http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Violet
Gonda
4 February 2009
Parliament was forced to adjourn prematurely on
Wednesday after chaos
erupted between the political rivals in the inclusive
government over the
controversial issue of the sanctions. The commotion
started when ZANU PF MP
for Mwenezi East Kudakwashe Bhasikiti tried to move
a motion calling for the
MDC formations to demand the lifting of sanctions.
The MDC legislators
protested heavily and started heckling. This led to the
ZANU PF MPs also
standing up and booing at their counterparts. Parliament
was then forced to
suspend proceedings to the next day.
However, the
chaos continued on Thursday, although this time ZANU PF was
successful in
tabling the motion. The House is expected to start the debate
on the
sanctions next Tuesday.
Tongai Matutu, the MDC MP for Masvingo Urban told
SW Radio Africa that his
party was not trying to block the debate from
taking place but was instead
challenging ZANU PF's motives.
Matutu
said ZANU PF's motives were to ridicule and castigate the person of
the
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his Deputy PM, Arthur Mutambara, by
alleging that they are the people responsible for the calling of the
sanctions and therefore should be denounced.
The MP also castigated
the Deputy Speaker of Parliament Nomalanga Khumalo
for not following
procedure, and backtracking after coming under pressure
from the ZANU PF
legislators. The Deputy Speaker had initially said she
would consult first
with the Speaker of Parliament Lovemore Moyo, who is
away, before allowing
the motion to be read. But Matutu said Khumalo allowed
the motion after
being 'confronted' by ZANU PF Chief Whip Jorum Gumbo.
Matutu said the aim
of the motion was to 'draw us back to the period where
there was no
inclusive government.' He further explained that during this
period
parliamentarians wasted time debating on 'irrelevant issues, and
emotions
would rise rather than actually focusing on the real issues.'
ZANU PF has
been on a serious offensive demanding the removal of the
targeted sanctions
since the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband
recently said they will
be guided by the MDC on the issue of sanctions.
The MDC maintains the
former ruling party invited the sanctions, and the
onus is on them to call
for their removal by changing their attitude. Matutu
said: "ZANU PF
continues to violate the law, take farms without due regard
to the rule of
law, they have killed people and they have not compensated
anyone. The onus
is not upon the MDC but on ZANU PF to ensure that democracy
prevails."
He pointed out that parliament should be debating on the
legislative agenda,
such as reforming draconian laws like the Public Order
and Security Act and
the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy
Act, instead of dwelling
on trivialities.
The MP said the MDC will
take the ball back to ZANU PF when the sanctions
debate starts next week in
parliament to show that 'ZANU PF is the evil
party that called for the
sanctions because of the way they have been
conducting business'.
http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Alex Bell
04
February 2010
Yet another farming family in Rusape has come under siege
by farm invaders
this week as the offensive against the remaining commercial
farmers in
Zimbabwe continues.
The wife of farmer Robin Ziehl, and
Ziehl's 80 year old father were both
trapped inside one room in the elderly
man's house on Thursday. The pair
barricaded themselves inside the room out
of fear of a group of violent
youths who have been threatening violence
against them. The group of about
13 youths stole a 9mm pistol from the
family and has been threatening to use
the weapon against the Ziehls unless
they leave the farm.
Robin Ziehl and his wife Cynthia moved out of their
own home on the farm
they share with Ziehl's father, after they were forced
out last month by
land invaders. They had moved into their father's home on
the same property
in order to continue farming on the farm that has been
earmarked for
takeover by the Deputy Assistant District Administrator for
Rusape, Mr
Museka.
According to the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU)
police have refused to
assist the Ziehls, merely saying, "It is all over."
The union said on
Thursday that there were two plain clothes policemen on
the farm who were
also refusing to assist.
The Rusape farming
community has been left shocked by a spate of attacks
against farmers in
recent weeks, all taking place under the guise of land
'reform.' In the
Nyazura district, Dolf du Toit and his family have been
warned that the army
will be used to evict them from their Excelsior Farm.
They have only just
returned to the property after being forced to flee two
weeks ago by land
invaders working for Brigadier Innocent Chiganze of the
Zimbabwean air
force, who says he is the rightful owner.
The Du Toits original eviction
from their property came in the wake of a
number of other incidents against
farmers in the area. Early last month,
farmer Gavin Woest was evicted from
his property by a gang working for
former Lands Minister Didymus Mutasa.
Mutasa tried to force Woest to sign an
illegal contract to hand over 20% of
his tobacco crop from last year, and a
further 20% of the coming year's
crop. But Woest refused to sign and found
himself driven off his land. It is
known that Mutasa already owns more than
ten farms in the area, proving once
again that the land attacks have little
to do with empowerment or reform,
and all to do with greed.
The Woest's eviction came days after a South
African farming family was
forced to flee their property on Christmas Eve.
