Zim Online
Monday 04 December
2006
BULAWAYO - Zimbabwe Police
Commissioner Augustine Chihuri has warned
that President Robert Mugabe's
government faced revolt by disgruntled junior
security officers following
the awarding by Harare of hefty salaries to
youths from a controversial
national service training programme.
In a confidential memo dated
22 November, a copy of which was seen by
ZimOnline at the weekend, Chihuri
said morale in the security services had
hit rock bottom as the salary
discrepancies had caused serious divisions
between the security forces and
the youths.
The five-page memo entitled "Salary discrepancies need
urgent
attention" was addressed to Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi and
State
Security Minister Didymus Mutasa.
"The salaries they earn
(national service youths) are more than 20
times what trained junior members
of the uniformed forces who pay tax are
being given per month and this has
not only killed the morale of our
members, but also made them more
rebellious against the government.
"It is also worrying to note
that these youths . . . earn more than
three times a Senior Assistant
Commissioner of the ZRP (Zimbabwe Republic
Police)," reads part of the
memo.
The youths, accused by human rights groups and the main
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party of unleashing terror
on
government opponents, are said to be earning untaxed monthly salaries of
Z$600 000.
A junior officer in the army and police earns a
basic monthly salary
of Z$27 000, way below the food basket of over Z$104
000.
President Robert Mugabe's government has since last November
been
deploying youths from the national service programme in cities and
towns to
monitor and enforce price controls on selected goods.
There have been reports that the youths had unleashed a reign of
terror
around the country as they beat up and harassed businessmen and
informal
traders whom they accused of inflating prices in a bid to sabotage
the
government.
In the hard-hitting memo which shows that all was not
well in the
security services, Chihuri warned that if the government failed
to address
the matter urgently, it could see the junior officers engage "in
active
rebellion against the government" which they already blame for
triggering
the economic crisis.
Zimbabwe is in its seventh year
of a bitter economic recession that
has spawned shortages of almost every
basic commodity and the world's
highest inflation rate of over 1 000
percent.
The police chief said Mohadi and Mutasa should warn Mugabe
of the
possibility of a "violent revolt" by junior officers who "feel
abandoned."
"Senior officers have benefited and continue to benefit
. . . in
various ways, but the juniors, who make up the bulk of the security
forces
and who are active on the ground are considering themselves as
abandoned
beings.
"They will not take time to revolt as they
already suspect that the
government does not trust them as much as it does
the youths. It is your
duty as ministers responsible for security to
convince the President on the
urgency of this matter.
"I hope
you will play your part," says the memorandum.
Some junior members
of the security forces who spoke to ZimOnline at
the weekend confirmed that
the salary discrepancies had caused a serious
rift between security forces
and the youths.
"We work harder than them (youths) but at the end
of the day they earn
more money than us. I tell you most junior members will
be leaving in their
droves next year because of this, " said a junior member
of the army.
Contacted for comment yesterday, Mohadi confirmed
receiving the
memorandum but refused to divulge any information saying it
was a "Top
secret" document not meant for the Press.
"I cannot
discuss the contents of such a document with the Press
because it is a
national security issue. All I can tell you is that the
government knows
that the security forces need a huge salary hike and they
will get it in
January," he said.
Mutasa could not be reached for comment on the
matter last night. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 04 December
2006
HARARE - Zimbabwe risks becoming a
"supermarket economy" unless
the government finds a lasting solution to the
country's seven-year-old
crisis and stops meddling in the operations of
companies, analysts warned
yesterday.
Commenting on plans
by President Robert Mugabe's government to
create an Incomes and Pricing
Commission which will develop pricing models
for goods and services, the
analysts said the proposed institution would be
the final nail in the coffin
for the already embattled manufacturing sector.
University of
Zimbabwe political scientist John Makombe said the
pricing commission was
symptomatic of a government at a wits' end.
"Reconciling
incomes and prices is not going to make our
industries operate better. It
will, in fact, cause poverty more equal by
destroying the country's
industrial base and making everyone poor," Makumbe
told
ZimOnline.
The analysts believe that the envisaged commission
is a way by
the government to circumvent calls by the International Monetary
Fund (IMF)
to do away with price controls.
The Bretton
Woods institution, which is expected to send a
mission to Harare in February
to assess Zimbabwe's economic performance
during the past six months, has
repeatedly criticised the government's
preoccupation with controlling prices
of goods.
The IMF believes that such controls have stifled
performance by
companies, a major factor in the sluggish showing by the
export sector since
2000.
