are we
saying if we have a new leader in future, we also have to make
resolutions
that suit his style of leadership?" questioned another delegate
as he
tackled a plateful of sadza (thick maize meal porridge) and beef.
While some seethed with anger, others had their fun but it was Mugabe
who
walked away the biggest winner.
"I want to thank you for the
respect that you continue to give me and
I am what I am because you people
have made me that. I will go out of here
knowing that the people continue to
stand by me," Mugabe said.
He had every reason to. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 18 December
2006
MASVINGO - Six Zimbabwean
police officers who were arrested in
Masvingo town two weeks ago for selling
fuel confiscated from illegal
dealers are now on the run after they failed
to appear in court for their
routine remand.
Last week,
Masvingo magistrate Timeon Makunde issued a warrant of
arrest for the
officers with the law enforcement agency saying it had failed
to locate the
suspects.
Police officer commanding Masvingo province, Assistant
Commissioner
Charles Makono told ZimOnline at the weekend that the police
had launched a
massive manhunt for the six suspects whom they believed might
have skipped
the country.
"We are still looking for the
suspects and from our investigations it
appears that all of them might have
sneaked out of the country.
"We are doing our best to make sure
that they are brought to book. We
will even engage Interpol to have them
brought back into the country to face
trial."
The six police
officers were arrested late last month after they
confiscated about 200
litres of fuel from illegal fuel dealers along the
Masvingo-Beitbridge
highway.
They were out on Z$10 000 bail each and were initially
remanded to
December 11.
Police officers are among the lowest
paid civil servants in Zimbabwe
with a junior officer earning about $27
million a month, an amount which has
forced some police officers to resort
to crime to supplement their meager
salaries. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 18 December
2006
MASVINGO - A trigger-happy
Zimbabwean spy was last week fined Z$2 500
by a Masvingo magistrate after he
shot dead a neighbour's dog and injured
three others in a row over his
political affiliation.
Benson Hari, who is a member of President
Robert Mugabe's feared
Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), was
convicted for violating a
section of the Firearms Act.
Hari,
who is based in Harare, was in Masvingo last week when he shot
dead the
dogs. He accused the owner of setting the dogs on him for
supporting the
ruling ZANU PF party.
The CIO agent pleaded guilty before Masvingo
magistrate Vusumuzi
Gapara. He was released after he paid the
fine.
It was the state case that Hari went to a neighbour's house
in Mucheke
suburb sometime last week where he produced his service pistol
and shot dead
one of the dogs.
Hari was later arrested after
the owner of the dogs reported the
matter to the police.
The
magistrate deplored Hari's actions saying as a security man he was
not
supposed to discharge his pistol in the manner he did.
"As a
security man, people should feel secure when they are in your
company but
the way you behaved does not reflect what you are expected to
do.
"If you were not a first offender I should have sent you to
prison
without giving you an option to pay a fine," Gapara. -
ZimOnline
It's that time again and
this year we had even more Father Christmases
visiting the Vigil. Well over
a hundred of them came past in their
regimental uniform - though this time
some of the girls were wearing a new
Mother Christmas outfit. They probably
found the false beards too scratchy.
They were again very supportive,
signing our petition and joining in the
singing and drumming.
A new
poster greeted passers-by: "President of Death now President for
Life". The
Mugabe regime's desperate attempts to cling to power by
postponing the 2008
Presidential Election brought much derision at the
Vigil. Many people
signed our letter to President Chirac urging him not to
invite Mugabe for a
France / Africa Summit in Cannes in February. Thanks to
Jean-Francois for
his excellent translation of this letter into French. The
Vigil was glad to
hear that Kate Hoey, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary
Committee on
Zimbabwe, has taken up the protest to President Chirac by
writing a personal
letter to Segolene Royal, who may possibly be the next
French
President.
On a cold but bright day, we kept warm by dancing and singing,
adding
Christmas carols to our repertoire. This was in preparation for our
carol
singing vigil outside the Embassy from 5- 7 pm on 20th December
organised by
Vigil Co-ordinator, Evelyn Tafirenyika. Some Vigil supporters
(and one of
our drums) will also be at a street carol singing on Tuesday in
support of a
Zimbabwean orphanage.
We were glad to have with us
Caroline, who every few weeks or so makes the
long trip from Devon, and also
Bonny, on a break from college, who brought
several large bags of clothes to
send home. Vigil Co-ordinator Dumi came up
from Sounthampton although his
partner Gugu, also a Vigil supporter, is
expecting a baby any day soon.
Thanks to another supporter, Ian, who has
started a Vigil blog. Check: www.myspace.com/zimbabwevigil.
We
were pleased to receive a postcard from our sister Vigil in Bristol. It
says "Make Mugabe History - Save Zimbabwe". In return for some of our "Make
Mugabe History" wristbands, the Bristol Vigil is sending us some of the
postcards to hand out at the Vigil. We hope they get into
Zimbabwe.
Some Vigil supporters will be joining Free-Zim Youth's Long
March. They plan
to march to all 14 SADC Embassies / High Commissions in
London. The first
leg of their march will be on Friday 22nd December when
they will cover
Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, Malawi and
Mozambique. Meet at
12 noon at Zimbabwe House, 429 Strand,
London.
For this week's Vigil pictures:
http://uk.msnusers.com/ZimbabweVigil/shoebox.msnw.
FOR
THE RECORD: 49 signed the register.
FOR YOUR DIARY: Monday, 18th
December, 7.30 pm, Central London Zimbabwe
Forum. Christmas social event
with wine and mince pies and carol practice
for Wednesday. Venue: the Rose
and Springbok, 14 Upper St Martins Lane,
WC2H 9DL. Map link: http://makeashorterlink.com/?N2D231EA6.
Nearest tubes:
Leicester Square, Covent Garden.
Vigil
co-ordinator
The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London,
takes place
every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross
violations of
human rights by the current regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil
which started in
October 2002 will continue until internationally-monitored,
free and fair
elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk