Sunday Times Australia
Maize a weapon in Mugabe's hands
By PETER
OBORN
12jan03
I HAVE just returned from a trip through the heart of Robert
Mugabe's
Zimbabwe. Foreign journalists are forbidden to go there, so I was
forced to
travel in the guise of a tourist.
I spoke to the victims of
the police torture that is inflicted on even the
most insignificant opponents
of Mr Mugabe's terrifying regime.
They told of how boiling plastic was
poured on their backs; how they were
held without trial in the most squalid
conditions; how they were beaten to
within an inch of their
lives.
Many torture victims are never seen again. At least once a week
news comes
of fresh abductions, disappearances and murders.
In the
streets lurk the perpetrators of this state-sanctioned violence -
the
so-called green bombers. They have been trained in the techniques of
terror
in Mr Mugabe's special youth camps.
Sometimes they are lazily
called war veterans.
In truth, they are Mr Mugabe's equivalent of
Hitler's Brown Shirts. Joining
up gives young men access to food, money and -
because rape is never
punished - abundant sex.
There are five of these
green bomber camps scattered throughout the country.
I was told how those
passing through them are taught to hate the peaceful
Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) opposition.
They learn the sinister doctrines of racial
purity taught by Mr Mugabe's
evil henchmen. They are taught how to maim,
torture and kill. They are
forced to inform on their families and
friends.
I was sent to Zimbabwe by Britain's Channel 4 with cameraman
Paul Yule, who
filmed secretly. Yule is accustomed to making films in the
world's most
dangerous places. He has recently worked in Afghanistan and
Chechnya. But
even he had never seen anything like the horror Mr Mugabe is
inflicting on
his own people.
Our brief from Channel 4 was to
investigate allegations that six million
people - half Zimbabwe's population
- are facing starvation. We were to find
out if this starvation was being
deliberately inflicted by the government.
To begin with, we travelled to
the north of the country. We drove down
potholed roads, stopped and spoke to
villagers. It was shattering.
We found desperate people gathering leaves
to boil up into a kind of soup.
We discovered them climbing trees to gather
practically inedible nuts.
Untreated broken legs and other injuries have
become common in the past few
months. One staple was a kind of soft wood. I
tried it. It was bitter and
hard to swallow. There was no mealie-meal, the
ground maize that is the
staple food of the people. Zimbabweans are beginning
to starve and die, in
increasing numbers.
The more we looked into the
reasons, the more sinister they became. Almost
every starving person we spoke
to told us that Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party was
not letting the maize get
through because they voted for the rival MDC in
last year's presidential
elections. In the Binga area of northeast Zimbabwe,
we learnt that several
aid agencies, including Save the Children, were
banned from operating
there.
Aid workers and priests dared not speak to us. One aid worker did
so, on
condition that his identity was kept secret. He told me how Zanu-PF
thugs
had threatened to kill him unless he quit the country. Bravely, he
had
refused.
We discovered the mechanism by which Mr Mugabe is
starving his own people to
death - the state Grain Marketing Board. Through
it, his green bombers
control the distribution and supply of
mealie-meal.
They make sure that none of it goes to MDC areas. Indeed, we
obtained film
of a compound, surrounded by barbed wire, where 132 tonnes of
MDC maize had
been impounded by the regime and allowed to rot.
There
are roadblocks throughout the country, manned by the green bombers,
who stop
and search all cars to ensure the food cannot reach famine areas.
We were
able to prove police involvement in this illegal process. At a
secret
location, we interviewed one policeman. He is now a hunted man in
fear of his
life.
He was tortured after he insisted on investigating crimes committed
by
Zanu-PF followers. He told how Mr Mugabe used the police to stop
food
getting to opposition supporters.
We proved, too, that Mr
Mugabe's henchmen are making fortunes out of the
horror. We caught one of
them at it: Kembo Mohadi, the Home Affairs Minister
and a member of Mr
Mugabe's Politburo.
The Mohadi family owns a shop, called the River Ranch
store, near
Beitbridge, in the south of Zimbabwe, where people are
starving.
One night we entered the store, which felt full of menace as
off-duty Mugabe
thugs sat about drinking beer. And there, behind bars, were
bags of
mealie-meal, on sale at $ZM800 - three times the state-controlled
price.
It is an affront to humanity. But in a way, what we discovered
over the
border in South Africa and then back in Westminster was almost as
shocking.
There is little room here to record what we found out about how
South
Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, lends succour and support to the
Mugabe
regime - and about the timidity and inertia of the British
Government.
The Blair Government has been dazzled and terrified by the
Mugabe rhetoric
against Britain, as the former colonial power, trying to step
in and stop
the terror.
While in South Africa we were told the story
of the one British minister who
dared to criticise the Mugabe regime. He was
Peter Hain, now Welsh
Secretary. Two years ago, as Minister for Africa, he
publicly complained
that South Africa had failed to tackle Mr
Mugabe.
The South African Government was enraged. The Foreign Affairs
Minister,
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, sent a furious letter to Britain
complaining of Mr
Hain's attitude, calling his comments deeply
offensive.
She threatened to call off the state visit of President Mbeki
to Britain,
scheduled for later in the year. Incredibly, just two days after
the letter
arrived in Britain, Mr Hain was demoted to the lowly role of
Energy
Minister, a victim of the government's refusal to take a stand on
Zimbabwe.
Later, I was reliably told, the South African Foreign Affairs
Minister
insisted she had not intended that her letter should have such an
effect.
But by then it was too late. Mr Hain was out.
This
disgraceful episode is typical of Mr Blair's lacklustre handling of
the
Mugabe issue. Right now Britain's attention is focused on whether
its
cricket team should play in Zimbabwe during the World Cup.
For
England to play there would indeed be an obscenity. But the issue is
not
cricket at all.
The real issue is why Britain, and the world, has
allowed Mr Mugabe to get
away with torturing and murdering his own people for
so long.
We must no longer allow him to do so.
From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 11 January
Lone voice prepared to take
on the terror of Mugabe
Tim Butcher meets the archbishop who refuses
to be cowed by intimidation.
Archbishop Pius Ncube's eyes were rheumy
and tired but mere mention of
Robert Mugabe was enough to make them sparkle
with defiance. "It is my
Christian duty to stand up to evil," the archbishop
said from his cluttered
office at St Mary's Catholic Cathedral in Bulawayo,
Zimbabwe's second city
and the capital of Matabeleland. "This government has
used terror and fear
to silence people for too long. People feel threatened
and hounded by an
evil regime and it is important for people in positions
like mine not to be
silenced." In Zimbabwe, where the current crisis is
dishonestly portrayed by
the Mugabe regime as a battle between black and
white, the 56-year-old
archbishop's softly-spoken championing of the
suffering black majority
stands out. His is a courageous and almost lone
voice, reflecting his daily
exposure to the pain inflicted on his
150,000-strong Ndebele congregation by
Mr Mugabe's predominantly Shona
regime.
A queue of supplicants forms each morning outside his office,
spelling out
case after case of injustice, brutality and abuse at the hands
of Mr
Mugabe's government. "Just go and ask them what they are having to put
up
with now," he said. "Because there is no fuel left, minibus drivers
raised
the price of a trip 10 times at Christmas because of the price of
black
market petrol. So if you wanted to go, say, to see your family at
Plumtree
just 120 kilometres away at Christmas you would have to pay 5,000
Zimbabwe
dollars (£70) instead of 500 dollars. Now that is a tremendous
amount of
money in Zimbabwe, out of reach for all but a few." A string of
Christmas
cards looped above the archbishop's desk as the phone rang
repeatedly with
requests for help. Nuns shuttled in and out carrying yet more
applications
for assistance. Each time his thick glasses would be pushed back
high on his
head as he listened politely, nodding slowly and promising what
help his
church's modest coffers could afford. Only once did his dour face
break into
a smile.