Ray Finaughty and his family
from Manda Farm, were given three hours to pack
up their belongings and flee
the property, following days of intimidation
and harassment by a gang of
suspected youth militia.
http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Alex Bell
04
February 2010
The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) is demanding
the arrest of a
security guard from the University of Zimbabwe, after a
student leader was
'severely' beaten in a crackdown by police and security
guards on a public
students meeting.
Police arrested eleven students
on Wednesday, including four ZINASU
officials who were holding a meeting to
address students' grievances
regarding tuition fees and accommodation
problems. The ZINASU Secretary
General, Grant Tabvurei was beaten after
campus security guards and police
surrounded the union's meeting with the
students and started making arrests.
ZINASU President Joshua Chinyere as
well as Treasurer Zivanai Muzorodzi and
Education Secretary Artwell Chidya
were all detained. All the students were
charged with trying to incite
violence on campus but were eventually
released on Wednesday
evening.
A statement from the students union read: "He (Tabvurei)
sustained a swollen
foot and received medical attention at a local hospital.
ZINASU has already
reported the assault at Harare Central Police Station and
investigations
have started. ZINASU demands that the responsible security
guard be brought
to book for unlawfully assaulting
students."
Meanwhile, a rival ZINASU faction has elected a new leadership
led by
President Tafadzwa Mugwadi of the University of Zimbabwe and
Secretary
General Kurai Hove. The Mugwadi-led ZINASU faction opposes
the
parliamentary-led constitutional revision process, while the Chinyere
faction supports it.
As tensions on campus continue to rise,
lecturers and teachers are set to
join other civil servants for a rally on
Friday in Harare over the ongoing
fight to force the government to meet
their wage demands. A civil service
strike is looming after a meeting
between government representatives and
union leaders to negotiate improved
wages broke down on Tuesday. The
government insists it has no money to meet
any increase in the wage bill and
has instead promised an improvement in
April when funding is expected to
increase. Unions are preparing to meet
with their members on Friday in the
capital and next Monday in Bulawayo to
discuss their options.
Unions have argued that their meagre salaries are
unrealistic and do not
even cover basic bill payments, never mind any other
amenities or
necessities. The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe has this week
reported that
food prices have risen by more than ten percent in the last
month. The
Consumer Council has blamed the price increases on widespread
speculation
that civil servants would finally receive a salary boost. But
that wage
increase has not happened and there are widespread fears that food
is once
again becoming unaffordable for many.
http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Lance
Guma
04 February 2010
Thugs loyal to the excommunicated Bishop Nolbert
Kunonga on Wednesday raided
the home of an Anglican priest in Harare's
Hatfield suburb and attempted to
evict him and his pregnant wife. The
resident priest Rev Matyatya was not
home on the night when the invasion
began, after earlier being admitted to
Chitungwiza General Hospital
following an attack by dogs during an early
morning jog.
A concerned
parishioner told Newsreel that a Mr. Dhlomo, thought to be a
priest loyal to
Kunonga, was accompanied by 4 men to the St. Martins Rectory
in Hatfield
'under the cover of darkness' during a power cut. Rev Matyatya's
wife was
also initially not home after having gone to see her husband in
hospital. It
was when the Matyatya family came back that Kunonga's mob
refused them entry
claiming to have taken over the rectory.
Furious parishioners said Dhlomo
knew very well that the person he wanted to
evict had been hospitalised and
that he had a pregnant wife. Police are said
to have intervened in the
matter and asked 'Dhlomo to return the following
morning with his documents,
and also wait for Rev. Matyatya to recover.'
The Anglican Church is
locked in a bitter dispute over its property with
pro-Mugabe Bishop Kunonga
who was excommunicated in 2007 after attempting to
unilaterally withdraw the
Diocese of Harare from the Central African
Province. Despite a High Court
order that the two factions share church
property until the matter is
resolved, Kunonga's small but violent group
have been locking church
buildings and harassing their rivals with tacit
support from the
police.
More shockingly Kunonga recently ordained 32 'priests and
assigned them
churches while telling them to use whatever means to sustain
them. "At St.
Martins, Dhlomo has invaded the hall and is now leasing it to
One on One
Academy which is also housed at the St. Mary's Cathedral," the
concerned
parishioner told us. "To the owners of the Academy, we CPCA Harare
Diocese
now view you as being accomplices in the harassment of Anglican
members by
the Kunonga Church," he added.
Around 4000 Anglican
parishioners thronged Africa Unity Square in Harare
over the weekend to hold
an open air protest prayer against police
harassment. At Sunday's service
the new Bishop Chad Gandiya said the police
who were supposed to be "the
custodians of the law are the ones denying us
access, threatening to arrest
us or use teargas to force us out. There are
church wardens who have been
arrested and some who bear marks of beatings,"
he said.