Zimbabwe has faced a crippling
shortage of foreign currency
since the IMF and other multilateral financial
institutions pulled the plug
in October 1999.
Critics
have blamed the 82-year-old Mugabe for mismanaging the
once boisterous
economy, particularly after 2000 when he embarked on the
wholesale
expropriation of land from former white owners.
"The planned
Incomes and Pricing Commission is an indirect way
of reintroducing price
controls at a time when what producers are really
looking for is viability
of their businesses," said an investment analyst
with a Harare-based
commercial bank who cannot be named for professional
reasons.
He said the pricing commission would soon drive
local industry
and commerce into the ground.
"The economy
could soon turn into one large supermarket where we
produce nothing of our
own and depend on imports from the region and other
parts of the world," the
banker warned.
This would push the country's inflation -
already the highest in
the world - further upwards.
Inflation was pegged at 1 070.2 percent in October amid
projections that it
could breach 1 300 percent by year-end and 5 000 percent
by mid
2007.
The envisaged commission would result in the creation
of another
bureaucracy, which would be a drain on the limited resources at
the disposal
of the government.
According to the National
Incomes and Pricing Commission Bill,
which was this week sent to the
Parliamentary Legal Committee after passing
the second reading, there will
be up to eight commissioners in the proposed
body.
There
will also be costs associated with policing of the pricing
regulations.
Inspectors would be empowered to enter and inspect any premises
where there
is reasonable suspicion that there are violations in terms of
the
Bill.
Persons found guilty would be liable to a fine or
imprisonment
not exceeding three years.
The analysts said
the government must address the real issues
affecting the livelihood of
Zimbabweans such as an unstable political
environment, strengthening of
relations with developed countries and
improving the terms of trade with the
international community. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 04 December
2006
HARARE - A Zimbabwean human rights
group says it will appeal against
Canada's refusal to indict President
Robert Mugabe over human rights
violations.
The Pretoria-based
Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF), which has been pushing
for Mugabe's indictment
in Canadian courts, says they are seeking a judicial
review on the
ruling.
Last week, Canada refused to charge Mugabe over human
rights
violations saying it had no jurisdiction to prosecute the veteran
Zimbabwean
leader.
Canada also said Mugabe enjoyed immunity as
head of state and the
crimes he is alleged to have committed had no direct
links with Canada.
But Gabriel Shumba, the executive director of
the ZEF said: "We are
going to get a judicial review of the decision on
Mugabe and we have thirty
days in which to appeal. I am already working on
this with some lawyers in
Canada."
"Presidential immunity for
crimes against humanity is a moribund
excuse. We are not going to rest until
justice is achieved. By this same
token, we are also studying other
jurisdictions in which Mugabe can be sued
even through private prosecution
like New Zealand.
"Secondly, as part of our appeal, we are going to
press the Canadians
to at least indict some of Mugabe's ministers, since
they don't enjoy head
of state immunity," said Shumba, a human rights lawyer
who fled Zimbabwe in
2003 after being tortured by state security
agents.
Shumba said there was enough evidence to charge Mugabe for
crimes
against humanity citing the murder of at least 20 000 minority
Ndebeles in
Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces in the early
1980s.
Several local and international human rights groups have
often accused
Mugabe of committing serious human rights violations against
political
opponents. Mugabe denies the charge. - ZimOnline
Yahoo News
Sun
Dec 3, 10:02 AM ET
HARARE (AFP) - An International Monetary Fund (IMF)
has team arrived in
Harare for an assessment mission that could lead to the
expulsion of
debt-ridden Zimbabwe from the global lending
body.
Junior Finance Minister David Chafika told AFP on Sunday: "We will
start our
meetings with them from tomorrow. Most likely, serious business
will start
later in the week."
But an official from Zimbabwe's
central bank played down the visit,
describing it as a "routine"
mission.
"It's a routine meeting between the government and the bank like
the annual
meeting between the IMF and its members," the official told AFP,
speaking on
condition of anonymity.
The mission comes after the World
Bank's lending arm demanded that President
Robert Mugabe's government take
strict measures to put the blighted economy
of the former regional
breadbasket back on track.
Zimbabwe, which narrowly averted expulsion
from the IMF last September for
debt arrears of 295 million dollars (229
million euros) through a surprise
payment of 120 million dollars, still owes
the international lender 125
million dollars.
The delegation will
compile a report to be used by the IMF board to decide
Harare's fate when it
meets in Washington in February to review the overdue
debt
payments.
