E-mail:
crisis-zim@transparency.org.zw
STATEMENT ON THE
NATIONAL PEACE CONVENTION
14 December 2002
Zimbabweans
have had enough of violence, agreed church leaders and civil society actors
gathered from across the country at a National Peace Convention in
Bulawayo. The group met from 13-14 December, 2002, to develop an
action-oriented, non-partisan response to Zimbabwe’s growing crises and
spiralling violence.
Church leaders resoundingly agreed to drive
the peace process in their congregations, and civil society leaders committed to
immediate responses to address the growing violence and intolerance in
Zimbabwe.
The gathering was attended by over 300 people, including
8 bishops from a variety of denominations such as Catholic, Anglican, Brethren
in Christ and Evangelical churches. Over 70 pastors also attended.
In addition, delegates from over 50 civil society organisations (including
women’s, youth, labour and municipal representatives) participated in the
convention.
The gathering opened up dialogue across
denominational divides and outlined practical steps designed to address specific
issues through a national Solidarity for Peace Accord. The document is a
framework for peace building in Zimbabwe, and sets out a code of conduct as well
as procedures and mechanisms designed to mitigate violence.
Speaking with a united voice, church leaders and civil society
actors identified the agenda of peace as a rallying point on which to win the
struggle for democracy, eradicate violence, intolerance and polarisation, and
allow for coexistence.
“We commit ourselves to working to achieve
stability and to consolidating the peace process by the introduction of
reconstruction actions aimed at addressing the worst effects of violence at a
local level,” reads part of the national Solidarity for Peace
Accord.
Discussion at the Convention also focused on the
methodology and time frame required to establish a process of truth, justice and
reconciliation in Zimbabwe. Participants also raised the issue of regional
solidarity and what Zimbabweans can do to draw support from the region and
ensure that the country does not become isolated in its hour of
crisis. Delegates developed concrete action plans to tackle these
issues, and the others raised at the convention.
Specifically,
discussions about governance called for a restoration of democratic institutions
and civil rights as well as the cessation of the politics of chaos witnessed
over the last two years. In his opening remarks, Reverend Charles
Chiriseri urged participants to break the historical cycle of violence plaguing
Zimbabwe. He said, “we must shun stone age politics that base human
relationships on who has a bigger stick to beat with or a larger stone to
throw. I urge you all, across all creeds, races, and ethnicities, to build
relationships on respect, tolerance and human
dignity.”
Participants agreed on the urgent need for agrarian
reform, but insisted that it be a non-partisan, equitable and long-term process
designed around national development, social stability and economic
growth.
Linked to the agrarian reform debate was the issue of food
security. Participants condemned the current partisan distribution of food aid
which threatens over 8 million Zimbabweans with starvation.
Archbishop Pius Ncube of the Catholic Diocese of Bulawayo urged that immediate
action be taken to feed starving Zimbabweans, sentiments which were echoed by
Bishop Sitshebo of the Anglican Church Matabeleland. Delegates established
a taskforce to end the state monopoly on importation and distribution, and to
promote the liberalisation of food importation to permit business, churches and
civil society groups to help feed the nation.
Participants
labelled the AIDS pandemic a “crisis within the crisis,” as economic hardship,
poor implementation of assistance programmes, and non-transparent disbursement
of relief funds are exacerbating the suffering of those infected with and
affected by HIV. A call was made for government’s multisectoral approach
to HIV/AIDS to be consolidated into an implementable plan of action agreed on by
all stakeholders. Participants agreed that the action plan should be specific in
offering support to people infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS.
Pastor Patson Netha of the Association of Evangelicals in Africa
reiterated the commitment of church groups to bringing peace to Zimbabwe.
The convention, he said, “is not an event, but a process. The church is
coming together to stand and say ‘we have role to play in Zimbabwe, a prophetic,
priestly, pastoral role as the conscience of the nation.”
Netha affirmed the need for all church groupings, civil society
organisations and concerned individuals to move beyond individual difference and
unite in a commitment to immediate action and the creation of another Zimbabwe,
with peace, truth and
justice.
Business Day
Tsvangirai sees SA worsening
crisis
International Affairs Editor
MORGAN
Tsvangirai, leader of the Zimbabwean opposition party, the Movement
for
Democratic Change (MDC), has "cast serious doubt" on the role of
President
Thabo Mbeki as an honest broker in the crisis in his country.
This comes
as Mbeki is preparing to send Foreign Minister Nkosazana
Dlamini-Zuma to
Harare in an attempt to broker government talks with the
MDC.
"SA has
become part of the Zimbabwe problem because its actions are
worsening the
crisis," Tsvangirai said in an address to his party's members
of parliament
yesterday in Harare.
Tsvangirai said Britain and SA were working with the
ruling party to get him
to the negotiating table with President Robert Mugabe
about the country's
crises.
"I am reliably informed that Mugabe is
prepared to meet me somewhere outside
the country to discuss his problems .
Let me state here that the Anglo-SA
plan will fail to take off if it remains
predicated on the desire to
legitimise the illegitimate Mugabe regime," he
said.
Zanu (PF) broke off talks with the MDC in May after the opposition
mounted a
court challenge to the Zanu (PF) victory in the March
presidential
elections.
Tsvangirai's words mean that SA cannot draw
support from the opposition for
what it says are its efforts to engineer
talks between the MDC and Zanu
(PF).
Tsvangirai said Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe had launched a campaign
with SA support in an attempt
to find room to ease the pressures on Zimbabwe
that could be forthcoming at
the next meeting of the Commonwealth "troika".
The troika of SA President
Thabo Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo
and Australian Prime
Minister John Howard would meet in March next year to
consider whether or not
Zimbabwe should be expelled from the Commonwealth.
Tsvangirai's tough
criticism of Mbeki comes a day after a close associate of
Mugabe, the speaker
of the country's parliament, Emmerson Mnangagawa, was
cheered by delegates at
the African National Congress' conference in
Stellenbosch when he said that
11-million hectares of land had been
"acquired" by the
government.
Tsvangirai said: "We know of attempts to reform Zanu (PF) and
present a
rearranged set of faces to the world in an effort to win
international
legitimacy."
Even were Mugabe to step down, nothing
would change unless the country's
fundamental problems were addressed. Any
solution had to tackle "the burning
question" of the Zimbabwean government's
legitimacy and make free and fair
elections a priority, Tsvangirai
said.
The campaign involved Mugabe's attempt to meet him outside the
country, the
MDC leader said. Such a meeting would remain "pie in the sky"
unless Mugabe
stopped the politicisation of food, opened up the country to
free political
activity and committed himself to dialogue, said Tsvangirai.
