Comment from ZWNEWS, 8
December
Hearts, minds, and a dancing
skeleton
By Michael Hartnack
To whip up fervour for Robert Mugabe's land seizure programme,
state broadcasting has for the past four months unleashed a jingle "Chave
Chimurenga" (war has begun) every half hour. Recently, at 10.30 pm the presenter
of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s sole classical music programme broke
into Saint Saens' "Danse Macabre" - the Dance of Death - with the war mantra.
The independent Daily News carried a cartoon depicting a skeleton dancing to the
jingle. The oft-repeated Chave Chimurenga underlines the increasing crudeness
and violence of the regime’s internal propaganda machine which, from Mugabe’s
viewpoint, is having at best varied success, and almost none among the urban
middle class. But on the international front, analysts say Mugabe’s Information
Minister Jonathan Moyo is making headway, largely because of support from South
Africa. Pretoria now claims the violent election in March, widely regarded as
rigged, was "a credible expression of the will of the people" and Foreign
Minister Nkosazana Zuma said recently that even if "mistakes were made" Mugabe
deserves Western finance.
The break-up last month of a meeting in Brussels of European
and African-Caribbean-Pacific parliamentarians because the EU refused to admit
Zimbabwean ministers "has fallen into their laps like manna from heaven,"
commented Nigel Bruce, former editor of the South African Financial Mail, who
was present. Andrew Moyse of the Harare-based Media Monitoring Project noted
that the Zimbabwe ministers arrived in Brussels well-prepared with pamphlets.
"They are sanitising Zanu PF and cleaning up their image," Moyse said in an
interview. Noting that most people - except in the major cities - had no access
to independent newspapers, Moyse said he believed that state broadcasting was
obtaining mass acceptance of Mugabe's land policy. "That message is beginning to
sink in - you don't have access to alternative sources. There is a certain
degree of success among the less well informed," said Moyse. But on the wider
issue of good governance, Zimbabweans were not being swayed, he said, adding,
"People are not that stupid."
In a tacit admission that he is losing the battle for hearts
and minds, Mugabe recently promulgated regulations barring anyone gesturing at
or making offensive comments about the presidential motorcade. Under the new
regulations, Mugabe’s armed escorts can impose on the spot fines or make
arrests. Similarly, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change says proof of
Mugabe's mounting internal unpopularity lies the unceasing reign of terror by
ruling party militants and the green bombers youth militia, the blatant use of
food to secure votes even in supposedly secure Zanu PF rural strongholds. The
ruling party hopeful in a pending parliamentary by-election in Harare's
Kuwadzana suburb offered to sell Zanu PF card holders not only maize meal and
bread but green vegetables at the controlled prices. This prompted MDC gibes
that he had a singularly appropriate campaign slogan: "Vote for the Cabbage."
The propaganda is surely absurd, and surely pernicious. Kelvin Jakachira, a
member of the national executive of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists was quoted
recently in the independent Standard newspaper as saying that the Zimbabwe
Broadcasting Corporation was "sowing the seeds of genocide … portraying whites
as evil people responsible for the shortages in the country". Jakachira deplored
the Hondo ye Minda (war in the fields) mass advertising campaign and said, "We
do not want what happened in Rwanda to be repeated here."
Despite the jingles and incessant radio appeals, black
Zimbabweans have not taken up plots and farms either because they lack funds for
inputs, or because they need to stay near towns to queue for what food is
available. UN agencies say up to 7 million people - half Zimbabwe's total
population - are in danger of starving before hoped-for next harvests in April.
And agronomists report that more than half of the land seized from whites in the
past three years is lying derelict. The propaganda aimed at denying Zimbabweans
the right to see and discuss the realities of their worsening situation lies the
shadow of Mugabe’s crackdown on the press through the ill-named Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act, under which 13 journalists have
already been arrested. The Independent Journalists’ Association has challenged
the act in the Supreme Court as a violation of entrenched constitutional rights
of free expression and free association. "The state should not be placed in a
position where it is able to use public resources to restrict the free exercise
of the right to criticise it by the public," lawyer Sternford Moyo told five
appeal judges headed by Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, a former minister and
strong supporter of Mugabe. It will be months before the Supreme Court rules on
the challenge.
Footnote: My application, in terms of the Act, to continue
writing from January 1 was lodged on October 31. My lawyer awaits a reply from
the state’s Media Commission.
VOA
Zimbabweans Suffer as Basic Goods Subjected to Price Control
Peta
Thornycroft
Harare
07 Dec 2002, 19:00 UTC
In Zimbabwe,
an additional list of controlled prices for consumer goods has
been
published. Wholesalers warn the controls will remove many products from
open
sale. The new shortages will make life only more miserable
for
Zimbabweans.
Toothpaste, washing powder and imported rice are
among the latest items
added to the long list of products subject to price
control in Zimbabwe.
The price controls are widely ignored. Many
supermarkets in urban areas
break the law everyday by selling goods at prices
above those fixed by the
government. They claim the price controls are
unrealistic.
A spokesman for one supermarket chain says, for example,
that the controlled
retail price of chicken is only one quarter of the
wholesale price.
He says when stocks run out in early January, his stores
will not be able to
fill their shelves.
The government introduced the
first batch of controlled retail prices ahead
of the elections in March,
which gave President Robert Mugabe another six
years in power.
Those
prices led to the disappearance of many staple foods, as retailers
said they
could not afford to sell them at a loss.
Zimbabwe has a
sophisticated retail sector. Even in small towns,
supermarkets provide most
food needs for the increasingly hungry urban
population. But as their shelves
become bare, many staple foods could only
be found on the black market, at
prices too high for the majority of people.
Police and government
officials have increased inspections of
price-controlled goods, and more
supermarket managers are being prosecuted
for violating price
controls.
The government repeatedly accuses retailers, especially those
with white
management, of profiteering.
Some veterans of Zimbabwe's
war for independence raided bakeries and
outlying supermarkets in the last
week, threatening staff for breaking price
controls.
Sunday Times (SA)
Mugabe alleged to be 'starving
Ndebeles'
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government is
allegedly starving to
death thousands of minority Ndebele people in the
southwestern Matabeleland
province, according to a widely circulated
document.
Although the Zanu-PF government has distanced itself from the
19-page
document, addressed to all "Shona elite", in it Mugabe is described
as a
"precious present and a perfect embodiment of all our cultural norms
and
values, our aspirations and expectations, our wants, desires and
interests".
Zanu-PF - which holds its annual congress next week - has
barred until 2006
any debate on a possible successor to Mugabe, who turns 79
in February.
Zanu-PF's external affairs boss, Didymus Mutasa,
dismissed the document.
"That is total lies being spread by the British," he
said. "Ask them to
behave in a more responsible manner. My own son is married
to an Ndebele
woman."
He said the relationship between the
majority Shonas and the minority
Ndebele was excellent - and he, as a Shona
elite, had not seen the document.
The US last month announced plans
to airlift food aid to Matabeleland after
three political activists - former
magistrate Edward Simela, Johnson Mkandla
and Ernerst Mthunzi - revealed the
contents of the document at a meeting in
Washington.
"Ever since
its inception, Zanu-PF had a double-pronged struggle to wage,
that is, on the
one hand against the Ndebele and, on the other, against
whites," reads part
of the document.
Outspoken Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube and
opposition members of
parliament allege that the government has already
deliberately starved more
than 160 people in
Matabeleland.
Matabeleland MP Abednico Bhebhe said everything
happening in Zimbabwe at
present was contained in the document. "There is no
way that the British
could have explicitly authored in detail what is in that
document, " he
said.
The World Food Programme suspended food to
some districts of Matabeleland in
October after relief aid was seized by
ruling party militants who
distributed it to their party's
supporters.
The document also belittles former South African
President Nelson Mandela,
saying he spent 27 years "crushing stones in jail"
and has a "stunted legal
mind".
