The Times
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 07 2002
Thousands in desperate flight
from Zimbabwe
FROM MICHAEL DYNES ON THE LIMPOPO RIVER
BARELY a
month before Zimbabwe’s presidential election, Clever Tarindwa, 24,
a poor
farm worker from Chipinge near the Mozambican border, voted with his
feet to
seek a new life in South Africa.
Driven into penury by two years of political
turmoil that has brought
Zimbabwe’s once prosperous economy to its knees, he
jumped on a bus heading
for the border township of Beitbridge.
There
he was met by the guma-guma men, a group of extortionists who take
people
across the swirling waters of the Limpopo at night for the hefty sum
of 100
rand (£6.50).
Mr Tarindwa, unlike some of his countrymen, who get swept
away or eaten by
crocodiles, made it to the other side. Within hours he was
picked up by a
South African National Defence Force (SANDF) patrol and handed
to the police
in the nearby town of Messina for immediate
deportation.
“I left home because there is no work and no food,” he said.
“I came here in
search of a job. Everyone says that life in South Africa is
good. It used to
be good in Zimbabwe, but that’s all gone
now.”
Sibongile Moyo, 22, who was picked up after leaving her village
near
Bulawayo, told the same story. “Work is hard to get in Zimbabwe,” she
said.
“There is not enough food. It is expensive and we don’t have enough
money to
buy. The people are frightened. They get beaten.”
Mr Tarindwa
and Miss Moyo are two of thousands of black Zimbabweans fleeing
President
Mugabe’s attempts to cling to power.
Every hour a police lorry leaves
Messina with 30 to 40 “undocumented
migrants” for the ten-mile trip back to
the border, where they are then
dumped on the other side. Most are picked up
while trying to hitch a lift on
the main road to Johannesburg. Others are
caught while trying to make their
way through local game or hunting grounds,
or are turned in by people who
fear that migrants will take their jobs and
their women.
Hundreds of South African soldiers patrol the three
razor-wire fences along
the border with Zimbabwe that were erected during the
apartheid era to keep
out African National Congress guerrillas.
“They
wrap themselves in blankets and crawl under the fence,” Godfrey
Mathabatha, a
private on one of the border patrols, said. “When we catch
them, their
clothes are torn. They are tired and thirsty and have gone for a
week without
something to eat.”
An old army base at Artonvilla, on the banks of the
Limpopo, has been
earmarked by the Pretoria Government as a reception centre
for migrants,
should the situation in Zimbabwe “reach meltdown”. It can hold
up to 1,000
people, who would be taken back to the border in convoy as fast
as they were
caught.
Colonel Tol Synman, the officer in charge of the
regional SANDF, said. “We
arrest up to 2,500 a month. But we have no idea how
many get through.” Some
estimates put the figure as high as 500 a
day.
“We are getting more and more undocumented migrants now because of
the
shortage of food in Zimbabwe,” Colonel Synman said.
“They cross
the river even when the water is chest high. Our troops have
reported some of
them being swept away or eaten by crocodiles.”
He said that unless the
illegal migrants were granted refugee status, “our
job will remain to hold
the line”.
PRAY FOR PEACE AND HARMONY IN ZIMBABWE
ZIMBABWE DAY OF
PRAYER AND THANKSGIVING
Saturday 16 February 2002 –
08h00-16h00
Rosebank Union Church
Cnr William Nicol and
Sandton Drive, Hurlingham (Sandton)
Everyone is invited to come along - for 5 minutes or 8 hours - for a
joyful celebration! We will pray and sing and give thanks for peace in
Zimbabwe, for that beautiful country and it's great people. Special prayers
will be offered up for God to build strong ties between South Africa and
Zimbabwe and to connect our hearts in prayer.
Zimbabweans who will be returning home to vote in the presidential
election will be lifted up in prayer. Please bring sandwiches, rolls, biscuits
and refreshments for a shared lunch.
AGENDA (to
be used as a guideline only)
08h00 - 08h30 Assemble
(tea/coffee)
08h30 - 09h00 Praise and
Worship
09h00 - 10h00 Pray for peace
within Zimbabwe - especially prior, during and after elections
10h00 - 10h30 Tea/Coffee break
10h30 - 11h30 Pray for
specifics - friends, family, children, workers, farmers - all people of
Zimbabwe
- and for those
who are returning home to campaign and vote
11h30 - 12h30 Pray that
Government of Zimbabwe will find direction and cease the carnage and
intimidation
12h30 - 13h00 Bring and share
lunch
13h00 - 14h00 Pray for the
economy of Zimbabwe - currency, businesses, tourism, agriculture, inflation,
investment etc
14h00 - 15h00 Pray for South
Africa - economy, investment, exports, violence, rape, murder, police force,
unemployment,
schools etc
15h00 - 16h00 Prayers, praise
and thanksgiving
We are looking for volunteers… pastors,
speakers, music groups etc… to participate in the activities of the day. Please
pray about it and contact us if you feel you need to be involved (Sue – 082 885
0771).
A CHALLENGE…
We have all been waiting for the
Commonwealth, the EU, SADC, the States... someone - ANYONE(?!)... to solve the
problems in Zimbabwe. The truth is that there is only one way to turn... that
is to God! Isn’t it time we did just that? The Lord showed us the miracle in
prayer prior to the 1994 South African elections. Africa needs many miracles.
Let's begin with our neighbours and ourselves! Here is the challenge (with
details following)...
1.
Attend the Zimbabwe Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving on Saturday 16 February
2002 in Johannesburg (or the National Day of Prayer on Sunday 17 February in
Zimbabwe) - or organise one in your community. Please ask your church to
announce this on Sunday 10 February.
2.
Encourage your church (and others) to participate in the 40 days of
prayer and fasting that is already running in Zimbabwe. Let the organisers know
when you will be joining them in prayer (wherever you are in the world) to
encourage them. Let's make sure that there is prayer 24-7, throughout the
world, until the elections are over.
3.
Commit Zimbabwe to God in prayer - daily... and ask others to do the
same.
4.
Sign up for the 48 hour Prayer Vigil so that we can pray Zimbabwe
through the presidential election on Saturday 09 and Sunday 10 March.
Please forward this email / notice to
churches worldwide, and everyone you know. Make copies and hand them out, and
fax it, to people who don’t have access to email.
40 DAYS OF
PRAYER AND FASTING
Greetings and best wishes to you, your family and church!
We had a pastor’s meeting here in Harare and it was proposed that we
commit ourselves as churches to prayer and fasting 40 days prior to the
presidential election. With several churches involved, we can cover the 40 days
with a particular church covering certain days and other churches covering
other days.
What this would entail is that a different church commits to mobilising
their members to fast (either a complete, water, liquids or partial fast) and
gather to pray for at least one hour on at least one of the 40 days, crying out
to God for the nation. We really need to see God intervene and work out His
will at this time.
The 40 days would start 30 January and run thorough to 10 March. Each
church is encouraged to cover as many days as they would wish. If ten churches
covered an average of 4 days each we cover the 40 days. Some churches may wish
to do this with their cells covering certain days. Would your church wish to
participate in this fast? Are there certain days you would wish to do so?
God Bless
Mark Roser
utmost@mweb.co.zw
DAILY PRAYER (an example)
Heavenly Father, thank You that You are
the Eternal Creator of the universe and You know and love all people in this
world… and You know and love me. Lord, I believe that You have great plans for
Zimbabwe and pray that peace and freedom will be restored so that the people of
Zimbabwe can begin to rebuild, in unity, that wonderful land. Build strong ties
between South Africa and Zimbabwe Lord, and connect our hearts in prayer.
I pray for protection, strength, wisdom,
courage and comfort for all people in Zimbabwe during these difficult times.
Lord, open the eyes of those who are committing the terrible atrocities that
they may repent and seek You. I pray for all the leaders, that they turn to You
in everything they do.
Thank You Father that You answer the
prayers of Your people, and for the great future You have planned for Zimbabwe.
I pray that the world will see Your hand in this situation, and that everyone
will give You the praise and glory. These things I pray, according to Your
will, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
48 HOUR
PRAYER VIGIL
Please complete this and return it to saveourzimbabwe@hotmail.com or
fax (+2711) 803 2422 – or call 082 885 0771 (+2782 885 0771 from outside SA).
I commit an hour of my time to pray for Zimbabwe and it's people during
the presidential elections on Saturday 09 and Sunday 10 March 2002. (You can
also, obviously, do this as a church.)
Name :
City and Country :
Date/s I will pray :
Time/s I will pray :
This comes from a little book called 'From Faith to Faith' by Kenneth
and Gloria Copeland (published by Harrison House)...
IT ONLY
TAKES A FEW
"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves
and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear
from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
2 Chronicles 7:14
You may be thinking, "Can a few people like us actually change a
whole nation?" Let me ask you this: Can one demonic person change a nation
for the worse? Definitely. Hitler did it for Germany, didn't he?