"And a Happy Queue Year to you as well," he
said in response to a joke that
is now going the rounds, based on the
day-long queues Zimbabweans face for
every basic commodity. "Starvation is
out there and it is claiming lives all
the time, such as the farmer I heard
of last week who had not eaten for six
days and yet took his animals out to
look for pasture to graze," the
archbishop said. "They found his body where
he had gone to sleep. He was too
weak to survive. People are dying from
starvation out there while the
government spends money on weapons and the
military. Those who are not in
the ruling party are denied food and condemned
to suffer. It is deliberate,
it is evil and it is wrong." Trained for seven
years by Jesuits in what was
then Rhodesia, Archbishop Ncube then spent two
years studying in Rome before
returning to his place of birth at the height
of the independence war of the
1970s. He saw violence perpetrated both by Ian
Smith's white regime in the
1970s and by Mr Mugabe's armed campaign against
the Ndebele in the 1980s but
what makes his position now so extraordinary is
his willingness to criticise
Mr Mugabe publicly.
The organised
Church in Zimbabwe has been accused of kowtowing to the Mugabe
government,
with Norbert Kunonga, the Anglican Bishop of Harare, causing
outrage when he
gave his full support to Mr Mugabe in an open address to
clergy. While the
Roman Catholic church has not been afraid to gather
evidence of human rights
abuses across the country, the country's seven
other Catholic bishops have
not been as outspoken as Archbishop Ncube. As
the Zimbabwe regime's most
turbulent priest, Archbishop Ncube knows that his
position is not without
peril. His telephones have been tapped, his life has
been threatened and the
state-owned press carries a stream of bilious
innuendo about him. Among the
most ludicrous accusations are that he has
raped nuns, fathered bastard
children and indulged in homosexual acts in
Zimbabwe's prisons. In a country
where political assassination is not
uncommon, St Mary's Cathedral looks more
like a fortress than a place of
worship, with all of its perimeter wall
crowned with coils of razor wire. It
is no accident that he keeps for
inspiration a picture of Oscar Romero, the
Catholic archbishop from El
Salvador who was shot dead as he celebrated Mass
in 1980 by right-wing
terrorists after he had dared to criticise the
government. "Now he showed
that we must not seek compromise," Archbishop
Ncube said. "We have to be
brave enough to stand up to evil whenever we see
it."
Genocide Behind Closed Doors.
Hitler knew what he was doing when he gave
instructions in 1942, after the
decisions were made to exterminate the entire
Jewish population of Europe,
that all news about the programme and its
execution was to be strictly
curtailed. The programme agreed to by a special
conference of Nazi leaders
called for thousands of people every day to be
sent to their deaths in a
deliberate, planned genocidal campaign.
In
Rwanda, Hutu radicals killed up to 10 000 people a day, in a
carefully
planned and executed attempt to destroy the capacity of the Tutsi
to control
the levers of power in the central African region. In the Congo,
up to 3
million people have lost their lives in the current conflict in the
eastern
Congo - many the victims of local genocidal conflicts.
There
are many similarities between these forms of national genocide - the
people
who were perpetrators and victims were citizens and from the same
locality,
they were Germans, Rwandese or Congolese. Also, they were the
victims of a
carefully promoted and planned system of mass murder conducted
by those in
power at the time. The murders were carried out behind doors
closed to the
media - either by law or simply by the remoteness of the
conflicts and the
difficulty of communication. They also shared one other
similarity - the
programme of murder and genocide was well documented and
known by those in
power in the West and East and those who sit in the
comfortable halls of the
UN.
In hindsight these stark tales leave an indelible mark on the
conscience of
mankind. That is little comfort for the victims and their
families and the
majority of those responsible get away with their
crimes.
A simple peasant farmer in western Matebeleland, weak with
hunger, gets up
to release his beloved cattle from their pen and slowly walks
them to water
and grazing. After this the effort involved is too much and he
rests under a
tree in the heat of the day. He never wakes up and when he
fails to come
home with the cattle in the evening his family find him dead
under a tree. A
low paid worker in Harare loses his job with a security
company - he was
found responsible for petty theft, he is unable to buy
proper food and in
six weeks he is dead from Aids induced disease. A clerk in
a major company
is the only member of her family working - she sends most of
her earnings
home to help keep her extended family alive, unable to afford
the high
protein diet she needs, she catches a cold and dies in three days.
She
leaves two orphans and a destitute rural family that now plans to send
a
teenage son to South Africa and to a life of crime that will enable him
to
send a few Rand home each month.
These are three true stories from
my own sphere of knowledge in the past
month. You can multiply these stories
by thousands. The stories and the
statistics mean little to those in the
outside world because they cannot be
revealed in a "sound bite" on national
television. When a BBC crew came
across a refugee camp in Ethiopia and filmed
a small child dying in his
mothers arms, covered in flies, with a swollen
belly, there was a huge
outpouring of grief and outrage. Millions poured into
the coffers of the aid
agencies, governments scrambled to give their support
and personalities made
records and appeals. When the doors are closed to the
media, this does not
happen.
It does not mean that it is not happening
- it is, and it does not mean that
officials in Embassies and UN Agencies do
not know what is going on - they
do. What it does mean is that this is a new
form of genocide - conducted
away for the glare of the TV cameras and
insufficiently dramatic to command
media attention. But its impact on
ordinary people - people with families -
people who work and love and suffer
silently - is huge and often fatal.
Zimbabwe should have a population of
14 or 15 million. In fact a recent
census revealed that our total population
is down to 10,6 million. That
means we are "missing" 4 million people! This
population decline has come
about in the past decade. We know that about 2,5
million live abroad - 2
million in South Africa, most is squatter camps and
shanties. We also know
that a million people have died of Aids related
causes. The rest - who
knows? I suspect high levels of infant mortality in
children under 5 years
of age.
We have a population that has infection
rates for HIV/Aids that now exceeds
35 per cent of all adults. This means we
have over 2 million infected
adults, the majority are women. We have 750 000
orphans - 15 per cent of all
children. Only 900 000 adults have jobs in the
formal sense - the rest are
in the informal sector and most earn less than
US$1 a day - the bench mark
for being absolutely poor. TB, Malaria and other
infectious diseases are
endemic.
In this environment of human poverty
and disease, our government has adopted
policies, which have made every
Zimbabwean poorer, disrupted the food
producing industry from its grass roots
upwards, and destroyed the
institutions that provide key social support.
Hospitals are without trained
staff and medicines, schools are being run by
poorly paid and motivated
personnel and must operate without even the most
basic amenities and
supplies. Bad macro economic policies have led to a sharp
reduction in
economic activity across all sectors of the economy and foreign
exchange
earnings have declined to the point where even the most basic needs
of the
country cannot be obtained.
Zanu PF under the leadership of
Robert Mugabe has turned what always was
going to be a serious health and
humanitarian crisis into a catastrophe.
65 per cent of girls of school going
age are not in school; educational
standards are falling rapidly - especially
for the poor and disadvantaged.
Food production in the subsistence sector is
declining under the twin
pressures of HIV/Aids and emigration by the most
productive elements in
their society. Decent diets are unaffordable by 90 per
cent of HIV infected
adults - let alone the most basic medicines and drugs.
This year, under
pressure from all these things, at least half a million
people will die.
Perhaps as many adults and children will also succumb to
other diseases and
simply hunger.
The fact that the majority of those
fleeing to other countries or dying in
their villages and urban homes, are
the opponents of Zanu PF and Robert
Mugabe is not being lost on the global
community or the media. This
transforms this human tragedy into another form
of national genocide - like
Rwanda and the Congo, going on behind closed
doors and therefore not
attracting the appropriate response from the global
community.
The appeals of the UN system to donors to increase their
financial support
for the NGO's struggling to address the crisis in its many
forms is not
enough. The problems here are not climatic, or "acts of God",
they are
political. The remedies are political. South Africa's deliberate
decision to
ignore what is going on and to urge the West to support Mugabe
and his
henchmen in what they are doing is, under these circumstances, the
same as
those in the West who deliberately turned their backs on the millions
of
European Jews who faced the gas chambers in Germany.
If we are to
address the crisis in Zimbabwe we must do so at its source -
the corrupt and
incompetent administration of a discredited political regime
that is trying
to hold onto power to protect itself and its cronies from the
consequences of
their actions. Nothing less will do and time has run out for
many with
millions more at risk. What Mugabe is doing in Zimbabwe is the
equivalent in
human terms of what the suicide teams did to the World Trade
Center in New
York every day. I was privileged to actually watch the planes
go into the
building and the dramatic consequences. Behind Mugabe's closed
doors his
victims will not get the same exposure, or response - not because
the people
in power do not know, but simply because they either do not care
or do not
see.
Eddie Cross Bulawayo, 10th January 2003.