With Sapa-AFP
Business Day
Fuel crisis
gets worse as main supplies are
cut
Deliveries halted as Harare
fails to pay cash
Harare
Correspondent
ZIMBABWE's fuel crisis,
which threatening to bring the economy to a
grinding halt, is deepening amid
revelations that all main suppliers have
stopped deliveries because of
government nonpayment.
Fuel industry
sources said yesterday that the situation had
deteriorated rapidly because
government was failing to settle its mounting
debts and pay for the
cash-on-delivery supplies.
Official
documents at hand show the government owes Tamoil Trading of
Libya up to
US20m, the Independent Petroleum Group of Kuwait US65m, BP SA
U17,8m, Engen
SA US12m, Mobil Africa US1,1m, Caltex US7,8m, Libya Arab
Foreign Bank US43m
and the government of Botswana US4,4m.
Zimbabwe also owes CFM railways US1,4m and BP Mozambique US1m for
port
charges. Sasol has also stopped supplying because of
nonpayment.
Zimbabwe pays for fuel by
short-term credit financing, cash and
long-term credit facilities. The Libyan
Arab Foreign Bank and the Bank of
Negara of Malaysia are the country's major
financiers.
Talks with Tamoil officials to
save the US360m deal collapsed on
Saturday after Zimbabwe refused to mortgage
more state assets to the north
Africans for
fuel.
The failure of the talks also
scuttled plans by Zimbabwe's state-run
fuel procurement agency, Noczim, to
set up a joint venture company with
Tamoil to supply and distribute fuel in
the country. The new company was to
have been called
Tamoil-Zimbabwe.
After the collapse of the
dialogue, the Libyans insisted they would
supply fuel only on a cash
basis.
"There is a ship which has docked
at the port of Beira in Mozambique
waiting for Zimbabwe to pay for the fuel,"
a source said. "But the
government has no money and the fuel may end up being
diverted elsewhere."
At the weekend
President Robert Mugabe blamed the Libyan deal's
collapse on official
incompetence and inefficiency. He also said Noczim
officials were sabotaging
his efforts to resolve the crisis.
Mugabe,
who recently complained of "headaches and stomach aches"
because of
scrounging for fuel day and night, has promised to get involved
personally to
address the problem.
In a bid to absolve
the government, the state media have blamed Nozcim
for fuel shortages. They
claimed US16m meant for fuel has not been accounted
for by Nozcim officials.
However, Noczim MD Webster Muriritirwa has said he
was unaware of the missing
money.
The fuel task force involving
industry and government said the
situation, serious for the past 10 days, was
getting worse. "It has been
reported touts are selling petrol at vastly
inflated prices to motorists in
petrol queues," it said. "This is illegal as
the petrol and diesel price is
strictly controlled by
government."
Long fuel queues have of late
been blocking streets in central Harare
and creating confusion in the central
business district. Yesterday queues
blocked some main roads and disrupted
traffic.
The Movement for Democratic
Change opposition said the crisis had
reached "alarming levels" and Mugabe
should simply resign.
Dec 19 2002
06:59:30:000AM Dumisani Muleya Business Day 1st
Edition
Daily News
Go now, Mugabe
told
12/19/2002 10:48:46 AM (GMT
+2)
Staff
Reporters
Opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai yesterday told MDC MPs that
President Mugabe was a total failure
and called on him to resign
immediately.
Tsvangirai cited Zimbabwe's current critical fuel shortage as an
example of
the government's failure.
"The
shortage of fuel has reached levels which cannot be tolerated any
further,"
he said. "The country is grinding to a halt. "The state of the
nation and the
facts on the ground speak for themselves. Even Mugabe's
patron, Muammar
Gaddafi, has abandoned his bankrupt client. In the eyes of
Gaddafi, Mugabe is
no longer a puppet worthy of support."
Tsvangirai said his understanding was that while the Libyans accepted
to be
paid in local currency, they were charging for their fuel at the black
market
rate.
"So what is the advantage of such an
arrangement?" he said. Tsvangirai
pointed out that the government had known
since 1998 of the under-the-table
deals at the National Oil Company of
Zimbabwe. He said: "It does not make
sense for this old man to start to blame
his corrupt officials today. In
short, Mugabe must accept that he has failed.
He must resign. He is aware
that the end of his regime is
near."
Tsvangirai suggested that as a
temporary ruse to buy time Mugabe had
now embarked on a new desperate
diplomatic initiative to save "his
illegitimate regime from inevitable
collapse. This will be his fourth
diplomatic gamble." Immediately after the
March 2002 presidential election,
described by the MDC leader as fraudulent,
three diplomatic initiatives had
emerged, all of them targeted at the
resolution of the crisis of governance
in
Zimbabwe.
"You will recall," Tsvangirai
said, "that presidents Bakili Muluzi of
Malawi and Joaquim Chissano of
Mozambique tried to put together what we saw
as a fishing expedition to
persuade us to recognise Mugabe's fraud. The
initiative never took off the
ground."
He said South Africa and Nigeria
had come up with a strategy,
conceived in the shadow of the Commonwealth
Troika Initiative. The strategy
had suffered because of critical strategic
differences on the way forward.
South Africa had been interested in the
man-gement of the Zimbabwe crisis,
not its
resolution. Pretoria had seen a government of national unity
as a solution in
a bid to legitimise Mugabe at all costs.
"In pursuit of this objective, over the past eight months,
several
high-ranking South African government and ANC officials have made
public
statements and embarked on diplomatic activities which, cumulatively,
are
specifically intended to blunt the modest international pressure which
seeks
to make Mugabe account for his brutal misrule," Tsvangirai said. "They
have
turned their so-called quiet diplomacy into noisy approval of the regime
at
any international meeting at which the Zimbabwe crisis comes
under
discussion."
Tsvangirai said the
South Africans had routinely called for an end to
the isolation of the
Zimbabwean government and the lifting of targeted
sanctions against Mugabe
and his cronies. In fact, South Africa had become
part of the Zimbabwe
problem because its actions were worsening the
crisis.
"Pretoria's policy has effectively
cast serious doubt on the role of
President Thabo Mbeki as an honest broker
in the rapidly deteriorating
situation and the deepening humanitarian crisis
in Zimbabwe today."
Tsvangirai said the
paralysis displayed by the Olusegun Obasanjo-Mbeki
initiative had been
carried into and re-emerged in the subsequent
deliberations and decisions of
the Commonwealth Troika. These initiatives,
however, lacked a common focus
because they were purely a reflection of a
variegated understanding of the
nature, magnitude and depth of the crisis
facing this
nation.
"Now that the Troika is set to
review its position on Zimbabwe in a
few months' time, we have begun to
witness a number of unsettling
developments with regards to the way forward,"
he said. "Mugabe is making
overtures to all in a bid to sneak out of the
current squeeze. In public, he
attacks the British. But, while we all queue
for scarce commodities here,
Mugabe is now getting his essential supplies and
basic groceries, including
beef, bread and milk from
London."