"Mandela betrayed and deserted the
black majority, " it reads. "Speculation
is rife that he is severely
petrified of whites, so much so that making land
demands, would, in his view,
muddy the waters and blemish his South
Africa."- Chris Gande
Extract from the Economist
http://beta.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1416142
Trade
in endangered species
Dr Vincent is one of several experts who are concerned
about the influence
that animal welfare (and animal rights) groups have over
CITES. Some welfare
groups, she says, would rather there was no trade at all
in many species,
regardless of the actual threats they face. Wolf Krug, a
researcher on
social and economic issues at University College, London,
agrees. He
believes there is an ideological clash between "welfare"
and
"sustainable-use" conservationists. The sustainable-use lobby takes the
view
that the long-term future of a species is best ensured by making money
from
it. This group fears that a trade convention is being undermined
by
welfare-driven proposals.
By contrast, Teresa Telecky, director of
the wildlife trade programme at the
Humane Society (and also acting director
of the Species Survival Network, a
collection of groups that are lobbying
CITES) believes that welfare and
long-term survival are congruent objectives.
"The ultimate cruelty", she
suggests, "is for a species to become extinct."
She adds that CITES is "not
about sustainable use" and that "animal welfare
is written into the treaty
because in order to export live animals you have
to be prepared to ship
humanely."
Dr Telecky is correct that the
convention's core aim is to ensure that trade
does not threaten the survival
of wildlife, and that this does not,
technically, mean that its remit is to
ensure the perpetuation of trade
through sustainable use. But it is
disingenuous to argue that animal welfare
is closer than sustainable use to
the convention's spirit. John Jackson, of
Conservation Force, a group that
supports sustainable use, describes Dr
Telecky's arguments as hogwash. He
says the Humane Society's true agenda can
be seen in its "vicious" attack on
Zimbabwe's Campfire project.
This project, which works on integrating the
use of wildlife into rural
development programmes, supports the licensed
killing of elephants by trophy
hunters-a lucrative practice that does not
threaten elephant numbers. Dr
Telecky agrees that her society put "a lot of
heat" on the American
government over the $20m a year subsidy which it was
giving to Campfire.
That subsidy has since been phased out.
All this
suggests that the time is approaching when members of CITES are
going to have
to decide whether to support the poor-world agenda of
sustainable use, or the
rich-world agenda of welfare. Perhaps the fact that
most endangered species
are in the poor world should be allowed to colour
that choice.
News24
Food centre for hungry village
Bikita, Zimbabwe -
The crop fields are lush green in Bikita. But 1 000
hungry people in this
remote southern area of Zimbabwe queue quietly under
the midday sun for food
aid.
They're just a fraction of the eight million starving in this
southern
African country. Each person standing in this feeding centre queue
in
Bikita, some 240km south-east of Harare, has come to collect aid for
at
least two other people.
Most of those waiting bear no visible signs
of hunger - no really emaciated
bodies here, no protruding ribs. They have
been subsisting on wild fruit,
one of those queuing tells
reporters.
The feeding centre, reached down a dirt track of several
kilometres, is
manned by aid agency Care for the UN's World Food
Programme.
Villagers are called up to receive their rations - corn meal
and beans -
according to the villages they come from. The orderly queue is
disturbed
momentarily by a pair of cavorting donkeys, who send children
shrieking and
screaming.
"Our major problems are hunger, a serious
drought and no rains," said Louis
Nyambirai, an elderly woman from Madzvara
village, about five kilometres
away.
The law of the
jungle
Elderly people are among those suffering most in the current
crisis, a Care
field officer says. Many of them cannot read or write and
therefore fail to
get registered for food aid.
"The law of the jungle
is taking its toll here," said the official, George
Baloyi.
He
explained that the elderly illiterate have to rely on the village
headman's
younger scribe taking down their details. But often the scribe
makes sure his
own family gets priority on the list.
"People with influence want to
survive. They (the elderly) don't have any
form of influence. They can't
read, they can't write."
One example is 70-year-old Seraphina Mawere.
Leaning on her stick, barefoot
and with a woollen cap protecting her head
from the sun, she has been forced
to walk from village to village begging for
food. She has never been on a
food list.
The Aids pandemic, rife in
rural areas like Bikita, aggravates the problem.
"What you've got is this
poisonous, ugly concoction of Aids and famine. The
immune systems are so
shorn of strength because of the hunger, that people
die more quickly," the
UN's special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen
Lewis, said on a visit to
Bikita on Friday.
Free gift
A shortage of basic medicines to treat
HIV patients meant that people in the
area were "dying under the most
grotesque of circumstances," he said, adding
that the problem of Aids orphans
had become overwhelming.
"Every day the numbers of orphans go up," he
said.
There have been accusations that food aid is being distributed
along party
political lines in Zimbabwe.
"We tell people that food
should not be used as a weapon to square up scores
with your enemies," Care
official George Baloyi says.
He points to the white sacks of US-provided
corn and beans that are being
shared among the hungry villagers.
"It
should be used freely, as it comes to us a free gift."
However, people
waiting in the queues complained that the rations - which
are provided once a
month - lasted the average family only eight days. The
rest of the time they
have to go back to their diet of wild fruit.
Zimbabwe is the worst-hit of
six southern African countries facing famine.
And according to the UN's
Lewis, only 56% of the food required by the WFP to
feed hungry Zimbabweans
has been met by donors. Meanwhile the numbers of
hungry people continue to
mount.
The green fields offer no promise of a food-filled tomorrow.
Already the
maize which has germinated is wilting in the oppressive heat.
The
desperately-needed rains have not arrived yet this
season.
"There's no hope," villager Serina Murindiwa said. The maize her
village
planted had already died from lack of rain, she said. Without rain
the trees
will soon stop bearing fruit to see them through. - Sapa-AFP
IOL
Water taps in Harare run dry
December 07 2002 at
11:38AM
Harare - Along with fuel shortages, bread shortages,
shortages of milk and
other basic commodities, residents of the Zimbabwe
capital Harare now have
water shortages to contend with, according to
newspaper reports on Saturday.
The state-controlled Herald newspaper
reported that water taps in several
suburbs of the city - both high and
low-income areas - had run dry.
Some residents in the poor suburbs of
Epworth and Kambuzuma were fetching
water from streams and shallow wells,
posing a health hazard, the paper
said.
In Harare's upmarket suburb of
Borrowdale on Friday some households were
using buckets of water from wells
for their needs, they told reporters.
"More suburbs will be without water
in the coming days," the Herald warned.
The problem is being blamed on
the lack of foreign currency to purchase
water purifying
chemicals.
Quoting the city's mayor, Elias Mudzuri, the private Daily
News suggested
that water rationing could be in place by the end of the
month. - Sapa-AFP
SABC
Zimbabweans facing worsening crisis
December 07, 2002,
20:30
Embattled Zimbabweans are facing a
worsening crisis. Harare has
run out of water. There is reportedly no money
to buy purifying chemicals.
Countrywide the UN predicts a massive disaster in
the famine-stricken
country by March next year.
Despite an
already high prevalence of HIV/Aids, young
Zimbabweans are increasingly
experimenting with prostitution as a quick fix.
Aids awareness campaign
efforts are being hampered by hunger.
Zimbabwe's neighbours,
Zambia and Malawi have also been hit by
drought and starvation. The national
aids council reports that an average of
2 500 people die every week in
Zimbabwe, about 500 000 are showing symptoms,
two million are believed to be
infected, about 30% of the sexually active
population is infected, there are
over 700 000 orphans and 70% of
hospitalised patients across the country are
believed to be HIV positive.
Aids drugs are expensive. Some
of the Aids victims have no idea
what anti-retroviral drugs are. Despite an
Aids awareness campaign, the
pandemic is sweeping the country eating mostly
the young. Children might not
understand drought, but having been reduced to
scavengers picking grain from
the roads for survival - it does have a
psychological effect. Education is
no longer a prospect, they only know
hunger and destitution.
In Tsholotsho, Matebeleland North
province, about 600km South
West of Harare, it is worse. This is another
constituency where villagers
are now sharing wild fruits with animals. Aids
has taken its toll with over
35% of the adult population sick and worn
out.