If the devil's power resting on a man can change a nation for the
worse, you can be sure that a group of men and women with God's power resting
on them can change a nation for the better. No nation is so far gone that God
can't change it. Israel proved that. Why, even when it didn't exist, the devil
couldn't destroy it. God raised it back up before his very eyes.
I want you to notice something in this scripture. It says, "If MY
people, which are called by MY name...". God didn't say it would take
everybody in the nation to get things turned around. He said, "If MY
people...". Notice also that He didn't say, "If my people will get
out there and sign petitions and drum up a majority vote...". He said,
"Pray". In other words, we're going to have to quit trying to work
this thing out by ourselves. God Himself will do the healing in the land. Our
job is to pray, to believe and to seek His face. Seek Him today.
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his
understanding no-one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases
the power of the weak. Even youths grow
tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run
and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:28-31
The lions may grow weak and
hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
Psalm
34:10
Together,
through prayer, we will make a difference!
Contact :
Sue – 082 885 0771
saveourzimbabwe@hotmail.com
Press Gazette
Peta vows to stay in Zimbabwe
By Jean
Morgan
Posted 07 February 2002 00:00 GMT
Even after his “lucky
escape” from brief imprisonment this week by President
Mugabe’s Government,
Independent correspondent Basildon Peta is determined
to stay in
Zimbabwe.
He was released when his lawyer successfully argued the
stupidity of the
decision to arrest Peta under the new Public Order and
Security Act because
he had failed to notify the authorities of a
demonstration by the
journalists’ union. The law does not require permission
for professional
bodies to have demonstrations and Peta did not organise the
demonstration.
Independent foreign editor Leonard Doyle called it a lucky
escape for Peta.
“We feel he has got off on a technicality this time. But he
has been told by
police that they are after him. They wrecked his house at
the weekend and
then called and told him they had been told from the highest
level to bring
him in,” he said.
Doyle felt the newspaper’s splash on
Peta’s arrest on Tuesday morning had
engendered media interest globally and
is helping to support the journalist.
“He has told us in no uncertain
terms he is going to stay in Zimbabwe and
sit out the elections. He has had
plenty of opportunities to leave. We are
concerned for his safety but he’s a
mature journalist so we believe it is
the best decision.”
BBC
Thursday, 7 February, 2002, 18:35 GMT
Britain 'frozen out' of Zimbabwe
elections
The BBC's Tim Sebastian met Simba Makoni
A senior member of Robert Mugabe's cabinet has said that
British representatives would not be allowed to monitor the forthcoming
presidential elections in Zimbabwe because they could not be trusted to be fair
and impartial.
Zimbabwe's Finance Minister Simba Makoni, a perceived moderate within the
ruling party, said that Mr Mugabe had indicated that he does not expect British
representatives to be among the Commonwealth and EU observers overseeing the
elections, which are scheduled to take place in March.
The UK Government in different forms and at different times
has indicated that it would like to see Mr Mugabe out of office. 
|
|
Simba Makoni |
"I think that there is a clear case of a determined
position on the part of the UK Government as to what outcome it would like to
see in this election," he told Tim Sebastian for the BBC's HARDtalk programme.
"And we wouldn't find that explicit position supportive of a free and fair
election observation."
Mr Makoni went on to say that he believes other EU observers will be
"invited" to monitor the proceedings, but that Britain had taken too strong a
line against Mr Mugabe in the past.
"The UK Government in different forms and at different times has indicated
that it would like to see Mr Mugabe out of office," he said.
Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe, has encountered fierce opposition
following the proposal of a ban on foreign and non-governmental monitors at
Zimbabwe's presidential elections.
Ambition
Mr Makoni denied reports that he has ambitions to become the future
president, claiming that he just wants to "serve my country as best I can".
President Mugabe will be 78 at the time of the
elections in March
|
He maintained that if Mr Mugabe was voted out of office,
Zimbabwe would simply rally around a new leader.
"Zimbabwe's life would go on, a new president would take office and the new
president would lead Zimbabwe in the way that he will have been mandated by the
people of Zimbabwe," he said.
"I will accept the will of the people of Zimbabwe."
Violence
Mr Makoni also reacted to criticism from the Commonwealth Ministerial Action
Group who have expressed deep concern over the use of violence and intimidation
in the run up to the presidential election.
He claimed that the Zimbabwe Government was currently trying to reign in its
violent supporters.
Zimbabweans pray for a fair
election
|
But he insisted that violence had been perpetrated by
supporters on both sides of the election campaign - the ruling Zanu PF party and
the opposition, Movement for Democratic Change.
"The two major parties are campaigning violently and we don't need violence,
so as a government, as a party and as a nation we are working to eliminate
violence from the election campaign," he said.
Mr Makoni also denied reports that his government was afraid of a free and
independent election after proposing new press laws that would impose extensive
press restrictions inside Zimbabwe.
"There is a clear perception with some indications of reality that certain
sections of the media have set out to grossly misrepresent the situation in
Zimbabwe," he said
"That means they are not reporting facts."
World relations
In the interview, Mr Makoni went on to comment on Zimbabwe's world relations,
suggesting they were "not normal".
Despite his distrust of the UK, he called for improved links with the British
Government.
"It also beholds the UK Government and the UK nation to work with us to
restore our relationships with the UK and through that restoration, our
relationships with the rest of the world," he said.
You can hear the HARDtalk interview in full at the following times:
BBC News 24 (times shown in GMT)
7 February 0430, repeated 2230
BBC World (times shown in GMT)
7 February 0430, repeated 1130,
1630, 1930, 0030
MSNBC
Blair says Zimbabwe must admit foreign
journalists
ABUJA, Feb. 7 — British Prime Minister Tony Blair
said on Thursday that
Zimbabwe must allow foreign journalists and
international observers into the
country for elections next month.
Blair was speaking at a news conference alongside Nigerian President
Olusegun
Obasanjo in Abuja on the first leg of a west African Tour.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe faces mounting international
criticism ahead
of the March 9-10 presidential election over his backing for
violent seizure
of white-owned land and his human rights record.
''There has to be
free and fair elections in Zimbabwe,'' Blair said.
''There has to be the
foreign press there. There have to be foreign
observers there.''
Mugabe has said he will allow foreign observers to monitor the
elections, but
will not admit observers from former colonial ruler Britain,
which he accuses
of backing the opposition.
The Zimbabwe government has also pushed
through controversial
legislation limiting foreign media access and imposing
tight controls on
local journalists, with breaches punishable by
imprisonment.
Obasanjo, a key mediator in Zimbabwe's crisis and ally
of Mugabe
since the 1970s independence war in the former Rhodesia, said he
was
satisfied the Zimbabwean leader was working towards fair elections
and
ending political violence.
''Two weeks ago I went to Zimbabwe.
I made it clear to President
Mugabe that the whole world, and indeed Africa,
will not agree to him not
allowing foreign observers, not allowing the
foreign press, and not doing
something about political violence,'' Obasanjo
said.
''He took this very seriously and started acting on it,''
Obasanjo
said. ''I don't know what else you want. If you want us to wage war
on him,
Britain has that capacity, but Nigeria doesn't.''
An
Obasanjo aide told Reuters on Wednesday that Britain had
personalised the
Zimbabwe issue too much. ''They seem to want Mugabe's head
delivered on a
platter of gold.''
CNN
Zimbabwe opposition MPs held
February 7, 2002 Posted: 2:33 PM EST
(1933 GMT)
HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) -- Zimbabwean police
arrested three opposition
parliamentarians who said they were beaten by
authorities Thursday as rights
groups warned of a "climate of fear and
terror" ahead of presidential polls
next month.
With violence
escalating before the vote on March 9-10, a senior government
minister blamed
the unrest on supporters of both President Robert Mugabe and
opponent Morgan
Tsvangirai.
"The two major parties are (campaigning) violently and we
don't need
violence," Finance Minister Simba Makoni told the BBC, which has
been barred
from Zimbabwe, in London.
"What it says about political
leaders is that Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai
need to rein in their
supporters," said Makoni, a cabinet reformer not seen
as part of Mugabe's
inner circle.
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), poses the
biggest challenge to Mugabe who has ruled the former
Rhodesia since
independence from Britain 22 years ago.
Mugabe has
consistently denied that his government or ruling ZANU-PF party
are
responsible for the violence, but says his supporters can defend
themselves
if attacked.
In the latest incident Wednesday, the MDC said three of its
parliamentarians
were campaigning in the central town of Nkayi when unknown
gunmen shot at
their car.
"They were then beaten by members of the
army, some of them left in a
critical condition. They were held overnight at
the police station," the MDC
said in a statement.
Police spokesman
Wayne Bvudzijena said the three MDC members were arrested
for carrying
weapons, including stones, axes and clubs. He denied the
politicians were
beaten.