Globe and Mail, Canada
Do we put too much faith in
democracy?
By DOUG
SAUNDERS
Saturday, January 11, 2003 - Page
F3
We all need faith -- a gospel truth that applies in equal
measure to
us non-churchgoing types. Many of us worship at the altar of
democracy, a
potent creed that often leads to missionary crusades overseas.
We ballot
worshippers take seriously the rhetorical question posed by
American
essayist Sarah Vowell: "What is voting if not a kind of prayer, and
what are
prayers if not declarations of hope and desire?"
We are
aggressive in our pursuit of this hope, to the point that we
are sometimes
happy to see force used to bring light to the non-believers,
as in Germany,
Japan and Afghanistan, and maybe even in Iraq.
So it is especially
painful when our faith is called into question by
those who have pulled the
curtain aside and examined the entrails of our
deity. The most formidable
challenge I've yet confronted comes from Amy
Chua, a law professor at Yale
University. Ms. Chua has spent much of the
past 10 years developing a very
original thesis about the paradoxical
effects of democracy and market
economies on the developing world, and she
is about to publish it under the
title World on Fire.
"The global spread of markets and democracy,"
she concludes in this
well-grounded study, "is a principal, aggravating cause
of group hatred and
ethnic violence throughout the non-Western
world."
She feels no joy in this heresy. "It's a very tough issue,
and I can
only conclude that we are making a mistake by simply imposing
free
elections, by themselves, on the developing world," Ms. Chua told me
the
other day during a break between lectures. "I'm actually in favour of
both
markets and democracy, but I fear that the U.S. has been exporting the
wrong
version of free-market democracy -- a caricature."
Ms.
Chua began to develop her alarming thesis a decade ago, after
observing what
had happened over and over in southeast Asian countries. Her
roots are in the
Philippines and she is ethnic Chinese, a member of the
minority that
dominates that country's economy and politics. She learned
from her
Philippine relatives that her aunt had been killed in an angry
ethnic
uprising. Soon, she would recognize this as part of a pattern.
In
those days of the early 1990s, our faith in democracy seemed
unshakable.
Popular democratic uprisings had peacefully overturned the
tyrannies that
governed the Soviet Union and most of Eastern Europe, and the
Tiananmen
Square uprising seemed to portend similar changes in China. The
majority of
the world's nations had democratic elections, and many of us
were willing to
take seriously Francis Fukuyama's claim that history's end
had made liberal
democracy the only thinkable option.
In September of 1996, American
diplomat Richard Holbrooke was among
the first to question this utopian
vision. On the eve of the first elections
in Bosnia, he began to have cold
feet. "Suppose the election was declared
free and fair," he said, but those
elected turned out to be "racists,
fascists, separatists, who are publicly
opposed to peace and integration.
That is the dilemma."
A year
later, that dilemma was given a name by the political scientist
Fareed
Zakaria, whose hugely influential essay, "The Rise of Illiberal
Democracy,"
spelled out the central problem: "Democratically elected
regimes, often ones
that have been re-elected or reaffirmed through
referendums, are routinely
ignoring constitutional limits on their power and
depriving their citizens of
basic rights and freedoms. . . . Democracy is
flourishing; constitutional
liberalism is not."
Today, illiberal democracies are the world's
biggest problem. What
were we to conclude when Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf recently
denied his country free elections for another five years,
out of fear that
the people would choose a Taliban-style theocracy over the
general's
liberal, rights-respecting but thoroughly undemocratic regime?
There is no
good answer.
We have been scarred by the deadly
effects of democracy in the
Balkans, in Rwanda and elsewhere. Some
influential thinkers have declared
that the whole democratic project should
be abandoned, at least for now.
"To think that democracy as we know
it will triumph -- or is even here
to stay --is itself a form of determinism,
driven by our own ethnocentrism,"
Robert Kaplan wrote in his book The Coming
Anarchy. His argument is that
democracy should be put off, and economic
development and prosperity should
be allowed to flourish (under
dictatorships) first.
Ms. Chua's thesis is both less pessimistic
and more interesting, since
it is built around a dynamic of race and culture
that hasn't previously been
given a name. She has noticed, in almost every
non-Western country, a group
she calls the "market-dominant minority." These
she defines as "ethnic
minorities who, for widely varying reasons, tend under
market conditions to
dominate economically, often to a startling extent, the
'indigenous'
majorities around them."
Croats in Yugoslavia,
whites in South Africa, Chinese throughout
southeast Asia, Ibo in Nigeria,
Lebanese in west Africa -- these are the
sources of tension between free
markets and free elections.
"Democratization," she wrote, "by
increasing the political voice and
power of the 'indigenous' majority, has
fostered the emergence of
demagogues -- like Zimbabwe's Mugabe, Serbia's
Milosevic, Russia's Zyuganov,
Bolivia's Great Condor, and Rwanda's Hutu Power
leaders -- who
opportunistically whip up mass hatred against the resented
minority,
demanding that the country's wealth be returned to the 'true owners
of the
nation.' "
Iraq, of course, is ruled by a market-dominant
minority, the Sunni
Muslims of Baghdad. Will the sudden imposition of
democracy, without the
tight constitutional controls that Ms. Chua considers
vital to preventing
this problem, turn Iraq into another Bosnia or Rwanda?
This is an important
question.
While Ms. Chua, like me, retains
her faith, this challenge is going to
need more than silent prayer.
dsaunders@globeandmail.ca
The Age
It's not always about the game
January 12 2003
By Paul
Weaver
London
Regardless of whether World Cup matches
are boycotted in Zimbabwe, the game
has already been tarnished. Leading
players and administrators stand accused
of being incapable of telling right
from wrong.
Few people look to politicians for moral guidance but cricket
folk,
apparently unburdened by conscience, do. They should look to former
England
bowler Tom Cartwright instead.
Cartwright, an outstanding
craftsman for Warwickshire, Somerset and England
in the 1960s and '70s and
now an award-winning coach, was always one of the
game's shrewdest
thinkers.
He refused to coach in what was then the Rhodesia of Ian Smith
in 1969 and
told Somerset he did not want to play against South Africa in the
ultimately
cancelled 1970 tour.
Most famously, he withdrew from the
1968-69 tour to South Africa, which led
to Basil D'Oliveira taking his place.
After the tour was cancelled South
Africa was isolated from Test cricket for
22 years.
Cartwright had toured South Africa with England in 1964-65
and was upset by
what he saw.
"If I was playing for England today I
would refuse to go to Zimbabwe. How
could I play cricket when, just down the
road, starving people are queuing
up for food?
"The Zimbabwe decision
should have been made by the ICC and not each
country's board. The England
board is faced with a difficult decision. They
should say no. But if they
decide to go, it is up to each player to stand up
and make his personal
choice. Everyone should be free to opt out. That would
certainly be my
decision."
Cartwright, 67, is something of a rarity in the game where
right-wingers,
like right-handers, predominate. In his admirable book
Fragments of
Idolatry, he tells of the time Somerset's Bill Andrews was told
to remove a
Labour leaflet from his front window.
Cartwright, born in
a miner's cottage in Coventry with no running water, is
of the left. "I used
to feel a bit isolated in the dressing room. Mike
Brearley used to talk to me
about South Africa but some seemed afraid of
expressing opinions. In 1970 I
was told that out of 330-odd professional
cricketers, only seven were
uncomfortable about playing South Africa.
"At the time all the county
chairmen seemed to be Cambridge blues and all
the administrators Oxford
blues. I don't think much has changed.
"But it's so naive when people say
that cricket and politics shouldn't mix.
In the case of South Africa they
brought politics into the game. Apartheid
in cricket was a political
statement. I know the situation in Zimbabwe is
very different but the same
principle applies.
"But we're not just talking about South Africa or
Zimbabwe. Look at the
committee at your local cricket, football or rugby
club. Politics is
everywhere and it's ludicrous to suppose
otherwise."
Cartwright, whose medium pace was legendary for its accuracy
and seam
movement, took 1536 county wickets at 19.11 and had seven centuries
in his
13,710 runs, at an average of 21.32. He was unlucky to play only five
Tests
for England.
He became Somerset's player-coach in the 70s,
helping to develop the talents
of Viv Richards, Vic Marks, Peter Roebuck and,
especially as a bowler, Ian
Botham. He became the national coach in Wales and
was awarded the MBE in
2000.