Tsvangirai said at the same time,
a cabal within Zanu PF, working with
some businessmen, had hatched a plan to
protect Mugabe and his regime, for
political convenience, through a further
militarisation of Zimbabwe.
"One Colonel
Lionel Dyke and his business associates are being used to
promote an agenda
that seeks to legitimise the rogue regime," Tsvangirai
said. "The names of
Emmerson Mnangagwa and General Zvinavashe keep on coming
up in this dirty
plan which we are told was endorsed by Zanu PF, the British
and the South
Africans," said Tsvangirai.
General
Vitalis Zvinavashe is the Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence
Forces, while
Mnangagwa is the Speaker of Parliament whose name has often
been mentioned as
the most eligible successor to Mugabe within Zanu
PF.
Dyke last night admitted he had held a
recent meeting with Tsvangirai
as an emissary of Zvinavashe and Mnangagwa. "I
went to see Tsvangirai last
Friday," Dyke said. "He said he and his party
would vote for a change in the
Constitution that would allow Mugabe to go
peacefully and would not force
elections for two years
thereafter.
"I took this message back to
Zvinavashe." It is understood Dyke has
also established contacts with both
Labour and Conservative politicians in
London
in a bid to canvass support for a new Zanu PF-military driven
political
agenda. Up to the time of Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, Dyke
was commander
of the Rhodesian African Rifles. After independence he was
assigned by the
Mugabe government to form and command the first Zimbabwe
Parachute
Battalion.
He retired from the army in
1991 after working closely with the
current military leadership, some of whom
he is said to maintain close links
with.
"I
would like to see peaceful change in Zimbabwe," Dyke said last
night after he
was asked to explain his personal involvement in the new
political
developments, "and, as such, the vehicle of Zanu PF should be used
as part of
a transition to peaceful change."
During
his address to MDC parliamentarians at the party's headquarters
yesterday,
Tsvangirai said: "We are, therefore, confronted with this unholy
and strange
triple alliance designed to neutralise the sovereign wishes of
the people of
Zimbabwe.
"The cutting edge is supposed to
come in the form of a summit between
Robert Mugabe and myself (and) I am
reliably informed that Mugabe is
prepared to meet with me somewhere outside
the country to discuss his
problems." Tsvangirai said that the Anglo-South
African plan would fail to
take off if the aim was to legitimise Mugabe's
government.
Reacting last night to
Tsvangirai's address, Britain's Deputy High
Commissioner to Zimbabwe, Diane
Corner, said: "The British Government has
consistently made clear that it
wants to see a peaceful, prosperous and
democratic Zimbabwe. "It follows that
we have no interest in 'neutralising
the sovereign wishes of the people of
Zimbabwe'. Indeed, it has been the
central plank of British and European
Union policy to see those wishes
freely and fairly expressed through the
democratic process."
Daily News
Zimra
confiscates $18m in forex
12/19/2002 11:12:30 AM (GMT +2)
From
Brian Mangwende
Zimbabwean authorities
have confiscated more than Z$18 million from
the Asian business community in
Mutare since the closure of foreign exchange
agencies a fortnight
ago.
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra)
officials said yesterday this
amount was in addition to the $50 million in
local currency seized in the
past two months from illegal cross-border
traders.
In a combined operation with the
Central Intelligence Organisation
agents, the Zimra officials reportedly
raided the Asian businessmen's
premises and their homes in the city and
seized foreign currency, including
British sterling, South African rand and
United States dollars, worth Z$17
880 000 on parallel market
rates.
Speaking on condition of anonymity,
a Zimra official confirmed the
raids, saying the officials seized £1 520 and
US$9 000. He added that R7 400
amounting to $44 000 at the official exchange
rate (about $1 036 000 on the
black market) was
confiscated.
"We conducted the operation
against the Asians two weeks ago because
they are the ones largely dealing in
forex," he said. "We confiscated
various amounts in foreign currency which we
have forfeited to the Reserve
Bank. If anyone feels they have a justified
reason why they are keeping that
money either at home or in their offices,
they must put it in writing. Then
it will be up to the Reserve Bank officials
either to give back the money or
confiscate it and give the equivalent in
local currency at the official
bank
rates."
The official said in the
past two months they had collected Z$1
million a day from the police and
soldiers at the Grand Reef Infantry
Battalion in Mutare, money seized along
the Forbes River Post in local
currency from illegal border
traders.
Asian businesspeople in Mutare
have complained about the raids, saying
they were justified to keep foreign
currency at home.One said: "My friend's
wife was to undergo an operation in
South Africa and had been accumulating
forex, but now he is in a tight spot
as his wife may no longer be able to
afford that
operation."
Meanwhile, earlier this month,
police and Zimra officials seized about
$11 million from Edward Almeida, a
Mozambican national, at the Forbes Border
Post. They suspected he intended to
buy US dollars in Mozambique on the
black market.
Daily News
Ex-detainees
expect to $80 000 gratuities
12/19/2002 11:41:53 AM (GMT +2)
From
Sandra Mujokoro
Ex-Political prisoners,
detainees and restrictees expect to receive
$80 000 each as gratuity after
the announcement at the sixth Zanu PF annual
conference in Chinhoyi last
week.
Esau Moyo, Matabeleland organising
secretary of the Zimbabwe
Ex-Political Prisoners, Detainees and Restrictees'
Association (Zeppadra)
said they had a membership of 7 000, who would
receive, in addition to the
gratuity, a monthly pension of $2
000.
"This is what is contained in our
proposal," said Moyo, "but we are
not going to pin down the government to
this exact figure, but we will
negotiate."
If the government agrees to pay each Zeppadra member $80 000, it could
come
to more than $500 million.
Although the
number of vetted ex-political prisoners and detainees
stands at 7 000, Moyo
said it was likely to rise to 17 000 if the government
agreed to include
those who spent less than two years in detention or
in
prison.
Initially, only those who
had spent more than two years in detention
or imprisonment were being
considered. In 1998 they were promised the same
perks as war
veterans.
War veterans received a lump sum
of $50 000 each as gratuity, and a
tax-free monthly pension of more than $8
000 for life. Moyo said while they
were pleased that they had finally been
given the same status as the war
veterans in 1997, they were not happy that
the widows of war veterans and
war collaborators were still struggling to
obtain gratuities.
"The people who died
during the liberation struggle left behind
families who should be taken care
of, and the government should seriously
consider doing something for them,"
said Moyo.He said the War Veterans Act
had been loosely drafted and needed to
be amended as it excluded people
whose role was crucial to the success of the
struggle.