He also confirmed the murder Tuesday of a teacher in northern
Zimbabwe,
blamed by the MDC on ZANU-PF militants.
Bvudzijena said nine
people had been arrested in connection with the murder,
but gave no further
details.
Sixteen politically motivated murders were recorded in Zimbabwe
in January,
the Zimbabwe Human Rights Non-Governmental Organizations Forum
said in a
report, the highest monthly toll since the group began recording
incidents
two years ago.
Thirteen of the victims were MDC
supporters.
"These human rights violations undoubtedly build up a climate
of fear and
terror among the electorate. It also puts paid to any suggestions
that
political violence may be on the decline when in fact it is increasing
at an
alarming rate," the coalition of 10 human rights groups
said.
The MDC says over 100 of its members have been slain since early
2000, when
militants loyal to Mugabe began invading white-owned farms to back
a state
program of seizing farmland for redistribution to landless
blacks.
The Forum noted that "carefully orchestrated violence is still
prevalent as
part of a modus operandi to crush opposition party support."
Government
officials were not immediately available to comment on the
report.
Mugabe, who will turn 78 next month, faces mounting international
criticism
ahead of the election over his backing of the often-violent seizure
of
white-owned farms and his government's human rights record.
British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, on a tour of West Africa, said Zimbabwe
must allow
foreign journalists and international observers into the country
for the
polls.
"There has to be free and fair elections in Zimbabwe," Blair told
reporters
in the Nigerian capital Abuja. "There has to be a foreign press
there. There
have to be foreign observers there."
Nigerian President
Olusegun Obasanjo, speaking alongside Blair at the news
conference, said he
had conveyed a tough message to Mugabe weeks ago and he
believed the
Zimbabwean leader was working toward fair elections and
ending
violence.
Mugabe has said he will allow foreign observers, but
will not admit members
from former colonial ruler Britain. Zimbabwean
election officials in Harare
said they were ready to accredit international
and local poll observers
after a day's delay due to a change of
venue.
The Commonwealth, grouping 54 mostly former British colonies, has
sent an
advance team. The European Union said it would send half a dozen
observers
to prepare for its main team.
Daily News - Feature
Who will it be: Mugabe or Tsvangirai?
2/7/02
4:14:21 AM (GMT +2)
By Sandra Nyaira Political Editor
ZANU
PF's Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC officially kicked
off
their presidential election campaigns with thousands of people
attending
their opening rallies last Friday and Sunday
respectively.
Mugabe's first rally was in Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe (UMP),
the constituency
which gave Zanu PF 27 000 votes in the 2000 parliamentary
poll, the highest
in the country.
Tsvangirai launched his campaign for
the presidency in Mutare.
Isaac Matongo, the MDC's national chairman,
said his party had decided to
take Tsvangirai to the people of Manicaland
because "the East has always
been known for its wise people".
He said
Manicaland led the rest of the country in rejecting Zanu PF and "its
rotten
policies", hence the decision to kick off the election campaign
in
Mutare.
"We have already finished campaigning. That is what we have
been doing in
the past two years," said Matongo. "We are just waiting for the
results and
we want people to know that we intend to free them from 22 years
of Zanu PF
rule."
Thousands of people streamed into Sakubva Stadium on
Sunday and waited
expectantly for almost three hours to be addressed by
Tsvangirai, whose
motorcade was delayed by the police for about 30 minutes
ostensibly for a
thorough search.
A unique feature of that rally was
that not a single bus ferried supporters
from Chikanga, Dangamvura and
Sakubva high density suburbs or any of the
upmarket suburbs of Murambi,
Greenside, Darlington or even the city centre.
Most of the estimated 15
000 people walked to the stadium to listen to the
MDC leadership preach to
the converted.
Describing Mugabe as the Zanu PF president only and not of
the republic,
Tsvangirai said the MDC was now the majority party and was
ready to take
over the reins of power.
"Zanu PF is a minority party
that forces people to attend its rallies," he
said. "As the majority party we
do not coerce people to our rallies and we
are, therefore, going to
win."
Oliver Mtukudzi's hit song, Bvuma/Tolerance further lighted the
already
electric atmosphere in the stadium.
The Zanu PF rally was
characterised by songs penned by Jonathan Moyo from
the unpopular Hondo
Yeminda album with performances by several groups from
the
UMP.
Tsvangirai spoke in front of an animated crowd while Mugabe's
audience
looked glum and restrained. The MDC has coined new slogans for the
campaign,
among them, Gwendo Guno Hazvikoni (This time around Zanu PF will
definitely
be kicked out of power).
The MDC slogans excited the
Sakubva crowd while Zanu PF slogans sought to
demonise Tsvangirai as a
British "puppet" who should never be allowed to
rule in Zimbabwe. "Down with
Tsvangirai, Down with Tony Blair and Down with
. . ." continue to be the key
words in Zanu PF's slogans.
The thousands at Mugabe's rally in
Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe may have walked to
the venue, but a large number
streamed on to the main road from their homes,
from where they were then
ferried to and from the meeting point.
The Mutare audience, which urged
Tsvangirai to address bread and butter
issues as a priority if he assumes
office, as they were reeling under
hunger, unemployment and a chaotic health
delivery system, were mostly young
people, while Mugabe's gathering was of
largely middle-aged and old people.
The response of the two crowds,
although almost equal in number, was very
different: Mutare was more
enthusiastic than UMP.
Both Tsvangirai and Mugabe made promises to their
supporters. They did not
concentrate on the perceived failures of the rival
party only, but announced
their plans of action after 9-10 March.
They
spoke at length about social services, employment creation, land,
roads, the
tattered economy and the ailing health delivery system.
Mugabe, who
admitted failure to deliver in some instances, even officially
opened a
hospital built a few years ago.
Their platforms seem to be running
parallel, but Mugabe, in power for 22
years, may have difficulty in selling
his manifesto as he has failed to
fulfil it in the past.
Mugabe said he
would use land and food aid as his campaign platform.
In a clearly
surprising departure from the customary but unconstitutional
practice whereby
Zanu PF orders the closure of shops and businesses to force
all in the
locality to attend their rallies, the situation was different in
UMP where
shop-owners went about their day-to-day business a stone's throw
away from
Mugabe's rally.
But then UMP is a known Zanu PF stronghold.
Save
for the long-winding queues of vehicles at roadblocks on roads leading
to the
venues of the two rallies as police officers searched vehicles, the
two
rallies passed off rather quietly.
Zanu PF youths had launched their
almost routine campaign of intimidating
people from attending the MDC rally
long before it started in Mutare.
There is no doubt the rally in Sakubva
Stadium could have been attended by
perhaps double the 15 000 who turned up
had it not been for the Zanu PF
intimidation.
Most MDC rallies have
been thwarted by Zanu PF youths, the most recent one
being at White City
Stadium in Bulawayo, where at least one person later
died, allegedly as a
result of being stabbed by the marauding youths.
Many people believe the
presence of international observers long before the
voting begins could
prevent a repetition of the bloodshed of the 2000
parliamentary election,
during which nearly 40 people, most of them
opposition members, were
killed.
If the attendance at the two rallies is anything to go by, then
the race to
State House is going to be quite close.
Whoever wins, if
it is truly a free and fair election, could achieve victory
by a very slim
margin in the first-past-the-post contest.
The size of the crowds was
almost similar and both parties have invested
millions in new party T-shirts,
mazambia (wrap-arounds) and related party
regalia as the election dates draw
closer.
The MDC enjoys massive popularity in all urban centres in the
country while
Zanu PF has been sidelined to the rural hinterland.
Daily News
War vets arrested for seizing cattle
2/7/02 4:21:49 AM
(GMT +2)
From Our Correspondent in Bulawayo
THE police on
Tuesday arrested a group of Zanu PF supporters who had
impounded 45 cattle
from Mtshabezi Mission because it is run by an
American
missionary.
The mission, with a school up to Advanced Level,
a youth camp, a Bible
school and a 110-bed hospital, is run by the Brethren
In Christ Church.
The cattle, which supply milk to the institution and
the community, were
held for more than a week by the Zanu PF
supporters.
The police could not say whether the four people, suspected
to be war
veterans, would be charged with cattle rustling as they referred
all
questions to Harare.
But church officials on Tuesday confirmed
that all the cattle had been
returned following the arrest of the
suspects.
Bishop Danisa Ndlovu, a church official, said this was not the
first time
the cattle had been taken by the Zanu PF supporters.
He
said late last year, the group took away the cattle but they were
later
returned by the police.
"Although only four people are doing
this, the beasts are sent to the bushes
where they are kept by a larger
number of people," he said.
He said it was not clear why the supporters
were taking the cattle.
But locals said the group of Zanu PF supporters
were "punishing" the church
because of Jack Shank, an American missionary
minister who started the milk
project about nine years ago.