NB: Don't
miss Behind the Headlines this week as Lance Guma speaks to
Co-Home Affairs
Minister Giles Mutsekwa on this unending saga.
http://www.zimeye.org/?p=12913
By Moses
Muchemwa
Published: February 4, 2010
Bulawayo - A
visiting delegation of British Members of House of Commons has
expressed
satisfaction at the economic recovery progress in Zimbabwe
although they
called for a quick conclusion of the Global Political
Agreement outstanding
issues.
The eight Members of House Commons arrived in Zimbabwe on Monday
and are on
tour of provinces.
In Bulawayo, the head of delegation
Malcom Bruce of the British’s
Conservative Party said they were impressed by
the significant economic
improvement achieved by the coalition
government.
“We have noted recovery and improvement in the country’s
economy. There are
signs of positive growth,” he said.
Bruce said his
team would make recommendations to the British Parliament on
how Zimbabwe
can be assisted as well as the lifting of sanctions.
Britain’s Department
for International Development Zimbabwe (DFID) head,
Dave Fish, said ever
since his stay in the country for the past five months,
he has noted notable
economic recovery.
He expressed hope that relations between Zimbabwe and
Britain will improve
but was also quick to suggest that the Global Political
Agreement
outstanding issues should be ironed out urgently.
The
visiting delegation of the British Members of the House of Commons
consist
of Malcolm Bruce (Conservatives), Hugh Bayley (Labour), Nigel Evans
(Conservative), Richard Burden (Labour), John Battle (Labour), Andrew
Stunell MP (Liberal Democrats) Daniel Kawcynski (Conservative) and Mark
Lancaster (Conservative).
http://www.afriquejet.com
The Zimbabwean
Police have released all the detained female members of the
pressure group,
Women/Men of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) with Assistant Police
Inspector Chimani
apologizing for the arrest, PANA reported Wednesday.
According to WOZA
sources, the group's leaders Jenni Williams and Magodonga
Mahlangu held a
meeting with senior police officers at Pumula Police
Station, where the
police officers claimed they did not know the detainees
were WOZA
members.
The police on Tuesday (2 February) arrested 22 female members of
the leading
pressure group in Zimbabwe, having swooped on them while
discussing the
country's constitutional reform process in a private home in
Bulawayo.
The WOZA meeting was a 'private meeting of members exempt under
all public
order laws' and it was in line with an on-going debate over
Zimbabwe's
constitut ional reform process.
Dakar - Pana 04/02/2010
http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Tichaona Sibanda
4
February 2010
The campaign to elect new leadership for the Zimbabwe Union
of Journalists
(ZUJ) is gathering momentum ahead of polling day in three
weeks time.
Fresh ZUJ elections will be held on the 27th February at the
Royal hotel in
Bulawayo after the executive that was controversially voted
into office in
December last year opted to stand down and allow for new
elections.
There was a huge outcry from media practitioners following the
December
elections. Some aspiring candidates were allegedly prevented from
taking
part in the elections held at Entabeni Lodge in How Mine just outside
Bulawayo.
That election was described as fraudulent because the venue
was kept secret,
and some of the candidates only became aware of it after
the results had
been announced.
Four freelance journalists
successfully lodged an appeal at the High Court
to have the elections
nullified. The four journalists Godwin Mangudya, Frank
Chikowore, Conrad
Mwanawashe and Guthrie Munyuki argued that the ZUJ
congress and elections
were both flawed and invalid. They also pointed to
the false representations
regarding the venue of the congress and that the
whole process had been
conducted outside the provisions of the ZUJ
constitution.
Dumisani
Sibanda of The Sunday News was voted the President during the How
mine
elections taking over from the long-serving Matthew Takaona, who landed
a
new position as 'consultant.'
SW Radio Africa understands that the
current executive, who unprocedurally
assumed office, and the group that
lodged the High court appeal agree on the
need to save the union. The two
camps are believed to be working on a
compromise deal to balance the
composition of ZUJ leadership.
Traditionally there is an unwritten law in
ZUJ that allows for the President
of the union and the first Vice President
to come from structures within the
state media. The second Vice President
and the Secretary-General have always
been voted from the independent media.
But because of government's continued
crackdown on journalists many wanted
that rule 'thrown out the window' and
allow someone from the independent
media to lead ZUJ.
Sibanda, the current President is news editor of the
government-controlled
Sunday News. ZBC's Mercy Pote is the first Vice
President and Michael Padera
from the Herald, second Vice President. Only
the popular Secretary-General
Foster Dongozi represents the independent
sector.
While Sibanda is regarded is a 'good guy,' there is concern he
would find it
extremely tough dealing with individuals like George Charamba,
Permanent
Secretary in the Ministry of Information, and Webster Shamu, the
Information
Minister. The two are accused of waging a relentless campaign to
stifle
journalists in Zimbabwe.
When the new ZUJ executive was
elected into office in December, most of its
donors were unhappy and froze
all their aid to the union complaining about
the way the disputed elections
were conducted. ZUJ cannot survive on member
contributions alone and relies
on donors.