The payment of gratuities to
ex-political prisoners and detainees is
likely to inflict more damage on an
already anaemic economy. 14 November,
1997, the day on which the government
paid out the war veterans gratuities,
was dubbed "Black Friday" after it
caused the sudden and now inexorable fall
of the value of the dollar. About
$5 billion was quickly printed for that
project.
Daily News
Mudzuri condemns
culture of violence
12/19/2002
11:16:25 AM (GMT +2)
Staff
Reporter
Engineer Elias Mudzuri, the
Executive Mayor of Harare, last night
condemned what he termed a culture of
violence that set people against each
other in the name of
politics.
Mudzuri said it was taboo in
African culture for brothers and sisters
to fight each
other.
He said: "It is important for us to
realise that our culture doesn't
allow us to brutalise each
other."
Mudzuri was speaking at a function
to launch the All Africa Eye
Institute and to celebrate the Eyes for Africa's
activities this year. Dr
Solomon Guramatunhu, Zimbabwe's renowned eye
specialist, is the founder and
chairman of Eyes for
Africa.
He and other medical practitioners
and volunteers have given sight to
thousands of Zimbabweans through free
cataract surgery over the past decade.
Eyes for Africa decided to form the All Africa Eye Institute following
the
success of the Eyes for Africa programme. Mudzuri said Guramatunhu and
his
colleagues were highly marketable and could have chosen to go and work
and
live in luxury in other countries but they had instead chosen to stay
and
help their own people.
He said that was
the African culture that people knew. Mudzuri said:
"I don't know where this
new culture of lies has come from." In an apparent
reference to Ignatius
Chombo, the Minister of Local Government, Public Works
and National Housing's
threat to fire the Harare City Council for alleged
partisanship and
corruption in running the city's affairs, the mayor said:
"You cannot always
be right."
He said people should wake up
from the culture of fear that seemed to
have gripped them. He said: "Those
who are scared will always die
suffering."He said there was a water
problem in the city and he had written
enough about the issue but would still
communicate with the residents on
the
issue.
Mudzuri said: "Let us not
joke about the water we supply to four and a
half million people. It would be
foolish for anyone to joke about it. If I
am wrong, then I should be
crucified.
"Those who are lying should be
charged with treason." The City of
Harare supplies water to Chitungwiza,
Ruwa, Epworth and Norton.Mudzuri
assured residents that the city would
deliver treated water to them as long
as the required chemicals were
available.
Daily News
Activists
charged
12/19/2002 11:44:41 AM
(GMT +2)
From Our
Correspondent
Two MDC activists and two
NCA members appeared in court last Friday
facing charges of contravening a
section of the Public Order and Security
Act for allegedly inciting members
of the public and workers to embark on a
mass stayaway in Masvingo last
week.
Ray Muzenda, the NCA provincial
chairperson for Masvingo, Sungano
Zvarebwanashe, an NCA activist, Shaky
Matake, the MDC provincial vice
chairman and Matthew Dondo, the party's
provincial driver were not asked to
plead when they appeared before Masvingo
magistrate Sunsley Zisengwe.
The four were
remanded to 29 January on $ 5 000 bail
each.
The court heard that on 8 December,
the four accused persons
distributed pamphlets in Masvingo denouncing
president Robert Mugabe for
causing the current food shortages and economic
hardships.
The state case is that the four
allegedly encouraged a stayaway which
was intended to adversely affect the
defence and economic interests
of
Zimbabwe.
The activists were accused
of publishing or communicating false
statements prejudicial to the
state.
Matake and Dondo were represented
by Tongai Matutu of Matutu Kwirira
and Associates while Muzenda and
Zvarebwanashe were represented by
Wellington Muzenda of Mwonzora and and
Associates.
Benson Taruvinga
prosecuted.
Daily
News
War vets evict 40
families
12/19/2002 11:18:02 AM
(GMT +2)
From Our
Correspondent
NEARLY 40 families,
including 21 children below five years of age,
were evicted by the police and
war veterans from land they occupied in
Cashel in the Chimanimani area, after
they were accused of supporting
the
MDC.
They fled to Mutare where they
were received by Zimbabwe Human Rights
Association officials. They were later
accommodated by the Anglican
Diocese in
Mutare.
Another 22 children, aged between
two and 11, were separated from
their families during the attacks and their
whereabouts were unknown as of
Tuesday.
The gang, allegedly led by the Cashel police officer-in-charge
identified
only as Inspector Masvongo, descended on the families and slashed
a least 10
hectares of maize they had planted on land which they occupied.
The attackers
then allegedly torched several huts belonging to the victims,
stole grain,
beans, blankets and cutlery worth thousands of dollars. "War
veterans came,
led by Inspector Masvongo and Shepherd Kashiri, the chairman
of the lands
committee, saying our time to leave the constituency was long
overdue," said
Margaret Mangoba, one of the victims.
Mangoba, 60, said tearfully: "They took away my grain, beans and
other
property. They destroyed my house. Following the attacks, we approached
the
district administrator who told us to return to our homes without fear.
But
as soon as he left, the war veterans vowed to kill us if we dared to
return
to Cashel."
Masvongo could not
be reached for comment, although Zacharia Mutize,
the deputy police spokesman
in Manicaland, said he was unaware of
the
incident.
The families fled their
homes and sought refuge in nearby mountains.
But the war veterans allegedly
followed them into the mountains and beat
them up again, insisting they leave
the constituency. Nhamo Matsiya, another
victim, said the incidents were
reported to Roy Bennet, the MP for
Chimanimani (MDC), who provided transport
to ferry their belongings. Bennet
offered part of his Charleswood Estate in
Chimanimani to the victims until
the matter was
resolved.
At the church premises on
Tuesday, the children were seen playing
around the yard while their mothers
prepared food donated by well-wishers.
Daily News
Institute fails
to process students' results
12/19/2002 11:47:03 AM (GMT +2)
By
Colleen Gwari
AS the deepening foreign
currency crisis continues to take its toll on
the economy, a leading
professional body, the Institute of Administration
and Commerce of Southern
Africa (IACSA), Zimbabwe chapter, has failed to
process students results for
the October 2002 session.
The body said
failure to remit $20 million in forex currency to the
mother body in South
Africa, which had been outstanding for years resulted
in the failure to
release results.
An IACSA official based
in Harare told The Daily News that a severe
forex crisis had dealt them a
blow and to date, South African examined
papers have not yet been
marked.
She said the situation was
critical and desperate bids to get the
mother body process results had
failed.
"Those in South Africa are
demanding that we pay our dues that
regrettably, we cannot because of the
foreign currency problem. At the
moment South African examined papers are not
yet ready and we do not know
when they will be
released."