One of
them said: "The Zanu PF supporters say they don't want Shank because
he is
American."
America last year passed the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic
Recovery Bill
which seeks to impose targeted sanctions on President Mugabe
and his inner
circle.
Shank said he was not sure why the cattle were
being impounded. He refused
to comment further.
Apart from providing
the school and hospital with milk, he also sells it for
only $20 per
litre.
Daily News
Zanu PF rally flops
2/7/02 8:42:28 AM (GMT
+2)
From Brian Mangwende in Mutare
President Mugabe has
cancelled his rally at Sakubva Stadium in Mutare today
and will instead hold
rallies outside the city at Checheche in the morning
and Zimunya in the
afternoon.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, attracted a large crowd of
15 000 at his
first presidential campaign address at Sakubva Stadium last
Sunday. Top Zanu
PF provincial officers said the Mutare rally was cancelled
because Mugabe
was too busy.
Mike Madiro, Zanu PF's provincial
chairman for Manicaland, said: "The people
of Mutare requested the President
to address them, but unfortunately he is
unable to do so. He has a tight
schedule. Mugabe is a hot cake and everyone
wants him to address them, but
that's impossible. Besides, there was never a
rally scheduled for
Mutare."
During the campaign for the June 2000 parliamentary election,
about 10 000
people walked out of Sakubva Stadium after Mugabe launched a
scathing attack
on opposition and independent candidates.
FinGaz
Veterinary Dept needs $194m for new farmers
Staff
Reporter
2/7/02 1:25:36 AM (GMT +2)
ZIMBABWE’S Veterinary Services
Department (VSD) urgently needs about $194
million to effectively service
farmers allocated land under the government’s
hurried and chaotic land
reforms, it was learnt this week.
Alec Bishi, a senior official in the
department, said the VSD had asked the
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Resettlement to make the funds available
as soon as possible, adding that the
department had received only $50
million in December for livestock
development in the resettled areas.
This is inadequate for the
department’s financial year, he said.
"We have approached the government
on the issue and the proposals are now
with the ministry," Bishi told the
Financial Gazette. "At present, an
additional $194 million is required in the
current financial year in order
for the department to be able to effectively
service the newly resettled
farmers under the A1 programme.
"Seventy
percent of the expenditure will be on dipping chemicals, 10 percent
on
establishing new animal health centres, five percent on drugs and
vaccines
and 15 percent on travel and subsistence."
The facilities will benefit
farmers who, in most cases, have been resettled
on pieces of land without any
infrastructure and inputs such as dipping
tanks and chemicals as well as
fertilisers and livestock vaccines.
Bishi said the money would also be
used to prevent the outbreak of anthrax,
38 cases of which were reported in
January this year compared to eight in
the same period last year. The VDS
official said January had recorded the
highest number of anthrax cases in the
past five years.
According to a January 2002 DVS newsletter, the high
number of anthrax cases
could signal the beginning of an anthrax
epidemic.
"Indications are that this could be the early stages of an
anthrax epidemic
unless effective control measures are taken," the newsletter
said.
An anthrax epidemic would deal a heavy blow to Zimbabwe, which was
last year
hit by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease which resulted in
the
suspension of Zimbabwe’s beef exports to the lucrative European Union
and
South African markets.
FinGaz
A little courage will end this era of terror
2/7/02
1:18:27 AM (GMT +2)
A LETTER published by the Daily News in Harare on
January 29 2002, just
under six weeks before the critical presidential
election is finally
decided, asks about the condition of the present
incumbent, President Robert
Mugabe:
"I am confused because every night
ZBC-TV shows him making his ‘we died for
self-determination’ speech. All the
people I know who died during the
struggle have never made any announcements
since. I am also very scared
because I now suspect we have a ghost for a
president."
The writer suggests that some "zealots" wanting to vote a
ghost back into
office are perhaps "ghosts too, or vampires, that is why they
need so much
blood".
So this is what a glorious revolution has come
to! The truth of those
ultimate sacrifices, human lives offered for the
liberation of a country has
now become the subject of sick, but horribly apt,
jokes.
This set me thinking back to how it all began. My 1982 Makers of
History
(political biographies) lauds the achievement of freedom brought to
us all
by liberation fighters, old and young.
I have never stopped
asking myself: how could this have happened?
The answer, traced back
through successive stages of the use and abuse of
liberators of what is now
no longer free Zimbabwe, is not difficult to find.
The following is an
abbreviated recount of the story, but my conclusions
will not necessarily be
correct. I am sure there will be many other, varied
interpretations of what
has brought the reputation of brave men and women,
dead or alive, so
tragically into disrepute.
The dead, killed in the war, do not deserve
this, while the living are
divided between the beneficiaries who sold out to
a cynical policy of
regenerated violence to retain sweet power and the brave
and the true
liberators who are mortified to find themselves lumped together
with rogues
calling themselves war veterans.
These latter are bent on
the death and destruction of their own brothers and
sisters. No violent death
in times of peace can be condoned, but in Zimbabwe
the torture, maiming,
raping and butchering of people in political
opposition (opposing the
government quite lawfully, it must be stressed) and
destroying their homes,
their animals and their crops is a blight on the
reputation of us all. The
whole country is brought down in shame.
But to return to a quick review
of how it all started:
First came demobi-lisation and also joblessness
for all but the few
inheritors of employment in the public and private
spheres and those
integrated into the national army and airforce.
No
more explanation of this is needed. There was a token "demob" pay of $185
per
month (real money in 1980), discontinued in 1983. There were
further
"payouts", compensation and help of one kind or another for the
maimed, the
destitute and other war victims; see Danhiko and also ask Judy
Todd about
her Zimbabwe Project for example.
I visited Camp Haven in
Shamva in 1980 where Danish People to People were
full of love for the
dispossessed youth of the country.
Official compensatory "payouts",
however, culminated in a scandalous grab of
huge resources from the taxpaying
public by "chefs" and other men and women
already more than comfortably
well-off in civilian and military life. The
court cases presided over by
Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku provided ample
proof of that.
The
country’s economy has never recovered from this disastrous attitude
of
entitlement.
There had been a series of "warning shots" from
impoverished peasant groups
claiming that they had seen no benefit from their
part in the liberation
struggle.
A man stood up at Heroes’ Acre and
shouted that the President had abandoned
his fighters. He was arrested and
hurried away by the police.
A motley group of men and a few women
gathered outside the President’s
office, demanding his attention. Later, they
invaded a courtroom, upsetting
the judiciary. They went again into the street
calling for the intervention
of the President.
He sent them away and
their leader, the late Chenjerai Hunzvi, faced
criminal charges for
falsifying war victims’ compensation claims.
Margaret Dongo, a former
guerrilla and Central Intelli
gence Organisation operative and ZANU PF MP
and later an opposition MP
(independent, then Zimbabwe Union of Democrats) ,
called Parliament’s
attention to the plight of many
ex-combatants.
From time to time we saw Minister Joseph Msika and
others moving squatters
off privately and publicly owned farmlands and making
repeated promises
about a future land redistribution plan.
But nothing
much happened except that the ruling ZANU PF became increasingly
unpopular
for such "sins" of omission as well as many others of commission
related to
corrupt practices.
The 2000 constitutional referendum confirmed this and
then Didymus Mutasa
announced a "wake up call" for the ruling
party.
Suddenly, war veterans had replaced commercial farmers as a
protected
species. With the possibility of electoral defeat looming, but
skilfully
manoeuvred out of the way by rigging, a temporary respite was
achieved in
2000 and the "war vets" came into their own.
We all know
what happened next. It has been described ad nauseam, but the
"plan" has been
positively sickening in its execution.
I want to move on to the next
stage in this dreadful tale.
Rather late in the day, it became apparent
that recycled war veterans might
be getting out of hand on the one side —
fighting for supremacy of
leadership, etc — and realising they had sold out
their honour on the other.
What to do?
This is where their sudden
replacement (or was it enhancement?) by hordes of
unemployed, half-trained
youths became the flavour of the new election year.
In what might be seen as
yet another brilliant political ploy by the ruling
party leadership, they
were trained with indecent haste, ostensibly for
"national service", their
handlers announcing that they were not to be
violent, etc, etc, while the
exact opposite was the intention and, lo and
behold, a new struggle was
born.
Greenshirts or Brownshirts, it matters not. They needed money and
they went
forth with varying degrees of discomfort and enthusiasm to beat up
and rob
their parents, their brothers and sisters, and anybody perceived to
be in
political opposition.
It is not known at the time of writing
what the final outcome of this latest
tragedy will be. But you can be sure
that if the ZANU PF candidate for the
presidency wins, there will be no huge
compensation handed out to anybody —
neither the bullies nor their victims.
For one thing, there is no money.
Pity the youths, whe-ther paid or not,
they have to carry the shame of their
activities into their adult lives. And
what, pray, will they tell their own
children about their "brave"
deeds?
