Living in a state of
terror Peter Oborne has just returned from Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe is
clinging on to power by starving and terrorising his own people THERE has
been a row during the last fortnight about whether the government should ban
the English cricket team from travelling to Zimbabwe for next month's World
Cup. But the cricket has obscured the real issue. And that is whether
Britain and the world community will intervene to stop Robert Mugabe from
torturing, terrorising and starving to death the people of Zimbabwe.
I
spent two weeks in this beautiful country shortly before Christmas, making a
film for Channel 4. We travelled illegally. Dr Mugabe does not want
the world to know what he is up to, so he has banned foreign journalists.
We posed as golfers, using secret cameras. We learnt that the famine
that looms for eight million Zimbabwean citizens - more than half the
population - is no natural disaster. There is indeed a drought. But Mugabe,
in an act of pure evil, has taken advantage of this for his own loathsome
purposes. Elderly and unpopular, he has one weapon left in his battle to
hang on to power: the ability to use the power of the state to starve and
terrorise. Everyone we met had been physically attacked by Mugabe's Zanu-PF
ruling party at some stage. The guide who took us round had a recent scar on
his face. We asked him how he had come by it. He explained that he had been
canvassing in a rural area before the assembly elections of 2000.
One
night he and his friends were sleeping in huts outside a village. They were
petrol-bombed, so they ran for their lives to escape. But outside Zanu-PF
were waiting. He was tripped up. As he fell to the ground he turned his
head. It was as well that he did: his assailant was bringing down an iron
bar on to the back of his head. It slewed into the side of his face rather
than crashing into his skull. Our guide reacted fast: he threw sand into the
eyes of his attacker and ran away. But his troubles were still not over. He
checked into the hospital with a gaping wound from his cheekbone to the top
of his mouth, only to be told that he needed police authority to be treated.
So he went to the police, who charged him with assault and locked him in a
cell for 48 hours, his gaping wound festering all the while and untreated.
The point about this horrible little story is that it was routine, barely a
matter for comment. Zanu-PF violence and political murder have become a
routine part of the culture of Zimbabwean politics, rather as the television
chat show sets the tone in Britain. There have been four assassination
attempts on Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change
opposition, over the past two years. Two of his MPs have died suspiciously
in the past 12 months while a third, Mtoliki Sibanda, is now in hiding after
two attempts on his life. All MPs are followed by the secret police and
subject to threats. When I met Joel Gabbuza, the MP for Binga in the rural
north of the country where the famine is at its worst, I asked him whether he
had been terrorised. He said he was relaxed during the day but 'when you are
asleep at night you are not sure who is kicking around the house'. He told
how, after this summer's presidential elections, his little family grocery
store was wrecked: 'they destroyed all the windows, cut off the door, got
inside the shop, cut down all the shelves and smashed all the goods that were
inside the shop'. According to Amnesty, some 58 people were victims of
state-approved killing in the first nine months of last year - rather more
than one a week.
That is almost certainly a gross underestimate. Most of
the murders are local, and do not come to national attention. The following
episode gives some grounds for believing this to be the case. Upon reaching
Bulawayo, the second largest town in Zimbabwe and an MDC stronghold, we
sought to maintain our cover as golfers. The Bulawayo golf club turned out
to be frequented mainly by white businessmen from what remains of the town's
once prosperous commercial centre. We had some difficulty getting on to the
course because of a tournament. But what we learnt when we finally got to
play showed what makes Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe so special. Two weeks before
there had been a blockage in the sewage system by the 17th hole. It was
clogged up with dead bodies: they showed signs of torture and had been
decapitated. The police arrived to collect the dead bodies, but otherwise
showed no interest in how they came to be on the course. The incident was
not reported in the press. The bodies were found at about the same time as
the Insiza by-election, when there were a number of unaccountable
abductions. This kind of state terrorism has been going on in Zimbabwe for
years, though in recent times it has grown much worse. But the prospect of
famine has handed Mugabe a new weapon, which opens for him the possibility of
a move towards genocide. Maize is the national subsistence food. Once it
has been ground down in the mills, it is turned into a porridge-like
substance known to the people as mealie meal. Mealie meal is as ubiquitous,
and as essential for the nourishment of the population at large, as the
potato was in Ireland before the great famine of 1846-9.
Mugabe has
seized control of the supply of mealie meal. He insists that it is marketed
and distributed through the state-owned Grain Marketing Board, which he can
oversee and dominate. I went to look at the imposing GMB silos in Bulawayo.
From there maize is sent to approved millers, all under Zanu-PF control.
These millers then convert the maize to mealie meal, and sell it on to local
ward councillors at a wholesale price of ZM$240 per 20 kilos. These
councillors organise a distribution point in each ward, selling it on to
local people at a 20 per cent mark-up, or ZM$300. This process is abused at
every stage. The millers themselves are threatened by freelance Zanu-PF
thugs, who force them to sell the mealie meal at cost, and then make huge
profits by taking it on to the open market. While I was in Zimbabwe the thugs
were selling mealie meal at ZM$1,000 or more per 20 kilos. In most of the
country, the only way to get hold of mealie meal is by paying these prices,
far beyond the pockets of ordinary people. When we were in the Beitbridge
area of southern Zimbabwe there was general starvation. But one little shop,
the River Ranch Store, was always full of mealie meal. It belonged to Kembo
Mohadi, the Beitbridge MP and Robert Mugabe's home affairs minister. We went
to have a look. It was a menacing place, full of young Zanu-PF thugs
drinking beer. But the storeroom was loaded with perhaps 500 bulging sacks
of mealie meal at ZM$900 apiece. I was told that the minister concerned
educated his daughter at a private school in Australia. This was the reverse
side of the starvation: a small group of gangster ministers making a fortune
out of the horror. But this kind of corruption is almost a side issue. The
main point is how the state marketing of grain is used as a mechanism to
punish Mugabe's political opponents. Mugabe has forbidden any private
movement of maize.
Zanu-PF thugs set up roadblocks on all main routes.
Anyone carrying maize will have it confiscated. Vehicles travelling from
Beitbridge in the south to Victoria Falls in the north are frequently stopped
and searched as much as a dozen times in the course of the journey. The
purpose is to prevent food reaching opposition areas. In Beitbridge,
notwithstanding widespread starvation in the surrounding district, the
government has impounded a 132 metric tonnes of maize delivery brought in by
the MDC. It now sits rotting in a compound, surrounded by barbed wire. Only
one method of food distribution remains - at least nominally - outside the
control of President Mugabe. This is through non-governmental-organisations
(NGOs), and about 20 of these operate in Zimbabwe.
Some NGOs find it
better just to co-operate with Zanu-PF. But NGOs which insist on overseeing
distribution are often prevented from operating. This was the fate of both
the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace and Save the Children while we
were in Binga in early November. Both were accused outrageously of
collaborating with the MDC. Travelling through remote areas in the Binga
district, we were told again and again by starving people that no maize had
reached them from NGOs for months President Mugabe is a terrorist. His aim
from the start of his rule 23 years ago has been to eliminate opposition
through violence. On several occasions he has come close to achieving this
goal. The first was in the late 1980s, in the wake of the Gukurabnundi
campaign in Matabeleland. Mugabe used his notorious 5 Brigade, trained by
North Korean instructors, to suppress internal dissent. Perhaps 20,000 were
massacred, with not a word of criticism from Britain and the outside world.
We are moving towards a repeat of the tragedy of the early 1980s, only on a
colossal scale. Finding out about Zimbabwe today is uncannily like reading
about Nazi Germany during the 1930s. There is the same steady erosion of the
independence of the army, the civil service and the institutions of the
state. With both Zanu-PF and the Nazis, there is also the parallel party
organisation to be considered. This runs alongside, but always overrides,
formal state institutions like the police. Hitler's brown shirts have their
own very precise counterpart in Mugabe's Youth Leagues or, as they are
colloquially known, Green Bombers. There is still a tendency to attribute
state-sanctioned illegality, of which land seizures form a tiny proportion,
to so-called war veterans. The real thugs are the young men (and some women)
now being trained in the youth camps. This is a sinister and horrible
phenomenon. As I understand it they are a development only of the last 18
months at most. You can see these Green Bombers in every town. In their
early twenties, they wear heavy boots and combat fatigues. They are
responsible for a growing proportion of the killings, rapes and gratuitous
violence aimed at the MDC opposition. They are on the road blocks and
control the illegal supply of mealie meal, making giant profits Effectively
the Green Bombers form a private Zanu-PF army. Young people wishing to
attend higher education are required to spend six months in youth camps.
There they are indoctrinated in Zanu-PF ideology and taught to hate the MDC.
They learn the techniques of state terrorism. They get access to food,
status, money and (because rape goes unpunished) sex.
They are told to
inform against their parents and punished if they fail to do so. Mugabe is
directing his enmity inwards, against his own people, while in the 1930s Nazi
aggression went outwards as well. Members of the government are beginning to
talk the language of ethnic cleansing. This is what Didymus Mutasa, Zanu-PF
organising secretary and a member of Robert Mugabe's politburo, said last
August: 'We would be better off with only six million people, with our own
people who support the liberation struggle. We don't want all these extra
people.' The population of Zimbabwe is now about 12 million. Already a mild
form of genocide is under way: the constant attrition of state murder, the
deliberate starvation of great masses of the people, the displacement of
hundreds of thousands of farm workers to remote and inhospitable camps. The
ingredients are nearly all in place for something altogether larger and more
tragic. But Britain regards herself as powerless to act, while the rest of
the world - preoccupied with Iraq - could not care less. This article is an
edited version of a pamphlet on Zimbabwe, published today by the Centre for
Policy Studies. Peter Oborne's film, Mugabe's Secret Famine, can be seen on
Channel 4 at 8 p.m. this Sunday.
Living in a state of terror Peter
Oborne has just returned from Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe is clinging on to
power by starving and terrorising his own people THERE has been a row during
the last fortnight about whether the government should ban the English
cricket team from travelling to Zimbabwe for next month's World Cup. But the
cricket has obscured the real issue. And that is whether Britain and the
world community will intervene to stop Robert Mugabe from torturing,
terrorising and starving to death the people of Zimbabwe. I spent two weeks
in this beautiful country shortly before Christmas, making a film for Channel
4. We travelled illegally. Dr Mugabe does not want the world to know what
he is up to, so he has banned foreign journalists. We posed as golfers,
using secret cameras. We learnt that the famine that looms for eight million
Zimbabwean citizens - more than half the population - is no natural
disaster. There is indeed a drought. But Mugabe, in an act of pure evil,
has taken advantage of this for his own loathsome purposes. Elderly and
unpopular, he has one weapon left in his battle to hang on to power: the
ability to use the power of the state to starve and terrorise. Everyone we
met had been physically attacked by Mugabe's Zanu-PF ruling party at some
stage. The guide who took us round had a recent scar on his face. We asked
him how he had come by it. He explained that he had been canvassing in a
rural area before the assembly elections of 2000. One night he and his
friends were sleeping in huts outside a village. They were petrol-bombed, so
they ran for their lives to escape. But outside Zanu-PF were waiting. He
was tripped up. As he fell to the ground he turned his head. It was as well
that he did: his assailant was bringing down an iron bar on to the back of
his head. It slewed into the side of his face rather than crashing into his
skull. Our guide reacted fast: he threw sand into the eyes of his attacker
and ran away. But his troubles were still not over. He checked into the
hospital with a gaping wound from his cheekbone to the top of his mouth, only
to be told that he needed police authority to be treated. So he went to the
police, who charged him with assault and locked him in a cell for 48 hours,
his gaping wound festering all the while and untreated. The point about this
horrible little story is that it was routine, barely a matter for comment.