In a notice to students and
members, the IACSA said "Due to
circumstances beyond our control some of the
October 2002 results are going
to be released in mid January 2003. However
the locally set exam results
will be released on Thursday, 19 December
2002."
The body offers a wide range of
business management courses
encompassing graduate diplomas in marketing,
accounting and administration.
Zimbabwe has
been hard hit by a severe foreign currency crisis which
has seen the economy
deteriorate further.
Industry has been the
hardest hit as most manufacturing companies can
no longer import essential
raw materials and equipment.
As a result,
some have shut down and moved to better investment
destinations while
thousands have been left jobless. Economic analysts said
come next year, the
situation was set to get worse as all sectors of the
economy would crumble.
Despite the economic turmoil, the ruling Zanu PF
government has remained
arrogant, further worsening relations with the
international and donor
community. Slowly, but surely the country was
grinding to a halt owing to a
fuel shortage which has seen the majority
failing to travel to their various
destinations. Compounding the fuel crisis
was food and basic commodities
shortages which have become a norm to the
country.
Daily News
Leader Page
Controlling people's minds is no easy
job
12/19/2002 11:24:12 AM (GMT
+2)
By Marko
Phiri
FOR people who attended the public
meeting convened by Bulawayo Agenda
on 6 December 2002 at the Small City
Hall, Bulawayo, it must have been
somewhat of a mild shock when they read
that Paul Siwela and George
Mkhwananzi who addressed the gathering had been
arrested under the obnoxious
Public Order and Security Act (POSA). Mild
because such has come to be
expected from this
regime.
The meeting had been called to
address the contents of the
not-so-secret 14-page document which celebrates
and seeks to propagate Shona
ethnic elitism. They are alleged to have made
subversive statements. What
the arrest proves is that the government will not
take any candid,
no-holds-barred talk from the few among us valiant enough to
stand up and
publicly express those
thoughts.
And the interesting bit,
however, is that, what was discussed that day
by all the speakers essentially
read like the sentiments of one person,
never mind that eventually it was
only two people arrested! If any signs
were needed that this country has
indeed sunk to the depths of a police
state, these arrests and many others
before them ought to provide ample
truth in that
regard.
But the folly of the ruling party,
under whose spell the police force
operates, is that it does not realise that
behaviour like the arrest of
Siwela and Mkhwananzi only helps in achieving
one thing: further incensing
the people of Bulawayo against Zanu PF. Thus,
the party will always be
unwelcome in that part of the
country.
Siwela and Mkhwananzi have become
popular formers of opinion and
obviously their arrest could well trigger what
the ruling party might just
be looking for: popular revolt and then cite the
subversive statements as
having fomented the unrest. The truth, however,
would be the other way
round, that it is the arrests themselves which
triggered the uproar!
What the people
usually invited to speak in these public meetings
almost always tend to say
are issues that the gathering greets with approval
and applause. It would,
therefore, mean the police - or is it the ruling
party? - should also arrest
these people.
That it is merely one person
expressing what is anyway public
sentiment is nothing but a travesty of the
worst order seeing that
imprisoning that individual does not in any way kill
the thought shared with
those remaining outside the prison
walls.
But then flawed reasoning has
always been the hallmark of many a
dictatorship. It could be that the police
seeing the futility of rounding up
all the people applauding one accused of
making subversive statements,
decide it was much prudent to punish the
messenger! Yet in the true fashion
of martyrs, their spirit lives on beyond
the walls, and if anything, that
sentiment is egged on by the incarceration
of the men and women who stand up
and speak the people's
language.
It was curious that Special
Affairs Minister John Nkomo did not make
it to the public meeting as he had
been scheduled to share the podium with
these men who were arrested as soon
as the meeting closed. It would have
been interesting to know how he would
have reacted to their arrest right in
front of him. Would he have stepped in
to say: "If you are going to arrest
these men, arrest me on the charge of
guilty by association because I sat
and shared the table with them!" as this
would have been as good as breaking
bread with evildoers. He had been
scheduled to give the government's
response to the document that has provided
the government with ammunition
against its usual suspects, the MDC and the
British government of Tony
Blair.
The
delivery of the MDC MP Moses Mzila was just as emotionally charged
as was
that of the arrested Siwela and Mkhwananzi, but then this anomaly
that he
escaped arrest can only be explained by the arresting officers
themselves. Or
perhaps the idea is to give the MDC a deserved break seeing
its MPs have been
making unwarranted visits to police cells with
alarming
frequency!
The arrests
themselves could also be means toward discouraging civic
groups from
convening public meetings where the state of the economy,
politics and Zanu
PF are openly discussed.
Would Bulawayo
Agenda, Habakkuk Trust and others be too eager to call
those meetings seeing
that people they invite might as well have blind dates
with hard-core
criminals in the local jail cells?
Or
still, this itself could also take the steam out of many would-be
speakers as
they grow goose bumps thinking they could be the ones we read
about in the
Press arrested for making subversive
statements.
Thus public debate would then
have been successfully killed by the
ruling party. That seems to be the
party's grand plan, thus it has been
opined that in Zimbabwe there is freedom
of expression, but no freedom after
expression! But for how long is Zanu PF
going to suppress free expression
and give up its attempts to control
minds?
Perhaps the next thing this
newspaper ought to do is serialise another
Orwellian masterpiece, 1984, and
let people in on this contemporary Big
Brother nightmare. In any case, how is
a subversive statement defined? Can
our learned police officers be trusted
with understanding the finer
interpretation of the law they are supposed to
enforce? Or they merely take
orders from
politicians?
Remember Chafukwa Chihana in
Malawi before the miserable close of the
Banda dictatorship? He hit the
headlines as an opposition politician jailed
by the Kamuzu regime under
sedition charges, but we know there never was any
incident that threatened
the peace in Malawi, or plunged the country into
civil strife back then to
give credence to the charges that were brought
against
Chihana.
But then that is the story of
African politics, anyone who stands up
to speak the truth is charged with
fomenting rebellion against the
government! Banda lost the presidency despite
all these efforts to stifle
free thought, so one then would wonder how that
part of Malawian history,
and indeed many more African states, will not form
part of Zimbabwe's own
history in the march towards
democracy.
Daily News
Leader Page
Mugabe's racist diatribe discredits all
citizens
12/19/2002 11:22:49 AM
(GMT +2)
AT the sixth people's
conference of his Zanu PF in Chinhoyi last week,
President Mugabe launched
into his customary racist diatribe.
As
usual, he threatened to punish the white citizens if the Western
governments
continued to condemn his racist, violence-soaked reign
of
Zimbabwe.
These outbursts have
become so familiar most people can practically
predict word for word what he
will say next. The man has become so
predictable his attacks on Tony Blair,
the West, the white commercial
farmers and the white citizens of Zimbabwe in
general could be boring if
they weren't as chilling as Adolf Hitler's verbal
abuse of the Jews before
The Holocaust.
