• Streak strikes a false note on Mugabe role
• Nick Price's brother fights to save grand old club from ruin
• Fat cats feed on Zimbabwe's misery
• Orphaned by the land grab
• Sorry, I am too weak to make you tea
• Zimbabwe sport sinks to its knees
• One-fourth of Zimbabwe's population has emigrated
• Miners in new gold rush to Chimanimani
• Fuel prices tumble on black market
• World of ‘nouveau riche’ collapsing

simultaneously trying to pretend that everything is fine back home. These
are the conventions of leadership in abnormal societies.

Even so, Streak's recent declaration that there was nothing wrong with
Robert Mugabe being patron of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (even though he
knows nothing about the game) and that conditions in his blighted country
had improved since England boycotted their fixture there last year did
little for his credibility. It would be unfair to say Streak was telling an
outright lie. But he has bowled a huge wide at the facts.

'He is the president of our country and that's why he is the top authority
of the cricket union,' said Streak. 'That's the rule in our country. But we
have no problems with him and vice versa. I think things are far more
settled now in Zimbabwe.'

According to an ITV report last week, things are not more settled in
Zimbabwe. They are getting worse by the day. It seems almost redundant - but
necessary - to keep repeating that the regime has done little to stem the
murders and hundreds of incidents of political torture. People are starving.
Inflation has zoomed past 600 per cent. There is no freedom of speech. Aids
afflicts a third of the population. We are not talking heaven on earth. And,
importantly from a mere cricketing perspective, there are many thousands of
Zimbabweans who do not want England or Australia to tour there this year.
Nevertheless, we live in the age of the glib denial, the widely disseminated
half-truth, the unchallenged downright fib. Which is why, for all his
faults, it was curiously refreshing to hear Ken Bates last week describe
Pini Zahavi, the agent who facilitated Roman Abramovich's takeover, as a
'dickhead'.

That is not to say he was right. But at least he probably meant what he
said. As did Zahavi, I suspect, when he responded: 'This revolting character
is not worthy of a response. If I was in his shoes I would wake up every
morning praying to God and thanking him that Pini Zahavi saved him from
bankruptcy and put £19million in his pocket. He is history as far as English
football is concerned.'

That's more like it, guys. And over to Rod Marsh, for another breath of
fresh candour. Commenting on the prospects of England winning the Ashes next
summer, he was moved to observe: 'They've had it too easy for too long, some
of these guys. There is a lack of discipline. I can't see what's wrong with
telling the truth. Maybe people don't like hearing the truth.' Keep it up.
Maybe your employers at the ECB will catch the bug. Maybe they will tell
Mugabe what they really think of his regime and refuse to tour there in
October.

Meanwhile, in America, home of the eternal dreamer, George Foreman's
assertion that he was coming back to boxing at the age of 55, a week after
Lennox Lewis retired at 38, was given an absurd amount of space. Only the
cynics spotted George's get-out clause: he would fight again if he could get
down to 225lb. I will reach 225lb before Foreman does. But that's the fight
game. It lives on lies. In most sports, athletes talk more sense in
retirement than they did when competing. Darryl Cullinan, who batted like a
transfixed rabbit against Shane Warne, sounded content and more relaxed
recently when he admitted: 'Quite simply, he was too good for me.' And their
public spat, one of the most acrimonious in international cricket? 'He was
guest of honour at my banquet during the World Cup in South Africa. He stole
the show and was a great credit to the game.' That's more like it,
gentlemen.

SOmetimes a knighthood carries more weight than it should. But do you really
think Sir Alex Ferguson regards his drama-packed feud with John Magnier and
JP McManus as 'off-field nonsense', as he professed the other day? Neither
do the boys down the phone box. No discussion about honesty and sport would
be complete without a contribution from Gordon Strachan. Responding to the
suggestion that he could be up on a disrepute charge for suggesting a
linesman might have not been wholly impartial, he replied: 'Have I said
anything out of turn? If you can call Tony Blair a liar about weapons of
mass destruction then it's quite easy for me to say that I have history with
a linesman.' How we shall miss him. A good deal more than Mugabe, I'd bet.