Zanu-PF violence and political murder have become a routine part of the
culture of Zimbabwean politics, rather as the television chat show sets the
tone in Britain. There have been four assassination attempts on Morgan
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change opposition, over the
past two years. Two of his MPs have died suspiciously in the past 12 months
while a third, Mtoliki Sibanda, is now in hiding after two attempts on his
life. All MPs are followed by the secret police and subject to threats. When
I met Joel Gabbuza, the MP for Binga in the rural north of the country
where the famine is at its worst, I asked him whether he had been
terrorised. He said he was relaxed during the day but 'when you are asleep
at night you are not sure who is kicking around the house'. He told how,
after this summer's presidential elections, his little family grocery store
was wrecked: 'they destroyed all the windows, cut off the door, got inside
the shop, cut down all the shelves and smashed all the goods that were inside
the shop'. According to Amnesty, some 58 people were victims of
state-approved killing in the first nine months of last year - rather more
than one a week.
That is almost certainly a gross underestimate. Most of
the murders are local, and do not come to national attention. The following
episode gives some grounds for believing this to be the case. Upon reaching
Bulawayo, the second largest town in Zimbabwe and an MDC stronghold, we
sought to maintain our cover as golfers. The Bulawayo golf club turned out
to be frequented mainly by white businessmen from what remains of the town's
once prosperous commercial centre. We had some difficulty getting on to the
course because of a tournament. But what we learnt when we finally got to
play showed what makes Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe so special. Two weeks before
there had been a blockage in the sewage system by the 17th hole. It was
clogged up with dead bodies: they showed signs of torture and had been
decapitated. The police arrived to collect the dead bodies, but otherwise
showed no interest in how they came to be on the course. The incident was
not reported in the press. The bodies were found at about the same time as
the Insiza by-election, when there were a number of unaccountable
abductions. This kind of state terrorism has been going on in Zimbabwe for
years, though in recent times it has grown much worse. But the prospect of
famine has handed Mugabe a new weapon, which opens for him the possibility of
a move towards genocide. Maize is the national subsistence food. Once it
has been ground down in the mills, it is turned into a porridge-like
substance known to the people as mealie meal. Mealie meal is as ubiquitous,
and as essential for the nourishment of the population at large, as the
potato was in Ireland before the great famine of 1846-9. Mugabe has seized
control of the supply of mealie meal. He insists that it is marketed and
distributed through the state-owned Grain Marketing Board, which he can
oversee and dominate. I went to look at the imposing GMB silos in Bulawayo.
From there maize is sent to approved millers, all under Zanu-PF control.
These millers then convert the maize to mealie meal, and sell it on to local
ward councillors at a wholesale price of ZM$240 per 20 kilos. These
councillors organise a distribution point in each ward, selling it on to
local people at a 20 per cent mark-up, or ZM$300. This process is abused at
every stage. The millers themselves are threatened by freelance Zanu-PF
thugs, who force them to sell the mealie meal at cost, and then make huge
profits by taking it on to the open market. While I was in Zimbabwe the
thugs were selling mealie meal at ZM$1,000 or more per 20 kilos. In most of
the country, the only way to get hold of mealie meal is by paying these
prices, far beyond the pockets of ordinary people. When we were in the
Beitbridge area of southern Zimbabwe there was general starvation. But one
little shop, the River Ranch Store, was always full of mealie meal. It
belonged to Kembo Mohadi, the Beitbridge MP and Robert Mugabe's home affairs
minister. We went to have a look. It was a menacing place, full of young
Zanu-PF thugs drinking beer. But the storeroom was loaded with perhaps 500
bulging sacks of mealie meal at ZM$900 apiece. I was told that the minister
concerned educated his daughter at a private school in Australia. This was
the reverse side of the starvation: a small group of gangster ministers
making a fortune out of the horror. But this kind of corruption is almost a
side issue. The main point is how the state marketing of grain is used as a
mechanism to punish Mugabe's political opponents. Mugabe has forbidden any
private movement of maize. Zanu-PF thugs set up roadblocks on all main
routes. Anyone carrying maize will have it confiscated. Vehicles travelling
from Beitbridge in the south to Victoria Falls in the north are frequently
stopped and searched as much as a dozen times in the course of the journey.
The purpose is to prevent food reaching opposition areas. In Beitbridge,
notwithstanding widespread starvation in the surrounding district, the
government has impounded a 132 metric tonnes of maize delivery brought in by
the MDC. It now sits rotting in a compound, surrounded by barbed wire. Only
one method of food distribution remains - at least nominally - outside the
control of President Mugabe. This is through non-governmental-organisations
(NGOs), and about 20 of these operate in Zimbabwe. Some NGOs find it better
just to co-operate with Zanu-PF. But NGOs which insist on overseeing
distribution are often prevented from operating. This was the fate of both
the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace and Save the Children while we
were in Binga in early November. Both were accused outrageously of
collaborating with the MDC. Travelling through remote areas in the Binga
district, we were told again and again by starving people that no maize had
reached them from NGOs for months President Mugabe is a terrorist. His aim
from the start of his rule 23 years ago has been to eliminate opposition
through violence. On several occasions he has come close to achieving this
goal. The first was in the late 1980s, in the wake of the Gukurabnundi
campaign in Matabeleland. Mugabe used his notorious 5 Brigade, trained by
North Korean instructors, to suppress internal dissent. Perhaps 20,000 were
massacred, with not a word of criticism from Britain and the outside world.
We are moving towards a repeat of the tragedy of the early 1980s, only on a
colossal scale. Finding out about Zimbabwe today is uncannily like reading
about Nazi Germany during the 1930s. There is the same steady erosion of the
independence of the army, the civil service and the institutions of the
state. With both Zanu-PF and the Nazis, there is also the parallel party
organisation to be considered. This runs alongside, but always overrides,
formal state institutions like the police. Hitler's brown shirts have their
own very precise counterpart in Mugabe's Youth Leagues or, as they are
colloquially known, Green Bombers. There is still a tendency to
attribute state-sanctioned illegality, of which land seizures form a tiny
proportion, to so-called war veterans. The real thugs are the young men (and
some women) now being trained in the youth camps. This is a sinister
and horrible phenomenon. As I understand it they are a development only of
the last 18 months at most. You can see these Green Bombers in every town.
In their early twenties, they wear heavy boots and combat fatigues. They
are responsible for a growing proportion of the killings, rapes and
gratuitous violence aimed at the MDC opposition. They are on the road blocks
and control the illegal supply of mealie meal, making giant profits
Effectively the Green Bombers form a private Zanu-PF army. Young people
wishing to attend higher education are required to spend six months in youth
camps. There they are indoctrinated in Zanu-PF ideology and taught to hate
the MDC. They learn the techniques of state terrorism. They get access to
food, status, money and (because rape goes unpunished) sex.
They are
told to inform against their parents and punished if they fail to do so.
Mugabe is directing his enmity inwards, against his own people, while in the
1930s Nazi aggression went outwards as well. Members of the government are
beginning to talk the language of ethnic cleansing. This is what Didymus
Mutasa, Zanu-PF organising secretary and a member of Robert Mugabe's
politburo, said last August: 'We would be better off with only six million
people, with our own people who support the liberation struggle. We don't
want all these extra people.' The population of Zimbabwe is now about 12
million. Already a mild form of genocide is under way: the
constant attrition of state murder, the deliberate starvation of great masses
of the people, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of farm workers to
remote and inhospitable camps. The ingredients are nearly all in place
for something altogether larger and more tragic. But Britain regards herself
as powerless to act, while the rest of the world - preoccupied with Iraq
- could not care less. This article is an edited version of a pamphlet
on Zimbabwe, published today by the Centre for Policy Studies. Peter
Oborne's film, Mugabe's Secret Famine, can be seen on Channel 4 at 8 p.m.
this Sunday.
Whatever colour, Zanu PF is bad for
business THE Business Tribune carried a story last Friday suggesting that our
fuel supply problems would be a thing of the past if the oil sector
was transformed to reflect the country's "political economy".
A crisis
committee headed by Zanu PF MP Saviour Kasukuwere, who owns a company called
Comoil, has been set up to counter the initiative being taken by the CZI to
address the fuel crisis. The CZI committee was denounced as unre-presentative
in the article.
One of the Kasukuwere committee's members is Chiranda
Dhlembeu, MD of FSI Trading, a company linked to Mutumwa
Mawere.
Referring to the alleged imbalance in the oil sector, an unnamed
indigenous oil seller asked: "What would you think if the German fuel
industry was controlled by Egyptians?"
He appeared unaware that the
German fuel industry is owned largely by British, French, American and Dutch
interests - and it works very well!
The following day the Herald carried
a letter from a reader saying how badly customers were being let down at fuel
outlets owned by interests linked to the same lobbyists. Headed "Should we
call this indigenisation?", the writer complained of garage attendants giving
preference to their friends and relatives and those of the manager, youths
pushing in ahead of people lining up for hours to be served, and the owner
often allowing 200-litre drums to be filled.
"Something is happening
to the fuel being delivered at the service stations," the writer complained,
"and it is sickening that the black market is being championed by us blacks.
Do we call that indigenisation?"
He was eventually served at a BP &
Shell station where the queue was orderly and everybody got fuel.
"We
are being treated as equals only at the multinational companies and being
ridiculed at the indigenous service stations," he noted.
Perhaps the fool
who made the remark about the Egyptians in Germany needs to be told
that!
The same day the Mirror ran a commentary, replete with the same
casual racism as the Tribune, suggesting now that indigenous owners were in
charge at Lobels, there would be an improvement in the bread supply
situation. The white bakeries would no longer be able to engage in
"sabotage", it was suggested.
In fact, millers and bakeries owned by
Zimbabweans from all backgrounds have been facing exactly the same problems
in terms of price fixing and cost recovery. Indigenous ownership of Lobels is
welcome in so far as it will prove that shortages are the product not of
foreign plots but bad economic management by government. The same goes for
ownership in the fuel sector.
Those pseudo-independent newspapers that
peddle Zanu PF's racist view of business need to be tackled when shortages
persist and the new owners in a number of sectors discover that no matter
what their colour, Zanu PF is bad for business!
Heath Streak is not
blind to the realities around him despite the rather crass statements he has
been making to the media of late about keeping politics out of sport. We have
also had his father, Dennis, weighing in saying that he was the victim of
international isolation when he was a Rhodesian cricketer and he wouldn't
want to see the same happen to his son.
Streak senior was arrested and
detained in 2001 when his game ranch at Turk Mine was occupied.
The
comments of the two Streaks were carried by a number of news agencies last
Friday. But the Haerald, blissfully oblivious to echoes from the
past, devised a revealing caption for a large picture of Heath which
accompanied the report. "In Defence of the Fatherland," it
read.
Thankfully, not all Zimbabwe team members are mouthing the official
line about politics and sport. The Observer last Sunday carried the views of
team members from different backgrounds who said the tour should not
proceed under the present conditions. It is a sign of the times that they
declined to be named.
Perhaps the most vocal exponent of the tour
going ahead as scheduled has been South Africa's deputy foreign minister Aziz
Pahad. His claim that politics should not intrude in sport, is less
convincing than Heath Streak' s. Here is a minister in a government that came
to power partly as a result of a sports boycott. Now he doesn't think it's
such a good thing. His reason? Nobody should be allowed to compare South
Africa's experience under apartheid with their own. That was unique, he
suggested.