Zimbabwe is labouring under record inflation of around 1,000
percent,
spiralling unemployment and an acute shortage of food and essential
goods
blamed partly on controversial land reforms launched by the
state.
If expelled, Zimbabwe would become only the second country after
the former
Czechoslovakia to be kicked out from the IMF for debt
arrears.
Mail and Guardian
Godfrey Marawanyika | Harare, Zimbabwe
03 December 2006 11:44
Zimbabwe's embattled finance minister
has set a Herculean task
of slashing four-digit inflation by two-thirds and
getting the ruined
economy back on track, but experts say his latest Budget
is not up to the
job.
Presenting the Budget for 2007 on
Thursday, Herbert Murerwa
forecast marginal growth of 0,5% to 1% and added
that the country's
astronomic inflation rate would fall to
350%.
The projected growth would result from "good weather,
stabilising of commodity prices, improved mineral deposits and growing
number of tourist arrivals," Murerwa said.
But critics
say the minister is far too optimistic in a country
where the economy has
shrunk by one third. The former regional breadbasket
now suffers from
critical shortages of food and fuel.
Zimbabwe's agriculture
sector is expected to grow by 6,4% owing
to bountiful rains in the current
farming season, Murerwa said.
Agriculture, once the backbone
of the economy, is in decline
following a controversial land reform policy
which saw the often violent
seizure of white-owned farms by landless blacks
who often lacked expertise
and equipment.
Murerwa also
said the mining sector would grow by 4,9% on the
back of strong global
prices.
"The Budget is still very shy to deal with issues
affecting the
economy such high unemployment, foreign currency problems and
inflation,"
said Calisto Jokonya, president of Confederation of Zimbabwe
Industries
(CZI).
"It is good the minister knows the
problems affecting our
country, but he did not offer any
solutions."
Central Bank Governor Gideon Gono has blamed
runaway inflation
partly on a strong growth of money supply that was fuelled
by the free
printing of currency to service old debts owed to the
International Monetary
Fund.
The IMF had threatened to
expel Zimbabwe for failing to meet
debt payments.
Best
Doroh, an economist with ZB financial holdings, said
Murerwa was being
"overly-optimistic" with his targets for inflation and
growth.
"He is projecting a real growth rate of between
0,5% to 1% in
2007 premised on the anticipated improved perfomance of the
mining and
agriculture sectors which are expected to grow by by 9,4% and
4,9% in 2007.
"It is interesting to note that the original projection for
agriculture was
23% and this has been revised substantially downwards to
6,4%," he said.
Murerwa blamed the country's woes on
sanctions imposed on
President Robert Mugabe and members of inner circle by
the United States and
the European Union for allegedly stifling democracy
and human rights.
"It is no secret that the country has
remains under seige,
facing sanctions from the West, characterised by lack
of balance of payments
support, lines of credit, foreign direct investment
and deliberate efforts
to undermine economic turnaround programmes," he
said.
Independent economist Eric Bloch dismissed the Budget,
however.
"It had a lot of words which mean nothing," Bloch
said.
The Southern African nation is labouring under record
inflation
of more than 1 000%, spiralling unemployment and an acute shortage
of food
and essential goods.
As a result of a 6% decline
in exports, the current account
deficit is pegged at $543-million this year,
Murerwa said.
The current account is a key economic indicator
of net inflows
and outflows of payments, sending important signals about
trends such as the
demand for national money and the relative performance of
different areas of
the economy. - Sapa-AFP
By
Mutumwa D.