But like Hitler, he may be so wrapped up in his fantasy of the Black
Knight
in Shining Armour out to slay the Racist Dragon, he may not realise
what he
is doing until the country faces the choice of restoring the rule of
law and
the dignity of every citizen or plunging deeper into lawlessness
and
international isolation.
A few days
after he spoke in Chinhoyi, there was an incident on a
Beatrice farm, during
which a white farmer was humiliated by a group of
so-called war
veterans.
How the leader of a country
which professes to embrace the rule of law
in all its niceties can
countenance such lawlessness can only be explained
by the utter lack of
direction that now haunts Zanu PF.
To
stoop to using innocent children to publicly spout racist invective
is an
indication of how totally aimless that once internationally
respectable party
has become.
Mugabe's obsession with Tony
Blair, the British and the West in
general is obviously an attempt to divert
attention from his own failure to
run the
country.
On the fuel crisis, there is now
so much buck-passing, many must be
reminded of a falling-out of thieves. Who
is responsible for the bungling?
The National
Oil Company of Zimbabwe, the Ministry of Finance and
Economic Development or
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe? Or is it the
President
himself?
For the more
simple-minded delegates at the conference in Chinhoyi, it
may have sounded
perfectly legitimate to blame everything on the
whites.
But not all Zimbabweans are that
starry-eyed about Mugabe's talent
for
scape-goating.
The white population
is now so depleted that to speak of it as a
threat to the security or
sovereignty of Zimbabwe would be to stand
statistics on their
head.
Those who remain may be few, but
they are people dedicated to seeing
the country recover from its present
crisis, mostly out of sheer personal
interest because they have no other home
to go to.
Mugabe would be well-advised to
turn his attention fully to the
discontent simmering on the surface among
black Zimbabweans. He, his party
and many other people have always relied on
the docility of the people not
to raise a finger of protest against the abuse
of their rights.But there is
always a breaking
point.
Most Zimbabweans know that the
cause of their hunger, the lack of
fuel, foreign currency, foreign aid and
basic commodities at affordable
prices does not lie in Number 10 Downing
Street or Buckingham Palace in
London.
It lies in Munhumutapa Building and at State House in Harare. When
their
breaking point is reached, they will know where to go to
protest.
Daily
News
Feature
Zimbabwe needs
action and not words
12/19/2002
11:35:40 AM (GMT +2)
I closely
followed the recent Zanu PF Sixth People's Conference at
Chinhoyi from the
very first day to its grand finale because I wanted to see
whether or not the
organisers of that occasion had similar perceptions about
our country's
problems as mine.
The conference was held
at a time when Zimbabwe is facing a very
frightening socio-economic crisis.
The nation is literally grinding to a
halt because of critical shortages of
various most essential commodities
such as foodstuffs, fuel, seed, medicines
and goodwill.I expected the
conference to devote most of its time to
analysing the causes of the
socio-economic problems, and identify possible
solutions. I thought
delegates would try to establish why Zimbabwe has become
the worst economy
in the Sadc region.
The country has a crushing level of inflation - at 144-plus percent,
it is
the highest in the Sadc region. Unemployment is at 70 percent, and
economic
growth is negative. The Aids pandemic is playing havoc with the
population,
so is famine.The national political climate is anything but
conducive to the
development of amity and economic prosperity. It is so
deeply imbued with
mutual hostility, racialism and inter-communal suspicion
that in some
centres, children have been trained, indoctrinated and induced
to hate and
even physically attack their parents or
guardians.
I was most hopeful that the
delegates would highlight the vital need
for national reconciliation, not
just between former PF Zapu and Zanu PF,
but also between all the people of
Zimbabwe, irrespective of their skin
pigmentation, race, religion or tribe. I
thought, I did not say I "hoped",
that President Mugabe would be morally big
enough to accept that his
government has failed the nation dismally, and that
it was time some other
administration took over the reins of power to try to
breathe some new life
into the nation's body politic, economy and social
life.
That was not to be. Mugabe went to
town against the British Prime
Minister, Tony Blair, and the United States
President, George W Bush, and
the MDC.
It has always been strange to me that Mugabe seems never to miss
an
opportunity to castigate Blair and Bush, asking particularly Blair to
leave
him and his Zimbabwe alone.
It is
very seldom that Blair says more than a sentence or two, if at
all, about
Mugabe in his speeches. If Bush and Blair devoted as much time to
criticising
Mugabe and his administration as Mugabe does to criticising
them, his
repeated onslaught against them would be
justified.
I do not see how Mugabe's
fulmination against these two foreign
leaders can help to create jobs in
Zimbabwe, or how it can deliver medicines
to our hospitals and clinics, or
how it can source food and fuel for the
nation, or how it can curb the
nation's runaway inflation.
These are the
immediate problems facing the country, and they require
urgent solutions.
Blair and Bush have nothing to do with the immobilising
foreign currency
shortage prevailing in Zimbabwe, nor have they anything to
do with the
resultant shortage of fuels - petrol, diesel and
paraffin.
So, why waste so much valuable time
trying to create scapegoats
instead of crafting meaningful solutions to our
everyday problems the vast
majority of which we ourselves
caused?
I think that the nation should be
honest with itself and come to terms
with the reality among us. It is simply
that Zanu PF has run out of ideas to
improve the quality of life in
Zimbabwe.
It has not, however, run out of
ideas and plans to cling to political
power at any cost. That is the stark
reality facing the people of Zimbabwe.
The
solution to this tragedy lies in, first and foremost, accepting
that we, and
only we, can and should solve this our national problem. Let us
stop
day-dreaming by looking for saviours from outside our
borders.
Let us also accept that worse
hardship than what we have already
experienced is inevitable. That hardship
may include death, imprisonment,
hunger, thirst, physical and verbal abuse,
denial and deprivation of our
rights. The questions we should ask ourselves
are: How should we form as
strong a united front as is humanly possible in
these circumstances? Do the
existing political, religious, trade union,
sports, professional, cultural
and civic organisations have the actual or
potential capacity to bring about
such a
change?
If so, can they be mobilised to
form a front to salvage the nation
from this palpable socio-economic rot? If
not, is it not high time all
patriotic Zimbabweans, and I mean genuinely
patriotic, came together to save
the country from this most tragic situation?
It is disheartening that a
nation with as large a number of highly educated
people as Zimbabwe can
allow itself to be dragged into a socio-economic
disaster such as we are
facing now.
This is not the time for empty political words and slogans, but
for
constructive socio-economic strategies to reduce the country's
massive
unemployment, devastating inflation, impoverishing and immobilising
lack of
foreign currency, the intolerable Aids pandemic, famine-causing
shortage of
consumer commodities, and for the elimination of politics of
hate, cruelty
and greed.