The ruling ZANU PF must disabuse itself of the belief that after
the
elections all will be forgotten and forgiven, whoever wins. Too much
damage
in every direction has already been done — to the country, to its
people,
especially to its heroes, and, most shamefully of all, to its used
and
abused youth.
The only real hope left for the more distant future
is that a significant
body of fine young men and women have stood aloof from
all this, within the
country’s borders — if they could stay alive (and many
have died already) —
or outside, waiting to return and help rebuild a
destroyed culture of
freedom, justice and peace for all.This can only happen
if voters next month
have the courage to give the future a
chance.
Diana Mitchell is an independent Zimbabwean political
commentator.
FinGaz - Comment
Beyond March 2002
2/7/02 1:05:51 AM (GMT
+2)
WITH Zimbabweans focused on the presidential election, few have
spared the
thought of what real life will be like in the country after the
March 9 and
10 ballot, more so if incumbent President Robert Mugabe
miraculously returns
to power.
Even for weary-inured Zimbabweans,
nothing can adequately prepare them for
the enormous economic and social
hardships that lie ahead, thanks to the
nation’s gross folly of allowing
one-man rule for two decades.
Zimbabwe’s economy is already on the brink
— as dramatised by biting
shortages of foreign currency and fuel, runaway
unemployment, poverty and
inflation and surging company closures — and yet
the road ahead is even more
sobering.
Whoever wins the ballot next
month faces the daunting and unenviable task of
rescuing the economy from
TOTAL collapse amid anarchy which has been allowed
to flourish in the past
two years.
Fearful of losing the presidential ballot, Mugabe has
predictably tried to
play to the gallery by bringing back his command-style
economics, as shown
by his re-introduction of price controls which are
killing already
overburdened companies.
Although Zimbabwe’s inflation
has soared to an unprecedented high of 112
percent, Mugabe has refused to
allow interest rates to rise to levels which
would ensure that investors can
reap positive returns on their money.
He has thus kept interest rates
artificially low in the hope of winning
votes, although the rates will have
to surge markedly after the election.
Similarly, he has fixed the value
of the local dollar versus the currencies
of Zimbabwe’s major trading
partners at artificially stable levels fearing
that an inevitable devaluation
will lift inflation even higher.
As in the case of the rates, the
Zimbabwe dollar will have to be devalued
sharply after the presidential
ballot to bring it into line with inflation
differentials between Zimbabwe
and its key trading partners.
The net result of record high interest
rates and inflation on a population
that can no longer make ends meet — let
alone lead normal lives — will be
most painful and hard to swallow, but then
there is no other solution.
Were Mugabe to win the election, the doomsday
upheaval will be even more
traumatic, with Zimbabwe totally isolated by the
rest of the world until a
fresh ballot that is seen to be free and fair is
staged.
Thus hesitant foreign investors, multilateral agencies such as
the
International Monetary Fund and the entire Western world would simply
leave
Zimbabwe to its own fate, just as the world did to anarchic
Somalia.
Not only that. Some of the punitive sanctions now targeting
Mugabe and his
top officials, all of them accused of promoting lawlessness
which is
tormenting the nation, could begin to affect some
Zimbabweans.
In short, joblessness would rise beyond the current 60
percent, turning the
country into a nation of peasants and self-employed who
just run small-scale
industries.
And poverty would surge above the
current 80 percent levels, meaning that
the entire nation but the ruling
elite would be living below the poverty
line.
Put differently,
Zimbabwe would slide back into the Stone Age — cruelly this
happening in this
new and enlightened digital era!
Were opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai
to win the poll, the road ahead
would not be that easy either. Zimbabweans
would need to brace themselves
for more social pain as his government seeks
to pull the economy back from
the precipice.
This necessarily means
having to revert to free market policies — perhaps
with state aid for the
most vulnerable groups in society — and working
overtime to correct the
economic dislocation which has been caused by years
of ZANU PF’s neglect,
corruption and irresponsible policies.
Unfortunately, all these steps
will be painful in the short term, as
Zambians have learnt to their grief.
But then, is there any other choice?
At least Tsvangirai is assured of a
quick return to Zimbabwe of
international aid, capital and investment which
will ameliorate Zimbabwe’s
meltdown and place the country firmly on the road
to a sustainable recovery
and growth.
So there you have it, all of you
Zimbabwean voters: the choice is truly
between a rock and a hard place. Which
one will you pick?
FinGaz
Mugabe broke the law: Chidyausiku
Staff
Reporter
2/7/02 1:38:56 AM (GMT +2)
CHIEF Justice God-frey Chidyausiku
yesterday said President Robert Mugabe
does not have powers to extend the
term of the commission running the
affairs of Harare and that the 77-year-old
Zimbabwean leader acted illegally
when he gave the hand-picked local
authority another lease of life last
month.
Chidyausiku, who was
hearing an appeal by Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede
over a decision by the
High Court to have Harare’s mayoral and council
elections held by next
Monday, said Mugabe did not have a constitutional
right to extend the tenure
of the city commission after the Supreme Court
had ordered Mudede to hold
elections in the city by February 11.
"The President does not have powers
to validate the term of the commission
running Harare," Chidyausiku said
during arguments on the validity of a
statutory instrument Mugabe issued last
month that set the dates for the
presidential, mayoral and council elections
as March 9 and 10.
Mugabe, through Local Government Minister Ignatius
Chombo, extended the term
of the Elijah Chanakira-led commission by a further
six months.
The commission, which consists of hand-picked loyalists of
Mugabe’s ruling
ZANU PF, has run the affairs of Harare since 1999 when the
Solomon
Tawengwa-led council was dismissed over alleged
incompetence.
Mudede was yesterday seeking Supreme Court permission to
appeal against a
ruling by High Court judge Justice Moses Chinhengo that he
had to hold
mayoral and council elections for Harare and Chitungwiza by
Monday or face
prosecution on contempt of court charges.
The contempt
of court charges arose from delays by Mudede to start
preparations for the
Harare and Chitungwiza elections after an initial
Supreme Court judgment in
December last year, which said the polls must be
held by February
11.
At the time Mudede said he was ready to hold the elections, although
he and
Mugabe now say this is no longer possible because of preparations for
the
presidential ballot.
The Harare Combined Resident and Ratepayers’
Association then applied to the
High Court to have Mudede held in contempt of
court, resulting in the ruling
by Chinhengo who ordered the registrar-general
to comply with the Supreme
Court judgment.
Chidyausiku yesterday
reserved judgment in Mudede’s application for leave to
appeal and asked for
time to consider submissions by both sides. Judgment is
expected by the end
of this week.
FinGaz
Tsvangirai vows to carry out land audit
Own
Correspondent
2/7/02 1:48:04 AM (GMT +2)
MUTARE — The huge crowd is
definitely fired up, notwithstanding that some
voices are by now hoarse from
the incessant political chanting and dancing
that have dominated proceedings
for the past three hours.
The sweltering heat has also begun to take its
toll on the 15 000-plus
supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), clad in their party
T-shirts and regalia.
Many have opted out
of their popular Sunday morning religious services or
social gatherings at
neighbourhood bottle stores to throng this venue,
Sakubva Stadium, for the
first star rally in this city by party president
Morgan
Tsvangirai.
About three hours after gates have opened, there is still no
sign of
Tsvangirai, the main attraction and the man eagerly expected to
trounce
President Robert Mugage in the March 9 and 10 presidential
election.
By 12.55 pm, the skies are turning dark and a palpable
nervousness permeates
the stadium because a sudden downpour is increasingly
becoming a real
possibility.
Five minutes later though, the whistles
start blowing and the stadium turns
into a sea of red cards, and the chanting
of party slogans rises to
deafening proportions as Tsvangirai’s six-vehicle
motorcade sweeps into the
stadium.
In typical fire-in-the-belly style,
Tsvangirai declares: "It’s a fact that
ZANU PF helped liberate this country.
That’s fine and commendable. Now, the
MDC is here to liberate our
population."
As giddy security aides battle to keep the roaring crowd
from getting closer
to the podium, the MDC leader roars: "There is no way
anyone can claim that
Zimbabwe is a free country when its population can’t
move freely in its own
country."
He is obviously talking from fresh
experience because moments earlier, his
motorcade that was entering the city
from Masvingo was held up for more than
30 minutes at a police roadblock less
than a kilometre away from the stadium
as officers searched for weapons and
so-called dangerous items.
Other motorists and public transport
passengers, particularly those entering
the city through the Christmas Pass,
had an even more torrid time.
Some were held up earlier in the morning at
the roadblock and searched
thoroughly for up to one-and-a-half
hours.
Tsvangirai, expected to trounce Mugabe in the March ballot, is on
fire
today.
"I am here less to campaign than to urge you to come out
in great numbers on
polling weekend," he says.