The glitter of Harare and promise of riches has drawn
many young
people. All too often they end up stranded in Harare, resorting
to
prostitution. Despite having heard of the Aids pandemic, they appear to
have
no fear. They fear hunger now not death from Aids. They have come to
make a
living regardless of the consequences.
President
Robert Mugabe's government is said to have worsened
the situation by what
commercial farmers say are arbitrary land seizures.
However, Mugabe believes
the 100-year colonial imbalances to land should be
addressed now, no matter
what it takes.
A son of Zimbabwe in need of help
Dear Friends,
Jay Jay
Sibanda, the president of Concerned Foreign Based Zimbabweans
Association is
lying in a Johannesburg Hospital with a broken shoulder and
is unable to meet
medical expenses or to pay for the operation necessary to
get him back on his
feet and to work.
I am asking for any kind contributions for Jay Jay as I
have worked with him
and his team on my trips to Johannesburg.
As I am
in Zimbabwe, I must refer you to Lin and Jan who are helping to
coordinate
things at the Joburg end. Lin is on email -
Macromagician
[ann@macromagic.co.za] and Jan is on Jan Lamprecht
[pbs@iafrica.com]
Please note that the Concerned Foreign Based
Zimbabweans Association is a
non political group of Zimbabwean refugees.
Their account number is
available upon request.
Please assist to get
Jay back on his feet as we need him organising
protests - South African
President Thabo Mbeki must be reminded that he has
a responsibility to help
Zimbabweans become liberated from the repressive
regime that has declared war
on its own citizenry. Jay's group protests have
been gathering
momentum.
Aluta Continua
Jenni Williams
p.s. Bulawayo Women
marched thru the streets banging their empty pots and
protesting at the
'Domestic' Violence. The group numbering approximately
100, were extremely
noisy and determined. Many of the women present felt
that during the 45
minute march they were able to put to the back of their
minds their immediate
troubles and express their anger and that of the women
not brave enough to
march. They also felt relieved at being able to express
their grievences.
Several male drivers were seen taking a detour rather than
driving too close
to the group of angry and noisy women.
I marched with the ladies as I too
am a victim of 'Domestic' Abuse.
Repressive legislation designed to curtail
free communication has impact on
the running of my Public Relations Company
and price controls has many
companies rethinking their PR budgets and some
seem set to close until
March. Unless miracle is performed, my company may be
forced to be cocooned
until we can under a new democratic government enter a
period of renewal and
regrowth.
My two school lever sons urge me daily
to secure air tickets to 'somewhere'
were they can start their adult life
with more promise. I am extremely
saddened that they cannot at present find
promise and opportunity in the
land of their birth! If our children leave
what will it take to bring them
home again and who will help them as we are
trying to help Jay Jay injured
and in pain farm from his Gokwe, Zimbabwe home
in Johannesburg, South
Africa!
Contact Jenni Williams on Mobile (+263)
91 300456 or 11213 885 Or on email
jennipr@mweb.co.zw
or Fax (+2639) 63978
or (+2634) 703829
Office email prnews@mweb.co.zw
A member of the
International Association of Business Communicators. Visit
the IABC website
www.iabc.com
It seems care needs
to be taken when accepting cash at banks and that one would be wise to insist
that bank tellers open the sealed cash 'bricks' and put them through the note
counting machines that all banks in Zimbabwe now use, BEFORE accepting the
cash. Given the present situation one needs to be more careful than
ever.
______________________________
Subject: Short change !!!
"Have you noticed that your cash
isn't going far these days?
There's a reason for that, which
isn't inflation....
I have recently been short-changed
from a sealed "brick" of $250,000 cash from Stanbic Bank, Belgravia. Three out
of five wads of $50,000 each amounted only to $28,500, $26,500, and $25,000
respectively. What should have been $150,000 equated only to $79,500- $70,500
short- and that was from a sealed "brick". (Whilst the bank is investigating
this matter, obviously no offer of reimbursement has been made, because it was
not opened and counted in the presence of a bank official.)
Another $250,000 sealed brick
withdrawn and issued by Trust Bank was $57,000 short.
Two further wads of $50,000 from
Trust Bank amounted to $37,000 and $31,500 respectively. They had been withdrawn
with a sealed "brick" of $250,000 which had been issued by Standard Chartered
Bank. On returning to Trust Bank with the "sealed" brick, it was there opened
and counted with a member of Trust Bank staff and found to be $50,000 short. The
matter was referred to their investigations officer, who has retained the
remainder of the cash, which will be reimbursed only once they have completed
their investigations!
A friend tells me that he was
$14,000 short on a withdrawal of $1million, and another lady was $20,000 short
on a $100,000 withdrawal.
Please be very careful when dealing
in cash- you may be getting significantly less than the amount that is
"certified correct"!"
IOL
Zim dances rings around limp-wristed Europe
December 06
2002 at 04:00PM
By Peter Fabricius
Zimbabwe
is driving a wedge between Europe and Africa. We saw that vividly
when
European Union parliamentarians refused to allow two Zimbabwean
ministers
into the European Parliament in Brussels for a meeting of the
Joint
Parliamentary Assembly between the EU and the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific
(ACP)
countries.
As a result, the ACP countries pulled out. Zimbabwe hailed
this apparent
African solidarity as a great diplomatic coup.
Which it
was. Even though the ACP countries muttered about the EU flouting
procedures
by not consulting them, they in the end stood four-square with
Zimbabwe
against Europe.
The Zimbabwe issue is also threatening to torpedo the
second Europe-Africa
summit, due to be held in Lisbon in April next year. The
host country,
Portugal, seems unlikely to waive an EU travel ban on President
Robert
Mugabe and his top officials, to allow them to attend the
summit.
Zimbabwe issue is also threatening to torpedo the second
Europe-Africa
summit
The African countries seem equally likely to boycott
the summit if Zimbabwe
cannot participate.
The same issue arose over
the recent EU-SADC ministerial forum. It was due
to be held in Copenhagen but
Denmark refused to waive the EU travel ban for
Zimbabwe officials to attend.
As a compromise, the forum was moved to Maputo
and Zimbabwe did
attend.
But the Zimbabwe issue soured the discussions and EU countries
seem
reluctant to make the same compromise again by moving the Lisbon summit
to
Africa.
A Portuguese official said this week that there would have
to be some
improvement in Zimbabwe before the summit went ahead. The issue
was to be
discussed at a preparatory ministers' meeting in Burkina
Faso.
The Portuguese official's stance implies that the EU intends
sticking to its
guns on Zimbabwe. But there are contrary signs from Brussels
that the EU is
reviewing its policy of smart - targeted - sanctions against
Zimbabwe.
Some officials believe sanctions have failed
Some
officials believe sanctions have failed because they have had no
visible
impact on Mugabe's behaviour, and also because SADC and Africa have
closed
ranks around Zimbabwe. But it would be a mistake to abandon sanctions
after
less than a year.
Sanctions cannot be expected to have immediate effect.
They certainly didn't
in South Africa. They also do not always work
directly.
They can also work indirectly by imposing a cost on those who
would support
the targeted country. The EU and others have long appealed to
Zimbabwe's
immediate neighbours to pressure Mugabe to re-establish the rule
of law.
They are, after all, uniquely positioned to do so, especially
since Zimbabwe
is landlocked. But they have mostly chosen not to.
The
EU sanctions are now imposing an indirect and probably unintentional
pressure
on Zimbabwe through those neighbours and other African countries.
The EU-ACP
episode this week and the rising tensions around the Lisbon
summit are
presenting African countries with a choice - between souring
relations with
the EU or souring relations with Zimbabwe.
So far they have opted to side
with Zimbabwe. But it is early days yet; the
EU brings many benefits to the
region. If it were to decide to make some of
these conditional on SADC or
African countries attending these meetings
which they are now choosing to
boycott because Zimbabwe is not invited, that
would change the calculation
for the African side.
Is it too much to ask someone to come to the party
before getting the
presents?