So Zimbabweans must now suffer the depredations of a brutal
and racist tyrant because South Africa's ruling class refuses to share their
experience with anybody else in case the one eclipses the memory of the
other?
Those who study the emergence of dictatorships often comment on
how the line between repression and absurdity is a thin one. This week there
was news that a Masvingo newspaper editor had been arrested and charged under
Aippa. Her offence? Reporting that members of the NCA had been arrested and
charged under Posa.
So reporting repression has now become an abuse of
journalistic privilege? How blunt can this regime get! An MP was arrested
(although charges against him were subsequently dropped) for putting up
posters inviting motorists to hoot if they have had enough. Let's hope this
foolish over-reaction by the police was fully reported abroad so there are no
illusions left about the nature of the regime here as our cricketers line up
to bat for Zimbabwe.
There can certainly be no illusions left about where
NAGG is coming from. Their "national commissar", Lloyd Douglas Chihambakwe,
welcomed the recent dismissal of Geoff Nyarota as editor of the Daily News
saying it represented a "collapse of a major pillar of the British machinery
aimed at upholding white supremacy in Zimbabwe". Nyarota had transformed his
hatred of President Mugabe into a national programme, Chihambakwe
alleged.
And we are asked to believe this comes from an opposition
party?
Didymus Mutasa let the cat out of the bag when he told the Sunday
Mirror last weekend: "There is no opposition to talk about in Zimbabwe
because they lack maturity, probably except for (NAGG leader Shakespeare)
Maya."
What an endorsement!
Zanu PF propagandist William Nhara
evidently doesn't have his finger on the national pulse.
"I am
reliably informed that our own MDC leadership sank in desolation on learning
of the victory of the Kenyan opposition," he wrote in the
Sunday Mail.
What planet is he writing from? The MDC was ecstatic that
an opposition party sharing its values swept from power a corrupt and
autocratic regime that was similar in every material respect to Zanu
PF.
Nhara repeats the ruling party's pathetic attempt to pretend that
Mwai Kibaki and others represent Kenya's nationalist soul and are
therefore fundamentally different from the "foreign-sponsored" MDC. Nhara was
able to quote Kibaki saying Daniel arap Moi had "ushered in an era of
road-side decisions and declarations.(that) had destroyed the authority of
parliament and the independence of the judiciary" without noting a single
parallel with Zimbabwe!
Similarly, the Sunday Mirror's Scrutator
columnist was able to take comfort from the claim that Kenya's "anchor
class", keen to safeguard their interests around the continuity and stability
of the state, had ensured that things didn't fall apart.
This view
conveniently ignores the extent of popular feeling against the corruption and
misgovernance of Kanu. If a handful of senior figures in Zanu PF eventually
defect to the MDC as the economy spirals down, no doubt these same
commentators will describe the subsequent election as Zanu vs Zanu.
At
least the Mirror's preference for an in-house arrangement that would see the
incumbent replaced by acceptable opposition nationalists should be a useful
guide to the reformist thinking in some quarters of the ruling
party.
Geoff Nyarota's departure from the Daily News has seen some
unpleasant point-scoring in those sections of the press masquerading as
independent.
Ignoring the convention about not kicking a man when he is
down, the editor of the Business Tribune, Nevanji Madanhire, took the
opportunity to demand a retraction from Nyarota for claiming Madanhire had
been editor of the Fingaz for only "a few weeks" and that he could not
maintain the "hectic pace" at the Daily News where he had subsequently worked
as a sub-editor.
In fact it was 12 months, Madanhire pointed out
regarding his stint at the Fingaz, and he had left the Daily News for the
"more rewarding post" of PRO at Zesa.
We didn't hear why he left the
Fingaz. But the following paragraph was slipped into the Tribune report:
"Nyarota has often been labelled a congenital liar."
In the Zanu PF
press that is!
We were interested to note that both the Herald and the
Mirror commented in equally indignant terms about Nyarota's temerity in
ordering aerial photographs to be taken of Mirror publisher Ibbo Mandaza's
home "which he had visited in his capacity as Mandaza's friend".
This
was all part of a propaganda campaign, we are told, to "pre-empty" (sic) the
arrival of the Daily Mirror which Nyarota knew would, "unlike the Daily News,
be nationalist and pan-Africanist in outlook". And therefore completely
unreadable!
Following his recent altercation with war veterans, ZBC
propagandist Reuben Barwe seems to want to see things more clearly. One of
Muckraker's spies spotted somebody very much like him in the forex department
of the Africa Unity Square branch of Standard Chartered Bank on Friday,
December 20.
"How much do you need?" the large customer was
asked.
"R5 000", he said.
"What do you need it for?"
"I
need spectacles," he replied.
Perhaps when they arrive all will be clear
about farm invasions!
One thing is clear to Muckraker in all this.
Government journalists whose vision is obscured by rewards for their slavish
devotion to the ruling party 's cause are unlikely to report anything except
what they are told to report.
The Herald's Tim Chigodo is a case in
point. Last Friday he launched a vicious attack on journalists working in the
private sector. In particular, he targeted Geoff Nyarota, Francis Mdlongwa,
and Basildon Peta. None was given the right of reply.
Admittedly,
being attacked by Chigodo must feel something like being savaged by a wet
lettuce, but what was notable about his opportunist assault was that much of
it was inspired by remarks made by Jonathan Moyo and George Charamba. Fingaz
journalists were accused of comparing Mugabe's regime to Al-Qaeda and
reporting that President Thabo Mbeki was "plotting an unconstitutional
ouster" of Mugabe.
Moyo was then quoted at length claiming the report
"smacked of unlawful and treasonous conduct harmful to Zimbabwe's national
interest (and) detrimental to Zimbabwe's national security".
In other
words Chigodo had no opinion of his own. All he was required to do was
reproduce the views of his masters, however silly they might sound.
In
fact, at no point in the Fingaz report was it suggested that Mbeki
was "plotting an unconstitutional ouster" of Mugabe. To proceed from this
false conclusion to facile claims about national security is an obvious
exercise in official stupidity which readers of Information department
statements are only too familiar with.
Whatever the case, if the
Mugabe government behaves like a terrorist regime it is likely to be
described as one. The Information department might attempt to exclude this
reality by hiring not-so-bright journalists to parrot its mantras. But the
more government behaves badly the less credible its shrill denials
become.
Here is a forecast: Even if the cricket tour proceeds and the EU
begins to wonder about the usefulness of sanctions, Zanu PF will continue
its tradition of shooting itself in the foot by perpetrating acts of
repression which so appall the world that no further sports contacts are
permitted and sanctions are tightened. Watch this space!
Finally, we
were interested to read that President Mugabe was introduced to some urban
reality just before Christmas when his motorcade was greeted by waves, hoots
and taunts as it zoomed past a service station on Samora Machel where
hundreds of motorists were queuing for fuel.
According to a report in the
Standard, soldiers packed on an army truck returned to the service station 15
minutes after the motorcade had passed and assaulted people indiscriminately
including kombi drivers and pedestrians.
It is now an offence to make
any sort of gesture towards the motorcade. Motorists in this case appear to
have ignored the edict. And so they should. Mugabe's motorcade is a shocking
display of presidential waste of scarce resources, not to mention arrogance
in a city that has decisively rejected his pretensions.
If motorists
wish to signal their disgust or invite the president to solve their problems,
they have every constitutional right to do so. Mugabe should stop being
scared of democracy. If he cannot address national problems he should do the
right thing - the Moi thing - and go!
THE fierce debate in the past two weeks over Zimbabwe's hosting of
the Cricket World Cup next month provides useful insight into the role
of cultural boycotts in coercing errant rulers to reform.
The
increasingly acrimonious debate has seen politicians and civic
activists visiting the archives in search of parallels between the envisaged
boycott of Zimbabwe's hosting of the Cricket World Cup and the sporting
boycott against apartheid South Africa in the 1970s.
The calls by the
British and Australian governments for a boycott have been construed by the
Harare administration as an extension of the war of words between the "white
Commonwealth" and Zimbabwe because of the land redistribution
exercise.
Britain and Australia say the hosting of the international
event in Zimbabwe would legitimise President Robert Mugabe who they accuse of
stealing the poll in March 2002.
The endorsement of Zimbabwe's hosting
of the event by South Africa, Namibia and Pakistan has been interpreted by
the rulers here as statements of solidarity with Mugabe's
administration.
An International Cricket Council (ICC) mission to
Zimbabwe in November to investigate security concerns by countries scheduled
to play here concluded that Zimbabwe was a safe venue for the
cricketers.
Zimbabwe is co-hosting the event together with main host
South Africa and Kenya. England, Australia, Namibia, the Netherlands and
Pakistan are scheduled to play their opening matches in Harare and Bulawayo
next month.
The government, which is currently labouring to find
legitimacy in the face of international censure, has suddenly jumped on the
opportunity offered by the ICC verdict to interpret it as a clean bill of
health of Zimbabwe's democracy.
The ICC mission concluded that it was
safe for teams to play cricket here without necessarily endorsing the
political system.
"Zimbabwe has the expertise, infrastructure and
capability to deliver a safe and secure event," the ICC concluded.
A
group calling itself Organised Resistance, campaigning against the hosting of
the World Cup here, this week said the ICC report lacked credibility.
It
was "self-serving at best, and dangerous at worst", Organised Resistance said
in a statement this week.
"Security and safety in Zimbabwe is precarious.
People are starving. People get beaten up and harassed by the very
organisations (Zimbabwe Republic Police and the Zimbabwe National Army) that
the ICC chose to meet with and accept assurances from," the group
said.
Local analysts have pointed to the fact that the absence of dead
bodies prostrate on the street - Ivory Coast-style - and human blood flowing
in the gutters does not make Zimbabwe "safe" as the recent murder of an
Australian tourist at Victoria Falls illustrates.
But others have
pointed out that Zimbabwe is not the only regime that abuses human
rights.
China will be hosting the Olympics. Pakistan plays a significant
role in the ICC.
In 1968 the United Nations General Assembly resolved
to call upon all states and organisations to suspend sporting ties with South
African bodies which practised apartheid.
Apartheid became a major
public issue in countries with which South Africa sought sporting
exchanges.
A rugby tour of Britain in 1969 proved a disaster because of
public demonstrations; the British Government was obliged to prevent a
cricket tour in 1970 when Afro-Asian countries threatened to boycott the
Commonwealth Games.
Massive demonstrations greeted the South African
rugby tour of Australia in 1971. The South African team had to be transported
in Australian Air Force planes because of airline trade union
action.
These campaigns strengthened the anti-apartheid movement and
provided tremendous publicity to the struggle for freedom in South
Africa.
But the African National Congress (ANC) government led by Sports
minister Ngconde Balfour and deputy Foreign Affairs minister Aziz Pahad has
shot down any attempt by the international community to draw inspiration from
the apartheid struggle to ostracise Zimbabwe.
The ANC slogan during
the 1970s sports boycott was "no normal sport in an abnormal
society".
Critics of the South African government's stance on the
Zimbabwean cricket debate have accused the ANC of hypocrisy.
There has
been a paradigm shift in the definition of human rights abuses over the past
30 years.
Analysts believe the application of relativism when weighing
human rights abuses and in prescribing the mode of remedy is wrong because
modern repression was now subtler than the legislated apartheid in South
Africa or Adolf Hitler's gory holocaust against the Jews in
Germany.
The Zanu PF government has been accused of systematically
starving opponents, brutalising opposition supporters, destroying the
once-vibrant agricultural sector, arresting journalists and opposition
politicians on spurious charges and authoring Zimbabwe's economic meltdown.