Values have never changed for Cartwright.
"I've been to both South Africa
and Zimbabwe and what really saddens me more
than anything is that there was
a wonderful opportunity for meaningful
change. But short-term greed has been
followed by long-term
catastrophe."
Once it was Cartwright's cricket that stood out. Today it
is his principles.
And a game anxious to present itself as a morality-free
zone should listen
to his wise words. In a bleak and mercenary world they
sound as uplifting as
a trumpet blast.
- Guardian
CricInfo
New security appraisal could avert Zimbabwe crisis
Ralph
Dellor - 11 January 2003
International Cricket Council president Malcolm
Gray has met the new
chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, David
Morgan, and the
result could be a reprieve for the ECB from their dilemma
over going to
Zimbabwe for the scheduled World Cup match on February
13th.
The ICC have stated that England must honour the contract they
signed to
play their World Cup matches according to the fixture list agreed
by all the
competing countries long ago. The Government, since Christmas, has
been
putting pressure on the ECB to forfeit the game for fear of giving
a
propaganda boost to the intensely disliked Mugabe regime in
Zimbabwe.
The only grounds on which the ICC would contemplate freeing the
ECB from
their contract - breach of which would cost English cricket a
substantial
sum of money for which the Government has refused compensation -
is on the
grounds of security. A delegation including ECB chief executive Tim
Lamb
went to Zimbabwe and gave the country the all clear as far as the safety
of
players, officials and spectators was concerned at the end of last
year.
Since then, however, there have been fresh outbreaks of violence
with hungry
mobs rioting in Harare and Bulawayo where fixtures are due to be
played.
This offers the ICC an opportunity to send another inspection team
to
Zimbabwe. They have already gone some way towards acknowledging
the
deteriorating security situation by forming a standing committee to keep
an
eye on developments. A safety and security delegation will be arriving
in
Nairobi on Monday to assess conditions there and a similar delegation
could
be sent to Zimbabwe as a result of the formation of this standing
committee.
Mr Gray said, "We have obviously been watching what has been
happening in
Zimbabwe and it might be we will have a more formal look at it
in a couple
of weeks.
"If things have changed, we have processes in
place that will allow us to
change if we need to, right up to the start of
the matches."
Such a move might offer England a way out of their
predicament. The
Australian Cricket Board might also welcome the move, for
they too have come
under pressure to pull out of their fixture against
Zimbabwe in Bulawayo on
February 24th.
Apart from the immediate
financial penalty resulting from breaking the ICC
contract, English cricket
could face further losses running into many more
millions of pounds. If
England do not play in Harare, it is highly likely
that Zimbabwe would
withdraw from their proposed tour of England next
summer. Then the ECB would
face expensive claims from broadcasters and
sponsors.
In addition,
there is a danger of a serious division in world cricket should
England and
Australia boycott Zimbabwe while other countries, notably India
and Pakistan,
are prepared to fulfil their fixtures.
All these considerations are
weighing heavily on Mr Morgan's mind as he
faces a major crisis within his
first few days in office.
"I want cricket to be united and I think it has
to go ahead for the game to
remain united," he said. "I am significantly
worried about a possible split
in world cricket.
"It's a possibility,
and a worrying possibility, that Zimbabwe won't come to
England to play in
the Test and one-day series this summer. That's more
important than some of
the financial considerations."
Meanwhile Mr Gray has made it clear that
the ICC will not get involved in
the various political issues and confine
itself to matters that affect
cricket alone.
"Our position is a
relatively simple position. We have the ability, the
confidence and
responsibility to ensure the safety and security of the
players, the
officials and people attending the matches.
"Equally, we do not have the
confidence, ability or mandate to make
judgements on the political issue,
that is the role of government.
"You have to remember the ICC is a
classic international body made up of 85
member countries and they have very
diverse political, religious and
cultural backgrounds. They will have
different views as to the various
regimes in various
countries."
Having said that, the ICC cannot be isolated from wider
political
considerations. While the governing body will doubtless work within
its own
clear parameters, it would be a convenient solution for everyone,
with the
possible exception of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union, if matches were to
be
moved away from that troubled country on the grounds of safety and
security.
© CricInfo
South African minister hails Mugabe land grab
Mungo Soggot in
Johannesburg, Andrew Meldrum in Harare, and agencies
Saturday January 11,
2003
The Guardian
The South Africa labour minister, Membathisi
Mdladlana, said in Zimbabwe
yesterday that his country had a lot to learn
from President Robert Mugabe's
programme of land reform.
The political
opposition in South Africa denounced his remarks as
"chilling".
Mr
Mdladlana said during a tour of farms that it was "important that
black
people should also own land that they till, and know how to produce
food and
be self-sufficient and sustainable".
The South African Press
Association also quoted him as saying that South
Africa had a lot to learn
about land reform from its neighbour.
His comments were trumpeted by
Zimbabwe's state press as strongly supportive
of Mr Mugabe's land seizures,
which are widely seen as the primary cause of
the country's current
famine.
An estimated 8 million of Zimbabwe's 13 million people are
threatened with
starvation, according to the UN and other international
bodies.
The black farmers being resettled by Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party
have not been
given title to the land, which remains in the hands of the
state.
The South African Democratic Alliance opposition said Mr
Mdladlana's
"support for Zanu-PF's land redistribution programme is
chilling".
Its land affairs spokesman, Andries Botha, said: "President
Mugabe and
Zanu-PF's violent and unconstitutional 'redistribution at all
costs'
programme has resulted in the complete collapse of
Zimbabwe's
agrarian-dominated economy.
"This hardly sounds like the
example South Africa should be following."
The editor of the newspaper
Zimbabwe Independent, Iden Wetherell, said: "The
South African labour
minister allowed himself to be led around by
Zimbabwean
officials."
"They took him to a few showcase schemes
purporting to prove that the land
redistribution programme has been a
success... when it is patently clear
that the systematic destruction of
Zimbabwe's agricultural sector has been
catastrophic."
Since South
Africa's transition to democracy in 1994, the ANC government has
pursued a
cautious land reform programme.
President Thabo Mbeki has said that land
invasions will never take place.
Even so, Mr Mdladlana's words will
exacerbate the fear that some in the
South African government sympathise with
Zanu-PF.
South Africa is tackling land reform in two ways: it is
assessing claims
from people who say they were unfairly forced off their land
under apartheid
and it is distributing state and other land to formerly
disadvantaged
communities.
The government's land programme got off to
a slow start, and only 7% of land
earmarked for redistribution has been
transferred. The process has
accelerated in the past three years,
however.
Last year the director general of the government's department of
land
affairs, Gilingwe Mayende, told a newspaper that white farmers
supported
land reform and were voluntarily offering land for redistribution
to
landless black people.
South Africa would not follow Zimbabwe's
example, he added. The support of
landowners would help the government to
redistribute 30% of agricultural
land to landless communities by
2015.
Carl Opperman of Agri Wes-Cape, a farmers' organisation, said he
was
surprised by Mr Mdladlana's remarks.
Farmers in the Cape had drawn
up extensive plans for reform, given them to
the government, and were now
waiting for a response.
"We are waiting for government to put money into
land reform," he said.
SABC
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Police arrest Harare's MDC mayor
January 11, 2003,
18:45
Police have arrested Elias Mudzuri, the opposition
mayor of
Harare, on allegations that he was addressing an illegal meeting,
a
spokesperson for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
said.
Police picked up Mudzuri and three officials of the
local
residents' association in the Harare township of Mabvuku while he
was
holding a report-back meeting to residents there, said Nkanyiso
Maqeda.
"They then decided to arrest everyone else who was at the meeting,"
he said.
"They took away about 100 people who are at the police station
now."
Mudzuri was told by police he had been arrested for
failing to
obtain police permission to address the meeting, in terms of
draconian new
security legislation which allows police to ban President
Robert Mugabe's
political opponents from holding meetings. No police comment
could be
obtained.
Mudzuri is one of the MDC's five mayors
around the country,
running the councils of the capital, Harare, the western
city of Bulawayo
and three other towns, who broke decades of corrupt control
by Mugabe's
ruling Zanu-PF party when they won municipal elections in the
last two
years. However, all of them have come under sustained harassment
from the
party and security authorities trying to force them out of office
and
restrict their ability to administer their areas.