Vilified overseas, at war with itself and assailed by a sea of economic
troubles, Zimbabwe is invariably painted as the very picture of a country on
the brink of disaster. Bonny Schoonakker travelled across Zimbabwe to hear
ordinary people tell how they are coping with hunger, disease, violence,
rampant inflation and decaying golf clubs

      Passionate: Tim, Felicity and Nathanie Price, crusaders for Harare
South

      'We are here by the grace of God'

      'We are going to give it our best shot'
                  Related links
                  -  Special Reports on Zimbabwe

                    Send to a friend

                  Your email:

                  Send to:

About 30km from the Zimbabwean capital lies Harare South Country Club, once
an exclusive playground for tobacco farmers.

For 70 years the forested club drew its members from 65 well-to-do families
living in the area. Now it has no members at all, even though its committee
repealed a ban on black members in 1978, two years before Robert Mugabe came
to power and more than 40 years after the club was founded.

The change of heart at Salisbury South (as it was then known) came too late
to save the club from the troubles that now afflict all of Zimbabwe's golf
courses to some degree.

But Tim Price, brother of the famous Nick, has made saving the course a
personal crusade. For Price the goal is no longer winning competitions, but
saving the game from the forces of ruin ravaging a country he loves more
than golf itself.

"I am trying to get this to be a real international club," Price said with
heroic optimism during an interview last Sunday.

The club buildings are in sad decay since the tobacco farmers began
deserting the area four years ago, thanks to the onslaught unleashed by the
Land Acquisition Act.

So-called "war veterans" have established themselves in the area, taking
over most of the neighbouring farms and using the club's decaying hall for
their weekly meetings.

Visits to the former members-only bar by war vets and other locals provide
the club with just about its only source of income.

The cricket pitch, where the likes of Ian Botham and Sachin Tendulkar played
when Harare South traditionally hosted the opening game of cricket tours, is
scruffy but still playable.

The golf course itself has been closed, in part thanks to invasions by
thieves chopping down the beautiful old msasa trees, tropical hardwoods that
provide the raw material for kitschy wood carvings sold at the side of the
road.

Price says the still-forested course has lost "hundreds" of the trees. Two
weeks ago, he chased a gang of seven tree poachers, all equipped with axes,
off the course with only his putter in hand.

With only six rounds played a week, the trustees of Harare South decided to
close the club for golf in November, and asked Price to take over its
management and implement some kind of rehabilitation programme.

He moved on to the property with his wife, Felicity, and their daughter,
Nathanie, which, Felicity says, means a gift from God.

The deeply religious couple say they are "here by the grace of God", and
want to be nowhere else. Price could easily move to the US, where his
brother is based, and teach golf there, earning US100 an hour.

Instead, Price, the former professional at Royal Harare Golf Club, prefers
to dedicate himself to saving Harare South, believing he will contribute in
a small way to saving Zimbabwe.

"It's a deep-seated thing, centred on the fact we have to show real
commitment to the future of this country," said Price, tears welling up in
his eyes.

His brother Nick, at 46 seven years younger than him , may have moved to the
US but he also remains loyal to Zimbabwe, which he last visited six years
ago.

Nick Price continues playing under Zimbabwe's flag, unlike former compatriot
Mark McNulty, who now plays under the Irish one. McNulty has spoken out
against the Zimbabwean government and denounced its land acquisition
programme, which, according to Tim Price, has cost the McNulty family all
its farms in the Centenary district.

Tim and Felicity Price were able to maintain their commitment to Zimbabwe
even though "we had no idea of the hardships that lie ahead". "I used to
live from morning to afternoon, one day at a time, but this year it's been
one hour at a time."

Referring to Harare South, Price said: "When you have such a beautiful
place, it's just heartbreaking [to watch it go to ruin]. But we are going to
give it our best shot."

Price's best shot has so far been hard to play. Promised backing from Trust
Bank for Harare South now seems doubtful, with the bank caught up in the
scandals besetting Zimbabwe's financial sector. The bank is one of six
independent banks whose cheques are being refused by retailers throughout
the country.

Tom Philips, British golfer Nick Faldo's manager, has offered to help. Tiger
Woods was planning to visit Price to offer at least moral support, but had
to postpone the visit thanks to reports of Zimbabwe's increasing turmoil.

In the absence of high-powered backing, Price is looking for support
locally. He gives free golf lessons to locals in the hope that they will
take up the game, and he has done so with some success.

Last Sunday about 10 students came to learn the basics from Price, including
a policeman and a shebeen owner from Beatrice, about 70km away.

Settlers who have acquired white-owned farms in the neighbourhood have also
dropped by, intrigued by a game that has made significant post-independence
inroads only among Zimbabwe's black elite.