This, analysts say, is intolerable misrule which should provoke an
international outcry.
The opposition in South Africa has come out
strongly to articulate the seemingly double stands of the ANC
government.
Said Donald Lee, Democratic Alliance MP this week: "The ANC
led the sport boycott against South Africa when human rights abuses were
taking place here. Now that human rights abuse is government policy in
Zimbabwe, Balfour wants 'sports people to stay out of
politics'."
Those fighting Zimbabwe's hosting of the event say Mugabe
would try to derive political mileage from it.
The Zimbabwean
government has sought international endorsement from the staging of the Miss
Malaika pageant and the arrival of international tourists to witness the
solar eclipse.
It has used the events to show the world that there is no
violence in Zimbabwe, that the rule of law is alive and well and that
allegations of human rights abuses are fictitious tales manufactured by the
Western media.
Former Minister at the Foreign Office and now Welsh
Secretary, Peter Hain, who led the campaign for a sporting boycott of South
Africa in the 1970s, this week compared Mugabe's regime to Nazi Germany and
said that if England fulfilled the fixture they would be granting him "a
propaganda victory".
"We (the British government) don't think we should
be handing Mugabe a propaganda victory any more than we should have handed
Hitler in 1936 a propaganda victory that he got by staging the Berlin
Olympics," Hain wrote in the British press.
"If international cricket
does not care about this, then what are its values? What does it really stand
for except the right to bat on regardless? The odious Mugabe regime would
gain an enormous propaganda victory if the World Cup went ahead," he
said.
Perhaps the most striking feature about this debate is the lack of
interest by the ordinary Zimbabwean who the Zimbabwe Cricket Union believes
would benefit from the staging of the World Cup here.
The debate has
been given more air play and column centimetres in the foreign media than in
local papers.
There are more pressing issues for Zimbabweans to think
about - how to put a meal on the table.
Would ordinary Zimbabweans
rather spend the day perched on a terrace in the sun watching the soporific
(for the uninitiated) routine of bowling and batting or in a mealie-meal
queue?
What we do know is that in the capital Harare and the second city
Bulawayo where the matches are being played, the public have expressed
opposition to anything that enables Mugabe to pretend that Zimbabwe is a
normal society.
The sports boycott of South Africa took several years
before it succeeded in isolating that country. The cricket tour of Zimbabwe
may well proceed. But it may also be the last such tournament played
here.
THE
treason trial of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and two senior MDC officials,
set for 3 February, will be among the highlights of this year's legal
calendar which opens on Monday next week.
Tsvangirai is on $3
million bail. His co-accused are Welshman Ncube, the party's
secretary-general, and Renson Gasela, the MP for Gweru Rural and the party's
shadow minister of agriculture.
They face allegations of plotting
to assassinate President Mugabe. Ncube and Gasela were initially granted $500
000 bail each, but were later ordered to pay another $500 000 each when their
trial date was set in September last year. The State is relying on
the evidence of Ari-Ben Menashe, the head of a Canadian consultancy firm
allegedly hired by the MDC to eliminate Mugabe, and three other witnesses
identified as Alexander H Legault, Tara Thomas and Bernard
Schober.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is expected to deliver a
landmark judgment following an application by the Independent
Journalists' Association challenging the constitutionality of sections of the
draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
The court's ruling will determine the legality or otherwise of the powers of
the government-appointed Media and Information Commission to register
journalists.
The journalists' body is also challenging section 80
under which more than a dozen journalists from the private Press have been
arrested.
Other high-profile cases in the High Court include the
trial of Cleopas Kundiona, a Zanu PF official in Marondera, and six others on
murder charges. Kundiona allegedly conspired with his co-accused to kill
Musekiwa Kufakwadziya, a political opponent in the run-up to the 2000
parliamentary election.
The trial of Fletcher Dulini-Ncube, the
MP for Lobengula-Magwegwe (MDC) and five party supporters implicated in the
murder of Bulawayo war veteran leader, Cain Nkala, is set to resume on 20
January. On 3 March MDC youths, Remember Moyo and Khethani Sibanda, will
appear in the High Court for the alleged murder of Limukani Lupahla, a Zanu
PF youth leader, in Lupane.
Albertina Gwavava, a former
financial director at Export Leaf Tobacco, on trial for allegedly defrauding
the company of over $42 million, returns to the High Court when her trial
continues on 17 March
Zim Independent
Tsvangirai slams Mugabe Blessing Zulu MOVEMENT for
Democratic Change (MDC) president Morgan Tsvangirai has castigated the Mugabe
regime for abusing the uniformed forces for
personal aggrandisement.
In a speech delivered to MDC MPs and ward
councillors yesterday, Tsvangirai said the abuse of the uniformed forces was
a desperate measure to crush the opposition.
"The Mugabe regime
has been using scare tactics to foment hostility in the Zimbabwe uniformed
forces towards the MDC," Tsvangirai said.
"The common tactic used has
been to cast these uniformed forces as part of the political structures of
Zanu PF. In this context the vain, cowardly and despicable strategy has been
to try to portray the national uniformed forces, together with Zanu PF, as
the common political opponents of the MDC," said Tsvangirai.
He
said an MDC-led government would respect the professional integrity
and autonomy of all the uniformed forces.
"We have no political
quarrel with the Zimbabwe uniformed forces and we regard all of them as
patriotic, national, (and) professional, rather than partisan and
political... The MDC unequivocally recognises and unconditionally accepts
that the ZNA, the AFZ and the ZRP, just like the civil service, are permanent
and eternally-enduring national institutions, which are provided for in the
Zimbabwean Constitution," Tsvangirai said.
The MDC leader said the
time when uniformed forces interfered in politics was over.
"The
plain truth is that the world is now a hostile place for uniformed forces
that expand their roles to the realm of politics.
"There should be
absolutely no room for the involvement of the armed forces in political
contests between the MDC and Zanu PF," Tsvangirai said. Bringing them into
politics violated the Police Act and Defence Act, he said, thereby seriously
undermining political neutrality and professionalism. He said attempts to use
the army in politics was the reason the MDC had recently declined to
negotiate with retired army officers.
"This overt and illegitimate
militarisation of politics is one of the key reasons why the MDC has spurned
recent efforts through some shadowy and retired military elements to involve
the uniformed forces in the search for a political solution to the country's
problems," Tsvangirai said. Daily News
Tsvangirai slams Mugabešs abuse of uniformed
forces
1/10/2003 12:44:05 PM (GMT +2)
Staff
Reporter
The MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, says President Mugabe
is using scare tactics within the uniformed forces to foment hostility
towards the opposition.
Addressing MDC MPs and ward councillors
on the partyšs position on the Zimbabwe armed forces in Harare yesterday,
Tsvangirai said the common tactic used was to cast the uniformed forces as
part and parcel of the political structures of Zanu PF.
"In this
context, the vain, cowardly and despicable strategy has been to try to
portray the uniformed forces, together with Zanu PF, as the common political
opponents of the MDC. This is a deliberate attempt by Zanu PF to bring the
uniformed forces into its political battles against the people, led by the
MDC," said Tsvangirai.
He said the MDC had no political quarrel
with the armed forces and regarded them as patriotic, national, professional
and apolitical. "The uniformed forces have absolutely nothing to fear from an
MDC government. They can look forward to a healthy and professional future
that is free of political abuse," said Tsvangirai.
An MDC
government, he said, would protect and respect the professional integrity and
organisational autonomy of all the uniformed forces. The organisational
hierarchy and seniority of all the uniformed forces would be respected and
guaranteed, and the criteria for advancement and
promotion respected.
Tsvangirai said the MDC unequivocally
recognised and unconditionally accepted that the Zimbabwe National Army, the
Air Force of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Republic Police, just like the civil
service, were permanent national institutions, which are provided for in the
Zimbabwe Constitution.
"An MDC government will not implement,
tolerate or support any policy or programme that deliberately seeks to
disrupt the organisational integrity and professionalism of the uniformed
forces," Tsvangirai said. Pensions and all other benefits would be guaranteed
and the usual public service mechanisms to keep pensions in line with the
cost of living adjustments would apply.
He said if the MDC came
into power, it would implement a programme of national healing and
reconciliation. "We shall not allow past memories, past bitterness and past
vendettas to continue to haunt the nation. No one will benefit from dwelling
in the past. "There will be no recrimination or persecution of members of the
uniformed forces. We will expect and encourage the uniformed forces to join
the nation as one patriotic force and march together with courage and
determination towards the rebuilding of our country," the MDC leader
said. Tsvangirai said the uniformed forces should not agree to act as
armed wings of any political party, but to act as non-partisan patriotic
units rendering non-political and constitutionally determined service to
the nation as a whole.
"Under an MDC government, all members of
the uniformed forces will be free to exercise their democratic political
rights as citizens and participate in electoral politics as private
individuals, but never as organised units of the uniformed forces," he
said.
The root of the crisis in Zimbabwe was a crisis of
governance, which manifests itself in a political contest between the MDC and
ZANU PF, Tsvangirai said.
"The Zimbabwe uniformed forces are not
party to this political contest and therefore they have absolutely no
political role to play in it."
SCORES of villagers on Tuesday re-invaded former MP Albert Chamwadoro' s farm
near Mashava and looted property worth over $3 million before destroying the
farmhouse, the former MP alleged yesterday.
The villagers defied a
High Court order, granted by Justice Charles Hungwe last year, to leave the
farm. Chamwadoro, who fled his farm, said about 13 villagers stormed the
farmhouse and looted property, before setting a cattle pen alight.
"Three sheep and a goat were stolen and I hold the invaders liable," he said.
"I am now afraid to go back to the farm."
Police in Mashava on
Tuesday confirmed the incident and said they had arrested three people,
including Steven Zibako, the self- styled leader of the invaders.
Chamwadoro's farm, Lot One of Allanvale Farm, has been at the centre of
controversy after the Masvingo provincial land committee, headed by governor
Josaya Hungwe ordered villagers to invade the property.
Although
the government had indicated that black-owned farms would be spared from
acquisition, Hungwe insisted Chamwadoro's be taken over
for resettlement. Chamwadoro appealed to the High Court where
Justice Charles Hungwe ruled in his favour.
The judge ordered
the Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, and the officer-in-charge at
Mashava Police Station, Kenneth Kondo, to remove the invaders. He
ordered that Josaya Hungwe and Makanzwei Jecheche, the Masvingo District
Administrator should not set their foot on the farm unless the court ordered
them to do so.
The farm was bought by Chamwadoro in 1999 from
Mashava and Shabani mines.
Chamwadoro, the former MP for Chivi
North, said yesterday: "We are just waiting for the law to take its
course." Zim Independent
New wave of invasions hit farmers Blessing Zulu IN
a move likely to drive away remaining investors in the agricultural sector, a
new wave of invasions has hit parts of the country targeting the few
remaining commercial farmers, many of whom took out loans from banks
to produce for the season.
Section 8 orders are still being issued
to farmers and the mayhem that characterised the exercise in 2000/2001 is now
being repeated to scare-off commercial farmers who had already planted their
crops.
Farmers issued with Section 8 orders are being given only
seven days to vacate their farms.
Last week a Beatrice farmer,
Johann Muller, was evicted from his farm by ruling party supporters despite
the fact it had been delisted.
Justice for Agriculture president
David Conolly said his members had been affected by the new wave of
invasions.
"We are well aware of what is happening on the farms at
the moment," said Conolly.
"Farmers who have planted their crops
have been hard hit by these latest invasions. We will continue to challenge
these actions in court although we are well aware that once we get a relief
order from the courts they will rush to parliament to amend the law," he
said.