Europe itself is coming under increasing
international pressure to start
"punching its weight", as the Economist put
it this week - to start assuming
greater responsibility for peace and
democracy in the world, and not leaving
most of that to the United States.
Assuming such responsibility carries a
price, as the US well
knows.
Perhaps the price that the EU will have to consider paying, if it
is serious
about wanting to effect change in Zimbabwe, will
be
antagonising other countries in the region, including South Africa.
BBC
Sunday, 8 December,
2002, 00:15 GMT
NHS staff 'face HIV tests'
There are concerns about HIV-positive
nurses
Compulsory HIV checks on new doctors and nurses in the UK
are to go ahead, it is reported.
The move has been prompted by fears that, as tens of thousands of overseas
doctors and nurses are recruited, hundreds may be carrying HIV.
A consultation paper will be published in the new year detailing plans for
the testing programme, the Sunday Telegraph says.
All new medical staff will be tested to eliminate accusations of prejudice
against countries in which HIV is rife, it reports.
Hundreds infected
If the prevalence of HIV in various countries worldwide is taken into
considered, it is estimated that more than 700 HIV-positive nurses from abroad
came to work in the NHS last year.
This could even be an underestimate, as, in countries such as South Africa,
prevalence rates are higher among women.
In contrast, statistics suggest that among 14,000 British recruits there
would be an estimated 14 who were HIV positive.
The government needs many thousands more nurses and hundreds more doctors
from overseas to fulfil ambitious recruitment targets that are vital to the
success of its NHS Plan.
The biggest number of overseas nurse recruits in 2001 came from the
Philippines, where there is a very low rate of HIV, but South Africa came second
- and one in five of its population carries the virus.
Language test
However, sub-Saharan Africa has endured the brunt of the world HIV epidemic.
Almost 500 overseas recruits came from Zimbabwe in 2001, where one in three
people carry the virus, and 100 from Botswana, where the prevalence is almost
40%.
In 2001, approximately 2,000 doctors passed the final stage of a UK
assessment test which checks whether an overseas doctor's written and spoken
English is up to scratch.
However, a more detailed breakdown of country of origin of these doctors is
not available.
Model A2 Farmers Start Benefiting From Sybank Input Scheme
The
Herald (Harare)
December 7, 2002
Posted to the web December 7,
2002
Harare
Model A2 farmers have started benefiting from the
Z$7,2 billion that was
raised from agro-bills issued by Syfrets Corporate and
Merchant Bank
(Sybank) last month.
According to a statement released
by Syfrets, investors had applied for
agro-bills worth Z$8,5 billion when
they mature in 276 days.
Syfrets said the agro-bills issue had yielded
net proceeds of almost Z$7,22
billion at a discount rate of 24,47
percent.
The bills, which were issued on November 22 are the first batch
to be
released under a plan which seeks to raise a projected Z$60 billion to
help
finance the working capital and capital development needs of
resettled
farmers.
The bills were intended for working capital
purposes while capital
development projects were expected to be financed at a
later stage through
the issuing of agri-bonds which mature after three years,
making them ideal
for that purpose.
A Syfrets official said they were
monitoring the disbursement of the money
through banks and agro-processors
which were expected to borrow a lot of
money for on-lending to farmers in
return for the supply of various
agricultural products.
The spokesman
said his company was prepared to go back on the market with a
fresh issue of
agro-bills if there appeared to be more demand for money.
"As more
applications from farmers are received, the lending banks may
approach the
investors for additional funds at terms to be announced at that
time," the
spokesman said.
A total of 15 banks were participating in the scheme,
which carry a 45
percent yield for them.
Farmers were expected to pay
interest rates ranging between 30 and 34
percent
A number of companies
have come up with packages to finance resettled
farmers this year.
Police Operation Nets 850
The Herald (Harare)
December 7,
2002
Posted to the web December 7, 2002
Harare
AT least 850
people were arrested in Harare's central business district over
the past week
following the launch of police Operation Clean Up.
Police spokesman for
Harare province Assistant Inspector Paul Nyathi said
the operation netted 303
illegal hawkers, 161 newspaper and recharge card
vendors, 139 public
drinkers, 47 businessmen operating without shop
licences, 43 people loitering
for purposes of prostitution and 158 others.
Insp Nyathi said $644 000 had
been raised from the arrests.
"This operation, which is being
conducted on a daily basis is confined to
the central business district. We
launched it in a bid to bring sanity to
the city centre.
"The crime
rate was increasing on a daily basis and we felt that flushing
out people
carrying out illegal activities was the first step towards
decreasing those
alarming crime rates," he said.
With the festive season approaching, he
said, police would intensify
operations so that calm prevails in the city
during the holiday. Insp Nyathi
said while there were designated areas for
recharge card and newspaper
vendors to do their business, they preferred to
go onto the middle of the
roads, blocking traffic and risking their
lives.
"They cause unnecessary accidents by standing in the middle of the
roads
while those operating shops without licences flout the requirements of
the
law. The police are not saying people should not sell recharge cards
and
newspapers, but we are saying they should do it at designated areas,"
he
said.
Operation Clean Up was launched on November 29 and will
continue until the
police are satisfied with the results.
Members of
the public have commended these efforts by the police, saying
that by
removing illegal vendors from the streets, Harare might regain its
Sunshine
City status.
"Sometimes driving becomes a nuisance because of these
people who stand in
the middle of the road and the city just looks ugly. I
think instead of the
police just concentrating on vendors, they should also
remove street kids
from the middle of the roads and streets because they
cause accidents and
block the smooth flow of traffic," said Ms Hazvineyi
Chikwanda.
10 Injured As Bus Crews Clash in Route War
The Herald
(Harare)
December 7, 2002
Posted to the web December 7,
2002
Harare
TEN people were injured, five of them seriously, while
one sustained a
broken leg when a Tenda Buses crew allegedly smashed windows
of a bus
belonging to Pioneer Transport Company near Odzi on Thursday
afternoon.
The attack occurred when Pioneer Transport Company was on its
maiden trip
along the route which is traditionally dominated by
Tenda.
Most of the passengers were treated and discharged at Mutare
General
Hospital except for the one who sustained a broken leg.
The
conductor of the Pioneer bus company was allegedly robbed of more than
$20
000 by marauding youths while the driver narrowly escaped death by a
whisker
after a large stone was hauled towards him by the marauding
youths.
Police spokesman, Inspector Andrew Phiri, said eight people had
been
arrested in connection with the case.
"All the accused persons
are being charged on a number of crimes ranging
from theft, common assault
and miscellaneous injury to property. They are
expected to appear in court
(tomorrow) today," he said.
Insp Phiri could not give further details
saying police in Odzi were still
compiling the list of the
injured.
According to eyewitnesses, trouble started after a Pioneer bus
which, on its
way to Mutare, was overtaken by a Tenda bus at Odzi. The Tenda
bus then
immediately stopped in the middle of the road, forcing the driver of
Pioneer
to screech to a halt.
Scores of youths then came out of the
Tenda bus and allegedly started
throwing stones at the Pioneer
bus.
"The youths aimed directly at me and I had to duck for cover. I
narrowly
escaped death by a whisker," said the driver of the bus.
He
said the youths went on to smash at least 12 windows. They said they
wanted
to kill the driver because they had been promised $200 000 if they
took his
head to their masters.
Passengers who tried to restrain the youths were
allegedly attacked with
knives.
The director of Pioneer Transport
Company, Mr Mark Dawson, said that he had
dispatched his own security
personnel to the scene of the incident to carry
out
investigations.
"We are shaken by the wanton attack on the travelling
public by a group of
hired thugs. Such action is completely unwarranted. I
have already
dispatched our own personnel to investigate the matter," he
said.
The bus company was making frantic efforts to have the damaged bus
towed to
its Harare garage late yesterday afternoon.
Mr Josphat
Matongo of Pioneer Transport Company said they had requested for
police
escort to tow the bus to Harare.
"The situation is very tense and we are
not sure when the attackers will
strike again. We have requested the police
for an escort and they said they
were looking into the matter," he
said.
But a Tenda Bus Company official dismissed the allegations as
false.