Mawere While Africa’s leaders
continue to occupy their minds on how best to insult the rich and developed
countries, there appears to be no visible attempt by Africans across the
continent to take ownership of the development challenges that confront the
continent. In the face of a global
architecture that is fatigued by the dependency syndrome that has become a
permanent feature of many African countries, many African governments are
increasingly looking to the newly industrialized eastern countries for
salvation. What is striking is that there appears to be no attempt by African
state and non-state actors to define the kind of architecture that should inform
the new Africa. Like prostitutes, many
African state actors have abdicated from the responsibility of championing the
African renaissance electing to auctioning and mortgaging the continent’s
resources to anyone who sings from the same anti-imperialist hymn book. Asia and
Latin America have seen the glaring vacuum in Africa and the apparent inability
of Africans to take ownership of their destiny with potentially disastrous
consequences for the African brand. 'What kind of Africa do
Africans want?' is a question that requires a pan African response. Any person
who shares the African heritage should be concerned about the African condition
and should be aware that if Africa does not work for its people, they are
equally at risk of undermining their own ability to protect and sustain their
rights in an increasingly competitive global environment that is characterized
by strong national brands. The responsibility to map
out a future for Africa should not be the exclusivity of state actors who in
many cases are blinded by their own inadequacies and nationalistic propaganda
but should occupy the minds of all who recognize that Africa is a home for many
who share the black pigmentation in the majority. There is no other continent in
the world like Africa where Africans have been provided with a theatre to give
themselves an identity that is challenged by Africa’s promise. With 54 nation states, the
urgency and the need for Africa to come up with a single defining message of
what kind of continent it should be and what its expectations from global
partners are cannot be overstated. I could not think of a
better topic than what kind of Africa Africans deserve and who should define its
architecture for my first article in the last month of 2006. Only last week we
celebrated the World Aids Day and an African broadcaster, Dali Mpofu, CEO of
SABC, was elected as Chairman of the Leadership Committee of the Global Media
Aids Initiative (GMAI) that brings together about 150 CEOs of major broadcasters
in the world. This is an alliance of
global media networks that have come together under auspices of the UN to
harness their power to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This alliance was
inaugurated by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in January 2004. Initially it
started with 22 broadcasters and now boasts of 150 members. The ownership of the
anti-HIV/AIDS movement in both Africa and where Africans in the diaspora
continue to be victims does not reside in Africans. Can you imagine that
Madonna’s adoption of a Malawian child makes breaking world news while Africans
remain cheerleaders with no visible response to the challenge of poverty and
helplessness? We see the emergence of a new philanthropy driven by global
business moguls and their political and non-state partners in their home
countries driving the African agenda We have seen Bono, Bill
Clinton, Bill Gates, Gere, Angelina Jolie, and others dominate the African
landscape of solutions with no visible African response. Equally, without the UN
system, we do not see any African initiative in the making to respond to this
real challenge. While HIV/AIDS has the potential to arrest if not cripple
Africa’s ability to address its challenges, we now have an African leading the
global branding effort to use the media for positive good and all we can do is
to support Mpofu by creating our own institutional response mechanisms.
The world has responded by
giving Africa three terms at the helm of the UN and yet it would not be
surprising to see the outgoing Secretary General of the UN being absorbed into
the developed world driven philanthropic organizations. I have no doubt that
Kofi Annan will not be looking to Africans as source of his income or purchasers
of his book rights. In as much as Africa has failed to accommodate its political
leadership in business and civil society structures, I have no hope that Annan
will look to Africa as a source of livelihood. In fact, it may emerge that
he will end up like Clinton who abused his two terms as President of the USA and
could not make an impact on Africa only to emerge now as a champion of the
continent’s challenges. The emergence of political leaders from the developed
north as the official spokesmen of Africa poses a new threat to Africa’s
governance that all Africans have to reflect on. Most of these politicians are
bank rolled by companies that do business in Africa and the commission income
that should ideally accrue to African businessmen is now domesticated in the
developed countries. The interplay between
business and politics as it relates to African issues in the developed countries
needs to be studied carefully by Africans who risk being marginalized. The only
protection Africans can rely upon is through organization and to date Africans
have failed to create pan African institutions choosing to look at the world
from tribal and racial lenses. As Africans reflect on their
condition, it is important that we framework the agenda using the World Bank
statistics of the countries that it serves and the location of Africa among the
5.5 billion people who live in countries that are classified as developing
countries. SA = South
Asia It is clear from the above
table that Africa’s place among the developing countries is a cause of concern.
Africa takes the lead in all the ills of the world. If one could analyze the
above statistics and seek to brand Africa, I think it will challenge all of us
to do something. African cannot and should not be confused about the root causes
of the dismal statistics shown above. These numbers only demonstrate that Africa
has still a long way to go and yet it appears to have no champions who can
provide the required leadership. Has Africa been failed by
its people or has the continent been failed by the world is a question that all
Africans need to answer for themselves. Assume that Africans in the diaspora
are, for example, 20 million. Israel has a smaller population than Africa and
yet Jews like the Irish and Indians in the diaspora have demonstrated that their
destiny is intricately connected with their home countries. If Israel collapses,
the consequences on Jews globally are quite severe compelling the Jews in the
diaspora to regard the interests of Israel as their own personal
interests. As Africans we have failed
to engage in conversations about the way of life that people of African heritage
should have. Should Africa be a communist environment or should it be a
capitalist environment? To the extent that the raw materials for politicians
across the world are the poor people who vote, is there a place for rich
Africans in Africa? Is the capitalist system the answer given Africa’s objective
conditions? Should Africa have its own black robber barons? Given that most
African governments who derive their legitimacy from poor people, is it
conceivable that they would have an interest in accommodating a black rich
class. How will they explain the islands of affluence to their voters? In the
post Cold War era, what lessons have Africans learnt from the communist legacy?