Farmers who borrowed money from banks and from FSI Agricom
Holdings, a company linked to Mutumwa Mawere, risk losing all their
investment.
Commercial Farmers Union president Collin Cloete said
commercial farmers had been loaned money for agricultural productivity. "FSI
Agricom
approached new and old farmers and assisted them with money for
inputs," said Cloete.
An official at FSI Agricom said he was not
aware of the latest development.
"We invested a lot of money in
agriculture but we are not aware that those we loaned money to have been
invaded," the official said.
The move is also likely to result in the
pulling out of agriculture by companies such as Delta which had also provided
funding for production of barley.
Despite assertions that the
government's chaotic land grab exercise was over, the government is still
issuing Section 5 and 8 orders with a view to compulsorily acquiring farmers
thereby disrupting operations on the few farms that have been
tilled.
The government last Friday published a list of farms which it
wants to compulsorily acquire for resettlement. The total land area of the
farms to be acquired is 69 236 hectares.
Highdon Investments, a company contracted to supply water
treatment chemicals to the City of Harare, is alleged to have prejudiced the
council of more than $118 million through overcharging, according to a
report prepared by the council's internal audit.
The company is
owned by Mcdonald, Define and Debra Chapfika. Macdonald, the managing
director, is the brother of the Zanu PF Member of Parliament for Mutoko
North, David Chapfika.
The audit report says Highdon Investments,
which won the tender to supply powdered activated carbon from March to
December last year, prejudiced the council by charging $280 instead of the
contract price of $90 a kilogramme. But Macdonald Chapfika denied
any wrongdoing yesterday.
He said: "Our bid is very clear. We never
said our price was fixed at $90 a kg. Our document had the two prices and we
charged the higher price whenever we sourced the required foreign currency
ourselves."
The report says Highdon Investments had also not
reimbursed the council the Z$32 447 250 paid to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) for the foreign currency released to the manufacturer, Loyal Crown of
Hong Kong, in August and September.
The arrangement was that the
council paid the RBZ in local currency for the foreign currency disbursed to
Loyal Crown in Hong Kong, the carbon manufacturers, and Highdon Investments
would reimburse the council with the same amount. But Chapfika said: "That
information is not up-to-date. We don' t owe them anything. I cannot recall
the dates off-hand, but at one stage the council owed us $37 million and that
money was used to offset what they owed us."
The contract was
awarded by the Commission led by the former diplomat, Elijah Chanakira, after
the government had sacked the Zanu PF-dominated council led by Solomon
Tawengwa.
The MDC won the mayoral and council elections last March.
The auditors have recommended that the council seek legal opinion on the
unauthorised price adjustment.
"A similar contract for lime is
still being investigated to assess whether the same problem in the carbon
contract is not also in the lime contract," the report says.Lime is used in
water treatment as well. Elias Mudzuri, the executive mayor, could not be
reached for comment.
The audit investigation followed a 2 July 2002
instruction from the city treasurer to the audit manager to make random
checks on payments, correct pricing and actual receipt of goods due to the
high level of expenditure on chemicals.
According to the report,
the specifications for the contract were based on the fact that the RBZ would
provide foreign currency for all purchases of the activated carbon. Bidders
would, therefore, not be required to source their own foreign
currency.
Highdon Investments, in its bid documents, submitted two
options on the pricing. It said it would charge $90 a kg for the carbon if
the council provided the foreign currency, or $280 a kg "if council requested
Highdon to provide forex".
But when considering Highdon
Investments' tender, all the tender processing teams ignored the second
option because the foreign currency was going to be provided by the
RBZ.
As a result, the report from the adjudication committee to
the Procurement Board did not have the second option and the board
only deliberated on, and approved, the second option.
But the
treasurer's department paid Highdon Investments either price, depending on
the supplier of the foreign currency, arguing that the RBZ was usually late
in providing the foreign currency.
The report says the treasury
"acted unilaterally and without authority" in paying Highdon the higher
rate.
"Treasury's view is that the application of the second option
was implied. It is Audit's view that this explanation is not convincing and
has no basis since the submission of the tenders to the Procurement Board
and the award of the tender had only one price featuring," says the
audit report.
The council, on awarding the contract, stipulated
that the contractor had to satisfactorily give details in writing before a
new price was implemented. "The tenderer did not take any heed of
the instruction and the alarm bells had started ringing here," the audit
report says.
"The city treasurer erred by allowing overstated
payments to go through despite the fact that the higher price option had not
been approved, let alone disclosed to council."
Marondera firm hires Zanu PF militia boss Augustine
Mukaro LEADING horticultural and vegetable product exporters Mitchell &
Mitchell hired a Marondera militia leader to protect the company from land
invasions, the Zimbabwe Independent established this week.
The company
is a major supplier to leading United Kingdom-based supermarkets, among them
household names such as Sainsbury's, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Safeway and
ASDA, a subsidiary of Wal-Mart.
Sources at Mitchell & Mitchell's
Rakodzi Estate in Marondera claim the company had, in addition to forking out
millions in protection money, also donated a vehicle to Zanu PF's security
officer for Marondera district, Lawrence Katsiru, whom it provides with fuel
to travel on party business.
Mitchell & Mitchell managing
director Adrian Zeederberg last week denied that the company paid protection
money. He said it had remained operational because it has export processing
zone status and was partly indigenous-owned.
"Farms which form the
Mitchell & Mitchell block are owned by both blacks and whites,"
Zeederberg said. One of the indigenous owners is Edwin Masimba Moyo who owns
Sable Ranch.
Management at Mitchell & Mitchell said some of their
farms had been under threat of acquisition.
"Charara in Kariba is
currently under Section 8. Springvale (in Marondera) was once invaded and we
had to go to court to save it, and Sanzara (also in Marondera) have been
subdivided," said a director.
Sources said Katsiru is in charge of
the command post that coordinates the movement of local militia in their
terror campaigns against opposition party members.
Katsiru appears
to be working for Mitchell & Mitchell but his position in the company is
unclear, sources said.
"What we know for a fact is that he works for
the Marondera municipality," the sources said. Zeederburg denied employing
Katsiru.
Marondera municipal officials confirmed Katsiru worked for
the local authority but said he was on leave. Efforts to contact him on his
mobile phone were fruitless.
"Local police are apparently
answerable to Katsiru and will not act on any reports unless he approves. To
date he has ordered the arrest of 90 opposition supporters and farmers," a
local source said.
In the run-up to the Marondera West by-election in
September 2000, it is alleged 20 Mitchell & Mitchell employees under the
leadership of Katsiru spearheaded attacks on opposition supporters in the
area but the company still kept them on full pay.
The source
alleged the company has been donating large sums of money sponsoring the Zanu
PF electoral campaigns, particularly the hotly-disputed presidential
election.
In return for sponsoring Zanu PF, Mitchell & Mitchell
had been spared farm invasions.
"Over the period of farm
invasions, Mitchell & Mitchell's five large commercial farms were not
invaded by settlers or war veterans, and most of its outgrowers who agreed to
toe the Zanu PF line suffered negligible disruptions," sources in Marondera
said. But directors denied this saying their farms had been
occupied.
Though a definite figure of what the organisation has
forked out to ensure its immunity could not be given, it is reportedly in
excess of $5 million.
"There is no way Mitchell & Mitchell could
have paid less than $5 million since their marriage with Zanu PF dates back
to 2000 when the invasions started," a Marondera source
said.
Zeederberg said Katsiru often visited the farms to quell
political disturbances during the peak of election campaigns, particularly
the run-up to the March presidential poll.
"Whenever we had
political clashes police would not respond so we called in Katsiru as the
district security officer to resolve such problems," Zeederberg
said.
"Under such circumstances Katsiru came here quite often."
Harare - The Zimbabwe
government has stepped up security in its top tourist resorts ahead of the
World Cup cricket matches due to be played here next month, state radio said
on Friday.
Six out of 54 World Cup matches are scheduled to be played in
the Zimbabwe capital, Harare and the country's second largest city of
Bulawayo in February and March.
Measures have been put in place to
make the country "a safe tourist destination", the radio said.
It
reported Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi as saying those who planned to
visit the country should "ignore the falsehoods being peddled by
the country's detractors" on the security situation.
The England
cricket team is set to play a match here on February 13 despite pressure from
Prime Minister Tony Blair's government to boycott the fixture.
The
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said on Thursday they would only revise
their decision to send the team if the security
situation deteriorated.
There have been growing concerns over security
here following food riots last week in Harare and Bulawayo and the murder of
an Australian tourist at Victoria Falls.
Australia issued a travel
warning for Zimbabwe on Friday to all its nationals saying economic hardship
in the southern African country "is leading some people to desperate and
criminal activity, and has increased the risk of incidents of civil
disorder". - Sapa-AFP
WORLD CUP DECISION SET FOR TUESDAY The final decision on
whether England play their controversial World Cup fixture in Zimbabwe is
expected to be made on Tuesday.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB)
on Friday announced a special management board meeting to discuss the issue
will be held then, starting at 11am. It seems certain, barring a major change
in circumstances, that the 15 members will decide the game should be
played.
The Government, opposed to England playing the match in Harare on
February 13, are already privately resigned to it going ahead. Ministers have
made themselves available for future meetings with the ECB but that does not
look likely to happen.
An ECB spokesman told the Press Association:
"We may reserve the right to have future discussions with the Government but
we are close to exhausting the process. Certainly, once the ECB management
board have reached their decision, it will be the definitive
decision."
Furthermore, David Morgan, chairman of the ECB, said in
Australia today that a failure to play Zimbabwe could cause a "major divide"
between the Test-playing nations.
"I think that subject to the
deliberations of the management board next week, and there being no
deterioration in safety and security, then it's my view that the commitment
to the cricket World Cup in Zimbabwe should be fulfilled by England," said
Morgan.
With no compensation being offered by the Government, most if not
all board members, such as Warwickshire's chief executive Dennis Amiss, hold
the same views as Morgan.
A statement from the ECB confirmed the
governing body agree with England captain Nasser Hussain that they must take
the decision on behalf of the players.
The ECB have come under
pressure from the Government to abandon plans to play in Zimbabwe because of
Robert Mugabe's repressive regime in that country.
The statement read:
"On the issue of who should take the final decision about whether the England
team plays in Zimbabwe, we fully support Nasser Hussain's view that it is
appropriate for the ECB to take the decision and for the players,
collectively, to follow the ECB's lead.
"The England players are
contracted to the ECB and as with other employer-employee relationships, it
is entirely right that the ECB provides the lead on this issue."
Next
week's meeting will be attended by Tim Munton as players' representative in
place of Richard Bevan, who will be out of the country.
Meanwhile, the
Government today insisted they will not penalise cricket at all or stand in
the way of Zimbabwe touring England in the summer if the match takes
place.
Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport,
told the Press Association: "There's no question of the tour by Zimbabwe
being in jeopardy from our point of view. In fact, we would welcome them
touring in the same way we welcomed them taking part in the Commonwealth
Games.
"Whether Robert Mugabe lets them tour is another matter. We have
an issue with Mugabe's Government, not with the people of Zimbabwe."
Luanda - The Angolan authorities are considering
inviting dispossessed Zimbabwean farmers to take over some of the thousands
of Angolan farms abandoned during the country's 27-year-long civil war,
reports said on Wednesday.
"We are not ruling out the possibility of
welcoming these farmers," the governor of south-western Benguela province,
Dumilde Rangel, said on a local Angolan radio station.