There are suggestions that negotiations are taking place
behind the scenes
for Dongozi to remain as the Secretary General of the
union. He stood
unopposed in the December poll and it's unlikely anyone will
challenge him
at the end of the month. To gender balance the representation
at the top
leadership, Pote is likely to retain her post as first Vice
President.
This leaves three people vying for the position of President.
The incumbent
Sibanda wants to contest, though others had wanted him to
stand down and
become second Vice President to leave freelancers Guthrie
Munyuki and Godwin
Mangudya to fight for the Presidency of the union.
http://af.reuters.com
Thu Feb 4, 2010 6:56am
GMT
By Lesley Wroughton
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior
International Monetary Fund board director
said on Wednesday he was
'cautiously optimistic' the international community
would support Zimbabwe's
request to restore its IMF voting rights.
In an interview with Reuters,
Samuel Itam, who represents a constituency of
African countries on the IMF
board including Zimbabwe, said the Zimbabwean
government had paid off some
of its IMF arrears and was working on a plan to
clear the rest.
"I am
cautiously optimistic there will be sufficient support ...in
recognition for
the effort Zimbabwe has made to (meet) its obligations to
the international
organization," said Itam.
It was not immediately clear how much Zimbabwe
still owes the IMF to clear
its arrears.
Asked whether Zimbabwe could
apply for IMF loans once its IMF voting rights
were restored, Itam said: "We
will take that as it comes."
He said Zimbabwe had been cooperating with
IMF staff on policies needed to
fix its economy and in discussions on how
best to deal with its debt
obligations to the institution.
"Zimbabwe
needs the support for whatever progress it has made for that
progress to be
intensified," Itam added.
The Fund has said that any access to IMF loans
by Zimbabwe would require a
"sustained track record of sound policies and
donor support for the
clearance of arrears to official creditors."
In
Harare, Finance Minister Tendai Biti told Reuters the IMF would meet this
month to consider Zimbabwe's request to restore its voting rights in the
Fund.
Approval of the request would be a sign of some confidence in
Zimbabwe's
policies under the new unity government led by President Robert
Mugabe and
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change.
Biti, who was in Washington to
discuss the issue of the voting rights with
IMF officials in January, said
the United States, Britain and Germany, some
of the IMF's most influential
member countries, would support the request.
"The (Zimbabwean)
authorities believe they have made sufficient progress for
their voting
rights to be restored," said Itam, who is from Sierra Leone.
The IMF
suspended Zimbabwe's voting rights in June 2003 as tensions with
Mugabe and
the international community escalated over his government's
policies, and
the country failed to pay off its arrears.
http://www1.voanews.com
Ish Mafundikwa | Harare 04 February
2010
Zimbabwe has had to start importing grain before the end of the
agricultural
season because a prolonged drought has reduced estimated food
harvests.
Agriculture Minister Joseph Made says Zimbabwe must import
500,000 tons of
corn (maize) to ensure food stability. This is in response
to the
protracted dry spell that has seen crops dying in most of the
country.
But Commercial Farmer's Union President Deon Theron told VOA his
organization had advised the government that crops needed to be planted
early because of a forecast el-Nino effect that would create an abnormal
season.
"If you look at the current crop, a lot of it was planted
late and we are
having dry periods in between, which is going to have a huge
effect on the
crop," he said.
Zimbabwe needs 1.8 million tons of the
staple corn per year. Theron says he
would be very surprised if the country
produces 500,000 tons.
Zimbabwe used to be an exporter of food, but has
failed to produce enough to
feed itself since 2000.
Meanwhile, the
state-controlled daily newspaper The Herald reports the
government has
adopted measures to ensure food security, including the
500,000 imported
tons Minister Made said is needed.
The Herald also reported the
government is carrying out a crop assessment
with the U.N. Food and
Agricultural Organization. The result of that
exercise is expected later
this month.
The paper also says the government will speed up distribution
of fertilizer
to farmers in areas that have reported better rainfall, but
Theron says all
this should have been done during preparations for the
season.
"Agriculture is about forward planning, every week that you are
behind
schedule, your production drops," said Theron.
Zimbabwe has
suffered successive poor harvests since 2000, the year the
country's
sometimes-violent land-reform program was launched. While drought
has played
a significant part, critics of President Robert Mugabe also blame
the
land-reform exercise, which saw white farmers losing their farms
ostensibly
for the resettlement of landless blacks.
The critics charge the
government failed to provide support for those who
were serious about
farming. Also they say, most of the land ended up in the
hands of ranking
members of Mr. Mugabe's Zanu-PF Party and government who
are producing
little.
http://www.herald.co.zw/
4 February 2010
Harare - The cost
of food for a family rose an incredible 10 percent last
month, the Consumer
Council of Zimbabwe found when it did its rounds last
week checking prices
of the common items that make up the monthly "basket"
for a family of
six.