One settler even offered to lend equipment, taken over from its previous
owner, to help with the maintenance of the course. That's how it worked in
the days before the land acquisition programme. Harare South never had much
in the way of lawn mowers and the like, using farming equipment loaned by
members.

Last week, Felicity Price managed to borrow lawn mowers from the golf course
at Borrowdale Brooke, an enclave of Zimbabwe's super-rich in Harare.

The Prices needed the mowers for their D-Day, when they reopened the course
to golfers yesterday. Expecting a field of 60 players, the Prices said it
would be a make-or-break occasion for Harare South, its success or failure
deciding whether the club flourishes once more or is surrendered to the
invaders eager for its musasa trees.

Appropriately for those who love both golf and Zimbabwe, it was set down for
Valentine's Day.

      Bonny Schoonakker
                  Related links
                  -  Special Reports on Zimbabwe

                    Send to a friend

                  Your email:

                  Send to:

Out in the Harare suburb of Borrowdale Brooke, which is among the most
opulent suburbs in Southern Africa, the beneficiaries of President Robert
Mugabe's 24-year rule over Zimbabwe can buy live oysters.

The delicacies are kept in a tank at the self-contained suburb's Spar
supermarket. This week they were being sold for Z12 000 each. That's the
equivalent of R20 at the prevailing exchange rate and equal to the average
weekly wage of someone lucky enough to find work as a domestic worker in
suburban Harare.

I spent two weeks in Zimbabwe and found a land of extreme contrasts. While
the super-rich enjoy lives of unrivalled privilege, millions of ordinary
Zimbabweans suffer unimaginable hardships.

In Mutare we met a starving woman who apologised for being too weak to rise
and greet us. In another pitiful scene, a 15-month-old infant lay in an
orphanage, too young to know that her parents were forced to abandon her
after they were driven off their land by Mugabe's " war veterans".

These are but two of the victims of the worst economic crisis since
independence in 1980, which is blamed on economic mismanagement and state
repression, including the seizure of thousands of white-owned farms.

But while official inflation rose to a record 622.8% last month, back in
Borrowdale Brooke, the supermarket shelves are lined with every luxury an
affluent shopper could desire, including a dozen varieties of olive oil,
wines imported from South Africa and ciabatta bread from the supermarket's
own bakery, not to mention giant prawns in the freezer next to the oyster
tank.

The suburb, a short distance from Mugabe's palatial retirement home and
about 20km northeast of central Harare, is walled off from the general
public and accessible only via a gate manned by guards. Visitors are allowed
to enter only at the invitation of residents, unless they come to play golf
at the course around which the complex has been built.

Borrowdale Brooke's fairways are ringed by four-storey mansions, some so
large they could be mistaken for hotels. Instead, they are the homes of
those who have flourished in Zimbabwe's bizarre economy - politicians,
stockbrokers, forex traders, businessmen on friendly terms with the ruling
Zanu-PF - in other words, anyone who does not depend on a salary or pension
for his or her livelihood.

According to local economists, the most opulent houses in Borrowdale Brooke
have been financed by Zimbabwe's bizarre foreign exchange regulations. These
rules allow those politicians and businessmen closest to Mugabe to buy US
dollars at the "official" rate of Z55 to one US dollar. The black market
rate for ordinary Zimbabweans was Z4 800 on Friday.

The privileges that Mugabe's allies enjoy offer instant wealth to those
privileged few. They have also helped to bring about what Old Mutual
Zimbabwe calls "the persisting hyperinflationary environment".

In a letter circulated at the end of last year, Old Mutual advised
policyholders that, "despite our best efforts", it was no longer able to
protect the value of life insurance policies taken out in previous years.

Pensioners who now rely on policies entered into during their working lives
have been reduced to poverty. If they want to find out where all the value
of their capital has gone, they might want to take a trip out to Borrowdale
Brooke, if they can afford the taxi fare.

Some voices insist that Zimbabwe is on the road to recovery, notably
government mouthpiece The Herald, which last week announced the build-up to
Mugabe's 80th birthday on Saturday by likening him to Mahatma Gandhi.
Similarly, for The Herald, the land acquisition programme "is a triumph for
the country's human rights", despite overwhelming evidence that it has
beggared the country's economy.

Such optimism also flies in the face of the United Nation's World Food
Programme (WFP). In its latest briefing, issued this month, the WFP warned
that the country was "facing enormous food shortages".