"They have the
know-how, and if they could work here with us and create jobs there will be
no problem," he said.
Rangel said about 4 500 farms lay abandoned in the
Caimbambo area of Benguela alone. Only three percent of the rich farmland
there was currently being worked.
'Work here with us and create
jobs' He said despite appeals for people to come forward to manage the land
there had been no takers and Angolan agriculture consequently continued
to stagnate, despite the acute lack of basic food in the
country.
Several hundred white Zimbabwean landowners have been forced to
leave the country after their farms were taken over by the government
for redistribution to black people.
Angola faces the monumental task
of rebuilding the country after a ceasefire signed in April 2002 finally
brought to an end a civil war in which most of country's infrastructure was
destroyed.
Fighting between government forces and the rebel National
Union for the Total Independence of Angola came to a halt following the death
in combat of its leader, Jonas Savimbi, in February 2002.
One of the
government's toughest tasks will be to rid Angola of millions
of anti-personnel mines said to litter the countryside, which have become
a daily threat to farmers, their families and their stock. -
Sapa-AFP
a.. This article was originally published on page 6 of
The Cape Times on 10 January 2003 b..
************************************* (AFX-Focus) 2003-01-10 10:39 GMT:
Angola denies Zimbabwe's dispossessed white farmers were offered
resettlement LUANDA (AFX) - The agriculture minister Gilberto Buta
Lutukuta has denied that the government invited Zimbabwe's dispossessed white
farmers to take over some of the thousands of Angolan farms, abandoned during
the country's 27 year civil war. "We are open to private entities
who wish to work in Angola, but our ministry has not invited in Zimbabwean
(white) farmers," Lutukuta told reporters late yesterday.
The
governor of southwestern Benguela province, Dumilde Rangel, had said the
previous day that authorities were considering inviting white farmers -- who
have had the land they occupied redistributed to black farmers under
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's land reforms -- to work the land in
Angola.
"They have the know-how, and if they could work here with
us and create jobs, there will be no problem," Rangel said on Catholic
radio station Ecclesia.
Several white farmers have been forced
to leave the Zimbabwe in recent months.
EIGHT people who were
arrested during a demonstration against the Minister of Local Government,
Public Works and National Housing, Ignatius Chombo, on Wednesday, were
released yesterday after paying admission of guilt fines.
Their
lawyer, Romaldo Mavedzenge of Atherstone and Cook, said the police released
the demonstrators from Harare Central Police Station after they each paid a
fine of $3 000.
He said the demonstrators were "brutally assaulted"
by the police. Mavedzenge said one of the demonstrators, Joseph Rimuka of
Glen View 3, sustained a swollen eye and he could hardly walk as his feet
were swollen.
Rimuka was released together with Rachel Ziteya,
Abigail Mapfumo, Rowai Dzingirai, Marjory Shishi and Grace Manjengwa, all
from Glen Norah, Andrison Manyere of Warren Park, and Enetia Mureza of Old
Highfield. Mavedzenge said the demonstrators were charged with violating
Section 7 of the Miscellaneous Offences Act.
The MDC was last
night making arrangements to take the demonstrators to the Avenues Clinic for
treatment. Mureza said when the police arrested her, they asked her what she
was doing in town at around 8am and accused her of supporting Mudzuri and the
MDC.
Zimbabwe mining firms on the brink Independent Foreign
Service January 10 2003 at 07:59AM Harare - Key mining companies in
Zimbabwe have warned they will not be able to pay January salaries and will
have to shut operations unless President Robert Mugabe's government
implements an immediate rescue plan for the struggling
sector.
Representatives of mining firms met with mines minister Edward
Chindori Chininga and expressed concern over the worsening operating
environment, particularly a new requirement compelling them to surrender
virtually all foreign earnings to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
The
warning by the mining sector comes amid claims that more than 300 000 private
sector jobs will be lost in the first few months of the year unless radical
measures are taken to halt Zimbabwe's sustained economic slide.
Officials
at the chamber of mines confirmed that a meeting had taken place but said
they would rather allow the authorities to issue a statement.
However,
those interviewed privately said the companies had informed the government of
their inability to continue operating or pay salaries because of the
country's new foreign exchange laws.
Economist John Robertson said there
was no way the mining companies, particularly those producing base metals,
would survive unless the government revised its foreign currency
regulations.
The Zimbabwean government has implemented three separate
policies for the gold, base metals and coal sectors.
Base metals
producers were previously allowed to retain 60 percent of their foreign
currency, which they mostly traded on the black market to offset expenses and
contain inflation.
Under the new regulations, they are allowed to retain
only 50 percent, which they have to sell to the central bank at the official
rate.
This new requirement is in line with latest government measures
outlawing the black market as well as closing all bureaux de
change.
Gold producers are not classified as exporters and are required
to sell all their output to the central bank.
The bank has agreed to
pay them 20 percent of their output in foreign currency. The government has
agreed to pay the remaining 80 percent at $1 to Z$150 (R23.55), a figure the
sector considers too low since each greenback would fetch Z$2 000 on the
black market.
Robertson said it was therefore not surprising that
production had fallen from 38 tons in 1999 to 15 tons last year.
The
coal sector is allowed to retain all its foreign currency but its exports are
too small to make any difference to its operations. It thus has to compete
with other sectors for the scarce foreign currency to maintain heavy
equipment.
"After the damage done to agriculture, other sectors like
manufacturing have to rely on the mining sector to generate the foreign
currency," said Robertson.
"But if the mines close down, it also means
the manufacturing sector has to shut down, with catastrophic
consequences."
Bindura Nickel Corporation, a subsidiary of Anglo American
and Rio Tinto, is leading the protests, saying the forex requirements
undermined its viability.
The mining sector has been hard hit by
increasing costs for labour, electricity and machinery. - Independent Foreign
Service
Shortages feed cancer of corruption By Tafirenyika
Wekwa Makunike DEPARTING from a West African country after a brief business
visit, I was made to endure the checking in process for a gruelling three
hours as officials tried to wring some money out of me.
Having
previously experienced such inconveniences in a popular East African country
and having been warned about such tendencies, I had gone to the airport a
good four hours before check-in. You can imagine all the people who paid
money just to catch their flights on time.
At that time, in my
frustration, I almost believed the theory that there were geographical genes
that destined people for a corrupt lifestyle. Waltzing through Zimbabwe from
the pre-Christmas period through to New Year made me experience the
cultivation of a nation for the planting of lasting seeds of
corruption.
My first nasty experience was at a big service station in
metaphorical Robert Mugabe Road in the heart of Harare. Tired of going from
one petrol station to another and with fast dwindling reserves, I resigned
myself to a small queue with just seven cars in front of me and joined the
waiting game.
By the end of the day the petrol arrived and within
minutes five more queues had formed by our side. In the ensuing chaos the
service station was closed while they awaited the arrival of the
police.
Upon arrival the five policemen, oblivious to the
surroundings, proceeded to supervise the filling of 20-litre containers with
a $500 "premium" being paid in their face. Not less than four fist-fights
occurred right in front of them but they were so busy in their new-found
trade they did not intervene.
The same $500 was demanded for
filling-up any late model vehicle that passed through the pumps without even
an attempt to be discreet. In those few hours every petrol attendant present
made more than their monthly salaries.
In another service station in
the city centre of Harare they called the riot police who proceeded to beat
up everyone with an open car window with reckless abandon until the place was
cleared. In one indigenous-owned service station in Greendale the manager
presided over the fiasco. When we complained, he threatened everyone and
virtually stopped serving any person in the queue while filling 20-litre
containers and non-queuing luxury vehicles.
Criss-crossing from
Beitbridge through Masvingo, Harare, Marondera, Rusape, Mutare and Nyanga I
can safely say what I experienced is a representative sample of the rest of
the country.
While this may be a viable method of fixing the
urbanites for their perceived political sins, history teaches us that once
the corruption virus sets in it does not discriminate based on political
affiliation.
Considering that the same process is repeated for beef,
sugar, cooking oil, bread, maize meal, and even Coca Cola, there is no doubt
in my mind shortages arising from bad governance are the precursor to the
seeds of corruption. In one township a Border Gezi commander was selling
maize seized apparently from road-manning operations.
While these
are currently useful for the political establishment, how does one re-educate
these young people that a living is supposed to be earned not seized? Once
hustling enters one's blood it becomes a career of hustling
for life.
What if the person processing birth certificates decides
that their job is also worth a further premium? Those processing passports
could also be demanding their own personal fees.
Some of those who
have joined the A2 farming scheme have discovered that they have to pay a
protection fee to the war veteran self-declared headmen of the new area.
Otherwise no farming is permitted.
What about headmasters at schools,
municipal officers overseeing housing plans or even supermarket managers
presiding over an item in short supply? At this rate we will soon have the
pastors charging a premium to lay hands on those afflicted by the current
misgovernance.
In my book, no politician will ever have a right in
future to fight an election on a promise to fight corruption if they are
currently doing nothing about it while it takes root left, right and
centre.
The Reserve Bank thinks its mandate is to preside over the
distribution of the dwindling foreign currency receipts and not creating an
enabling environment for the generation of this commodity.
The
Ministry of Trade and Commerce believes its vocation is fixing prices
of commodities in short supplier and not improving the supply
chain.
Add to this a business community with no firm principles, then
we should not be surprised if we are rated the most corrupt country in a
year's time.
Each and every Zimbabwean would be responsible for that
outcome. The real scary thing is that nobody seems to care.
l
Tafirenyika Wekwa Makunike is a freelance writer based in Johannesburg.
2003: Year of the People's Storm By J Harry
Laubscher ROBERT Mugabe's 1978 "Year of the People's Storm" message,
broadcast from exile, was clearly a portent of the huge changes about to
happen. Now, a quarter of a century later, such a message is once again
needed - to free the land from tyranny and re-chart the course of
freedom.
The struggle can afford nothing weaker than a final push this
year, lest it become discredited by indecision and allow Zanu PF to entrench
itself indefinitely.
Some might have felt that the perfect New
Year present for Zimbabweans was the hope provided by the long overdue change
of government in Kenya. Certainly the existence on the continent now of a
government with the guts to speak out against the evil of the Mugabe regime
and to openly invite the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to
attend its celebrations was a rare breath of fresh air. Yet in blind hope
lies complacency.
How many times have you heard it said of Zanu PF
that: "They can't last, the collapse is just a matter of time?" Beware, they
can and will last as long as Zimbabweans expect some bolt from the blue to
sweep away this insanity that passes for "government". Unlike in Kenya, the
forces of state oppression are and will be used to keep the devil at the
people's throat unless Zimbabweans acknowledge that freedom is theirs and
theirs alone to fight for, and take concerted, decisive
action.
What is required is an all-out struggle in the form of mass
demonstrations to shut the country down and force Zanu PF to its knees. Since
the option of civilised parliamentary elections is evidently a complete
non-starter, direct action is the only means.
This recommendation
was the one positive contribution made by the politically late but
not-lamented Munyaradzi Gwisai. If the MDC and the civil society movement
further delay and pass up this chance, the only other route lies in other
forms of struggle - the thought of which sends shockwaves reverberating down
the spines of many, but which will be the inevitable consequence of a lack of
action now.
People will suffer and many may die, some will argue. But
this is already happening, and a continuance of the "do-nothing" option will
only result in more suffering and dying - and still without removing the very
cause of the problem, Zanu PF.
Make no mistake: Zanu PF has amply
illustrated that it will use any means to keep itself in power, and as long
as it's in government there is no hope at all for the country. There will be
nothing to inspire confidence among investors from such a corrupt, brutal,
illogical and blindingly selfish group of people; no resumption of aid or
international lending facilities; and only more of the same suicidal
"policies" - suicidal for all but the ruling elite, that is.