It
is the first time any MDC mayor has been arrested, but
Mudzuri, popular for
attending to the capital's rutted roads and trying to
repair its crumbling
infrastructure, has been subjected to what is widely
regarded as a smear
campaign by the state media, accusing him of corruption
and incompetence. The
government last week announced its plans for Mugabe to
appoint ruling party
"city governors" to try and break the influence of the
opposition party's
rulers. - Sapa
Sunday Times (SA)
Zimbabwe steps up security at resorts
HARARE
- The Zimbabwe government has stepped up security in its top tourist
resorts
ahead of the World Cup cricket matches due to be played in February,
the
state radio said.
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 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 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".
AFP
Business Day
ICC forms special Zim
committee
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
LONDON
- The International Cricket Council (ICC) have formed a standing
committee to
monitor whether or not games at the forthcoming World Cup can
be played in
Zimbabwe.
The African nation is due to host six out of the 54 World Cup
matches when
the tournament gets underway next month, but food riots in the
capital
Harare and Bulawayo have raised safety concerns.
ICC president
Malcolm Gray told the BBC: "The committee will keep a watching
brief over
security and will act if need be."
There has been widespread opposition
to the Zimbabwe matches, with
politicians and human rights groups saying they
should be played elsewhere
in protest at the policies of President Robert
Mugabe.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have come under strong
pressure
from the British Government to pull out of their match against
Zimbabwe in
Harare on February 13 although ministers have stressed that the
final
decision is one for the cricket authorities alone.
Elsewhere,
the Australian and New Zealand governments have also expressed
their concerns
although both now appear resigned to their teams playing
in
Zimbabwe.
The ICC have always maintained that the only reason for
moving matches from
Zimbabwe would be on safety and security
grounds.
They sent an inspection team to Zimbabwe in November and their
report
concluded that it was still safe for matches to go ahead
there.
And Gray insisted: "You cannot take the issue of security and
relate it to
the political question as to whether England goes or
not.
"I think the England cricket board has been doing a miraculous job
and the
management have taken a strong stance," the Australian
added.
"If any team doesn't go to the World Cup they won't be looked upon
kindly by
fellow members of the ICC."
And ECB chairman David Morgan is
also worried by the possibility of a split
in world cricket, with India and
Pakistan having both made it clear they are
happy to play their matches in
Zimbabwe.
"I want cricket to be united and I think it (the Zimbabwe leg
of the World
Cup) has to go ahead for the game to remain united," Morgan
said.
"It's a possibility, and a worrying possibility, that Zimbabwe
won't come to
England to play in the Test and one-day series this
summer.
"That's more important than some of the financial
considerations."
Nevetheless the ECB, who failed to get a compensation
guarantee in the event
they did not play in Zimbabwe from the British
government on Thursday
following a meeting with sports secretary Tessa
Jowell, are worried by the
financial implications of withdrawal.
It is
expected they would have to pay to the Rupert Murdoch-owned Global
Cricket
Corporation (GCC), the World Cup rights' holders, some $1.6-million
in the
event of an Harare boycott.
And they are also worried they could face
losses of up to 10 million pounds
(16 million dollars) if Mugabe forces the
Zimbabwe team to pull out of its
Test tour of England in
retaliation.
The four-man ICC committee consists of Gray, ICC
president-elect Ehsan Mani,
chief executive Malcolm Speed and South African
cricket board president
Percy Sonn.
The ECB's 15-member management
board are due to meet on Tuesday at Lord's
and expected to give the go-ahead
to England's participation in Zimbabwe.
The bulk of the matches in the
February 8 - March 23 tournament are being
played in South Africa and
contingency plans are in place for fixtures to be
moved there if Zimbabwe is
deemed unsafe.
Meanwhile, an ICC inspection team is due to arrive in
Kenya, where two
matches are scheduled, on Monday to assess its security
arrangements after
doubts about its suitability as a World Cup venue were
raised in the wake of
terror attacks in Mombassa in November.
AFP
The Times
January 10, 2003
Banishing act
by Helen Rumbelow
Once
Zimbabwe's Madonna, Portia Gwanzura now fears for her life
THERE
ARE FEW clues to the former glory of Portia Gwanzura. She struggles to
make
ends meet in a gloomy Coronation Street-style terrace on the outskirts
of
Wigan, far from the mansion with servants she occupied as head of a
musical
empire in Zimbabwe. Instead of cruising in her fleet of
chauffeur-driven
Mercedes, befitting Zimbabwe's foremost female singer, she
sits on an old
stained sofa and cannot do much except watch the rain
outside.
This
outspoken woman, dubbed the "Madonna of Zimbabwe" for being the most
powerful
businesswomen in her country's music industry, has abandoned her
life's work
to seek political asylum in Britain. She inspired awe in
imitators, alarm in
rivals, and named her band Hohodza (or "woodpecker")
because she relishes the
challenge of cracking the hardest opposition. What
could make a woman like
Portia Gwanzura so afraid? "Before I say anything, I
just want you to know
that if you hear I've died in an accident, it wasn't
an accident, it was the
Zimbabwean Government," she says. "People who speak
out in Zimbabwe get
silenced, one way or another. The ones who leave are the
only ones with a
chance to tell the truth."
Gwanzura never meant to get her music mixed up
in politics. She was born 35
years ago in a rural mud hut, and would amuse
her friends with songs as they
walked several miles to school across the
plains. As soon as she could, she
moved to the capital, Harare, where she
realised she would never make it in
the male-dominated music industry without
some serious financial clout.
So began years of setting up businesses,
from beauty salons to car
dealerships, also fitting in two children, before
she had the money to set
up Hohodza. She hand-picked the 12 band members by
auditioning young
school-leavers, believing them to be easier to train to her
vision of a
blend of traditional folk songs and modern pop.
"My aim
was to be one of the best groups in the world, but I knew I was
starting
something very new and difficult," she says. "If you are a female
musician in
Zimbabwe you are seen as a kind of loose woman. I just had to
stop caring
about that."
These were the golden years, for her and Zimbabwe, and her
band, which draws
strongly on national pride, went from strength to strength.
They had ten hit
albums in as many years.
Hohodza picked and mixed
different musical traditions from across Zimbabwe,
using the mbira - a thumb
piano - and xylophone as well as drums and
guitars. They toured Europe twice,
building up a respectable following, and
their latest album, Zvinoda Kushinga
(Strength is Needed), was edited in
London.
"We were free," says
Gwanzura. "Zimbabwe was one of the most visited
countries in the world, we
had lots of food, lots of hope."
It is a sign, she says, of how confident
people were then that when the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) -
President Mugabe's Opposition - asked
her to play at their launch in
September 1999, she agreed. "I didn't think
twice. We were asked because we
were one of the biggest bands, and I felt
Mugabe was making a lot of
mistakes. I didn't think there would be a
problem."
As a household
figure she wasn't surprised to be approached by two men in
suits after a gig
the night before the MDC concert. "They said, 'Portia, are
you playing for
the MDC?' I said, 'Yes, I'm looking forward to it'." She
smiles at her own
naivety.
She says that they then showed her their passes from the
Central
Intelligence Organisation (CIO), the feared Government security
agency, and
warned that her life would be in danger if she went ahead. "The
band was
shocked. We sat down to talk about what to do, and we could only
think about
stories we had heard of people being disappeared by the
Government. We
thought we could be next."
They stayed away from the
launch, but it was the last time that she wanted
to be cowed by Mugabe's
regime. Guilty about letting the MDC down and
disturbed by her unpleasant
brush with the Government, Gwanzura was
converted to the Opposition
overnight.
Hohodza did everything they could to support the MDC, wearing
T-shirts on
stage, flashing MDC membership cards as they sang, and ending
concerts with
open-handed waves - the symbol of the MDC - and chanting
"chinga" or
"change".
As if Gwanzura could not be in more trouble,
she married a white Zimbabwean
mechanic called Sean, just as Mugabe stepped
up his campaign to blame whites
for the country's growing problems. After the
Government's failure to win a
referendum in February 2000, Gwanzura began to
believe that the MDC could
win in the elections in June that year.