It predicts that 4.5 million people - more than a third of all Zimbabweans -
will receive emergency food aid by April. Its briefing for Zimbabwe also
predicts an 18% shortfall in the US197-million "required to fund the
emergency operation".

Because of its sensitive relations with the Zanu-PF regime, the WFP declines
to blame publicly the land acquisition programme, which h as reduced the
number of commercial farmers from 4 500 to 400. But, Justice for
Agriculture, which represents displaced commercial farmers, forecasts a 75%
collapse in agricultural output thanks to the land invasions, a prediction
supported by the semi-official Commercial Farmers' Union.

But then Borrowdale Brooke has never relied on local producers for its
oysters and prawns.

Without aid, when Padare dies of Aids, her family will starve

When we met Beauty Padare she was almost too tired to rise from the mat
spread out on the stoep of her hut. She had just been to a funeral in a
nearby village where someone had died of the illness that, in all
likelihood, will claim her too in the near future.

Padare was lying on a concrete floor, with an infant beside her, one of her
nine dependants. She apologised for being unable to offer the unexpected
visitors some mealie meal, which she called sadza, nor even a cup of tea, as
local custom required. Walking to and from the funeral about 4km further
down the hill that morning had sapped all the energy she could muster for a
day.

Padare, 45, is one of hundreds of people in the Mutasa district, about 30km
northeast of Mutare in eastern Zimbabwe, whose lives depend on the United
Nations' World Food Programme. From its headquarters in Mutare, the WFP
distributes 4 500 tons of food a month in Zimbabwe's eastern-most province,
one of five districts throughout Zimbabwe where, WFP officials believe, they
are holding catastrophe at bay.

Thanks to intermittent rainfall and, even more particularly, a land reform
programme that has all but wiped out Zimbabwe's commercial agriculture, the
WFP believes that millions of people will die within the next couple of
years but for the 500 000 tons of maize, pulses, corn-soya blend and
vegetable oil that it distributes each month in Zimbabwe.

The WFP monitors the distribution of its food. Our visit to Padare's hut, in
the Mutasa district's village of Mawonde, was part of such a "verification"
tour. But there can be little doubt that the WFP's help, and that of Plan,
an Australian aid group active in the area, is needed in Mawonde .

Speaking through an interpreter, and after lifting herself up from the stoep
with difficulty, Padare said she was registered by the WFP as caring for
nine people, including a grandchild. Her husband died three years ago, after
complaining of chest pains. He went to a hospital, where tests were carried
out, but he died before the results were made known, either to himself or
his wife.

Padare, however, knew she had Aids. So did all her neighbours, whom she had
informed of the result of a test she had taken four years ago. George
Mawonde, our interpreter, who lived in the area, explained that part of the
community's response to this plague was to remove any stigma attached to the
afflicted, adding by the way that, "I am affected by HIV too."

All told, 10 people had died in his village last month , "some with Aids,
and maybe age and other diseases, but most of them related to malnutrition".

Kaniz S Khan, the Bangladeshi who heads the WFP Mutare sub-office, who took
us on the verification tour of Mutasa, said her organisation also needed to
ascertain the HIV status of its beneficiaries. "Food aid encourages people
to declare that they are suffering from Aids," she explained.

Padare said her eldest son, in his 20s, had died last April and "there is no
one in my family to help us". She had brothers in Harare, who sent money
they earned trading in the city's flea markets, but it was not much. The WFP
food saved her life, and those of her children and grandchildren.

"Her family will die of hunger," Mawonde explained, "because the food on the
land won't last, and she can't work anymore because of her health".

This explanation satisfied Khan. Anyone able to provide for him- or herself
is removed from a list of beneficiaries maintained by a verification
committee, drawn from local villagers. Padare was clearly in the severest
category of what the WFP calls "food-insecure people", in its distaste for
blunt words like food, hunger and starvation.

But enthusiasts are determined to carry on, regardless of Tim (That Idiot
Mugabe)

David Isaacson

A plush golf course separates the homes of Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe
and former prime minister Ian Smith.

You can't miss Mugabe's high security residence, but the regulars at Royal
Harare sometimes debate exactly which house belongs to Smith.

Some say it's the white one opposite the fifth tee.

The club, says former Liverpool goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar, was once a
bastion of colonialism. "They didn't let me join for 10 years because I
played soccer, a black sport, and not rugby."

Nowadays, Grobbelaar is welcome there; attitudes have changed a lot since
independence in 1980.