"We do not know anything about that incident. We are yet to
receive the
information," he said.
When told that police had actually
compiled a report to the effect that the
people who were aboard the Tenda bus
had carried out the attack, he said:
"That is a lie. You will have to talk to
Mr Sigauke."
Efforts to get a comment from the said Mr Sigauke proved
fruitless as he was
said to be out of the office.
For many years,
Tenda dominated the Harare-Mutare route. But the dominance
is now under
threat following the introduction of Pioneer buses on the same
route.
From News24 (SA), 5 December
Netherlands turns
anti-Mugabe
Harare - President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe Thursday
criticised the
Netherlands, accusing it of getting involved in a fight
between Zimbabwe and
former colonial power Britain, the state news agency
said. "How could the
Dutch be dragged into a fight which is purely for
Britain," ZIANA quoted
Mugabe as saying. He was speaking as the new Dutch
ambassador to Zimbabwe,
Johannes Heinsbroek, presented his credentials to
State House. Mugabe blames
Britain for many of its current economic and
political problems and accuses
it of reneging on an agreement to fund a land
reform programme here. Britain
denies the charges and accuses Mugabe and his
government of human rights
violations. The European Union, of which the
Netherlands is a part, echoes
Britain's criticism and has imposed travel and
other sanctions against
Mugabe and 71 of his associates.
From The Sunday Times (UK), 8 December
Mugabe land grab leader at UK
university
Tom Walker, Diplomatic Correspondent
Tucking
into a McDonald's burger in south London last week, Chris Pasipamire
did not
look like one of the war veterans who organised the farm seizures
ordered in
Zimbabwe by President Robert Mugabe. Wearing a leather jacket and
three
bangles representing the Shona spirits of his homeland, Pasipamire
shook his
head in apparent despair at the violence that has brought
Zimbabwean
agriculture to a standstill. Pasipamire, 44, said he had come to
Britain to
study for a doctorate in land reform, preferably at Greenwich
University, so
that he could help achieve "peaceful coexistence with
whites". A different
impression of Pasipamire emerged, however, from the
white commercial farmers
of the Mazowe valley, northwest of Harare. Many of
them are frightened even
to discuss his role during the past two years of
mayhem as Mugabe has gone
about confiscating white-owned land by force and
redistributing it among
blacks. Until he came to Britain 10 days ago,
Pasipamire was a leading member
of the Harare land allocation committee,
helping to move at least 15 farmers
off their land. A spokesman for the
Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) described
Pasipamire as "a well-known
troublemaker who drives the farm occupations".
White farmers still grimly
hanging onto their properties in Mazowe called him
a "ringleader". At one
farm, he is said to have pranced in front of the
dispossessed owner, smoking
a cigar and drinking a gin and tonic. His conduct
on an estate called
Mayfield, which he has taken over himself in the
carve-up, gave rise to more
serious allegations. Pasipamire and 12 youths
from the ruling Zanu PF party
were charged with assaulting resettled farmers
and farm workers. Harare
magistrates dropped the charges in September after
an important witness
died.
Confronted with the allegations last
week, Pasipamire denied farmers' claims
that he had used Zanu PF's youth
brigades to establish control over the
280-acre Mayfield property and said
the charges against him had been "a
set-up". He also rejected CFU claims that
he had co-ordinated violence
against farmers with two other war veteran
leaders, Endy Mhlanga and Patrick
Nyaruwata. "They were given a farm between
the two of them, and are nothing
to do with me," he said. "I advised them
that whatever they negotiate should
be proper and legal." Pasipamire said his
land allocation committee worked
on the same principle. "We moved as a team
with the police," he said. "We
would explain to the farmer concerned, 'Your
farm has been acquired,' and we
received various reactions. Some co-operated,
some were very hostile. Others
had friends in the system. There was no
forcing - it was a matter of just
informing them of the procedures. In the
case of a problem we would send the
police again to get the message over. Any
inconveniences are regretted."
Pasipamire is an articulate man with
an easy smile. He was educated at
Mugabe's old Roman Catholic school in
Kutama before studying political
science at the University of Rhodesia. In
the mid-1970s he worked as a
journalist campaigning against the regime of Ian
Smith. During Zimbabwe's
war of independence, he was wounded by a bazooka in
1979 near the Mozambique
border. "I think it was an accidental discharge from
our side," he said. In
1981 his political career took off as he represented
Zimbabwe at an
international youth conference in Yugoslavia. After completing
his masters
degree at Birmingham, where he concentrated on local government
planning, he
returned home and in 1989 was elected to the ruling body of the
Harare
District War Veterans' Association. He was diagnosed as disabled
from
shrapnel wounds. This entitled him to compensation equivalent to £21,000
at
the time. CFU officials said they were horrified that Pasipamire had
been
able to obtain a visa from the British high commission in Harare when
Mugabe
and 78 other members of the Zanu PF elite are barred from the
European
Union. "It's disgraceful that he is in Britain," said one. "He has
been the
frontrunner in the trouble in Mazowe. If there's any blacklist he
should be
very high up it." But Pasipamire insists he has been wrongly
labelled as a
thug and has every right to be in Britain. "I've never been
involved in farm
invasions," he said. "Isolating Zimbabwe is not correct. A
lot of us are
being turned away. It's getting childish, and we need a policy
of more
positive engagement." Positive engagement is the last description the
farmer
who alleges Pasipamire drank and smoked in front of him would have
used.
Browsing through his Greenwich prospectus, however, Pasipamire
was
unruffled. "I might smoke a cigar but if I drink I do so in my own
house
only after 7pm," he said. "And I don't drink gin and tonic - only
whisky."
From The Sunday Times (UK), 8 December
Fans scared off by
unrest
No tickets have been sold for England's match in
Harare
By David Bond
Not a single ticket has been sold to
England supporters to watch Nasser
Hussain's team play in Zimbabwe in next
year's World Cup, amid fears over
the country's political and social crisis.
With the International Cricket
Council (ICC) considering whether to move
matches scheduled to be played in
Zimbabwe to neighbouring South Africa, news
that no tickets have been sold
to England's travelling support could increase
the pressure on World Cup
organisers to act. After a three-day visit to
Zimbabwe last month, an ICC
security delegation is due to present a crucial
report on the country to the
council's executive committee this week. Human
rights campaigners are
calling for the matches to be taken away from Zimbabwe
as part of an
international protest against the discriminatory policies of
President
Robert Mugabe. A decision is expected by the middle of the month.
But tour
operators say concerns over safety have already led to a lack of
interest
among English travellers who might otherwise have asked for packages
which
included England's qualifying group game against Zimbabwe in Harare
on
February 13. Five companies appointed by the World Cup and the England
and
Wales Cricket Board to sell tickets and trips to English fans -
Gullivers,
Titan, ITC, Indigo and Sport Abroad - are sending more than 1,000
England
fans to South Africa to watch the World Cup in February and March,
but they
have not sold a single ticket to Zimbabwe. The statistic is
doubly
significant because the latest travel advice from the Foreign Office
states:
"We advise against independent travel and strongly recommend that
visitors
should travel with organised tour operators." "We are not sending
anyone to
Zimbabwe and, more importantly, nobody has asked us if we could
send them,"
said Paul Hopkinson, of Dorking-based firm Sport Abroad. Former
England
rugby union international Victor Ubogu, now a director of Indigo,
added:
"There's been unrest in Zimbabwe and, of course, that has not helped
attract
people to travel there to watch cricket."
Comment from ZWNEWS,
8 December
Hearts, minds, and a dancing skeleton
By
Michael Hartnack
To whip up fervour for Robert Mugabe's land seizure
programme, state
broadcasting has for the past four months unleashed a jingle
"Chave
Chimurenga" (war has begun) every half hour. Recently, at 10.30 pm
the
presenter of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation's sole classical
music
programme broke into Saint Saens' "Danse Macabre" - the Dance of Death
-
with the war mantra. The independent Daily News carried a cartoon
depicting
a skeleton dancing to the jingle. The oft-repeated Chave
Chimurenga
underlines the increasing crudeness and violence of the regime's
internal
propaganda machine which, from Mugabe's viewpoint, is having at best
varied
success, and almost none among the urban middle class. But on
the
international front, analysts say Mugabe's Information Minister
Jonathan
Moyo is making headway, largely because of support from South
Africa.