How do we explain the emergence of left wing governments in Latin America?
Africa cannot avoid
addressing the key ideological questions that help define the way of life that
its people should have. Even in countries like Zimbabwe, it is evident that
succession is analysed outside the ideological framework. Zimbabwe has witnessed
the criminalisation of business activity resulting in the unprecedented actions
by the government to selectively target business executives and use the law to
create a new class of enemies of the state. Can you imagine that
business executives have been arrested for violating price controls in an
environment widely acknowledged as hyper inflationary? Under this construction,
the approach adopted by many governments is to seek to sidetrack the attention
of the voters by focusing on the alleged illegal and criminal behavior of the
business community while ignoring the drought of political leadership that may
be at the root cause of failed states. Is it the kind of Africa that we want
where doing business can end you in prison for responding to the real and not
imagined economic challenges created by political and other variables beyond the
control of the new victims of Africa Most of the targeted
businesspersons are invariably black and in so doing the inventory of black role
models in business diminishes each day. As the politically induced attrition of
black business role models in Africa continues unabated, the future of Africa is
at risk and the Africa we want may not be attainable without risk takers. In
many African countries, it appears that the proposition that an ideology that
undermines the rights of business is necessary a better one is gaining currency.
Only the Chinese businessmen and anyone from the east is deemed to have
interests that are aligned to the ruling class. When Africa is strategic
defense instruments in a globally competitive environment are being daily
humiliated and intimidated, the prospect for a better Africa is severely
compromised. While the developed countries are being challenged to focus on the
African problem, it is incumbent upon Africans to reflect on the self
destructive initiatives that have come to characterize African governance.
Africa will never emerge when the way of life as defined by its current leaders
is predicated on exposing its business leaders to risks that their counterparts
in competing countries would not even imagine. Who will make African
governments accountable when the people who create such governments have not
constituted themselves into viable interest groups that should define the
minimum acceptable standards of governance? It makes sense for any political
system that has run out of ideas to manufacture enemies of the state as a way of
distracting attention from the core issues that should occupy Africans
interested in progress. Africa’s future can only be as good as its people invest
in it. No change will come without action and lessons are abound of what an
organized people can do to transform a nation or continent even in the face of
intransigent and formidable adversaries. Mutumwa Mawere's weekly
column appears on New Zimbabwe.com every Monday. You can contact him at: mmawere@ahccouncil.com
Last updated: 12/04/2006 05:11:37 Last updated: 12/04/2006
00:20:28
ACCORDING to the World Bank, Africa remains the world’s biggest
development challenge and yet surprisingly Africans have not woken up to the
fact that the destiny of the continent can only be shaped and determined by
them.
Economic growth
rate (2005)
??
6.9
8.2
5.7
4.4
6.2
Total Population:
(Billion)
0.7
1.5
1.9
0.5
0.6
0.3
5.5
Population
Growth
2.10%
1.60%
0.80%
0.10%
1.40%
1.80%
Life Expectancy at
bith: (years)
46
63
70
69
72
69
Infant mortality
per 1000 births:
100
66
29
28
27
44
Female youth
literacy:
77%
65%
97%
98%
97%
81%
2005 GNI per
capita:
$750
$680
$1,630
$4,110
$3,990
$2,240
Number of people
living with HIV/Aids (million)
24.8
6.2
2.4
1.5
1.9
0.4
37.2
EAP = East Asia Pacific
ECA = Europe and Central Asia
LAC = Latin
America & Carribean
MENA = Middle East and North
Africa
Source:
World Bank
Only the second week into our
cooking pot protest and we are already running
into trouble. We launched it
last week in solidarity with the people back
home who are banging empty pots
every day in protest at the shortage of
food. But already two of our wooden
cooking sticks have been beaten to
death. The symbolism doesn't escape us.
The pot beating, along with the
drumming and singing, made a potent backdrop
for interviews which we gave to
Community Radio for Cambridge, which is
doing a programme about the Vigil
due to be broadcast on 10th December - you
will be able to listen on line
(check website: www.209radio.co.uk.)