Since then, a handful of Zimbabwean - or at least Zimbabwe-born - sports
stars have conquered the world: soccer's Grobbelaar and Peter Ndlovu;
golfers Nick Price and Mark McNulty; leading golf coach David Leadbetter;
rugby's Ray Mordt and Gary Teichmann; tennis players Wayne and Byron Black;
and, more recently, cricketer Andy Flower.

It's an impressive roll-call for a country of about 12-million people.

Sport is a popular pastime in Zimbabwe, although not big business.

Rugby hopes to turn professional this year. After losing players to South
Africa and most of the world's rugby nations they realise it's time to catch
up to the rest of the world.

They're thinking of paying players around Z100 000 a month. That's about
R200 - a pittance by South African standards - but people survive on that.

Tickets to watch the national soccer team at home go for around R10, or Z5
000 - but for most people, that's still a fortune.

Brothers Stuart and Golden are ardent soccer fans. They try to get to every
international match, depending on how well they've fared at hawking
sunglasses and craftwork to the trickle of foreign tourists. They also
broker black-market foreign-exchange sales.

Although richer than rugby, the resources of soccer and cricket are by no
means inexhaustible. The cricket union cannot afford England to carry out
the threatened boycott of the tour in November. And football could be better
off, insists Grobbelaar, a former coach of the national team.

"It's sad when a team like Zimbabwe has to ask the private sector for money.
There are hotels in Harare that won't take the national team unless they're
paid up front," he says.

Soccer is fortunate that players based in other countries - including
Grobbelaar in his day - return to play for Zimbabwe.

Other codes lose much of their sporting talent for good. Of Zimbabwe's 2003
Craven Week team, eight will play their rugby in South Africa this year,
says national under-21 team manager George Frangoulis.

Players leave so fast that the rugby union can't keep track - they had no
idea that Tonderai Chavhanga had relocated to South Africa until they saw
him playing at the sevens tournament in Dubai this year.

Their club league is suffering financially, with the annual competition
reduced from home-and-away fixtures to a single round of matches. The main
reason is the cost of transport in the wake of the fuel crisis.

Trips to South Africa can take on nightmare proportions. The SA High
Commission demand notice of two weeks to issue six-month visas. It's too
expensive to fly, which means arduous bus trips down south.

Zimbabwe-born Mark Smith, a top amateur golfer, has opted to use a Malawi
passport (organised through his Malawian father) when he turns professional.
Travelling on a Zimbabwean passport is too much hassle.

McNulty recently took out an Irish passport for a similar reason.

As an international sport, golf has probably taken the hardest knock. Since
the Zimbabwe Open lost its Sunshine Tour status because of forex problems in
2002, professional golf has been reduced to a few two-day tournaments, where
the largest prize-money pool in 2003 was Z3-million (about R6 000).

Yet the standard of the top courses, like Royal Harare and Chapman, are
still good. Green fees are cheap for foreigners, from as little as R30 for
affiliate members, to R60.

Caddie fees vary from Z5 500 (R11) to Z10 000 (R20). A beer in the clubhouse
costs R9.

Many rural golf courses have suffered as a result of the land invasions
because they were maintained by neighbouring farmers.

"But they haven't closed completely," says Truman, a businessman and golf
enthusiast. "As long as there are two farmers in the area they will keep
them going."

"Zimbabwe's national saying is 'make a plan'," adds his friend, Gus. Truman,
by the way, uses aviation fuel in his Zippo lighter. "You can get anything
you want in Zimbabwe if you have the money," says Gus.

For them, the quality of life is too good to leave. "I couldn't live in
South Africa," says Truman, "there's too much crime . . . As long as they
cut the greens by 7am on Wednesdays, everything is fine - even if Tim is
pillaging all over the place." Tim is the code word for the president; an
acronym for "That Idiot Mugabe".

Stuart and Golden aren't as lucky as Truman and Gus. They struggle to make
ends meet, yet they are better off than many of their countrymen.

Life is far tougher in the rural areas, points out golfer Smith, who lives
with his parents on their farm outside Harare. "You see people eating grass;
you see people dying."

I witnessed one caddie, in his 60s, picking up fruit while working his way
around Royal Harare.

Another caddie there has seen Ian Smith, the former prime minister who now
spends most of his time in England, walking along the road past the course
and Mugabe's house.

People often go up to him and shake his hand.

"What do you think of Smith?" I asked the caddie. "He was a better leader,"
he replied, "he looked after the poor better. They always got food."

Attitudes have changed since independence.