Most families had already noticed this post-Christmas surge in food
prices
but confirmation of the trend allows something to be done about
it.
But first we must find out why there was this sudden surge. The
Consumer
Council blames speculation by retailers and shop-owners on an
expected
significant increase in civil service pay, an increase that did not
happen.
While grateful for the council's research, we feel that they are
blaming the
wrong people.
The retail trade in Zimbabwe is
exceptionally competitive. Four large
supermarket chains, backed by several
smaller chains, independent
supermarkets and small grocery stores mean that
the average Harare shopper
can usually visit several shops within a short
walk of home, place of work
or on the route between the two.
We
cannot imagine that every single one of the several hundred owners and
managers who independently set retail food prices in Harare would
simultaneously come to the conclusion that it made sense to jack-up retail
prices on a dubious bet. In fact, this business is remarkably price
sensitive, as some found last year.
The Consumer Council itself found
that in other sectors, where competition
is almost always less intense,
prices were far more stable yet these should
have shown even larger jumps if
retail speculation was the reason for food
rises.
When we look at the
actual products that went up in price we find one
appalling fact. Almost all
the products that rose in price were made in
Zimbabwe.
When Zimbabwe
switched to hard currencies at the beginning of last year,
most items on
supermarket shelves were imported. Within weeks Zimbabwean
firms were back
in production, and soon were able to undercut foreign
suppliers on price or
produce better quality for a similar price or do both.
The local
manufacturers were helped by the mid-year appreciation of the rand
against
the US dollar. This made South African goods a little more expensive
and so
opened more opportunities for well-priced Zimbabwean goods.
But, and this
is the old problem resurfacing, Zimbabwean food processing is
concentrated
in the hands of a small number of companies. Some so dominate
the market
that they are either monopolies, or so close it does not matter,
or half a
duopoly. But duopolies do not make competition.
Two men playing a game of
golf can come to an arrangement that sends factory
gate prices soaring while
a meeting to raise retail prices without reason
would have to be held in the
Harare International Conference Centre.
Some previous price rises, such
as for maize meal, made sense. The cost of
the basic maize rose, because it
was imported and the rand had appreciated,
or because Zimbabwean farmers
obtained parity pricing.
But some of the more recent price rises do not
make sense. The rand has been
pretty stable against the US dollar for
several months so imported raw
materials or packaging should have remained
constant.
And we see that with packaged food imported from South Africa.
That has
remained very constant in price with just tiny rises caused by
South
Africa's inflation, and that is falling.
So there does not seem
to be any reason for rises in the price of Zimbabwean
products between
December and January.
But even if there was a reason we would not know
it. These same monopolies
and duopolies are still as secretive and arrogant
as ever. They dictate
without even explaining.
But these times are at
least different. The prices cannot spiral. Already we
are seeing more
packaged food made in South Africa, Zambia, Mauritius and
Botswana creeping
back onto our shelves. There is imported bacon cheaper
than our own major
brand; imported cola no more expensive than that canned
in Harare; more
imported canned foods. The list is long.
Zimbabwean manufacturers need to
relearn their lesson. They can, if they
try, undercut imports since
transport costs are high. With parity pricing
they can compete on quality.
What they cannot do, if they hope to stay in
business, is raise their
margins more than their foreign competitors. The
consumers will punish
them.
We hope the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe will now turn to these
errant
manufacturers and demand explanations that can be published.
http://nehandaradio.com/
Published on: 4th February,
2010
Harare - The Zimbabwe Mail can reveal that the armed group behind
the attack
on a British-Diamond company African Consolidated Resource's
(ACR) in Harare
on Tuesday night belongs to a Zanu PF faction led by Retired
Army General
Solomon Mujuru, a Senior Zanu PF source said last
night.
State media linked the incident to much-publicised plans to
transport 129
000 diamond carats, seized from ACR, to the Central Bank. But
an
intelligence source said a faction led by General Mujuru is objecting to
the
plan by its rival led by Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa for the
Diamonds to be handed over to the Reserve Bank as provided by the recent
Supreme Court ruling.
Mujuru faction are furious about the
arrengement because they don't have any
inside information or control over
the events at the Central Bank where
former Police Commissioner Henry
Mukurazhizha has been tasked with the
security and so they fear their rivals
are planning to enrich themselves and
eventually dislodge them from the
succession contest using the proceeds.
The Supreme Court ordered that the
diamonds be moved to the reserve bank to
be kept by "a neutral body" pending
the resolution of the ownership dispute,
but the Mujuru faction are accusing
the Supreme Court bench of being
manipulated by Justice Minister Patrick
Chinamasa who belongs to the
Mnangagwa faction.