Thus,
it is meaningless for certain economic commentators to be still - even at
this stage of the game - referring to the government having to do this
or that for the sake of any kind of economic stability, let alone recovery.
As the so-called "technocrats" Nkosana Moyo and Simba Makoni found out -
and must surely have known all along in their hearts - there is nothing of
a purely financial/economic nature that will succeed without first solving
the fundamental problem, namely the political problem.
It
therefore follows that the reported offer by the MDC to assist in resolving
the economic crisis in return for fresh elections, among other things, is
likewise flawed as, once again, there can be no chance for the economy before
the political cancer is removed, ie the removal of Zanu PF from
government.
Indeed, does the MDC believe that Zanu PF would have
honoured its side of the bargain? The result would surely have been a failed
economic experiment - because Zanu PF was still there - and then Zanu PF
reneging on its obligations.
Result: two wasted years. One can
only assume - and hope - that the MDC's statement was a political gambit
designed for the ears of the pathetic South Africans who still seem
determined to push the MDC into some kind of deal with Mugabe.
The
bottom line is the Zanu PF corpse is rotting and stinking, and
must accordingly be carried out and buried. A corpse, by definition, is
an organism which has ceased to live so must be pronounced as dead. Any
absurd attempts to resuscitate it can therefore only prove futile, if not
outright immoral.
So the MDC must firmly grasp the nettle and give
out that decisive message for which people had been waiting for months
following the presidential poll in March.
Working in conjunction
with the NCA and all the other constituents of the civil society movement,
the call must be loud and clear - no equivocation, and nothing but
unconditional surrender from "government". Every individual in every walk of
life must play their part - the remaining commercial farmers and captains of
industry must entertain no deals whatsoever with the gangsters, and no
selling out by cricketers seeking to cynically portray the country as
"safe".
Only a clear clarion call from the leaders of the liberation
movement, and a fully committed and determined response from the people, will
sweep the thugs from power - in the Year of the People's Storm.
l
J Harry Laubscher is a London-based commentator and a former chair of
the MDC's Central London branch. He writes here in a personal capacity.
HARARE,
Zimbabwe (Reuters) -- Zimbabwe appears headed for another season of food
shortages in 2003-2004 with poor rains and reduced plantings likely to dent
output, a U.S.-based food monitoring organization said Thursday.
Although
Zimbabwe was once the bread basket of southern Africa, sharply reduced
domestic food production has forced the country into dependence upon food
aid, and nearly half Zimbabwe's estimated 14 million people now
face starvation.
In its latest update on the situation in Zimbabwe,
the Famine Early Warning System Network known as FEWSNET said below-average
rains ranging from 40 to 60 percent of normal, as well as hot, dry weather in
late 2002 had cut plantings and exerted extreme stress on the staple maize
crop already in the ground.
"If things do not improve, food security
will once again be of major concern in 2003-2004," the group said, adding
that "the (weather) prospects for 2002-03 are beginning to look quite
gloomy."
The country's worst economic crisis since independence from
Britain in 1980 is blamed on both drought and President Robert Mugabe's
controversial seizure of land from minority whites for redistribution to
landless blacks.
Agriculture industry officials say local producers lack
agricultural basics, such as seed and fertilizers, with the current October
to March growing season already well underway.
To compound their
problems, an El Nino weather pattern threatens to dry up the remaining half
of the growing season for much of southern Africa.
Aid agencies say the
food situation in most rural areas has continued to deteriorate with rising
shortages of basic commodities such as maize meal, sugar, flour and
bread.
"The government should review and improve the efficiency of its
grain distribution system. Procurement and distribution of food aid needs to
be stepped up urgently in order to address the growing unmet food needs
of rural households," FEWSNET said.
In signs of growing political
strains over food supplies in Zimbabwe, a mob tried to storm the state Grain
Marketing Board depot in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo last Friday,
prompting riot police to fire teargas and arrest 34 people.
The United
Nations World Food Program says it still needs some $190 million to fund its
current southern African food relief project, covering Zimbabwe, Zambia,
Mozambique, Malawi, Lesotho and Swaziland and due to last until the end of
March.
Mugabe's government says the Zimbabwe shortages are due solely to
the drought which has hit small-scale black farmers who account for 70
percent of Zimbabwe's annual maize output.
Fears over accreditation dismissed Dumisani
Muleya MEDIA and Information Commission chair Tafataona Mahoso says his
official media-monitoring agency will not impose a repressive code of ethics
on journalists after compulsory accreditation.
In an interview this
week, Mahoso, who is also Harare Polytechnic's Mass Communication Department
head, said fears his commission would be used by government to punish the
independent press by de-registering and banning journalists were
unfounded.
"That is speculation," he said. "It's not as if the code
of ethics will fall from heaven or some other place. It's going to come from
stakeholders. There is no top-down approach. The final code of ethics will
depend on what is submitted by the media and other players
themselves."
Mahoso's assurance came as his commission started
issuing accreditation cards to journalists and media organisations in line
with Information minister Jonathan Moyo's draconian Access to Information and
Protection of Privacy Act (Aippa) requirements.
Journalists at the
Zimbabwe Independent have been accredited.
"So far we are happy with
the compliance with accreditation," Mahoso said. "We have so far accredited
some organisations but the processing of applications is at various stages.
Some applications have not been processed because they were not well
completed and had some documents missing."
Mahoso said foreign
correspondents would be accredited if they met the commission's licensing
requirements.
"Foreign correspondents must show that they have
authority on issues that they report on," he said. "They must produce
convincing profiles in terms of subject competence and understanding. They
must have a good track record of writing seriously and competently in their
own areas."
Mahoso has in the past made hostile statements against
foreign correspondents whom he labelled appendages of Western
imperialism.
Foreign stringers, who are not yet licensed, have been asked
to submit professional journalistic qualifications or alternatively a list of
stories for the commission to determine whether or not they should get
accredited.
Mahoso said his commission had no sinister or vindictive
agenda against the free press.
"What we have been saying is
companies should participate in the drawing up of the code of ethics so that
it can incorporate their submissions," he said.
UK's Channel 4 screens damning report on Zim Mthulisi
Mathuthu BRITAIN'S Channel 4 will on Sunday screen a detailed documentary
which is a damning indictment of President Mugabe's economic and political
policies.
Called Mugabe's Secret Famine, the programme will blame Mugabe
for fomenting famine, driving the economy down, debauching the currency and
political mistreatment of Zimbabweans.
Peter Oborne, who spent two
weeks under cover in Zimbabwe researching and filming the documentary, will
argue that the imminent famine which is threatening half of Zimbabwe's
population, is not a natural disaster but a result of Mugabe's skewed land
policy which has destroyed commercial agriculture.
In an article,
A Moral Duty to be There, published today by the Centre for Policy Studies,
Oborne argues, just as he will in his documentary, that the "looming famine
is no natural disaster, but the intended results of policies pursued by
President Robert Mugabe".
Oborne, who is political editor of The
Spectator, will argue that Britain and the Western world, whom he says have
stood idly by, crippled by a false sense of post-colonial guilt, should
intervene to stall Mugabe's tyrannous rule.
He says he found
evidence that the threat of starvation is being used to secure support for
the ruling party. Condemning Britain's response to Mugabe's rule so far as
"negligent, cowardly, posturing and hypocritical", Oborne says social and
political unrest on a "huge scale" are now inevitable.
Citing
remarks made by Zanu PF secretary for external affairs Didymus Mutasa, he
also identifies a growing emphasis on "tribal purity" by
Mugabe's government.
Oborne's calls for United Nations
intervention in Zimbabwe to avert another genocide such as the one which
occurred in Rwanda in 1994. He blames the Western world and the British
government for failing to tighten the sanctions regime to break Mugabe's hold
on power.
He will argue that British Prime Minister Tony Blair should
honour his pledge that he would "make Africa a major personal priority and a
priority for the Labour Government" and also pursue sanctions remorselessly.
So should South Africa, Oborne says. Pretoria is seen as supporting
Mugabe.
Blair's government should also take the blame for failing to
initiate a debate in parliament, Oborne says, and for removing Peter Hain as
Africa Minister after he criticised Mugabe and for handing control of policy
to an under-secretary of State, Baroness Amos, based in the House of
Lords.
Oborne also slams the British Government's muddled handling of
the England cricket team's visit to Zimbabwe for next month's World Cup.
Sandawana Column - Will Namibia go the same
way Sandawana IF anyone wanted to know where the tourists have gone in
Zimbabwe, take a trip to Namibia. The place is full of them and it's still
growing strongly.
In Windhoek, Swakopmund and areas like Etosha and
Sousseivlei, the buses and 4x4s are packed. And it's not a cheap place
either. Sandawana would estimate its probably about 20% more expensive than
South Africa, so it's not very good value for money.
But the
tourists seem to love it, because there is no trouble. Call Sandawana biased
if you want, but with the exception of the desert (a unique feature), Namibia
is far less attractive than Zimbabwe. Most of the country looks like the
Limpopo Province in South Africa and you feel about as secure in Windhoek as
you do in Johannesburg. In fact, my friend got mugged while we were in
Windhoek and at least in Harare the police know what that means. "Mugged?"
the Namibian officer said. Eventually, they settled for the term "robbed",
but then they could not decide if it was "armed robbery" or not because the
villains had used a knife not a gun.
The police in Namibia are hopeless.
Anyway, Sandawana did not know this before, but one of the reasons why the
Europeans do not go to Zimbabwe is because you cannot get insurance. Now,
with the exception of the Australian who just got murdered at the falls this
week, what is more dangerous? Zimbabwe or South Africa? Or Namibia? Local
tourism groups need to push Zimbabwe insurance companies to talk to their
partners overseas to come up with some kind of arrangement because foreigners
take insurance - especially in Africa - very seriously. After talking to
local tourism operators in Namibia, Sandawana's own personal prediction is
that Namibia is soon going to have a reputation that rivals South Africa if
they don't do something about the crime soon. When you develop a crime
problem, the thing to do is put the army out on the streets like they do in
Mexico. Just their presence makes you feel hugely safe.
Flashback to
Zim, 1997
THE local business rag, the Namibia Economist, suggested
that the world potentially has something to learn from us: "Perhaps we
Africans are better aligned to handle adversity because we have had to live
with it for so many decades, and perhaps, a new direction for many other
countries in the world will come from this continent." Hmmm, positive stuff.
But the part of the editorial that Sandawana wants to highlight is this:
"Overall we do not think this year will go down in history for the impressive
milestones we have reached. It was a year of upheaval and economic setbacks,
of bankrupt and corrupt parastatals, and of see-sawing government sentiment
on very important issues such as land redistribution and Aids" All sound
familiar?
And it's not even Zimbabwe. The editorial carries on: "There
were a few positive moments for this year. Peace seems to have come to Angola
and economic prospects there are actually excellent. The
not-so-Democratic Republic of Congo has maintained some semblance of
normality in an otherwise extremely unstable region, Mugabe seems to be
playing his last cards before he too goes the way of all tyrants, and the
entire southern African region is making a very concerned effort to address
the Aids pandemic head on ... 2002 seemed like a year of ups and downs, but
we don't want to be too pessimistic and say that it can only go
better.
However, if conditions would get worse, we hope it will only be
cosmetic." We also hope not, but it sounds like one of those desperate
rational things we said in 1997.