"We finished
campaigning a long time ago," adds Tsvangirai, clad in a pair
of black
trousers and matching black shirt with white spots.
"A large turnout will
make it difficult for ZANU PF to rig the election,"
says the veteran trade
unionist, adding that by turning out in their large
numbers, the MDC would
thrash ZANU PF and guarantee that no amount of vote
rigging would allow
Mugabe to sneak back into State House.
The MDC leader said ZANU PF was
now "a minority" political party that had
perfected the abysmal art of
ordering businesses to close and forcing people
to attend its rallies to give
the false impression that it still commanded
some support.
Someone
shouts from the crowd: "They warned us last night not to attend
this
rally!"
The whole stadium is rife with reports that ruling party
activists had the
previous night gone around the city’s high-density suburbs
of Chikanga,
Dangamvura and Sakubva threatening residents with reprisals if
they attended
Tsvangirai’s rally.
Tsvangirai says he is less
interested in reiterating the failures of the
ZANU PF government and would
rather outline the vision and plans of an MDC
government after the
election.
An MDC government, he says, will give priority to the
redrafting of Zimbabwe
’s Constitution to strip the presidency of "too much
executive and
dictatorial powers" and provisions such as those that allow him
to appoint
non-constituency MPs.
Tsvangirai said he would move
immediately to outlaw lawlessness and
political violence and that his
government would carry out a national audit
of the land resettlement
programme to administer an equitable land reform
plan and restore
productivity to the sector.
He said he intended to form a government of
national unity representative of
all administrative and political districts
in Zimbabwe if elected into power
next month.
Reacting to threats from
the army that it would not salute him, the former
trade unionist said if army
officers did not respect him, then they would be
fired.
"If people
like (Defence Forces Commander Vitalis) Zvinavashe don’t want to
salute, he
will have removed himself from the job because he will definitely
be
replaced," said Tsvangirai, prompting the stadium to reverberate with
cheers
and applause.
As Tsvangirai leaves the podium, the entire crowd gets on
its feet cheering,
dancing and whistling.
His motorcade revs up its
engines and security aides battle to make way for
him to exit the stadium
amid a sea of red cards and the crowd soon spills
peacefully into the
streets.
And the overcast skies? The clouds have long dissipated and it
has been
clear skies since then.
FinGaz
NO to sham poll: Mbeki
By Basildon Peta Special Projects
Editor
2/7/02 1:34:30 AM (GMT +2)
SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki
this week stepped up efforts to prepare
his country to deal with any possible
negative fallout from the turmoil in
Zimbabwe while his officials made clear
Pretoria would not recognise any
government elected in conditions which are
not free and fair in the fiercely
contested March presidential
ballot.
Mbeki met leaders of South Africa’s main civic society groups to
share ideas
and agree a common approach on how to deal with the deteriorating
political
climate in Zimbabwe before he left to address the World Economic
Forum (WEF)
in New York.
Mbeki’s meeting was followed by a blunt
statement from his economic adviser,
Wiseman Nkulu, that South Africa and the
rest of the Southern Africa
Development Community (SADC) would not recognise
any government in Zimbabwe
elected in conditions which were not free and
fair.
Speaking at the close of the WEF summit in New York yesterday,
Nkulu said
South Africa "had the will" to act against President Mugabe if
this became
necessary.
Mbeki’s office confirmed this week that he had
met representatives of the
powerful Congress of South African Trade Unions
(COSATU), South African
churches, business leaders, farmers’ groups,
representatives from Anglo
American and others to harness opinion on how best
to deal with and react to
Zimbabwe’s turmoil.
Mbeki’s ministers,
including Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana who heads
his country’s task
force team dealing with Zimbabwe, Deputy Foreign Minister
Aziz Pahad and
Essop Pahad, the deputy minister in Mbeki’s office, attended
the meeting
whose only agenda was Zimbabwe.
A coalition of South Africa’s civic
organisations had earlier met on its own
and slammed increasing human rights
abuses in Zimbabwe, where political
violence has killed more than 100 people
in the past two years.
The coalition said it would mobilise resources to
deal with the impending
humanitarian and refugee crisis in Zimbabwe and to
engage the South African
government in initiatives related to the defence of
democracy and the rule
of law in Zimbabwe.
Mbeki’s spokesman Tasneem
Carrim said the meeting had dealt with matters of
principle and full details
of the meeting would be discussed later.
Japie Grobler, the president of
the farming union AgriSA, said he had come
out of the meeting with a clear
impression that the South African government
was doing more behind the scenes
to limit the fallout from Zimbabwe than
most of Mbeki’s critics
realised.
Mbeki has on numerous occasions been urged to abandon his
policy of quiet
diplomacy on Zimbabwe in favour of a more robust approach
that would boost
international efforts to rein in the Zimbabwe
government.
Diplomatic sources said after failing to persuade Mugabe to
postpone the
March 9 and 10 presidential election until the rule of law and
conditions
conducive to free and fair elections are fully restored, Mbeki had
now
shifted his efforts to preparing South Africa to dealing with
the
anticipated chaos that would follow a rigged election in
Zimbabwe.
"By involving the rest of South Africa’s civic society in
decisions on
Zimbabwe, he hopes to reduce the burden of blame that might fall
on him if
the situation in Zimbabwe gets out of hand and South Africa has to
deal with
a serious humanitarian crisis," one Western diplomat
said.
South Africa has already started making contingency plans to
receive
refugees from Zimbabwe, where Mugabe is seen being trounced by
opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai if the March ballot is free and
fair.
But there is increasing domestic and international concern that the
ballot
may not be free and fair because of escalating intimidation of
Tsvangirai’s
opponents by Mugabe’s followers.
There is also serious
concern about a warning by the country’s military
chiefs that they will not
salute or support Tsvangirai if he wins the
ballot.
World Must Insist on an Honest Zimbabwe Election
By Anna Husarska
Anna
Husarska, a journalist, is now on assignment in Thailand. This is from
the
Los Angeles Times.
February 6, 2002
SEEN FROM AFAR, the
struggle of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to hold on
to power and outfox
the outside world would look pathetic if it were not
that his eventual
success in the March presidential election would mean
continued dictatorship
and famine for his country.
His latest trick is to accept as foreign
election monitors only citizens
from nations and organizations he has chosen.
Not surprisingly, the citizens
of the United States and Britain are not
acceptable; neither is the Carter
Center of Atlanta, which has monitored many
foreign elections. The only
American group welcome is the NAACP.
Are
we surprised? Not at all. Last August I sat with Morgan Tsvangerai,
the
leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in his
office
in Harare and we joked that the panoply of foreign monitors allowed
would be
composed of North Koreans, Burmese, Iraqis, Libyans and perhaps
someone from
Belarus to give it an old-continent touch.
Comrade Bob
(as Mugabe is known to fellow war of independence veterans and
fellow foreign
dictators) came up with a more business-oriented criterion:
The countries and
organizations allowed to send monitors all happen to have
some trade
interests in Zimbabwe. They are unlikely to come down hard on him
for his
electoral peccadilloes or his gross violations of human rights, such
as
having opponents killed or opposition newspapers bombed.
And to make sure
that his sins, small and large, do not get exposed by the
media, Mugabe had a
gag law adopted in parliament Thursday. The so-called
Access to Information
and Protection of Privacy bill restricts access for
foreign reporters and
imposes tight controls on local media.
So now that Mugabe has warned the
media not to be a nuisance, the coast is
clear. Unless he reaches for the
ultimate weapon and declares a state of
emergency, which would effectively
suspend the elections and many civil
rights, the contest will probably go
ahead March 9 and 10.
What is to be done? The predictions show that the
opposition MDC is a
favorite in these elections. Everything must be done to
ensure that
Zimbabwe's people get what they want. This means monitoring the
election
process, and monitoring it well, despite Mugabe's roadblocks.
Countries and
groups doing the "official" monitoring must be told clearly
that they will
be treated as accomplices if they let Mugabe get away with
crime: killing
candidates, dissidents, journalists or voters, or simply
stealing the
election by other means.
Nongovernmental organizations
with experience in Zimbabwe (religious,
humanitarian, development groups)
must rally all their members to revisit
the country and denounce whatever
electoral dirt they see.
Electoral experts from countries that evolved
from similar dictatorships
through elections should send people (with tourist
visas if need be) to
discreetly watch and later publicly describe their
observations.
This may not be a "formally accepted" monitoring group but
neither can it be
accepted that a dictator handpicks who will watch him do as
he pleases.
Thanks to sanctions, travel by Mugabe and Co. to Britain is
off limits. The
European Union may impose the same travel ban, freeze assets
and ban exports
of some items that can be used as weapons or tools of
repression. But it is
equally important to denounce Mugabe if he
misbehaves.
Although the opposition MDC is at an obvious disadvantage
because of
repression, harassment and restrictive laws, it has decided not to
boycott
the election. Therefore, it is the outside world's moral obligation
to give
Zimbabwe's people a fair chance to express their will freely at the
polls.