She
wrote a highly provocative song, Zvinhu Zvaoma, which has an
irrepressible,
danceable beat but means "things are tough". The lyrics are
an angry
indictment of the Zanu (PF) regime: "People cannot afford to buy
food, they
are walking miles to find work, children are fainting in schools,
when is it
going to end?" The song was quickly removed from the playlist at
the
Government-run Radio Zimbabwe, and a DJ who played the song was
sacked.
"People wanted to hear it, but if they played it at home it had to be
done
quietly, because you wouldn't know if your neighbours were Zanu (PF)
and
would get you beaten up," she said. "The only safe place to put the song
on
was in your car, with the windows rolled up."
Even before the
Government won the election, Gwanzura felt isolated and
doomed. Thomas
Mapfumo, the country's best-known and most politically
engaged musician, is
now in virtual exile in the United States.
While pro-Government bands
such as Tambaoga thrived with songs likening Tony
Blair to an outdoor toilet,
Zanu (PF) supporters were demanding to be paid
off in beer to avoid violence
at Gwanzura concerts. "Sometimes it was a
relief to turn up at the venue and
find Zanu (PF) guys had cleared everyone
away. It meant no one would be
hurt," she says.
But soon the beer didn't work any more. Last year, one
of her singers was
ambushed after a concert, and given a fatal beating.
Gwanzura is convinced
that the killing was political. At a concert last March
thugs grabbed the
microphone before she went on stage and shouted, "Down with
Portia, don't
let the white puppet live!" The crowd erupted into violence,
and Gwanzura
fled, chased by cars full of Zanu (PF)
supporters.
"Enough is enough, I thought I'd die," she says. She sold her
businesses so
she could fly to Britain with her husband, leaving her two
children in
Harare with her father as the couple sought asylum. Weeks later
her
11-year-old daughter was killed in a road accident. "I will never
forgive
myself," Gwanzura says. "I left Zimbabwe to save myself and she got
killed.
I am responsible."
She is not allowed to work in Britain while
she waits for news on her
application from the Home Office, and does not have
the heart to sing
anyway. She sits at home grieving for all she has lost.
Very quietly, her
husband plays her music in an upstairs room. Right now, it
is the only
hopeful thing about Gwanzura.
Comment from ZWNEWS, 11 January
Food riots point to turf
wars
To some observers, recent outbreaks of violence in food queues
in Harare and
Bulawayo signal the start of widespread rioting as Zimbabweans
finally rebel
against the misery of living under Robert Mugabe's regime. But
the
instigators of the disturbances were self-styled war veterans and
other
pro-Mugabe militants, all imbued with a culture of impunity. What
Zimbabwe
may now be facing is not spontaneous uprisings against Mugabe,
but
Chicago-style turf wars among rival warlords seeking local monopolies
to
exploit a cowed, starving population.
The latest disturbances
occurred when war veterans, the mainstay of Mugabe's
violent three-year
onslaught against the Zimbabwean population, battled with
police and the
newly-mustered Green Bombers for control of food queues. The
first maize
distribution disturbance was triggered in Bulawayo's Tshabalala
township Jan.
3 when a local Zanu PF war veteran leader ordered his
supporters to besiege
the Grain Marketing Board depot and prevent
distribution of maize to millers
he alleged were unsuitable recipients.
Despite the presence at the depot of
army personnel and Green Bomber youth
militia, police had to be called,
fighting running battles with up to 4 000
people. More than 30 were arrested
and brought to court on two days later,
but charges were then dropped - in
contrast to the past unrelenting
prosecution of peaceful protesters for the
MDC. Three days later in Harare
war veterans attempted to take control of a
maize queue adjacent to the
shrine of the Vapostori sect in Chitungwiza.
Residents came to the aid of
the police and successfully fought off the
militants, who took refuge at the
shrine. The militants stand to make huge
profits, apart from satisfying the
hunger of their families and friends. A
10kg bag of meal costing Z$250 can
be resold immediately on the black market
for more than Z$1 500. At some
township filling stations, Zanu PF youths
offer to escort motorists to the
head of 2 km fuel queues in return for Z$1
000 bribes.
War veterans and Green Bombers have in the past seemed to
have frightened
Mugabe's uniformed police, who have turned a blind eye to
blatant
lawbreaking. In contrast, political opponents and ordinary
civilians
battling to make a living are easily and brutally crushed. For
example, on 8
January police simply seized goods in a raid for price control
breaches on
vendors at Gweru's main bus terminus. Eight protesting vendors,
stripped of
their entire capital and means of livelihood, were arrested on
charges of
defying the draconian Public Order and Security Act. That same
day, a
fleeting demonstration at Harare's Town House in support of the
capital's
embattled mayor, Elias Mudzuri, of the Movement for Democratic
Change,
reflected the extreme caution of opposition supporters in confronting
the
security forces. After the briefest exhibition of posters and singing
of
protest songs, the few score demonstrators fled before a much larger
force
of baton-wielding paramilitaries could close in. Police staked out
every
street corner and approach to the city centre in reaction to the first
hint
of MDC protest at the state media's smear campaign against Mudzuri.
His
10-month battle with inherited urban neglect has been obstructed by
the
central authorities and by Zanu PF loyalists among municipal
staff.
As in the 1990s, when he hesitated to confront ex-guerillas
who were angry
at corrupt war disability handouts to the elite, the Zanu PF
leadership fear
a head-on confrontation with the militants. War veterans led
by the late
Chenjerai Hunzwi were given Z$20 million to ensure Mugabe's June
2000
election victory, when around 200 people were murdered with impunity. A
year
earlier Mugabe had awarded them gratuities totalling US$350 million
after he
had been barracked by them at Heroes Acre, and after they had
ransacked the
ruling party headquarters and besieged an international
African-American
conference. Without their terror campaign, Mugabe would have
been forced to
concede defeat in the June 2000 parliamentary elections and
the March 2002
presidential poll against MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The
attitude of the
war veterans, a force who - correctly - believe themselves
above the law,
was also revealed in the resort town of Victoria Falls where
they began
interrogating and intimidating residents following the fatal
stabbing a week
ago of an Australian visitor, Peter Stafford, 27, from
Adelaide. "You have
brought shame on Zimbabwe," squads were alleged to have
told curio vendors
and other residents. Police admitted at least 50 people
were detained for
questioning but no arrests had been made. Tourism
Minister Alfred Nhema
said the murder in the rain forest overlooking the
waterfall was an isolated
incident perpetrated by "elements bent on
undermining Zimbabwe's tourism
industry". But an Australian foreign ministry
spokesman said the killing
highlighted the undesirability of World Cup
cricket matches taking place in
Zimbabwe next month. Mugabe faces a growing
threat - not from ordinary
Zimbabweans, terrorised after three years of
unimpeded thuggery by troops
and militants, but from the regime's own
security forces and paramilitaries
as they, too, begin suffering from
shortages.
Dear Family and Friends,
I met my neighbour on the dusty, bumpy road that
services our houses at the beginning of the week. Every day he has anxiously
walked down to look at the maize and beans that he has planted on the verge of
our road. The maize is tall now and has begun flowering, the little maize cobs
are just beginning to form but for 16 days there hadn't been a drop of rain and
the plants are under enormous water stress. Planted between the lines of maize
are beans which are covered with pods that have begun drying and yellowing. My
neighbour and I greeted each other and I commiserated with him about the lack of
rain on his small crop. For weeks the elderly man has been up before dawn
tending the little piece of roadside. He dug it by hand, weeded it before and
after work, spent his precious income on fertilizer and now all he can do
is wait for rain. "I pray that God may show me some small mercy and give us
rain" he said as we parted.
We never talk politics in our neighbourhood because
mostly we are all just too busy trying to survive these days and leaving my
friend shaking his head in despair at his wilting crop, I went in search of
vegetable seeds for my garden. Seeds are not easy to find anymore, mostly
because the majority of farmers who grew seed do not exist anymore in Zimbabwe -
they too have been a casualty in our governments land grab. I finally tracked
down some very expensive seeds in a butchery but my shock at their price was
overshadowed by the sight in front of me. Sitting in a supermarket trolley was a
cow's head - eyes, ears, horns and fur in tact. I made a point of expressing my
disgust to the owner of the shop who simply shrugged at my complaints of both
the sight of the animal's head and the flies, the hygiene and the health
hazard.