Retired General
Mujuru is pushing for his wife, the current joint Vice
President Joyce
Mujuru to succeed Robert Mugabe in a bitterly contested
succession battle
with the Defence Minister Emmerson Mnagagwa and the two
factions are engaged
in hostile activities to out do each other as the
curtain comes down for the
aging Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
In Harare, gunmen armed with
AK47 rifles stormed the Zimbabwe offices of a
British-based diamond company,
African Consolidated Resource after midnight
Tuesday, in an incident police
tried to play down describing it as a
robbery. A police spokesman on
Wednesday confirmed the raid on the Zimbabwe
headquarters of London-based
African Consolidated Resources, and said
investigations were in
progress.
Police Spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena, last night refused to
confirm reports
that there was an exchange of gun-fire between the armed
group and members
of the police and the guards. Our source who was one of
the first
investigation team to arrive at the scene said they picked up a
number of
cartridges which have been sent for forensic
examination.
However, another source in the Zimbabwe military
intelligence (MID)
investigation team said the three vheicles used by the
armed gunmen, a
saloon car, a 4×4 Nissan pick-up and a van have been sighted
at a farm in
Ruwa, about 22 kilometres East of Harare and the farm is said
to be owned by
a Senior Zanu PF official and another vheicle was last seen
heading for
Headlands.
The gunmen are believed to be retired army
officers, and investigations have
since gathered the information that they
collected rifles and ammunition at
2 Brigade, a Zimbabwe National Army
Barrack in Cranborne. There are growing
fears in Harare that Zimbabwe is
moving towards a conflict similar to the
one in Sierra Leone in the 90s with
arms supplied by ruthless foreign
criminals and arms traders from Israel,
Russia and rogue states in Eastern
Europe.
The World's top
influencial diamond traders mainly from middle East are now
focused on
Zimbabwe's diamond fields, deemed by some experts as the World's
most
significant find of the gems in the past century. Meanwhile, a source
who is
very much close to the Zanu PF bitter power struggles told our
reporter that
the succession battled has now shifted into the diamond fields
and he warned
that it is fast developing into a highly emotive issue between
the two rival
factions.
The source, a senior member of Zanu PF, speaking on condition
of anonymity
told our reporter that the country's political stability is now
in danger
over the control of the diamonds and it could escalate into an
internal
armed conflict similar to Sierra Leone civil war. On Tuesday, The
Minerals
Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) postponed its plans to
transport
300,000 carats of diamonds to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, after
the armed
men raided African Consolidated Resource's (ACR) offices in
Harare.
Former Thornhill Airbase Commander and President Robert Mugabe's
personal
helicopter pilot, Retired Air Vice Marshal Robert Mhlanga is the
Executive
Chairman at Mbada Diamonds, a secretive company and he reports
directly to
Robert Mugabe and Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Mr
Mhlanga is reported to be commanding sorties of Helicopter flights
everyday
transporting diamonds to secret places and some are smuggled
through
Mozambique and South Africa with the assistance of international
rogue
agents. A mile-long runway capable of accommodating massive,
long-range
cargo jets is being built in the Chiadzwa diamond fields
Aerial pictures
published in the media show construction work is well under
way, with a
newly built control tower apparently complete and the runway
nearly ready
for surfacing. But the construction of the runway suggests that
the army
wants to use its access to the raw diamonds - whose production is
worth an
estimated £125 million a month - to obtain goods from abroad, in
particular
weapons.
The company ACR is locked in litigation with President Robert
Mugabe's
government over the claim for the rich Chiadzwa diamond field in
eastern
Zimbabwe. ACR officials did not comment on the raid, but mining
industry
sources said the intruders assaulted the company's four security
guards at
the heavily-protected building in central Harare, and made off
with
computers and a new pick-up truck.
The vehicle was discovered
shortly afterwards at a nearby hotel, abandoned,
but with the keys still in
the ignition. The government seized the claim
from ACR in 2006, and let
thousands of illegal diggers and panners overrun
it until two years later,
when soldiers and police cracked down, allegedly
killing scores of people
and severely assaulting and torturing hundreds
more.
The violence
drew sharp criticism from the Kimberley Process Certification
Scheme, the
international body founded to stop the trade in "blood diamonds"
in Africa,
and demanded that the military be withdrawn and transparency and
order be
established at Chiadzwa. Controversy has continued, however, as the
government allowed two South African companies to form joint ventures with
the bankrupt state-owned mining company to exploit the alluvial diamond
field.
An ongoing parliamentary inquiry this week accused the
government of
"irregular" dealings with the two companies. The raid came as
ACR was about
to apply for an eviction order against the two companies,
after a high court
judge in September ruled that the state seizure of the
field was illegal,
and that ACR was the legal owner of the
claim.
Political analysts say that the Chiadzwa diamonds are of crucial
importance
to the turnaround of the cash-strapped country, which is under a
power-sharing government formed by Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai. Mining experts believe the field could earn the government up to
1 billion dollars a year in revenues from the field.