Pretoria now claims the violent election in March, widely regarded
as
rigged, was "a credible expression of the will of the people" and
Foreign
Minister Nkosazana Zuma said recently that even if "mistakes were
made"
Mugabe deserves Western finance.
The break-up last month of
a meeting in Brussels of European and
African-Caribbean-Pacific
parliamentarians because the EU refused to admit
Zimbabwean ministers "has
fallen into their laps like manna from heaven,"
commented Nigel Bruce, former
editor of the South African Financial Mail,
who was present. Andrew Moyse of
the Harare-based Media Monitoring Project
noted that the Zimbabwe ministers
arrived in Brussels well-prepared with
pamphlets. "They are sanitising Zanu
PF and cleaning up their image," Moyse
said in an interview. Noting that most
people - except in the major cities -
had no access to independent
newspapers, Moyse said he believed that state
broadcasting was obtaining mass
acceptance of Mugabe's land policy. "That
message is beginning to sink in -
you don't have access to alternative
sources. There is a certain degree of
success among the less well informed,"
said Moyse. But on the wider issue of
good governance, Zimbabweans were not
being swayed, he said, adding, "People
are not that stupid."
In a tacit admission that he is losing the
battle for hearts and minds,
Mugabe recently promulgated regulations barring
anyone gesturing at or
making offensive comments about the presidential
motorcade. Under the new
regulations, Mugabe's armed escorts can impose on
the spot fines or make
arrests. Similarly, the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change says proof
of Mugabe's mounting internal unpopularity lies
the unceasing reign of
terror by ruling party militants and the green bombers
youth militia, the
blatant use of food to secure votes even in supposedly
secure Zanu PF rural
strongholds. The ruling party hopeful in a pending
parliamentary by-election
in Harare's Kuwadzana suburb offered to sell Zanu
PF card holders not only
maize meal and bread but green vegetables at the
controlled prices. This
prompted MDC gibes that he had a singularly
appropriate campaign slogan:
"Vote for the Cabbage." The propaganda is surely
absurd, and surely
pernicious. Kelvin Jakachira, a member of the national
executive of the
Zimbabwe Union of Journalists was quoted recently in the
independent
Standard newspaper as saying that the Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Corporation was
"sowing the seeds of genocide . portraying whites as evil
people responsible
for the shortages in the country". Jakachira deplored the
Hondo ye Minda
(war in the fields) mass advertising campaign and said, "We do
not want what
happened in Rwanda to be repeated here."
Despite the
jingles and incessant radio appeals, black Zimbabweans have not
taken up
plots and farms either because they lack funds for inputs, or
because they
need to stay near towns to queue for what food is available. UN
agencies say
up to 7 million people - half Zimbabwe's total population - are
in danger of
starving before hoped-for next harvests in April. And
agronomists report that
more than half of the land seized from whites in the
past three years is
lying derelict. The propaganda aimed at denying
Zimbabweans the right to see
and discuss the realities of their worsening
situation lies the shadow of
Mugabe's crackdown on the press through the
ill-named Access to Information
and Protection of Privacy Act, under which
13 journalists have already been
arrested. The Independent Journalists'
Association has challenged the act in
the Supreme Court as a violation of
entrenched constitutional rights of free
expression and free association.
"The state should not be placed in a
position where it is able to use public
resources to restrict the free
exercise of the right to criticise it by the
public," lawyer Sternford Moyo
told five appeal judges headed by Chief
Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, a former
minister and strong supporter of
Mugabe. It will be months before the Supreme
Court rules on the challenge.
Footnote: My application, in terms of
the Act, to continue writing from
January 1 was lodged on October 31. My
lawyer awaits a reply from the state'
s Media Commission.
Business Report
Diamonds are a tyrant's best friend
December 08
2002 at 07:11AM
As Zimbabwe vies with the Democratic Republic of Congo for
the title of most
wretched nation in Africa, a small clique of opportunists
is making a
fortune out of both countries and it is doing business with a
little-known
diamond mining company wrongly linked with Al-Qaeda by the
BBC.
It was, said the media pundits, probably the worst journalistic
mistake
ever. A BBC documentary broadcast in October 2001 accused a
little-known
Cayman Islands-registered mining company, Oryx Natural
Resources, of being
part-owned by a key supporter and financier of
Al-Qaeda.
In fact, neither Oryx nor the shareholder in question had any
connection
with Al-Qaeda: the BBC's allegation was a case of mistaken
identity. But the
effect on Oryx's reputation was catastrophic: business
began to dry up
overnight, claimed the company.
So it sued the BBC,
seeking spectacular damages to reflect its losses. Some
spoke of a P15
million payout; most reports settled for the scarcely less
mind-boggling P12
million.
The BBC, realising that it hadn't a leg to stand on, ran a full
apology
three weeks after the initial libel, but Oryx insisted on
compensation.
But instead of settling promptly, the BBC baffled many
observers by spending
nearly nine months preparing to defend the
case.
Only on the eve of the court case, two months ago, did it finally
admit
liability. A hearing to determine the size of the damages was due
shortly
and the media pundits were licking their lips in anticipation of what
was
expected to be by far the biggest libel payout in British legal
history.
Then last week, a small unexpected news item appeared in a few
newspapers:
Oryx had settled out of court for a reported P500 000. This
dramatic twist
in events was not, however, much remarked on: not by Oryx, not
by the BBC,
and certainly not by the media pundits.
The good names of
Oryx and its maligned shareholders had, after all, been
vindicated, and the
BBC had made a big mistake and paid for it.
Yet for those who have been
following the case, and who have been following
the fortunes of Oryx over the
past few years, the news was interesting as
much for what it left unsaid as
for what it said.
For, even without the BBC's gaffe, this has been a
bruising year for Oryx's
reputation - last month another slightly unnoticed
news report appeared in a
few British papers.
The UN had published a
report on the illegal exploitation of natural
resources and other forms of
wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The
report described, in shocking
and exhaustive details, the trade in blood
diamonds - diamonds whose
extraction and sale finance armed conflicts - in
that war-ravaged
country.
Perhaps mindful of the BBC's difficulties, most of the papers
that ran the
story discreetly omitted to mention the fact that Oryx Natural
Resources
featured prominently in the report.
For anyone who takes an
interest in African affairs, and particularly in the
tragedies currently
playing out not just in the Congo but in the
once-prosperous land of
Zimbabwe, the report makes compelling reading.
But it was particularly
compelling for anyone who has attempted to
investigate the elite clique of
Zimbabweans and foreign business people who
have been making big money out of
the mayhem of war, and for anyone who has
considered testimony on this
subject from a host of other sources.
The combined effect of this
evidence and the UN report is to reinforce, in
astonishing detail, the
widespread perception that President Robert Mugabe
is the leader, not so much
of a national government but of a small gang that
has spent the past four
years getting rich from war that has cost more than
2 million lives in the
Congo, and that deems its own survival to be of more
pressing urgency than
the impending death by famine, as the UN has warned,
of 6 million
Zimbabweans.
It also does little for the reputation of Oryx Natural
Resources. The story
revealed by these sources (and supported by the UN
report) has two chief
protagonists - Emmerson Mnangagwa and Thamer Said Ahmed
Al Shanfari.
Mnangagwa is Mugabe's crony-in-chief: his closest confidant,
the key man in
Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organisation since
independence, and the man
with whose blessing almost any crime may be
committed in Zimbabwe with
impunity. Al Shanfari is an Omani entrepreneur and
friend of Mnangagwa and
is described in one secret intelligence document as
"Zimbabwe's most
important foreign business partner".
He is also the
president and chief executive of Oryx Natural Resources,
which owns a diamond
concession in Mbuji-Mayi, in the Congo, jointly with
companies owned by the
governments of Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic
of Congo.