Zimbabwe has slipped into a contagious epidemic of
moral decline where no one cares, no one complains and everyone just shrugs
their shoulders. There is no doubt that standards will continue to decline in a
country where everyone has a price and if you use the name of the ruling party
you can literally get away with highway robbery. On the front page of this
week's Zimbabwe Independent newspaper is the story of how High Court Judge,
Justice Ben Hlatshwayo has moved onto a commercial farm in Banket despite the
fact that the property has a provisional court order sparing it from
acquisition. Even after repeated letters being served on the legislator by the
farmer's lawyers, the Judge told the farmer that he was not moving off and that
the farmer should take the matter up with the government. Until next week. with love, cathy. http://africantears.netfirms.com. Copyright
Cathy Buckle 11th Jan 2003. "African Tears,
Zimbabwe's Land Invasions" and "Beyond Tears, Zimbabwe's Tragedy" both now
available for order from: www.exclusivebooks.com and www.kalahari.net
From theSpectator
A Question from the column "Your Problem Soved"
Q. With reference to your
'Celebrity Problem' from Michael Ancram regarding
Mr Straw's spinelessness
over Zimbabwe, might I suggest that the
dispossessed farmers have missed an
opportunity? What is to stop them from
organising a squatting rota to bivouac
the Straw house in Peckham and give
the Foreign Secretary a dose of his own
medicine? Such a sit-in would
provide days of amusement for the tabloids, and
cause such inconvenience and
intrusion to the Straw household that the
Foreign Secretary would soon be
jolted out of his paralysing moral
confusion.
Name and address withheld
A. Thank you for this
suggestion.
A final reminder indicating the Theme and Order of
Service. This may be a guide to others sharing a common unity in other parts of
the world on this day. Please distribute far and
wide.
Mike Lander
A Reminder For Next
Week
This is an open Invitation should
you be in Bulawayo on Saturday 18th January 2003
If not, why not make it a National
Event and make it happen in your village, town or city?
Why not
International?
Christians Together For
Justice and Peace
Interdenominational Service for Peace
and Relief from Suffering
Venue: St. Mary's Cathedral Roman
Catholic Church
TIme: 8:30
Date: Saturday 18th January
2003
Should you wish to know more about
the Service or how you can get involved with Christians Together For Justice and
Peace. Please Contact :Fr. Barnabas Nqindi on 09 240582 or e-mail him
Theme: Hope for
Zimbabwe
Order of
Service
Hymn
Welcome -
Priest in Charge of Cathedral
Lighting of the
candle
(A
candle surrounded with barbed wire presented to Christians Together by the
Churches of Kwazulu Natal, South Africa, and representing the
Light of Christ giving light and hope in the midst of the suffering- ''the Light
shines in the darkness and the darkness can never overcome it " John chapter
1)
Opening prayer
Reading
Address - Fr.Barnabus Nqindi
Prayers
Belief
in ourselves - Anglican TBA
Overcoming despair
and despondence - Catholics TBA
Overcoming fear- Graham
Shaw
Achieving
Unity in the Body-Albert Chitando
Offertory
`
Closing Benediction
VARIOUS STORIES ON Temba Mliswa ......................
JAG Sitrep January 10,
2003
--------------------------
Sport and politics don't mix?
TEMBA MLISWA INVOLVED IN
ASSAULT
Yesterday, Alan Parsons's wife
Jenny went out to the farm with son Andrew Parsons and friend Tim Withers (both
17), daughter Rebecca (11). They were confronted by Mliswa, who has claimed the
farm as his own, even though it has only received a section 5 order. He demanded
to know what they were doing there since it was no longer her farm, and he was
allowed by the police and DA to be there. Jen informed him that was his
occupation of her house and farming of her land was wrong. He exploded at that
point, calling her a "fucking white bitch" etc. He told her to read today's
newspaper to find out what was really going on and how things had changed on the
ground. She waited until he was finished, and told him that he was illegally on
the property.
Mliswa exploded again, told her
that she was to get into her car, and that they were going to the police
station. As she was approaching the car, he came up behind her and slapped the
back of her head, snapped her necklace, and pulled her earring off. The Parsons
got into the car, and started driving out of the security fence, and they were
suddenly surrounded by about 30 youths. Men were jumping on the bonnet, trying
to grab the keys out of the ignition. They punched Andrew through the window,
and Mliswa dragged Jenny out of the car by the neck and tried to steal her cell
phone, but she managed to hide it under her shirt. He slapped and punched Jen a
lot. Andrew asked them to leave his mother alone and stared hitting him
whereupon a couple of others set upon Jen (about 5 of them). Mliswa called out
to them saying "No Marks! No Marks!". A youth came to beat up the son, who had
now been beaten to the ground and was begging them to stop hitting him and his
mother, four of them laid into him, punching and kicking. Tim was slammed into
the canopy face first, and has suffered severe bruising, numbness and a very
painful ear. They separated the three whilst kicking and punching them
preventing them from helping each other or Rebecca in the back of the truck. The
mob then grabbed the three (Jen, Tim and Andrew) and started taking them into
the house.
During this debacle, Mliswa
continued with his verbal abuse, screaming racial slurs at Jen, between
attacks. Rebecca was screaming and hysterical in the car, asking for help and
calling for her mother but unable to get out. She begged the gardener to help
her and he refused. After taking them into the house, Jen expressed great
concern about Rebecca being left outside on her own but was not allowed to get
her and Mliswa ordered two people to fetch Rebecca from the vehicle and bring
her in. They took the child out of the car and told her that if she did not stop
crying she would "face the same treatment" as her mother. They took her into the
house with the others, who were forced to sit and listen, not allowing Jen to
sit with her daughter and proceeded to give them a political lecture.
After a while, Andrew stood up and
told everyone that they needed to calm down, because things were getting out of
hand. This took them off guard and the Pasrons realized that by being submissive
and apologizing for any misunderstanding it seemed to pacify Mliswa. Mliswa
told them that the mob could have killed them, and that he was the only thing
holding them back and that all he was doing was protecting them. However, after
a while, he let them go. He apologised to the children and told them that they
had suffered huge trauma but it was a result of their mother's "white
arrogance". He said their mother needed disciplining and that this had now been
done and they could go. He told them to get off the farm and never come back or
they would be killed. Rebecca pleaded with him over the safety of her horse and
he informed her that he would take care of things.
They went to see Kelvin Weir, who
took control of the situation. They went to the police station. They spoke to
Inspector Khumalo, who told them that he now has the green light to arrest
Mliswa. Khumalo sent them to the front desk to make two separate reports - one
for assault and one for theft. All the locks on the farm have been removed and
replaced by Mliswa as well as a Landini tractor and 120 mainline pipes, a heavy
duty jack, and a carpet have been stolen. The constable at the front desk
informed them there were no RRB numbers as they were out of stock and in future
to make reports to the front desk and not direct to the Inspector. His manner
was offensive. Statements were made, and they went to the hospital for
examination. After examination the medical forms were returned to the police
station. Another constable informed them that there was one charge of GBH
regarding Jen and two common assault charges involving the 2 boys. The daughter
is completely traumatized and requires counseling and medical attention.
End.
FOR FURTHER DETAILS REGARDING THIS
MATTER, PLEASE CONTACT JUSTICE FOR AGRICULTURE ON:
011 612 595
(04) 799 410
THE JAG TEAM
JAG Hotlines:
(011) 612 595
If you are in trouble or need advice,
(011) 205 374
(011) 863 354
please don't hesitate to contact us -
(091) 317 264
(011)207 860
we're here to help!
(011) 431 068
________________________________________________
WELCOME home,
Temba!
Zimbabwe Independent: May 24 2002
Muckraker learnt that Temba Mliswa was inconsolable this week when
immigration officials at Gatwick Airport booted him out of Britain.
The deportation is rather puzzling for a man who brags to having successfully
recruited students from over 60 countries from the Caribbean, Africa, the Far
East, United States, Middle East and Europe to study in the UK.
When some students recruited by his agency, Education UK Ltd, were deported
recently, Mliswa said they had failed to answer questions put to them by British
immigration officers.
"I could not have given them my brains. It's not my fault that they failed,"
he said at the time.
Strangely, when given 63 questions to tackle by the same officials, he
managed to answer only five. What did he have to hide?
The Herald managed to make the whole episode look as if Mliswa was the victim
of British brutality.