All of us,
every right-thinking Zimbabwean, owe it to this nation to
make a patriotic
resolution as we usher in the New Year to liberate
ourselves from this
grinding poverty, man-induced misery and
fear.
It is important to remember that a
nation of cowards is easy to
enslave, and that freedom is always striven for
because it is not free.
Dear Fellow Zimbabweans,
Times are tough for us all! Last week I
spent over 24 hours in queues and as
the weekend approaches I know that I
will once again be queue bound if I am
to have petrol in my car over the
festive season.
Yes, it is called the festive season - but how many of us
are feeling
festive?????
We mostly feel robbed (of our rights) and
raped (of our optimism). It is
with great trepidation that I face the weekend
queuing as news has reached
me of armed war veterans controlling petrol
queues in both Harare and
Bulawayo. I believe that they are allowing commuter
omnibuses to jump the
queues!
With all this hustle and bustle, chaos
and confusion of Zimbabwean
existence, I am reminded of the story of Mary and
Joseph as they made their
way to Bethlehem. It was census time and they had
no choice but to comply.
Their journey was made on foot and by kind favour of
a donkey. Added to this
was the pressure of having to find shelter for the
night when it was in
short supply.
They settled for a manger and with
humility and grace brought forth a
Saviour - Jesus Christ.
Please do
not loose sight of the spiritual dimension. No matter what
religion you are -
you observe that there is a supreme being who, in his own
time and in his own
way he will make his presence felt and will help
Zimbabweans to return to a
positive path where good is good and bad is bad.
Many of us are numb and
spend our days sleepwalking our way through.
Read through this address by
Morgan Tsvangirai (18 Dec) and if you can
listen to the state of the nation
address by President Robert Mugabe at
2:30pm today (Thursday). He may say
something pertinent to our being a
nation of 'queuers' but even if he
pretends these issues do not exist he
will have 'spoken volumes' by the
omission.
A trick to being able to remain updated on political
developments whilst
still maintaining a modicum of sanity is to read every
word with discipline
and academically conceptualise what the words mean - it
is a matter of
schooling yourself.
I am not a politician, but I am a
student of politics because like it or not
politicians run countries. I am a
Zimbabwean and therefore make it my
business to keep briefed and to brief
others.
The time will soon come for women, in their gentle and determined
manner to
take action. We must make our male political leadership realise
that our
families cannot suffer in silence and that patience is not
digestible for
humans or cars!
Best,
Jenni Williams
p.s.
I have received quite a number of emails requesting to join the
Zimbabweans
Women's mailing list - please apply by emailing me
jennipr@mweb.co.zw
BBC
Thursday, 19 December, 2002, 16:27 GMT
Fuel
crisis makes Zimbabwe dig deep
Zimbabwe is spending US$15m
(£8.7m) of its desperately scarce foreign
currency reserves on fuel imported
from Kuwait and South Africa, to
alleviate a shortage which has almost
brought the country to a standstill.
The move was announced in the
government-controlled Herald newspaper by
Energy and Power Development
Minister Amos Midzi, who said the supplies
would arrive "in the coming
days".
For two weeks, a critical lack of fuel has taken public buses off
the
streets, dealing yet more damage to an economy already in crisis.
The
embattled government of President Robert Mugabe threatened over the
weekend
to nationalise privately-held petrol stations owned by foreign oil
giants
such as BP, Mobil and Caltex.
The government has yet to make clear where the
foreign currency is going to
come from to pay Kuwait's IPG and South Africa's
Engen Petroleum.
Evaporating exports
Zimbabwe has had problems obtaining
sufficient fuel for several years, no
least because it lacks the ability to
pay for it.
Agriculture has been disrupted by the seizure of most commercial
farms for
redistribution to landless black farmers.
As a result, the
export earnings from a country once seen as the breadbasket
of Southern
Africa have evaporated.
The mismatch between an official exchange rate of
Z$55 to the US dollar and
a "parallel market" rate now spiralling towards
2,000 means that where
possible, businesses keep their foreign earnings out
of the country.
A fuel deal with Libya which allowed payment in local
currency and produce
is near collapse because the beef, sugar, coffee and
tobacco Harare promised
in return is too scarce to send.
The deal,
intended to deliver 70% of Zimbabwe's fuel needs, is also allowing
Libyans
access to some of the farmland in theory intended for the landless.
And Libya
is also keen on taking over pipelines held by state oil company
Noczim, as
well as other government assets.
Corruption
Mr Midzi is resisting the
temptation to raise fuel prices, saying it would
hit Zimbabwean consumers
already stricken by severe food shortages
exacerbated by price
controls.
He also defended the conduct of Noczim, whose officials have been
accused in
the Herald of wanting to scrap the Libya deal.
Instead, the
Herald alleged, they wanted to return to spot deals which would
bring them
foreign currency to trade on the parallel market.
Zimbabwean economists have
long accused the government of refusing to
devalue in part because of the
profits to be made by sustaining the parallel
rates while controlling the
main source of foreign currency.
ROBERT I. ROTBERG:
Zimbabwe's Mugabe makes more
misery
Copyright © 2002 Nando Media
Copyright © 2002 Christian
Science Monitor Service
The Christian Science
Monitor
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (December 19, 8:45 a.m. PST) - Last week,
the 2 million
inhabitants of Harare, Zimbabwe, woke up to a new sign of
societal collapse:
No water flowed down the city pipes. President Robert
Mugabe's men had run
out of cash to pay for chemical disinfectants and to
fuel the pumps.
Zimbabwe is in critical condition, thanks to the despotic
greed of its aging
dictator. This week in Harare and Bulawayo, the country's
largest and once
wealthy southern cities, there are massive shortages of
gasoline and almost
anything else purchased with foreign exchange. Locally
produced cooking oil,
sugar, corn flour, meat and vegetables are also scarce.
Gas stations are
either shut or show long lines of hopeful drivers.
Supermarkets display
endless rows of toilet paper in the absence of edible
goods.
"It is hot and the town is strewn with bad-tempered queues of
desperate
people trying to go about their everyday business," says an e-mail
from a
frustrated Harare resident.
In the countryside, the prospect of
starvation is real - 6 million or 7
million people are at risk, primarily
because Mr. Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe
African National Union-Patriot Front
(ZANU-PF) systematically denies even
donated food to peasants or town
dwellers who live in areas that voted
against him.
Yet, because of
massive media restrictions, very little of what is going on
in Zimbabwe is
being reported. Foreign correspondents are rare, local
reporters are harassed
and jailed and newspapers bombed. The tragedy of
Zimbabwe must be pieced
together from reliable e-mail messages and telephone
calls and close
examination of the national budget and conditions on
the
street.