The Oryx
Group first became involved with the Mugabe regime four years ago.
It
began with a proposal that President Laurent Kabila of the Congo made
to
Mugabe in 1998. Facing heavy military pressure from rebel armies backed
by
Uganda and Rwanda, Kabila proposed to Mugabe that he would give him
access
to a diamond concession in the Congo valued at $1 billion - the
concession
in Mbuji-Mayi - in exchange for the loan of his
army.
Mugabe readily agreed to the diamonds-for-soldiers deal, but what
he did not
have was the technical or commercial expertise to extract the
diamonds.
Enter Kamal Khalfan, a weapons dealer, Oryx shareholder and old
Harare
resident who rejoiced in the title of honorary consul of Oman in
Zimbabwe.
Khalfan suggested to Mugabe that Shanfari might be just the partner
he
needed.
Shanfari, a 34-year-old graduate of the Colorado School of
Mines, and who
comes from a lavishly wealthy and influential Omani family,
flew to Harare
and met Mugabe.
According to the UN report, a company
called Sengamines was created, a joint
venture between Shanfari's Oryx, a
company called Osleg (the business wing
of the Zimbabwean armed forces) and a
third co-signatory to the agreement -
dated July 16 1999 - "the government of
the Republic of Zimbabwe". (This
last entity may be taken as synonymous with
the clique that runs the ruling
Zanu-PF Party.)
Osleg already had a
partnership agreement with Congo's Comiex, a private
company linked to the
presidency in Kinshasa.
It is difficult to imagine a rasher choice of
business partners for a
company that cares about its reputation. Talk to
Zimbabwe experts in
Washington and London - in congress or the state
department, or the
pentagon, or the foreign office, or the House of Lords -
and the words that
keep recurring in connection with Zimbabwe's ruling elite
are "mafia",
"pillage" and "criminal".
The consensus, summed up by one
congressional staffer in Washington, is that
the Zimbabwean government is "a
criminal organisation run for the
benefit of Mugabe and his
cronies".
"Mugabe always was power-hungry, but not, I thought, corrupt. I
never
imagined he would end up presiding over the most corrupt regime in
Africa,"
said Robin Renwick, one of the chief architects of the Lancaster
House
agreement, which gave independence to Zimbabwe and, as it turned
out,
uninterrupted power to Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party for the past 22
years.
Renwick, later the British ambassador in South Africa and
Washington, was
one of the more vocal proponents of the European Union (EU)
visa ban and
assets freeze that were imposed this year on Mugabe and 71 of
his
associates.
Russ Feingold, the Democrat who chairs the US senate's
subcommittee on
Africa, has pushed for similar sanctions in
Washington.
Senator Feingold, who has met with members of Mugabe's inner
circle, says
Zimbabwe's "elite" had "strong incentives to retain power,
regardless of the
cost to the country", and it was difficult to avoid the
conclusion "that
public office is being used almost solely for private
gain".
Or, as Renwick more bluntly puts it: "The Zimbabwean army has been
rented
out in the Congo for the benefit of Mugabe and the mafia around
him."
Ed Royce, the Republican who heads the house of representatives'
Africa
subcommittee, is outraged by what he calls Mugabe's use of "food as
a
weapon", deliberately "starving" his political opponents.
The
judiciary is neutered, the press is gagged and meanwhile, Royce
says:
"Mugabe's cronies live high by pillaging the Democratic Republic of
Congo."
It is in such a climate, in such a country, with such people,
that Oryx's
Shanfari has judged the circumstances propitious during the past
four years
to do business.
It is believed that, under the terms of the
agreement with Osleg, Oryx would
run the diamond mining concession in
Mbuji-Mayi and take 40 percent of the
profits.
But UN sources claim
that, owing to the war and the logistical problems
presented by Congo's
poverty and vastness, the enterprise is not producing
diamonds on a scale
remotely proportionate to its $1 billion valuation.
Oryx disputes this.
According to the UN report, however, there was ample
opportunity for the
company to make money in other ways, for example, by
"laundering diamonds
smuggled from Angola and Sierra Leone". Such diamonds
are "blood" or
"conflict" diamonds.
According to the UN, the EU and the US, trade in
such diamonds has
particularly enriched a group of about a dozen Zimbabwean
individuals,
notable among whom have been Mugabe and
Mnangagwa.
Mnangagwa was minister of state security and head of the
secret police at
the time of the notorious Matabeleland massacres of 1983, in
which the
Zimbabwean army's North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade killed more
than 10 000
inhabitants of a region of Zimbabwe considered to be opposed to
Mugabe.
Identified by human rights groups as a key figure in the
massacres,
Mnangagwa was rewarded by Mugabe with the job of justice minister,
a
position he kept for 12 years.
Diplomats in southern Africa believe
Mnangagwa to have rigged the
presidential elections held in March this year,
and he was described in a UN
report put out at the end of last year as "the
architect of the commercial
activities of Zanu-PF" and the prime mover behind
illicit diamond trading in
Congo.
Mnangagwa has been a regular guest
of honour at large dinners that Shanfari
has hosted at his Harare
home.
Another guest, allegedly, used to be Chenjerai Hunzvi, better known
by his
chosen nickname Hitler. Hitler, who died last year of natural causes,
rose
to prominence four years ago as the man who led the invasions of
Zimbabwe's
white-owned farms.
Under the protection of, among others,
Mnangagwa when he was justice
minister, Hitler would encourage his storm
troopers to rob and commit
murder, safe in the knowledge that there would be
no legal consequences.
It was perhaps inevitable that, with associates
and business partners like
these, Oryx and Shanfari would come in for a
certain amount of criticism.
But the UN report does not just accuse Oryx
of trading with the wrong kind
of people, or in the wrong kind of diamonds.
It also accuses its employees
of smuggling both diamonds and
currency.
One paragraph in the report alleges that "on March 18 2000,
Oryx officials
in Kinshasa loaded an aircraft with eight crates of Congolese
francs for
shipment to Harare".
Mnangagwa, known in Zimbabwe as "the
son of God" because of the general
supposition that he is Mugabe's anointed
successor, is the man who, among
other things, guarantees the safe passage of
illegal cash and diamonds
through Harare Airport .
And the allegation
made by the UN report, though fiercely denied by Oryx, is
that "an Oryx
employee regularly transported parcels of $500 000 at a time
that were
withdrawn from the Oryx account at Hambros Bank, London to
Kinshasa without
declaring them to the Congolese authorities".
This is interesting because
other anonymous sources claim to have been
involved in precisely such
activities, adding the intriguing detail that to
transport $500 000 in
unlaundered cash safely from one country to another,
you must possess a
business-class airline ticket because the weight of $500
000 exceeds the hand
luggage limit in economy class.
These sources claim personal knowledge of
10 such trips, involving about $5
million, and allege that a large cut went
to Mnangagwa after every trip,
often stuffed into cardboard boxes and
deposited in the boot of his car.
Interviewed about these allegations
last month in Zimbabwe's Daily News,
Mnangagwa denied having had such boxes
loaded into his car, but is reported
to have added: "Could they have put
money in my boot without me seeing it?
Mind you, this was three years
ago."
Another ultimate beneficiary of this largesse is alleged to have
been
Mugabe's young wife, Grace, a woman who has acquired a reputation
as
something of an African Imelda Marcos on account of her profligate
spending
down the years in the shops of London, New York and Madrid.
A
further beneficiary was alleged to have been Sydney Sekeramayi,
Mnangagwa's
most serious rival to take over as president eventually
from
Mugabe.
Sekeramayi, who is today minister of mines and energy,
wrote a letter to
Shanfari dated July 7 2000 when he was minister of state
security in the
president's office - meaning head of intelligence - thanking
him for money
received.
Elections had just taken place in Zimbabwe and
Sekeramayi had retained his
parliamentary seat.
The letter carries an
official Zimbabwean government letterhead and contains
Sekeramayi's signature
at the bottom.