Vigil and Forum
supporters also made their views known at a meeting in
London this week
addressed by the Deputy Foreign Editor of the Independent
newspaper, Daniel
Howden, who gave a damning report of his recent visit to
Zimbabwe. Daniel
told us that the "country is emptying out". He had noticed
that there was a
whole missing generation of people between about 25 and
late middle-age who
had left the country, been jailed or died. He explained
that the reason
that Zimbabwe did not get more international press attention
was because it
was a country slowly dying and there was no immediate news
peg. But we
insisted that the media should be more imaginative in covering
Zimbabwe. The
meeting was held at a journalists' club and the presence of so
many of us
(Chipo, Mike, Moses, Wiz, Fortunate, Anna, Sam, Rose and Dennis)
gave force
to our message.
Our 16 year old English supporter, Francesca, continuing
her patient
lobbying, reported that she had received a reply this week from
Hilary Benn,
the Secretary of State for International Development, in
response to her
latest approach to the government about the Zimbabwe
situation. Mr Benn
said "I applaud your participation in the Zimbabwe
Vigil". He said the
British government continued to provide humanitarian
assistance to Zimbabwe
and had give £120 million since the present crisis
emerged in 2001/ 2002.
Initiatives currently being scaled up included
programmes to assist orphans
and vulnerable children and improving access to
anti-retroviral drug
treatment for people with HIV Aids. Francesca is an
example to us all -
pressing repeatedly until she gets a response from those
in a position to do
something.
On the question of lobbying, the
Free-Zim Youth came and briefed us again
about their demonstration on Monday
- for details see "For Your Diary"
below.
We were visited by a
representative from SW Radio Africa who informed us a
survey is being
undertaken of listenership to the station. She is emailing
us her
questionnaire which we will forward to our supporters. As reported
in last
week's diary, SW Radio Africa was voted international radio station
of the
year. We are grateful that they are so supportive of our
activities.
Vigil co-ordinator Evelyn gave details of a carol singing
fundraiser to be
held from 5 - 7 pm on Wednesday, 20th December outside the
Embassy. Carols
in Shona and Ndebele will be sung as well as in English.
Evelyn also asked
that women MDC members who were interested give her their
names for the
Central London Branch women's wing.
Julius, MDC UK
Secretary, told us that the MDC UK would like to join the
Vigil next
Saturday to mark UN Human Rights Day. Looking at our diary for
10th
December last year( when we marked Human Rights Day), we see that the
UN
Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, Jan Egeland, was expressing urgent concern
for the suffering people of Zimbabwe. A year on and what has been the
response of the international community?
On a brighter note we were
pleased to welcome Vigil supporter Fungai and her
family who joined her last
month from Zimbabwe. Her daughter starts in an
English school on Monday.
We were also deeply touched by the solidarity of
a gentleman in a wheelchair
who offered to help us in any way he can. We
will certainly take up his
offer.
For this week's Vigil pictures:
http://uk.msnusers.com/ZimbabweVigil/shoebox.msnw.
FOR
THE RECORD: 56 signed the register.
FOR YOUR DIARY:
- Monday,
4th December, 12.30 - 3 pm at Chatham House, 10 St James's
Square, London
SW1Y 4LE. President Armando Guebuza of Mozambique is to
address African
diplomats in the UK at 1.30 pm. Join Free-Zim Youth to put
pressure on SADC
and the AU to end the human catastrophe in Zimbabwe. For
more information,
contact: Alois Mbawara 07960 333 568, Wellington
Chibanguza 07706 868 955,
Chipo Chaya 07904 395 496. Email:
Freezim6@yahoo.co.uk
- Monday,
4th December, 7.30 pm, Central London Zimbabwe Forum.
After last week's
brutal suppression of WOZA's peaceful march, Lois Davis,
WOZA co-ordinator
in the UK, will give us latest news of the activities of
these brave women,
discuss their People's Charter and tell us how
Zimbabweans in the Diaspora
can support WOZA'S work. Upstairs at the
Theodore Bullfrog pub, 28 John Adam
Street, London WC2 (cross the Strand
from the Zimbabwe Embassy, go down a
passageway to John Adam Street, turn
right and you will see the
pub).
- Saturday, 10th December, 2 - 6 pm. MDC UK joins the Zimbabwe
Vigil for a special vigil to mark UN Human Rights Day.
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