But diplomats
and members of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change
have expressed
fears that Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party are planning to seize
the claim,
after the collapse of the economy in 2008 left them without
financial
support. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been briefed about
the
continued presence of the army at the diamond fields and the
construction of
the secret runway. A party insider said: "We know about it
and it is
extremely sensitive. We are very worried about what we have found
out this
week."
The Sierra Leone Civil War began in 1991, by the Revolutionary
United Front
(RUF) under Foday Sankoh. Tens of thousands died and more than
2 million
people (well over one-third of the population) were displaced
because of the
11-year conflict. Neighboring countries became host to
significant numbers
of refugees attempting to escape the civil war. It was
officially declared
over on 18 January 2002. In 1985, Joseph Momoh, a
military leader, was
installed as president of Sierra Leone. One major
opposition group consisted
of students including Foday Sankoh, Abu Ahmed
Kanu, and Rashid Mansaray.
Many students were expelled from the country
and this group fled to Ghana
and then Libya where they attended Moammar
Qaddafi's secret service military
training facility. The group recruited
unemployed young men and students,
but as the group grew, internal squabbles
arose, and many left the group,
some students to universities in Ghana,
others back to Sierra Leone.
Control of Sierra Leone's diamond industry
was a primary objective for the
war. Although endowed with abundant natural
resources, Sierra Leone was
ranked as the poorest country in the world by
1998. With the breakdown of
all state structures, wide corridors of Sierra
Leonean society were opened
up to the trafficking of arms and ammunition,
and an illegal trade in
recreational drugs from Liberia and Guinea. Zimbabwe
Mail
http://www.sabcnews.com
February 04 2010 ,
6:45:00
John Nyashanu, Zimbabwe
The issue of compensation for
white commercial farmers has stirred up a
hornet's nest in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe's Finance Minister Tendai Biti says
farmers whose farms have been
appropriated should be paid. Zanu-PF says the
country is not obliged to pay
for the land.
Biti says: "The parties have recognised the obligation of
paying
compensation - not for improvements, but for land acquired. So there
is a
difference between compensation in terms of improvements which is
defined in
terms of Section 16 of the constitution of Zimbabwe and the
compensation of
the land, which is not defined in the
constitution."
Not surprisingly, Zanu-PF took the opposite view. "If the
minister of
finance has got strong sympathies about why whites were deprived
of their
land and if they should be compensated for that he is always free
to consult
on a bilateral basis - or on an individual basis with the British
so that
they can take up that responsibility," says Zanu-PF's Christopher
Mutsvangwa.
The controversial land occupations are still continuing,
despite
interventions by bodies like the Southern African Development
Community.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk
Lucy
Bailey: My intrepid lover, two white Africans and Mugabe’s thugs who
wanted
them all dead
By Stephen Robinson, Evening Standard
04.02.10
Making a feature-length documentary in rural Africa
is hard enough, any
film-maker will tell you. But making a film about a
family of white farmers
under attack from racist zealots in Zimbabwe, where
Robert Mugabe's secret
police brutally enforce a blanket ban on foreign
media, is so dangerous that
it borders on the insane.
Lucy Bailey
concedes as much as she recalls the two-year struggle she and
her partner,
Andrew Thompson, have lived through in the making of their film
Mugabe and
the White African.
No large, established production company would have
embarked on such a
dangerous project, so the west London-based couple
decided to co-direct it
as their first full-length documentary, exhausting
each other and virtually
bankrupting themselves in the
process.
First, they realised they would have to smuggle the equipment in
by boat,
down the Zambezi under cover of darkness. When they needed a new
lens, it
had to be run over the border, then welded into the door panel of
their car
to avoid detection at roadblocks.
And to cap the logistical
nightmare, Bailey, 37, became pregnant during
filming, and had a complicated
premature delivery back in Britain at a
crucial point in the editing
process. “I tell myself I'll have my maternity
leave soon, but I very much
doubt I will,” she says. Not receiving any
salary for two years has left no
money for a nanny for their 14-month-old
son. No wonder Bailey seems
exhausted when we meet, though she and Thompson
are buoyed by having just
been Bafta shortlisted for Outstanding Debut film.
The couple had worked
extensively in Africa on a variety of wildlife and
documentary films for
National Geographic and the Discovery Channel, as well
as short promotion
pieces for Comic Relief. Filming in the Johannesburg
townships, they saw the
columns of starving, tortured Zimbabwean refugees
and knew they wanted to
find a project that would highlight the continuing
tragedy unfolding
there.
Then they chanced upon a newspaper cutting about Mike Campbell and
his
son-in-law, Ben Freeth, who jointly farmed fruit on an estate being
targeted
by Mugabe for his cronies.
The film centres on the legal
challenge the men took to the pan-national
southern African court in Namibia
to secure a formal human rights
declaration that Mugabe and his allies were
acting illegally in driving them
off their farm.
When Bailey and Thompson
first met the family in Windhoek, their story was
so compelling that they
began filming straight away — without securing
funding. Thompson, 38, the
cameraman, made the undercover trips to the farm
60 miles west of Harare
posing as a birdwatcher, while Bailey covered the
courtroom drama in
Windhoek.