It reads: "Dear Mr Thamer Al-Shanfari. I am writing this
letter to express
my sincere appreciation for the generous moral, material
and financial
assistance you rendered to boost my election
campaign.
"My re-election as the member of parliament for Marondera East
was
facilitated by your support. Thank you very much, Dr. ST
Sekeramayi."
The cogs in the state apparatus having been duly oiled, the
remaining money
was allegedly taken to Kinshasa, where it was exchanged for
uncut stones
that were then smuggled back (allegedly concealed in the
couriers'
underpants) to Harare and then to Johannesburg to be
cut.
Mnangagwa, who did business deals with his Congo counterparts, saw
to it
that there would be no awkward questions asked by the customs men
at
Kinshasa Airport.
On other occasions, according to the UN report,
Congolese francs were taken
into rebel territory around Kisangani and
exchanged very profitably for US
dollars, which could then be exchanged for
Congolese francs, equally
profitably, back in Harare.
Oryx denies
being involved in the illegal traffic or trading of currency or
diamonds, or
in the trading of conflict diamonds, and has denied giving
money to Mnangagwa
or his political party.
Indeed, Oryx and its lawyers have reacted
vigorously to the handful of news
reports in Europe and Africa that have
touched on these matters, casting
doubt on the UN's sources and blaming the
report on (in the words of its
managing director Geoffrey White) "a continual
disinformation campaign
driven by commercial competitors".
Meanwhile,
pressure is increasing almost by the day from every corner of the
world for
"regime change" in Zimbabwe, for the termination of a Mugabe
autocracy
perceived to be so criminal to rise up and overthrow it by force
of
arms.
Only last month, as former president Nelson Mandela's good friend
former US
president Bill Clinton was speaking out in Nigeria against the
election
rigging and intimidation of political opponents in Zimbabwe, a
senior UN
human rights investigator from Malaysia, Param Cumaraswamy,
denounced
Mugabe's "systematic attack on the rule of law".
Three days
later, Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced that his
government
would examine imposing "targeted sanctions" against Zimbabwe, in
the manner
of the US, which since February has prohibited entry to top
Zimbabwean
officials, and the EU, which earlier this week abandoned an
international
summit on poverty rather than allow two Zimbabwean ministers
to travel to
Brussels to attend.
In both the US and Europe, meanwhile, moves are afoot
to shut off a possible
leak in the sanctions system by extending it to
include people who do
business with Zimbabwe. As Renwick puts it: "In order
to put more pressure
on Mugabe you must obviously tie up his associates,
among other things, by
freezing their assets."
Oryx Natural Resources
is not yet on any sanctions list, but it is listed in
the UN report as a
company "on which the panel recommends the placing of
financial restrictions"
(defined as barring selected companies and
individuals from accessing banking
facilities and other financial
institutions and from receiving funding or
establishing a partnership of
other commercial relations with international
financial institutions); while
Shanfari is listed as an individual "for whom
the panel recommends a travel
ban and financial restrictions" (which could
include freezing of personal
assets).
It is also worth remembering
that the company's attempt to list itself on
the London Stock Exchange in
2000 was abandoned in the face of a barrage of
criticism from government
officials and human rights activists.
As the London Sunday Times wrote at
the time: "The bid to float Oryx sits
uncomfortably with a campaign by the
British government to organise an
international ban on sales of "blood
diamonds" from conflict areas."
But the current allegations against Oryx
go further than this, suggesting in
essence that the company made cash
payments to senior members of the
Zimbabwean government or individuals
otherwise close to Mugabe and that its
Sengamines joint venture bought
"blood" or "conflict" diamonds in war zones
and in some cases smuggled them
abroad.
"I refute all the allegations," said Geoffrey White, who,
together with a
company lawyer, has responded to these allegations in a
series of faxes and
telephone calls since September.
"This is
rubbish," White said, adding that he believed that the allegations
were the
product of an elaborate hoax.
He said that two ex-employees of Oryx -
"frauds", who were "driven by
revenge" against the company, which they
believed owed them money - had been
spreading malicious lies.
In a
letter that was faxed later, Oryx's London lawyer, Mischon de Reya,
said the
allegations against his client were "grossly defamatory".
The lawyer
wrote that, according to White, the two people whom he believed
to be the
sources for this investigation were "motivated by extreme malice
towards Oryx
Natural Resources" and were "trying to defraud the company's
owner -
Shanfari".
These two individuals are not named in the letter, but
according to De Reya,
they have "made threats to kill both Shanfari and
White.
By contrast, White declared in the first of his faxed responses:
"The Oryx
Group prides itself on conducting itself with honesty and
integrity."
There was no answer at White's Oman number when the
Independent rang him for
his latest comments on these matters. But Oryx has
made its position on the
UN report crystal clear. All the allegations are
"completely baseless".
Any currency taken from London to Congo was taken
legitimately. If any Oryx
employee smuggled diamonds, he or she did so
without the company's knowledge
or approval. Shanfari's donation to
Sekeramayi amounted to just $500.
White has also expressed bitterness
that, because of the UN's legal
immunity, the organisation can make such
hugely damaging allegations against
the company, while the company has no
legal redress. "We are seeking a legal
jurisdiction and process where this
matter can be resolved and our name
cleared."
Yet while one may
sympathise with White on this point, the fact remains
that, as a top foreign
business associate of what Mandela has called the
Mugabe tyranny, his company
is an accomplice of a small power clique that
uses food as a weapon to starve
its political opponents; that murders and
tortures political rivals with
impunity; that steals elections; that has
profited from a savage war in
Congo; that sets the perpetuation of its own
power and wealth above the
welfare of 6 million Zimbabweans who today are
facing famine; and that has
destroyed its own country and has blood all over
its hands.
And with
friends like that, your reputation will always be in danger of
getting a bit
bruised. - Independent Foreign Service
IOL
Fight for food leaves Zimbabwean lipless
December 08
2002 at 01:41PM
Harare - With food shortages biting hard in
drought-stricken Zimbabwe, a
Harare man had his lip bitten off by a woman
from whom he tried to steal a
loaf of bread, the state-run Sunday Mail
reported.
The man, spotting the woman carrying two loaves of bread, asked
if she would
"lend him a loaf" and decided to try to snatch it from her when
she refused,
the paper said.
In the ensuing tussle, the woman
allegedly bit off his lower lip.
Long bread queues have been a common
sight outside Harare's supermarkets and
bakeries for the past several months.
- Sapa-AFP
thepeople.com
AIDS TEST FOR ALL ASYLUM SEEKERS
ASYLUM seekers are
facing compulsory AIDS tests as soon as they arrive in
Britain after a
dramatic 25 per cent rise in cases in a year.
Ministers want to extend
the mandatory checks for TB to HIV infection as
well as
hepatitis.
Asylum seekers would be screened for the HIV virus when they
arrive at
reception centres. If they test positive they would not be deported
but
offered treatment here.
But because human rights issues are
involved the scheme is being hammered
out between three Government
departments - Health, Foreign Office and Home
Office.
Home Office
minister Lord Bassam said: "This is a delicate and sensitive
matter. Tests
have not been mandatory in the past.
"But understanding the concerns, the
Government takes the matter very
seriously."
Refugees entering Britain
this year are set to top 100,000. And the influx
from AIDS-infested countries
is being blamed on the rise in cases.
Those fleeing Zimbabwe - where one
in three adults are HIV positive - are
now the third largest refugee group
with 1,500 arriving in the first four
months of this year alone.
The
large numbers from Eastern Europe - the fastest growing area for the
AIDS
epidemic worldwide - are an increasing cause for concern.
Last night the
Tories - who have been studying similar screening schemes in
the United
States and Australia - broadly welcomed the move.
Shadow health minister
Tim Loughton said: "The health of people in this
country must be paramount
and there should be greater health check
requirements for asylum
seekers."
But Martin Kirk of the AIDS charity, the Terrence Higgins
Trust, said: "We
don't support mandatory testing."
In a separate move,
Health Secretary Alan Milburn is considering HIV tests
for new medical staff
after an estimated 700 infected nurses came to Britain
from Africa.