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.
Telegraph
Mugabe's henchmen replace Churchill
By Peta Thornycroft
in Harare
(Filed: 07/02/2002)
THE Queen and Winston Churchill are
out while Hitler Hunzvi and assorted
henchmen of President Mugabe are in.
Years of anti-colonial rhetoric in
Zimbabwe culminated in the obliteration of
part of the country's history
yesterday with the announcement of new names
for more than 200 state
schools.
Winston Churchill High in Harare will
become Josiah Tongogara High, in
memory of the commander of Mr Mugabe's 1970s
guerrilla army.
Queen Elizabeth Girls' High will be transformed into
Sally Mugabe Girls'
High, after the president's first wife, who died in 1992.
Louis Mountbatten
primary will become Michael Trebber primary, renamed after
a minor luminary
of the struggle against white rule.
Sir Garfield
Todd, 93, the white former prime minister of Southern Rhodesia,
who still
lives in Bulawayo, is being honoured with a school carrying
his
name.
But the most notorious figures of Mr Mugabe's rule are also
honoured. Warren
Park primary will become Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi Primary
School,
immortalising the regime's chief rabble-rouser, who led the invasion
of
white-owned farms.
Hunzvi, one of the most loathed men in Zimbabwe,
died last year from an
Aids-related condition.
Border Gezi, who
achieved equal notoriety for his part in the campaign
against the regime's
opponents, will also have a primary school named in his
honour, a year after
his death in a car crash.
The renaming does not extend to the private
schools attended by the
offspring of the ruling elite, including Mr Mugabe's
children.
His sons, Robert and Bellarmine, attend St George's College and
the Heritage
School respectively, which are both steeped in British tradition
and will
keep their names.
Peterhouse, Falcon, Arundel and the
Rydings, along with other private
schools favoured by ministers, will also
keep their traditional identities.
Colin Powell, the US secretary of
state, said last night measures
restricting travel by the Zimbabwean
leadership were "in the process of
being imposed" after the Harare parliament
approved draconian media laws
ahead of the presidential election.
The Herald
Most colonial school names changed
By Hatred
Zenenga
MOST Government schools now have new names after the Ministry of
Education,
Sports and Culture completed the renaming of the schools last
month.
While the ministry has accepted some suggested new names, many
schools
failed to come up with acceptable names or change their colonial
names,
forcing the authorities to impose new names.
The full list
obtained by The Herald yesterday show the following notable
changes in names:
Prince Edward High now Murenga Boys High (named after the
Njelele High Spirit
that instigated and directed the first Liberation War,
1896-97); Warren Park
3 now Chenjerai Hunzvi Primary (national hero); Mount
Pleasant High now
Joshua Nkomo High (named after the late Vice President).
Allan Wilson
High now Mutapa Boys High (named after the founding father of
the glorious
Mutapa Empire); Queen Elizabeth Girls now Sally Mugabe Girls
High (after the
late First Lady and national heroine); Milton High now
Khumalo High (name of
suburb in which school is located); King George VI now
Lookout Masuku Primary
(national hero); Townsend High now Joseph Msika High
(named after the Vice
President).
Churchill High now Josiah Tongogara High (national hero);
Blakistone Primary
School now Shearly Cripps Primary (named after priest who
championed African
interests); Moffat Primary now Basil Nyabadza Primary
(activist of
Chimurenga II); Kuwadzana 5 School now Moven Mahachi Primary
(national
hero); Morgan High now Joseph Culverwell High (national hero); Seke
1 High
now Seke Mutema High (named after chief Seke 1).
Queensdale
Primary now Safirio Madzikatire Primary (after the late musician
and
performing artist); David Livingstone Jr now Guy Clutton-Brock
Primary
(national hero); Kuwadzana 6 now Maurice Nyagumbo Primary (national
hero);
Warren Park 4 now Eddison Sithole Primary (named after a veteran
leader of
the struggle); Gillingham School now Brigadier Gumbo Primary
(national
hero).
Umvukwes Primary now Border Gezi (national hero);
Jameson High now Kadoma
High (town name); Fletcher High School now Alfred
Knottenbelt High (a former
head of Fletcher High); Cecil John Rhodes School
now Gweru Primary School
(name of town); Guinea Fowl High School now Benson
Ndemera High (former
Provincial Governor of Midlands); St Joseph’s Secondary
now Mqabuko Nkomo
High (named after the late Vice President).
Schools
were given four months in which to come up with new names that
were
indigenous and reflected the country’s national identity.
The new
names have been forwarded for approval to the Cabinet Committee on
Place
Names.
Outcomes After Harare Poll
Business Day
(Johannesburg)
OPINION
February 6, 2002
Posted to the web February
6, 2002
Greg Mills
It will be harder for SA to avoid acting
against Mugabe if election is seen
as fraudulent.
AT THIS month's
World Economic Forum, President Thabo Mbeki confirmed that
Pretoria and the
Southern African Development Community were focused on
trying to ensure that
the elections in Zimbabwe are free and fair. This is
also the intention of
three days of deliberations at the start of February
of the SADC task team on
Zimbabwe.
For many observers, such pronouncements are too little too
late, given the
ruling Zanu (PF)'s disregard for the rule of law and violent
intimidation
tactics of Zimbabwe's opposition over the past 18 months. It
also raises
questions about why southern African leaders have been so slow to
condemn
President Robert Mugabe's tactics.
Even to the most autistic
of observers, for a long time it has been evident
that Mugabe is out of
control, quiet diplomacy will not work, and SA policy
is pivotal to ensuring
free and fair elections and yet is wholly
ineffectual. Moreover, as Mbeki
himself hinted at the forum, the Zimbabwe
crisis has adversely affected the
promise of the New Partnership for
Africa's Development (Nepad) and the
related confidence in African
guarantees of good governance
self-regulation.
Nepad's origins might, however, partly explain the
continent's reluctance to
appear more strident in their dealings with Harare
- where SADC wants to be
at least seen to be providing an African solution
and not be seen to be
dictated to, especially by the west. Some SADC leaders
might also fear a
precedent for a more interventionist stance against Harare
given that more
than half of the regional body's 14 member states have
questionable
democratic credentials. The outcome is rhetoric and
inaction.
Whatever the failings of analysis and of quiet diplomacy, the
damage is now
largely done. Assessing a way forward beyond the election is,
however, tied
to the outcome. Here two scenarios emerge, with quite
different
implications.
The first of these is that the election is
declared to be substantially free
and fair, principally due to two
interventions one, the role of
international observers and two, the upholding
of the Zimbabwe Supreme Court
decision allowing voters to use registration
documents as proof of
citizenship.
If Mugabe wins in this scenario,
the outcome and the relationship with the
donor community - is clearly less
sanguine than an opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) victory.
Focus would probably have to shift to
trying to find a way to "encourage"
Mugabe to step down, without which the
economy will continue its long-term
decline. In the event of an electoral
win by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai,
the focus will shift to immediate food
and fuel needs and shipments and, in
the longer term, the reorganisation of
the Zimbabwean political economy
including the civil service. Whoever wins,
following poor rains and the
disruption caused to commercial farming by the
activities of Mugabe's war
veterans, the MDC estimates that there is a
requirement to import 2-million
tons of maize - the staple of most
Zimbabweans' diets - between now and
mid-2003, and about 150000 tons of
wheat and 120000 tons of soya.
What
happens personally to Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) cadres will, to a
great
extent, probably depend on the manner of their political departure the
more
graceful, the less likely a Pinochet/Milosevictype trial, though this
can be
no guarantee of what steps other nations might take in this
respect.
The second, less positive, scenario is that the election is
defrauded (and
won) by Mugabe in a blatant manner. What happens next will to
a great extent
depend on whether Africa declares the election result
acceptable (or not),
and what the reaction of the west will be. This might
lead to a North-South
split on the issue, with devastating impact on Nepad
and on southern
Africa's investment prospects. The Commonwealth will likely
be split down
the middle. External reaction will no doubt, however, be
overshadowed by
internal developments, with a rapid deterioration in social,
economic and
security conditions, and with a direct impact on SA in the form,
for
example, of increased refugee flows.
The factor that appears to
lie between chaos and an orderly transition is
thus the role to be played by
the external community in saturating Zimbabwe
with election
monitors/observers, and in providing media coverage of the
election and
putting on pressure for accreditation, not least so that Africa
cannot ignore
a blatant fraud. Here the SADC and others share the same
method to get out of
the mess, even though they have got to this juncture
along quite different
paths.
SA will, of course, find it much more difficult to avoid dealing
directly
with a fraudulent outcome, not least because of its status in the
region,
its own democratic credentials and its leadership role in
Nepad.