Zimbabwe has always fed itself and exported corn and wheat
to its neighbors.
But the government's invasion of commercial farms reduced
productivity by 70
percent. Shortages of rainfall in some areas compounded
the problem. The
government exported stockpiled corn from previous years, and
then
confiscated private caches of grain, which it sold to the party
faithful.
In three years, Zimbabwe's GDP per capita has fallen by 30
percent.
Government budget deficits are the highest in the world, over 20
percent of
GDP. Zimbabwe's annual per capita GDP has fallen from well over
$600 per
person in 1998 to $300 this year. Inflation, running at 38 percent
last
year, is now a punishing 200 percent. One U.S. dollar, six months
ago
capable of buying 150 Zimbabwe dollars, can now purchase 2,000
Zimbabwe
dollars on the black market. About 60 percent of adult Zimbabweans
have no
jobs and no prospects now that commercial farming has been shut down
and
mining and manufacturing are slumping.
Mugabe pays for his
personal and family corruption, for party patronage and
goods for the party
faithful, for the farm invasions and for his brutal
security forces by
siphoning foreign exchange earnings from tobacco exports,
banks and insurance
companies and anything else that can be grabbed in the
ramshackle, bankrupt
society that Zimbabwe has become.
The only real savior has been Libya,
which supplied desperately needed
petroleum and cash in exchange for valuable
farmland. But Libyan patience
has now run out. Zimbabwe can no longer even
pretend to pay for fuel and
other imports; hence the dry pipes in
Harare.
Mugabe last week threatened more Pol Pot-like attacks on the
economic
pillars of his country and on his beleaguered opponents. More misery
is on
the way. A change for the better will come about only if his patronage
dries
up and his party deserts him, the hungry rise up, the army switches
sides,
he dies or is incapacitated, or - improbably - Washington, London
and
Pretoria intervene to free the Zimbabwean people from their
own
Nebuchadnezzar.
Robert I. Rotberg is director of Harvard
University's Program on Intrastate
Conflict at the Kennedy School and
president of the World Peace Foundation.
ABUSES AGAINST UNIONISTS IN
ZIMBABWESource: World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT),
December 12, 2002
The International
Secretariat of OMCT requests your URGENT
intervention in the following
situation in Zimbabwe.
The International
Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by the
International Confederation of
Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), a member of the
OMCT network, of the release of
the nine trade union leaders belonging to
the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions (ZCTU) arrested on December 9, 2002 in
Harare,
Zimbabwe.
According to the information
received, in a court hearing on December
11, 2002, the judge rejected the
prosecutor's plea that the nine trade
unionists detained since December 9 be
charged under the Public Order and
Security Act (POSA). It is reported that
the police released the detainees
after this ruling, but threatened to
rearrest them under the provisions of
the POSA, although this contradicts
earlier statements from President Mugabe
and the ruling party that the POSA
would not be used against trade unions.
Moreover, it is reported that one of the detainees, Mr. Wellington
Chibebe,
General Secretary of the ZCTU was beaten with a broom during his
detention in
a police cell in Harare. The information received also relates
that the
police threatened to "remove or eliminate" him if he did not resign
as ZCTU's
General Secretary.
Background
According to the information received, while trade unionists were
taking part
in the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)' annual review
symposium on
December 9, 2002, the police intervened at around 5 pm and
arrested nine
trade unionists.
These arrests allegedly
came against a background of sharp economic
decline in Zimbabwe and on the
eve of a December 10 national strike called
by a coalition of civic groups
and supported by the ZCTU, allegedly
involving tens of thousands of workers,
though it is reported that the
meeting was not related to this strike
action.
Please write to the Zimbabwean
authorities urging them to:
1. Take all
necessary measures to guarantee the physical and
psychological integrity of
Mr. Wellington Chibebe;
2. Guarantee an
immediate investigation into the circumstances of his
injuries, identify
those responsible, bring them before a competent and
impartial civil tribunal
and apply the penal, civil and/or administrative
sanctions provided by
law;
3. Guarantee the respect for
economic, social and cultural rights and
labour rights of the workers,
including the right to work, the right to fair
wages guaranteeing a decent
living for the workers and their families, the
right to form and join trade
unions and the right to strike.
Addresses
President Robert
Mugabe
Fax: 263 4 79 03 16 / 263 4 73 46
44.
Mr. Dumiso
Dabenjwa
Home Affairs
Ministry
Fax: 263 4 72 67
16.
Embassy of
Zimbabwe
1608 New Hampshire Ave
NW
Washington, DC
20009
Email:
zimemb@erols.com
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Mugabe urges Zimbabwe business to help ease
crisisBy Cris Chinaka
HARARE, Dec. 19 - President
Robert Mugabe appealed on Thursday to Zimbabwe's
business community, which he
has regularly accused of sabotaging government
policies, to help ease
crippling food shortages and an economic
crisis.
Nearly half the country's 14
million people are short of food. Mugabe
blames drought but his critics say
the real fault is with seizures of
white-owned commercial farms in what used
to be the regional breadbasket.
''I
appeal especially to our corporate citizens to play a visible,
responsible
and meaningful role to complement the government effort,'' the
president said
in an end-of year address to parliament.
''The man and woman standing in need of food cannot apply himself or
herself
when he or she is concerned about where the next family meal (is
coming
from),'' 78-year-old Mugabe said.
He
said household food stocks had practically run out in most areas
and that
imports had had to meet the gap.
In what
appeared to be a message to foreign donors worried about
unjust allocation of
food to his supporters, he said aid would go to the
needy ''strictly on the
basis of their numbers and survival needs across
the
country.''
Mugabe urged
beneficiaries of his controversial land reform drive to
repay the country
through increased agricultural production, saying Zimbabwe
had paid heavily
for the programme.
''We have been
criticised for doing the right, namely accomplishing
the sovereign mission of
acquiring our heritage,'' he said.
Mugabe's 30-minute speech was boycotted by members of the main
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Mugabe made no direct
reference to a
severe fuel shortage that has almost paralysed the southern
African
country.
He lashed out again at former
colonial power Britain, accusing Prime
Minister Tony Blair of running an
hysterical propaganda campaign aimed at
demonising his
leadership.
''Britain's relentless
campaign of vilifying and isolating our
country has hit a frenzy only matched
by its futility.
''There is a growing
recognition that this Blair-led anti-Zimbabwe
drive is as unjustified as it
is spiteful,'' he said.
Britain says
Mugabe is trying to divert the spotlight from his
government's human rights
abuses, political repression and election
rigging.
A Zimbabwe cabinet minister
said the country had ordered fuel worth
over $15 million from Kuwait and
South Africa to ease the shortage.