But there were constant problems. The boat hired to take their
cameras down
the Zambezi caught fire, jeopardising thousands of pounds'
worth of
equipment.
Using local drivers to drop off the cameras,
Thompson filmed the family —
Freeth is married to Campbell's daughter,
Laura, and they have three young
children — as they fended off the violent
invaders.
Bailey won't go into detail for fear of endangering the
Zimbabweans who
helped them but she insisted that Thompson only stay in the
country for a
few days at a time, before word spread of “the white man with
his camera”.
“Sometimes it was just too dangerous for him to call me and
we wouldn't
speak for 48 hours,” Bailey recalls. “Then I'd find myself
panicking and
thinking: How would I know if something's gone wrong and he's
been picked
up?'”
After Thompson had left, Campbell and Freeth were
abducted by Mugabe's
henchmen and brutally beaten. Thompson knew he had to
film their injuries
so, throwing caution to the wind, he flew back into
Zimbabwe with his camera
hidden in his suitcase.
Then he disassembled
the camera piece by piece and smuggled it into Harare
hospital under the
noses of the secret-service guards on the door.
Campbell, the White Man
referred to in the film's title, used to be a
vigorous 75-year-old farmer.
He suffered head and feet injuries and had
several of his fingers broken.
“They turned me into an old man in one
night,” he says.
Freeth
nearly died from a build-up of fluid on the brain from a fractured
skull,
and attended the climax of the court case in a wheelchair. Campbell's
wife,
Angela, had her arm broken.
The power of the film lies in the poignant
discrepancy between the bloody
mayhem on the farm and the lofty legal
principles about human rights debated
in the courtroom. As the court papers
clearly show, Mugabe's
“redistribution” programme awards not the landless
peasantry but his new
elite — judges, cabinet ministers, political activists
and their mistresses.
Because Freeth and Campbell could demonstrate that
their farm was bought
perfectly legally after independence, the Windhoek
court ruled that there
was no explanation for their being targeted other
than anti-white racism.
But at this climatic moment of victory for the
family in the film, the court
authorities were still refusing to allow
Thompson to film. Bailey, five
months' pregnant, bone tired and desperate,
pleaded with the registrar's
office.
“I said, Look you are a house of
justice, the world doesn't know what you
are doing here and they should',”
recalled Lucy, “and something suddenly
changed with him, and he said I was
right and that we could film.”
Much to the annoyance of the Zimbabwean
legal team, Bailey and Thompson were
able to record the dramatic denouement
to their documentary.
Technically, the victory invalidated the seizure of
thousands of white
farmers' properties but, so far, not one has been
returned. Two months after
the court case, Mugabe's thugs returned and razed
Campbell and Freeth's
adjoining farmhouses.
Now they are living in
safe houses supported by friends, while the farm,
once a prosperous fruit
business, its equipment looted, is turning back into
bush. Black Zimbabweans
seem indifferent to farming the land once they have
stolen it: destroying
the livelihoods of the whites seems to be the
objective in
itself.
And the virus of historic resentments is spreading southwards.
Bailey points
out that more white farmers have been murdered in South Africa
than in
Zimbabwe.
It was the determination of the two farmers that
inspired the film-makers.
“People said we were putting them in danger by
making the film, but actually
they put their own heads about the parapet by
launching the legal action.
They wanted publicity to help their case. You
have to take a stand,” says
Bailey firmly. “The legal point they established
is very important, and it
is very important it is recorded in a documentary
form.”
Bailey and Thompson have had to match the farmers' doggedness in
getting the
film made. Bailey gave birth a month prematurely after suffering
pre-eclampsia, and exasperated her doctors by editing the film from her
hospital bed.
The baby is thriving but one senses the whole process
has taken a huge toll,
both on Bailey's health and the couple's finances.
They did get some
funding, from the Film Agency for Wales, but the budget,
at around £350,000,
was tiny for a 90-minute film.
Thompson is
currently in India earning money by filming that hardy BBC
perennial, a
series about the Indian railways. Bailey, meanwhile, is
fighting to get the
film out on general release. Documentaries, even those
with superb reviews
and Bafta nominations, are notoriously difficult to get
shown. The film
still lacks a distributor in America, and, even more
vexingly, in South
Africa, where there seems little official appetite to
delve too deeply into
what is going on across the border.
Bailey and Thompson are determined
the film should be widely seen as their
own indictment of what Mugabe is
doing to a country they have both come to
love, despite everything. “We
risked all to make this film,” Bailey says,
adding that black and white
Zimbabweans also took enormous risks on their
behalf.
“The world has
a limited attention span, but terrible things are still
happening in
Zimbabwe and people need to be told of them.”
Mugabe and the White
African is at the Empire Leicester Square until 11 Feb.