Like others, it will have to consider what mechanisms it could use
to
reinstate the rule of law and democratic process in Zimbabwe, including
the
possible application of sanctions smart or otherwise. Put simply,
following
the poll, Pretoria, like others, will not simply be able to dodge
acting
against Mugabe on the basis that this could jeopardise the election
process.
Mills is the National Director of the SA Institute of
International Affairs
based at the University of the
Witwatersrand.
US in process of imposing Zimbabwe sanctions: Powell
AFP
Washington,
February
7
-------------------------------------------------------------The
US has said it was in the process of imposing travel sanctions on
Zimbabwean
leaders, to punish the country's tough new media and
security
laws.
Secretary of State Colin Powell issued a new condemnation
of the government
of President Robert Mugabe yesterday, during an appearance
before the
International Relations Committee of the House of
Representatives.
"The travel sanctions are in a process of being imposed,
I am not sure
whether they have been imposed or not, but we are certainly
going to use the
legislation as provided to us," Powell said.
The US
Congress last year passed the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic
Recovery Act,
which allows for targetted sanctions against people identified
as responsible
for political violence in the country.
Washington had previously said it
was only considering implementing the
legislation, and was consulting on
punitive measures with partners in
Britain and Europe.
Powell was
speaking a week after Zimbabwe's parliament passed a tough law
limiting the
freedoms of the independent and foreign press ahead of crucial
presidential
elections.
The law requires journalists to seek accreditation every year
from a panel
hand-picked by Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, which has
wide-ranging
powers of discretion.
Foreigners are already unable to
work full-time in Zimbabwe.
The law forbids journalists from reporting on
meetings of the cabinet or
other government bodies and those who violate its
provisions face stiff
fines and up to two years in prison.
FinGaz
Gwanda stands up to ZANU PF
From Njabulo Ncube Bulawayo
Bureau Chief
2/7/02 1:48:55 AM (GMT +2)
GWANDA SOUTH — More than 3 000
Zimbabweans shrugged off threats of violence
from boisterous supporters of
the ruling ZAPU and the scorching sun to
listen to Morgan Tsvangirai, leader
of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), as he kicked off his
campaign for the March
presidential election here at the weekend.
The
previous day, ZANU PF’s so-called war veterans and its militia had
threatened
to unleash violence on anyone rooting for the MDC. But come
Saturday morning,
the residents of Gwanda South streamed to Pelandaba
Stadium, the venue of the
rally.
Some residents found queueing for the staple mealie-meal in this
drought-hit
province of Matabeleland South were assaulted by the ruling party
mobs on
the grounds that they wanted to feed Tsvangirai and his people from
the
"towns", eyewitness told this reporter.
But this did little to
scare away Gwanda South’s residents from the rally,
held in a town won by the
ruling party in the 2000 parliamentary elections.
The MDC’s elections
director Paul Themba Nyathi won the Gwanda North
constituency in the same
polls.
Most Gwanda residents started flocking into the football pitch
shortly after
11 am, unmoved by the presence of ZANU PF’s militia who were
pacing the
breadth and width of the venue.
When Tsvangirai’s convoy of
11 four-wheel-drive vehicles swept into
Pelandaba Stadium just before 2 pm,
the MDC supporters, many clad in the
party’s T-shirts and other campaign
regalia, erupted into a frenzy, much to
the chagrin of ZANU PF’s
militia.
"Chinja maitiro, guqula izenzo," they said, meaning Change Your
Ways. The
stadium vibrated and the crowd gyrated to MDC slogans.
"We
want change," they chanted in unison as they saluted Tsvangirai, who was
clad
in a navy blue leisure shirt and had a matching pair of trousers.
The MDC
chief wasted no time, telling his supporters to shun violence in
which 100
people, most of them MDC followers, have been killed in the past
two
years.
Tsvangirai specifically named the green-shirted members of ZANU
PF’s
national youth brigade, who have been trained by the government at
the
Border Gezi Institute in Mashonaland Central, as being behind
the
countrywide violence.
"I would like first of all to ask everyone
who managed to grace this
important occasion to give a round of applause to
our police for coming here
to protect us from political thugs," he said amid
thunderous applause.
"Please also clap your hands for members of the CIO
(Central Intelligence
Organisation) who are here as well as the army. The
police and the army
belong to the people. They are our security and there is
no way we are going
to abandon them when I cruise to victory.
"We are
not worried by some of the statements by some people that they will
not
support me when I win," he said, referring to a statement by army
chief
Vitalis Zvinavashe a month ago.
"I am going to win comfortably
and those who feel they won’t measure up to
expectations should resign
voluntarily. But what is important is that we are
not going to purge anyone
from the army. Those who will leave will do so on
their own accord.
Professionals will continue to discharge their duties in
all the security
branches."
Tsvangirai also spoke at length about the war in the
Democratic Republic of
the Congo (DRC), the creation of jobs, an orderly and
equitable distribution
of land and the need to bring to book corrupt
officials in President Robert
Mugabe’s regime, among other
things.
"The country’s involvement in the DRC war was uncalled for
because we
believe it has not benefited the entire populace but ‘chefs’ in
this
government. My priority will be to bring our boys back from the DRC,"
he
said much to the delight of the people.
While admonishing war
veterans over what he said was their irresponsible
behaviour for allowing
themselves to be used by Mugabe, he assured them that
his government would
continue with their monthly pensions.
"Don’t be lied upon. You deserve
more than just to be made to stay on the
farms to prop up Mugabe. We will not
discontinue your pensions."
On the international front, Tsvangirai said
it was imperative that he
restores relations with the international community
which he said had dumped
Zimbabwe because of the government’s alleged gross
human rights violations.
News24
'Zim woes cost SA billions'
Curiosity
Tangireni
Harare, Zimbabwe - The economies of the 14-member Southern
African
Development Community (SADC) trading bloc have lost over US$36
billion in
potential investment because of the political crisis in
Zimbabwe.
Quoting a report by the American Chamber of Commerce, the
Brussels-based
International Crisis Group (ICG) said the socio-political and
economic
upheavals in Zimbabwe had serious repercussions for the whole
southern
African region.
South Africa, the region's biggest economy,
was the most seriously affected,
losing $3 billion in potential
investment.
"South Africa risks serious structural damage to its economy
if it does not
take urgent action to prevent further collapse in
Zimbabwe.
"The impact of the deteriorating situation in its neighbour to
the north has
been particularly noticeable in the falling rand," says
ICG.
The ICG, a multi-national organisation committed to preventing
conflict
globally, said while other factors come into play, the situation in
Zimbabwe
principally contributed to the recent fall of the rand.
The
rand sank by 25% during 2000, 30% since January 2001, and then a further
4.5%
in the first week of December 2001.
Zimbabwe's ministry of finance and
economic development said it had no
capacity to quantify the losses, if there
were any, and referred all
questions to the SADC secretariat in
Botswana.
Three weeks ago, another government spokesperson denied that
the economic
slump in South Africa was a result of the political situation in
Zimbabwe.
He attributed the decline of the rand to a general global economic
recession
also affecting countries such as Japan and the United
States.
SADC secretariat information officer, Petronella Ndebele, said
she could not
comment as she had not seen the ICG
document.
Independent analysts in Zimbabwe say the ICG's findings are a
ploy by
western countries to put pressure on southern African countries to
take a
firmer stance against the Harare government.
But the ICG
insists that the spongy stance by South Africa on Zimbabwe is
the cause of
its economic woes.
"For example, following the murder of two white
farmers (in Zimbabwe), the
bond market in South Africa suffered a record
one-day outflow of R1.8
billion, and the rand lost value.
"When Deputy
President Jacob Zuma appeared to endorse Mugabe's land grab in
October 2000,
the rand fell again, as it did when opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai was
arrested in December 2001," said the organisation.
Recently, Reserve Bank
governor Tito Mboweni publicly condemned the
situation in Zimbabwe, saying it
had a negative effect on investor
confidence in South Africa.
The
condition of South Africa's parastatals also has been affected.
The ICG
noted that Zimbabwe had, on several occasions, defaulted on debt
payments to
both Eskom and Sasol. It said both companies have had to absorb
the losses as
they allegedly had been instructed by the South African
government to
continue the exports.
However, Zimbabwe's ministry of finance and
economic development this week
insisted that Zimbabwe was now up-to-date with
the payment of its debts to
the electricity utility and fuel
companies.
Zimbabwe, southern Africa's second most diversified economy,
has seen its
exports plunging and witnessed a general economic collapse in
the past few
years.
The country's negative growth rate, estimated at
4.2% for 2000, the last
year for which statistics are available, is said to
have "greatly affected
average gross domestic product (GDP) of the
sub-region".
This decline is evident in Zimbabwe's trade figures, which
show an overall
decline from 1999 to 2000 of 6.4%.
The loss in the
vital food sector was 4.5% from 1999 to 2000, and a dramatic
61% down on a
decade earlier. - African Eye News Service