Celebrity status
BEING
a Zimbabwean in Namibia confers you with minor celebrity status. I doubt
someone from Mars would have got that kind of reception. I was treated with
fascination and questioned intensively when I said I was from
Zimbabwe.
The Namibians wanted to know if all they read about
Zimbabwe in the newspapers is true. Why were the Zimbabwean people not doing
anything about it and how long would Mugabe last? And, shock, horror, "Would
I be going back"? I have not had this level of interest in me for
years!
Sandawana's disdain of the foreign press' portrayal of Zimbabwe
has been expressed in this column before, but the truth of the matter is that
the country is in a lot of trouble that could have been avoided. And the
reason so many Namibians asked these questions, is because they think that
Uncle Sam is about to embark on exactly the same kind of scorched earth
policy with the West. Land is an issue in Namibia and it must be addressed,
but the best farmland in Namibia looks like southern Matabeleland. It's used
for raising livestock-there is very little dryland agriculture. One
of Sandawana's friends once said that he had been watching those
old documentaries that ZBC has been screening and was amazed by how the
Briteesh reporters had predicted the tragedy that was to become Zimbabwe.
Sandawana's retort was that the fact that they had so accurately forecast
disaster for Zimbabwe was the biggest tragedy of it all.
More
Afrikaans than South Africa
WHILE we have Windhoek Lager and that
disgusting McKane's tonic water in our stores, there are very few Zimbabwean
products in Namibian shops. Nothing recognisable was on the shelves. But then
Sandawana saw a dirty old Tanganda sign at the commuter taxi station in
Swakopmund. Sure enough, Tanganda products were the only Zimbabwean products
on the shelves. Most of it was, of course, Seth Efrican. Parts of Namibia
have been described as "more German than Germany", but after a week there,
Sandawana was convinced it was more Afrikaans than South Africa. The South
Africanisation of the sub-continent makes it difficult to break into these
new markets, but in Zimbabwe business was lazy when it came to tapping into
the regional markets as everything was roaring along at home. Most companies
only started to when the crisis really began to hit. Growth in the Namibian
economy is forecast at 2,8% this year, slightly up on earlier forecasts, and
is expected to be driven by non-diamond mining and construction. Perhaps some
potential there. But then there is Angola where double digit growth is
likely, and that is where Zimbabwe business should be looking with all the US
aid dollars flooding in.
Far from Duty Free
It is
illegal to charge in US dollars, so how come the Duty Free stores at Harare
International Airport are allowed to when they were charging in Zimkwacha a
few months ago? Pricing in US dollars is easy since you don't have to waste
time re-pricing your stock every time the Zimkwacha takes another dive. But
some years ago now, companies that were pricing their goods in US dollars
were told to revert to Zimkwacha or they would get into trouble. However, if
you want to pay in Zimkwacha, which IS the legal tender in this country, they
openly charge you at $1500:US$1. Ahem.
But according to the government,
this action is illegal because the exchange rate is apparently $55:US$1.
Sandawana insisted on paying $110 for a bottle of Smirnoff and not the $3000
they wanted to charge, but the security guard saw little humour in this. If
the government insists that the rate is $55:US$1, then they must do something
about this. But of course they won't, and so it just heightens the laughable
double standards that we are used to.
Only $7b raised from Agribond Augustine Mukaro THE
much-touted $60 billion Agribond floated in November failed to take
off, raising a paltry $7,22 billion in subscriptions, it emerged this
week.
The bond was floated to finance the working and capital development
needs of newly-resettled farmers and was specifically targeted at A2 model
settlers.
Sybank and NMB Bank were given the mandate to manage the
Agribond.
Economists said Agrobills issued on November 22 suffered
severe under-subscription, mainly because of the uncertainties surrounding
the agricultural sector.
"Though government had agreed to
guarantee investors, participating banks remained sceptical of government's
commitment and the beneficiaries' ability to repay the loans," a Harare-based
economist said.
"Investors and banks only invested their money to
assist traditional farmers who could produce collateral. Borrowers at every
level will only benefit on condition they demonstrate commitment to repay. To
this end, counter guarantees, letters of undertaking, pledges, mortgage bonds
and farmers' stop orders will be required to secure the loans," the economist
said.
He said land would not be considered as collateral for the
farmers applying for the loans.
Analysts said the
undersubscription of the Agrobills was clear indication that the land reform
programme was heading for failure because of lack of capital to kick-start
it.
Since its flotation, farmers' unions dismissed the bond as a
non-event due to its late inception and administrative shortcomings in
ensuring the repayment of the funds.
The Indigenous Commercial
Farmers Union said the bond had been mooted too late for this season's land
preparation and cropping.
"The money was made available a bit late to
influence the hectarage farmers had to plant for this season," ICFU officials
said.
High Court Judge occupies farm Blessing Zulu HIGH
Court judge Justice Ben Hlatshwayo, with the assistance of the police, has
joined the bandwagon of prominent individuals involved in the controversial
land reform exercise by occupying a farm that has a provisional court order
sparing it from acquisition.
Hlatshwayo last month occupied the
375-hectare Lot 1 of Gwina Farm in Mashonaland West belonging to one of the
country's leading farmers, Vernon Nicolle.
Documents made
available to the Zimbabwe Independent this week show that on September 12,
the High Court issued Nicolle with a Provisional Order (case number HC
8180/02). The final judgment on the matter has not been delivered as the
Minister of Lands did not respond within the stipulated 10
days.
Despite the provisional order, Hlatshwayo proceeded to occupy
the farm. He has also ignored letters written to him by Nicolle's
lawyers.
In the first letter delivered to Hlatshwayo at his chambers,
the lawyers said the judge was violating the High Court Order.
"We
have been instructed by our client that over the weekend of November 23/24,
2002, you moved agricultural equipment onto the farm, having previously
visited the farm on the 15 and 22 November, 2002," said
the letter.
"The Order remains of force and effect. Given the
terms of the Order you are not, with respect, entitled to visit the farm,
neither are you authorised to deliver implements to or deploy guards on the
farm and which we assume, lest you advise to the contrary, is preparatory to
conducting farming operations.
"Be advised that our client will, if
necessary, approach the High Court for relief. We trust that this will not be
necessary," the letter said.
Another letter dated December 3 and
delivered to Hlatshwayo also expressed concern at his conduct.
"We
are informed that you have moved your equipment into certain sheds on the
farm and which is being guarded by policemen from Banket," the
letter said.
"In addition, it is alleged that approaches have been
made to employ our client's labour. With respect you are
trespassing."
Hlatshwayo himself moved onto the farm in late
December. The Independent heard this week that the judge moved in with his
maroon Mitsubishi, registration 627-219, towing a blue caravan. Nicolle said
he confronted Hlatshwayo and told him that he was acting
illegally.
"I stressed that being a judge, he should know how the
legal system in Zimbabwe works," said Nicolle.
Hlatshwayo said he
was not moving since it was not his problem.
"Hlatshwayo told me that
my conflict is with the acquiring authority which is government, not
himself," Nicolle said.
Hlatshwayo, who sometimes sleeps in the
caravan on the farm, is now ploughing and forcing Nicolle to stop any farming
activities, Nicolle said.
Zim Independent
Libyans to dump farms deal Dumisani Muleya AS the
US$360 million fuel deal between Libya and Zimbabwe remains on the brink of
collapse, the Libyans are now keen to relinquish control over farms mortgaged
in the arrangement, the Zimbabwe Independent has
learnt.
Government sources said the Libyans were no longer
interested in a block of six farms around Chinhoyi in Mashonaland West which
they were given on a 22-year lease.
The farms were officially
ceded to the North Africans as part of the state properties - which included
equities in fuel, tourism, construction and agriculture - surrendered during
the fuel deal negotiations.
"The Libyans no longer want the land
because of political uncertainties," a source said. "They now want out and
are demanding an amount equivalent to the market value of those
farms."
The consolidated farms are valued at US$12,5 million. Libyan
leader Muammar Gaddafi visited the block in July 2001 when he travelled to
Zimbabwe by road from Lusaka, where he had attended the Organisation of
African Unity summit.
Currently the land is under the management of
Libyans who have bought three houses at Mazvikadei holiday resort near Banket
where they are staying.
The Libyans, who are now demanding
cash-on-delivery for fuel, were said to have been angered by government's
failure to honour parts of the deal. Libya's Tamoil Trading Ltd, which until
recently supplied 70% of Zimbabwe's fuel needs, had initially agreed to
supply fuel with government paying in local currency at a US$1 to $455,96
exchange rate.
But Zimbabwe - which now owes the Libyans $22 billion
or US$48,3 million for fuel - found itself unable to pay as of June last
year. A Finance ministry internal memo dated June 26, reveals worries about
government's failure to uphold its commitments.
"In terms of the
new repayment agreement signed with the Libyan Arab Foreign Bank in April
2002, a total of US$42,953 million should have been paid off by June 22,
2002. Funds are, however, not available to meet this commitment," the memo
said.
"In this agreement, the understanding was Noczim would deposit
the Zimbabwean dollar equivalent of oil supplied in a CBZ clearing
account, which would be used to make local investments by the Libyan
authorities. These investments and exports would offset the debt due to
Libya."
However, the only tangible Libyan investment so far is the
purchase of a 11,68% Jewel Bank stake for US$6,7 million at a US$1 to $300
exchange rate and a 15% stake in Rainbow Tourism Group.
Mugabe holidays in the Far East Dumisani
Muleya WHILE the country is sinking deeper into economic crisis, President
Robert Mugabe is holidaying in the Far East where he is anxious to establish
new relationships after Western countries last year imposed sanctions on
his regime.
Official sources said Mugabe - who is currently on
his annual leave - left for Thailand about nine days ago on holiday. The
sources said he took with him a government entourage because he was treating
his vacation as a business trip as well as a family holiday.
"The
president is currently in the Far East but is expected home in the next few
days if his itinerary goes according to plan," a government source
said.
"He has been there for over a week now."
The source said
he was due to come back on Sunday. Vice-president Simon Muzenda is the acting
head of state.
Sources said Mugabe's absence is hindering the March
2002 presidential poll court challenge by opposition MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai because he needs to sign legal papers ahead of the court
case.
Sources said Mugabe took an Air Zimbabwe commercial flight to
South Africa where he hopped onto a connecting flight to Thailand. Last year
he visited Thailand on his annual break and addressed a business luncheon
there.
But diplomatic sources say on this occasion Mugabe may find
the Thais less receptive to his blandishments. British newspapers revealed
recently a huge defence and trade deal with Thailand which would see a
British firm marketing Thai agricultural produce in
Europe.
Mugabe, who has been banned across large swathes of the
developed world, is also expected to visit Vietnam during his current
excursion.
Intelligence sources dismissed rumours of ill
health.
Apart from Thailand and Vietnam, Mugabe has visited China and
Malaysia on previous trips to the Far East. He has also been to Indonesia and
North Korea.
Many of his visits abroad havebeen secretive. During
the presi-dential election, Mugabe on March 10 surreptitiously visited Libya
on an undisclosed mission. Two years ago, he was reported to have visited
Spain.
Journalists have been accused of not listening out for the
presidential motorcade when reporting on his whereabouts. But insiders say
when going out of the country on private excursions, Mugabe does not use his
noisy motorcade.
Information Department spoke-sperson Betty Rimbi
could not shed any light on Mugabe's whereabouts. But it is thought Foreign
minister Stan Mudenge and Information minister Jonathan Moyo, who are also on
leave, could be in the presidential party.
Close security unit
head Simba Tonde and CIO deputy director Happyton Bonyongwe could also be
part of the president's delegation.