"Mr Mliswa voluntarily refused to enter Britain after being subjected to what
he described as inhuman political interrogation by the British Immigration
officials for his pro-Zanu PF sentiments," it helpfully said.
We sincerely hope that Mliswa was not deported under a Section 8 notice,
requiring him to leave all his possessions behind in the UK to be looted by
Labour Party officials. And we wish him well in having to live - like the rest
of us - under a government that has made all prospects of a better life very
remote indeed.
Mliswa calls in Chinotimba
Blessing Zulu
Zimbabwe Independent: 19 April 2002
TEMBA Mliswa, the
controversial United Kingdom-based Zanu PF publicist, has enlisted the services
of Zanu PF Harare political commissar Joseph Chinotimba as mediator in a row
between Mliswa and nine deportees who claim the former sports trainer failed to
refund their deposits after they paid him to facilitate their entry to the
United Kingdom.
Mliswa is running a
recruitment agency, Education UK Ltd, which specialises in the recruitment of
students, teachers and nurses. The company charges desperate Zimbabweans a hefty
fee, often as much as 10 times the parallel market exchange rate, to facilitate
their entry into the UK but dozens have been turned around at Gatwick Airport by
British immigration officers and sent home.
When news of his failure to repay the deportees was carried in the Zimbabwe
Independent last week, Mliswa immediately summon-ed the nine and admonished them
in the presence of Chinotimba. Mliswa could not be reached this week as he has
returned to England.
Asked to comment, Chinotimba said the deportees were a troublesome lot.
"I am surprised that they are besieging Mliswa's office demanding money," he
said.
"They wanted to go to London and they went. That they were turned back at
Gatwick is irrelevant, at least they fulfilled their wish of seeing London.
Zimbabweans must sit here, why should they run away from here?" Chinotimba
asked.
One of the deportees said Mliswa had called them to his offices on the
pretext that he was going to make restitution. He however began to threaten them
in the presence of Chinotimba saying he would not refund any money until they
had disclosed who leaked the story to the Independent.
"Mliswa told us that we were free to go and report anywhere but we were not
going to get our money back," said another deportee.
Mliswa asked the deportees to bring their passports to his office for him to
arrange another attempt to enter the UK.
Chinotimba said he knew Mliswa as a friend but said he had nothing to do with
the dispute.
Mliswa, come back home as the great patriot
you are
Zimbabwe Daily News: 11 April
2002
IT has been interesting to read
the comments of the so-called sports consultant, Temba Mliswa, who advocated
that Zimbabwean athletes boycott the Commonwealth Games, due to be held in
Manchester, England, in July/August this year.
This is a noble idea, but Mliswa
must lead by example.
He should start with himself, by coming back home
and not choosing to dispense his advice from the comfort of the United Kingdom
or the United States.
If he has not decided, I suggest that the European
Union and the US government do him a favour, especially because of his links to
the ruling party.
He formed a partnership with Leo Mugabe and John
Fashanu sometime ago, while his recent comments on Members of Parliament Job
Sikhala and Tafadzwa Musekiwa clearly show which camp he is in. As a great
patriot, Mliswa should come back and contribute to the fiscus.
Observer
Marlborough
Harare
UK-bound Zimbabweans
conned
The Zimbabwe Independent, 12 April
2002
Controversial Zanu PF
publicist Temba Mliswa is running a recruitment agency in London which has seen
Zimbabweans anxious to enter the United Kingdom turned around at Gatwick by
British immigration officials and sent home. Mliswa's company, Education UK Ltd,
whose British office is given as Wembly Point, 15th Floor, Harrow Road,
Middlesex, promises applicants placement in the UK on payment of £100 (or $400
000 if paid in Zimbabwe) as a registration fee. The company specialises in the
recruitment of students, teachers and nurses and claims to have offices in Sri
Lanka, Ukraine, Russia and East Africa. The company has so far failed to refund
nine people who were deported in February alone. Mliswa is the company's
director for Southern Africa. One of the deportees said Mliswa, a former
national soccer team fitness trainer, had taken them for a ride. "His company
assured us that everything would be okay as they had assisted many Zimbabweans
who had gone abroad," said one woman who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I
cannot disclose my name because I might be victimised by Mliswa who is
well-connected to the ruling party. Besides I might not even be able to recover
the $400 000 I paid," she said.
"In order for us to help
you," says the company's prospectus, "you must first register with us. The cost
of registration is £100 for five years if you are applying for the UK and £520
if you are applying for the United States." Education UK Ltd claims to assist
applicants gain admission to education programmes overseas. "This means that
after registering, we can help you to gain admission not just for one course,
but also for many different courses," the prospectus says. Contacted for
comment, Mliswa said: "Look, I am not an immigration officer. I only assist
people to have their papers in order. If they fail to answer questions at the
airport that is not my problem. I cannot assist them with my brains. Those
people should have paid me £100 before leaving but they did not," said
Mliswa.
Another deportee said Mliswa
was not being honest. "Mliswa had given us a letter which we were supposed to
show immigration officers at Gatwick. But once we mentioned his name, we were
immediately deported. They said he had sent many people to the UK claiming they
would only stay for two weeks and they had just vanished," the deportee said. An
official from the British High Commission said they had no arrangement with
Mliswa's company. "I have never heard of this company and we have no dealings
with Education UK Ltd," she said. Mliswa also claimed that people were being
deported because of the Aids scourge. "Let us not blame (Robert) Mugabe for
these deportations. Many Zimbabweans who go there are straining the British
health system as they will be infected by the deadly Aids virus," he
said.
Temba’s call
Financial Gazette (Zim):
3/21/02 1:33:05 AM (GMT +2)
DM this
week got a long-distance call from Temba Mliswa, the young Zimbabwean fitness
trainer based in London, after I wrote last week that it was difficult to
believe Mliswa was in the habit of audio-taping his dinner guests.
Mliswa says he stands by his story in the Sunday Moyo that MDC
legislators Tafadzwa Musekiwa and Job Sikhala are always begging for money from
ZANU PF bigwigs such as Philip Chiyangwa.
In fact, says Mliswa, both
Musekiwa and Sikhala even owe him more than $300 000 he paid for their tickets
on the ill-fated trip to London which the duo must surely now wish they had
never undertaken.
Mliswa says far from being a hatchet boy for Mugabe,
the ruling ZANU PF party dismays him because it has failed to address many
concerns for Zimbabweans, including those involving sports.
The young
rugby trainer says the only reason he exposed Musekiwa and Sikhala was because
he was disappointed by their love for money that would ultimately expose them to
corruption if they attained higher offices.
The nice thing about
Mliswa’s calls, though, is that the London-based fitness trainer strives to make
his point rationally without getting too emotional.
He is a far cry from
some ZANU PF-aligned businessmen and ministers who rant and rave at the
slightest hint of criticism.
TO AUS IN OCTOBER!
It has been a hideous couple of years for all of us -
for those outside the
country, as well as those inside. We have lost a bit
of confidence in
ourselves and taken a psychological battering at the very
least.
We have to move on and we will - but there is no doubt that
whether you are
still in Zim, or wherever you have gone to , nobody
understands you quite as
well as another Zimbo at this stage - and we are now
so widely spread that
even that is difficult.
So talk to your dearest
friends and relatives and arrange to meet up in Aus
in October - we've put a
fun and nonsense programme together, with the
tempter of possible world rugby
tickets too (if you book early.) By the
time you've played for your own
school in hockey or croquet, had a mighty
Mashonaland vs Matabeleland
singalong at the Heckova Hooley party and
caught up with old mates at the
Makulu Braai, you should be back to your old
self again!
There is an
early-bird registration fee for bookings before the end of
February - with a
variety of accommodation on offer from backpacker hostels
to apartments and
hotels - so get your registration in - and let's all
restore our confidence
together!
Have a look at the website www.zimbabweconnection.com and if
you are
interested in looking at other opportunities in Aus, there's a whole
lot of
info on that too. We'll need 300 to go ahead with this, so let us
know as
soon as possible - and check those airline availabilities because of
the
world cup. If you would like us to fax the registration form to
anyone,
get them to send us a short fax or email to us as
below.
___________________________________
The Zimbabwe
Connection
Phone/fax: +61 - 8 - 8278 2397
email: jill@zimbabweconnection.com
website:
www.zimbabweconnection.com
